It's the Iraq War, stupid.
This election is about the Iraq War. Either you find the whole thing to be a colossal mistake, or you're comfortable with the idea of a pre-emptive war without international support. The fears of terrorism overshadow the fears of unemployment.
Resolve, Consistency, and Strength will be the best way to clear out the Iraq situation as soon as possible. Taking troops out now or changing our course of action would show Terrorists and insurgents our lack of focus and commitment to the problem...
Votes and elections in Iraq wont have a lot of weight yet esp. with all the insurgency in fallujah for example, but Im of the opinion that some election is better than no election, and that if we are over there anyway, instead of rushing us out or making a rash decision, we should stay the course and make sure we do what we said we would set out to do: to help the Iraqi people set up a government that they decide how to run.
1,000 + Americans have died: What do we tell their families: Dont you think they would at least like to feel that these people died for a reason?
[1] This war is not necessary to combat Islamo-Fascism.
[2] This war is necessary but the planning and implementation has been a complete mess.
[3] This war is necessary, and to quote Rumsfeld, "Freedom is messy".
I couldn't disagree with #3 more, however, it's a position that about half of Americans agree with. It's pretty obvious who you'll vote for if you hold #1 or #3 to be true. It's the #2 that are gonna swing this thing. They might choose not to vote (ala Jesse Ventura). Personally, I see a re-election of Bush as an affirmation of his Administration's conduct of the Iraq War. I go back to a business analogy: if I was a CEO I'd be fired for the ineptitude of my subordinates, especially if I wasn't recognizing the ineptitude myself.
<a href="http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=JQNF55E1NDNEICRBAELCFEY?type=topNews&storyID=6317728">economy or war?</a>
Aside from sounding like a slice form a Bush Campaign speech, this is also wrong. The more one appears to be changing things and perhaps being inconsistent, the better it will go. Do we want to consistantly bomb Baghdad with "Shock and Awe" smart bombs? No. Look at the Prison abuse. Do we really want the world to think we are going to "stay the course," raping and unnecesarily tortoring innocent Iraqis? No, we change and re-evaluate.
Now personally, I want to vote for someone who is willing to fight a "more sensitive war" because he's less likely to make huge mistakes as he's seen in combat and would surround himself by more people with more ideas.
Only bringing this up because rladew did: We wouldn't have had the Iraq problem with another presdident, and we would probably have taken down Al Quiada and Osama, the people responsible for 9/11 who rladew talks about right before Iraq. (the classic Bush spin). For sake of the thread, can we please keep these things seperate?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/22/opinion/main625358.shtml
The excerpt at the bottom I'm referring to:
<<<<<<<<On terrorism, he passed on the opportunity to capture or kill Osama bin Laden as he flew from Sudan to Afghanistan. True, that occurred at a time, before the 9/11 attacks, when the enormity of the threat posed by bin Laden was not yet known.>>>>>>>>>>>>
Dawn also wrote
Another thought on the Iraq war issue: If Kerry was gaining a lot of political ground on his central economy platform, I think it was a big gamble for him to go after Bush on Iraq. Was the economic issue ( which a lot of pundits see as Kerrys strongest point of argument) not strong enough for Kerry to stand on?
btw: sorry for the "resolve" part of my earlier post that was definitely parroting republican speak, but as I'm saying above, Dawn and Terry seem also to be parroting the democratic line...
Yes, I do applaud Kerry's recent "get tough" on Iraq criticism. I think this is where Bush is most vulnerable. While I disagree with most of Bush's fiscal policy, I'm of the sentiment that presidents get lucky with the economy, it's either with them or against them.
As far as parroting the Democratic line, I'd like to think that Kerry is now starting to catch on to what I've been saying all along. ;)
I think by all objective measures, you couldn't have made a worse mess in Iraq then we have now. Both Bush and Kerry stand very close together on what they would do to try and improve the situation in Iraq. Kerry gains ground by pointing out how out of touch with reality Bush and the Administration are with what's going on in Iraq.
I'm beginning to think that Bush _couldn't_ have thought that keeping America in a perpetual war would be great for re-election. He has expended all his political capital to get rid of Saddam Hussein. One can't rationally expect a war to go perfectly (OK, except for those civilian planners in the DoD), it was extremely risky for Bush to stake his entire presidency on military action in Iraq.
At least, that's what I'm hoping....
Side note: Our soldiers fought, were wounded and killed to depose Saddam Hussein, thereby ending a tyranny. That speaks to their sacrifice. Since we still can't agree on what to say about the 50,000+ that died in Vietnam, I think that's enough for now.
Another side note: You can't blame Bush for 9/11 and you can't blame Clinton either. More from the 9/11 Commision Report when I get around to reading it.
And another thing: ...crap, to many notes.
And if he did, I think he would have read it. As Cheney said himself, "Clinton was obsessed with Bin Laden."
I will not post the definition of sensitive, but a sensitive war seems like a good idea, since Bush gave lied about going into Iraq in the first place...
Not "Bush gave lied."
Sorry
I don't think you do....
dawnbixtler thinks we can be better prepared to wage a war with less civilian casualities and negative reprecussions on the American image. One might call that sensitive. Dick Cheney would seem to agree with this.
rladew is just stating the obvious: War is Hell. From what I can tell, that hits the nail on the head.
"Nothing about war is considerate." Then why do we consider how many innocent people will be killed? This is ridiculous!