What about the Iraqis?

La la la la la – I can’t hear you. Next question please and could you please ask one to which I have a prepared answer?
Fine job senator. Job approval in the 20′s, golly I can’t understand why.

Mr. Tapper:
I think you got fed a bowlful of talking points in response to a very appropriate question that deserves an answer.
It’s one thing to say you want the troops to come home, but it comes with consequences and the Democrats have *yet* to acknowledge (let alone address) those consequences.
Keep at ‘em, Jake… Ask the question enough times to enough Democrats and just maybe you’ll get them to think past November 2008.

Jake,
Reid’s non-answer is pretty predictable. I’m glad you asked it though and the put the inquiry out there. It seems like a question much of the press is willing to ignore. The probable answer is a bloodbath.
Unfortunately, Senator Reid and the county at large isn’t even willing to consider the question.

It was a good question that I’m glad you asked. The answer, unsurprisingly, is exactly what I’d expect from this Congress of Nuts. Clearly, these bozos have learned nothing from history.

what poll was Reid talking about?

Bring back Harry Truman!

Jake, I really appreciate your attempts at trying to have Sen. Reid answer the question, and I thank you for your Herculean efforts, but it’s a task with as much chance of success as nailing Jell-O to a wall. Sen. Reid wants to begin bringing the troops home now, an admirable stand to be sure, but is intellectually disingenuous in not specifying what he sees happening next–other than the oft-parroted “training the Iraqis and protecting our resources.” His cavalier recitation of statistics of how many Iraqis feel safe is nothing more than a red herring to justify his position and his legislation. More and more, the entire exit scenario from Iraq has the desperation of the last days of Saigon written large all over it.
For the life of me, I fail to understand the irrational behavior of the members of both parties in Congress when it comes to Iraq. I view the dogged but futile determination of the Dems to continue offering such legislation as the Levin-Reid amendment which has absolutely no chance of successful passage with as much chagrin as I view the meek passivity of the Repubs with their “stay the course, at least until September” attitude. Do the Dem members of Congress seriously believe that if they continue to offer up such doomed legislation as Levin-Reid, the President will mistakenly sign it? Do they really think they’ll convince enough Repubs to join them to override a veto? On the other hand, do the Repubs really think that there will be a miracle equivalent to the loaves and fishes which will happen before Gen. Petraeus’ report appears in Spetember? Do they have any ideas to offer other than “staying the course?” This game of legislative brinksmanship and intellectual bankruptcy on both sides only accomplishes more voter alienation from the voters. No wonder that the approval ratings for Congress and for the President are lower than a snake’s navel!

I don’t expect Harry Reid to answer your question. He’s already declared that we’ve lost and don’t try to distract him with anything else. He doesn’t care about our military or the Iraqi’s.
I may not support the Republicans but I’ll never ever support the Democrats.

Jake, thank you for asking a perfectly legitimate question. It’s embarrassing that he couldn’t give a straight answer. Unfortunately I have to assume that he’s OK with leaving the Iraqi people to suffer under Al-Qaeda if it means more political power for his party. And as for his quoting of poll numbers, I guess it gives him the ability to say, after the fact, that the Iraqis got what they asked for.
Despicable.
By the way, you have singlehandedly improved my opinion of ABC news with this one. Please keep it up!

I’ve got to be honest – and this is from someone who continues to support the war albeit starting to decline – that if the Iraqis can not decide to get behind our mission there, we should depart rather than continuing to risk our most precious asset – our men in uniform.

Reality,
I’m suggesting that the President is divorced from reality. I’ve been having this argument with war supporters for the better part of four years and it always follows the same path. To wit, most of you who supported the invasion/occupation of Iraq use the Iraqi people as a strawman. Rather than rehash all the reasons this was a terrible idea to begin with. Let’s begin with this, we are where we are now. Instead of telling us we can’t leave, please tell me what we should do that will allow us to claim victory? With few exceptions, the response usually comes down to kill them all and let god sort ‘em out. That’s how much you all care about the poor suffering Iraqis.

Hey Nick,
I think this will probably be a bit different than your other arguments with those of us who support the war.
You said, among other things, that you wish the President would “[decide] to put our interests ahead of his own ego and the poor suffering Iraqis”. I disagree with your position, but I commend you for being honest about it.
Jake asked the Senator a question. He didn’t answer it. My question to you was simply this: Do you believe that Senator Reid should be honest about his position, the way that you have, regardless of how the voters might feel about it?

When the Democrats voted to authorize military action in Iraq, public opinion was very much in favor of such action. Longtime Liberals ignored their base and voted for war. Now, public opinion is for downsizing in Iraq, if not for outright withdrawal. And now come repeated, doomed, politically antagonistic, publicly-proclaimed legislative attempts by those same Democrats to force downsizing. To say we’re spending too much and that our soldiers are getting shot is to describe war…it is nowhere near a reason for pulling out. In my opinion, some reasons for downsizing would be if we cannot win, if we are doing no good there, if Iraq would be better off left alone, or if there were a greater threat to us elsewhere. As most Conservatives, I supported our action in Iraq. I would be willing to support downsizing if I were given credible evidence supporting one of the reasons for leaving that I just mentioned, or some other compelling argument.

Reality,
Jake knows what he’s doing. He asked a question that there isn’t a right answer to. He knows this. Reid isn’t my favorite guy either. What Reid should have said is, “like the President, I don’t answer hypothetical questions.”

Jake – Great Question.
They never answer straight, don’t know why they bother have reporters ask questions.
If we pull out millions will be killed and the Libs know it, they want this to end in defeat so they look politically good.
Oh by the way Reid- The Surge just completed, stop acting like the surged troops have been there for 6 month stop lying.
And if you cared for the Troops you would not be giving propagander to the enemy.

Finally, somebody asked a question about the consequences. Prepare to be lambasted by the left.

Hey NY Nick,
How many more?
Let’s look at our historical track record say from the Vietnam War which I am sure you have compared Iraq to at some time (I could be wrong of course, but I doubt it):
1965 – 1,863
1966 – 6,143
1967 – 11,153
1968 – 16,592
1969 – 11,616
1970 – 6,081
1971 – 2,357
American dead.
I hate it when killing hundreds of thousands of your own citizens – many by torture – and the failure to uphold the ceasefire you signed a decade earlier are not a good reasons to remove a dictator anymore.
Semper Fi.

Good job, Jake. He busts out these bogus statistics to back up the idea of pulling out because the Iraqis want us out, but he can’t say for sure that the Iraqi people would be safer- because he knows it is not true.
Reid knows a pullout would result in a death toll far greater than Indochina after 1975- with huge geopolitical implications. He just doesn’t care about that.
Keep up the fine questioning, Jake. We need more like you.

