McCain vs Obama on Foreign Policy
Abookamongstthemany
Posts: 8,209
If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
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fixed it for you. You only need to watch the first 10 minutes. But if you watch more, you may be enlightened.
-No permanent bases
-No combat troops
-No threatening Iran
Edit: It's not working, but if you search "barack Obama on hardball- msnbc" you will clearly see the huge differences between Obama and McCain.
Honestly, what is the differnce between combat and non combat troops if the non combat troops are there to 'fight off Al Qaeda' per Obama's site? I've asked this before and never got an answer.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
Non combat troops are there for humanitarian reasons. To help build bridges and make sure humanitarian supplies get where needed.
You should actually listen to Obama. Just watch the video I asked you to search. It will only take 10 mins
http://www.antiwar.com/frank/?articleid=4521
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/11/01/new-08-iran-rift-obama-_n_70807.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3gQfz8GC0o
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
On his website he mentions troops being there to fight off Al Qaeda. Doesn't it take 'combat' to fight them?
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
The troops that are already in the region, not in Iraq. If bases form and Al Queda are being trained in them Obama would be prepared to strike.
But he wants to get out of Iraq and make sure Afghanistan is stabalized and continue to hunt Osama.
I notice you spin things here much the same way the neo-cons do on fox.........tiresome really.
He leaves the door open for troops in Iraq or elsewhere.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
How so? Where's the insinuation? I put 'vs'. No where did it same or anything like it
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
No answer?
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
Another nice Hillary exposed piece
the Hillary cackle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZTB62AaH-4&feature=related
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
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( o.O)
(")_(")
According to a report from late Fall 2007, Al Qaeda accounted for only 2% of the enemy we're fighting in Iraq. Only 2%. It's amazing though how every time there's an IED, the media and Bushie blame Al Qaeda.
Anyway, I'm sure you can do the math and can figure out just how little of a troop presence may be needed to fight "Al Qaeda."
can you post that report?
Perhaps, but then there's the problem of our leaders saying it's Al Qaeda when it probably isn't to gain public support for however much force they want to use. They pull out the trusted old 'terrorism' card and people buy it. How do we know Obama isn't going to do the same? If the terrorist percentage in Iraq is so small then why the need to bring it up? How do you get rid of the supposed terrorists with troop presence? I thought that was what was drawing the Al Qaeda to Iraq in the first place? It seems more to me like leaving a door open for excuses or a loophole for continued occupation especially after hearing Obama's tough talk on Iran and his support for Israel while ignoring the Palestinian crisis. He just seems to fit the bill of any other politician looking to score more support from AIPAC. What points to his plans being much different from the approach of Bush or McCain?
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
Non-Combat troops are those U.S. Soldiers that are NOT tasked to any combat operations. Think of the men and women in the communications centers, vehicle maintenance, aircraft ground maintenance, logistics operations, medical, administrative, etc... The support people.
The Combat troops are the infantrymen who go out and kick in the doors and get in the fire fights.
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The problem is... in order to leave one behind... you need to leave the other behind. You cannot remove just one or the other.
The Infantryman in the field needs the many support personel so he can concentrate on his major task.. killing people. The support people need the combat soldier to protect them from hostilities. Sure, all soldiers are trainned in basics and can put a weapon up to their eye and fire... (see, Jessica Lynch). But, if the shit comes down hard and heavy, you need those combat infantrymen and Marines to do the heavy lifting.
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A phased withdrawal will only happen when Iraq and the middle East become as docile as Germany has become. We can withdraw our troops from Germany and Japan if we want to... we choose not to. We do not have the luxury of that option in Iraq. And anyone who tells you it is an option is lying to you... and lying to our soldiers that we've stuck in that shit.
Hail, Hail!!!
A lot of people who are quite credible and respected have made the case for a withdrawal from Iraq. I wouldn't call them liars... just differing opinions on what is possible.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
Withdrawal is possible... but, you basically have to GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE.
There's a reason why Israel left Lebannon in such a hurry after their brief occupation... it was either that... or staying forever... or leaving a lot of their troops vulnerable to attack in a slow, phased withdrawal.
And look at the last days of America in Viet Nam. It was chaotic as the last remaining vanguard scrambled for the last helicopters out of town. Iraq is 1,000 times worse right now, than Viet Nam was in 1974, when we bailed.
We don't have the phased withdrawal as an option... we either get the FUCK out in a hurry... or we stay until it becomes at least as stable as Viet Nam was in 1974... then, get the hell out of there and let the ethnic cleansing begin... or, we stay for 100 years and just accept the fact that we are offering up our soldiers as human sacrifice and don't worry, nor care if the death toll goes into the tens or hunderds of thousands.
...
P.S. Do you want me to pick up an Eddie Vedder t-shirt or something this Thursday?
Hail, Hail!!!
