Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Well, he was right then and he's right today.....

As Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Bush the Elder, told a press briefing in 1992:

"Saddam Hussein is a terrible person, he is a threat to his own people. I think his people would be better off with a different leader, but there is this sort of romantic notion that if Saddam Hussein got hit by a bus tomorrow, some Jeffersonian democrat is waiting in the wings to hold popular elections. (Laughter.) You're going to get -- guess what -- probably another Saddam Hussein. It will take a little while for them to paint the pictures all over the walls again -- (laughter) -- but there should be no illusions about the nature of that country or its society. And the American people and all of the people who second-guess us now would have been outraged if we had gone on to Baghdad and we found ourselves in Baghdad with American soldiers patrolling the streets two years later still looking for Jefferson. (Laughter.)

End quoted text:

Funny, I ain't laughing.

Skipping the bogus reasons for invading in the first place, and, just as I (and many others more knowledgeable about the situation than I, including our State Dept) predicted, we are now in a situation which we never wanted to be in, as brutal dictators of an occupied country, with substantial parts of the population committed to our expulsion and our invasion/occupation has reinforced, not slowed recruitment to Al Quaida and other terrorist organizations. I'm not in Iraq, but on the outside looking in, we have made some terrible moves in the last couple of weeks and seem to be compounding the errors.

Now, tell me about the exit strategy.........

Want me to crystal ball it, glad you asked.

Regardless of who wins the election, and maybe before then, as a last ditch effort to save the election for Bush. The US is going to go to the UN with our hats in our hands, pledge massive amounts of US dollars to the UN and to the UN's reconstruction of Iraq, put our troops under actual or de facto UN command in Iraq, and hope that the world forgets in a few years how dumb this whole thing was, while we still lose men in Iraq until the American people say, "Whoa, starting off stupid doesn't mean you have to stay that way." and we pull out.

It's really too bad, Bush, who is fundamentally not a bad guy albeit a true politician, had a chance to be one of the great Presidents given the challenges of 9/11 and his Iraqi fixation blew it and quite likely his second chance (term).

Come on, Flies. "Brutal dictators of an occupied country"--GMAFB. I guess that's why we court martial our officers if they dare to administer a mild bitch-slapping to a prisoner, and why none of the clowns you've seen led off with cable ties around their wrists have yet been put up against a wall and shot.
What we see now is a few (and it only takes a very few) people who desperately fear a democrateic Iraq, trying to foment a civil war before the handover. Since W will be president at least for another ten months, they will not get the Mogadishu result.
In fact, it looks like the Marines are getting ready to clamp down on Fallujah, in a non-threatening, JAG-approved way, of course. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Whether Bush blew it or not will not be decided this year or even next, but in several years, maybe 10 or 20. I think in the end history will judge him quite favorably.

"I think in the end history will judge him quite favorably."
I totally disagree, especially considering his reason for going to war in the first place(weapons of mass destruction) have yet to materialize. Moreover, his secretary of state (Colin Powell) is losing a lot face and he was one of reasons I supported Bush in first place.

Larry, if you want to be a good writer, work on syntax and grammar.
WMD were not the singular reason for going to war. One reason amongst a few.
I am a bit skeptical of the war by now as well, but let's keep the facts straight.

Lastly, I don't think you're really providing valuable input to any thread anymore, just because of your ridiculous posts elsewhere, and your troll-like posting nature.

Matthias--isn't it amazing how short the attention span of American adults has become. If an issue can't be resolved in a 13 week television season, well, we just have to throw in the towel--cut and run. This infantile impatience that characterizes the national political scene lets buffoons like Ted "the U-Boat captain" Kennedy rail about quagmires a year into a difficult and complex mission (of course Ted was talking about quagmires on the road to Baghdad). If this gang had been in charge during our revolution, they'd have quit by about 1777. It isn't hard for our enemies to figure out how to manipulate people who have the staying power of three year olds.

