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Military solutions have worked to quell terrorism? Really? Where? When?
Iraq.
Zarqawi is not only dead, but unable to pull another 9/11.
so we should spend billions to invade countries, precipitate resistance and attract regional terrorists to destabilize our efforts?
please don't feel offended if i dont think this has 'worked'.
....That most Americans opposed and most now believe has extended and deepened the recession.....
Quote: Originally Posted by Sky Dancer
The President is ending the war in Iraq. He's set the Israeli Palestinian peace talks as a priority. He's been responsive to the oil spill, he addressed health care reform, he's on the economy. He's addressed DADT.
I'd say he's working hard with very little bipartisan support. He's completely on target with his campaign promises.
Passing the "largest" economic stimulus bill in American history.
Ordering the closing of Guantanamo Bay military detention facility and abolishing "enhanced interrogation techniques."
Setting a fixed timetable for withdrawing U.S. combat forces from Iraq.
Ordering 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and enlisting, with modest new assistance, European allies in a new multi-layered strategy there and in Pakistan, and setting a timetable for a drawdown of our troops.
Signing laws to expand children's health insurance (financed by a 61-cent per pack increase in the federal cigarette tax the adviser did not tout).
Banned offshore drilling until parameters for deep well safety procedures are clarified.
Put a hold on Artic oil exploratory digging until environmental impacts are clear.
Passed health care reform.
signed a hate crime bill .
Sky, be realistic and keep this all in perspective.
Ending the ar in Iraq? He is pretty much on Bush's time table. What has he doen differently? Obama has a million things set as a priority, but he accomplishes none. it's a joke. Every president has set israel palestine peace talks as an objective. none have changed a thing. neither will Obama
It took him a month to get on the oil spill, and look how long it lasted. Just as long as BP said it would from the start. He got nothing done any quicker.
The economy sucks and is getting worse.
OK the stimulus bill was a pork laden fiasco. Put us deeper in debt and has done nothing to help the economy. The rich got richer and gave it a temporary bump. unemployment is still rising, foreclosures are up. he hasn't created new jobs or brought back manufacturing. Now what that the stimulus money is running out? He didn't even rebuild the infrastructure like he promised.
Gitmo is still open, we still use the same techniques, just elsewhere
Bush set the timetable. Obama is just attempting to follow it. Of course things are getting worse in Iraq in the process.
Troops aren't the answer in Afghanistan. The more troops he pumps in the worse things are getting. He even had to can his top military man because he kept telling Obama he was wrong. He's set a timetable for withdraw and hasn't even solved the problem yet. Does that make sense to you?
Let's see how much of that cigarette tax goes to it's intended purpose. Clinton taxed the hell out of tobacco comapanies to help offset the increased costs of healthcare. None of it went to that. All this is was a silent method for Obama to increase taxes with out making it look like he increased taxes.
Banned off shore drilling? Doesn't that just increase our dependence on foriegn oil?
Healthcare reform? are you sure you want to call it reform? there was no reform. Big Pharma and the Insurance companies got just what they wanted. Pity the fool who can not afford to pay for healthcare today but will have to under plan Obama.
Iraq.
Zarqawi is not only dead, but unable to pull another 9/11.
so we should spend billions to invade countries, precipitate resistance and attract regional terrorists to destabilize our efforts?
please don't feel offended if i dont think this has 'worked'.
I don't feel offended at all. I just disagree. The threat of terrorism from Al Qaeda and other associated groups has been drastically diminished as a result of Iraq and Afghanistan. It was messy (as all wars are), but I think it was the correct strategy.
Quote: Originally Posted by Sky Dancer
The President is ending the war in Iraq. He's set the Israeli Palestinian peace talks as a priority. He's been responsive to the oil spill, he addressed health care reform, he's on the economy. He's addressed DADT.
I'd say he's working hard with very little bipartisan support. He's completely on target with his campaign promises.
Passing the "largest" economic stimulus bill in American history.
Ordering the closing of Guantanamo Bay military detention facility and abolishing "enhanced interrogation techniques."