When part of the instability a direct result of our presence in the region, one has to wonder what good is going to come of a prolonged occupation? And when if ever will the area be 'stable' when so much of the middle east is at each others throats without us occupying them? When is the cost of this occupation going to cause us to buckle? How is our presence going to stop the infighting, much less solve the problem causing it? Aren't they going to continue killing off the minority with us there or not? And when would it be okay for us to leave and stop protecting them? especially if the problem is never solved? How is our gov't's practice of arming both sides while our troops are caught in the crossfire fixing anything? Do you believe the mainstream candidates will honestly put an end to that? Seems like our policy in Iraq is to ensure instability and chaos then point and say 'See! We have to stay and continue this occupation!' To me it's all bullshit sold to us as the only responsible option. Thye'd probably be much better off without screwing things up even worse for them. And they're saying they want us out. It's their country, right?
ps...you're too sweet. thank you for the kind offer. you go ahead and enjoy your show and try not to be stuck in those merchandise lines too long.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
The Myth of AQI
Fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq is the last big argument for keeping U.S. troops in the country. But the military's estimation of the threat is alarmingly wrong.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0710.tilghman.html
The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), which arguably has the best track record for producing accurate intelligence assessments, last year estimated that AQI's membership was in a range of "more than 1,000." When compared with the military's estimate for the total size of the insurgency—between 20,000 and 30,000 full-time fighters—this figure puts AQI forces at around 5 percent. When compared with Iraqi intelligence's much larger estimates of the insurgency—200,000 fighters—INR's estimate would put AQI forces at less than 1 percent. This year, the State Department dropped even its base-level estimate, because, as an official explained, "the information is too disparate to come up with a consensus number."
How big, then, is AQI? The most persuasive estimate I've heard comes from Malcolm Nance, the author of The Terrorists of Iraq and a twenty-year intelligence veteran and Arabic speaker who has worked with military and intelligence units tracking al-Qaeda inside Iraq. He believes AQI includes about 850 full-time fighters, comprising 2 percent to 5 percent of the Sunni insurgency. "Al-Qaeda in Iraq," according to Nance, "is a microscopic terrorist organization."
So how did the military come up with an estimate of 15 percent, when government data and many of the intelligence community's own analysts point to estimates a fraction of that size? The problem begins at the top. When the White House singles out al-Qaeda in Iraq for special attention, the bureaucracy responds by creating procedures that hunt down more evidence of the organization. The more manpower assigned to focus on the group, the more evidence is uncovered that points to it lurking in every shadow. "When you have something that is really hot, the leaders start tasking everyone to look into that," explains W. Patrick Lang, a retired U.S. Army colonel and former head of Middle East intelligence analysis for the Department of Defense. "Whoever is at the top of the pyramid says, 'Make me a briefing showing what al-Qaeda in Iraq is doing,' and then the decision maker says, 'Aha, I knew I was right.'"
With disproportionate resources dedicated to tracking AQI, the search has become a self-reinforcing loop. The Army has a Special Operations task force solely dedicated to tracking al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Defense Intelligence Agency tracks AQI through its Iraq office and its counterterrorism office. The result is more information culled, more PowerPoint slides created, and, ultimately, more attention drawn to AQI, which amplifies its significance in the minds of military and intelligence officers. "Once people look at everything through that lens, al-Qaeda is all they see," said Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer who also worked at the U.S. State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. "It sort of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Ground-level analysts in the field, facing pressures from superiors to document AQI's handiwork, might be able to question such assumptions if they had strong intelligence networks on the ground. Unfortunately, that's rarely the case. The intelligence community's efforts are hobbled by too few Arabic speakers in their ranks and too many unreliable informants in Iraqi communities, rendering a hazy picture that is open to interpretations.
Because uncertainty exists, the bar for labeling an attack the work of al-Qaeda can be very low. The fact that a detainee possesses al-Qaeda pamphlets or a laptop computer with cached jihadist Web sites, for example, is at times enough for analysts to link a detainee to al-Qaeda. "Sometimes it's as simple as an anonymous tip that al-Qaeda is active in a certain village, so they will go out on an operation and whoever they roll up, we call them al-Qaeda," says Alex Rossmiller. "People can get labeled al-Qaeda anywhere along in the chain of events, and it's really hard to unlabel them." Even when the military backs off explicit statements that AQI is responsible, as with the Tal Afar truck bombings, the perception that an attack is the work of al-Qaeda is rarely corrected.
Obama sounds remarkably like "will still bomb ya"
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
(\__/)
( o.O)
(")_(")
I agree. No military occupation ever lasts... they exist for a time (such as the Roman occupation of Britian), but, eventually... they fall.
And from the looks of this thing, we are on the right track if failure is what we are trying to achieve.
We are arming both sides of an Iraqi civil war... and tasking our troops to keep a lid on it. How fucking insane is THAT? And by placing the formerly oppressed Shi'ia into power... if Ethnic Cleansing is part of Iraq's future, we will have had a hand in it.
Iraq is a lose/lose proposition. And we have no one but ourselves to hold responsible. Unless we decide to blame Jesus... because, after all... He was the one who told us to go to War.
Hail, Hail!!!
Then I say if there are no good answers to those questions and people are over there fighting in this mess for nothing while those in power only escalate the chaos they must endure.....let's get the fuck out! It makes no sense to stay there and will only get us further in debt.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
I agree. Chaos is in Iraq's future. It has been in Iraq's future for about 50 years. The difference today is... the United States is holding down the lid on this thing. Saddam Hussein was holding it down before we decided it was our turn to caught up in this shithole.
We should of did our homework... but, we didn't. And now, it belongs to us.
Hail, Hail!!!
Author David Kuo had a humorous but factual take on Bush and how his religious faith factors into his political decisions. He said Bush doesn't actually pray to Jesus for answers on things like foreign policy or Iraq. Instead, he makes bad decisions and then prays to Jesus hoping he was right!