I'll bring up at some later date how you weren't against this military action. It wasn't possible to avoid war in Iraq in 2003 by your reasoning. You just said it.
Because it's not an all or nothing thing? I'm not a single issue voter. It's not like I'm going to all the sudden be against a candidate I like because he (or she) makes a choice I don't agree with. The world isn't black and white to me. I can disagree with a candidate that I supported in the past, and still be able to support the in the future (or the party itself). I'm not sure why you think it's so black and white (no pun intended) when it comes to whether or not you "support" a President. Are you suggesting that we either have to 100% agree with everything a President does/says/believes/endorses or 100% disagree with him (or her) if they do something we don't agree with? What kind of standard is that? Impossible, thats what kind.
Nope. My reasoning is that sometimes war is necessary, but it's not always clear immediately. Now we know better on Iraq, and it probably wasn't necessary. Maybe the same will prove true of Obama's war.
The first question about a war is, can you win? Then you worry about is it necessary. Fighting any war without coming to grips with how to win it, is completely ignorant.
This I do agree with. If you're going to go to war, make sure you know how to win, that you can win, and that you're willing to do WHAT it takes to win. I'm not sure we (as a country) can do any of those anymore. Both can to or want to.
That's exactly what I'm not saying. You can be in support of a president and not support certain policies or decisions. Whats disheartening is that you think because you disagree with one thing, you must be "all in" with everything. That's hardly not the case. What I would love to see are democrats that actually stand up for what they believe in instead of blindly following and defending their party leader.
More CAN you win, is HOW do you win, and what is defined as a win, I think. Establishing democracy somewhere, eliminating a dictator, etc.
Offering another opinion? Sheesh. Please do offer your opinion of what we should have done in Iraq if not take out Saddam? Realize we put sanctions on him that killed half a million children during those years. We had to institute no-fly zones so he couldn't gas his own people. His military shot at us and we shot back. Clinton signed this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Liberation_Act, calling for regime change. Clinton said he had massive quantities of WMDs and bombed Iraq because it was the only way he felt he could disarm Saddam. Do tell what we should have done. More people died during the embargo than during the entire war and post war occupation. By several fold. I'm all ears.
Spot on. What has to be accomplished to complete the win? I don't think the answer to that questions every include "establishing democracy" or it shouldn't for the US.
well, both sides do that. There is no denying that republicans were jumping off the bridge with Bush, blindly and willfully.
That's exactly the problem. We as people need to rise up against what we hold true and stop the "blind defense" to our party's leaders. When that happens, more good will come out of it. Of course I'm a republican, and I tend to be more bias to the party, but if the asshole is fucking up, I won't hesitate to call them out publicly
Good points. when you change the definition of what constitutes a "win", anything would be a win. Much like the Iraq and the Afghanistan wars. What constituted a rational FOR the war and what counted as a "win" IN the war, changed on a regular basis (i.e., "Mission Accomplished" back in 2003, when the war was a good 10 years from being "finished" at that point). To me, that is a clear indication that the rules for that war had changed, and showcased a failure in the planning and execution of the war.
George's years of Nation building in Iraq drove me nuts. I thought we should have left when he first declared victory. The Iragi's were hunting Saddam and it was up to them to sort out what kind of country they wanted. It sure couldn't have turned out any worse than it did.
And bombing targets is hardly the case for doing such a thing. It's a tool, but you can't take their word for it.