SteveW,
“In my opinion, some reasons for downsizing would be if we cannot win, if we are doing no good there, if Iraq would be better off left alone, or if there were a greater threat to us elsewhere.”
I’ve yet to hear a real proposal from anyone on how we win that does not include a much larger armed presence and a commitment of forces for at least 5-7 years. General Patreaus’s own published work on counterinsurgency suggests we would need 300,000 to 500,000 troops for a country the size of Iraq. We can’t amass that amount of troops without a draft. You do not hear that sort of call to arms from this adminstration. They don’t have the guts to go all the way and even if they did, it would beg the question of why we didn’t do this from the get go. Of course, that question would never come from the likes of Mr. Tapper.

JCrue,
Comparing casualty numbers between Vietnam and Iraq requires more than just counting the dead. What was the overall force level? Give me a count of wounded as well since we all know we are much better at keeping our boys alive now than we were during the Vietnam conflict. But more important is the comparison of what the costs are compared to the benefits. The war in Vietnam was not a failure because we left, it was failure because nothing was achieved. You may believe that staying there for (x) number of years more would have resulted in some sort of victory but it’s not a view shared by most historians who have studied the conflict. Again, please tell me how we get from here to victory. And please don’t tell me it’s just around the corner if only we stick it out. It’s been nearly four years. Syria is still the supermarket for insurgent talent and arms. Iran is still using their Shi’ite friends as a proxy army. Oil production is still anemic. The head of the CIA says we have created a unity government that can’t govern and there is no evidence that his view is inconsistent with the facts. Tell me, how do we turn this around given all of these things that appear to be beyond our ability to control?

Nice job, Jake.
Please keep asking these kinds of tough questions, based on facts, to all of our political leaders… on ALL subjects!
It continues to amaze me how Harry Reid makes Nancy Pelosi look intelligent and articulate.

I for one do NOT care a whit if the Iraqi people are safer or not. It is Iraqi people who are killing each other and our troops in ever increasing numbers.
No one “saved” the US from its own civil war. let them have theirs, now that it’s started.
We owe them nothing. We liberated them and killed thier tyrant leader; das fidanya; goodbye we can bid them a fond adieu and good luck!

Better question – are the Iraqi people safer with American troops in their country?

Wow! you got guts, but you are about to loose you job. ABC is completly liberal.

it is about time that someone not working for fox has got the guts to ask these questions!!!

Continue to hammer these guys. I’m not a fan of the republicans, but the dems certainly are looking for political opportunities to further themselves as opposed to making decision in the best interest of AMERICA. Reid makes me sick to my stomach every time i see him speak. He’s a phony and I get a creepy feeling each time I see him.
May God bless you my friend.

GREAT JOB JAKE!!!
Don’t back down on this. I see web videos the soldiers record of the Iraqi citizens, the children… they are our brothers.
We mustn’t fail them.

The real reason they are pushing to her out by May of next year is because doesn’t want to run as an anti-war candidate next Nov. George McGovern just said the other day he’s not sure an anti war candidate can win. The GOP Senators that are buckling are being hounded by attack ads from the left.Still even with 5-6 GOP defectors there’s not enough to invoke cloture to end a debate on a concrete pullout.Bush did a great job at the press conference today. He continues to kick the Dems butts at every turn,even though they call him an idiot.

The only parallel between this war and Vietnam is the refusal by many politicians to admit who the real enemy is and to commit to taking the war to and winning against the real enemy. In Vietnam, the enemy was China, the USSR, and North Vietnam. By trying to limit our area of operations to South Vietnam, we resigned ourselves to only fighting against the troops the real enemy chose to send our way.
In Iraq, the real enemy is radical islam, sponsored by Iran, Syria, and others. By ignoring that and acting as if we are fighting against Iraqis, we resign ourselves to only fighting who the enemy chooses to put in front of us.
The surge strategy by Gen Petraeus is changing that perception dramatically, by separating the wolves from the sheep. By reaching our to Iraqi tribal-based groups such as the 1920 revolutionary brigade and getting their support in the fight against Al Qaeda’s foreign fighters, we are finally targeting the real enemy instead of just shooting back at anybody who shoots at us. If allowed to continue to its logical endpoint, this strategy gives us a very real chance to win the peace in Iraq and give their government a chance to mature and succeed. By uniting the former rebllious Iraqi groups against a foreign enemy, we give them the chance to build bridges across their societal differences that would otherwise be impossible.

WOW, a reporter actually asking a Democrat a real question………..what is going on in this world…now only if it is followed up by the same thing we might actually have a real debate based on FACTS rather than propoganda.

I applaud you for asking this question of Mr. Reid. However, I have a related question for you. Does anybody really give adamn if the Iraqis are safe or not? Really.

I am a four year Vet of Iraq and I can answer the question. NO. (I am in Erbil)
My God you must be the first Journalist from the Main Stream Media I have ever herd of that asked a hard question to a Demarcate! I use to watch ABC but left ABC for Fox because of the lack of will on ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN to ask these types of questions of Demarcates. Has a seed been planted are the leaves changing? One can only hope! You sir have now risen above the rest of your peers in the main stream media. I hope you can stay there. You now have MY attention.

I am just glad someone asked that question they (the Democrats) have been getting a free ride on this for far too long! Thanks For Asking

I’m sorry, but from the perspective of an AMERICAN lawmaker who is supposed to be making decisions in the best interest of, um, AMERICANS, what possible difference does it make if our leaving Iraq indirectly makes things worse for the Iraqis? We started this war (ostensibly) because of the threat posed against the AMERICAN people by a tyrant who supposedly had wmd. If the justification for going there had nothing to do with Iraqis then isn’t asking about their welfare if we leave a complete non sequitur?

Reid is disingenuous and USING the media fomented bad-news (it sells) from Iraq for political gain. I wonder if these Dems really believe anything they say other because from a strategic standpoint, their ideas make no sense. “It’s chaos so we need to leave?” What about our responsibility to rebuild Iraq as a democracy? After all we are STILL in Germany this many years after WWII. I think the lesson here for the Dems and for Bush should be that fighting wars under absurd degrees of self-imposed etiquette are the most difficult to win-see Korea and Vietnam. The lesson from Germany and Japan is that it is much easier to rebuild totalitarian states after they are completly destroyed.

Thanks for asking some tough questions..
Has the surge really been going on for 6 months though??

As THE Problem, we cant be part of the solution.
No more War for an Oil Pipeline to Haifa Israel, to be guarded by Permanent US Bases, detailed in Haaretz, Christian Science Monitor or Guardian.
IMPEACH & ENd Neocon Government

Nice work, Jake. Unfortunately, though, the ABC suits are probably caucusing right now to see how they can get rid of you and make amends to their Dem patrons for your impertinance.

This reminds me of the old sitcom M*A*S*H where Hawkeye and Trapper break into a general’s press conference and the general says, “This is a press conference. The last thing I want to do is answer a lot of questions.”
There is no such thing as leadership anymore. I say to hell with all of them. We need a new president AND a new Congress that will stop listening to large donors and start caring about the people who do the working and paying and living and dying in this country.

The UN? Ever heard of Rwanda?

It’s clear that Reid and other cut-and-run Democrats have no clue on war strategy which is evident by their reluctance to offer any real solution. They only rely on (biased) polls to forumlate their positions.
The real problem is the the Democrats don’t want victory in Iraq, because victory would mean that Bush was right.

