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Zkribbler
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Los Angeles, CA, USA
Feb 1999
time: 21:22
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Kerry did really well the first half hour. He was clear, forceful, focused...presidential. In contrast, Bush was almost cringing; plus, he was stammering, defensive and almost babbling. It looked as if he was really rattled for some reason.
However, as the debate went on, Kerry began to lose focus, and Bush regained his stride.
Still, Kerry over Bush.
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FredKarno
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Obvious that Bush is. What difference will this make? No idea. Will wimmin take note? No idea.
Who has the most hair? Who buffs up his hair-do to impress the most?
This is 'democracy'. Give everyone the vote, and this is what you get.
Don't despair!
You yanks won't beleive this:
Democracy is much more healthy (in your place) than here in airstrip-one. We have a monster that makes Bush and Kerry look like nice normal politicians. The truly horrible thing is that the people here are (generally speaking) utterly shite.
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Max Webster
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Didn't see it. Didn't really care to see it.
A couple of puppets spewing their rhetoric.
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Drachasor
Kerry says Bush promised numerous things would be done about Iraq before going to War:
1. Exhaust all other possibilities
2. Build a large and strong coalition as in the first Iraq War
3. He said he would plan it carefully
He also lied about there being Nuclear Weapons or a Nuclear Program (and it was known well before we went in that this wasn't true).
So, Kerry expects Bush to do all of those things, and Bush doesn't and goes in anyway.
Now we don't have enough troops to go around.
Why? No large and strong Coalition, and no careful planning on how to handle the aftermath. If we had both of those, we easily could have done Afghanistan AND Iraq. We didn't and so we can't. A new president is the only chance we have of changing the level of foreign help in Iraq now. |
quote:
Originally posted by Ned
The DAY the war started, Kerry said his ONLY regret is that Bush did not form a large coalition like his father, but the decision to take out Saddam was correct.
Now, compare Kerry's position then with what Dean said. |
Why do I need to compare what Kerry said to what Dean said? I am talking about how Kerry has been steady.
I would like to see a reference to your above comment about what Kerry said though. Clearly the lack of planning on Bush's part only became clear more than a day after the fighting started. This is a major issue.
I'd also note the following:
"In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days--to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out."
Which is from a speech Kerry gave to the senate on giving Bush the authority to go into Iraq if needed. I am sure he maintained that the inspectors should be given the time the needed on the ground, especially when they were begging for a few more months.
Quite frankly, we rushed into Iraq with far from sufficient preparation, and now we are in an extremely messy situation. This is just plain incompetence on the presidential level.
Unfortunately Kerry didn't indicate just how incompetent and misleading the Bush administration is. If you recall, Bush said that 10 million registered voters were now in Afghanistan, but what wasn't said was that this is well more than the estimated number of eligible voters there. In other words, wide-spread voter fraud is going on. In addition, there are few international inspectors there to make sure ballots are done legally, and Warlords whom the people are deathly afraid of have been put in charge of the ballots in many areas. These are Warlords that threaten the people to vote for them otherwise they will kill or injure. Warlords that now can look at the voting paper the people hand in before it goes into the ballot. Afghanistan is getting worse, not better, but you wouldn't get that impression from what Bush says.
It is a very similar situation in Iraq, where cities are out of U.S. control and in fundamentalist control, where Americans are dying every day, where we don't have enough people on the ground in almost every area to allow U.S. soldiers to walk down the street and befriend citizens, where we were more concerned about oil than infrastructure or cultural institutions, where more than a year and a half after we went in many places don't have electricity or clean water. According to Team Bush though, everything is going great, and the neglect to mention that they opened up a new war front against terrorism there where innocent Iraqis get killed and the only cost to us is American lives and money spent there that could have been spent on increasing security along our borders, securing nuclear material, and going after real terrorists.
-Drachasor
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Pekka
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em seu burro dos pais!
Feb 2002
time: 07:22
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Yes, it applies to what I said I think he meant. You can support and oppose it at the same time. Heck, I think he had a timeline, I do it at the same time!
Like I've said before, I supported the action in Iraq from the beginning. It's my thinking of never opposing a straight up attack. Some of it is juvenile attitude and romantic feelings of attack and war. Some of it is uber testosterone, and some of it is clear thinking. The thinking part was, that there were WMD. That AND the fact that Saddam was still in power and there were lot of political prisoners, torturing and killings by him. The fact, that even now when he was old, his psycho boys would be next in power, and they'd prove their point and power, and it would be worse than Saddam, or at least equal. The fact, that Iraq is the most Western type of country from ME countries (excluding Israel). The fact, that the embargo was hurting a lot of people, yes because of Saddam. Now someone asks what about attacking Iraq and you come and ask me that? Hell, I'd say yes no matter who asks.
