McCain pinning his entire candidacy on the war.

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It was kind of funny how she was just Hillary Clinton during the 92 election. Than when they won the White House, she immediately wanted to be referred to as HRC. Now, going into this election she drops the 'Rodham' again.
 
To be fair, he was one of the first called for Rumsfield to resign due to his handling of the war even before Abu Ghraib. He's always said that more troops should of been there at the beginning to secure the country.
 
Maybe this will change in the coming months, but McCain can't just be the "stay the course" candidate for Iraq. The left will try to paint him that way, but he needs to effectively spell out how things are going to change when he becomes President.

That means ending Gitmo, reducing costs of this war (in effect, reducing the manpower gradually) and spelling out to the American public that we are INVESTED (financially and emotionally) into Iraq now and pulling out is morally irresponsible and could mean the unnecessary deaths of 100's of thousands of more Iraqis.
 
While on the topic of McCain:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/john-mccain-is-breaking-t_b_88434.html

John McCain is thumbing his nose at the public financing system -- ironically breaking the very law with his name on it (McCain/Feingold).

The DNC filed a complaint today with the FEC you can read here. But essentially, McCain signed a candidate agreement in August of 2007, seeking a certificate of eligibility for matching funds with the FEC. On December 20, the Commission announced it had certified McCain to receive federal matching funds. But checks for matching funds generally don't get written until February or March, and the cash strapped McCain campaign needed money before that.

So on January 31 2008, the McCain campaign disclosed that it had obtained a $4 million line of credit, and had already drawn $2,971,697 of that credit.

The laws covering public financing require that you can only spend $54 million during the primary, and McCain's reports say that as of January 31, 2008 he had spent $49,600,000 -- which means he's probably already over that limit. So to nobody's surprise, on February 6, he sent a letter to the Commission announcing that his campaign was withdrawing from participation in the federal primary election fund program.

Well that would all be fine and dandy except as McCain well knows, you can't just wave a magic wand and do that.

So the question is -- McCain, once the darling of the reform groups, is now openly gaming the system he helped to create. Fred Wertheimer and his friends at the Washington Post editorial board were all over Barack Obama for a perceived infraction that had absolutely no legal implications -- so why are they so silent about John McCain flipping them all the bird?
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Go to the link for further explanation.
 
VictimOfGrief said:
And the surged worked. Ironic.
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Iraqi civilians still die by the hundreds, insurgents are still laying bombs, US soldiers are still dying, Iraq is still a war-torn country in deep turmoil. How exactly did it work? Lowering the violence? Just because we saw a reduction does not mean it has worked. The temporary cessation of violence by Moqtada Sadr was far more instrumental in the reduction of violence than the surge was. It's just been painted to look the other way around.

The US is in deep shit with Iraq, and it isn't going to go away anytime soon. No amount of troop surge will work, as the Iraqi people will just see it as a foreign invasion again. The US can't leave but it can't stay either. That's how much of a mess it's in.
 
ToxicAdam said:
Maybe this will change in the coming months, but McCain can't just be the "stay the course" candidate for Iraq.
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I read something a couple weeks back saying McCain is the only one who has the credibility to end it without fracturing the country in half. Can't remember where it was from though.
 
siamesedreamer said:
Scorcho, did you read the fracturing scenario in the Atlantic Monthly?
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which, the one which posits that the entire region would eventually descend into a litany of tiny nation-states?
 
scorcho said:
which, the one which posits that the entire region would eventually descend into a litany of tiny nation-states?
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No, no, no...the fracturing of America. It was a brief article at the begininning of the magazine. (I was wondering why you were talking about 1/3s)
 
I swear, if you Americans vote another warmongering Republican into the White House after having suffered EIGHT FUCKING YEARS of George W. Bush.... *sigh*

Would be inconceivable.
 
Haunted One said:
I swear, if you Americans vote another warmongering Republican into the White House after having suffered EIGHT FUCKING YEARS of George W. Bush.... *sigh*

Would be inconceivable.
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Don't underestimate us.

2365a.jpg
 
Zedsdeadbaby said:
Iraqi civilians still die by the hundreds, insurgents are still laying bombs, US soldiers are still dying, Iraq is still a war-torn country in deep turmoil. How exactly did it work? Lowering the violence? Just because we saw a reduction does not mean it has worked. The temporary cessation of violence by Moqtada Sadr was far more instrumental in the reduction of violence than the surge was. It's just been painted to look the other way around.

The US is in deep shit with Iraq, and it isn't going to go away anytime soon. No amount of troop surge will work, as the Iraqi people will just see it as a foreign invasion again. The US can't leave but it can't stay either. That's how much of a mess it's in.
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Whoooa there Junior... ease up on the caffeine.

What's interesting about your post is the "negative-negative-negative-negative" point after point after point after point.

