are you watching george?

[The Gadfly]

Our goals here are ousting Ghaddafi and putting in.....well, who? Who are we supporting? Who will be the ruler in Libya if we succeed? How is that going to help US interests?

That's what I'd like to know. What exactly are our objectives in this war? I mean from what I can tell, it's not even clear that we want Khadafi out. So what are we doing?

From what I can see, the immediate objective was to protect the rebels (and noncombatant civilians) in and around Benghazi. It appears there was a very real chance of a massacre if Ghaddafi's troops had taken the place; there are reports of them firing indiscriminately into civilian areas of the city before the airstrikes began. There may be other intelligence information not available to us, but something apparently persuaded Obama that we had to act.

What's interesting is, that the official line is that we are only acting to prep for and enforce a no-fly zone, in accordance with U.N. mandate; this seems inconsistent with prior administration comments on regime change, which were pretty emphatic in saying Ghaddaffi has to go. That leaves open the questions of whether the current effort is simply buying time for the rebel faction to regroup, and whether we might recognize them as a provisional government (which would open the door to putting frozen Libyan assets in the U.S. at their disposal, among other things.

As I said, I believe in giving the president the benefit of the doubt, until our objective, (or lack of one) becomes clearer. If criticism is warranted, there will be time for that later; meanwhile, there's no point in undermining what our country is doing right now

 

[Two Thumbs]

George this is what a coallition looks like!

Look everyone!

That is what a buffoon looks like.


Buffoon,

You do know that it was a coalition that went into Afg and Iraq? Or are you a very young person that is the result of piss poor education?

 

[Immanuel]

You would have a point there, if I had said something like that. I didn't, even though I did think he was justified in invading Afghanistan. That does not mean he deserved unconditional support, and I did not give it too him.

But, I was not speaking of you having said that. I simply meant that liberals were told by an awful lot of conservatives that they were un-American for not supporting George's wars.

Immie

Do you have a link?
Did anyone say that Iraq was responsible for 9/11? Or is that just more leftist spin?
Let's see: Iraq invaded a neighboring country and had an active WMD development program. Libya did not invade anyone and turned their nuclear program over to the U.S after Iraq was invaded (thanks, George!).
Our goals here are ousting Ghaddafi and putting in.....well, who? Who are we supporting? Who will be the ruler in Libya if we succeed? How is that going to help US interests?

You can be my guest and dig back in the archives of any political message board.

I can only tell you what I remember coming from conservatives on sites such as this one. They went something like this: "STFU, you F'ing Lib. We don't care if we can't find WMD's we know they are out there buried in that God forsaken desert. If you can't support your own country then get the hell out."

Our goals in Iraq were to oust Saddam and look, he is dead and we are still there and will be most likely for the rest of yours and my life.

Our goals in Libya seem to be to oust Qadaffi. Anyone want to say that once that task is complete that we will leave Libya in peace? I wouldn't.

Immie

 

[The Rabbi]

But, I was not speaking of you having said that. I simply meant that liberals were told by an awful lot of conservatives that they were un-American for not supporting George's wars.

Immie

Do you have a link?
Did anyone say that Iraq was responsible for 9/11? Or is that just more leftist spin?
Let's see: Iraq invaded a neighboring country and had an active WMD development program. Libya did not invade anyone and turned their nuclear program over to the U.S after Iraq was invaded (thanks, George!).
Our goals here are ousting Ghaddafi and putting in.....well, who? Who are we supporting? Who will be the ruler in Libya if we succeed? How is that going to help US interests?

You can be my guest and dig back in the archives of any political message board.

I can only tell you what I remember coming from conservatives on sites such as this one. They went something like this: "STFU, you F'ing Lib. We don't care if we can't find WMD's we know they are out there buried in that God forsaken desert. If you can't support your own country then get the hell out."

Our goals in Iraq were to oust Saddam and look, he is dead and we are still there and will be most likely for the rest of yours and my life.

Our goals in Libya seem to be to oust Qadaffi. Anyone want to say that once that task is complete that we will leave Libya in peace? I wouldn't.

