If Bush vetoes...

If Bush vetoes who will be blamed?

  • Congress

    Votes: 11 61.1%
  • The President

    Votes: 7 38.9%

  • Total voters
    18
I know you didn't mean it literally but, there's a lot more at stake here than a baseball game. The war is not unwinnable. That is nothing more than defeatist propaganda. Give the troops the money and equipment they need and they'll get the job done. Deny them said things and the enemy wins, it's quite simple. There are two choices, victory and defeat. What is not an option is to turn tail run, run away, stick our heads in the sand and pretend it'll all go away. It's not going anywhere except right here in America.
As for Syria, it doesn't really matter whose friend they were a generation ago. The fact is that they are sponsors of terror today. The terrorists they sponsor are the terrorists that what to kill me and my family. IMO we should not/cannot negotiate with people who care nothing about anyone except to kill them. Oh by the way, Israel is our ally, Syria is not.
I don't want to see another terror attack and I firmly believe that we should do anything and everything in our power to prevent it from ever happening.
 
The sad truth is the war is now unwinnable. There is simply no reason to throw good (like our troops) into bad. You could carry on the status quo in Iraq for another 5 years and nothing will change except that instead of 3000 dead US Troops it would be close to 10,000. If there was ANY way to salvage Iraq I would argue to stay on. But their isnt, and the President is completely untrustworthy. So what other choice do we have? The Dems are trying to stop the war. Why shouldn't they? its been mishandled from day 1. Lets face it, the Bush method of dealing Iraq has been going on 4 years and shown few results. In baseball, if your starter goes 5 innings and just routinely get blasted every inning, its time to change the pitcher.

The problem is that even if the war is unwinnable and I am not all that certain that it is Pandora's box has been opened you cant just throw it in and not expect them to keep coming after you.
 
Umm is it a mis-print or are some of those quotes Pre-GW1 when everyone knew he had WMD's using those now is a little like saying you invaded Iraq to prevent the Sumerians attacking the Isrealites.

As far as the 2002-2003 quotes go would it not be a fair assumption that their opinions were formed from the less than accurate information being passed around by the intelligence agencies at the time?

Basically you can hardly expect people who are feed bad data to make good decisions.

No more was known about Saddam's capabilities after 9/11 as was in the 90's. The same intel sources were being used because no inspectors were allowed to freely inspect all of Iraq's weapons facilities.

But I did like the Sumerian / Israel analogy, regardless of having nothing whatever to do with intelligence gathering in the 20th-21st centuries.
 
I know you didn't mean it literally but, there's a lot more at stake here than a baseball game. The war is not unwinnable. That is nothing more than defeatist propaganda. Give the troops the money and equipment they need and they'll get the job done. Deny them said things and the enemy wins, it's quite simple. There are two choices, victory and defeat. What is not an option is to turn tail run, run away, stick our heads in the sand and pretend it'll all go away. It's not going anywhere except right here in America.
As for Syria, it doesn't really matter whose friend they were a generation ago. The fact is that they are sponsors of terror today. The terrorists they sponsor are the terrorists that what to kill me and my family. IMO we should not/cannot negotiate with people who care nothing about anyone except to kill them. Oh by the way, Israel is our ally, Syria is not.
I don't want to see another terror attack and I firmly believe that we should do anything and everything in our power to prevent it from ever happening.

DTOP

You are thinking in military terms. But it has been widely acknowledged the war cannot be won by military force alone. The Head of the Army General Peter Shoomaker said this;

"Military -- the "m" in the dime -- will not win this," he said. "This will be won at the informational level and at the economic level, with the support of the military for security, and diplomatically."

http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040615170719.ut32ct2e.html

and from today, Gen David Patraeus the commander in Iraq

But he added that military force alone was "not sufficient" to end violence in Iraq and political talks must include militant groups now fighting the US. "This is critical," said General Petraeus, adding that such negotiations "will determine in the long run the success of this effort".


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2341357.ece

The reason we have lost is because we have failed to secure the political aspects, not the military ones. The fact is the Sunni and Shiite HATE each other. They have hated each other for 800 years, and its rather arrogant to think we could change that. As we saw in Northern Ireland, it will end when they have both have had enough, but right now all they see is revenge.

And worse, each side views the USA as helping the other.

In 2004, We gave them both the choice to:

A) live in Peace as neighbors
B) Kill each other

They chose option B. We should have left Iraq then and there.

The Syrians are not like Iran. They are not anti-US, they just don't like Israel, because Israel still occupies parts of Syria. The are angry at us for helping Israel.

I don't want another terror attack either. but the best way to avoid it is to make friends, not enemies.

I would be careful in calling Israel an ally. Its is a country that has been caught spying on us TWICE, has deliberately attacked our Navy vessels, has misused US tax dollars (given in aid) to build settlements on land they stole, and has sold our military technology to China. With friends like these, who needs enemies?
 