McCain can't unsay that we'll be in Iraq for 50-100 yrs. We will be. However 140,000 troops will not, but I can see maybe a couple thousand. Any person who says otherwise is lying to themselves and lying to the American public. Hiliary has maintained time and time again "I will bring the troops home after 60 days of being in office...." Great. So if you start having the troop level drop off, what are you going to do with the troops that are left behind to fend for themselves? We going to loose another 1,000 troops due to bombings because we didn't have adequate troop levels up to a certain point to get most of our men and women out safely?

Here's who I trust. Our military commanders. May sound like a bush'ism on my part but I don't care about what a politician says or doesn't say about the troop levels as we need to make CERTAIN we do NOT loose any more troops from here on out. Are we going to? Yes sadly--- can we prevent hundreds or thousands from dying? You bet.

Circumventing the troop commanders is about as good as Bush declaring war on Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction. I would've rather declared War against Iraq for crimes against humanity and a brutal dictator that would shoot you if you smiled at him weird.

McCain has been a war vet. He knows what those men and women have faced.... are facing and will face for the next generations to come. I'd say ANY candidate not pinning their candidacy on the war is the candidate who will ultimately lose.

Our economy is tanking because the war is bankrupting our economy. Our economy won't grow and prosper until the war (IE our troop level is below 100,000 troops) in the eyes of the American people is over.

Between the 3 I have to choose from McCain is the most solid and I'm glad he is sticking to his guns (pardon the pun).
 
Here's who I trust. Our military commanders. May sound like a bush'ism on my part but I don't care about what a politician says or doesn't say about the troop levels as we need to make CERTAIN we do NOT loose any more troops from here on out. Are we going to? Yes sadly--- can we prevent hundreds or thousands from dying? You bet.
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there's a reason why we have a civilian leading the military - to marry military objectives to a stated political goal. how does staying there indefinitely help our grand strategy and further american interests? where is the movement on countless political objectives that the surge was supposed to provide the breathing room for? to what end are we there for?

McCain has been a war vet. He knows what those men and women have faced.... are facing and will face for the next generations to come. I'd say ANY candidate not pinning their candidacy on the war is the candidate who will ultimately lose.
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what does that mean? as a war vet he should understand the dangers in protracted, open-ended military campaigns untethered to a political grand strategy (see Vietnam). what strikes me more about his vaulted military experience is his continual insistence that 'we' must win just for the sake of winning.

Our economy is tanking because the war is bankrupting our economy.
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wrong. flat out wrong. the federal debt has very little to do with the economic issues we're seeing now.
 
Haunted One said:
I swear, if you Americans vote another warmongering Republican into the White House after having suffered EIGHT FUCKING YEARS of George W. Bush.... *sigh*

Would be inconceivable.
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Never under-estimate the power of human stupidity.

I would think anyone that reads OT would know that . . . especially after the lovely news storys lately of orangutang-fuckers, dead-deer-fuckers, etc.

(But on the good side, lots of those horrid stories were not from the USA. :D )
 
ToxicAdam said:
I think you are the first liberal I have seen admit that.
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unless you want to call every macro economist a conservative, you're wrong.

i'm also NOT saying that a massive debt won't hinder our economic output later on, but that's a discussion for another thread.
 
scorcho said:
there's a reason why we have a civilian leading the military - to marry military objectives to a stated political goal. how does staying there indefinitely help our grand strategy and further american interests? where is the movement on countless political objectives that the surge was supposed to provide the breathing room for? to what end are we there for?
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Well if Oil prices keep rising, I'd say we need to take over OPEC and dictate what the price of Oil for us and the rest of the world should be. Should be fair... right?

As far as other political motives, the Surge was a three-fold plan :
- Surge the troop levels to reduce violence.
- Reduced violence means the Iraqi economy could stabilize
- A stable economy in a democratic zone means officials can actually work on policy to put in place that benefits everyone.

I would say we've got 1 and 2.... it's the 3 that is taking longer than others and myself included would've liked. Democracy is a slow process of which you can't clap-on / clap-off policy and bills, rights and other legislation. In a fast food political system here in America, we take everything that our Troops are providing for the Iraqi's for granted.


what does that mean? as a war vet he should understand the dangers in protracted, open-ended military campaigns untethered to a political grand strategy (see Vietnam). what strikes me more about his vaulted military experience is his continual insistence that 'we' must win just for the sake of winning.
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What does that mean? It means that he understands the Art of War. He understands that an opened end mission will ultimately fail. He understands that keeping 3/4's of our military in Iraq is NOT a good idea for America. We have to Win in Iraq and in part we have as Saddam is dead. Devil's Advocate : "But Victim... what happens with another dictator goes in and tries to setup shop and start doing the same thing?" Simple. Kill the fucker and weed out the party who tried the hostile take over. I would say that our vested interest in Iraq goes hand in hand with our vested interest in Israel being at peace with Palestinians of which will never happen. If you want to find out why... Pick up a copy of the Bible and read.

wrong. flat out wrong. the federal debt has very little to do with the economic issues we're seeing now.
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Let me re-phrase a bit. What I mean by "bankrupting" this country is the fact that we're printing money for the sake of printing money. We're slowly causing inflation to get so out of hand that the dollar you and I make isn't going to be worth the dollar you and I make.

