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Post by Rob G on May 20, 2004 1:58:52 GMT -5
OH MY GOD, Things got crazy here for a while. No wonder people dont talk politcs and religion in bars.
Larry, I did see what you mean about ken trying to get your goat. Buck, all the old school heads (larry, ken, ring) argue on a mad hard core level. They are crazy. But I see a method to their madness as angered people really tell more truth.
I largely agree with Larry that... Clinton is the best Bush is the worst
The message board is tough though cause at any time you might be the only guy with a certain point of veiw and then get hammered. That sucks.
In the end no matter whose more educated or informed we all just dudes with opinions of equal value. That value being zero. ------------------ Back to the matter at hand. ARABS SUCK. They are evil. What kills me is not the guys who behead people. Theres evil people all over the place doing terrible things. That was just dramatised for TV. What burns me up is that at the end of the day all arabs will refer to those evil folk as their arab brothers. Thats BS. Thats enablement. Thats accessory.
Hey, will anyone give Clinton credit for his handling of Serbia?
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Post by Darth Deucedropper on May 20, 2004 6:27:09 GMT -5
The administration did a good job in serbia.
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Post by abisai on May 20, 2004 17:39:28 GMT -5
Yeah, I don't have a blood fued decoder ring to tell me when Larry/Ken say Clinton/Bush is stupid they are actually attacking each other personally. Blows my mind. That's your ball of wax, run with it. I AM ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT BILL CLINTON AND NOT ANY OF YOU: I am not entirely with the Serbian thing myself. If a war is won or lost, short of dropping A-bombs, the president affects it very little. But I gotta say this, if you support Clinton doing that seems you have no choice but to support Bush in Iraq. Likewise, if we win or lose battles, I cannot find it within me to blame the president. The role is a suit with a smile. I guess you can say fall-guy, but I don't agree with that any more than I agree with giving him credit for winning wars. To me Clinton will be remembered most like of JFK in that the presidency marked by a strong personality in office and scandal. To me Bush will remembered most like Truman in having stood watch as we suffered major attack on Americans and presidency dominated by wartime affairs. And now for something completely different: the Republican party is largely dominated by two relatively new faces, literally at from the furthest west to the furthest east. If you feel bad, Rudy stands up and talks about the meaning of courage and action under immense pressure, so you have no choice but to feel a little bit better about yourself. If you feel good, Arnold stands up and flexes his muscles and talks all excited like a child on Christmas morning and you actually believe for a split second that if you worked out more and tried hard you could become a movie star turned governor too. If these figures combine in 2008 all bets are off. Dems would have no choice but to run Hilary and Bill in a counter move of ineligible to be president VP candidates. IN the fury of attention, Ralph Nader will be heard talking about running for his fourth unsuccessful presidental bid, continuing to delusionally think he has the support of a viable third party. Al Gore will be caught -drunk and unshaven- attempting to assassinate him with a blue cum-stained dress. In a moving tribute geezers of all generations will pool together in a mass of ill-formed flesh and combine to become the being known only as "Grump". Grump will commense with eating the entire state of Idaho potatoes and hibernating in Montana to recover for the following four years until someone mentions Social Security. Then it will rise from its wrinkled heap and march tp DC and sit its lard ass atop the White House the remainder of eternity. All efforts to assault the growing form will fail and all of us will dread the day we too become "the GRUMP."
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Post by larry g on May 20, 2004 18:17:24 GMT -5
buck your half right as far as the president not being responcible for how the war gos. the through history president take varied levels of involvment in the day to day running of the war. like world war ii the president was not very involved he left that up to the joint chiefs but in vietnom individual air strikes were being approved by the white house. in serbia i bill left it up to the supreme allied commander(wesley clark) which is th3e way it should be. in iraq bush fires any general that disagrees with him. i cant remember the guys name but i can look it up. any way af6ter he fire this guy all the top generals refused to take his place because as an act of protest. rumfield had to find some retire war buddy to be the new head of joint chiefs or allied commander i cant remember which. bush took alot of shit for this from his own party because the new guy was so grosely inadiquietr for the job. so even know bush may not be personally responsible for the mistakes in iraq his lack of maqture leader in appointing incompitent people is .
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Post by Rob G on May 21, 2004 2:49:48 GMT -5
Is buck right, Can you run for president if you cant be president either because you are foreign or due to expired term limits. That would awesome.
