Why Iraq?
Reply to a comment many posts down (including the comment entirely quoted from Independent1) put on the main page since once again, it's getting too unwieldy for a comment, and once again, I have the power!
First of all, the stats referred to do not mention if they are talking about states with the highest aggregate support for terrorism, or the states whose officially recognized governments most support terrorism. I'm assuming it's the latter, though even then it's very likely Saudi Arabia belongs on that list. If it's the former, then there are undoubtedly other nations that should be very high on the list (U.S. since frankly a good deal of the funding for terrorism comes or at least came from front groups in the U.S., Egypt and Pakistan in addition to Saudi Arabia and maybe China, but it's hard to get info on China for obvious reasons)
Your list is interesting. Why didn't we go after those states (in addition to Saudi Arabia) after Afghanistan? Cuba has little influence and power, so it's really unnecessary to hit them at that point. North Korea... now if we really want to fight states that support terrorism with WMDs, then few if any nations should be higher on our hit list than North Korea. The problem with hitting North Korea is A) the leader is truly insane and B) they probably do have a nuke. (in addition to the fact that China might not like us there) One could also make good arguments for going after Iran, a nation that had at least similarity with Iraq in theological and ideological terms. Syria is also a good potential target if we want to fight on the terms of hitting states that support terrorism. Libya and the Sudan are also good candidates.
Why didn't we hit Libya, Sudan, Syria, or Iran instead or in addition to Iraq? I'm willing to grant that reasons exist for not hitting the others.
I honestly don't know for sure. I don't think we should have hit any other nations at that point in 2003. I think we should have kept our resources and energies focused on Afghanistan/Pakistan.
Possible explanations on why we hit Iraq include:
Was it really necessary to move our troops from Afghanistan and mobilize our military to fight Iraq at that time? Even ignoring hind sight when we now know that there were likely no significant WMDs in Iraq, and the official ties between their government and Al Qaeda is basically theoretical in nature, the reasoning still seems flawed.
Beyond the reasoning of why to attack, the way we approached the war, to ignore any realistic planning for the post-invasion is deplorable. Rumsfeld repeatedly ignored generals asking for more troops to secure Iraq. He kept on saying he believed we had enough in there. Is there much serious doubt that another 40-50,000 troops wouldn't have helped a good deal in the first few months to secure the place? (note: I'm not mentioning issues with Abu Gharib, nor Mission Accomplished, nor Green Zones, nor anything else)
Maybe we would have had to fight Saddam eventually. I will grant that would have been a definite possibility. However, we could have waited until we had demonstrated to the Islamic world our mercy and resolve in Afghanistan. We won't win over everyone, but we can reduce the supply of possible recruits for Al Qaeda. Iraq really wasn't going anywhere. We had them cornered. 2 or 3 years later when we had rooted out the remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, when we could have secured the nation and given the people the hope they so desperately deserve after being the cruel pawn of so many regimes, we would be able to go after Iraq with our world standing in much higher esteem.
In the end, I can't entirely understand why we did what we did. The only thing I know is that it almost certainly was a mistake.
BTW: Blogger should build a spell-check/etc into the comments... that's half the reason why I prefer main posts.
Iraq under Saddam Hussien was one of 7 nations that were the biggest national supporters of terrorism, as sited by George Tenet in 2001. The other 6 are Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Libya, and Sudan. If we are going to win the war on terrorism, we need to stop these countries from supporting terrorism, either by diplomacy or force.
It is indisputible that Saddam Hussien supported terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Saddam Fedayeen, Al Aqsa Marters Brigade, Islamic Gihad, Answar Al Islam (which may be an offshoot of al-queda, and other islamic terrorists groups. Many of these terrorist groups have declared us as an enemy, and some, most noteably Hamas, have actively promised to attack the US on our soil. In fact, I predict that the next terrorist attack on US soil will not be from Al Queda, but from a different islamic terrorist group.
It is also widely recognized that there is a large level of comingling between these terrorist groups, meaning that an individual terrorist may be a member or have ties with several terrorists groups. Islamic Gihad, for example, has now merged with Al Queda.
Al Queda is in every other country in the world, why is it so hard to believe they were also in Iraq, a nation that openly harbored terrorists and openly hated us?