I still support the action AND the troops especially. However, I feel very strongly, that the current strategy is not only failing, I feel it's been failing for a long time, and I feel that this policy is not going to change. I don't feel even Kerry would fix it up completely. I would hold my breath for a while if he gets the chance and see what happens, but thsi current effort will not bring the desired results in my opinion. Thus I oppose THIS strategy. I support the troops, I support the action, I do NOT support the current strategy and I believe at the end it might cost more harm than leaving Iraq alone would have, and I feel there needs to be a change in this effort ASAP. It's not enough when Bush says he is determined and all that good stuff. It doesn't show in action.
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
No doubt. But he has also said that 1) I support the war; and 2) I oppose the war; in virtually the same breath. |
Maybe you need to read what I said and the transcripts again:
quote:
Originally said by Kerry
I believe that we have to win this. The president and I have always agreed on that. And from the beginning, I did vote to give the authority, because I thought Saddam Hussein was a threat, and I did accept that intelligence.
But I also laid out a very strict series of things we needed to do in order to proceed from a position of strength. Then the president, in fact, promised them. He went to Cincinnati and he gave a speech in which he said, "We will plan carefully. We will proceed cautiously. We will not make war inevitable. We will go with our allies." |
Kerry is against the *way* Bush went into Iraq. He wasn't and isn't against going into Iraq per se. He has made this very clear. In fact, he has also made clear that it is possible if he had been president that we wouldn't have gone into Iraq because the above procedure he'd go through before going to War might well have worked. To say that this makes him against the War is like saying you believe it would have been fine to send in our troops without weapons or armor--oh wait, I guess you do.
As for the mistakes he has made expressing this sometimes:
quote:
Originally said by Kerry Well, you know, when I talked about the $87 billion, I made a mistake in how I talk about the war. But the president made a mistake in invading Iraq. Which is worse?
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He admits that he makes mistakes sometimes with how he talks about the war, but he does correct himself. Now you are getting into nitty gritty criticism over an ambiguous statement he made that has a clear and consistent explanation.
How you can do this and ignore Bush when he blatantly lies about the situation in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the War on Terror* I don't understand. One is a simple mistake of wording, the other is a deliberate attempt to mislead you about something that is critically important.
-Drachasor
*we don't have 75% of Al Qaeda leaders, we have 75% of the leaders that we knew existed on 9/11. There are a heck of a lot more than that now.
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Edan
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quote:
and we didn't make war inevitable |
Apparently, war was inevitable, since Bush has said, time and again, that he would only go to war as a last resort to prevent Iraq from developing WMDs. He has also said that he would have made the same even if he knew what he knows now. And yet, given that we know now, that Iraq no longer had WMD programs, I can't help but think the war was not the last resort and the only option to ending Iraq's WMD programs.
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Giancarlo Kerry is still the idiot I think he is. He doesn't have another plan. He would of screwed up the situation in Iraq if it was left up to him. He would of sent in troops and then not give them extra funding (note the voting against the $87 billion funding). |
Just because he voted against a bill that was full of a ton of unnecessary expenditures doesn't mean he didn't want our troops prepared. The fact is that body armor and the like was a small component against that bill, and overall the bill was a bad one.
quote:
Originally posted by Giancarlo We did go to our allies.. and we didn't make war inevitable... in fact we were putting it off 13 years. You know what? Kerry is an idiot. Bush isn't exactly smart but you know what will be the deciding factor for me in this election? |
For those 13 years Sadam was not a significant threat, he even wasn't one when we moved in. The Bush administration put so much force on the intelligence agencies to find data against Iraq that the resulting report was extremely biased and poorly thought out. Sadam had no weapons to supply terrorists with and he was wholly contained.
We would have also found this out if we had let the inspectors keep doing their work. Saddam moving trucks (which contained no weapons) around on the inspectors? Use the satellite photos and pressure to get the inspectors to those trucks. The fact is that Bush didn't want a non-war solution on Iraq and we did go early, even thoug the inspectors were begging for more time. Bush jumped the gun, was rude and condecending to our allies, and largely went in without them. The number of non-american troops in Iraq is pitifully small, especially considering the first Gulf War and Afghanistan.
Bush made the war inevitable, and then he didn't even plan out how we were going to handle the aftermath. We had vague notions of getting the Iraqi military to help police the area afterwards, and that was basically it (we had far less troops than the pentagon says we need for policing action--they have hard numbers on this!) What's the first thing we do after we go in? Disband said military we supposedly were going to have help us; so they go home like we tell them too, compounding the disaster of bad decisions on further bad decisions.
