WARNING: Political Thread

[BMW X5]

Originally Posted by B-Line

Actually, I take some of that back. I do care if our next President is black or white. I would love to see a black President.

B

might want to cross reference this, because the article is exactly what i dont want happening http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/us.../11voting.html

[Eric5273]

Originally Posted by WagnerX5

They keep telling the country to 'stay the course' in Iraq, well...what is the course exactly?

The "course" is to continue to spend lots and lots of our tax money on large no-bid contracts so that the war profiteers can continue to earn record profits.

All the other stuff is just minor unimportant details.

[Wagner]

Originally Posted by B-Line

Actually, I take some of that back. I do care if our next President is black or white. I would love to see a black President.

B

Barack Obama
http://obama.senate.gov/

[B-Line]

BTW, I often don't voice my opinion on the war on Iraq because I have a very hard time articulating why I feel the way I do about the war.
I have an opinion but to a lot of people it might not make a lot of sense. I would like to try to explain it though as I'm interested to hear a debate that deals with the issues I am about to raise.

I think we need to be in Iraq. And not because of WMD's or even regime change. I think we need to be in Iraq because of a number of reasons that we can not just come out and say. We needed an excuse that people would stand behind and WMD's were the excuse. Having said that, here is my opinion of why we do need to be there.

1) After 9/11, it was clear that the US needed a war. Unfortunately Afghanistan was not the "right" war. You can't blow up a country that already looks like a "mad max" movie.
--The reasone we needed a war is a little complicated but I will try to get my ideas out. The enemy we are fighting lives by a very different logic than we do. What brings about peace in many middle eastern conflicts is not "turning the cheek" which our enemy see's as a sign of weakness. What brings about peace is "retaliation". This is something the Israeli's have understood for a long time but the rest of the world does not. For example, look at how the Muslim people retaliate to "issues" against their image/people around the world.
--So we needed retaliation for 9/11 and since there was no target that was effective for the US, we needed to make one up. To show our stregnth, our willingness to fight back. Iraq was in the wrong place at the wrong time and had they not pissed off the UN weapons inspectors and had they been more receptive to inspections, maybe they would not have been attacked.

-- Now let me say this clearly. Sometimes small wars are neccessary to avert big wars. Iraq is a small war (compared to a World War) and even though small wars sometimes lead to big wars, more often than not, they prevent big wars. It is my strong belief that regardless of WMD's, Regime Change, we are in Iraq to prevent a much, much bigger impending Middle East war. Iran is much more dangerous than N. Korea and we needed military on it's borders. The people who have declared war on us, the Jihad's, they are in the Middle East and we needed a place to fight them. So Iraq became the playing field for our fight against terrorism.

So even if it's not Iraq, we need to be there somewhere. We need the retaliation or they will see us as weak and attack us even more. We unfortunately need to fight fire, with bigger fire. Yes, it's a nice idea to turn the other cheek but that will empower our enemy's to become stronger.

B

[B-Line]

Originally Posted by BMW X5

might want to cross reference this, because the article is exactly what i dont want happening http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/us.../11voting.html

I did not even read the whole article. It's silly. It's one town. It's one guy, Ike Brown.. That is no reason not to support and elect a black candidate. It's time this country showed a little diversity in the office.

[Eric5273]

Originally Posted by WagnerX5

Barack Obama
http://obama.senate.gov/

One of the few Democrats I would actually vote for.

[Wagner]

Originally Posted by B-Line

BTW, I often don't voice my opinion on the war on Iraq because I have a very hard time articulating why I feel the way I do about the war.
I have an opinion but to a lot of people it might not make a lot of sense. I would like to try to explain it though as I'm interested to hear a debate that deals with the issues I am about to raise.

I think we need to be in Iraq. And not because of WMD's or even regime change. I think we need to be in Iraq because of a number of reasons that we can not just come out and say. We needed an excuse that people would stand behind and WMD's were the excuse. Having said that, here is my opinion of why we do need to be there.