Keep up the good work. It’s these kinds of questions that need to be asked of Democrats (Liberals), instead of these kinds of questions just being asked to conservatives. Typical Liberal answers…meaning they don’t answer. I hope you can keep your job with ABC..I’m sure Ried is working to get you fired right now.

It just shows how big of SCUMBAGS the democrats really are. They can’t even give a yes or no answer to a simple question.
They are mostly a bunch of traitors to the USA.

To AHL. I appreciate your frustration, but I would like to know if you feel the Republicans are keeping us better informed these days?

wow. where’ve you been hidin’, Tapper? I thought all the real journalists were history……….

the dems can’t afford for us to win the war, they have already told the american public that we have lost the war. what do you think would happen to the dems if we won. it would make them look like the fools that they are.

Jake,
I guess you haven’t drank the kool-aid yet. How long do you expect to be working for one of the MSM outlets by expecting the dems to actually answer hard questions?

Jake,
Keep hammering away. You know terrorist like Al Qaeda and others are, as Hillary said, “in it to win it”. What I want to know is the Dems plan to combat terrorism worldwide.
First question should be to them – what do we do when we pull out and human rights abuses start piling up in Iraq.
Second question is what do the Democrats think needs to happen from the perspective of the US Government to combat global terrorism. They already have one “global” issue they like to prance around….DO THEY HAVE ANY IDEAS ON HOW TO COMBAT THIS STUFF.
Lastly, when will they realize that one big reason we lost in Vietnam was the politicization of rules of engagement, etc. They are wanting us to re-live those mistakes – and that places our troops in much graver danger than the troop surge.
I see no vision from the Dems except leave Iraq. Please ask Harry Reid if he is “in it to win it” with respects to protecting liberty, the worlds oil supply (which drives all economies – not just the US) and our future as a nation.
Thanks,
MAB
MAB

I am stunned by the comments that vilify leaders and call only for “peace”. EVERYONE wants peace, NO ONE wants war. Whether we like it or not we are the stablilizing force in Iraq. For us to leave the Iraqis to be massacred is wrong NOW. It stuns me that the same people who argue for pulling out of Iraq are usually for us going into Darfur or Croatia. That illogic is frightening.
To Mr. Tapper – well done. To ask hard, but simple, fair questions and wait for an answer is is really what we want out of Journalists. We will decide what we think of the answers and if we believe the people giving them. I am fully capable of making up my mind on issues. I just need you to ask the questions and stay for the answers. Harry Reid nonsensical answer to your repeated, specific, simple question is louder than any headline or self imposed opinion passed off as news. Thank you!

Look how many people have praised this question! This is what America needs. Sure, things are bad in Iraq, but does pulling out now make things worse? Now if only we could get an answer…

I don’t expect that this bit will make any of the regular ABC “mainstream” i.e. committed one sided broadcasts. Keep up the good work as long as you last there. It is an honest question asked of a dishonest pol-one of many pols whose remarks are killing many of our troops by encouraging the terrorists to hang in there til a Dem president arrives.

Jake – Keep up the great work!

I’m quite honestly sick of both parties and their partisan BS. When are they going to do something, anything besides posturing against each other.
I may not agree with the President on a lot of things but I admire him for sticking to his guns on Iraq and not changing his position depending upon whatever the latest poll says.
I don’t want us to be in Iraq but we made the mess and now we have to clean it up. If we don’t Iran will be more than happy to come in and clean it up to their satisfaction and our dismay. Where will that get us?

Tapper. You are not going to last long by asking tough common sense questions of Dingy Harry. but I do hope you keep asking the questions.

Are you kidding me??? “Do you think the Iraqi people will be safer with U.S. troops out?” While I may care personally, it is not the mission of the U.S. military to ensure the safety of people in other countries. Absolutely asinine question.

Reid is a coward and will avoid answering questions so he can continue with sound bites. He is a pathetic American. Dems will do anything to further their only cause of “get out”. We should stay and prove the the Mideast countries that we will not hide, nor bail out when it is tough.

Bravo Tapper. Good to see you’re not among the misled zombies in the majority of our press. Persistence pays off!! Keep it up!

Thanks for asking some tough questions. Why arent’t the Dems talking about how millions will be made refugees once the slaughter begins once we retreat? How those refugees will destabilize, and possible topple friendly regimes such as Jordan? These same Dems would send troops to Darfur b/c it’s PC, but would allow millions to die in Iraq. What a disgrace.

Did Reid actually say the Kurds are trying to kill us?

Who cares if Iraqis will be safer or not. We are not the police of the world in order to make sure that everyone is safe. We should make our decisions based on the concerns and interests of the American people. I’m a member of a 9/11 family and it frustrates us to no end that we forgot about al Qaeda, wasted our efforts in Iraq through incompetence, and are seeing their rejuvenation in Pakistan.

When was the last time Harry Reid has said anything about Iraq that al qaeda, Moqtada al Sadr and their pals wouldn’t have been grateful for?
Of course he won’t answer a straight question that might cause him to acknowledge there is a reason for us to stay there. He has a vested interest in avoiding such a question.
Personally, I do not care what polls say. I do care about the fact that we are in a fight that, if not in Iraq, would be taking place somewhere else…most probably here. In 2001 this fight was in lower Manhattan, Pennsylvania and Washington DC.
bin laden and zawahiri send tapes to al jazeera that TELL us the fight in Iraq is the key, where they must be focused. How much clearer does this have to be?
Or, put another way, does anyone in his/her right mind want the next tape to say the fight has moved to New York, or Chicago, or Kanas City, or Miami?

Mr. Trapper,
You screwed up when you included in your question to Reid, the phrase “moral obligation”. Those two words combined in a question, side-by-side, do not register with the democratic elitist. Reid did not understand your question……

Nice job Mr. Trapper. Were more journalists that persistent the MSM might garner a modicum of respect from regular Joes like me. And Harry Reid is a dishonest snake for those who don’t know. Keep building up the troops morale, Harry!

I admire the fact you asked a worthy question that few – if any – democrats have cared to actually answer.
What is the aftermath if we withdraw?
Keep it up!

This just goes to show you that if repeat the rhetoric loud enough and often enough people will believe your bull. Ried is what’s wrong with this country. He should try communism.

This just goes to show you that if repeat the rhetoric loud enough and often enough people will believe your bull. Ried is what’s wrong with this country. He should try communism.

I’d like to take this opportunity to remind readers that this October, as always, the City of Albuquerque, New Mexico will hold its annual hot-air balloon festival. It’s a wonderful sight to see with the hundreds of hot-air balloons ascending over the city. With that in mind, bloggers and readers of this column should plan on attending. WE NEED MORE HOT-AIR, which is what most of you folks are absolutely FULL of. That and prune juice, of course…If you folks had brains, you’d be dangerous. But you don’t, and you ain’t.

“While I may care personally, it is not the mission of the U.S. military to ensure the safety of people in other countries. Absolutely asinine question. ”
Wow…. That’s just amazing. Just let them kill each other, right? What do we care? Not our problem!
For a political party that thinks they’re all peace and love, that’s pretty stone-cold.
And disgusting.

