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Matt
Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
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Topic Author's Original Post - Dec 4, 2006 - 02:15pm PT
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Well I just bought a house, and I have a finger injury too, so I have little to say about climbing these days, but-
The record is clear enough as far as who supported what and when. Those of you who are/were advocates for the invasion of Iraq (including a certain someone who now just lurks, but was once gW's most vocal cheer-leader around here) are eating crow. Not only that, but the words of lots on the political left have proven again and again to have been the most accurate, and the most well reasoned (despite the so-called main stream media's fairly successful snow-job, which-
1)painted post 9/11 dissent of gW's (i mean tricky dick's) foregin policy experiments as "weakness".
2)retro-actively colored bi-partisan tough talk about saddam hussein (at a time when he was manuvering toward a weakening of the many (now proven to have been quite effective) international sanctions and inspections programs, as if it were at the time offered in support for the pre-emtive war model.
3)pretended that democrats who voted to give bush the authority to go to war when he claimed he needed it to negotiate w/ authority weren't hood-winked by the rove/cheney/PNAC crowd, and were somehow voting "FOR THE WAR".
well, we now are all in it together, however that's not really true. the armed services are at war, and the rest of the country is still going shopping. no significant sacrifice has been demanded of the public at large, and the military itself will not stand for being stretched this thin much longer. ideas and solutions are few and far between, but the bottom line is that iraq = viet nam; there is no definable enemy, there is no known mission, there is no forseeable positive outcome, there is no exit stragey, we cannot stay and we cannot leave. iran is empowered, our credibility and our image have been tarnished, our military has been weakened, the world is less safe, terrorism will increase because we have enfused the militant and radical fringes in the arab world via our excursions into their region, and despots all over the world have a proven game plan to defeat the american military.
(btw- did i mention that nook-ya-lear weapons are now on asile 5 at the walmart? oh yes, and putin is so impressed w/ the US that he's openly poisoning his critics, and the left-wing boogey man, last seen decades ago in south & central america, is back w/ a new anti-american enthusiasm?)
i imagine there are some who still hold that the democrats in congress actually supported this war, and the bushies are/were the victims of faulty intel (of course that's a laugh for anyone who pays any attention to the fact that the bush/cheney whitehouse manipulated the very intel that the later retro-actively blamed for being inadequate). but the rest of us know how full of sh#t those few of you are. IMO, you keyboard chickenhawks are worthy of some small portion of the same contempt that your now tarnished heroes are finally seeing.
and on the other hand, here is a link to a leftish/pro-democratic party/ "net-roots" site call dailykos, where some democrats are quoted from 2002 as acurately predicting exactly what we are now faced with (while the neo-cons et.al. were suggesting we'd be met w/ flowers and candy, and democracy in iraq would transform the region... thanks for nothing!).
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/12/4/22758/8173
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mcKbill
climber
Grundy Center
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"the armed services are at war, and the rest of the country is still going shopping"
Well said. That is so true Matt.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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bla, bla, bla........
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Apocalypsenow
Trad climber
Cali
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The day after Thanksgiving I bought the paper (rarely do, don't really trust the U.S. press).
It seemed most every article concerning the U.S. was based on consumerism, while most every article in other countries was written about war, passion, deaths, fighting, rioting etc.
I found this interesting.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Thanks bluering. You summed up the whole pro-war rationalization right there! I guess we don't need to hear from Jody or Fatty now.
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screelover
Mountain climber
Ottawa, Canada
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Matt,
While a bit overstated, your analysis seems fairly close to the mark. What I don't get is why you're gloating over it - seems f**king sad to me.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Are we really at war, or is that just "support the chief and his new war laws" talk?
Cause if we are, war is serious business (no haliburton pun intended)
so
"bla, bla, bla........"
Bet they didn't get tired of talking about it in Britain and Frances during WW2 and it's probably not boring in Bagdad.
You don't have to face the details that the kids you saw growing up down the street are now in positions where they wind up shooting civilians or bombing women and kids, or dying themselves, in a lying senseless war.
You can say "bla, bla, bla........" when the war crimes guys are safely behind bars instead of trying to salvage their impossible legacy using the blood of our children as tools
peace
Karl
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Matt
Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 4, 2006 - 02:48pm PT
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scree-
have a look at fatso's little plan. maybe up in canada it's not as clear as it is here that there are STILL enough people like fatty out there to be frightened of, but i'd say rather than gloating, my intention is to make it clear that we as an electorate need to see through all the saber ratteling and drum beating these "kill the muslim" types do, and with bush as a lame duck (i.e. no consequences politically) we need to make it next to impossible for him to further escalate the regional conflict in the middle east. the best way to do that is to simply point out that his charade of a foregin policy has been a disaster, and to state firmly that "they" ought not to be given enough rope to hang us (again).
ask yourself this: do you really think that "they" are above manipulating the public via fear, etc., into supporting a swan-song excursion into iran? do you think they don't have multiple versions of a contingency plan for doing exactly that?
EDIT
"peacemongers"
LOL
what a horrible label to have to bear, i will do my best.
and exactly what is "isolationist" about keeping a gun in it's holster? idiot...
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caughtinside
Social climber
Davis, CA
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Sorry to hear about your finger Matt! hope you're back in action soon.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Oops too late. Fatty opened his big mouth. Draft eh? No wonder McCain lost last time. Fatty nobody wants a draft. The American people don't want a draft (especially those of us who are actually young enough and fit enough to fight unlike some other people who like proposing such drafts) and even the military doesnt want a draft. THE MILITARY DOESN'T WANT A DRAFT! I mean if you are proposing a draft, and even the military doesn't want a draft I think you are straight away out of your mind.