1) After 9/11, it was clear that the US needed a war. Unfortunately Afghanistan was not the "right" war. You can't blow up a country that already looks like a "mad max" movie.
--The reasone we needed a war is a little complicated but I will try to get my ideas out. The enemy we are fighting lives by a very different logic than we do. What brings about peace in many middle eastern conflicts is not "turning the cheek" which our enemy see's as a sign of weakness. What brings about peace is "retaliation". This is something the Israeli's have understood for a long time but the rest of the world does not. For example, look at how the Muslim people retaliate to "issues" against their image/people around the world.
--So we needed retaliation for 9/11 and since there was no target that was effective for the US, we needed to make one up. To show our stregnth, our willingness to fight back. Iraq was in the wrong place at the wrong time and had they not pissed off the UN weapons inspectors and had they been more receptive to inspections, maybe they would not have been attacked.

-- Now let me say this clearly. Sometimes small wars are neccessary to avert big wars. Iraq is a small war (compared to a World War) and even though small wars sometimes lead to big wars, more often than not, they prevent big wars. It is my strong belief that regardless of WMD's, Regime Change, we are in Iraq to prevent a much, much bigger impending Middle East war. Iran is much more dangerous than N. Korea and we needed military on it's borders. The people who have declared war on us, the Jihad's, they are in the Middle East and we needed a place to fight them. So Iraq became the playing field for our fight against terrorism.

So even if it's not Iraq, we need to be there somewhere. We need the retaliation or they will see us as weak and attack us even more. We unfortunately need to fight fire, with bigger fire. Yes, it's a nice idea to turn the other cheek but that will empower our enemy's to become stronger.

B

Yes, that rationale is hard to articulate. As I posted earlier and some critics have said for a while, it isn't that we shouldn't be in Iraq...we should just state the true reason we're there. Now before everyone rushes in saying "oh oh it's oil isn't it.." well, no. Is profit part of it, of course...but the bigger picture was to bring all these little Al-Aharad-el-Fo-Sheezes out into one area. It is much, much more difficult to take them out one at a time. And by creating a "chaotic" atmosphere we allowed countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt to get into the fray without losing the bases that keep them in power in the respective areas. I think the US, under GW has actually done something RIGHT. We have strengthened some ties in the middle-east, believe it or not and actually shown "terrorists" that we can be just as brutal if necessary. Now is this a good thing? In a perfect world no, but in a world where people will kill children, blow up stadiums, behead people and kill Amish kids....it is a just means IMO. As far as keeping the faith with nuclear nations goes, finding a way to unite Pakistan and India (no small effort), was done so with the "war on terror". I think the overwhelming mistakes made by the administration was to keep repeating "stay the course" and "war on terror". The administration also needs to bring closer countries more into the mix, such as Turkey (which already has its trouble with the Kurds), Saudi Arabia and India. Again this is all IMO and could be WAY WAY off

[JV]

Originally Posted by B-Line

Actually, I take some of that back. I do care if our next President is black or white. I would love to see a black President.

B

It was 46 years ago that this country had a freak out about a Catholic President and he had to buy votes to get in!

I'd like to see every American not giving a flying fuck about the color of someone's skin and just seeing the person. I'd love to see a green President, long as the dude can take care of bidness and not hang us out to dry with special interests/wacky foreign policy/outsourcing, etc.

JV

[Eric5273]

One problem with that rationalization of the war is that you are assuming that the total sum of "terrorists" stays the same. The military inteligence reports seem to indicate that due to the Iraq war, the total sum of terrorists in the Middle East (and especially in Iraq) has substantially grown. The same reports also seem to indicate that most of the "terrorists" roaming Iraq are not foreignors but are new Iraqi terrorists who were "created" by the war. These include all the various "death squads" that are roaming Baghdad.

Another problem with that rationalization of the war is the number of civilians that have been killed. Regardless of who killed these civilians (some were killed by bombing back in 2003, others by terrorist attacks later on), they have been killed as a result of the war, and most would still be alive if there had been no war. The total number of civilians killed in this war far surpasses the total number of people killed by all terrorist attacks worldwide in the last 50 years.

[Eric5273]

One more thing. As far as the total number of dead in Iraq as a result of the war, there was a study released this weekend that concluded the following:

Prior to 2003, there were approximately 5.5 deaths per 1000 people per year in Iraq. That number stayed consistant for many years.

Since the war started in 2003, there have been 13.3 deaths per 1000 people per year in Iraq.

Based on that increase, an extra 655,000 people have died since the war started. I think it is fair to conclude that this is the real number of civilian deaths as a result of the war.