First of all, the stats referred to do not mention if they are talking about states with the highest aggregate support for terrorism, or the states whose officially recognized governments most support terrorism. I'm assuming it's the latter, though even then it's very likely Saudi Arabia belongs on that list. If it's the former, then there are undoubtedly other nations that should be very high on the list (U.S. since frankly a good deal of the funding for terrorism comes or at least came from front groups in the U.S., Egypt and Pakistan in addition to Saudi Arabia and maybe China, but it's hard to get info on China for obvious reasons)
Your list is interesting. Why didn't we go after those states (in addition to Saudi Arabia) after Afghanistan? Cuba has little influence and power, so it's really unnecessary to hit them at that point. North Korea... now if we really want to fight states that support terrorism with WMDs, then few if any nations should be higher on our hit list than North Korea. The problem with hitting North Korea is A) the leader is truly insane and B) they probably do have a nuke. (in addition to the fact that China might not like us there) One could also make good arguments for going after Iran, a nation that had at least similarity with Iraq in theological and ideological terms. Syria is also a good potential target if we want to fight on the terms of hitting states that support terrorism. Libya and the Sudan are also good candidates.
Why didn't we hit Libya, Sudan, Syria, or Iran instead or in addition to Iraq? I'm willing to grant that reasons exist for not hitting the others.
I honestly don't know for sure. I don't think we should have hit any other nations at that point in 2003. I think we should have kept our resources and energies focused on Afghanistan/Pakistan.
Possible explanations on why we hit Iraq include:
- We knew we could. Their military was still quite weak, and we either didn't really think they had WMDs or that we didn't believe they would use them. (if we really believed they had them and would use them, then we should use that same rationale to go after North Korea) In addition, we had an outstanding U.N. resolution somewhat allowing this. This doesn't answer why we felt it necessary to hit another nation so soon after Afghanistan, but it does answer why Iraq
- Political posturing. Take focus off of Afghanistan, and refocus the nation on another war. Give Bush a victory and ensure reelection. I'm not saying this is the answer, and if it is, it hasn't gone well. I'm just trying to figure out explanations that fit the available information
- Chalabi really really duped us. If so, this administration should be voted out for that alone
- The administration believed we could hit Iraq, and the administration believed it would be easy, and the administration believed it would lead to democratization of the middle-east. In other words, the neo-cons completely ruled the day... I think this explanation has more than a grain of truth
- Something involving oil or Halliburton. (few of the other on the list have much if any oil) Again, I'm not saying I believe this, I'm just saying that fits the evidence.
Was it really necessary to move our troops from Afghanistan and mobilize our military to fight Iraq at that time? Even ignoring hind sight when we now know that there were likely no significant WMDs in Iraq, and the official ties between their government and Al Qaeda is basically theoretical in nature, the reasoning still seems flawed.
Beyond the reasoning of why to attack, the way we approached the war, to ignore any realistic planning for the post-invasion is deplorable. Rumsfeld repeatedly ignored generals asking for more troops to secure Iraq. He kept on saying he believed we had enough in there. Is there much serious doubt that another 40-50,000 troops wouldn't have helped a good deal in the first few months to secure the place? (note: I'm not mentioning issues with Abu Gharib, nor Mission Accomplished, nor Green Zones, nor anything else)
Maybe we would have had to fight Saddam eventually. I will grant that would have been a definite possibility. However, we could have waited until we had demonstrated to the Islamic world our mercy and resolve in Afghanistan. We won't win over everyone, but we can reduce the supply of possible recruits for Al Qaeda. Iraq really wasn't going anywhere. We had them cornered. 2 or 3 years later when we had rooted out the remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, when we could have secured the nation and given the people the hope they so desperately deserve after being the cruel pawn of so many regimes, we would be able to go after Iraq with our world standing in much higher esteem.
In the end, I can't entirely understand why we did what we did. The only thing I know is that it almost certainly was a mistake.
BTW: Blogger should build a spell-check/etc into the comments... that's half the reason why I prefer main posts.
posted by Jim Casaburi at
3:25 PM
12 Comments:
You raise a whole lot of points, many of which are very thoughtful, are some which seem more obvious, from my perspective.
The list of 7 nations Tenet provided are states whose governemnts actively support terrorism. The governments of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are very pro-U.S. Pakistan at first was not, but they were given a choice "you are either with us or you are with the terrorists." The government of Pakistan chose to be with us, and has been a good ally in the war on terror. Both of these nations have problems with civilians who are sympathetic to Al Queda, but their governments are on our side.
