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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Freedom Fighter who wrote (109162)	9/16/2007 7:01:27 PM
From: Freedom Fighter	Respond to of 132070

KT, Don't think of me as a partisan with a strong opinion on the war. I don't think I have the information required to make policy or measure recent results. Think of me as an impartial observer of the players on both sides with strong opinions on their integrity, honesty, etc.... as opposed to the merits of their views. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Originally I was 50-50 on this war. I thought the argument for it was reasonable enough to consider without being clear cut, but I had already read enough about the neoconmen running policy to know they couldn't be trusted (and I was right). I think those on the right that "legitimately" believed the war was justified in the beginning still believe that and will grasp at anything and everything they can to continue the effort, including the recent testimony from the general. They will also spin anything they can. I think those on the left that originally voted for the war because Bush was so popular and the nation was more unified changed as soon as it was in their best interests to do so politically. I think now that they've gone to other side, they can no longer be trusted to be honest about any possible successes over there because it will be too costly politically to say they were wrong twice. My own view is that winning or losing in the short term doesn't tell you anything about whether the effort was correct or not to begin with or whether you should continue it if you are losing. It only tells you how well you are executing now. We may have executed poorly on a war effort that we were mislead into to begin with, but I am still rooting like crazy for the surge and political efforts to work. I want a stable situation to come out of this. IMO, most of the left doesn't quite get a lot of this. That's partly why they so willingly switched views and why I have so little respect for most of them. Finally, I don't equate success with what is going on in the present. I equate it with what will be going on 10-20 years from now and the ultimate costs to the U.S. and people of Iraq if this continues.

To: Freedom Fighter who wrote (109162)	9/17/2007 9:57:30 AM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Wayne, Those on the left who originally voted to authorized Bush to use war as a threat were lied to by those on the right. If I thought voting no would mean a mushroom cloud over New York City, I would have voted for authorizing legislation, too. All of them have lying on the right as a legitimate excuse except for Hillary Clinton. Her husband had access to the real intelligence product and she should have known better. If you are Edwards or Dobbs, you are counting on the President not to be cherry picking the intelligence product. BTW, I consider Afghanistan a completely different case. The war there was justified, though Bush still made a dog's breakfast out of it. So, I don't blame the left for voting with Bush when they still believed him. But, not taking action after it's been obvious for years that he's lying, that's a different subject. The left is definitely part of the problem if they voted with him on continuing our losing strategy, on torture or on overturning much of The Bill of Rights. There is a surge. It has been a failure in the capital and a temporary success in one province where the success was mostly directed by one sheikh. Who has since been murdered. The political effort is totally non-existent. When the guy who started the war does not even notify or call on his puppet President when he visits the country, well, Houston, you've got a political problem. How is this Iraqi President supposed to rally support internally when the Prez shows him up to be the empty suit he is? BTW, one part of the disaster when we withdraw will be the one stable part of the country, Kurdistan, being steam-rolled by the Turks. They are not going to allow a semi-autonomous Kurdish state on their borders. Not only does the left get it, Dumbya's daddy got it. That's why he didn't get rid of Saddam. He destroyed his real power and made him tow the line, militarily, but he realized there was no way out out of the country (that we liked) without a strong man in place.