This article is mindboggling. It's nothing but a failed policy in which billions (& counting) of wasted tax-payers dollars have been spent, a much more dangerous world has been created & corruption is running rampant! Boot the criminals out. :mad:

If there were a plan in place, it wasn't clear at the beginning and it sure isn't now. That's the problem I have had with the Iraq invasion all along and will continue to do so until or unless a CLEAR plan that isn't filled with mindless slogans and catch-phrases like "we will stay until we achieve victory". I prefer what my BF says are attainable, evident, and specific goals-- such as when 60,000 Iraqi policemen have been trained, we will begin removing 5,000 troops from this region.

This is the position that *all* of Washington should have taken at the outset of war planning. Objective, obtainable goals as benchmarks for troop withdrawals would have been something the public would have probably embraced in staggering numbers, but no one articulated this -- not Bush, not Rumsfeld, not Cheney, not Lieberman, not Hillary, not Powell, not Kerry, not McCain.

Unfortunately, we are now beyond this point and are fated to one of two equally bad alternatives: 1) "cut and run", or 2) stagger out of Baghdad under the cover of darkness only when the situation becomes a deeper and more dire threat to our national security. That's the Bush legacy in a nutshell.

[ August 10, 2006, 02:02 PM: Message edited by: aquaman ]

Just imagine what $30 Billion would buy in this country ! Lets see, health care for every American, maybe a better infrastructure, nationally and locally, possibly even the development and implementation of new technology to get us off of fossil fuel once and for all. Just a start, give me a few more minutes.....oh, wait these are all socialist ideas right???

[ August 10, 2006, 02:14 PM: Message edited by: hockeyTom ]

$30 billion???
Whewww, that's alot of tax cuts for the rich!


"Mission Accomplished"

Thanks generation ahead of me, I really f**king appreciate it!

God help us! Just we need--the government providing health care for everyone. No health care is better than government-provided health care. No wait! That mentality applies to jobs, like the big box ordinance passed by the Chicago City Council (49 of 50 of whom are Democrats), where no job is better than a "low-paying" job. Damn! I've GOT to get my twisted, liberal thought examples straight.

[ August 10, 2006, 07:21 PM: Message edited by: illini n milwaukee ]

MIB...how many homeless people have you had beg you for money in Europe? How about Washington DC or New York? I'm sure that massive difference has nothing to do with politics of the 2 places.

MIB, I'd rather have the government provide health care to those who currently don't have it rather than throw 30 billion dollars down a sand pit a half a world away. Maybe the concept is just too simple for you to comprehend.

The U.S. "cut and run" when it helicoptered remaining embassy staff from Saigon. Would the world have been a safer place if it left 10 years later. Probably not. Would it have been a safer world if they "cut and run" 10 years earlier. Maybe not, but there would be thousands more Americans alive now and less debt.

I understand good intentions that keep U.S. in Iraq and I don't think Iraq is Vietnam. Iraqi and Vietnamese speak different languages and look different. But the U.S. remains the common denominator of the two. The best argument Americans make for the U.S. remaining in Iraq is that you are stuck there.

I'll make it simple for even you to understand: I don't want the government to provide health care. Period. What would make sense is for the government to make it easier (meaning more affordable, fewer hoops to jump through, etc.) for the uninsured to obtain health insurance. There are numerous ideas out there to accomplish this. Some are good ideas, some are bad ideas.

And until then, the American taxpayer is footing the bill, repeatedly, for the 44 million uninsured Americans, so which way is it??? :confused:

Does anyone remember the last time we were able to run the federal government without a deficit and think about paying down the debt? That kind of fiscal responsiblity cannot be combined with wars of aggression. The beauty of the Bush legacy is that it will combine the long-lasting effects of the Iraq quagmire with those of such shocking fiscal irresponsibility. The latest substitute for good leadership seems to be rhetoric about WWIII. Just like when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and we responded by invading and occupying Iraq in order to gain control of oil production and enrich Haliburton. At least that would have been the response had Bush been president instead of Roosevelt. The rhetoric is almost as good as peace and security, I guess...

I suppose there are some who enjoy chaos, deficit spending, insecurity, and all of the unnecessary deaths. For those folks, Mission Accomplished!

Mem, yeah it was called the 90's!!!!!

Hey, speaking of that abyss that we're pouring $300+ billion into, with scenes of carnage that outdo anything Dante could have imagined, here's what the Shiite clerics have been up to:

Mission accomplished!!!

[ August 11, 2006, 07:48 AM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

quote:

"...What would make sense is for the government to make it easier (meaning more affordable, fewer hoops to jump through, etc.) for the uninsured to obtain health insurance..."

Reality check: Tell that to some who is making minimum wage (or even close to it) & they'll laugh their butts off. They can barely make rent & utilities, put food on the table, have money for public transportation to get to work & probably would have to scramble for clothes or having any type of "fun" money. From what I've read millions of Americans today have to pick & choose from the above. They cannot have all of them consistently on a monthly basis. So how in the heck are they going to be able to "jump fewer hoops" in order to obtain health insurance, especially since neither the govt nor many in the private sector won't pick up the tab?

