Let’s ask 2 questions:
1. In retrospect, was it a good idea to invade Iraq?
2. Given that we are in Iraq, what is the best course of action?
My answers: 1) Of course not. It represents a complete failure of foreign policy. This is universally agreed upon with the exception of the ultra-wacko-wing of the Right wing. 2) We should transition to an international non-US-led peace-keeping and reconstruction effort and we should completely withdraw troops from Iraq except to the extent that we participate in that effort.
What would McCain say? What would Obama say? What do you say?
‘Cause the thing is — the answers to these questions basically tell you the foreign policy philosophy of the respondent. If you don’t question our actions in Iraq given what we know today, you are a hardcore imperialist hawk. Given what we know today it did not warrant unilateral US military action in Iraq, no question about it. We could have kept playing the diplomacy game just like we do with North Korea and Iran. Only people who want to control the Middle East for strategic control of the oil think Iraq was a good idea.
For #2, given #1, can we admit a mistake? Can America be humble? Can we do the right thing after a mistake?
As for the war on terror, it is separate from the war in Iraq. The sects in Iraq will have to come to some equilibrium. Everyone wants to start putting things back together. The terrorists, to the extent they are there at all, will be demotivated by peace and prosperity. The US military is impeding, not aiding, the transition to self rule. That “the surge is working”, if it is, is proof of this. Peace is proportional to the number of troops on the ground in that way of thinking. It’s untenable. Peace has to be proportional to less troops on the ground if we are to be successful.
McCain is Bush on Iraq. I know he would try his best to solve it his way. We would all hope that President McCain would be a greater leader and inspire greater leadership from his cabinet. But his policy is still basically the same as Bush’s. How can anyone be convinced that the Bush doctrine in Iraq is credible!
No matter how much you disagree with my answers, Bush’s answers are the problem and McCain basically agrees with Bush on Iraq. QED, McCain cannot be trusted with the presidency.
lolife 
Like I said, that’s why you aren’t worth debating. You are implying that roughly half of the population in the US is so stupid and uninformed that we can’t tell an empty, pandering suit from an intelligent, capable and accomplished person? You say this bullshit about how I alienate moderates and yet you’re going to say that 1/2 the populace, including the many high-profile and respected people who have endorsed Obama, are all gullible idiots?
Judging by your past comments, you think every single person on the Left is an empty suited pander machine. You can’t just disagree with them, you have to character assassinate them. Plus you are a hypocrite because you ignore the intense political spin machine that is the RNC and the fact that McCain (and Bush) have provably pandered, spun and changed their tune on a myriad of issues.
I wish Obama was perfect. I think he is a great man but he doesn’t represent my views across the board and he is part of a big political system that I think is critically broken. I vote for Democrats most often but I am not a Democrat. I’m not infatuated with Obama. I think he is a better candidate than John McCain for reasons I have and will continue to outline. But your hatred of Obama smells of just another brainwashed Right Winger trying to harm the other candidate in any way possible.
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Obama IS an empty suited pander machine.
So fuck off.
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And this is why I tell you to fuck off. You believe the strawman bullshit caricature of Obama. I’ve been fair to McCain on this blog. I respect him and I think he is a good man. But you are completely unwilling to judge Obama fairly, you just repeat the same old stupid bullshit about “Obamessiah”. It’s disingenuous and it means, IMHO, that you aren’t really worth debating anymore.
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The amount of propaganda that both left and right spew threw the “liberal media” is amazing. I’m not sure who is misinformed here. I think you meant to say “Iraq is all but won” (rather than one)….doesn’t really matter because I don’t think anything has been “won” throughout the country, nor is the country ‘one’.
I do think we can win, but am now leaning towards my first post…(get it done)
I am not saying that my connections and the ‘facts’ that I get are correct. I am suggesting to Mic that maybe some of what you are consuming is propaganda…..
“be skeptical of everything you hear out of the mouth of anyone above the rank of Major”….(granted these words came from a Major)
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watch what happens in Iraq when we draw down and send them in Afghanistan.
“it’s classic ‘whack-a-mole’ and the politicians don’t get it” (from my military friend…that has been in Iraq for 2 years)
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You are just so stunningly misinformed or you haven’t been paying attention. Iraq is all but one, even the current administration is looking at troop cuts even as we speak. The surge worked, Iraq is pretty much pacified, 15 of the 18 benchmarks set for the Iraqi government have now been met. What is it with you guys stuck in this Iraq is lost, we’ll never win, pull out now, etc.
Please take your head out of the sand, look around, and take note of the facts.
Now Afghanistan is another story, we do need to beef up over there for a while and put down some stubborn Taliban but even the Obasmassiah is for that, so surely you can’t be against it.
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I am pondering a new position, following some reading I have been doing.
ponder and comment please.
Iraq, Afghanistan and potentially Iran situation.