Immie

So your definition of "conservatives" is some self proclaimed moron on a message board? OK. If you say so.
We had many goals in Iraq. We achieved all of them. Making the country a stable democracy was one of them and we are in the process of doing so. That requires troops in the short to mid term. How you can predict the future is beyond me.
If our goal is to oust Ghaddafi then we are going about it wrong. You will not oust him with a no-fly zone, any mroe than we succeeded in ousting Saddam with a no fly zone.

 

[The Rabbi]

Our goals here are ousting Ghaddafi and putting in.....well, who? Who are we supporting? Who will be the ruler in Libya if we succeed? How is that going to help US interests?

That's what I'd like to know. What exactly are our objectives in this war? I mean from what I can tell, it's not even clear that we want Khadafi out. So what are we doing?

From what I can see, the immediate objective was to protect the rebels (and noncombatant civilians) in and around Benghazi. It appears there was a very real chance of a massacre if Ghaddafi's troops had taken the place; there are reports of them firing indiscriminately into civilian areas of the city before the airstrikes began. There may be other intelligence information not available to us, but something apparently persuaded Obama that we had to act.

What's interesting is, that the official line is that we are only acting to prep for and enforce a no-fly zone, in accordance with U.N. mandate; this seems inconsistent with prior administration comments on regime change, which were pretty emphatic in saying Ghaddaffi has to go. That leaves open the questions of whether the current effort is simply buying time for the rebel faction to regroup, and whether we might recognize them as a provisional government (which would open the door to putting frozen Libyan assets in the U.S. at their disposal, among other things.

As I said, I believe in giving the president the benefit of the doubt, until our objective, (or lack of one) becomes clearer. If criticism is warranted, there will be time for that later; meanwhile, there's no point in undermining what our country is doing right now

I think his every decision should be open to question and criticism, especially this one who has proven himself an incompetent at every turn.
Our goals seem to be to "do something." I guess we are doing something. I dont think we are doing anything constructive.
If we intervene further to oust Ghaddafi, how is that not the AMerican arrogance that Obama often talks about?

 

[Immanuel]

Do you have a link?
Did anyone say that Iraq was responsible for 9/11? Or is that just more leftist spin?
Let's see: Iraq invaded a neighboring country and had an active WMD development program. Libya did not invade anyone and turned their nuclear program over to the U.S after Iraq was invaded (thanks, George!).
Our goals here are ousting Ghaddafi and putting in.....well, who? Who are we supporting? Who will be the ruler in Libya if we succeed? How is that going to help US interests?

You can be my guest and dig back in the archives of any political message board.

I can only tell you what I remember coming from conservatives on sites such as this one. They went something like this: "STFU, you F'ing Lib. We don't care if we can't find WMD's we know they are out there buried in that God forsaken desert. If you can't support your own country then get the hell out."

Our goals in Iraq were to oust Saddam and look, he is dead and we are still there and will be most likely for the rest of yours and my life.

Our goals in Libya seem to be to oust Qadaffi. Anyone want to say that once that task is complete that we will leave Libya in peace? I wouldn't.

Immie

So your definition of "conservatives" is some self proclaimed moron on a message board? OK. If you say so.
We had many goals in Iraq. We achieved all of them. Making the country a stable democracy was one of them and we are in the process of doing so. That requires troops in the short to mid term. How you can predict the future is beyond me.
If our goal is to oust Ghaddafi then we are going about it wrong. You will not oust him with a no-fly zone, any mroe than we succeeded in ousting Saddam with a no fly zone.

Don't tell me you actually thought that a politician would have said something like that despite the fact that most of them wanted to say it. They all agreed with George's proclamation, "you are either for us or against us."

We have achieved very little in Iraq. It is no more stable than any other Middle Eastern country and it appears that none of the Middle East is stable at the moment.

If you define short to mid term as a full life time, you might just have a point there. We are no more likely to pull out of Iraq as we are North Korea, Japan, Germany etc. etc. etc.

You are, of course, correct about ousting Qadaffi. The way we are doing it, won't work; therefore, troops will be on the ground and we will be building another nation before too long. Whoopie!!

Too bad no one wants to build our own nation.

