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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elroy who wrote (226698)	3/28/2005 3:49:13 AM
From: Elroy	Respond to of 1576972

This guy is a loon! Sex is good, and the population should be having more of it! Bush pushes questionable abstinence programs msnbc.msn.com In the past five years, President George W. Bush has more than doubled funding for such programs, which teach that abstinence from sexual activity until marriage is the only sure way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other health problems. Yet critics say there is no evidence these programs have any effect on reducing teen-age sexual activity and often offer misleading or outrightly false information about reproductive health that increases the risks of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Hmmm....maybe its a good program accidentally! And they say that numerous studies of abstinence programs have failed to find any measurable impact. In one of the latest, conducted by researchers in Bush’s home state of Texas and released last month, teen-agers in 29 high schools became increasingly sexually active after taking such courses, mirroring overall state trends.

To: Elroy who wrote (226698)	3/28/2005 7:14:33 AM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576972

"Common sense would say the US is not going to invade another country and then have zero presence in that country after 2 months" True. But they worked very hard at giving the impression that the time would be very short. When someone would raise the possibility that it would take hundreds of thousands of troops years or decades to stabilize the country, they were shouted down as being totally unrealistic. In fact one high ranking officer was pressured to resign after bringing the subject up. Yet here we are, starting year 3 with ~140k troops in country and little prospect of a significant draw down any time soon. Something that may not be apparent to someone who isn't resident in this country is that the current Administration is very adept at fostering certain impressions while giving themselves plausible deniability if those impressions are questioned, not like our press would actually go to such extreme efforts. So, in this case, they talked about the brevity of the conflict, painted the picture of grateful Iraqis showering the troops with rose petals, denounced anyone who mentioned that there might be at least some Iraqis who wouldn't be pleased at being invaded, talked brightly about how Iraq would fund their own reconstruction with the oil revenues, talked about how the draw down would start within weeks of final combat, etc., etc. certainly gave the impression that we would only have a significant number of troops in country for only a few months, maybe a year. Now true, they realized that reality was going to be different. IIRC, the original plan was to draw down to about 80k troops by the end of 2003. They had actually started the draw down, despite the all the signs of instability, and had to reverse those plans. They clearly were trying to ignore the instability in Iraq and for what ever reason didn't factor in the likelihood of the instability fueling the insurgency...

To: Elroy who wrote (226698)	3/28/2005 1:05:50 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1576972

That's a ridiculous conclusion to reach. Well I just read the quotes and that was the conclusion I reached. It doesn't seem so ridiculous to me. Common sense would say the US is not going to invade another country and then have zero presence in that country after 2 months. I think my conclusion is the common sense conclusion. Your conclusion is perhaps the partisan (surprise, surprise) conclusion? Yes, you are saint among men. Why would I even question your conclusions? Is this what you do in your job......act as a mediator pointing out when each side is out of line? Those quotes were said when the American public did not want to invade Iraq. They were intended to allay concerns that the war would be long one. There was never any talk about a potential insurgency. When it was brought up by the media, it was ignored by the Bushies. In my opinion the war in Iraq ended about 4-6 weeks after the invasion began, once the coalition stopped fighting the Iraqi army. Well, that's where we differ........a war doesn't have to be just about shock and awe. I consider the insurgent fighting that goes on today part of the war. I think our American soldiers would agree with me. When you are not getting shot at, its really easy to say this isn't a war. Read into them.......that was what people were intended to do. I'm pretty sure the common administration response to the "how long will the US be in Iraq?" question has been "as long as it takes, and not a day longer". It was not 4 weeks! Well, I showed you what they told us. You are entitled to believe what you want. ted