Some actual, you know, stuff from Iraq: lefties please ignore

Discussion in 'Bill Archer's Guestbook' started by Bill Archer, Jul 30, 2007.

  1. SCBozeman

    SCBozeman Member

    Jun 3, 2001
    St. Louis
    You're right. But then I naively thought we were engaged in a conversation. I see now that I was incorrect.
     
  2. Claymore

    Claymore Member

    Jul 9, 2000
    Montgomery Vlg, MD
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    So what's the problem with what he said, other than the fact that it doesn't fit the whole "turning the corner - again" theme? The guy is calling it like he sees it.
     
  3. Claymore

    Claymore Member

    Jul 9, 2000
    Montgomery Vlg, MD
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    al Maliki certainly isn't a fan, is he? Then again, he's only the elected head of the Iraqi gov't.
     
  4. west ham sandwich

    Feb 26, 2007
    C-bus
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I suppose so, if that's what he so desires. He's free to do it. Although It would depend. I mean I think suicide is technically illegal in the U.S. so it may be there as well. We're getting into a whole bunch of grey areas.










    *I realize that attampt at humor was largely tasteless but it could not be helped*
     
  5. Archtype

    Archtype New Member

    Aug 5, 2006
    Please don't weigh anyone down with "facts" and "reports" from recently retired Army generals, our intelligence community, or even conservatives who don't drink the same flavored kool-aid. Not fair.
     
  6. CUS

    CUS New Member

    Apr 20, 2000
    Old.

    The newest one there called for Rumsfield to leave--and he did. Since then, there HAS been a refocus on AQI in Iraq, and for now things seem to be changing.

    You were saying?
     
  7. Microwave

    Microwave New Member

    Sep 22, 1999
    One of the soccer players thanked America after the game.....and the guy you quoted, the one you said lives in Iraq - doesn't live in iraq at all and hasn't for a few years.
     
  8. Microwave

    Microwave New Member

    Sep 22, 1999
    Wow, you don't even read your own links do you?

    Seriously, you're very stupid. Almost as stupid as Bojendyk is honest or Claymore is ugly.
     
  9. Buddha

    Buddha New Member

    Jun 6, 2005
    Chicago
    I was responding to this:

    Who on the left doesn't know about a reporter embedded with a group of soldiers on patrol? Ok, that's great. Do you think that has some sort of larger meaning?

    I was just wondering if there was something deeper you were talking about; some other theme that you were getting at that I wasn't seeing.
     
  10. Buddha

    Buddha New Member

    Jun 6, 2005
    Chicago
    The NIE report doesn't say that our efforts in Iraq have constrained the ability of Al-Qaeda to attack us. It's talking about increasing counterterrorism efforts at home and increased global cooperation among security forces. If anything, it states that the Iraq situation allows Al-Qaeda to recruit more persons who would attack the United States.

    I don't see how that particular NIE assessment is an endorsement for the effectiveness of the Iraq war in reducing terrorism. If anything, our heightened sense of awareness of the problem of terrorism and the resulting coordination between law enforcement agencies and governments around the globe have increased our ability to reduce terrorist attacks.

    I doubt the Iraq war has much to do with it. IIRC, the goal - one of the goals - of the Iraq war was to reduce terrorism by spreading freedom and democracy in the middle east. Something that has not happened, but, if it were to happen, would take decades, not years.
     
  11. Ronaldo's Idol

    Jun 13, 2004
    The fact of the matter is that no one knows what is the best course of action for the US from here forward, period. If we pull out of Iraq now, or 6 months from now, or 2 years from now or 5 or 10...we just plain do not know what is going to happen there. The complexity of the current social and political climate there, especially when you consider Iran and everybody else in the region with an interest in it, is extreme. We could pull out, civil war ensues, Iran jumps in overtly or covertly, controls some of the oil supply and the US' nightmare continues. Or if we pull out the Iraq government could actually govern, sectarian violence could diffuse, and all will be well. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but any argument anybody makes regardless of what supposed "intelligence" they cite or are familiar with, is frankly talking out of their ass and forming premature opinions.

    Only history will judge what the best move for the US would have been. Right now, the issue is highly charged, politicized etc. and the fact is some decision needs to be made: stay or leave. I have no idea which is best, and neither do any of you.
     
  12. tedski

    tedski Member

    Sep 10, 2000
    Tucson, Baja Arizona
    Club:
    Jagiellonia Bialystok SSA
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Ya know, your rhetoric about "hate mongers" would be easier to swallow if you weren't comparing people to Leni Riefenstahl in your signature.

    Gawd, didn't realize that "new format" meant this blog is now an arm of Free Republic.
     