Surely it is obvious that the Iraqi people have never been safe. They’ve been fighting and killing each other for centuries. Why should American kids die in pursuit of the ridiculous fantasy that we can keep Iraqis safe from each other? Evidently Mr. Tapper doesn’t have any loved ones in harm’s way.

Do fiberals like Reid take polls to run every facet of their lives. Can they not make judgements based on leadership and charactor instead of putting their finger in the wind for every answer?

The question you should ask is-
“Do you care more about the White House, or the Iraqi people and our soldiers?”

Thank you Mr Tapper!!!! Other ‘journalists’ sould take a lesson from you on getting answers from the clueless politicos on the left and right.

Kudos to you, Mr. Tapper. While this war hasn’t gone well, to say the least, it’s about time the mainstream press put the screws to spineless, cut-and-run politicians like Sen. Reid. They need to realize that their course of action is just as disastrous as fighting this war on the cheap.

I am tired of everybody wanting to have all the information they can get about what is happening in the war zone. The imbedded media has made everyone feel like an expert and provided lots of fodder for pundits and pols but hasn’t really accomplished anything of value and has made it much harder to fight and win the war. How about we un-imbed the reporters and let the military do their job – kill bad guys, get answers however they need to to save lives and assist in winning, and in general be un-PC. We have become a whiny, wimpy bunch of hyper-emotional, sound-bite-loving, ego-massaging, guilt-assuaging pansies. It is time to toughen up….like our enemies!

Obviously, the point of the Democrat’s maneuvering is to pin the Iraq tail on the elephant. They know none of their surrender proposals will pass, much less be signed by the President. It is a surpassing cynicism that we are witnessing, as the Dems assiduously ignore the news on the ground that Al-Qaeda is on the run. al-Zawahiri’s thinly-veiled begging for help for AQI is completely ignored in the rush to cripple our foreign policy before the summer Congressional break. May they all roast in a special corner of Hell.

The safety of non-Americans is completely irrelevant to the matter at hand. Not wanting to appear insensitive, Reid had no choice but to evade your question. The proper–and only–inquiry is whether U.S. troops’ presence improves the security of Americans. We pay for them, and they are commissioned for our protection. In some circumstances, the security of allies’ citizens have been deemed to relate to the security of Americans, but the safety of other citizens, for the sake of that alone, is just not a valid question. Your question implies a military completely at odds with the entire history of this nation. While we may care as individuals what happens to the Iraqis after we pull out, the security of Americans is not being enhanced by their continued presence there in the present role. If anything, the invasion itself, and our continued presence, may be eroding our security in ways that we may not realize for decades (the fomenting of anti-American attitudes beyond anything in our country’s history).
Republican or Democrat…blind allegiance to your party or against another party, despite the actual facts, allows neo-despots the freedom to act contrary to the will of the people in an otherwise democratic society. I would hazard a guess that many republicans on here blasting Reid and praising Tapper didn’t care about the “fundamentally humane question” in Somalia when Democrat Bill Clinton advocated for presence there.

It’s already been answered. Here in the Bible Belt 6 months, 600 more dead, and 60 billion more spent adds up to 666. Ooooh, were all gonna die, where’s the exorcist?

For those you who are condemned to repeat history if they do not take it into account you should google the Dem platform of 1864 that called for an immediate end to American civil war hostilities and the letter from their candidate, a dicredited general who was removed because he was not aggresive enough, who fudged that issue but said that slavery should continue. Incidentally in May and June of that year one US army alone had lost over 50,000 casualties in a “surge” to take Richmond and was subsequently bogged down in a long term siege. Another had burned out a Virginia valley to deny Confederae troops supplies. Another cut a 60 mile wide swathe of devastation through Georgia for the same purpose. And yet another was still faced with a Confederate army in Tennesee. And that notes only some of the more major battles. Oh and by the way did you know the Revolution lasted 7 years and Washington lost many if not a majority of his battles.

How many Iraqis voted for Senator Reid? Oh that’s right, none. Sen. Reid and every other US politican owes an obligation to our soilders and the American people. The truth is that iraq was a huge mistake and should not have happened, however, it is not incumbent on our government to continue to spend US blood and treasure on a mistake. If more Iraqi’s die as a result of a US pullout that is unfortunate, but hardly worth the loss of more Americans. My question to this “reporter” is “how many more American lives should we lose in Iraq? Should we stay idefinately? If not when should we leave? When the US has established peace in the middle east? If so, then I guess we all need to start having more children so they can go to Iraq and protect the people of another country and die as a result.

Thanks for asking this duplicitous weasel a question he still needs to answer. I am not a bit surprised by his evasive reaction.
Though I am not affiliated with any political party, I rarely if ever watch CBS, ABC, CNN, NBC, or MSNBC because of the obvious (to me) anti-war, anti-conservative bias displayed by various reporters.
I may have to reconsider my opinion of CBS news.
Keep up the good work.
kenny Clemens.

Harry Reid: Please Ignore The Fact That The Iraqis Will Be Slaughtered If We Pull Our Troops Out

ABCs Jack Tapper tried to get Harry Reid to go on record as to whether or not the Iraqi citizens will be safer should we leave Iraq. Reids response? A nonanswer, a snide comment for Tapper and then a quick change of subject. TAPPER:…

OMG! Funniest thing I’ve read in a long time. Matt asking if anyone has heard of the UN!?!?! What’s next? Someone going to ask for the NYPD to go arrest OBL! To my Marine friend way up at the top, stay strong and Semper Fi!

What do I think? Why, I think you’re auditioning for a job with Faux News, Jake.

OK everybody, Scott says ‘stop the violence now’.
Everybody come home now.
What planet do you people live on?

Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the other far left, fractured, Dems are obviously only looking at ways to bring down America as a land of the FREE and HOME OF THE BRAVE!!! Together, they don’t have one scintilla of anything resembling BRAVERY!!! Too bad they weren’t around during the Revolutionary War…..they may have qualified to be hung for treason for their actions!!

What a vapid question. How can anyone claim to know whether the Iraqi people will be “safer” if U.S. troops leave? They obviously aren’t very “safe” right now with our troops being there – what makes anyone think that us staying there longer is going to make the situation any better? Indeed, many hawks like to ascribe to the flypaper theory that our presence is actually designed to draw more terrorists to Iraq and thereby let us fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here. Thus, to many war proponents, the fact that the Iraqis are less safe is a feature of this war, not a bug. Further, does our supposed “moral obligation” to make the Iraqis safe outweigh our moral obligation to avoid pointlessly putting our troops in harm’s way?
Finally, what support is there for the implied assertion in the question that keeping U.S. troops in Iraq is making and/or will make Iraqis safer? Jake can whine all he likes about Sen. Reid’s supposed non-answer, but I’d like to hear Jake explain why he believes maintaining U.S. troops in Iraq is and/or will make Iraqis safer.

