Letters to the Editor
omooex
Published Letters: 977 Editor's Choice: 5
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@ Dirks
[Read the article: John King with Mike McConnell: Rare journalistic honesty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't get what you meant by the following:
It's also necessary to take into consideration those pesky VOTERS! Try as you might to ignore the fact, the average American voter has quite a bit to say about the government that we end up with and it's not that far removed from all the nasty stuff that we're willing to accuse the politicians of promoting.
I too remember 2003. But perhaps more importantly for the sake of context, I also remember the late 90's. But in any case, I would direct you to the Iraq Liberation Act, which states: "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime."
That was a mild start. Our anti war candidate of 04, John Kerry, made this impassioned speech in 1997, which you can see for yourself at the Library of Congress.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?r105:./temp/~r105yIZru8
Kerry argued strongly for use of force in Iraq and boots on the ground.
"This should not be a strike consisting only of a handful of cruise missiles hitting isolated targets primarily of presumed symbolic value. But how long this military action might continue and how it may escalate should Saddam remain intransigent and how extensive would be its reach are for the Security Council and our allies to know and for Saddam Hussein ultimately to find out."
Kerry also argued that "should the resolve of our allies wane to pursue this matter until an acceptable inspection process has been reinstituted--which I hope will not occur and which I am pleased to say at this moment does not seem to have even begun--the United States must not lose its resolve to take action.
And you will find familiar sounding, if now discredited fear-cards throughout the speech such as:
"If he has such weapons, his attack is likely to employ weapons of unspeakable and indiscriminate destructiveness and torturous effects on civilians and military alike."
All this is largely forgotten today. The democratic party, led by its superstars, including the man Nader opposed in 2004 as being virtually indistinguishable from Bush, purposefully built the foundation of today's Iraq war. Would their invasion have cost so many lives? Would it have caused a civil war? Would it have been so incredibly destructive? Who can really know.
I would submit that Obama's greatest strength for the Democratic party is that his career has been too short to be involved with any of these machinations. But that seems like a wolf in sheep's clothes; much more clever this time, of course.
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Anonymous
[Read the article: John King with Mike McConnell: Rare journalistic honesty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That's Omooex. I couldn't find anything else in your post worth commenting on.
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Paul Dirks
[Read the article: John King with Mike McConnell: Rare journalistic honesty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't know if you're checking this thread anymore, but I wanted to make a point or two about the one or two points you made.
First, I don't think it's a question of "if" the Democrats were hawking an Iraq war. In hindsight, Bill Clinton was certainly providing a stable structure on which to build GW Bush's war complaint--with legislation, rhetoric and actual military actions. Kerry was even worse; early as 1997, I caught one of these news shows where Kerry was literally claiming to be chomping at the bit to invade Iraq and depose Saddamm, if only slow-poke Clinton would let him. I can't remember the show; google intensely about that period and something along those lines for the claim and you'll no doubt find it.
This all being said: I do recall that Bush ran on what Ron Paulalways reminds us was a "humble foreign policy" in 2000; he was for the first year of his tenure, the anti-foreign policy president. The Republicans were the anti=war party of the 90's in a sense--at least in terms of boots on the ground. Check out the voluminous venom spewed at the Clinton Administration for his adventuring in Somalia and the Balkans. You could make a good case that votes for Bush were anti-war (or at least invasion) votes, seeing as the unusual number of military invasions that Bill Clinton presided over.
If you are a conspiracy minded person--and a conspiracy is just an organized plan kept in secret--it would seem clear that having worn out their welcome in the last decade or so with their own constituents, Democrats need to cut through the clutter. Enter Obama. I am certainly voting for him, and I have to admit it is mostly because he is black and wasn't involved in the Iraq war cowardice. For christ sake's there just doesn't seem to be any legitimate reason or criteria to vote for a president anymore.
But certainly, Obama's foreign policy doesn't seem like it will deviate much from the Clintonian nineties or the kind of stuff John Kerry was proposing. What if its all a shell game? Democrats and Republicans (and I'm talking about the elite guard, not the foot soldiers) taking turns at turning the lion's tail. Just saying. Just something to think about.
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Dreadpundit Stop Posting Anonymous
[Read the article: John King with Mike McConnell: Rare journalistic honesty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Really, you're attempts to draw people into childish arguments are a waste of your time and ours. Most of your arguments are not much better than "nani nani boo boo". Its time to move out of mom's basement and find your fortune out there in the real world.