My fingers are crossed
That being said, our thoughts turn to today's election in Iraq. May it be safe, and may the winners achieve a mandate. A successful election today means more security for both the US and Iraq. As our friend Bull Moose says, this is not a partisan issue.
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9 Comments:
this is not a partisan issue..
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WHAT?Well, it sure to hell was a "partisan issue" during our election.
I thought Bush invading Iraq to overthrow a brutal dictator and replace it with a freely elected democracy was the foundation of you and your fellow partisan's criticism of him.
I thought Bush's decision to invade Iraq, was the central issue in all the partisan attacks against him.
I don't know Gus, but it seems like your trying to take some credit for allowing the people of Iraq to vote, when it only occurred with you kicking and screaming through, and condemning the whole process.
A simple "Bush did the right thing" would seem to be more appropriate.
When your team is down by 6 and has the ball on its own 20-yard line, with one second left on the clock, and the coach calls a draw instead of a hail-mary, as a fan, you're tempted to go "kicking and screaming" right up to the coach and let him have it. You know it's the wrong play. "Hell, how did the team get into this mess in the first place?" you ask yourself. You're a much better team and some would argue you're on the wrong field. You still hope the draw will work, even though you know it's the wrong call at the wrong time. You still hope it will work 'cause you want your team to win.
If things work out in Iraq (and I hope they do, but we've got a long way to go yet) it will be despite W; not because of him.
Credit he gets for coming up with a well-attended election. No credit for a safe and well-participated one.
Bull MooseIn light of this weekend's success, intellectual honesty compels progressives to acknowledge two difficult propositions. First, despite his myriad mistakes, President Bush deserves credit for pressing forward with the elections. Second, despite his enormous contributions to progressivism for which we are all indebted, Senator Kennedy committed a severe error by suggesting a withdrawal of our troops on the eve of the elections.
Gustav agrees, and duly acknowledges.
Do you think the Iraqi people have voted yesterday if Al Gore had won in 2000?
Winning the championship? Prone to hyperbole today, are we Johnny? I think you would agree that one vote does not make a successful nation-build.
I am a Pats fan (in the post-season) -- they are from Massachussets after all. Brady went to UM too, although I hear he's a Republican (*shiver*)
I wonder why this guy was against the war. Because we might lose?-- Then I can see his logic. But, if you're like me then you opposed the war because putting the life of our troops in danger over lies (or at least extremely bad intelligence that no one in the administration bothered to question) about WMD is unacceptable,and because you believe that we ought to go to war only when there's a clear and immediate danger to our nation.
Which Saddam Hussein (bad as he is) wasn't.
We could probably have free elections in Zimbabwe with ease-- overthrowing Mugabe would be a snap.
But we're not, even though Mugabe is a very bad man.
Is Bush just waiting for the right time? Or does he also believe that when bad men lead countries but do not pose a direct threat to us, diplomacy ought to be the first method used to remove that man?
The Republicans lied to the public, put our troops in danger when it wasn't necessary (sending as of today, 1436 of them to their deaths), changed their reasons for the war half a dozen times, prepared abysmally for post-Saddam occupation, and killed THOUSANDS of civillians? That's not to mention wrecking of American prestige.
Is a well-attended vote that could have occurred through a peaceful coup worth it? Is the fact that it came sooner worth all of the above mentioned tragedy?
My answer is no, and that's why I oppose the war, but am happy to see progress -- however large or small.
If you think that the intelligence provided to the president wasn't partisan, then you need to read Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack." He is a respeced journalist - repspected by both democrats and republicans by the way - who had unusual access to the people involved with the planning of the war. After reading that book, I was less angry at President Bush, but far more angry and Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and former CIA Director Tenet. Given unbiased intelligence reporting, it would have been far harder for the President to make the decisions he did and would have led to more honest reasons given to the American public and to better planning for the post invasion situation. If Woodward is correct, and nobody that I am aware of has contradicted him, then Rumsfeld is very guilty of poor war planning as well as post war planning. Read the book - it is very interesting. - Chuck
What we have here is.....failure to communicate.
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In my opinion, Gus is no more likely to ever alter his worldview enough to admit to himself that Bush did the right thing by overthrowing a dictator and replacing him with a freely elected government, than we are likely to see a Palestinian admit that Israel has the right to exist.
The Sunni's are more likely to embrace a Shiite controlled government before Gus and his fellow partisans will ever acknowledge that the best man for the job has won our last two elections.
I am not sure whether in all cases its just simple blind hatred, or embarrassment to admit the faults in our own agendas, but instead of even considering the merits of the overall situation, humans tend to ignore what they don't want to hear, and look for another way to justify continuing their agenda.
This unwillingness to accept the flaws in your arguments is the source of many a civil wars I bet.
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I didn't catch the answer to my question above Gus, do you think the people in Iraq would still be living under a brutal dictator if Al Gore had won in 2000?
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Gus, do you think the people in Iraq would still be living under a brutal dictator if Al Gore had won in 2000?
Probably, yes.
And in an answer to stomper (Republicans get so worked up when we libs talk about GOP lies):
they were all 'lying' to us because that was our intelligence, faulty though it was. the difference was that the republicans the audacity to act on our intelligence.
Actually, they lied to us because they said they had rock-solid intelligence. Remember Colin Powell being paraded in front of the UN to show us all of the "intelligence" the US had? Republicans love to tell us how "everybody" believed the intelligence. I beg to differ. There were a lot of folks -- millions in fact -- questioning it. Even after Powell's masquerade, many (including me-- and most Democrats) were still questioning the basis for war. The administration kept insisting that they had "something" but that it was too sensitive to share with either the public or the inspectors. Now it turns out they knew as little as we did, and if the administration had only scrutinized the intelligence as much as the public had, we wouldn't have gotten into this mess in the first place.
Stomper, if we had spent enough on preparation at the beginning, we wouldn't be spending so much to make up for it now. It's always cheaper to prepare well than to clean up the mess later, so yes, more spending on better preparations would have been a good idea.
And while it was US policy to remove the regime, there was nothing saying it had to be done immediately or militarily. Also, this was not the justification that the administration used. It was all WMD, all the time coming out of the administration in the lead-up to the war.
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