You indicate that the war in Iraq diverted troops from Afghanistan. In fact, not one single soldier was diverted to Iraq. The troop counts in afghanistan remain high, and seem to be at the level they need to be at. It is not a perfect situation in Afghanistan, but it continues to show progress.
In truth, Bin Laden appears to be hiding in remote regions of Pakistan. Pakistan has been cracking down on these regions, and as a result there have been several major terrorists captured in the last 2 months. Pretty soon his refuge in Pakistan will be gone, he will be flushed out, and when he does hopefully we will get him.
As to why we chose Iraq over other threats like North Korea, Iran, Libya, Sudan, etc..., it is a circular argument. If we had chosen North Korea, we would be arguing about why we had attacked North Korea when we have threats like Iraq (which the world would still believe had WMD) and Iran. Iraq, Iran, and North Korea were the greatest and most pressing threats. We had given diplomacy a chance for 12 years in Iraq, and so we chose them. Were they easier prey then Iran and North Korea--Maybe, but they still had a strong army. Did we need a country to make an example out of---Yes.
Libya, Syria, and Sudan are too weak to make examples out of--it is too transparent. We have made progress diplomatically with Libya, and I bet for Qudaffi, seeing Hussien pulled out of a spider hole, looking desheveled, the shell of the proud leader he once was, for Qudaffi it was a big factor in why he chose to give up his quest for nukes. He didn't want to end up like Hussien.
Did we believe Iraq had WMD---Yes. Even France in March of 2003 was conceding that Hussien had WMD. Every major intelligence agency was saying that it was there. For people now to say there obviously were not WMDs is BS. I know you'll go back and quote Richard Clark, who is a partisan democrat, but he has been dispoven on many points. In fact, factcheck.org, a very nuetral site, has indicated that based on the available intelligence at the time, Bush was right in believing that Iraq was pursuing nuclear weapons.
As for oil, it has been consistently proven that France had special contracts set up with Iraq to get oil at low prices once the oil embargo was eliminated. So was the war about oil? If you are french, it was. Russia and Germany had similar arrangements. Saddam made these arrangements to protect himself, thinking that the US would never attack without UN support. He was wrong.
Joseph Leiberman delt with the connections between Saddam and Al Queda when he appearred on Hardball in Dec of 2003. He said their was definite evidence of connection, however connections between Saddam and Sept. 11 had not yet been found. Lieberman is on the Senate Intelligence committee.
As far as going after Iraq with more international support in a few years, it was not going to happen. In truth, France, Germany, and Russia were always going to oppose action in Iraq due to their oil interests. I agree with the President when he states that we should not let the will of these few countries interfere with our national security.
I have highlighted some other points on a side blog, http://liberate-iraq.blogspot.com/
Bottom line, I think we did the right thing. Did everything go as expected? No, but nothing in war ever does.
By
Independent1, at 4:52 PM
For the record, I also find your comments and points to be thoughtful and well presented, even if I disagree with your conclusions.
Ok... to go through the points...
#1 - Both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are well known to have a bit of a schizophrenic approach to terrorism. Both governments knowingly or unknowingly have encouraged and abetted terrorism in very significant fashion. They are nominally our allies, which is why they did not appear on the list. That does not mean they do not support terrorism.
#2 - I seem to remember (but am currently unable to find documentation) hearing of troops redeployed from Afghanistan to Iraq. As for enough troops there... well, I suppose it depends on what our goal is. To keep the government in control of Kabul, we have enough troops. To keep control of the warlords controlling the rest of the nation who are not exactly friends of freedom, we do not have enough.
#3 - I agree. That is the most likely place Bin Laden is. I'll go even further. He's not really that important. I'd rather him be free but Al Qaeda and its ilk be entirely irrelevant than have him captured "dead or alive" and have the rest on the loose.
#4 - To an extent, you are correct... likely some people (hopefully not myself, I'm hypocritical enough) would complain about going to North Korea or Iran or the rest and not Iraq... However, it's not entirely circular. We had some degree of control in Iraq when we invaded. We do not with the others.
#5 - You say that we needed to invade to prove a point... I don't think that argument is void of merit.. I happen to think that that should have happened with Afghanistan. We should have built it into a liberal (traditional enlightenment meaning) secular democracy replacing the cruel Taliban. Once that was done, we could go after the rest with more credibility, and with a larger share of the population on our side.
