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Discuss the US Presidential Election & the War
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu Oct 30, 2008 07:46 AM
from the here-we-go-again dept.
from the here-we-go-again dept.
With under a week to go, we're opening up discussions on the US Presidential Election. Yesterday we discussed
the economy. Today we take on one of the other major election topics: The War. From the actual wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, to foreign policy issues related to potential threats like North Korea, Russia, and Iran, how do the candidates stack up?
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In 24 hours, many of you will be able to vote. So as we come down to the wire, this is really our last chance to talk about the issues. We've already discussed Health Care, the War, and the Economy. Today I'm opening up the floor to discuss education. Perhaps no other issue will matter more in 50 years. Which candidate will make the next generation smarter?
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Define "Winning" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a "war" that can't be won. There's no real central point of authority to surrender. In a conventional war (if there is such a thing) the losing side signs off on it, the winner reap the spoils and everyone rebuilds. But at $10B a month it keeps a lot of Republican supporters in business.
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Insightful)
oh, don't worry about it, the people lining their pockets with war profits are winning just fine. Four more years of it and they'll be home free. Never mind the effect on the rest of America (or the world for that matter).
Catch-22 was *much* too friendly in it's spoof on war profiteering. Reality is so much harsher.
I always figured that there never was an all-out effort to catch OBL simply because if it were succesful then there would be no more need to continue all these crazy expenses.
Speaking of expenses, simply shutting down this crazy war will give Obama more money than he could hope to raise through taxation, if all the money destroyed in Iraq would have been used for good the USA would be in a completely different position right now.
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Interesting)
if all the money destroyed in Iraq would have been used for good the USA would be in a completely different position right now.
I'm not sure I understand this argument. Certainly we'd have a lower deficit and inflation risk would be lowered... but most of the money goes to men and material. That money goes right back into the economy, since the men are American and the material is mostly sourced from the US.
Now, granted, the payback isn't as good as infrastructure improvement - but there's no evidence that we would have gone into a serious deficit spending mode just for infrastructure improvement.
Remember that WW2 is often credited as being a major force in lifting us out of the depression.
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Insightful)
war tends to destroy stuff - infrastructure, materiel and people - in vast quantities, money gets moved from the tax payers to the producers of these war toys in equally vast quantities, they are *not* going to use it to improve the state of affairs in the country that does the spending. Most of it will end up in numbered accounts in .ch.
Spending an extra 10 billion every month on education or infrastructural improvements *is* going to put that money back in to circulation.
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Insightful)
I get what you're saying, but just to pull you back from going to far, the proper response should probably have been a good long look at why the US was being attacked by these people, following through the investigation to its real origins (weren't most of the bombers Saudi and funded by Saudi sources?) and possibly agreeing to Afghanistan's terms for a fair trial of Osama Bin Laden so that they would be willing to hand him over to a neutral court. This last one I'm not sure if it would have been possible and it's not been shown afaik that they actually had him for definite, but an offer was made which was rejected by the USA.
9/11 was a tragedy that required a response. Just not the one it got by power-hungy people.
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Interesting)
Did we already win?
Mission Accomplished! [wikipedia.org]
The joke aside... Look, I'm not a foreign policy advisor or anything, but I see news of marches by the Iraqi people frequently in the US news (that already voluntarily censors much of that sort of thing). They want us out of their country badly. If we can't leave, can someone explain to me why not?
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Insightful)
I see news of marches by anti-abortion activists frequently. Clearly that means all Americans are anti-abortion.
Right?
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Insightful)
I see news of marches by anti-abortion activists frequently. Clearly that means all Americans are anti-abortion.
Right?
That's interesting... I've never once seen any marches by the Iraqis where they are shouting chants about how much they love us and want us to stay. I must have missed that in the US media, which would have no reason to want to play that sort of thing... I'm sorry, I just don't buy it that the majority of the Iraqi people support our occupation of their sovereign country.
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Insightful)
What I've been reading from people who've actually been there is that Iraqis badly want us to leave. And greatly fear the prospect of us leaving. It isn't that they are cheering our presence wholeheartedly, but they know we're a big factor keeping the peace (such as it is) right now. While it would definitely be expedient for us to leave right away, it might not be prudent. It's a tough situation, one that I'd prefer we were not in. But we are.