We had a balanced budget and a flourishing economy. Thank goodness the Republicans have corrected all that.

Excellent points.

No truer words could be spoken. How can we defend our freedoms in Iraq when we lose (i.e., surrender) them here at home when we travel domestically?

Tell me, UCLAN, exactly which freedoms relating to travel - or to anything else for that matter - have we lost here at home?

I don't see us losing any liberties we're rightly entitled to under the Constitution as drafted and properly interpreted. The problem is, the federal courts legislated so many additional "rights and liberties" - e.g., right to free counsel for criminals, right to cross state lines in search of welfare and other freebies w/o residency requirements, right of citizenship for babies born of non-citizens in the US but "not subject ot its jurisdiction - that we wrongly feel entitled to "rights" that aren't rightfully ours. If we want them as rights, we have the means to do so by amending the Constitution or otherwise enacting them into law. But that's OUR - the citizens' - job, responsibility, right and privilege - NOT the courts'.

Oh, let's see here. Call me crazy but the blanket searches of phone numbers without consent of the people being searched constitutes a violation of the fourth amendment of the Constitution that the Bush Regime claims to cherish so. The one that reads about "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches". I think that qualifies, when our Imperious President claims it's not subject to review by courts and Congress made no laws to make it so.

I won't even begin to address the issue of Getmo and the illegal prison there. Oh, which by the way, was the subject of the sixth amendment, stating "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence." Perhaps this helps to clarify things.

Now as for the "proper" way to interpret the laws, that is something that is entirely left to the courts. If Congress must clarify something, then they should do so. If they choose not to, the courts cannot be held so liable when Congress willfully chooses to leave ambiguities in the laws it creates. Want better laws? Then vote in better congressional representatives. That's why I'm voting Democrat this fall.

And that is why I am voting Democrat for the REST OF MY LIFE! You idiot Rethuglicans had your chance, and you not only blew it, you blew it big, big time, and we all are going to be paying for it for a long, long, time. I will never forget how this country has been divided like I have never seen before in my lifetime, nor can I recall any point in history, outside of our civil war, that this nation has been so divided. There are about one hundred other reasons why I dislike what the Rethuglicans have done to this nation, but this short note will have to suffice for now.

Nearly ALL politicians are criminals...Republicans and Democrats! For you to bash one is the same as admitting you have bought the lies of the other. Grow up and learn to think for yourselves. Stop bitching and come up with solutions!!

Pot, meet Kettle... I sure don't see you coming up with any solutions.

All politicians are NOT criminals, corrupt, thieves, etc.. To say this is just outrageous and cynical. If this is your attitude, then what are we to do? Just throw our hands up, act like sheeple, and allow anyone who takes public office to run roughshod over us?

The answer is to act like the civically-aware citizens our Constitution demands us to be, and hold any politicians who abuse the public trust accountable. When the Democrats were busted over that house banking scandal (which also involved Republicans), they paid a political price. Now more than a handful of Republicans have been linked to a convicted felon, Jack Abramoff, but the media and many voters seem to have forgotten about the extensive web of corruption he helped to weave, with Tom DeLay and others. DeLay and Ney aren't going to be returned to office, and Duke Cunningham is now in jail, but there are other Republicans, all the way up to the White House, who were linked to Abramoff, Mitchell Wade, and their schemes. In the case of Democrat William Jefferson, he not only is likely to be sent to jail, but he has a host of challengers in his primary, and his reelection prospects are looking grim, as things should be.

But these are only the most egregious examples. We as citizens have a duty to hold our politicians responsible for their actions, whatever our party affiliations. Just ranting does no good; get active and get the crooks out of there!

I do believe that what one defines as "bitching" could also be seen as debate to bring about answers. While we may not always agree on the answers or even the questions for that matter, I would join with nearly all of my fellow posters that we do our best to contribute to the debate. We are closer than at any time in American history to having a true democracy, not merely a republican form of government (representative democracy), thanks in no small part to the internet. I'd say that's quite an achievement, for it allows many of our fellow citizens to discuss and impact our representatives in the government.

I think that as long as one person contributes his or her opinion, they are thinking for themselves. Sometimes their opinions coincide with mine, and sometimes they don't. That's the nature of politics in America. As someone who has studied, at length, our political system in America, I still think that, while far from perfect, it is the best system in the world and invites debate from all sides of nearly any issue-- from corporate subsidies to tax cuts to abortion to our current situation in Iraq. Until or unless some revolutionary system can be invented, I will take what we have and improve upon it as much as can be done.

Getting back on topic, however, will we ever truly get the real reason why we are in Iraq? To me, it keeps shifting from answer to answer, dependent upon the talking head from the Bush Regime. This irks me to no end! :mad:

FT, I simply can't believe it, but for once I agree with everything you said in your last post.

Now ... quit while you're ahead and MAKE it your last! wink

Taxpayers fund military-industrial complexes (that Eisenhower warned about in his retirement speach) to both destroy and to rebuild. Of the two parties, one always wins in these transaction. In David Barsamian's interview of Noam Chomsky (Imperial Ambitions, 2005).