Immie

 

[signelect]

I think that the congress is the only group who can send the US to way unless dropping bombs on another country is just a fire works display

 

[signelect]

What a joke saying that Iraq is stable and we have accomplished the goals. We won't be gone 5 minutes before the planning starts to return the country to the old business as usual. The various tribal groups don't like each other and no matter what we do or who we put in power is will fail just like every other time we have tried this and we don't learn..

 

[The Rabbi]

You can be my guest and dig back in the archives of any political message board.

I can only tell you what I remember coming from conservatives on sites such as this one. They went something like this: "STFU, you F'ing Lib. We don't care if we can't find WMD's we know they are out there buried in that God forsaken desert. If you can't support your own country then get the hell out."

Our goals in Iraq were to oust Saddam and look, he is dead and we are still there and will be most likely for the rest of yours and my life.

Our goals in Libya seem to be to oust Qadaffi. Anyone want to say that once that task is complete that we will leave Libya in peace? I wouldn't.

Immie

So your definition of "conservatives" is some self proclaimed moron on a message board? OK. If you say so.
We had many goals in Iraq. We achieved all of them. Making the country a stable democracy was one of them and we are in the process of doing so. That requires troops in the short to mid term. How you can predict the future is beyond me.
If our goal is to oust Ghaddafi then we are going about it wrong. You will not oust him with a no-fly zone, any mroe than we succeeded in ousting Saddam with a no fly zone.

Don't tell me you actually thought that a politician would have said something like that despite the fact that most of them wanted to say it. They all agreed with George's proclamation, "you are either for us or against us."

We have achieved very little in Iraq. It is no more stable than any other Middle Eastern country and it appears that none of the Middle East is stable at the moment.

If you define short to mid term as a full life time, you might just have a point there. We are no more likely to pull out of Iraq as we are North Korea, Japan, Germany etc. etc. etc.

You are, of course, correct about ousting Qadaffi. The way we are doing it, won't work; therefore, troops will be on the ground and we will be building another nation before too long. Whoopie!!

Too bad no one wants to build our own nation.

Immie

Hmm. lets see here.
Rioting and unrest in Tunisia, with the ouster of the country's president.
Rioting and unrest in Egypt with the ouster of the country's president.
Rioting and unrest in Libya, with the attempted ouster of the country's president.
Rioting and unrest in Bahrain, with the aim of ousting the country's king.
Rioting and unrest in Yemen, with the aim of ousting the country's president.

Iraq. No rioting. No unrest. Democratic process working.
See the difference? No, probably not.

And when Bush said you are either for us or against us, he was referring to terrorism. Do you think the Democrats are in favor of terrorism? You might be excused for thinking so.

 

[The Rabbi]

What a joke saying that Iraq is stable and we have accomplished the goals. We won't be gone 5 minutes before the planning starts to return the country to the old business as usual. The various tribal groups don't like each other and no matter what we do or who we put in power is will fail just like every other time we have tried this and we don't learn..

funny. Naysayers like you predicted we would be in a protracted guerrila war like VietNam for generations. That didnt happen. Then they said Iraqis would never turn out to vote. And they did, several times. Then they said they would never agree on a coalition type government. And they have.
Why do you root for the failure of Iraq? Do you really hate Bush that much?

 

[slukasiewski]

What a joke saying that Iraq is stable and we have accomplished the goals. We won't be gone 5 minutes before the planning starts to return the country to the old business as usual.

Hiow does the Libyan situation differ?

 

[The Rabbi]

What a joke saying that Iraq is stable and we have accomplished the goals. We won't be gone 5 minutes before the planning starts to return the country to the old business as usual.

Hiow does the Libyan situation differ?

Libya never attacked a neighboring state. Libya freely relinquished its WMD program. Libya poses no threat to the U.S.

 

[slukasiewski]

Libya poses no threat to the U.S.

I believe Quadaffi has the blood of several Americans on his hands.
He is a threat. Sorry you don't see it that way.

 

[Liability]

George this is what a coallition looks like!

Are you going to try to tell us that Obama formed this coalition --?

President Bush FORMED a coalition of the willing.

President Obama made us a part of a coalition of the led.

President Bush went to Congress to get Congressional authority for the actions he undertook with our military.