What do I think?
That you must be one who wants American soldiers to continue dying forever based on the theory that since the Monkey President broke it, they’re forced to buy it.
That’s what I think.

I am stunned!!! Mr. Tapper… have you lost your mind?
This is ABC, and you asked and pursued a very reasonable question of a leading Democrat that refused to answer. He knows the answer but it works against his radical agenda!
I am impressed, not only with the question… but that you were relentless.
I do not know your colours, but you have the umph to take on Mr. Reid… and exposed him for what he is… a shell of a man; a wimp and a coward! For that I look forward to following your Blog!
Well done sir!
Howard Ino
“TAPPER: With all due respect, Senator, you didn’t answer my question.
REID: OK. This is not a debate.
TAPPER: Will the Iraqis be safer?”

Thank God this current crop of democrats wasn’t in power during World War II. Vote for a war the decide midway through you’ve changed your mind?
Well, if democrats perform sex like they fight wars its no wonder they’re always frustrated and bitchy.
It seems to regain power, democrats will even undermine their own country, president and military.
The lot of them are shameful and now we have a handful of weak-kneed republicans to go with them. PATHETIC.

Wonder how those of Hawwy’s ilk will respond when they inevitably gets their way and Iraq susequently becomes Darfur North.

As is almost always the case with such questions, the question is pointed and sounds reasonable, but is completely irrelevant. Nobody (including Mr. Reid) knows whether pulling our troops will make the Iraqis more safe or less safe. The only thing that we know for certain is that our overall strategy in Iraq has created more problems for the region, not less. Even if you grant that the attack on Iraq was well-intentioned ( I do not), there is no doubt that our extended presence is not helping the situation—it is time to go.

The way to handle this situation is simple:
After a “non-reply” answer such as Sen. Reid’s, you put the answer in his mouth that will make him look the worst, saying something like “So you are saying that the Iraqi people will NOT be safer once we leave, thank you, Senator”. Doing that, He THEN HAS to say something about your response.
This type of answering was made infamous by Bill Clinton’s group-i.e., answer a question with a statement that you want people to hear, NOT answer a tough question that could make you look bad.

These dimwitted democrats voted for the war in the first place with the same unadultered evidence everyone else had at the time. Now they are so damned set on trying to win back the White House they are selling their souls on the war issue because they have NOTHING else to offer the AMERICAN people. The REID- BULLOSI (sp) led Congress has been a DO NOTHING-KNOW NOTHING Congress.

yeah like dinger said. LMAO! could there really be a dinger. funny thing is that the polar opposites to the dingers of the world are the sole reason that dinger even breathes! also wasn’t it “dingy” harry reid that was being questioned by jake tapper? thoughts to ponder.

Indeed the democrats are turning out to be the ENEMIES from WITHIN AMerica. Their statements are seditious and treasonist in enduring and emboldening the enemy to attack our brave young men and women in uniform. They DO NOT support our trooops. They do NOT UNDERSTAND the War on terror. They have NO IDEA what a radical Islamic is. Edwards, for example, does NOT even BELIEVE there is a war on terror going on. How these morons get elected in first place says alot about the STUPIDITY and FOOLS we have in our “qualified” electoral base.
His statements are hurtful to the war effort. He says the “surge” hasn’t worked and “will not” work. What kind of an attitude is that? The man needs to go down at hands of justice and court system in place for seditous, malicious, wreckless, irresponsible, treasonist statements that enable, embolden, and help the enemy to kill our brave soldiers. S**** him!!!

I think Harry Reid needs to learn to answer the tuff questions,, funny, I’ve never herd him answer any of them..

Honestly, Sen. Reid did answer your question, because what will make the Iraqi people safer, is them getting off their butts, and and fighting for their own freedom, if they want it.
If every able bodied male in Iraq took up a gun to protect their OWN FAMILIES, instead of relying on our soldiers to die for them, then and only then would they be able to appreciate what it means to be free.
Besides, have you looked at the stock market lately; it’s going through the roof, because war is big business, and 12 billion dollars a month, is a tremendous incentive for military contractors, and big business to keep us there – fighting – dying, just to put profits in other people’s pockets.
Couldn’t our school system use 12 billion dollars a month! Good lord! Are we really that stupid, to believe one single word coming out of George Bush’s mouth?
We need to leave right now, not in September, not next year, but NOW! There are 140 thousand Turkes at the Northern boarder. The Chinese are helping the insurgents, as well as Iran, Syria, Russia, and factions within the Saudi govt.
Our boys are sitting ducks for an onslaught of violence that is just getting started. If we don’t get out right now, thousands more of our boys are going to DIE! Probably this summer. The Iranians have already promised something big this summer designed to get us out.
What fools we are for believing we can attain peace, through violence and war. Fools!

Good job! I’m so glad to see a reporter force the issue so boldly. It also shows the corruption of all politicians. If the founders were alive today they’d start another revolution.

Thank you, Mr. Tapper, for asking the tough question. Of course Pinky Reid is going to give you a canned answer. He doesn’t dare stray from his talking points lest he let his treasonous self come out.
But you must watch your back, Jake. Your liberal bretheren in the news business cannot be real happy with your outing one of their liberal leaders!!
Good work. You keep this up and I might start watching ABC News again!!

Yes, Iraqis will be safer. They will have one less harassment to deal with. They will have a better chance of using their oil wealth instead surrendering it to the occupying forces.
Remember? “what if broccoli was (Iraq)’s
major produce”?
Who is safe guarding Iraqis? Get real!
Iraq before the current invasion:
1. Secular (now not)
2. Wealthy (now not)
3. Infrastructure intact (now nothing)
4. Free medical care (yeah, dream on fellas!).
5. No exodus of Iraqis (everyone is running for their life- not to the US where they are unwelcome).
6. Had their own constitution (now Paul Bremer’s is in place).
Are all Amrican “journalists” imbeciles?!!

I’m tired of the war, I’m tired of the Iraqis, I’m tired of Bush the Fool, I’m tired of people supporting our troops being used as cannon fodder. I used to support the war, but no longer. We won a long time ago. Now let’s get out. I don’t care about the damn Iragis, a bunch of murdering muslims, anyway. Hey, and we can’t kill everybody in the whole middle east that hates us. Let’s go!

Great job! It’s refreshing to see a reporter from a major network asking tough questions. It is also clear that the majority of the Iraqi people, although resentful of an occupying force, DO NOT want the US military to leave before the Iraqi forces are able to protect the government and constitution that the Iraqi people voted for.

Be careful – ABC may fire you for questions like that.
Senators are supposed to use reasoning, and it appears Mr. Reid and his friends, as usual, forsake reasoning for the polls.

It is breathtaking the high tolerance liberals have for genocide.

WHAT A CROCK
I was there, in a packed room of people trying to get their questions in and you were trying to take over the news conference. how about you schedule an interview with him on your own time and give all the reporters a chance to answer their own damn questions and stop the grandstanding…

Good for you, Jake! That is one thing I have never understood about this whole leave-or-stay debate. It seems to me that, whether you supported the move against Iraq or not, the only truly honorable thing would be for us to leave only when that country is truly better off than when we found it. That is certainly not the case today. Indeed, to upend an entire country that was ruled by a brutal regime for thirty years, and then to say simply that because we no longer have the stomach for this fight, you dear, poor Iraqi are now on your own. Shame on those who authorized this war and are now advocating that we leave. Frankly, with friends like that who needs enemies!