"Who pays Halliburton and Bechtel? The U.S. taxpayer. The same taxpayers fund the military-corporate system of weapons manufactuerers and technology companies that bombed Iraq. So first you destroy Iraq, then you rebuild it. It's a transfer of wealth from the general population to a narrow sectors of the population."

The latest fearmongering crock from Bush:

"If we leave before the mission is complete, if we withdraw, the enemy will follow us home."


And if we occupy Iraq for 40 years, we'll never see another terror attack, ja?

[ August 17, 2006, 08:51 AM: Message edited by: Bill W ]

My response to our Imperious President's fearmongering is this.

What, specifically, is our mission in Iraq? What are our achievable, attainable goals that we have as our exit strategy? How can we withdraw our troops to best avoid being mired in Iraq's own civil war?

Yahoo story debunking one of the alleged reasons we went to war in Iraq. No link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein ever existed, and now we are finding this out. That pretext for war has been invalidated now. So when will the apologists and defenders of this futile decision to invade Iraq admit they were wrong? Better yet, when will our Imperious President admit it?

Just so we all don't forget. And who sent Rummy? Ronald Reagan.

OK, now we have our Imperious President finally admitting that our invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, which was one of his stated justifications to go to war there. GOD! After his statements tonight, I am more upset than ever. His handling of events after 9/11 have made think that he truly is the worst president in the history of this glorious country. :mad:

Here's the MSNBC story

Finally, the truth comes out. Just in time for the November elections. Isn't that just sooo convenient!

Hey FT! You got a link to that pic of MAlbright making all nice with the North Koreans? Who sent her? Could it have been ... Bill Clinton? Sure as hell wasn't Satan. Remember, no need to post the photo itself; the link saves space!

Funny, the way he's been acting lately, I was starting to think our Imperious President was Satan himself. I guess he still has a little bit longer to go.

Please do post the picture, because we'll get a chance to revisit that historical moment, when the US had engaged the North Koreans diplomatically and actually got some semblance of an agreement out of them, whereas Kim Jong-Il has become considerably more belligerent and erratic, and has made far more progress in bomb-making, since Bushie took office. And how again is Bush's vanity war in Iraq linked to North Korean nuclear proliferation?

But hey, in your process of deflection you're surely not crazy enough to claim that the Iraq War, a war against his and Reagan's and George H.W. Bush's buddy, was necessary or has been well prosecuted. Or maybe you are. I hope not. (If defense of nuts like Rummy and incompetents like Bush is part and parcel of GOPdom, you can have it. Just spare the majority of the American people.)

Boy, I'm still missing the days when most of the world LIKED America. Bill Clinton was truly a great president. He is missed.

To paraphrase Churchill, "Some semblance, some wreck!" The "agreement" Clinton's SOS wheedled out of the NKers had about as much worth as Hitler's agreement with Stalin. And the link, since you asked, lies in deflating, not deflecting, your dredging up the Rum shot from long before Madelyn went mad about the boy in Pyongyang.

I know gmg is proud of the GOP plan.

1. Call leader a Pygmy.
2. Insert head in sand.

How's that workin' out?

It's really not working out, but hey, the Bushomaniacs are sticking with it. Mission accomplished, heckuva job, come and get 'em, dead or alive!

US spy agencies say Iraq War worsens terror threat

Video shows US soldiers burned and dragged

US military deaths hit 2,699

Ramadan bomb kills 35 (37?) in Baghdad Shi'ite slum

The details:

And as for the broader Middle East policy that Bushomaniacs were crowing about:

Hezbollah leader receives hero's welcome

Abbas says unity government plan \"back to zero\"

Not only is it costing us monetarily, but more importantly it's costing us American lives. Only now, we are up to an American death toll in Iraq that exceeds the death toll of Americans in 9/11. This is truly a sad point to have reached. I won't even begin to address that more than 50,000 Iraqis have paid for this toll in blood of their own. We aren't supposed to worry about that, if we truly buy into the clap-trap that the Bush Regime would have us believe.

Yep, and I believe Congress just voted yesterday to appropriate another $40 Billion for Iraq. When is it gonna end???????

Is there going to be any money left for the invasion of Iran?

What I would like to know is where have all the GOP booster evaporated to? They seemed to provide some balance to this board, and a good laugh! Are they all hiding under a rock until 2012? Maybe I can come up with a new slogan they can use....GOP...disappointing voters all over the nation! Making the planet much less secure! (feel free to add your own, as they can really use the help these days).

And who can forget our good bud, loyal GOP booster Mimatt? Where he is at??? Oh, thats right, he scored a great job with of all companies, HALLIBURTON!!!!!!! Woo-Hoo!!

Maybe he got drafted and is finally serving his country...this time NOT from behind a keyboard!

I am sure you will all be happy to know that Congress has set aside $20 million for a party in Washington to celebrate victory in Iraq and Afghanistan. Looks like that will be $20 million US taxpayers won't be spending any time soon unless the President declares victory again.

Who is putting it on, Halliburton????