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Funny)
We can't leave until they say 'uncle.'
It's in the rules.
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Insightful)
"Yes, it was an overt PR attempt"
Problem was that it was an overt PR attempt to claim that more than simply the mission was accomplished.
It's much like "intelligent design" proponents go on about how evolution is only a theory.
In both cases, it's a deliberate misrepresentation of meaning.
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who cites the "Mission Accomplished" statement as some sort of gaffe is either purely partisan, or doesn't understand military operations.
I think I'll just go ahead and call it a gaffe. Or bluster. Or hubris. Uh oh, now I have to choose which horn of your false dilemma to sit upon. Oh well, I guess I'll just marry a carrot.
Now for the serious stuff. In war, the mission is accomplished when it's over. If you haven't satisfied your civilian population that the mission you sold them on has been accomplished and the war is over, then "OPORDER" or no, you haven't accomplished your mission.
To the civilian population, the ones supplying the money and fresh meat, war is over when the casualty rate drops suddenly, and matériel is being consumed at peacetime levels.
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Insightful)
And if the US leaves some other time, that won't happen?
Find an end state that
A) Doesn't leave the US in Iraq indefinitely and
B) Doesn't result in a sectarian bloodbath
and
C) Doesn't involve nuking the country to glass or any other form of genocide
and that's a valid argument for the US not leaving now.
But if whenever the US leaves, there will be a sectarian bloodbath, it may as well be now.
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We won the invasion. (Score:5, Insightful)
We took out their previous government and replaced it. We disbanded their army.
The criteria of "winning" the occupation seem to keep changing.
And without clear criteria, you'll never know if you have "won" or even if you're getting closer to "winning".
Not to mention our continuing strategy of treating the occupation as if it was still an invasion. We're using air strikes on buildings instead of arresting criminals.
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Re:We won the invasion. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think they (the "they" being the profiteering companies who are influencing the govt) are just trying to keep the war going so that they can keep getting these lucrative contracts, but that's just my opinion. I wouldn't be surprised to see a different approach if we got an administration not so transparently tied to the companies who are profiting - the real question is "does one of these administrations even exist?"
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Re:We won the invasion. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:We won the invasion. (Score:5, Insightful)
We won phase 1, clearing the country of (alas, nonexistent) WMD and ousting a brutal dictator.
Phase 2 is trying to stamp out the hatred and violence that phase 1 fomented.
As in so many things, the previous solution is the new problem.
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the thing is...at this point, there really is no difference between Obama and McCain as to ending the war in Iraq.
Both of them pretty much have said they will withdraw troops in accordance to what the commanders on the ground over there (Petraus?) say is safe for our forces and Iraq.
You can debate all you want about how the two stood on starting the war, but, at this point, the two candidates are essentially in agreement on methods and timelines to end our participation in it.
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Insightful)
commanders on the ground over there (Petraus?)
That's always scared me... I know that from one perspective it is a good idea to let people close to the actual situation in Iraq make many of the judgment calls... But, it seems like we're really trusting Petraus (still him?) as the final word on the war. I don't think that's right... It should be the president's call, the people's call, or congress's call. The ending of the war shouldn't be decided by one career general...
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Funny)
I'm all for sending them.
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Insightful)
Just my $0.02
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Informative)
That definition makes winning pretty close to impossible, I'd say. We've installed the democratic government -- now we just have to stay until the voters of Iraq stop electing the "wrong" leaders, right?
A democratic Iraq is a threat to our allies by definition. Our continued presence isn't going to make all those Iraqi voters suddenly fall in love with Israel.
If the U.S. wanted a democracy in Iraq, it is done. If they wanted a pro-America government in Iraq, they should have installed a pro-America dictator.
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Informative)
If they wanted a pro-America government in Iraq, they should have installed a pro-America dictator.
They tried that already and it seems to have backfired.
Stupid dictators not doing what they're told to.
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Insightful)
"Leaving a fair and stable democratic government in Iraq that is not and will not be a threat to America or it's allies"
Those are 2 entirely seperate things. Suppose the new democratic government decides to go after Kuwait again? Sometimes the people you hand democracy to can vote against your interests you know. That's sort of the point of democracy.