As far as president not taking a big role in wars. Basically the President is an institution. A business of people who fill the executive administration. The actual guy does not do much at all.
As far as Serbia however. That was an all air war. Never ever done before or thought of. I think that cavelier course of action had be approved by the president. And it worked great. Very few casualites becasue there was very little opportunity for it.
I am once again against bush and at the same time FOR THE WAR. I ofcourse backed the war from the get go and unlike many other democratic sympathizers I have not fallen back from that position. But i will tell you after all the casulaties and other terrors i will think more before endorsing another war.
But all in all, This might be easy for a guy sitting safe in the homeland to say. But sometimes the right thing must be done no matter the cost.
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Post by larry g on May 21, 2004 3:07:16 GMT -5
your right rob ,but i think buck was kidding about arnold though. i not totally sure but i think legaly bill clinton coulod be vice president. the term limit says no man can be elected to the president more then twicwe . i still doubt it would ever happen.
didnt the un send in peace keepers in to serbia? i know they did but i cant remember if it was during or after?
i was agains6t the war from the get go ,i knew they had no real weapons of mass destruction. i truly think bush pushed so hard to get in thier because sadum put a price on his fathers head.
main reasons we went into iraq 1) he had weapons of mass destruction : false 2) he had ties to al queda : false 3) he was a bad man : true 4) because the people of iraq want us to save them: false
i guess one out of four ain't bad
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Post by Ken on May 21, 2004 17:35:27 GMT -5
Well, I haven't been on the message board for a few days and man, I am sure glad. It seems that I missed out on a lot of tension.
It seems that Lar has gotten upset with me because of my post concerning Bill Clinton. If I ridicule Bill Clinton it should not be viewed as an attack on Lar personally. In fact, I take umbrage at the insinuation that I attacked Lar personally. I did not. In fact, my intention was to make light of Clinton in a joking manner and not start any trouble akin to what ensued. Lar has posted and continues to post worse about GW.
Lar is constantly condemning Bush and if I were as thin-skinned as he, I would be doing nothing but cursing on this message board. Therefore I have a hard time believing that my post is what set him off. I also have a hard time believing that Lar has a problem articulating himself. Lar is extremely eloquent in conversation, smart, sharp-witted and intelligent. He can also not be bullied in conversation nor do I believe he can be bullied on this message board. In other words, Lar is full of BS.
You need to take responsibility for your actions and your posts and I believe that you go over the line too many times. This is not to say we all haven’t crossed the line, but you launch personal attacks instead of trying to refute another’s political post with either political fact or your own opinion.
Lar says that he can take his arguments to whole other levels. Rob and Lar know that I can as well and should have recognized that my post was no where near to a personal attack.
For those who need an example of a personal attack: “Hey Ken, you’re a fat, smelly, lazy disgusting human being who wears cheap Walmart clothes. Your pathetic attempt to read “two newspapers” a day is just an elitist attempt to insinuate that you are smarter than others.”
Now, regardless of this being true, nonetheless, this is rude and hurtful to say.
On the other hand, saying that Bill Clinton spunked all over a White House intern is not a personal attack, but historical fact. Are the Gaults related to Bill? I am not aware of any relation. If there is, then I apologize I offended you via a relative.
Lar’s two new threads are another attempt to get my goat as well. After reading this thread I realize I may have responded harshly and for the sake of avoiding all out war, I apologize now for any perceived slight.
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Post by abisai on May 21, 2004 18:00:39 GMT -5
There's rules about president not allowed for those reasons, but then there are rules of succession and I honestly don't know -but believe- they would apply same rules for anyone supposed to sit as president. I don;t think it would be written as oresident-elect only applicable, but it might be. I mean those succession rules go from Pres to VP to all over the place, they got like a hundred dudes lined up waiting in line and none of those jobs have the same requirements as president.