Current situations, military leaders and close (fairly high ranking members of the AF and Marine Corp) friends have stated that we do not have the number of men on the job that are needed to “get the job done”
To do it “right” we should increase the number of troops by at least 100,000.
(not my words)
If this indeed is the case…..what in the hell have we been doing?
if this indeed is the case….send in 100,000 more troops. oh, wait, we don’t have those numbers available.
if this indeed is the case…institute the draft and finish the job or get out. ( and I have a 13 and 14 year old son)
Personally I don’t believe in this war. I don’t believe it is doing anything that the right says it is doing. I want it to end as soon as possible. We fucked up and made a huge mess and should take care of business asap.
“right now we are fucking around hoping the problem evaporates” (again, not my words)
“pound in the fucking nail or drop the hammer” (Major ******* US Marine Corp)
“wmd’s my ass, he tossed some old WWII mustard gas and tortured people with a black and decker drill” (not me)
Six years?
get this fucker done or get the hell out.
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Correction…
SNAFU, situation normal, all fucked up (forgot the N).
It would be nice if you could edit posts once they were posted. It would also be nice to know what HTML tags are allowed.
It would also be nice if the host didn’t tell me to fuck off but hey, I’ve got a thick skin.
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Well, I’m trying to remember when I’ve ever said “fuck you” or anything so crude, it really doesn’t help your argument but whatever.
I agree that Obama is smart, educated, informed, and eloquent. So what? Not hardly qualifications for president. Dennis Miller is smart, educated, informed and eloquent and I doubt you’d vote for him. Obama is also inexperienced, arrogant, dishonest, and IMHO, just another pandering politician that will say anything to any crowd if he thinks it’ll win him votes.
And saying that McCain=Bush on Irag is also just not true and so intellectually dishonest. I know you feel compelled to repeat every nitwit Dem talking point there is so go for it. But the truth is, McCain was opposed to the strategy Bush took from day one. He was an advocate for the surge strategy before it was popular (not that it ever was) and at one point, staked his political career on it. McCain has been vindicated on that front in spades. Bush fucked up Iraq in the beginning by listening to Rumsfeld who I believe is the biggest fuck-up in this scenario. So, they were correct to go in (WMDs were not the only reason even though you libs like to say it was – ya know, repeat a lie often enough, etc.) and they had a bad strategy, it was a fuck-up but in war, mistakes are made, things don’t go as planned. The military has an acronym for that, it’s called SAFU, situation normal, all fucked up. The good thing is, because of people like McCain, and Petraeus, and even George Bush, who had the courage to change course, we have succeeded in Iraq.
No your boy, the Obamessiah, who was so spectacularly wrong about Iraq has now scrubbed his website of all mention of his criticism of the surge. Do you stand behind him doing that? Seems a little Orwellian to me. He erases all traces of those comments from his site now that he’s been proved wrong. What a spectacular pussy. Why can’t he admit a mistake? He’s too arrogant.
Voting for Obama for president is like voting for the Osmond Brothers as the best band of all time. But hey, you go for it. I predict Obama we’ll implode and we’ll remember him kinda like the beenie babies were in the 90s. really, really cute but all full of fluff inside.
On the other hand, I’m not too thrilled with McCain but at least he’s a man, he stands up for what he believes in, and when he makes a mistake he admits it. He’s also not afraid to say what he really thinks even if it doesn’t win him votes from the “base.” Obama is an empty suited pander machine in my book.
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I really wish you would practice what you preach. Yeah, we are so dumb and gullible because we support a smart, educated, informed and eloquent person. Fuck you.
So there was no WMD program, we totally fucked up the post-invasion, we planned for 6 months and its now been 6 years. We’ve spent close to a trillion dollars and widowed 5000 families. And the payoff? Iraq is less of a threat to us?
You are deluded and apparently so brainwashed by your ideology that facts don’t matter to you anymore. McCain == Bush on Iraq and Iraq has been a complete failure of foreign policy. Except, of course, to you, who believes that everything is going great!
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I’ll give you a hint, even GWB is not part of the “ultra-wacko-wing of the Right wing.” If you believe he is, you have a serious problem with your reality perception attenuator.
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God I wish I had more time for this but…
First off, just to get this out of the way, it is Barrack Hussein Obama who cannot be trusted with the presidency. I generally prefer people who actually love the country to lead it.
And your statement that “This is universally agreed upon with the exception of the ultra-wacko-wing of the Right wing.” is just ignorant. I may be a lot of things but I am hardly part of the ultra wacko wing of the right wing and I still believe we were right and justified to invade Iraq. I’ll tell you this Michael, I understand the left way, way, way more then you will ever understand the right.
I really can’t believe that there are intelligent grown-ups that support Obama, It really does mystify me. It’s my contention that it is you folks who are gullible and easily led.
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