#6 - I don't question that most people thought Iraq had WMD prior to the war. Indeed, I did as well. The point is in hindsight, we know they probably did not have any significant WMD capacity. Of course you can't make foreign policy in hindsight, but we could and should have been less trusting of our faulty intelligence so soon after 9/11. (note: I am not quoting Richard Clark ;)
#7 - Of course France and others had illegal contracts with Iraq prior to the war. Subsidiaries of Cheney's company also did business in Iraq while Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton. That does not mean that there was no way those nations would support the effort. More importantly, even if we could never get France, Russia, et al on our side, there were other nations we could and should have gotten on board. One of the true accomplishments of the 1st George Bush was to build a credible, somewhat coherent coalition to go against Iraq the first time. It was done then, it wasn't impossible this time with a smarter strategy.
#8 - I agree with President Bush & John Kerry in that no other nation should interfere with our national security. (John Kerry stated that quite explicitly in his acceptance speech, even if Cheney didn't notice) However, sharing the burden is a good thing. Doing what you reasonably can not to tick off the whole world is a good thing, and also good for national security, and I don't believe that invading Iraq when we did and the way we did has helped our national security. Of course that is an opinion. History will hopefully tell the tale of who was more correct and this will be a historical footnote in the annals of U.S. and World History.
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Jim Casaburi, at 5:24 PM
All good thoughts. A few extra comments:
#1 I think Pakistan and Saudi Arabia had a level of denial about the problems they faced internally with terrorists, a denial that is eroding with the assissination attempts on Mushareff and the Terrorists attacks in Riyad.
#2 For the warlords, I think we have to be realistic in our goals. The warlords have been in power for far too long in Afghanistan to be quickly removed. They are somewhat nuetralized, and hopefully over time as the Afghanistan army will gain more control and eliminate the warlords. It is not a perfect situation, but it is a lot better than it was 3 years ago.
#3 I agree. If Bin Laden is captured, it might actually hurt the war on terror by leading people to believe that we have won, when their could still be a lot of dangerous eliments out there.
#4 Our control was limited, and having negative affects. Many people were sayig that we were starving the Iraqi people due to the embargo we put in place, even though in truth Saddam could end the embargo by living up his agreement in 1991.
#5 I don't know that we gain anything by waiting. In fact, because Bush was relying on intelligence indicating that Saddam was trying to build nukes, waiting seemed dangerous. I believe it is reasonable for the President to Believe that the possibility of an emmenent threat from Iraq was real. To give a fresh perspective, consider this alternate history at http://www.tnr.com/easterbrook.mhtml?pid=1545 . Basically, it lays out what might have happened if the President had acted pre-emptively on August 7, 2001 against Afghanistan, with no clear, emminent threat.
#6 I think we did trust our intelligence too much, but at the same time, many criticize Bush for not trusting the August 6, 2001 Presidental Daily Briefing enough. It can almost seem like a catch 22.
#7 Because France promised to veto the UN resolution, getting international support was tough. We did get a lot of countries on board though.
#8 So you agree with the pro-war Kerry. I do to. What about the anti-war Kerry, The one that showed himself during the Democratic primaries (with the exception of 1 week in December of 2003, after Saddam Hussein was caught). Can you tell I have been leaning to the right of late ;)
I agree, this will just be a footnote in history, that much is true.
I am glad to be able to discuss this in such a respectful way. I know at the end of the day, we'll both still have our beliefs, but hopefully we have given each other another perspective on the situation.
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Independent1, at 6:42 PM
Sorry about the lateness in replying. I got caught up with work on my business stuff.. writing up documents for a company where even though I came up with the idea, I still don't fully understand, is not that easy.
#1 - Grant they had a level of denial... but it was public. The Saudi government knows how unpopular they are, and by throwing some support to terrorist organizations they can help maintain some level of control. (or at least that's how it has been) Pakistan has been the same to a lesser extent. (though remember that the leader of Pakistan got in there via a military coup over the elected President). But still, I hope they are about to root out terror. I wish we weren't in a position where we feel we have to prop up these regimes though. (ditto on MANY others)
#2 - I'm not so sure about the warlords being "neutralized". The reports I've read indicate there is little control over the nation outside of Kabul by the central government. I'd love to be wrong on this. Those people deserve better. They've been beaten up by so many foreign dynasties, and they deserve a chance to shine on their own.