President Obama decisively waited for the UN to make a decision and then committed the US to adhere to a UN Resolution without seeking Congressional authority.

 

[Immanuel]

So your definition of "conservatives" is some self proclaimed moron on a message board? OK. If you say so.
We had many goals in Iraq. We achieved all of them. Making the country a stable democracy was one of them and we are in the process of doing so. That requires troops in the short to mid term. How you can predict the future is beyond me.
If our goal is to oust Ghaddafi then we are going about it wrong. You will not oust him with a no-fly zone, any mroe than we succeeded in ousting Saddam with a no fly zone.

Don't tell me you actually thought that a politician would have said something like that despite the fact that most of them wanted to say it. They all agreed with George's proclamation, "you are either for us or against us."

We have achieved very little in Iraq. It is no more stable than any other Middle Eastern country and it appears that none of the Middle East is stable at the moment.

If you define short to mid term as a full life time, you might just have a point there. We are no more likely to pull out of Iraq as we are North Korea, Japan, Germany etc. etc. etc.

You are, of course, correct about ousting Qadaffi. The way we are doing it, won't work; therefore, troops will be on the ground and we will be building another nation before too long. Whoopie!!

Too bad no one wants to build our own nation.

Immie

Hmm. lets see here.
Rioting and unrest in Tunisia, with the ouster of the country's president.
Rioting and unrest in Egypt with the ouster of the country's president.
Rioting and unrest in Libya, with the attempted ouster of the country's president.
Rioting and unrest in Bahrain, with the aim of ousting the country's king.
Rioting and unrest in Yemen, with the aim of ousting the country's president.

Iraq. No rioting. No unrest. Democratic process working.
See the difference? No, probably not.

And when Bush said you are either for us or against us, he was referring to terrorism. Do you think the Democrats are in favor of terrorism? You might be excused for thinking so.

No riots in Iraq? Are you serious? It is a powder keg ready to explode just as Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Yemen not to mention the entire region.

Iraqi riot police officers prevent anti-government ... - Yahoo! News Photos

Iraqi riot police officers prevent anti-government protesters from entering the heavily guarded Green Zone during a demonstration in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Feb. 25, 2011. Thousands marched on government buildings and clashed with security forces in cities across Iraq on Friday, in the largest and most violent anti-government protests here since political unrest began spreading in the Arab world several weeks ago.

Immie

 

[slukasiewski]

President Obama decisively waited for the UN to make a decision and then committed the US to adhere to a UN Resolution without seeking Congressional authority.

Now he's bombing Libya while vacationing in Rio

What a dithering fool he is... .

 

[The Rabbi]

Don't tell me you actually thought that a politician would have said something like that despite the fact that most of them wanted to say it. They all agreed with George's proclamation, "you are either for us or against us."

We have achieved very little in Iraq. It is no more stable than any other Middle Eastern country and it appears that none of the Middle East is stable at the moment.

If you define short to mid term as a full life time, you might just have a point there. We are no more likely to pull out of Iraq as we are North Korea, Japan, Germany etc. etc. etc.

You are, of course, correct about ousting Qadaffi. The way we are doing it, won't work; therefore, troops will be on the ground and we will be building another nation before too long. Whoopie!!

Too bad no one wants to build our own nation.

Immie

Hmm. lets see here.
Rioting and unrest in Tunisia, with the ouster of the country's president.
Rioting and unrest in Egypt with the ouster of the country's president.
Rioting and unrest in Libya, with the attempted ouster of the country's president.
Rioting and unrest in Bahrain, with the aim of ousting the country's king.
Rioting and unrest in Yemen, with the aim of ousting the country's president.

Iraq. No rioting. No unrest. Democratic process working.
See the difference? No, probably not.

And when Bush said you are either for us or against us, he was referring to terrorism. Do you think the Democrats are in favor of terrorism? You might be excused for thinking so.

No riots in Iraq? Are you serious? It is a powder keg ready to explode just as Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Yemen not to mention the entire region.

Iraqi riot police officers prevent anti-government ... - Yahoo! News Photos

Iraqi riot police officers prevent anti-government protesters from entering the heavily guarded Green Zone during a demonstration in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Feb. 25, 2011. Thousands marched on government buildings and clashed with security forces in cities across Iraq on Friday, in the largest and most violent anti-government protests here since political unrest began spreading in the Arab world several weeks ago.

