Yup, I realized that I misread your post, and adjusted my response accordingly. My conclusion does not change.

Obama reached the right conclusion regarding the war.

McCain exhibited the height of ignorance and naivete in his decision.

He failed to understand that Iraq had no terrorists. It had no Militant Islam. It had no Sharia law, which FH keeps harping on. It had a secular government, which (admittedly through brutal means) managed to control the centuries-old hatred between Shiites and Sunnis. McCain thought that they were buds, and even now cannot keep it straight who is on our side and who is against us.

McCain failed to understand that Iraq was the biggest deterrent to Iran's expansion. By destroying Iraq militarily, we allowed Iran to get much closer to nuclear capability.

This is a total lack of understanding of world affairs on McCain's part, which should not have been all that hard to understand. All that was needed was a short lesson on the history of Middle East.

AGG

I will read the report as I know the media doesn't like her and has a liberal slant. But she will not get off the hook with me if it is accurate.

well AGG, you are right...he DID reach the right conclusion. BUT, he had NOTHING at stake. If were to have seen the same information and made a wrong decision, the results would have been a disaster. Both parties looked at the information and decided that it was best to go ahead with a war. Bush did not do this on his own...it was a bi-partisan effort...and they were wrong about the WMD's. I do think SH needed to be removed, but how it was handled was wrong.

Sorry, but I ain't buying it. Notice how slanted the story is from CNN, who is in the tank for Obama. But notice how the AP wire story tells the story differently:

Lawmakers emerge from session on Palin ethics
The Associated Press

Fri, Oct 10, 2008 (5:15 p.m.)

Alaska lawmakers have emerged from a private session in Anchorage where they spent more than six hours discussing a politically charged ethics report into Gov. Sarah Palin's firing of her state public safety commissioner.

The legislative panel began its public session by discussing whether to release the report's findings. The investigation was examining whether Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, fired a state commissioner to settle a family dispute. The report was also expected to touch on whether Palin's husband meddled in state affairs and whether her administration inappropriately accessed employee medical records.

Critics claim Palin fired Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan after months of pressure on him to fire Mike Wooten, a state trooper involved in a nasty divorce and custody dispute with the governor's sister.

Lawmakers indicated they planned to release the report even though there was disagreement about its findings.

"I think there are some problems in this report," Republican state Sen. Gary Stevens. "I would encourage people to be very cautious, to look at this with a jaundiced eye."

If there are liberals on the panel who are in the tank for Obama, the report couldnt' possibly be unbiased.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/oct/10/lawmakers-emerge-from-session-on-palin-ethics/

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin abused her power as Alaska's governor by trying to get her ex-brother-in-law fired from the state police, a state investigator's report concluded Friday.

Chit...meet the fan!



Couldn't happen to a more poorly vetted attack dog...I mean VP candidate.

Want2Stay

There are 7 Republicans and 5 Democrats on the panel, and they voted unanimously to release the report.

I don't know whether she was poorly vetted or whether other people turned the position down.

They voted unanimously to RELEASE the report "even though there was disagreement about its findings."

RELEASE does not mean AGREE or ENDORSE, except in the land of the looney.

"I think there are some problems in this report," Republican state Sen. Gary Stevens. "I would encourage people to be very cautious, to look at this with a jaundiced eye."

Sorry, no smoking gun.

Oh, she was an excellent choice, and the opponents KNOW THIS or they wouldn't be falling all over themselves trying to undermine her. They are running SCARED.

Here's a direct link to the report: Report

Is this a jaundiced eye?

dat looks pretty jaundiced to me!

Celebrate the report and the pain the Mike Wooten , Angie Johnson affair brought to the families. End justifies the means and only despicable when Republicans are involved?

report

Hey, if this is the worst dirt they can dig up on her despite a TEAM of democrat operatives frantically digging ever since her appointment as VP nominee, then I say she is a SAINT.

No, that's not the worst dirt. The worse part is this: "Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act". And these are the same people talking about "character"? .

They say that in politics, it's ok to bash your opponent as long as you do not commit the cardinal sin - hypocrisy. With all the "character" stuff Palin's been preaching, she looks like a hypocrite to me.

AGG

I'm glad that you and I agree on the blunderous Iraq war; my argument was with FH, who keeps telling me that it was the right thing to do to protect ourselves from those Sharia muslims who want to kill us (none of whom were in Iraq, I might add - Sharia is how our "friends" in Saudi Arabia rule their country). And then he keeps bringing Germans and Japanese into this to teach me some kind of a history lesson.

My concern is that unlike you, McCain does not state that the war was a blunder. He thinks it was the right thing to do, and would do it again. That scares me to death. I don't want my kids going to fight wars that have absolutely no meaning. And despite FH's preaching, I have lived in countries during wartime when we did have to worry about our lives, so I am not speaking from some peacenik's perspective, but from having lived in conflict zones. Where the war is not a TV affair, but all around you. It ain't pretty.


That is true. Or, perhaps, Obama was being the true MAVERICK with his non-conventional non-lemming wisdom . Who knows - all we know is he made the right decision. I also had nothing at stake, but I also thought the war was misguided - so I guess I like that Obama reflects my thoughts on this absolutely most important job of the President - sending our forces into harm's way.


I read a lot about all the pre-war "intelligence". It is an interesting read. Almost all the "info" came from Curveball, whose words the CIA parrotted to us, despite having never spoken to him. Despite the fact that the Germans said he was crazy. Despite the fact that the UN weapons inspectors presented evidence to disprove Powell's (and Curveball's) claims, weeks before the invasion.

But even that aside, as I said before, Bush used all this as an excuse to invade, to topple someone against whom he had a personal vendetta. Bush did not invade North Korea. He did not invade Iran. He invaded a country where he had an axe to grind; and McCain cheered him on the whole time. And McCain still cannot admit what a strategic blunder it was, one that we will be paying for in decades to come. His lack of understanding of the world scares me.