Setting a fixed timetable for withdrawing U.S. combat forces from Iraq.
Ordering 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and enlisting, with modest new assistance, European allies in a new multi-layered strategy there and in Pakistan, and setting a timetable for a drawdown of our troops.
Signing laws to expand children's health insurance (financed by a 61-cent per pack increase in the federal cigarette tax the adviser did not tout).
Banned offshore drilling until parameters for deep well safety procedures are clarified.
Put a hold on Artic oil exploratory digging until environmental impacts are clear.
Passed health care reform.
signed a hate crime bill .
Sky, be realistic and keep this all in perspective.
Ending the ar in Iraq? He is pretty much on Bush's time table. What has he doen differently? Obama has a million things set as a priority, but he accomplishes none. it's a joke. Every president has set israel palestine peace talks as an objective. none have changed a thing. neither will Obama
It took him a month to get on the oil spill, and look how long it lasted. Just as long as BP said it would from the start. He got nothing done any quicker.
The economy sucks and is getting worse.
OK the stimulus bill was a pork laden fiasco. Put us deeper in debt and has done nothing to help the economy. The rich got richer and gave it a temporary bump. unemployment is still rising, foreclosures are up. he hasn't created new jobs or brought back manufacturing. Now what that the stimulus money is running out? He didn't even rebuild the infrastructure like he promised.
Gitmo is still open, we still use the same techniques, just elsewhere
Bush set the timetable. Obama is just attempting to follow it. Of course things are getting worse in Iraq in the process.
Troops aren't the answer in Afghanistan. The more troops he pumps in the worse things are getting. He even had to can his top military man because he kept telling Obama he was wrong. He's set a timetable for withdraw and hasn't even solved the problem yet. Does that make sense to you?
Let's see how much of that cigarette tax goes to it's intended purpose. Clinton taxed the hell out of tobacco comapanies to help offset the increased costs of healthcare. None of it went to that. All this is was a silent method for Obama to increase taxes with out making it look like he increased taxes.
Banned off shore drilling? Doesn't that just increase our dependence on foriegn oil?
Healthcare reform? are you sure you want to call it reform? there was no reform. Big Pharma and the Insurance companies got just what they wanted. Pity the fool who can not afford to pay for healthcare today but will have to under plan Obama.
My point is Obama was elected to do certain things--like end the war in Iraq--and he is doing that. He is acting on his campaign promises.
Let's imagine that the GOP sweeps the House races this autumn. Do you suppose their "top priority" will be job creation, or subpoena power?
Job creation.
Let's imagine that the GOP sweeps the House races this autumn. Do you suppose their "top priority" will be job creation, or subpoena power?
Job creation.
Nice debating skills,
Would you care to explain why you find my choice funny?
Nice debating skills,
Would you care to explain why you find my choice funny?
i didn't think it required 'debate'. darryl issa is already talking about his 'investigations'. and why would the repubs focus on job creation now when they concentrated on corporate welfare and tax breaks for the top 1% for eight years? do you really think anything changes? if you listened to bohner yesterday, it sure won't.
i could speak my opinion more plainly and with less naivete: iraq was pointless bullshit, afghanistan entered this realm when we turned on the taliban instead of the al qaeda mission that the war started with. the campaigns have cost lives, stability and money all across the world, but in particular in the US and in the theaters themselves.so we should spend billions to invade countries, precipitate resistance and attract regional terrorists to destabilize our efforts?
please don't feel offended if i dont think this has 'worked'.
I don't feel offended at all. I just disagree. The threat of terrorism from Al Qaeda and other associated groups has been drastically diminished as a result of Iraq and Afghanistan. It was messy (as all wars are), but I think it was the correct strategy.
I've had mixed emotions about Iraq and Afghanistan for some time now. I object to expending national treasure and most especially our young men and women on a fool's errand. I can support objectives in both, but unless we're going to be in it to win it and have the will to do what is necessary and most expedient to do that, the price is too high.