  13. Bob Morocco

    Bob Morocco Member+

    Aug 11, 2003
    Billings, MT
    I listened to a This American Life this weekend that focused on the trip of an American entrepreneur who went to Iraq and Jordan because he had helped a Sunni nationalist from parliament get meetings with congressmen in DC. Anyway while this guy isn't really that important from an American perspective the Sunni's took him seriously and he got to meet one of the top Sunni clerics and many members of parliament tied to the Sunni's and the insurgency and basically their position is that they don't believe that the US will ever leave Germany and Japa... I mean Iraq and therefore they have to keep fighting the occupation but if the US announced a timetable for withdrawl they would call a ceasefire. Which made me think, "Why don't we create a timetable for withdrawl based on tangible measurable events like say the murder rate dropping, bombings almost completely stopping, passing of the oil revenue sharing law?" I mean the blame game is all fun pu$$ies but can't we all just debate this failure/massive mistake, history will decide between the two, of American foreign policy in a semi-constructive manner without throwing things in people's faces or ad hominem attacks? (ITN is obviously excluded from this plea)
     
  14. Karl K

    Karl K Member

    Oct 25, 1999
    Suburban Chicago
    Well, here's another perspective, from The New York Times' John Burns, one of the more respected war correspondents around.

    http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/Transcript_Page.aspx?ContentGuid=5bdb3520-d829-4fdb-a2bc-6611d80faba4
     
  15. Karl K

    Karl K Member

    Oct 25, 1999
    Suburban Chicago
    Right...decison making under uncertainty.

    But there is one set of facts right now, one thing that is certain...violence is down. Al Qaeda in Iraq is on the run.

    Things are better. They are hardly solved, but they are better. The reports of this are coming in from various sources...it can't be denied any more.

    Unless Harry Reid wants to come out and say The War Is Lost. Whaddya think the odds of that happening are?

    So, what next? Leave and potentially allow them to regress? Stay and try to continue to make the security situation better so that poltical reconciliation has a chance? Not a certainty, but a chance?

    I
     
  16. um_chili

    um_chili Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    Losanjealous
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Wow. Just... wow. I usually steer well clear of political discussions in this kind of forum, but I can't let this one go. As a registered independent, I've got no dog in this fight from the perspective of a particular political party. But this thread seems to me to epitomize what's so tragically wrong with political dialogue in America.

    Wait, is this even a dialogue? It seemed to start off with the exquisite irony of a hard-core conservative throwing out rhetorical hand grenades about leftists being "hatemongers" and "fruitcakes" while also comparing his political opponents to Nazi propagandists in his sig. The rest of the discussion has much of the same, with right and left alike caricaturing the other side as disingenuous distortionists (while, also ironically, the writers invariably characterize their own political persuasion as the only one that has a monopoly on the truth--it's like Orwell except that we have two megalomaniacal political parties as opposed to just the one).

    So this is a dialogue in the limited sense that a third-grade name-calling contest is a dialogue. Just instead of "stupid face" and "doodoo head" people are substituting in marginally more mature sounding phrases like "leftist America-hating stooge" and "right-wing hatemongering fascist". Nicely done, people.

    Why even write this post, you might ask? Because I'm pissed off at the tone of political dialogue in this nation and the talk-show hosts, politicians, and men and women on the street who bring it down to this level. It's gotten to the point where most of the really smart people I know avoid political discussions, period, because the tone is so noxious and the content so diminished.

    These are all incredibly hard issues, and loudly repeating politicized catch-phrases (e.g., "Stay the course" or "Bring the troops home") are utterly useless ways to address them. This thread (both in its inception and many--though not all--of in the resulting posts) epitomizes the kind of shortsighted, counterproductive juvenilia that passes for political discussion in our country today. We're all Americans at an enormously important time in our history and we'd all do well to have at least a modicum of civility; to band together against threats from outside rather than tear ourselves apart from within. If the effect of 9/11 is to make us a country divided by our political inclinations rather than one effectively focused on counterterrorism, then al-Qaeda's strategy looks to have been, tragically for America, quite effective.
     
  17. Eric B

    Eric B Member

    Feb 21, 2000
    the LBC
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Well, it's obviously the leftist America-hating stooges fault...
     
  18. Microwave

    Microwave New Member

    Sep 22, 1999


    I agree with Eric B, it's all the leftist ********** assclowns who are doing the juvenile name calling. And by the way, ******** YOU
     
  19. um_chili

    um_chili Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    Losanjealous
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...my point. Beautifully f'in illustrated.
     
  20. Microwave

    Microwave New Member

    Sep 22, 1999
    hey buddy, why the schlong face?
     
  21. west ham sandwich

    Feb 26, 2007
    C-bus
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Pretty sure they were both half-joking.
     
  22. CUS

    CUS New Member

    Apr 20, 2000
    That's just Ted being Ted. On good days he's an ass.

    Looks like you caught him in a good mood. Hey Ted. Didja get laid last night?
     
  23. Microwave

    Microwave New Member

    Sep 22, 1999
    I think he's mad at me for the other half though. :D
     
  24. Microwave

    Microwave New Member

    Sep 22, 1999
    Yeah, Um Chili's mom was in town. :cool:
     
  25. um_chili

    um_chili Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    Losanjealous
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    How could I be mad at the one who so deftly illustrates that my post is exactly right? If anything, I owe you some +rep for the assist!
     

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