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Re:Define "Winning" (Score:5, Interesting)
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Define "Winning"? Not genocide. (Score:5, Insightful)
I am pretty sure that the definition of "winning" goes far beyond the US just leaving, even for the Iraqis. I am fairly sure that if the US leaves and Iraq descends into a Rwanda style genocide, they will not call that winning, even though American troops are gone.
The war was stupid to jump into in the first place. I thought it was dumb from day one. Unfortunately, you can't unpull a trigger. The US fired, it killed the government, unleashed the openings to an ethnic genocide, and made Iraq their problem. Now they have to fix it. If the cost of fixing Iraq is a few more billion dollars and some dead Americans, that is the price the Americans have to pay.
Everyone wants the "war" to be over with. The problem is that if the Americans leave, it doesn't suddenly make the war over. It makes it over for the Americans, but it doesn't mean it is over for Iraq. Now that the Americans have broken Iraq, the balancing act for the Americans at this point is to get the fuck out as fast as humanly possible without leaving behind a genocide.
The average Iraqi and the US have the same goal at this point. Get the hell out without as little blood as possible. The US wants to go as badly as the Iraqis want them out. The problem is that the players in this game are not just the Americans and the average Iraqi. You also have new Shiite majority leaders still smarting from Sunni brutality under Saddam, nostalgic Sunnis, independence seeking Kurds, Turks, Iran, and Al-qaeda that all have an interest (to greater and lesser extents) in making Iraq a blood bath.
The sad truth is that the US right now is the biggest and meanest on the block in Iraq, and they are what is keeping the conflicting parties from drowning each other in an orgy of blood. At some point, Iraq's central government will be competent and neutral enough to take over the roll of biggest bad ass with a gun and the US can slip out the back. Assuming genocide is not your goal, the question you need to ask yourself is, when will the central government have enough power to keep everyone from killing each other, AND will the central government be able to resist from whacking one group or another?
We can argue until we are blue in the face if or when the time will come when Iraq's central government is strong enough and neutral enough. The simple fact of the matter is that we don't have a frigging clue. Smarter men and women with better knowledge and more information don't know the answer.
Personally, I think the best plan for the Americans is to draw down and pretend like they mean it. If wheels start to fall off, pause, take a breather, then try again. You want to push the Iraqi government to grow a pair and go into the deep end, and you want them to try like their life depends upon it, but if they actually start to drown you want to be there to drag their ass out.
Personally, I think it is a good lesson for the Americans. Next time they try this sort of stupid stunt they will hopefully go in with eyes wide open as to the true cost of kicking over a government and taking responsibility for a nation. Hopefully they will make sure the war is worth the price they are going to pay and reserve toppling governments for when there is truly no other solution.
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Iraq (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, there's only been one candidate who has been consistent in his stance about the Iraq war for the entire time -- Barack Obama. And it's a stance I agree with -- the Iraq War is a farce. It is a war on false pretense. We need to leave as soon as humanly possible. Really.
Re:Iraq (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, there's only been one candidate who has been consistent in his stance about the Iraq war for the entire time -- Barack Obama. And it's a stance I agree with -- the Iraq War is a farce. It is a war on false pretense. We need to leave as soon as humanly possible. Really.
You should probably mention that the "as soon as humanly possible" part of that statement is your own opinion. This is what Obama says on his website [barackobama.com]:
A Responsible, Phased Withdrawal
Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. Immediately upon taking office, Obama will give his Secretary of Defense and military commanders a new mission in Iraq: ending the war. The removal of our troops will be responsible and phased, directed by military commanders on the ground and done in consultation with the Iraqi government. Military experts believe we can safely redeploy combat brigades from Iraq at a pace of 1 to 2 brigades a month that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 â" more than 7 years after the war began.
Under the Obama-Biden plan, a residual force will remain in Iraq and in the region to conduct targeted counter-terrorism missions against al Qaeda in Iraq and to protect American diplomatic and civilian personnel. They will not build permanent bases in Iraq, but will continue efforts to train and support the Iraqi security forces as long as Iraqi leaders move toward political reconciliation and away from sectarianism.