#3 - ok.. not much to comment on our agreeing except that I suddenly am afraid
#4 - It was limited, and yes, there were serious problems, but the point is we had some control. We had/have none in Iran/North Korea. Which would you rather have, the current situation in Iraq, or some degree of control over Iran & Iraq, or some degree of control over North Korea & Iraq. True, I'm not an expert on these issues (ok, I'm VERY far from it), but the latter seems to be the position that would maximize our position in an actual war on terrorist states.
#5 - This is hypothetical, but I think something on par with what Clinton did in '98 was reasonable, and after the Cole would have gotten a larger degree of support. Remember, we missed killing Bin Laden by a very small amount in Clinton's term. Anyways, it's hypothetical.
#6 - This is somewhat fair, except that most people don't really blame anyone in govt for 9/11. I may think Bush didn't focus hard enough on terrorism based on what they knew then and was overly focused on SDI, but still, even I know it's unfair to blame him too much on this. Anyways, I love Catch 22. It's one of my all time favorite novels.
#7 - We still could and should have done better. Even if a UN resolution was basically impossible, it still was a subpar effort. Is this a subjective opinion? Oh yeah. Maybe I was spoiled by the Gulf War.
#8 - I agree with Kerry. In principle a nation should be able to defend itself. I also agree that there are wrong ways and correct ways to do this. He thinks Bush botched the war in Iraq. I happen to agree. He thought the president needed the authority to go to war as a last resort. I'm not so sure I agree on that point anymore, but I can understand it. I can also understand your view that the war was necessary, even if I don't agree with it.
BTW: I noticed your caption about my blog on your site. " A good, rational liberal blog"... yikes... I'm afraid your credibility in my eyes just took a bit of a hit with those words ;)
By
Jim Casaburi, at 4:49 PM
Grrr... another reason I don't like these comments... I can't fix typos. I meant to say "Grated" not grant at the start. (there's probably a multitude of other problems as well)
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Jim Casaburi, at 4:55 PM
I too greatly respect your opinion, as well as your service to this nation. Even if I disagree with the decision to go to war and the method by which we conducted the war, I am disagreeing with the leadership, the Bush administration, not the service of brave soldiers like yourself, your twin and the rest of our brave soldiers. I happen to believe that most people in the Middle East do want what we refer to as freedom. However, we cannot convert the entire world to a free one at the same time exclusively with military force. I happen to believe better strategies existed (and exist) in order to spread freedom to that part of the world and protect our nation other than the course of action the President pursued. It's as simple as that. Our soldiers have served honorably in a manner as John Kerry has put it, “the tip of the spear.” Even the greatest soldiers with the greatest efforts in this tip of the spear can fail if they are aimed poorly by those who direct the spear.
The Iraqi insurgency has largely been fueled by many factors, including external groups flooding into Iraq, and struggles for power from latent aggression between the various ethnic and religious groups vying for power. Let me be clear, we are in Iraq now, and we cannot and should not pull out until the nation has stabilized. We would leave a far worse situation if we were to leave too early. That does not mean that one cannot nor should not question the wisdom of the decision to go in or the manner in which the war was conducted by this administration. That is what I am doing. As you point out, this is the wondrous freedom we Americans enjoy, and what much of the rest of the world dreams for, and that which people enlist in the military to protect and expand.
The issue of the deficit is another whole set of points. Clearly the attacks of 9/11 and the recession lowered the economy and thus tax returns, but it does not fully account for the change from surplus to deficit according to CBO numbers I have seen. We also have added a good deal of spending in this time, in a slew of new programs including more than a little bit of so-called pork-barrel spending. We have also spent at least $200 billion dollars on the Iraq war. We have also passed a massive set of tax cuts that largely lowered the rates on the highest earners with the promise of job creation that has not panned out in the process greatly expanding the deficit from where it would be otherwise, and not expanding the number nor quality of jobs in any significant manner. Yes, it's normal to expect the surpluses to go away when we are hit by a double, or triple whammy of recession, 9/11 and other non-voluntary acts. However, that does not add up to fully explain the situation. Spending is out of control, and the President and the Republican-controlled Congress are the ones largely to blame for that. Kerry did not vote for all of this, though he did vote for some. As I've said before, as an individual member of Congress, things get muddier. As a party which controls both houses of Congress, and the White House, responsibility is far easier to assign for better or worse.