The difference in Europe was the boots on the ground were European. We kept our troops out because they were not needed and I don't think they strategy was top-down I think it was practical and great. We need much more non-American boots in Iraq. The other nations there should know damn well if we leave two things happen 1) revolutions, civil wars, and sections claiming independence from greater Iraq 2) people in their countries wanting that very thing. You can call it democracy or whatever you want to call it, but I'll say freedom from a government you don't like. None of the other nations in the region have governments that are liked by their people hardly much at all and these leaders should do whatever they can to avoid their internal problems. But given the example of Palestine, I bet they 1) satisfy their people with non-action 2) pay some lip service both ways 3) continue to benefit from that aforementioned "freedom from a government you don't like" concept remaining outside their borders. I say pull their card and threaten complete removal of all US presence - the Arabs have to act.
No, that is not the Bush Doctrine, nor any attempt to repeat nor interpret it. Just how I see it.
As far as invasion decision, that was made a long time ago and should have been second-guessed more then. I for one never thought the country (*Iraq) ever recovered from sanctions and damage we levied there and thought no way they even had a fucking army. I figured a week long attack before we won. Well, we did and then we stayed and that is where the trouble is and that is where the debate should focus. However, I have to say this much about the decision to attack Iraq. Born of 9/11 and the fear that someone would attack with heavy bombs, no doubt. In thinking about 9/11 I thought this was a few thousand dead, several buildings destroyed, and a some air traffic disturbance. These things really had less effect on our economy/society/life (as a whole, not for survivors and family) and more on our pysche. But an atomic bomb attack could literally destroy a city, especially threatening if there are multiple attacks. I see it as reasonable to want to prevent anything like that ever from happening, especially given the Osama argument that we are a terrorist nation for what we did to Japan with A-bombs there. This begs the question of whether Iraq was a legit target and if others got the pass instead. North Korea gets a pass because of its neighbors China and Russia. All work done there has to get their approval or else we loose all these nice Chinese products in our economy and that could become a real economy hit. "They" said Iraq was in process of becoming legit nuclear threat. "They" convinced Congress, the White House, and many experts that it was a good thing. Some of "Them" maintain that we pre-empted a threat. I do not fully agree with the entire line of thinking, but believe 1) they believed it and don't think of it as a lie 2) GW is not to blame for believing the reports of his people - you can say that he believed some reports over others and totally discounted some things, but no sane man creates a search for something he knows that he will never find.. oh yeah, then there were the Crusades, maybe this is all a crock, but I err on the side of faith that political leaders are going to act rationally in a democracy where they stand to 1) lose re-election for failure 2) get ousted by Congress for failure.
And now for some personal attacks: you guys are all right, I am an idiot and my breath stinks. My head is oddly shapen and filled with a bag of pus that occasionally pulses out thought patterns that approach sanity. INSANELY, I persist in typing these foolish ideas out in the belief that you will all cower to my ego and tell me what an incredibly wonderful person I am. I should be shot. There, now keep my name out the discussion.
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Post by abisai on May 21, 2004 18:05:04 GMT -5
Uh, sorry for my last post. I typed it out while Ken was posting. Please feel free to ignore me and go back to telling each other what to say, I find that much more interesting.
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Post by Ken on May 21, 2004 18:29:16 GMT -5
Look, some people want us to get out of Iraq now. We just can’t do that. Civil War, Warlord factions, famine, strife, death…all would ensue. Insurgents are already coming into Iraq from Syria and Iran, should we leave Iraq to them? That would defeat the purpose. We need to change Iraq into a stable quasi-democracy to show other people (not governments) in the region what freedoms you can enjoy under democracy. Just seeing this occur will hopefully begin to fundamentally change the region as people will want to also live in a country that enjoys those freedoms. Then people will rise up, protest, challenge their power structures, and hopefully change their countries from within. However, we need a shining example in the REGION to do that. Hopefully Afghanistan and a completely refurbished Iraq will help accomplish this.
We will definitely need more American boots on the ground, however, all the infighting and partisan politics here at home, I believe, are definitely having an effect on the war. There is no solidarity in this country, we are split down the middle, something we were trying to avoid going into this war. This nation should be behind the government in times of war. This isn’t Viet Nam with thousands of soldiers dying weekly or even monthly. I am saddened with every soldier that dies, and I believe I am doing them a better service by presenting a united front with my government, which I happen to support anyway, then by calling for the gov’t to withdraw from Iraq. Democrats aren’t understanding this, that the division in this country can only hurt our military. The division will kill our soldiers just as surely as a roadside bomb in Iraq will.