Anyone who thinks Team Bush is half-way competent in military matters doesn't understand what has been going on. They are too focused on their ideology of "low expense wars with few troops" to even be able to admit when it isn't working. That's the main flaw of the Bush administration, they can't even admit their mistakes, and if they don't admit them, they won't correct them.
-Drachasor
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Giancarlo
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Los Angeles
Apr 2000
time: 02:22
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quote:
Originally posted by Drachasor
Just because he voted against a bill that was full of a ton of unnecessary expenditures doesn't mean he didn't want our troops prepared. The fact is that body armor and the like was a small component against that bill, and overall the bill was a bad one. |
This is bloated rhetoric that really doesn't mean much. He voted against a bill that was meant to give our troops more equipment and the bill was very good. Yet again, you are very wrong on this subject.
quote:
For those 13 years Sadam was not a significant threat, he even wasn't one when we moved in. The Bush administration put so much force on the intelligence agencies to find data against Iraq that the resulting report was extremely biased and poorly thought out. Sadam had no weapons to supply terrorists with and he was wholly contained. |
WRONG AGAIN. Saddam was very much a threat. It was known that he was planning terrorist attacks against the United States, according to Russian intelligence sources. Saddam was always a threat when he held power. The Bush adminstration didn't put force on the intelligence agencies (again you made another deluded statement based on nothing but lies). Saddam had weapons to supply terrorists, in fact plenty of them. He was not contained because he was still murdering his people.
quote:
We would have also found this out if we had let the inspectors keep doing their work. Saddam moving trucks (which contained no weapons) around on the inspectors? Use the satellite photos and pressure to get the inspectors to those trucks. The fact is that Bush didn't want a non-war solution on Iraq and we did go early, even thoug the inspectors were begging for more time. Bush jumped the gun, was rude and condecending to our allies, and largely went in without them. The number of non-american troops in Iraq is pitifully small, especially considering the first Gulf War and Afghanistan. |
Nope. If we let the inspectors continue their work, Saddam would continue taking them on cat and mouse games. You are wrong again. Bush wanted a non-war solution. It was you peaceniks who didn't realize that this showdown was eventually going to happen. The inspectors knew they were being fooled with. Bush was not rude to our allies, because we had the biggest coalition go into Iraq with us. The number of non-american trops in Iraq is pitifully small? THERE YOU GO AGAIN INSULTING OUR ALLIES. The number of non-american troops is constrained by the fact that America is the only nation that can project significant portions of its military in the world.
quote:
Bush made the war inevitable, and then he didn't even plan out how we were going to handle the aftermath. We had vague notions of getting the Iraqi military to help police the area afterwards, and that was basically it (we had far less troops than the pentagon says we need for policing action--they have hard numbers on this!) What's the first thing we do after we go in? Disband said military we supposedly were going to have help us; so they go home like we tell them too, compounding the disaster of bad decisions on further bad decisions. |
This is of course inflated left wing rhetoric that is not looking at the facts. We very much had a plan. If not, then why is their an interim government in Iraq? We practically predicted there was going to be upheaval in Iraq after the war. We knew that. And the amount of troops in Iraq is adequate. Bush had a plan and is carrying it out. Rather John Kerry is the one without a plan. You on the other side don't ever propose a plan. Your plan is to pull out and cause the death of millions. But I guess a civil war is something you want. The disbanding of the Iraqi military was a mistake and I will grant you that.
quote:
Anyone who thinks Team Bush is half-way competent in military matters doesn't understand what has been going on. They are too focused on their ideology of "low expense wars with few troops" to even be able to admit when it isn't working. That's the main flaw of the Bush administration, they can't even admit their mistakes, and if they don't admit them, they won't correct them.
-Drachasor |
Nope.
You don't understand what you are doing. The Bush team is very competent in the conducting of affairs. You again are wrong. This war has cost very few casualities (over 1,000 KIA is an inaccurate state, as most of those were killed in accidents and accidents happen in war). The main flaw of the opposition here is in the inability to rationalize and propose a different plan. You are wrong and you know it. So is John Kerry. You don't even present an alternative plan.
Edit: Oops didn't finish the response.. wait a few minutes for a complete reply.
Last edited by Giancarlo on 03-10-2004 at 00:23
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Edan
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quote:
Originally posted by Giancarlo
He had intentions of building WMDs... [/qb] |
Intentions don't mean **** if he doesn't carry them out.
quote:
and besides all of this.. would you want the now dead Udai Hussein running Iraq? I wouldn't. |
If the option would be between
1. What we have now
and
2. Udai Hussein running Iraq without WMDs and being better situated to deal with an Iranian nuclear threat
I might. If I was soley concerned about trying to fix humanitarian problems, rather than threats against us, I'd start with the Sudan.
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02-10-2004 09:35
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