I’m not saying it was all the Republicans’ fault- the Democrats voted for the war too.
Actuall NONE did.
The AUMF gave the president the authority to carry a “big stick”. While they should have known Bush was lying when he said war was a last resort—they certainly did not vote “for war”.
Still it’s enraging to think some were dumb enough to believe the president.
Bullshit. The US has not declared war since WW2.
Both sides knew exactly what they were voting for. Bush made it very clear it was going to be a war if Saddam did not cave in.
Clear as in last resort?
is the AUMF a vote for war?
yes or no? be honest…
You cannot possibly be this stupid so I must conclude that you have no desire to discuss this issue in a serious manner.
just yes or no plus post the context of the vote with what bush said pre-vote. Then I’ll accept your humble apology.[/quote]
You really arte a fool. I will waste no time with you.
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Only a fool would think that someone wouldn’t say anything and make anything up in order to stop the torture…[/quote]
The problem with using this as a rebuttal is that it is an argument that torture works perfectly if the recipient possesses the information you want to extract.
[quote]semper_fi wrote:
And unfortunately in less than a year I’m going to be watching these kids my age killing each other and occasionally attacking us and we’d defend ourselves onl get fucked by the press for doing our job.
[/quote]
When has the press said anything negative about the soldiers?
The MSM has not said one negative word about the soldiers.
Our soldiers have done a tremendous job in the face of non stop adversity.
The press does have a problem with the civilian leadership that has put the soldiers in harms way but to equate disagreement with civilian leadership to getting ‘fucked’ by the press does not make any sense.
The civilian leadership would like to equate disagreeing with them to ‘fucking’ the troops but that is total and utter BS and you really should know better.
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Only a fool would think that someone wouldn’t say anything and make anything up in order to stop the torture…
The problem with using this as a rebuttal is that it is an argument that torture works perfectly if the recipient possesses the information you want to extract.
[/quote]
Listen, I don’t want to come off like I think I’m coming off.
I absolutely don’t think that we should just ask said captured terrorist/insurgent a question, and if he refuses to answer it, shrug and walk away.
I understand all too well that violence does solve things, and sometimes people have to be strong armed. Beating the cocksucker with a phone book or using some other pyschological methods on him is not torture in my book.
Beating him every other day for a month or a year, keeping them in internment camps for five or six- yea, that is torture. At that point, you’re not going to get anything more out of him than you would have when you beat the shit out of him the first time.
It is a confusing, very fine yet very wavy line between interrogation and torture.
If I’m a captured American soldier, I’m going to expect to get the shit kicked out of me a couple times. I’m not going to expect to be kept in a concentration camp and get knocked around everyday for two years.
I think honestly it gets to the point where they actually wouldn’t say anything of use after that long, simply to spite us out of hatred.
The GOP is going to have a tough time explaining the ‘true’ meaning of the NIE.
The NIE tells me we have not been very successful in Iraq but it does not prove that we will get attacked more in the US.
I am not so sure that the GOP will be able to easily explain away the somewhat negative aspects of the NIE.
The NIE is irrelevant to me.
I think we should pull out of Iraq and nuke the entire country as it would be cheaper and we would not have to waste our troops on a country that does not give a shit about us.
"WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 ? A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.
[/quote]
Not sure this is really considered news as it is commom sense and was pretty much predicted before anything originally went down in Iraq.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Even though Clinton was “obessesed” with bin Laden Bush has done far more than any other president in fighting radical Islamic terror.
[/quote]
Dude! This is all he has done and very poorly.
Name one other initiative during the Bush tenure that isn’t related to “terror”. I can think of two that went before 9/11: “No Child Left Behind” – what a joke!! And his “Faith Based Initiative”. Oh yeah, he also vetoed one bill and speaks out against stem-cell research.
Apparently he doesn’t give a rip about this country’s actual problems. I understand people are scared to death of “terrorism” but only becasue it’s this Administration’s only talking point. We should be given the opportunity to be scared about social security, health care, and the environment too!!
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Key conclusions – lots of weasel words (e.g. could, may, etc.) but that’s what you get from bureaucrats.
[/quote]
In my line of work we call that being cautious with regard to uncertainty.
How can anyone be certain of the consequences of any actions based on what we think we know about certain situations. Everything is is based on probablity which requires statistical interpretation and thus is not fully knowable–i.e., it requires us to consider error.
Bureaucrats did not invent the language of uncertainty.
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Only a fool would think that someone wouldn’t say anything and make anything up in order to stop the torture…
The problem with using this as a rebuttal is that it is an argument that torture works perfectly if the recipient possesses the information you want to extract.
[/quote]
Well assuming they don’t just make stuff up and keep what they really know secret. Which is what they do. See Osama’s driver. It remains the most unreliable way to get intel, with the gravest consequences longterm…Probably why everybody is against it.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
You are of the belief that we can just quit, turn tail, and run back home with nary a repuercussion.
What reality are you and the other quitters living in?
You can’t hit reset and start over. Blaming Bush won’t save a single life in Iraq.
[/quote]
Divide the country that already has a constitutional plan for division (that we helped write) recognize reality, pull out of the places that we have no intention of fixing(no troops are coming right?) and redeploy into kurdistan to keep tabs on al qaeda/sunni’s.
your plan: stay the course. Which isn’t working.
Take your balls out of your purse and just recognize the president has absolutely no intention to fix the current mess.
simpler: Rainjack is Bush going to increase the troop footprint 3x? Just yes or no.
I absolutely don’t think that we should just ask said captured terrorist/insurgent a question, and if he refuses to answer it, shrug and walk away.
…
On this we agree 100%. Of course if we apply the Geneva Convention that is what we have to do.[/quote]
Yep…that’s exactly how traditional interrogation techniques would go down.
No information has ever been gained unless we torture…reality backs that up.
Hell, we’d never know those women in Salem weren’t witches unless we tortured them.
"According to Woodward, insurgent attacks against coalition troops occur, on average, every 15 minutes, a shocking fact the administration has kept secret. “It?s getting to the point now where there are eight-, nine-hundred attacks a week. That’s more than 100 a day. That is four an hour attacking our forces,” says Woodward.
The situation is getting much worse, says Woodward, despite what the White House and the Pentagon are saying in public. “The truth is that the assessment by intelligence experts is that next year, 2007, is going to get worse and, in public, you have the president and you have the Pentagon [saying], ‘Oh, no, things are going to get better,’” he tells Wallace. “Now there?s public, and then there?s private. But what did they do with the private? They stamp it secret. No one is supposed to know,” says Woodward.
“The insurgents know what they are doing. They know the level of violence and how effective they are. Who doesn’t know? The American public,” Woodward tells Wallace. "
[quote]100meters wrote:
simpler: Rainjack is Bush going to increase the troop footprint 3x? Just yes or no.
[/quote]
No need to.
We are taking one province at a time, and turning it over to Iraqi control. To say what we are doing now is not working is to want instant gratification like a baby still sucking the tit.
Impatient children like the ABB/anti-war crowd think this is a fucking video game that should be won, or at least moved to the next level by bedtime. It’s not. Bush said this would take years before we started the thing.
Stating the course insures completeion - quitting insures failure. It is not our job to divide Iraq. It is Iraq’s job. We at least owe them the choice.
Quitters. You can’t shoot them - they’ve already gone home and started whining.