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

To: tejek who wrote (303511)	9/18/2006 5:17:18 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 1572630

You voted for the person who started the war twice. Does that not make you responsible? The first time I had no idea the war would happen. The 2nd time it had already started. Once the war started I supported fighting it rather than pulling out, but my vote against Kerry was not primarily because of that. There was no candidate at the time who was saying "end the war now". (Not that I would have voted for such a policy had it been offered) I very strongly believe that politicians should not be allowed to start wars unless they are prepared to make some personal sacrifice.......a family member who fights in the war or they perform some special service that supports the war effort. The family member doesn't belong to the politician. Or do you support making adult children of politicians in to slaves of their parents? As for the politician themselves, what would you do, give Bush an M-16 and put him on the front line? You'd probably say yes because you hate Bush and would like to see him killed, but it wouldn't be a contribution to the war effort. Even if he was treated by both sides like any other private (and thus wasn't the special target of the enemy, and didn't receive massive protection from our side), he isn't exactly prime soldiering material at 60 years old. I get empathy from reading about wars; from seeing video clips of the personal losses that people experience; from seeing the devastation and destruction. None of that adds up to "no empathy", whether Bush has empathy or not is in his own mind. That's right. If a war is not defensive, then the leaders who vote to have such a war must make a personal commitment to the war as defined above. That's ridiculous for multiple reasons. Even if Bush could contribute by carrying an M-16, or if the twins were his slaves to dispose of as he sees fit. Considering that neither of those things are true just compounds the idiocy of the idea. Tim, whenever the issue of the war has come up, you have said that the war is not lost yet and we must persist. In other words, you defend this war and its perpetuation. You have been a strong advocate of this war and continue to be. To suggest otherwise at this point is to be disingenuous. I defend continuing it. I also defend its start against certain attacks that I think are wrong. I also have said (and still agree) that many claims about how the war is lost or that things are truly atrocious in Iraq to an extent that is unusual even for an active war, are false. None of those things mean that I think everything is just ok in Iraq. Clearly everything is not just ok, and I haven't said or thought that it is. I have never defended Kerry in the way you have defend this war. The issue wasn't how much you defended Kerry. In fact I said I don't know exactly how much you supported him. The point is that preferring Kerry to Bush doesn't mean that you think that Kerry is great. Similarly supporting continuing the military effort in Iraq doesn't mean you think everything is just great in Iraq, or even that "everything is ok".