Why doesn't the military want a draft? Let's say we DID institute a draft. How many people would you draft? 100,000? 200,000? 300,000? How is the military going to train all of these recruits? They don't have the personnel or the facilities to acommodate such a huge influx of new recruits, but let's say congress appropriates (borrows) many billions of $$'s to build some makeshift training facilities down south somewhere. Hey! Your boy McCain could even get it earmarked for Arizona! We have deserts just like Iraq! JUST LIKE THEM! I practically live in Iraq!
So these training facilities get thrown together by Halliburton even though we're gonna have to do them over again in 3 years when we realize they suck and we wasted our money and the 100,000 troops get trained (poorly) and shipped to Iraq. Time elapsed? Probably 18 months minimum (we are talking about a "they will throw roses" neocon utopia after all) after Congress institutes the draft which couldn't possibly happen until at least next spring.
So the new troops are there and its Novemeber of 2008. Problem solved right? Eh, not so much. The troops that have been stuck there for the 2 years since we have had this conversation are tired, and bloody and need to go home. They have had their tours extneded multiple times, and are generally hating it. So we replace the tired, homesick troops that signed up to tbe there with thousands of conscripts who didn't want to be in the military to begin with, much less wind up in Iraq for that Bush guy, especially since President-Elect Obama just won in a Reaganesque 50 state electoral sweep (hey come on, I can have my dream just like Fatty).
So how exactly does this fix the problem? I guess in a Fatty world where we should WANT to be a massive military presence in Iraq for 20 years while we slowly but surely conquer the entireity of the middle east this makes sense, but the rest of the country does not want to make this country 100% about conquering the middle east, which is what it would take to succeed at such an endeavor. The entire country would need to be mobilized for war, and as Matt pointed out isn't the case.
Fatty I know you like to pretend you are a big picture realist but you aren't. The big picture of Islam is that we have treated them like crap for the past century, and they are pissed off. People like you think that you can tell them what to do, how to be and what kind of governments to have. US foreign policy has for far too long been about manipulating them for our gain, and its finally come back to bite us in the ass. Even Kissinger has ssaid there is no purely military solution to Iraq. Why do all of your ideas involve drafts, cruise missiles, attacks on Syria and/or Iran and the like?
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Matt
Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 4, 2006 - 02:52pm PT
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CI- it's my mouse clicking index finger, i wonder if it's an overuse injury?
=)
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Matt and Karl,
What action would you support against Iran? And North Korea? And Lebabnon? Elaborate as much as possible.
Lastly, how do we end the Iraqi conflict?
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Ouch!
climber
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Matt has a nice dog.
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TradIsGood
Happy and Healthy climber
the Gunks end of the country
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The all-pro nominations for monday morning quarterback are in...
Vote now!
(Judging the value of a strategy by the results, is a favorite of those who never played the game.)
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Matt
Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 4, 2006 - 03:25pm PT
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monday morning QB's would include only those that haven't been predicting exactly what we now face from the very get-go. as for you and your opinions on anything at all, how many cats will it take to get the US army out of iraq, and when will young roger demonstrate his bravery and patriotism? thanks in advance for instilling in him an interest in public service!
and btw, once he's a vet, we left wing nutjobs will continue to fight the republicans for the $ to adequately support the VA, since we won't have the veterans that we'd wish we had gone to war with, just those that we were forced to go to war with...
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Wild Bill
climber
Ca
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Someone quipped: "Judging the value of a strategy by the results, is a favorite of those who never played the game."
While pithy, this comment is wide of the mark. We ALL played the game, even if we weren't in the military. We are playing today, as we are enjoying our healthy war economy that our kids will pay for (their kids too, likely).
As for those who, in your mind, actually "played the game:" the military seems none too happy about how things have progressed in Iraq. According to you, they're the only ones entitled to an opinion.
Here's my friend who played the game:
Here's the 60 Minutes piece that was being filmed when he was killed (click the CBS News Video on right side of page):
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/01/16/60minutes/main667271.shtml
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Wild Bill
climber
Ca
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Thanks, FatTrad. Sorry for your loss as well.
I'm not saying the game shouldn't be played. Only agreeing with the original poster that, in this instance, it was not played for the right reasons. There was deception involved, and it is costing people their lives. It has also managed to burn up what little good will the US enjoyed prior to the current war.
Those who serve - military, law enforcement, resuce, etc. - are aware of the risks, and aware that they could be killed or maimed.
And for the record, we're all aware that hardcore soldiers ARE in fact resigning and leaving the military once they've gotten out of Iraq. My brother in law - a Marine Major and son of a Colonel - is one example. The administration's "strategy" is flawed, the troops on the ground see that and also see there's no end in sight.
Peace,
 Bill McMahon
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dirtbag
climber
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Matt,
As you know, they are not going to admit it was wrong. First it was "Let's go after the Iraqi nukes." Then it was "Let's go after that bad guy Saddam and make Iraq into a democratic bastion." Now that it is abundantly obvious that the first two reasons were flawed, some of the neocons are jumping ship on the cause but saying "It was a great idea but poorly executed." We'll see even more of that reasoning in the coming months, I imagine.
They won't admit it.
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Apocalypsenow
Trad climber
Cali
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It is time to bring back the draft. Then this war will end.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Wild Bill, very poignant.
Fattrad, maybe if you just listened to what others are trying to explain to you, you'd get it. Not necessarily agree, but get it (where they are coming from).
The neo-con agenda that you subscribe to is seriously flawed.
And not only is it seriously flawed in my opinion, but there are elements of it that I view as being downright unAmerican, anti-democratic and just a load of bollocks.
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