No, we don’t have a “none of the above” box, and not voting would be meaningless, as you noted.
I did not know about the legal requirements of your position. 'nuf said then. Maybe if I’m in your part of the world or you find yourself in mine we can talk about it over a pint. I haven’t met a Doper yet IRL I haven’t got on with and I see no reason why removed from the text based format we wouldn’t enjoy each others company 
They did it to try and get the Israelis actively involved and so break the Muslim support for the liberation of Kuwait. Why would you think I didn’t know that?
So over a decade ago they statically used what could be described as an act of terror during a war. If the US and allies had of followed through then or at least supported the revolt in the south after the war we might be on the same page but here we are in 2003 and I’m saying this war was Neocon based. You know about the letter and what was in it and who signed it and the rest of the BS on the project for a new century site so I won’t bother linking to it.
Bring 'em on. Name them. Point them out. C’mon, tough guy. Show us what you got.
Scylla w/a/d/r and all you missed my point wrt the ‘recruiting’ gig.
We are a very large country, you and I both seem to accept that a certain level of armed forces are necessary to properly defend our nation and protect our interests. In the past, way back when my classmates were potential cannon fodder, this was accomplished by a draft, where well to do or well connected young men could nudge nudge wink wink their way out of risk, and those in the bottom strata, well sucked to be them. I recall this vividly, since, once again, my classmates were avidly watching “the” lottery.
Since then, there’s been no draft. The armed forces has re-vamped itself and has come up with a damn good way of attracting sufficient numbers for their ranks, motivated, young men and women who wanted to be part of the military. All in all, a **good ** thing, for it allowed us to be selective about who got in, and also allowed for a motivated armed forces, and a more equitable distribution (though it can be argued that even w/a volunteer army, it’s more likely to be those in the bottom strata again, those who w/o the benefits from service would be in dead end jobs back home).
Now here we are. We now see that the C-I-C can lie, the Secretary of State and entire DoDefense can convince the entire Nation that their outright lies and manipulations are true, entice us into a war half way around the world, without any clear goals, without justification and most importantly without a fucking way to get out safely, and instead of admitting the problem, they call up additional National Guard troops, those same troops that are the safety net for disasters at home, send them over there to die.
So, two, - ten years from now - who the fuck do you think will be saying to himself/herself “yeppers, the armed forces, serving my country and all, a good thing”??
And, of course, after coming damned near proving OBL’s own recruitment technique about the American infidels who want nothing more than to wage war on Islam.
Frankly, I feel we are far more likely to be attacked in the future due to Bush’s actions in the past year, while at the same time we’re expending our current protective force, spreading them pretty goddam thin around the globe, and making it less likely that folks will want to join up in the future.
and that weighs in against, what, a tax cut that returned a couple grand a year to your pocket?
You spoke eloquently often of why you want your wife and daughter safe in an SUV and not caring as much for others safety.
I believe Bush et as has managed to make your (and my) families unsafe in their own home than they were. And for what? And, in my case, I’ll get to watch my only child sent off to a immoral situation all for your goddamn tax cut, or views on big business, ecology or whatever the fuck. So, can you can see at all how your position of ‘I like what else he’s done’ makes me damn near physically ill,?
(note for those in the military/and or vets - I have nothing but admiration and gratitude for the sacrifices that you’ve made and continue to make. My father was a vet, I understand that at times, war is necessary. But this one fucking wasn’t and was built on a lie. I am sickend that anyone has been injured/killed in Iraq. And I blame Bush et al for wasting your collective lives)
We don’t either. I really wish we had.
Rarely, I do “me too” posts; but I have to say it:
Well said wring!
It can be fairly argued that Clinton’s inaction in the face of terrorism contributed to more attacks, such as the USS Cole murders.
It’s not only about tax cuts, or environmentalists, or whatever.
People of good conscience, can, and do, believe that the War on Terrorism beats just taking it up the ass.
Well said indeed. That was a hell of a post, wring, though I’m certain it is wasted on The Usual Weasel.
That the Administration thought it necessary to lie about the reasons and the need for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, it seem to me, is the strongest possible reason to think that the administration had no reason that could be expected to stand up to public scrutiny.
If the Administration had good and proper reasons to go to war why did it not tell us what they were? If there were good and proper reasons why lie and assert different reasons? If Iraq was indeed involved in nine-one-one show us what the involvement was. If Iraq some how supported BinLaden tell us what that support was. If the invasion of Iraq is necessary to suppressing terrorist threats to the United States tell us how invading and occupying Iraq advances the objective of eliminating BinLaden and those of his ilk.
What is really scary is that a fair number of people, in particular people in a cafe in Crawford, Texas, seem to genuinely believe that both Iraq and Afghanistan have attacked the United States. Where is the factual basis for this belief?
They call that “the excluded middle” Milroyj. It is the logical fallacy of pretending that there are only two options.
Its a crock. You do know that, right?