You guys still don't get it ... the jackarse in all of this foofraw is still President George Bush. He is the jackarse who ordered troops into Iraq (a country who had NOT attacked us and has since been proven to NOT be the danger he had claimed) ... the same jackarse who didn't have a plan in place to allow removal of our troops and STILL has no dam(n) idea of how to move this one into the win column.

This is the same jackarse who has driven our National Debt into the stratosphere and still insists on making his richest contributors even richer on the backs of the poorest Americans with his tax rebate legislation and increasing money being spent on Bush's War (Iraq).

Just like a stubborn jackarse, this President needs to be hit between the running lights to get his attention ... just what the voters did in the last election and what Democrats and a few Republicans have done with their 'pullout' legislation.

Did it have any impact on Bush? Not so you'd notice - he is still jackarse stubborn and will hear NO negative comments about his strategy for Iraq ... I am afraid that Iraq will still be with us even when we have elected a new President and will not be resolved until long after Georgie has created his 'Presidential Library' where he will no doubt try to place a good face on his fiasco (Iraq War).


DO I AGREE WITH REID'S LEGISLATION?

Not on your tintype - a publicly announced date certain for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq at this late date, will do nothing but invite terrorist attacks within our own country because of the lack of commitment on the part of our leaders.

IF we are going to set a date for the withdrawal of troops, it should be classified at the highest possible level and it's disclosure should be punishable by a hefty prison sentence for treason.

Even though I never was in favor of the Iraq War, the fact remains that we can NOT afford to have another Vietnam War ... we MUST place this one into the win column ... we broke it, and we need to at least turn the protection of Iraq over to a government that can at least stand on their own feet.
 
mmarsh, of course I'm thinking in military terms. That's what the discussion is about; funding or lack thereof of the military. This is after all this is a military discussion forum.
Political shenanigans are seemingly done without regard to anyone's well being but that of the politicians involved. I speak from a military background and happily not from that of a political hack. I am not a politician and don't pretend to know what goes on the their minds. I do think we could use another President Reagan about now.
As I have stated, I do think the war is still winnable if only the military is allowed to do what it does best and given the resources to do so. I do not think making friends with those sworn to destroy us is the best way to protect ourselves from being attacked. I don't know about anyone else but that sounds like surrender to me. Syria is no friend of ours. They are providing training and supplies for the terrorists who try to kill our personnel on a daily basis. I don't think they should be coddled or appeased for doing so. Sorry I just can't justify rewarding any country for contributing to the deaths of our servicemen and women and I never will. In my opinion, the only thing they deserve is total defeat. The way to accomplish that end is to grant the funding necessary to accomplish the mission.
 
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I believe the operations in Iraq have not been as successful as they should have lately because in the first place US troops were too few (this is a specifical mistake by Rumsfeld, if I am right), and never increased as much as needed.
Comparative figures of US troops/enemy troops in WW1 and 2, Korea, Viet Nam and Iraq 1990-1 were totally different than current ones.
The US should be sending in way more troops and be less reliant on the quality of locally-trained troops.
In the second place, the so-called allied countries (Europe and others) should have sent and be sending in more troops than they have and are (both in Afghanistan and Iraq), rather than withdrawing or decreasing their numbers and their equipments, like Italy is unfortunately doing under the guide of a socialcommunist government that won the election by a mere 20 thousand votes.
This GWOT is being fought with too few men, and that is the reason why insurgents and rebels have not been won yet.
Do you think more men thrown in would result in more casualties or in less casualties on the medium term?
 
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Hard to say really. I would say at first you would have more casualties due to the learning curve. Sounds harsh but the truth remains, ask any grunt.

Once we got underway and pursued an agressive agenda designed towards finding and removing ordnance from unfriendly hands I believe it would then be between the opposing political factions instead of the political factions AND the terrorists.
 
This is part of the reason I dont think we should be rotating home every 12 months but stay until the job is done. Its one of the things that won WWII for us in both theatres. Now once a troop gets his wits and the lay of the land and becomes an effective fighting machine he is rotated home so you have this constant one step forward, one step backwards dynamic. We still have not truly committed to the effort with all that we have in terms of men and material nor in our resolve. This is the reason I see us falling short. The media need to be muzzled and the people rallied behind this effort and quit the sniping and monday morning quarterbacking. Turn loose the warriors and then back them until the job is done with whatever they need to get it done.
 
Congress has lower poll ratings than the President. That should give you some insight to what the true feelings of Americans are.
http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=26914

"According to Gallup's monthly update on job approval of Congress -- in a March 11-14, 2007, national poll -- 28% of Americans approve of the job being done by Congress and 64% disapprove. This marks a substantial change from January and February, with approval down nine points and disapproval up nine points."

http://www.americanresearchgroup.com/economy/
"Overall, 32% of Americans say that they approve of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president, 63% disapprove, and 5% are undecided."
 
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