As much as I respect your service, I also very much respect the service of John Kerry. I also very much respect the rest of his life's work. I don't agree that he has lied about his service in any real way (I'll admit, there's a question as to when he was in Cambodia), nor that he lied nor betrayed about his fellow servicemen nor anyone. You are welcome and free to believe that, even if I believe you are wrong. Just as I am sure you believe I am wrong, and that I am free and welcome to believe it.
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Jim Casaburi, at 1:09 AM
BTW: This is a note to all, please try to keep the language on here at PG levels. I believe in freedom of expression, but I also believe that I could have family members, former students of mine view these pages. Worse comes to worse, use comic-style @&*&$)* or euphamisms. I would also rather not be blocked by filtering companies. I have only once deleted comments from here, and it was due to a mishap on my behalf. I really want to not have to.
Remember, in the famous words of Mr. Mackey, "Bich is Latin for generosity"!
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Jim Casaburi, at 1:19 AM
In the case of converting the world, I did not mean to imply you said that. It is clearly the neoconservative ideal to convert the world to a more free one. Shoot, even I agree with that ideal. I do want to convert the world to a world where every man, woman and child lives in freedom and liberty. This is consistent with the President saying that freedom is the gift from the all-mighty to man (I am paraphrasing). That is all I meant by convert.
I disagree with the lack of planning for the post-war. I disagree with attacking when we did, so soon after Afghanistan when we were only beginning to help them rebuild/build their nation. I disagree with attacking when we had a degree of control in Iraq, but no such control in other, in my view, more dangerous states (Iran, North Korea). The fact we couldn't get much of the rest of the world on our side is regrettable, but not sufficient for my disagreement. There are times we must act alone. Bush, Kerry, yourself along with myself all agree on that point. We disagree on when those times are.
I agree, Bush was quite fearless in going into Iraq. But I also believe he was unwise. Fearless is not the only quality I want in a President.
As for a biased opinion, by its very definition, ALL opinions are biases. Indeed, I'd be quite interested on how one could remove any and all biases from opinion.
If you want supporting documents for my assertions, please read through the rest of the site, and if it's not there, ask.
I do not do this by default, because (and this is a lazy excuse) it's not easy to edit do any fancy HTML in comments, unless I'm missing something about blogger. I keep the fancy stuff for the main posts unless there's a compelling reason otherwise.
As for the budgetary issues, please be more specific in your requests. I read a ton and I am not great at keeping material properly bookmarked. However, I would be glad to try to hunt for information on things I mention. It's quite possible I could be wrong about what I remember.
My assertion is quite simple though. Not all of our deficit is from the war and the recession.
A quick scan of a web pointed to this article which details much of what I have described (along with counter-arguments) http://www.insightmag.com/news/2004/02/03/National/Cbo-Chief.Says.Deficit.Shouldnt.Be.Ignored-590093.shtml
It is not definitive, but it's a start. Otherwise, please ask away. Obviously some of this is opinion that cannot be backed up by fact. That's the nature of the beast.
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Jim Casaburi, at 2:02 AM
1) Wise and unwise are subjective opinions. There is no way to prove or disprove them conclusively, which is why I said "I believe he was unwise". I have written up fairly extensively the reasoning that lead me to this opinion. You are free to read it and either accept or reject my reasonings and/or conclusion.
2) You said "You seem to have a very biased opinion..."I simply pointed out that there is no such thing other than a biased opinion. That opinion may be biased by research, theology, prejudice, drug included altered states, or whatever. Not sure if this is me replying smartly, but then again, that's utterly irrelevant to me.
3) You run your site your way, and I'll be glad to run mine my way. I will post links I find informative, interesting and/or unusual. Google makes it very very easy to verify or debunk claims I make.
4) Reread the 1st Amendment please. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. “ No where does it limit speech to those who you deem to be educated. Educated is of course an entirely term as well, unless you want to go by such standards as formal education. If so, I have a BA in Political Science from UC Berkeley, I am a credentialed teacher, and I currently am pursuing a masters degree in Computer Science. Frankly, I don't care one way or another what level of education one has as long as they make reasoned arguments and back them up when appropriate.
5) I have been entirely calm in this conversation, though you are quite welcome to draw whatever conclusions you wish to about my demeanor regardless. If you feel that my commenting style is causing you a hardship of having to post an unnecessary then I will point out that all of this is entirely voluntary on both of our parts. I am glad to debate and discuss issues, but understand that I have a particular style and manner for doing so. For a specific link, I have one below.