Immie

I asked whether you could tell the difference. A simple No would have sufficed.

 

[Immanuel]

Hmm. lets see here.
Rioting and unrest in Tunisia, with the ouster of the country's president.
Rioting and unrest in Egypt with the ouster of the country's president.
Rioting and unrest in Libya, with the attempted ouster of the country's president.
Rioting and unrest in Bahrain, with the aim of ousting the country's king.
Rioting and unrest in Yemen, with the aim of ousting the country's president.

Iraq. No rioting. No unrest. Democratic process working.
See the difference? No, probably not.

And when Bush said you are either for us or against us, he was referring to terrorism. Do you think the Democrats are in favor of terrorism? You might be excused for thinking so.

No riots in Iraq? Are you serious? It is a powder keg ready to explode just as Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Yemen not to mention the entire region.

Iraqi riot police officers prevent anti-government ... - Yahoo! News Photos

Iraqi riot police officers prevent anti-government protesters from entering the heavily guarded Green Zone during a demonstration in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Feb. 25, 2011. Thousands marched on government buildings and clashed with security forces in cities across Iraq on Friday, in the largest and most violent anti-government protests here since political unrest began spreading in the Arab world several weeks ago.

Immie

I asked whether you could tell the difference. A simple No would have sufficed.

You are generally an intelligent person. Obviously, you must need some sleep, because if you can't recognize that Iraq is a powder... well, maybe it is just that you have forgotten to take your partisan blinders off?

Careful, you might start sounding like TDM.

Immie

 

[B. Kidd]

Our goals here are ousting Ghaddafi and putting in.....well, who? Who are we supporting? Who will be the ruler in Libya if we succeed? How is that going to help US interests?

That's what I'd like to know. What exactly are our objectives in this war? I mean from what I can tell, it's not even clear that we want Khadafi out. So what are we doing?

From what I can see, the immediate objective was to protect the rebels (and noncombatant civilians) in and around Benghazi. It appears there was a very real chance of a massacre if Ghaddafi's troops had taken the place; there are reports of them firing indiscriminately into civilian areas of the city before the airstrikes began. There may be other intelligence information not available to us, but something apparently persuaded Obama that we had to act.

What's interesting is, that the official line is that we are only acting to prep for and enforce a no-fly zone, in accordance with U.N. mandate; this seems inconsistent with prior administration comments on regime change, which were pretty emphatic in saying Ghaddaffi has to go. That leaves open the questions of whether the current effort is simply buying time for the rebel faction to regroup, and whether we might recognize them as a provisional government (which would open the door to putting frozen Libyan assets in the U.S. at their disposal, among other things.

As I said, I believe in giving the president the benefit of the doubt, until our objective, (or lack of one) becomes clearer. If criticism is warranted, there will be time for that later; meanwhile, there's no point in undermining what our country is doing right now

If the immediate objective is to protect the rebels, we're only 3 weeks late to that party, as unofficial rebel sources say that over 2,000 rebels have been killed before our military action.
There is another agenda going on here or if no hidden agenda, then Obama is in IOWA (I'm Out Wandering Around) on this one.
Your logic is lame in saying to give Obama the benefit of the doubt til our objective becomes clearer. We shouldn't be lobbing 120+ Tomahawk missles into a country (granted, Britain lobbed a few of those) and then clarifying an objective AFTER THE FACT!
Anti-govt' protests have been occurring in Syria for weeks and continue to with their gov't using deadly force to quash thir protests, so I guess you are in favor of setting up a no-fly zone there too, and later clarify objectives. Fuck it, let's not just stop with Syria; after that set up a no-fly zone in Iran and ramp this muthafucker up to World War, and then later clarify objectives.
Criticism concerning our country's involvement in Libya does not undermine what we are doing, when in reality, it is doing the exact opposite. Only if our derelict dolts in Congress would get the message and give a thumbs down to this action.

 

[KissMy]

George this is what a coallition looks like!

Are you going to try to tell us that Obama formed this coalition --?

They got us to fight & pay for their war for them.