"Fast as humanly possible" would be irresponsible. For the troops to just up and leave in one day (which we probably could evacuate them if it were ordered) would be devastating. Stop spreading fear that's going to alienate undecideds, moderates and maybe even Republicans who aren't afraid to vote Democrat.
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Re:Iraq (Score:5, Insightful)
"Fast as humanly possible" would be irresponsible.
probably a typo - should be "fast as humanely possible" !
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Re:Iraq (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Iraq (Score:5, Informative)
Obama said in 2002: "I know that invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East and encourage the worst rather than best impulses in the Arab world and strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars, I am opposed to dumb wars."
(reference [nytimes.com])
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Re:Iraq (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama has said he would meet with leaders of terrorist states unconditionally.
"terrorist state" is a label. What do you think most of the middle east calls the USA? These are sovereign nations and their governments we're talking about. There is no harm talking to them, regardless of what McCain says. You think just by being in the same room Obama would suddenly go crazy and nuke Israel or something? Grow up.
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No Contest (Score:5, Insightful)
We have one candidate that opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, and another that still insists it was a rousing success. This isn't even a contest.
Re:No Contest (Score:5, Interesting)
The gist of the comment was this: when things weren't going well McCain and other republicans said we absolutely couldn't pull out of Iraq because we would have lost. Now, these same folks say that the 'surge' has been an unmitigated success, but we still can't pull out. If that is the case, that you can't pull out when things are bad, and you still can't pull out when things are good then McCain must really be committed to the 100 years engagement that he discussed earlier in his campaign.
Obviously this comment is a bit tongue in cheek, but I think the underlying point is valid.
For what it's worth -- while I consider myself a libertarian at heart, there is no way I could vote for the Barr/Root ticket. Not when the VP candidate runs a sports book. So, this is not a shameless LP pandering comment.
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the story's title is incorrect (Score:5, Funny)
"Discuss the US Presidential Election & the War" is the wrong title
it should read "Trolls, Strawmen, Partisan Hacks, Propagandizers, Emotionally Unstable Wingnuts/Moonbats: Please Assemble Here"
Re:the story's title is incorrect (Score:5, Funny)
Ummm, this is Slashdot -- that's already implied. :-P
Cheers
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Candidate Summary (Score:5, Funny)
Obama: Iraq is Bad we should withdraw on a fixed timetable agreed with the Iraqi government. Afghanistan is good, might invade Pakistan but wouldn't invade Iran
McCain: Iraq is Good we should withdraw without a fixed timetable with agreement from the Iraqi government, Afghanistan is good, wouldn't invade Pakistan but would invade Iran
And of course there is the Sarah Palin view
Palin: I live near Russia I do. War is good, war is what folks in our small towns want its what Dave the Electrician and Marge the Checkout Gal are after. Anyone who doesn't want to invade a country if just palling around with them and we need to know WHY Obama doesn't want to invade France, is he really French?
Here's one for you ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why on Earth are people talking about having Iraq pay back America for the costs of this war with the proceeds of oil sales?
Do people really think that after you've come in, destabalized their country, mangled most of their infrastructure, and generally made a mess of things that Iraq should be paying you back for that?
People keep talking about recouping costs from sale of oil, and I have no idea why you'd expect to recoup costs from a country that you invaded. Especially since, other than finishing what W's daddy started, there really wasn't a good reason to be in Iraq in the first place.
This is like the worst form of imperialism -- we'll invade you and topple your government, and then we'll bill you for it.
Discuss.
The solution to the war (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way to win, is not to play.
Listen, during WW2 we fought people with a political difference. When Germany fell, though there were "terrorists" until the 1950s, remants of Nazis that refused to give up, they eventually were either captured, died out or simply gave up and accepted things the way they had become.
Today, we are fighting religious fanatics.
They will simply never, ever, ever, quit. And more are being indoctrinated every day. You cannot argue, or reason with, a fanatic. It simply will not occur.
So we either accept we will forever be in Iraq being pecked to death, fighting for a gov't and country that doesn't want us there and may not understand what to do with democracy once they get it, or give up, go home, and admit we can't fight religious nuts.