6) Look here, http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aAfRXx3tlpkA&refer=us
It's actually a pretty fair document, bashing both sides and citing CBO and Bush administration numbers.
Now, let's do some quick math... We had a net change from surplus to deficit between the years 2001 & 2004 of about 800 billion. We know about 200 billion of that is the War in Iraq & Afghanistan. Much of that was spent in the last 2 years. I'll cut that in half for this year, so there's 100 billion. Taking the Bush administrations numbers at their face value, about 312 billion was due to the recession/9/11/etc. According to the Bush numbers, about 280 billion dollars of the current deficit are due to their tax cuts, and the remaining 108 billion dollars are due to new spending. (note, there are of course automatic increases included in that 108 billion) And in case you're wondering, I get these #s by multiplying the percentages the Bush administration estimates by 800 billion.
If you want more, google for it.
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Jim Casaburi, at 3:48 AM
Man, I hate not being able to edit comments. On (what I think is) point 5, it should have read "Educated is of course entirely a subjective term as well"
By
Jim Casaburi, at 4:07 AM
o·pin·ion Audio pronunciation of "opinion" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (-pnyn)
n.
1. A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof: “The world is not run by thought, nor by imagination, but by opinion” (Elizabeth Drew).
2. A judgment based on special knowledge and given by an expert: a medical opinion.
3. A judgment or estimation of the merit of a person or thing: has a low opinion of braggarts.
4. The prevailing view: public opinion.
5. Law. A formal statement by a court or other adjudicative body of the legal reasons and principles for the conclusions of the court.
bias
\Bi"as\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Biased (b[imac]"ast); p. pr. & vb. n. Biasing.] To incline to one side; to give a particular direction to; to influence; to prejudice; to prepossess.
(from dictionary.com)
Again, how in the universe does one have an unbiased opinion? You keep on using that phrase, and I'm pointing out that it's utterly meaningless. It's like asking Saddam Hussein if he's a deadly killer.
You scream that you want me to prove my side, but dude, you HAVE to be more specific. Please pick a specific claim, and I'm glad to provide evidence. I have done that providing evidence for my budgetary claims (which you are now silent on). Does your silence indicate my efforts were wasted? Are you really interested in the facts?
Actually, you mostly answer that with your abandonment of posting here. Though given I have read some content on your site, is exactly why I'm not exactly using that as a model for how to conduct things here. I have no intent of writing a left wing equivilent of "John Kerry thinks he's proving something, by doing all that talking,
I can't wait til a bullet puts him in a wheel chair like Stephen Hawking." (taken from your Conservative Poems blog)
Hopefully you are aware that Steven Hawking is in a wheelchair due to the degenerative effects of Lou Gherig's disease. Whether or not you even can see the ugliness of the rest is not something I am hopefull about. I honestly believed that the left was angrier than the right until recently. Thank you for showing how wrong I was on that. As Jon Stewart put it, it's amazing to see the anger of the enfranchised.
All the best in your pursuits, hopefully you will open your eyes a bit someday.
By
Jim Casaburi, at 10:07 AM
Boy
I go away for the weekend, and look how much I miss out on.
"The Conservative" makes a good point in talking about the people we have liberated. During the convention, McCain (or maybe Guliani, but I am pretty sure it was McCain) made the comment that force used to liberate is different than force used to oppress. In Iraq, we were liberators.
Another point, this one made by Guiliani in an off-camera interview, was that the President had 7 or 8 reasons for going into Iraq, and so if he was wrong on 1 or 2, that doesn't make the whole war wrong.
One of the interesting things I notice is how affected our opinions can be by what news we watch/listen to. Many of the more liberal stations tend to spend little/no time talking about the accomplishments we have made in Iraq and a lot of time talking about the insurgency. More conservative outlets spend less time talking about the insurgency and more time talking about the accomplishments. It is too easy to trust that the news is giving us the whole story.
As a moderate who supports the war and believes it was the right decision, I do think we came there as liberators, and that while the insurgency is much stronger than we anticipated I also believe that most Iraqis to some level value the freedom they now have, and will come to value that freedom more over the next few years as they come to fully realize what Saddam had deprived them of.
One example of this freedom was stated by Don Rumsfeld after a visit there. Before the war, Iraqi's had one news source, the "Bagdad Bob" report. Now, they have 800 seperate newspapers, all covering the news on their own and offering various opinions on events in Iraq.
By
Independent1, at 7:36 PM
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