Steve my good friend, you obviously don't know much about the brotherhood that exist between Vietnam veterans and the only loyal group of people that ever supported them. LOL

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Matthias,
There's probably something you better get used to, unlike our counterparts (the veterans of World War II and Korea) that turned their backs on us. Come November the veterans of Vietnam will send Junior Bush packing back to Texas. LOL

somebody correct me here if i'm way off base, but, why do kerry and bush look to me like political twins..... i believe that if john kerry had been elected to the white house in 2000 we'd be, oh, say... about where we are today...maybe minus some of the more onerous provisions of the patriot act.... we'd still be fighting a war very similar to what we have today.....

i wouldn't care to say that kerry will turn the economy around, i do think that he's got the sand to call a spade a spade.... and the sense to act on americas behalf, fiscally..... W has reclassified service industry jobs as industrial production jobs... it's got him some big show and tell numbers, but the economy will not improve by transposing a column of numbers here or there...

on the other hand i think that W. is doing a bang up job in taking the fight to the enemy.... i believe that he is doing a better job of it than kerry would do... i think that he could do it without the patriot act, as it stands today....

kerry is a vehement liberal, and as such bears watching on constitutional issues..... like the 2nd & 10th amendments, abortion rights..., the patriot act

i believe that W. is better equipped to secure our borders... why he's done the thing's he's done are beyond me...

as far as larry's assertion that W. is going home in january... i don't think so... look at the money.....

the poltical left, and the political right have shaken hands, and sat down to tip the cup together.....

love your country, fear your government..... john w

If Bush and Kerry are twins, then so are Julia Roberts and Rosanne Barr. Bush will cut your taxes, Kerry will raise them. The economy is roaring right now, but you have to read the Wall Street Journal to know it---record job growth( 400K in the first quarter, wasn't it?), stock market rolling, manufacturing and service sectors up, and unemployment below where it was in '96 when Slick got reelected on the wonderful economic boom he claimed to have created! Kerry would raise taxes, kill the recovery and turn our foreign policy over to Jacques Chirac and Kofi Annan.
I plead guilty to oversimplification, but there are huge, differences in their policies. Of course, with Kerry, who knows what his policy really is--to be determined by focus groups as election day approaches, I guess.

steve,

the growth in jobs #s is 100% attributable to the reclassifications that i mentioned above..... i'd love to be wrong on this one..... john

Here in the Midwest, the jobs being created are not adequate to replace the manufacturing jobs being sent overseas. It is a shame that the President has not put forth a realistic plan for providing incentives for keeping jobs here in this country. The company I work for has eliminated over 1000 positions, over a 25% reduction in the workforce. These were all $40,000+ a year jobs. Why are they eliminated? Because the cost of health care makes it cheaper to pay overtime than to pay another worker to do the job. Now, if anyone wants a vacation or day off, the other people have to work 12 hours to cover for the absent employee. The only good thing is that they can't take away our overtime, as our wonderful Pres. would like, because we have a contract. It just makes me sick that our gov. is now run by big business, for big business, and Bush makes it painfully obvious.

and as for unemployment, locally 2/3 of the unemployed have drawn all of the benefits they are allowed. no jobs on the horizon. no more benefits, they have simply dropped off the radar.... they are not on unemployment rolls anymore.

the other 1/3 are ex steel mill employees pushing carts around the parking lot at wal mart, and wiping down tables at mcdonalds.... and this aint speculation, friend, i'm talking about people that i've seen this week.

of 1600 people who walked out of that mill, to the best of my knowledge, 8 are working around the countryside as boilermakers, 2 as crane operators, about 2 dozen or so wound up at another mill in iowa, 1 went back to school and is currently working as a mechanical engineer, several went to truck drivers school and are driving for a living, 2 are drawing blood for the red cross. about half of those who left the mill were eligible for a reduced pension, but our pension was never that good anyway. i'm sure that i don't know the whole story, but it's pretty bleak, i assure you...

the steel mill was just the largest of 4 major employers who folded locally... people stand in line here for minimum wage jobs.....

However, I don't see this as a strictly partisan political issue... both parties have blame enough to shoulder... it is, at it's core, a leadership issue... and i don't see any leaders on the horizon..... i guess i'd classify bush as more of a cheerleader, and kerry as a member of the booster club.....

i flair up a little when i perceive that the jobs issue is being back burnered... the stock market may be on a roll, but it is largely invested outside our borders..... the bush administrations assertion that fast food service = production jobs is B.S. pure and simple..... and make no mistake about it, that is their premise.....

i don't care how much money the investor is making, he will fall with the rest of America when we go.....

somebody please stop me before i roll right over the edge..... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> john w

Here's an article I found posted on milkmycow.com . The author's name wasn't mentioned, but he brings up some hard truths about the current debate on "outsourcing", and the Democrats' plan to make hay out of it:



........................................................................................