No, it wasn’t a debate. Apparently it wasn’t a question and answer session either. I’m glad Jake Tapper declined Senator Reid’s offering of Kool Aid.

To: Jason Young
How many Iraqi’s voted for President Bush, heck, how many American’s actually voted for President Bush?
Bottom line is this war isn’t at the midway point, and the War on Terror isn’t going to be won on a battlefield in Iraq. The fact that Al-Quaeda is at its pre-9/11 strength (or more appropriately pre-AFghan invasion point), is a black mark for this administrations execution of the War on Terror.
There was no Al-Queda in Iraq pre-2003, why? Because Saddam Hussein hated Al-Queda, and would rather do business with Americans than Osama bin Ladin.
The midway point of the war? There is no midway point of the war, this is a battle without end, as this war is about ideology and psychology and not about military strategy.
This war will be won, by building strategic alliances with the countries that tend to stand the most to gain by allying themselves with Al Queda. You have to look at it like street gangs in Los Angeles. The people doing the killing there are poor, destitute and have not much to live for except for their friends. This is who terrorist organizations recruit, and it is this governments complete lack of diplomacy that has enabled AQ to build up its numbers beyond any terrorist organization ever.
Until we realize that Iraq is not a lynchpin in the war on terror, and that as soon as we leave the violence will escalate in the short term, but in the long term the country itself will have to come to terms with its own self-governance.
We made this mess in Iraq, and the only reason we are still there, is the Bushies know there is no way to make this thing work and they are leaving it for the next administration to deal with the ramifications.
You rightwing nutjobs just can’t see the forest through the trees, and you can sit there and ask benign questions like “Would Iraqi’s be safer if the US pulled out,” when Harry Reid left his crystal ball at home.
Bottom line…THE CURRENT PLAN/SURGE/BULLCRAP isn’t working, and hasn’t worked since the “end of combat” at the end of 2003.

I’m sure the Democrats would have more interest in Iraq if the Iraqis could vote. The truth is that there is nothing to be gained for the Democrats so they want nothing to do with Iraq. They will probably take the stance “Well, we spent 240 billion in Iraq. What’s another 120 billion on national health care going to hurt? At least we’ll be saving lives instead of losing them”

Way to go Jake. Good Job
Debbie

Hey Jake, were you aware that this is the United States of America? We are responsible for our own security, not the security of everyone else. Your priorities are way out of wack young man. You need to study a little harder.

To the DCREPORTER
Identify yourself.

Way to go. A DC reporter holding a Democrat accountable. WOW! Time for another ray of hope.
Mr. Reid is a pessimist, by his own admission. What else should we expect than gloom and doom, defeat and retreat.
In reality, the Democrats have to do everything in their power to cause defeat. They can’t allow a military victory at this point or they’re finished. They are the best thing our enemies have going for them.

Thank you…Its about time a reporter asked the question of Senator Reid. Thank you for sticking with it until he “blew you off”. Way to go Senator Reid.

Whomever said that “Al Queda is back to it’s pre-9/11 strength” is an ill informed imbecile. What the recent assessment said, and it’s accuracy is questionable, is that Al Queda is at it’s strongest point since 9/11, NOT that it is as strong as it was BEFORE 9/11. I wish people who take the time to post would first learn to read, abnd or listen so that they can get their facts straight.

Basically what I’m seeing here is that the people who want us to leave now are basically saying to young men like me (I’m 20) that they don’t care if, in five years, we have to have a draft and send huge armies over to the Middle East because the entire region is in a state of anarchy with rebellions everywhere and oil prices reaching catastrophic levels.
Thanks a lot, it really makes me want to vote Democratic in 2008. That was sarcasm if you’re a Democrat and too dense to pick up on it.

Hey chaos little boy (20 years old crybaby). If you think this war is so great then why aren’t you over there right now? BTW, I thought this war had NOTHING to do with oil… did you miss little Jakes GOP talking points at kindergarten class today?

They’ve been Muslim barbarians for centuries and they will continue to be barbarians after we leave (whenever that is).
It’s called someone’s “culture”…and that’s theres.

Well stated, Donald P. I have been deployed to Iraq and the most disappointing part about it was the eroding support of people back home.
Unfortunately people are most supportive immediately following an attack (remember all the post 9-11 patriotism?), but if there hasn’t been an attack in a while people don’t see a need to continue fighting.
Jason Young, do you think if we pulled out of Iraq the terrorists would just leave us alone? After pulling out of Iraq do you think the terrorists would decide not to build training camps there?
It is sometimes difficult for the MILITARY to understand why civilians at home are so shortsighted, idealistic, and naive.

“Theirs”…sorry.

Our military has been fighting a winning war in Iraq, but public opinion in the U.S. has been heavily influenced by the mainstream media in an effort to portray the situation to be worse than it really is. If American troops pull out, Al Qaeda and the imam mafias in Iraq have won. The culprit: the mainstream media. So why does ABC News choose now to start asking the tough questions of the left?

we are going to create the same vaccum the russian created when they bolted Afghanistan, which as you all should remember is where the Taliban came from and where Osama planned the WTC attacks from.
So basicly in ten years Osama will call Baghdad his new home.
Yay for the Democrats, screwing the ameirican people to get back in the white house.

JAKE WE NEED TO TAKE DOWN THAT SMUG LITTLE man FROM NEVADA, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK

Senator Reid is living proof that Americans – as viewed by her adversaries – is soft, gutless and have no stomach for fighting an avowed enemy.
He is no different than the other cowards predominantly on the Left including: Major Dick Durban, John “Our troops are Nazis” Murtha, Teddy “Let’s go swimming MaryJo” KKennedy and Chuck “The Schmuck” SSchumer.

Jake Tapper must be a mathematician, since he’s found the LIB/DEM secret formula:
Iraq – troop withdrawals = Harry R + Nancy P + LIB/DEMS + ‘X’
Answer: ‘X’ equals terrorists hit US and Bin Ladin wins!

