George W. Bush Is On My Last Nerve
Did this guy ever meet a dollar he didn't spend? Now, I see this. He may have very good reasons to tap into the petroleum reserves. But it just seems like he is on a mission to burn through every last bit of resources we have. I voted for him twice. He was better than the other guy, in both cases. (Don't ask me how sad that makes me.) But he's just gone crazy.
STOP SPENDING ALL THE MONEY. CUT SOMETHING.
posted by Kat Coble @ 10:34 AM
19 comments
19 Comments:
Do you still think he is better than the other candidate would have been (hypothetically of course)?
Yes, I do. And that makes me very angry. I don't know why we can't be given better choices.
I disagree, Bush has no empathy and is not a great leader. I voted Libertarian. Would have been much better president.
We have better choices in the beginning of the presidential campaign, but the American people are not bright enough to select those and they get weeded out.
I think 2004 was probably my last time to not vote Libertarian. I am very much for the war in Iraq (although I personally think we can be done now....) and for that reason I tipped my hand for Bush, even though I'm finding myself more in line with the Libertarians as time rolls on.
This summer and the runaway spending spree has been the last straw for me.
How can you be for a war where we have killed 180,000 civilians and no weapons of mass destruction were found and no links to terrorism?
Because I am completely stupid and had never before heard any of the facts that you just brought up right now.
I don't ever read anything, don't listen to the news and just blindly do whatever anyone tells me...without any thought to the consequences.
great response.
Wow...take a chill pill. This is just a debate/conversation, if I thought you were stupid I would not be blogging to you. I am just trying to get a different perspective than mine. I change my mind on issues all the time based on others rational input. Just looking for your input on this issue.
cutting / sarcastic remarks means no rational input to the discussion...means of trying to detract from the question.
Anwser the question. Why are you for the war?
Katherine - don't chill too much..your edge (even though I'm on an edge a bit to the left of yours) is part of what makes you so interesting.
I think a better question to you, re war in Iraq, is: Now that you have seen that the post-war is not exactly what was expected, and that we may be heading for an Iraqi civil war, have you changed your mind on the war issue?
Personally, I agree that we can't just pack up and leave quickly, but I'm afraid we are in a quagmire that we shouldn't have be in in the first place.
Sorry.
I have had this debate from one end of the blogosphere to the other. Usually when the question is phrased like that it raises my hackles, because I infer that the the asking party hasn't considered that I may have arrived at my opinion after long hours of research and many years of paying very close attention to the world situation.
War, and the reasons for going to war are not as simplistic as many people seem to assume. There has long been this WMD argument flying around the free world. Best I can tell, people thought we were going to charge in to Iraq, dive down a few bunkers and come up with a dozen suitcase nukes--end of story. Whee! War is Justified! We can all go home now!
I personally think that's a belief fueled by a culture which is informed by single-goal-oriented video games and movies. I also think it's an unfortunate oversimplification of why we are at war and what we hoped to accomplish.
Here's how I see it. And I'll warn you in advance. You can disagree and I'm fine with that. But if you start flipping out and saying that I'm not reading/paying attention/whathaveyou, I'm stopping the conversation.
Basically, Iraq is a strategically important country. It's very much the hub of the middle east, and conrolling that territory is essential for any number of reasons. I do believe that while it may or may not have had direct ties to 9/11, it is the main area one must cross to get from point A to point B in that region. It seperates Saudi Arabia and Iran physically. If a sympathetic government were installed there, it would be much more difficult for terrorists to garner subsidies and have safe conduct throught the Islamosphere. Saddam knew how strategically important the country was, and ruled it with a tyrannical hand. He himself DID use WMDs (these are not only Nukes but biologicals) numerous times against his own citizenry. So we know that he had them at one time and had the capability of developing more. Many countries (including France) appear to have been paying Saddam for oil under the table, in direct contravention of the UN Sanctions that were supposed to peaceably resolve the situation. Given that fact, we know that he had the funding to develop more weapons. Whether or not we have immediate knowledge of these weapons' existance upon our invasion doesn't concern me. It's like knowing that a serial killer has a gun. He may not have the bullets RIGHT NOW but he's got a gun and a charge card and lives next to the gun store. Let's go in there, arrest him for the 16 coeds he's already killed and take away his gun. Does he really need to have it loaded and pointed at the head of Suzy Creamcheese before we take him to prison?