At the same time, I know the people of Iraq have been given an opportunity to implement their unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness which they did not have under the brutal Saddam Hussein regime. And I agree that terrorist organizations of Al Qaida/Taliban, if not broken, have been severely wounded in Afghanistan.
So it distresses me when the President's 'priorities' include telegraphing to the enemy a timeline that is far more useful to the enemy than it is to anybody else. I was listening to a high ranking retiring Marine Officer this morning saying that is bad strategy. Having spent most of the last seven years in Afghanistan, he is certain the Taliban is just mostly biding their time as they have a time certain that the NATO troops will be leaving. The one thing they have going for them is patience and a willingness to wait until defenses are down and then strike.
while i think afghanistan impacted al qaeda, i think our work in iraq destabilized one of the most stable, secular countries in the region. i think this was the intent, but i dont think that intent serves a counter-terror objective at all. quite the opposite.
while i think afghanistan impacted al qaeda, i think our work in iraq destabilized one of the most stable, secular countries in the region. i think this was the intent, but i dont think that intent serves a counter-terror objective at all. quite the opposite.
That's a valid perspective, I just think it's wrong. We'll never really know now since Al Qaeda lost. Saddam lost and the system he was using to collude with France and Russia to undermine the UN Security Council ended. I disagree that Saddam's Iraq was one of the most stable countries of the region (secular or not) and I question any of the media reports stating otherwise since Saddam controlled the press (CNN's Eason Jordan admit's his role).
its not a matter of the press, it is about the fact israel and iraq were the only secular nations in the region, and that there weren't weekly bombings in iraq or an al qaeda presence there, and now there is. my point is that i believe that creating this chaos was our objective there, and in terms of winning and losing, we have achieved that now at ours, our allies and the region's expense.
it is the bs about anti-terror that i dont buy, and while al qaeda is not a regional paramilitary force anymore, they remain an international terrorist force, among many others. this has been spurred on by our involvement and our role of a destabilizer/disruptor, rather than the nation building that some on here are so convinced has happened. people have testified to the net result of our media's reporting right here on this thread, and i dont see it as having any different effect than saddam's propaganda.
"Saddam had a sadistic streak a mile wide. He favored firing squads, hangings, poison, bombs, and mafia-style assassinations. His vistims were beaten, whipped, burned, frozen, shocked, and sodomized. Finers, arms, and legs were chopped off by specially designed machines. Genitals were zapped with electric wires. Toenails, fingernails, teeth, and facial hair were ripped out with pliers. Prisones were dipped into vats of acid or boiling water. Some were thown off the roofs of tall buildings. Men were made to watch as their wives and daughters were raped and then killed. Women were forced to listen to the wails of their sadistically starved babies. Ordinary Iraqis disappeared in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. Or their bodies simply showed up on the side of some lonely desert road. . . ." (Chapter 2, Page 33 Misunderestimated by Bill Sammons.
It was not our call to go into Iraq, destroy it's existing structure and impose a new leadership. That should have been up to the Iraqi people.
It was not our call to go into Iraq, destroy it's existing structure and impose a new leadership. That should have been up to the Iraqi people.
It was not our call to go into Iraq, destroy it's existing structure and impose a new leadership. That should have been up to the Iraqi people.
Yeah and it should have been up to the Russian people murdered by the tens of millions under Lenin and Stalin even though any dissent was met with tanks destroying the villages leaving the people to starve or freeze to death.
And it shoud have been up the Chinese people murdered by many more tens of millions if they dared protest anything done by Mao Ze-Dong.
And it should have been up the Jews to deal with Adolf Hitler as millions were tortured, starved, experimented on, shot, gassed, and buried in mass graves.
We didn't go into Iraq for the express purpose of liberating the people. But once Saddam was removed from power, there was no way that people of conscience could leave those people defenseless and almost certain to be subjected to an even worse devil. I don't know if the Iraqi people have it in them to reach for the gift of freedom and self determination they are being offered. But I don't fault us for giving them the opportunity to have it.