Fuck those lies, amigo. Clinton made fighting terrorism a huge priority, and the guy fucking succeeded. 3,000 people were not murdered on Clinton’s watch. Bush’s “Operation Ignore” was responsible in large part for those deaths.
Earth to milroyj. Your attention, please.
Dubya Dubya II is not a war on terrorism. The only fucking terrorists in Iraq are the ones Bush created. And he has created thousands more by his actions. Remember that the next time some asshole blows himself up and kills a bunch of innocents. And remember that every single fucking time another honorable American soldier comes home in a casket.
I doubt it 'luci. and of course, Iraq had (past tense) fuck all to do w/any significant terroristic threat world wide. Now, of course, we get to worry about where those scientists went and all.
can’t do that and listen to Foxnews ya know - no one’s allowed to take pics of those caskets anymore, too depressing ya know, and they’re busy over there in la la land beating the drum of “you never report the good news” which so far seems to be pretty much “there’s a whole lotta troops that haven’t gotten killed yet”.
Damn liberal media.
:rolleyes:
I empathize, by the way, wring. My boy is 22, a bit long in the tooth for drafting. But, as God is my witness, before I’ll let Mr. Wolfowitz and his merry band of bloodthirsty half-wits get thier hands on him, I’ll break both arms and legs and drag his ass across the Canadian border.
As Col. Clyde Slyman, USMC, told me in '68, after he resigned his commission in protest: “No man every served his country by helping it do something dishonorable.”
**
That’s right. We were blocked by France.
That left three choices.
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Force the vote and do it anyway (which I understand creates the problem of waging an illegal war.)
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Back down.
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Find some other legal justification.
Bush chose 3. To make it legal it had to be a clear and present danger. Bush gambled and stated as fact what he only guessed or suspected to be true. He engaged in hyperbole and falsehood to exagerate what he beleived to be true. He was confident he would largely have been born out after the fact.
It didn’t work out. He got caught.
While the potential second resolution thing was still going on there was every indication, IMO that they intended to go with 1, the whole “we want them on record thing,” the whole “we’ll do it anyway.” thing.
Probably that’s what he should have done. Probably he would have done it had not England’s help been predicated either on a second succesful resolution or an alternate legal justification.
He wasn’t going to get the former, so he embellished the latter and presented suspicions and suppositions as fact.
It was a fucked up situation where every path had a problem.
He could either back down, overrule the security council and have the US go it without the British, or fudge an alternate reason. I’m sure he rationalized the fudging by figuring it was probably true.
If we backed away from Iraq our whole campaign against terror is derailed. We’re back to capitulation and appeasement.
9/11 changed the nature of the game both for how we need to deal with terror, and for the nature of diplomacy.
Personally, I don’t care about getting the people responsible for 9/11. It would be nice, but what they did is done. We can’t undo it.
What 9/11 says to me is that there are new rules, and things have changed. The capacity to do catastrophic damage to large numbers of civilians anywhere in the globe is within the reach of petty dictators and ignorant hate groups. Warren Buffet asserted that it’s inevitable that the U.S. will eventually face a terrorist nuclear attack on one of its cities.
I disagree. There is one way around it that I can see. That is to ruthlessly and aggressively go after those nations and parties that are the allies, potential allies and sympathizers of terrorsists, so that nobody will dare do it and the terrorists will have no safe harbor.
We said “Hey Saddam, it’s post 9/11. We let you slide in 1991 and you haven’t kept up your end of the bargain, you need to get with the program because we can’t have you out there making God knows what weapons, and giving them to God knows who. You haven’t followed through on the program you agreed to, and we can’t afford the risk so if you don’t shape up we’re gonna do something about it.”
He didn’t and we got thwarted by our own allies in doing something about it.
We couldn’t afford to back down, so Bush lied to make it stick so we wouldn’t be a paper tiger.
If we’re to win this we cannot be defied in our ultimatums. And, there’s no way around it. We have to make ultimatums and make them stick.
wring: two beautiful posts.
It should be noted, for the record, that LBJ wasn’t allowed to get away with this kind of thing, even by substantial numbers of members of his own party. Outside of a very few exceptions, I see no such dissent in the Republican Party. Instead, we get rationalizations of the sort we’re witnessing here.
Does the name “Custer” ring any bells?
No, fuck your lies, amigo. The evidence indicates that 9/11 was planned well before President Bush took office. It’s not as if muhammed atta et. al. started their plan on January 21, 2001. Why didn’t the Clinton Administration, in office for the prior eight years, stop it earlier?
Well, now that you mention it, there is this whole investigation thing going on. You’ve probably read about it, how the White House is a bit reluctant to have all the records and briefings looked into. Don’t want to extend the investigation.
Of course, they’re not hiding anything, mind you. Its modesty. That’s what it is, the typical Republican reluctance to seem like show-offs. Why, if the whole record were revealed, the American people would probably carve out a bust of GeeDubya on Mt Rushmore with thier bare hands!
Actually, I think they’re hiding something. That was sarcasm.