There should be 13 stripes on the US flag (Score:5, Insightful)
You know??? For the 13 original colonies? Slashdot's icon is missing a red stripe at the top.
Re:There should be 13 stripes on the US flag (Score:5, Funny)
If you look carefully at the top of the flag, you can see a few red dots. Maybe the stripe for Rhode Island was drawn to scale.
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Re:Obama? (Score:5, Insightful)
- I'm quite certain America's enemies in the middle east will be routing for an Obama victory -- say what you like about Dubya, but those bad guys are scared pissly of him because he's a cowboy that'll bomb the crap out them without blinking
Nope, "America's enemies" would love us(I'm from the UK, we like to tag along) go and bomb the middle east; it'd give them a huge propaganda victory, and make recruiting suicide bombers from western countries much easier; at least here in the UK we have young male, disenfranchised Muslim population virtually waiting for events in the middle east to radicalise them. The Iraq war didn't stop radical Muslim terrorism, it created more terrorists, and galvanized anti-western sentiment. Bombing Iran or Syria would just make the problem worse.
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Just cause you go to war... (Score:5, Informative)
9/11: Al Qaeda, and a month later the Taliban
late 2002/2003: Saddam/Baathists
2004 on: Shiite/Suni Militias, Al Sadr, etc. etc.
Sure Saddam was a POS leader, but he was probably better than Kim Jong Il is and we before going into Iraq we didn't have to fight 5 fronts at the same time while burning a F'in huge hole in our national budget.
If Duyba had left "the enemy" to simply Al Qaeda, we'd not have spent untold billions in Iraq, our international relations would be less strained, we'd have 4000+ less war dead (Not mentioning the tens and tens of thousands of soldiers with mental/physical problems), tens of thousands of less Iraqi dead,etc.
You see where I'm going?
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Re:Obama? (Score:5, Informative)
- Obama's lack of experience -- if he is elected, the 4 year presidential term will be the longest job he's ever held
Just wanted to quash a little bit of FUD, here. Obama was a constitutional law professor for twelve years and a state senator for seven years.
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Re:Obama? (Score:5, Insightful)
George W Bush certainly scares me but I doubt if he scares the Al Qaeda nut jobs. From their point of view he has been a triumph of public relations. Consider that GWB's foreign policy has taken a situation where he had all the sympathy and Al Qaeda attracted the condemnation of just about everybody on the planet just after 9/11 to the point where the USA has the condemnation of just about everybody on the planet for being the bully boy of World politics. Way to go George!
What scares me about McCain is not McCain but his age. If he gets elected, the chance of him dying in office has got to be quite high. If that happens, the leader of the free world with the biggest guns and bombs is another religious person with a proven tenuous grasp on reality. I'll have to spend another four years hoping she doesn't get a message from God telling her it's time for the Apocalypse.
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Re:Obama? (Score:5, Insightful)
As to the "Obama has never run anything" charge, can you name another presidential campaign which has run as smoothly, with less drama, massive staff-churns, leaks, rumors, staffers or surrogates going off-reservation, etc.? This is a well-oiled machine, run with discipline, vision and purpose, and a huge number of ground troops, all on the same page. I think that's pretty impressive.
America's enemies and friends BOTH are rooting for Obama, simply because an unstable America leads to an unstable world. I have no doubt that Obama would incinerate a foreign power, given the provocation, but that's WWII/ColdWar thinking, total war isn't really a viable option. Nations are not the danger today, Iran and North Korea included. If they really did get out of hand, say by firing nuclear missiles at somebody (Israel) we could destroy them utterly, at a whim. What's much harder, and what Obama would be far better than McCain at, is talking to them, in bringing the level of discourse down from a shouting match to a conversation.
I would really really really really like to have an intelligent, thoughtful man, who can see shades of gray, who can weigh alternatives, who is not an ideologue, running the country for a change.
I'm going to vote for Obama because I think that having him in the White House will make the world a better place, a different place, both by his efforts and by his mere presence. On his very best day, all McCain can offer me is the status quo.
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Re:Obama? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not saying this is absolutely true, but there is the possibility.
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Re:Obama? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:One question for McCain supporters (Score:5, Interesting)
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