Forbidden Donut

2. I think the current restrictions on firearms are adequate, aside from gun shows. I'm referring to the assault weapons ban, which I have no desire to see return and I see as being a real possibility with a democratic President and Congress.

3. War in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the overall war on terror. I think all three are connected, but separate issues. I've spoken to several people that are for or against all, or just parts. I for one am for all three and against pulling out of any.

6. He may not have much a say in it, but I still believe that a President should share the same morals that I do. Since you bring up the pardon part though, I would feel uncomfortable with a president that would pardon criminals because of being anti-death penalty. Not that I think Obama is that person.

7. I do believe in pro-choice. However, some of the side issues I'm against. I think parents of minors should be notified and should have to give consent. I think partial birth abortions should be illegal, and to that end I think any abortion to a fetus capable of surviving on its own with minimal medical assistance should be illegal. My exception to that is if it medically threatens the mother's life. I'd have to do some research to see if there are any other things, but most of them I think are inconsequential. Those two I mentioned are the big ones. Given the choice between pro-choice and pro-life, if I can't get the pro-choice laws the way I want, I am more inclined to be pro-life.

I think assault weapons will be banned no matter what. It's in our government's best interests to keep us inadequately armed to start a rebellion. Probably by 2011. I don't think having a republican (especially given their track record in the last 8 years) is going to help as far as your rights are concerned. But yours is definitely a stance I can agree with.

I think there is one war or two. And only one of the two is actually a war. And we actually brought terrorism to Iraq. You can say we're fighting a war on terror and that Iraq and Afghanistan are fronts on that war. Or you can say we're fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which is inaccurate because we're not at war with either). You don't think it's irresponsible of us to stay in Iraq spending billions a month when they are running a surplus and we're running a deficit, while the real terrorists are actually in Afghanistan and Pakistan? Why are we in Iraq? And what are you afraid would happen if we started drawing troops down while trying to shift responsibility to the Iraqis?

No president will share all your morals, and the death penalty is such a hot button issue that no president will either be for or against it in any REAL way. I think it's kind of a silly thing to focus on in an election of this importance, but to each his own.

Obama agrees with most of your opinions on abortion, except the notification of parents of minors. He just prefers to leave bans and things of that nature to the states. As stated in the constitution.

I dont' even understand what the hell McCain thinks. He's been all over the map.

Not trying to make it seem like you don't know what's up, I just want to make sure everybody's voting in their own best interest.

/But reading McCain's abortion page is terrifying to me.
//I have different priorities and values than you do though.

Palin abused power, she's like a dominatrix woot!

You know I made a palin smear thread right? /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />

Nope, I rarely look in here /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />

I just want to point out that that is what we are doing and we have little reason to be afraid anymore. The difference would be that not having the surge and shifting responsibility to the Iraqis before they were ready did make me legitimately afraid.

Interesting that the republican party would start doing what the American people have been calling for for a year now right before the election, no? XD

I'm of the opinion we had no reason to be there in the first place. The entire war was poorly managed. We've made things worse than before we were there. We killed a SHITLOAD of Iraqis. The surge didn't work. And if we stop paying people to not shoot at each other the situation will deteriorate whether there are 20,000 troops or 20.

What could have been the worst possible outcome of leaving?

I don't care if Iraq is utopia or hell on earth.

120 billion dollars a year while we're 10 trillion dollars in debt and entering the worst economic crisis in close to a century. Fucking worthless Americans can't even be fiscally responsible when our economy is on the verge of collapse. Idiots.

Also, I read about him, and John McCain is an arab...

in other news I have a green bell pepper on my desk and it smells heavenly. I want to eat it like an apple.

You can't possibly say that if we had left 3 years ago that Iraq would be better off now then if we stayed. Yes, some things have been handled poorly, but hindsight is 20/20. The policy for the last several years has been to train their military and police forces to handle the country for when we leave. This isn't something that happens over night. Never mind the initial training, you need to have time for NCOs and Officers to gain the experience they need to lead troops. I'd wager even by 2011, when the current draft plan between the US and Iraq is calling for the all US troops to gone, we will likely still have military advisers there for years to come.

Iraq may not be a peace on earth type of country right now, but leaving them to fight out their own civil war would have been even worse for the country.

I still stand by the fact that going to fight that war was not a bad decision. We know that Saddam had WMDs. He had used them multiple times against his own people. The simple fact that they didn't find any of the chemical weapons proves nothing; there's no shortage of places to hide whatever you want in the desert. Never mind the fact we just finished cleaning up the remainder of Saddam's nuclear program, the 550 tons of Uranium Oxide used for refining into uranium used for reactors and weapons.

I do agree that Iraq needs to start footing some of the bill for what is being done in Iraq. But trying to leave now, no matter the cost, is irresponsible for what condition the country is in because of the war we started.

ANunes, your link says 3/18 benchmarks satisfied. This one says 15/18 are satisfactory and only 2 are unsatisfactory. Those 2 are disarming militias (look at the progress made against al sadrs militia) and sharing oil revenue (the iraqi natl govt is sharing revenue with the provinces despite there being no revenue sharing law yet http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...0081015-7.html). So we are kicking ass.