AGG

Yep. It's possible.

He even has Louis Farrakhan praising him, exhorting his Muslim followers to support and vote for Obaman, all the while referring to Obama as the Messiah, as if the Muslims actually believe in a Messiah.

Time to pull your head out of the sand.

hmmm...maybe you didn't notice it, so how about I spell it out for you. We've been K. I. L. L. I. N. G. the militant Islamic/Al Qaeda types. Kind of "confronting," don't you think?

In turn, that killing that you so easily want to discount, has caused the Militants to hide, because they know if they stick their heads out of their rat holes, they will get them blown off.

And by helping the new Iraqi government to get up and running, to weed out the corrupt officials, and begin to stablize their nation and their economny, we show we WILL "stick with it" and NOT "cut and run" as Obama and Reid want, a rather large difference in "message" to the rest of the world.



If you think Iran would be, or was, "deterred" by Saddam Hussein's Iraq, you can continue to believe that mush if you'd like.



Yep. Radical Islam on the march trying to impose its will whereever it won't be fought. Shame on the Pakistani's for allowing them a "safe haven" in their own country.

While we are at it, shame on France and England for allowing a growing Islamic threat to grow unchecked in their own countries.




The Muslim belief of killing anyone who will not submit to them and to convert to Islam is a part of their Koran. It is their BELIEF system and it has been for thousands of years. As much as they have hated and tried to destroy Israel since it's founding, what makes you think they need an "excuse?" What makes you think that it might be better to let your children and grandchildren have to fight them on our own land because WE were too stupid to realize that the only way you CAN "negotiate" with rabid dogs is to euthanize them, with extreme prejudice if they won't submit quietly?



Ya, well, I guess I have to bow to your all-seeing crystal ball. Me, I prefer to learn from HISTORY about mongrels and fanatics. After two recent World Wars, one would think that even the most liberal of liberals would KNOW that appeasement DOES NOT WORK.

"Oil for Food" anyone? What makes YOU think that Iraq would not have developed nuclear weapons to go with its chemical weapons? Didn't you hear that the USA has found and removed TONS of "yellowcake," one of the basic ingredients IF you are going to make a nuclear bomb?



Ya, the "world" really stood with us. Besides the UK and Australia, who else do you think comprised this "worldwide support" you claim? Guess what countries have also been committed to Iraq? Guess what countries like to give "lip support" but not actual physical support?

Oh ya, I guess it must have been the Russians. Or maybe the Bosnians. How about the Sudanese? Oh wait a minute, it had to have been the Indonesians, the Chinese, the..... ya, right.

And while we are on your "world" fetish, just who besides the USA seems to "be there" for disasters worldwide? When is the LAST time you EVER saw another country rushing to OUR aid when we suffer from a huge natural disaster?

I, for one, am sick and tired of the bleeding heart liberals who TAKE all their freedoms for granted and complain and grouse whenever someone actually STANDS UP for our freedoms so those liberals CAN "shoot their mouths off" in safety that was "bought and paid for" by someone else's blood. Ingrates. That about the BEST descriptive term for the liberals and THEIR view of this country and their LOVE for their socialist agendas.

Pissed? You bet. They are rapidly on the road to destroying the BEST country in the world and having it sink into their same idea of "equality" around the world. I can't wait.

That IS my opinion and MY "crystal ball" prediction of what history will say about THIS TIME in our country. Liberals rant about talk about secession from the Union by a State? They are trying their level best to get the USA to seceed from its founding principles and become "just another country" like every other country. The USA is NOT just another country and never has been. But the liberals are committed to MAKING it one, just a "citizen of the World," which is, after all, just the place that so many liberals want to go live NOW, when they can.

AGoodGuy - MEDC can hold whatever opinion he wants to regarding Iraq.

That is his right, as it is your right.

It is also MY right to hold my opinion of the war in Iraq and I have no intention of capitulating to your wants and desires.

But just in the interest of fairness, here's some reading material for you to peruse:



Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Security_Council_Resolution_1441


CNN article: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/11/iraq.us/


George Mason University's History News Network article: http://hnn.us/articles/1282.html


UN Security Council Resolutions: http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/01fs/14906.htm


Floor Speech of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
on S.J. Res. 45, A Resolution to Authorize the Use of
United States Armed Forces Against Iraq http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/01fs/14906.htm


AGG, ALL choices in life have consequences, some good and some bad. But DECISIONS have to made, and that is one reason we HAVE an Executive Branch of Government and one reason why Barak is unfit for the Office of President. Barak has a HISTORY of being "present but not choosing" on every single major issue he was faced with, except for how to enhance his own Power and Position.

Maybe we should have just occupied Japan and Germany permanently.
Maybe we should have just "won the war" and left rebuilding to the defeated all by themselves.
Maybe we should NOT have a military.
Maybe we should just let the UN decide everything for the USA.

Where exactly do YOU "draw the line," the Constitutional line, for the protection and defense of the USA?

Or is it simply that you believe that the Constitution is a "living document" that can be changed by Judicial fiat?




Just out of curiousity, why were you there and why didn't you choose staying there rather than returning to the USA? This is, after all, such a "bad" country compared to the other countries of the world.

Left to their own, do you think those countries you were in were going to become a "good place to live without fear for one's life or safety?"

If yes, why?

If no, why not?

Let me be clear about Iraq. I say it was a blunder because we went in there with the idea that he had WMD's. They were not there or never found.

BUT, Hussein brought this on himself. His arrogance and failure to respond appropriately to inspections left our country in a quandary. Ignore the intelligence at our own peril...or attack. Bush and congress both decided that action was the best option.