Part A of my response, since you are so eager.
Usually when the question is phrased like that it raises my hackles, because I infer that the the asking party hasn't considered that I may have arrived at my opinion after long hours of research and many years of paying very close attention to the world situation.
I am new to blogging. I was not trying to infer that...sorry.
Part B:
I also happen to believe that it is highly likely that WMDs were found but for national security reasons the specifics remain classified. I think the government would be much happier with us all pouting in the streets about "ooh there were no WMDs why'd we go?!?" as we remain in blissfull ignorance. The larger war on terror would seem to dictate that any WMDs uncovered in Iraq would link back to further intelligence on deep background. Say, for instance, that they uncovered a biological weapon using a viral load stolen from a lab in France. While it would score big politcal points (maybe) on the streets of Des Moines to say "Hey! We found an Ebola Bomb at Hussein's Place!" it would not only cause a major panic, it would also shortcut the investigation into who the inside guy is at Le Laboratorie De Mal de Paris. We'd lose the chance to arrest Dr. McGermStealer before s/he took the crud and sold it to Kim Jong Il or a Saudi terrorist cell.
So, anyway, I don't buy that there were no WMDs. Same way I don't buy that Oswald acted alone.
That aside, I think that Saddam was a jerk and treated his own people like crap and needed to be deposed because he was a homicidal killing machine. That alone is good enough reason. Even though I don't think it's the only reason.
Also, you are incorrect in saying that Iraq had "no links to terrorism." They may not have had a direct causal relationship to 9/11, but there is little doubt that Uncle Saddam has been giving to the local Boy Scouts of Islamofacism as part of his governmental tithe. $50,000 to this camp, a bunch of airline tickets to those thugs and $14,000 reward to the family of that bomber may not be the big ringing indictment some had hoped for, but it is STILL a link to terrorism.
Basically, Iraq is a strategically important country.
Can we invade any SIC? So is Saudi Arabi, Iran... We do not invade countries that are hostile like Korea, China, etc, because we can not win, so we take on ones we can win...why...daddy bush did not complete the job. you think it is not that simple. it is.
John--
I want us out of Iraq. Not because I think the war was bad, and certainly not because I'm a big fan of Cindy Sheehan's increasingly strident rhetoric. I just think we need to step back and remove the militaristic element from the reconstruction.
Civil war in Iraq is Iraq's business at this point. I hate to sound callous, but there it is. We strove to set up a democracy in order to maintain the strategic ground of the middle east. While I think it's great if corporations want to be in there for the restructuring, I think we've got to conserve our military resources. They've got to come home, in case they're needed elsewhere. So, when I say "leave Iraq", I mean the military.
Can we invade any SIC?
Did you read the rest?
Part A
Part B
GREAT response, Katherine!
This sort of reminds me of 1966, when I downed a pitcher of Kool Aid and said: "Oh, yeah! The Domino Theory! Makes sense to me."
But at least Katherine appears to have thought about it. Wrongly, IMO, but...most of the Bush voters I knew in Twangville this last time around simply said: "He got us into this mess, we have to trust him to get us out."
God All Mighty.
Where I'm coming from: ...a sixty year old meat and potatoes feminist liberal. Masters degree in history. Former feminist magazine publisher. Spent 1969 and '70 on the East German border with my just-back-from Vietnam then-husband, a linguist/spy attached to the National Security Agency.
Trust me on this one: very few military actions have been taken for noble causes. A hell of a lot of them boil down to testing weapons. To paraphrase Have Gun, Will Travel's Paladin, "Makes a woman watchful. And a little lonely."
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