LET'S TALK ABOUT "YOUR" JOBS



Jobs .. and the economy. Those seem to be the issues that are driving many, if not most, of those who are supporting the Kerry candidacy.



First of all ... I'm going to repeat this simply because it makes the whiners so unbelievably angry. Listen up. They're not your jobs! The jobs belong to the employers .. not to you! You have job skills and, presumably, a willingness to work. Your task in a free economy is to get out there and find some employer with a job who needs your skills ... and strike a deal.



If you do not have the particular set of job skills that an employer needs, or if you have priced your labor out of the marketplace, guess what? It's not the employer's fault. The fault lies with you. Either develop a new set of job skills that are actually in demand, or adjust your pricing. The employer knows what he's looking for. If you're not it .. it's your problem, not his.



Now ... you say you're going to vote for a Democrat this year because of jobs? You mean to tell me that you're going to vote against George Bush this year because you don't have a set of job skills that are in demand in our free marketplace? Yeah .. that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?



Tell me. Just what do you want the president to do? You information technology people out there .. just what are you demanding? Do you want companies to stop outsourcing IT jobs to India? OK ... tell me how to do that. These companies aren't shipping parts overseas and completed products back. All they do is ship information overseas by phone lines or the Internet. Then that information is modified and shipped back the same way. What do you want the government .. the president to do? Do you want some federal law that prohibits companies from transmitting information overseas by the Internet, having that information transformed or modified, and then shipped back? And tell me just how do you enforce that law? Does that law then apply to you also if you seek information from a company that is located overseas, thus depriving a domestic company of your business?



Ditto for manufacturing. I've already told you the story about the California company that makes computer mouses. (computer mice?) This company ships the components to China. The mouse is assembled in China and shipped back, then sold for around $40. Why? Because the assembly is cheaper in China than it would be in the US. So, you say you want the president to force this company to have that mouse assembled in the US? Fine .. then the price for the mouse goes up to about $70 a pop and sales drop. As the sales drop the jobs of the people in this country who manufacture the components for that mouse go away. Then the 100 marketing jobs this company supports in California also go away. You see, perhaps you can succeed in forcing this company to assemble these mouses in the US, but there just isn't any way you can force the American consumer to pay 80% more for the "made in America" version.



As Bruce Bartlett says in an article listed in my reading assignments, "No nation has ever gotten rich by forcing its citizens to pay more for domestic goods and services that could have been procured more cheaply abroad."



What we are seeing here is a demonstration of the "government owes me" mentality of far too many Americans. Every time you arrive at a speed bump in your life's journey you start screaming to the government for help. Sure, the speed bump is going to slow you down a bit ... but just keep moving forward and things inevitably pick up speed again. Americans are becoming helpless whiners. The more helpless you are, and the more you whine, the more likely it is you're going to vote for a Democrat. Democrats specialize in stroking the malcontent.



Congratulations, whiners. At a time when America is fighting World War IV, the war against Islamic terrorism ... you're going to vote for a candidate who wants to treat terrorism as a freaking law enforcement problem because you've made some pitiful jobs choices. Pitiful.

More weirdness from John Kerry concerning outsourcing:

Benedict Arnold My Ass

John, I realize that is the latest DNC talking point, but like most of their issues, it is tripe. You can go to the DOL website, the Wall Street Jounal, or even the New York Times to get the break down on job growth--in the first place it's TOTAL job growth, so classifications wouldn't have anything to do with it. The New York Times and the DNC are obviously very sad about the news, since they need a recession and a blow-up in Iraq to sell their damaged goods---Jean Kerry. So be happy---this is exactly the same thing the liberal press did to Bush I--the economy had been recovering strongly for two quarters before the election, but Slick got away with acting like it was 1932 all over again so he could feel our pain. Well, the unemployment rate is lower now than it was when the wonderful economy relected him in '96---wonder why the press isn't crowing about this boom?

Walker, I will just use the KISS principle, you just brought them to their collective knees with that post, yeeeeeeeeeeeha.

IIFID, I believe my/our/your Commander in Chief has put it in its most simple terms, "we will stay the course". My educated guess, which is probably based on the same or less info than you have, is that you have seen the last of any "meaningful" UN efforts on behalf of the USofA. One can only hope!

That article is exactly why I won't be voting for Bush. If you lose your job, you're a whiner. In the war in Iraq, you're with us or against us. Pretty much the republican party line, simplistic logic which simply dismisses anyone who doesn't agree with the party line. Geez, where have we seen that before?