And I've gone over the worse case scenario in an old thread but I will make it quick.
1) we leave
2) iraq is a mess
3) iran wants to exert more influence in iraq to make a shiite cresent in the middle east
4) saudi arabia has always been scared of iran and goes in to create a buffer state of sunnis between it and iran just as iraq has been for them in the past
5) the top 3 proven oil reserve nations in the world (sa, iran, iraq) are embroiled in a regional power game whether it be hot or cold but hot enough since sectarian shit was going through the roof 2 years ago
6) oil skyrockets
7) the US has to go back in to secure the worlds oil supply at a greater invasion cost than before

yay. Let's invade a country based on false pretenses without support from most of the civilized world, utterly fail to accomplish anything except the deposition of a pretty bad guy and the implementation of a fake democracy and then when we're all disappointed and butthurt because we never actually accomplished anything of import we can say that it was totally worth it because we totally got that guy! Also we should cite the one useful thing we did other than the aforementioned deposition (finding 550 tons of yellowcake that we found before, then lost, then REALLY lost) as further evidence of how awesome we are!

high five.

Going was a mistake. Things grew steadily worse for the next 3 years. We threw troops and money at it in a last ditch effort to avoid the embarrassment of another Vietnam and things are starting to get back to the way they were before we destroyed their county. Minus a hundred thousand people of course. Can you honestly say that they will be better than they were before when we leave? What about the faux democracy in a hostile region? Think that'll last? Think it'll dissolve to another dictatorship with support from our enemies? Think they'll have access to the same weapons and facilities and people they were before?

I just don't think killing one specific man was anywhere NEAR worth the cost. We didn't throw troops and money at Rwanda or Darfur did we?

Rwanda and Darfur don't pose any feasible threat to the US or one of its allies either directly, or indirectly through supplying weapons, nor do they hold any kind of economic strategic significance.. Yes, they are terrible travesties, but they don't up there with Iraq.

So you were afraid of Saddam using chemical weapons on us? Earlier you suggested that the justification for taking him out was the existence of WMD's which we never found but know he had because he used them as a method of genocide.
/You feel safer now than you did in '03?
//Now subtract all the lies from how you felt in '03
///ARE you safer now than you actually were in '03?

Quit moving goal posts from post to post and I'll stop being a dick about it.

There's no measurable way to say if we are safer now then we were then. Trying to prove one or the other is impossible.

And no, not him using them on us. Him using them on his own people, or giving them to other people that don't like us or our allies are worth it though.


Do you feel safer now then you did in '03?

why is it a fake democracy? because of corruption? because they dont believe in it?

hum de dum, time for my usual posting:
Al-Qaeda's Iraq number two killed: US military

Passing the torch

Iraq was no threat to western democracy and invading then occupying that country has no doubt increased hatred for USA the UK and others. I think we can safely assume and to be honest probably prove that there are more terrorists today than before the invasion of Iraq.

To conclude if more terrorists exhist today then we are less safe. No matter what security meassures you as a country employ, there is and always will be a way to cause harm to others.

No :/

First of all, Eve:
"The US military said on Wednesday that a foreign insurgent killed in the main northern Iraqi city of Mosul this month has been identified as Abu Qaswarah, Al-Qaeda's number two in Iraq."

How many times have we heard that "we got the number 2!"? Protip: there will always be another number 2. Kind of like the war on drugs and gangs... Also we quit on trying to find the number 1.

It's a fake democracy because we propped it up, told them how to run it, how to structure, and how to vote. That kind of defeats the entire premise of democracy by taking away the people's ability to form it themselves. THIS HAS NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER WORKED EVER.

I feel less safe than I did before we went into Iraq today because the last time we had a tragedy, they were unable to kill us with tanks, bombs, or guns. So they hit us with airplanes. The point is, all our fancy technology, all our defense spending is useless. They are fighting without the benefit of all our equipment and we still can't completely seal the deal. After Iraq is all hunky dory there won't be fewer terrorists, just one place that we don't feel like we have to look for them.

9/11 came from Saudi Arabia with support from the taliban. So we attacked the Taliban. Al-qaeda's still at large, and recruitment, though falling in Iraq (where it only arrived AFTER us) is rising in Afghanistan and Pakistan because of how distracted we are by Iraq. I didn't feel like we could be attacked today in '03. I feel very strongly that we will be attacked again during the next presidency, and once again we will be totally blindsided by a sudden, creative, and devastatingly simple assault. They've had 5 to 6 years completely to themselves in the hills of Pakistan to figure something out. So no. I don't feel safer and I think that's a direct result of our presence in Iraq.

d:

What about Japan and West Germany after WWII?
And sure we propped it up, but we did not tell them how to run it, structure it, and vote in it. We made strong suggestions based on our experience, but there are plenty of things Iraqis decided themselves and were allowed to screw up themselves. And yes we did threaten to leave if they made certain decisions so that was not perfectly democratic. BUT IT ISNT FAKE!

Who ARE you?

You have to be GWB, there's just no way.

/blink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":blink:" border="0" alt="blink.gif" />

I thought he made a good point.

I agreed with him as well.

I thought we handpicked the president?

"Talabani is the founder and secretary general of one of the main Iraqi Kurdish political parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). He was a prominent member of the Interim Iraq Governing Council, which was established following the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Talabani has been an advocate for Kurdish rights and democracy in Iraq for more than fifty years."

More or less... Who was he running against? (seriously, I don't remember)

They did vote for their reps from amongst themselves though, which is pretty cool.

PS:
"we did not tell them how to run it," etc
"We made strong suggestions..." on how to run it, etc.

So we didn't go into the booth with them and shoot people who voted x,y, or z. We just said, do it this way or we're leaving. Here is/are your choices. And do it like us please. Representative democracy is the way to be. USAUSAUSA!