Buck made the point that North Korea got a free pass and that Iraq wasn’t a legit threat. Iraq was a legit threat because Saddam supported terrorism and he also controlled a country that could have been used as a support structure for terrorism, i.e. training camps, financial aid, safe haven, technology, etc.
North Korea is tightly controlled, has problems feeding its own people and is quite removed geographically from the Muslim threat. They also are KNOWN to have nuclear weapons and enjoy the company of China, one of the largest countries on earth and also one of the most populated. They aren’t getting a free pass, we just need to be more strategic about facing them.
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Post by abisai on May 21, 2004 18:40:09 GMT -5
How dare you betray my request to omit my name!!!!! Anyways, you got it, the point is where from here, not waste with how did we get here. The argument that Saddam could have ended up with Nukes and could have harbored terrorists is not one I could discredit. It was a forward looking stance and I believe done in American interest, not as a lie or propoganda thing, I don't buy that. I'll give you this, if we pull out, something bad will happen. We could stay and make it better. Other nations in the area should and won't help. I hate them for that. But we need Arab faces at least over there on the streets with some authority. Not thugs and criminal running around killing unemployed Jews. We need Arab men arresting Arab men. Whatever gets that done has my entire 100% support. Muslim threat is perhaps more serious in Malaysia and Chechnya. But they seem to have more rational governments and populations that help keep some of that in check. The entire Middle eastern power structure is the problem and we have changed that and it will never be the same when all is said and done. It's gonna be a bloody decade over the to come, which may be the best thing to happen to them since OPEC>
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Post by larry g on May 21, 2004 21:30:16 GMT -5
i remember when you went ape shit ken just because you couldnt handle what i was saying. then buck came to your add. rob is more nuetral then anything else and now with fredd im all buy my self. this is ok though ill take you guys one at a time or all at once and ill do it without getting personal. i cant just sit back and pretend like bush is just another president while he shits all over the country i love.
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Post by larry g on May 21, 2004 21:58:54 GMT -5
ken inthe early days of vietnom thier wasmt alot of people dying either but fday by day the war esculated just like iraq. we need more troops on the ground to passify the country we either need to start drafting troops or gain help from the u.n.. either way it draws more resources away from going after real terrorist like osama bin hidin TEXTTEXTTEXT
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Post by Rob G on May 22, 2004 11:19:09 GMT -5
Only on this extremeist political message board can I be considered Nuetral.
I respect Bucks right to not have his name mentioned. The name BUCK belongs to him and should only be used with permission. So to anyone who would use the name BUCK or the term BUCk. Weather it be a male dear known as a BUCK, or a dollar bill, also known as a BUCK. Which by the way, even in the monetary world, a BUCK dont get you much. I think what i am trying to say is THE BUCK ENDS HERE/
ROB GAULT, A DEMOCRAT VOTING FOR KERRY WHOS BETTER THEN GEORGE BUSH.
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Post by Ken on May 22, 2004 12:21:41 GMT -5
I agree that we need more troops on the ground in Iraq. I would rather not but if we have to reinstitute the draft to get those troops then so be it. Its a shame that there is so little national pride that I fear there would be many draft skippers. I also fear that reinstituting the draft will only cause the rift that has grown in this country to become larger and we will have another period of infighting similar to the Viet Nam period.
Remember when this all started, the solidarity this country enjoyed for a few months? Maybe the President thought, inaccurately unfortunately due to the fickleness of this countries citizens, that he would have the support, publicly and politically, to complete what he started.
We as a society have become expectant that "hyperwar" would solve all our nations ills. It was naive of us to think that a few stealth bombers could accomplish this task with a minimum of bloodshed and time. That we could "get in and get out" quickly, have our revenge and be done with it. Now that the road has become a little rocky, the number of people willing to jump ship is staggering, and that depresses me because where has this countries spirit gone? Terrorists around the world are gunning for us, and 9/11 illustrates the lengths they are willing to go to to accomplish their jihad. We have already lost if we are unwilling to fight back, which we are.
John Kerry, if elected, will continue to stay in Iraq. He will not be like the Spaniards, pulling troops out. If elected, I will try to support him in his effort in Iraq and continue to support the war effort against terrorism, like a good citizen. Lar says that he loves this country. I hope this doesn't imply that I don't. I also love my country, that is why I am supporting GW and the war effort, not trying to put nails in its coffin.
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