Why do we have so many foreign investors in our stock market? Easy. It's cheap! What happens to an economy that has foreign investors controlling the value of our currency? Hmm...... I'll let people be the judge of that.

Not only that but we're unfortunately passing the war debt onto future generations but again, that's what happens when a country decides to go to war.
 
scorcho said:
wrong. flat out wrong. the federal debt has very little to do with the economic issues we're seeing now.
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I would agree if the war wasn't in conjunction with those tax cuts. Greater unbudgeted expenses on top of decreased revenue is a recipe for disaster IMO. PEACE.
 
Pimpwerx said:
I would agree if the war wasn't in conjunction with those tax cuts. Greater unbudgeted expenses on top of decreased revenue is a recipe for disaster IMO. PEACE.
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it's basic economics. you don't cut taxes and dive into a war at the same time.

well unless it's a war that no-one is remotely ready to swallow the cost for and you're competely set on going into it irrespective of whatever the country thinks.
 
plagiarize said:
it's basic economics. you don't cut taxes and dive into a war at the same time.

well unless it's a war that no-one is remotely ready to swallow the cost for and you're competely set on going into it irrespective of whatever the country thinks.
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hence why future Americans will have to swallow the debt-pill of this war.
 
to think we're printing money for the sake of printing money (or even doing that in general) shows you have a really really really really bad grasp on macroeconomic policy. really. further, your belief that a stable economy comes before a functioning government and the infrastructure it provides shows you have a really really really really bad grasp on development theory, or at least an anachronistic view of it.

as to your other responses -

if our stated goal is to take over OPEC, which i think is hysterically out of right field, that just isn't going to happen. you would do no worse than to pick Imperial McCain to try to see this happen, though.

McCain doesn't understand an open-ended war will ultimately fail if HE SAYS WE WILL BE IN IRAQ FOR 100 YEARS OR THAT WE COULD'VE WON VIETNAM. and no thank you, i won't refer to the Bible to dictate our country's grand strategy.
 
scorcho said:
to think we're printing money for the sake of printing money (or even doing that in general) shows you have a really really really really bad grasp on macroeconomic policy. really. further, your belief that a stable economy comes before a functioning government and the infrastructure it provides shows you have a really really really really bad grasp on development theory, or at least an anachronistic view of it.

as to your other responses -

if our stated goal is to take over OPEC, which i think is hysterically out of right field, that just isn't going to happen. you would do no worse than to pick Imperial McCain to try to see this happen, though.

McCain doesn't understand an open-ended war will ultimately fail if HE SAYS WE WILL BE IN IRAQ FOR 100 YEARS OR THAT WE COULD'VE WON VIETNAM. and no thank you, i won't refer to the Bible to dictate our country's grand strategy.
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so people still insist on pretending that they haven't been told over and over again the full context of what McCain said about how long troops will be in Iraq for.

if you have to totally misrepresent someone's position on something to tear them down, you should pack up your bag and leave.
 
yeah, like McCain saying the surge is working and that he was right all along. that's shifting the original goals and works directly against the lessons we should've learned in Korea and Vietnam.
 
scorcho said:
to think we're printing money for the sake of printing money (or even doing that in general) shows you have a really really really really bad grasp on macroeconomic policy. really. further, your belief that a stable economy comes before a functioning government and the infrastructure it provides shows you have a really really really really bad grasp on development theory, or at least an anachronistic view of it.
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Then enlighten me. I never said I was an expert on the matter. However the government is basically printing money for this war. IE Borrowing what we don't have. If I am mistaken, then tell me some pointers on how to "straighten up" my view on the economy.

as to your other responses -

if our stated goal is to take over OPEC, which i think is hysterically out of right field, that just isn't going to happen. you would do no worse than to pick Imperial McCain to try to see this happen, though.
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That was just for fun and you're right, completely out of right field. :lol

McCain doesn't understand an open-ended war will ultimately fail if HE SAYS WE WILL BE IN IRAQ FOR 100 YEARS OR THAT WE COULD'VE WON VIETNAM. and no thank you, i won't refer to the Bible to dictate our country's grand strategy.
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See that's where I think we differ. McCain knows if our military core... again, using the 3/4's example is over there, is over there for 50-100 years, America fails, not Iraq. It's in OUR COUNTRY'S best interest to get our boys and gals home. As far as my Bible comment, that is more directed at why there will not be peace (ever) between the Israeli's and the Palestinians.
 
VictimOfGrief said:
Then enlighten me. I never said I was an expert on the matter. However the government is basically printing money for this war. IE Borrowing what we don't have. If I am mistaken, then tell me some pointers on how to "straighten up" my view on the economy.
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printing money and borrowing money are two different things, wouldn't you agree? one incurs the wrath of creating massive inflationary pressure, the other props up budget deficits and creates quite a bit less inflation.
 
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