Rather than try to ‘end’ this, or any, war to meet politician’s sense of political expediency (it’s just so inconvenient to be in an “unpopular” war in a Presidential election year…and so much more convenient to try to pin a war ‘loss’ on the other party), why can’t we hearken back to quainter (saner) times when being at war meant we, as a country, had to win. Rather than ‘country first’, too many politicians today are ‘power first’ (i.e., political power, as in having it, getting it back, at any cost). Reality may hurt, but Democrats in Washington show by their policies, their words and their actions that they do not care about this country or its people. They want to have and hold power, period; to do so, they work endlessly to make more people more dependent on them for their sage wisdom…
Consider:
How exactly does losing in Iraq help American interests?
How will abandoning Iraq mitigate, much less eliminate, the burning desire of this generation’s enemy–radical Islamo-Nazis–to destroy us, our country, our economy, and our way of life?
Why do we have to retreat from a war where in a few short years we’ve succeeded so quickly in so many ways (defeated Sadam, helped guide the creation of a new democracy, oversaw multiple successful elections with voter participation rates that far outshine ours, etc) while at the same time we must continue to fight a ‘war on poverty’ that has failed to show any results after decades and trillions of dollars?
Why should we so harshly judge the progress of a fledgling democracy in Iraq (where 44% of the goals we set for them have been met already) that we would abandon them while we allow Democrats in Washington to give themselves a pass as they’ve accomplished zip, zero, nada in the time since they themselves won the majority in Congress and the Senate…rather than pursue their policy objectives (increasing Socialism in this country to mirror the failures of European Socialists), they hold hearings, conduct over 300 investigations, and allow Congress’s Approval Rating to fall to its lowest level ever (but that’s of no consequence, of course).
Why, indeed. It’s time for a change, it’s time for some principled leadership that’s focused on American interests, not party interests. Who will answer the call…? It begins with you, and me. Stand up and be heard.

Tapper: “Senator, would children be healthier if we let them eat what they want?”
Senator Reid: “87% of children prefer pizza over vegetables. It’s clear that children don’t want to eat vegetables. Families are doing a great job raising kids…I support parents and families…but they can’t find a way to make kids eat vegetables. Every American family spends tens of dollars a week on peas and lima beans and creamed corn and how much of it gets scraped into the trash can or fed to the dog? It’s chaos at dinner time. And don’t get me started on school cafeterias. How much is this administration spending on school lunches when kids throw their lunches away and spend $2 in the vending machine for a Coke and Snickers? Children should make their own meals. It should be up to them what they eat. We need to get parents out of the business of feeding kids because they can’t make them eat vegetables. Children need to learn to eat healthy on their own. Parents can’t be there 24-7. That’s what makes the Yummy Food for Kids ammendment so important. That’s what children want.”

I can think of a few more “P”‘s to add to Tapper’s byline. What a disgrace.

Reid basically said he doesn’t care if the Iraqis are safer. Many Democrats opposed the 1991 war, the 2003 war — when have they ever given a darn about getting rid of Saddam Hussein and other rogue and terrorist elements in Iraq?

reid like most slimey senators do not wish to take any responsibility for any of their actions. They will vote one way, and when things turn bad vote another way, using the excuse of— I really didn’t realize what I was voiting for.
If this is a fact, their pay must be dock, because they are not performing the job they were sent to do.
I have been there, seen poop and also have hunted in the high mountains of where the blue headed flower is hanging out. We shall get him and if I am lucky enough to be the one, I promise I shall feed that maggot to hungry hogs while he is alive.

Remember the MILLIONS of Vietnamese and Cambodians that died at the hands of the democrat party of the USA. The democrat party will go down in history of as the most genocidal group of political hacks in history.

Brilliant line of questioning. It is truly unfortunate that this has become a political issue. The objective of Sen Reid has nothing to do with security of the US or the Iraqis and everything to do with the goal of making the President look bad. Having reporters willing to ask the tough yet logical questions shines the light of truth on their motives. Thank you!

“Whomever said that “Al Queda is back to it’s pre-9/11 strength” is an ill informed imbecile. What the recent assessment said, and it’s accuracy is questionable, is that Al Queda is at it’s strongest point since 9/11, NOT that it is as strong as it was BEFORE 9/11. I wish people who take the time to post would first learn to read, abnd or listen so that they can get their facts straight.”
Al queda was strongest immediately after 9/11. They are stronger now than they were pre-9/11, becuase their BIGGEST RECRUITMENT TOOL WAS 9/11.
bin Laden and al Zawhiri have essentially been able to operate unhindered since Iraq became the theatre of operations, and Afghanistan has become the war in the background.
Do you not find it scary that this exercise in Iraq has done more to bolster Al Queda, becuase all of our focus has been in this country instead of where it needs to be.
Ironically this is the “war on terror” president’s decision to fight the war on terror in a country that was anti-Osama when Hussein was in power. Now they are stronger UNDER HIS WATCH!!!!
And for those complaining about the vacuum that would be created if we pull out, much like Vietnam. Well, no duh! Us “dems” have been comparing this war to Vietnam since its inception, and there wouldn’t be killing at all if WE DIDN’T GO IN THE FIRST PLACE!!
Now I am not a dove liberal who thinks war is wrong in any circumstance, and as a matter of fact I am one of those who voted for the war before I voted against it. However, what i and others didn’t account for is how Bush, Rummy and Cheney were going to execute a very flawed war plan for after ousting Hussein.
The real vacuum of power came when Hussein was ousted from power, and after that the US “war plan” didn’t account for centuries long hatred between the Sunnis and Shias.
I pay taxes to elected officials to be smarter than me, and to hire people who are smarter than me. With this administration, I feel my 2.5 year old son has a better understanding of strategy than Bush and his clan.

Sen. Reid doesn’t want to answer because he knows that a horrific bloodbath will ensue if we leave (we see evidence of this already…beheadings, torture, car bombings, etc.). He and the other left-wing Democrats in Congress (and a few gutless Republicans) are so focused on winning elections that they will sacrifice Iraq and give al Quaida and their supporters the mother of all recruiting tools -a defeated U.S. and millions of Iraqi victims. But Reid and the elitists in Congress aren’t worried because they have superior intellects and with control of Congress, they will try to buy off the terrorists (after all, aren’t terrorists made by poverty?). They have already convinced a lot of poorly informed Americans that Iraq is a total failure we should never have gotten involved with (and I guess I would feel that way too if my only news sources were the NY Times and CNN).
As for Jake’s dig at “Faux News” – are you saying the Bob Beckle, Alan Colmes, Al Sharpton, Eleanor Clift, Mara Liasson, Juan Williams, etc., are right wingers?!?!?!?!?! And don’t liberals like you LOVE diversity anyway? What are you worried about, hmmm?

I just have two words for this congress…..Term Limits!

Well done. Regardless of what one thinks of the war, there are pertinent questions that, in fairness, need to be asked. This was one of them. The fact that Senator Reid chose not to dignify it with a direct response is basically indicative of an attitude pervasive in this country…which is that if those people out there are having trouble, that is really a darned shame and all of that, but hardly OUR problem. Whether is it Cambodia, Darfur, Zimbabwe, Indonesia or you name it, if we can comfort ourselves by thinking it’s just wogs killing each other because they don’t know any better and they’ll stop someday. Besides, if we try to stop them, some of our people could get killed and certain senators and representatives might not get re-elected. Horrors.
It is easy but simplistic to keep thinking that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans make a right nice moat against overseas problems. True, it was sound thought pre World War One, but not so much these days. Trouble can fly in on metal wings, and it has.
General Powell was right: You break it and it’s yours. And even though a large majority of Congress chose to authorize the war and break Iraq, they are trying to welch on ownership.
Keep their feet to the fire, Jake.

Jake, young man, why don’t you volunteer to go fight for the freedom and security of Iraqis? Won’t your old boss Nancy allow you to go? Or maybe mums and daddy at the country club wont allow you to enlist.
Will conservatives EVER grow up and take responsibility for their actions? If they love Iraq so much why not move there?
Only liberals can fight… conservatives are Nancy boys like George, cheney, ashcroft, limbaugh, hannity, wolfowitz, Rove… need I go on.
When will conservatives stop being timid scared little cry babies.
Conservative =Coward

Man, all these Halliburton/Bush/Rove/Cheney conspiracies are getting ridiculous. The next thing you know these nutjobs will say batman and spiderman really do exist and they have videos to prove it! Go back to your Netflix videos. Fatten yourself up with buttered popcorns like Michael Moore and move to Havana to take advantage of their world-class health care system. Leave the real life problems for the responsible adults to deal with.

What will happen to the Iraqis?
They will tear each other apart in a bloody civil war, the north will be invaded by Turkey, the east by Iran, the West by Syria. So, no, of course pulling the troops won’t make sense.
That’s why they have to stay there till hell freezes over or terrorists blow up half the Green Zone with one of those confangled WMD’s we can’t seem to find (lost). Then Bush will take the Reagan exit as in Beirut, except he’ll pull our troops “back”, not out of course since out means defeat somewhere.
Here was a better question: How will the almighty judge you and your conscience on the stance of this war? Me, I wouldn’t want the deaths of ten of thousands of Iraqis from instability we caused, terrorists we let flow in, or the puppet government we installed in place of another that wasn’t working for us.
And yeah I support the troops. I support their families and a non-disabled, non-PTSD, non-scarred life for our soldiers. I’d like for them to watch their families, their jobs, their way of life prosper. They aren’t collateral damage for corporations, oil men, and politicians to bandy around. But they are.
Just like our “victims” and “heroes” of that terrible day six years ago. Whatever happened to the real justice for that event?
If you can sleep comfortably at night while you our nation’s son’s and daughter’s continue to fight for no other cause than keeping the place from blowing up, then you’re soul’s lost.
Mr. Reid, Mr. Bush, or Mr. Reporter, your response?

Well said Jake, Liberal cowards don’t want to be in any war. If we relied on the Libs cowards of the U.S. we would now be either Nazi’s or annexed to Japan!

Isn’t the proper question here, “What will make the AMERICAN people safer ?”
Granted, it was a mistake to go to war (or if you believe the war was justified, surely you can’t back the way in which it was executed), but shouldn’t we expect our elected officials to ALWAYS represent the best interests of those they represent – namely the AMERICAN people?
That should have always been the issue. Congress and the President represent Americans. Not themselves, and not foreign countries, even if we have put them in a tough spot. I expect them to represent American interests first.
When is someone going to stand up and ask that question?

Hey conservative cowards… when did you start “feeling the pain” of the Iraqi people. How come no conservative ever go of to fight.
Draft the Shrub girls… if this is so damn important then their country needs them NOW.
Conservatives are poor frightened little lambs… every time Georgie tell them to be afwaid they quiver.
The Democrats will control the government for the next 5 or 6 election cycles. The REpublican party will reconstitute to be more like the conservatives in Canada.
National health is coming!

I don’t know you nor do I know your motives, but THANK YOU just the same for asking a highly relevant question and exposing Senator Reid’s hypocrisy for what it is. If he truly cared about trying help everyone involved rather than making the President look bad, he would have at least ATTEMPTED to answer your question rather than repeating rhetoric. He is so focused on his own agenda that he is unable to intelligently address legitimate concerns such as the safety of the Iraqi people.

Posted by: MM | Jul 12, 2007 5:49:48 PM
“For those you who are condemned to repeat history if they do not take it into account you should google the Dem platform of 1864……..”
MM you are quite correct, one of the few who see and know reality in this matter. I would add that those “events” you spoke of regarding the burning of Georgia and Virginia farmland among others were in reality “Terrorism” unleashed upon the civilians of the Southern United States..

Very good jake, but the bottom dollare down is that the Democrat’s don’t give a rat butt about the war, this is all about hurting Bush. Reid and cronies have been waging a war against President Bush (R-Texas) since the election between Our President, and former Vice-President Albert Gore (D-Tennessee). This is not about war, this about money, that the Democrat’s like Mr. Reid, Madam Speaker think could better be used for their own Agenda’s, like the “Pork Barrel Polka!”
Thank Jake for having the Gonads to ask the question’s that have us all wondering, that these Cowards have none to answer your question!

Bobo – Take it from a conservative service member who has done several tours in that area….the VAST majority of service members ARE conservative.

Good work Simple qustions are often the most effective.
What galls me is the Liberal ponificating to get the troops out of Iraq while at the same time insisting we stop the killing in the Sudan.

I am all for staying in Iraq. The case for going into Iraq, at the time it was made, was a good one. This, of course, is why a majority of Congress, including Sen. Reid, voted to go into Iraq to begin with. Those who deny as much are simply deluding themselves or, as Sen. Reid is now famous for, revising history.
Nevertheless, assuming the Administration capitulates to the Democrats and pulls out before the job is done, I’m hopeful that ABC, the other major networks, and the rest of the MSM, remember that it was the Democrats and the far-left who argued for the withdrawal. This will be particularly important when these same news outlets report on the real civil war that will most assuredly occur in the absence of the coalition forces. Every drop of innocent Iraqi blood spilled post-pullout should be blamed directly on Reid and his cadre.
Good question, Jake. Thanks for having the kiwis to ask what every other journo should be asking of the good senator and anyone else who call for the abandonment of the Iraqi people.

of course, the Iraqis will be safer
it’s obvious
no more airstrikes killing civilians, no more midnight raids, no more indefinite detentions, no more checkpoint shootings, no more leveling of cities like Fallujah, no more use of white phosphorus, no more torture and sexual abuse of detainees . . .
no more playing all sides against one another, arming all factions as sectarian violence increases while simultaneously saying that we have to stay there to prevent it
no more arming and training Shia death squads operating out of the Interior Ministry, arming Sunni insurgents in al-Anbar and arming Kurdish pershmergas used to attack places like Fallujah
for a true picture of the occupation, read the article by Chris Hedges and Laila al-Arian”The Other War”, where soldiers who have served explain what it is really about
hint: protecting the Iraqis is not mentioned by them as one of the priorities of the mission by any of them, and soldiers who attempted to help Iraqis, like one medic, were ridiculed and ostracized and the lives of Iraqi civilians were frequently endangered, if not lost, by troops operating under rules of engagement that permitted them to use force indiscriminately
Or, consider this excerpt: Any stereotypes about Islam and Arabs that soldiers and marines arrived with tended to solidify rapidly in the close confines of the military and the risky streets of Iraqi cities into a crude racism.
Jake probably knows this, so it was a trick question . . . if it is directed towards a sitting US Senator who has to the electorate to win an election
P. S. the vast majority of violence against US troops IS coming from the Iraqis, not al-Qaeda, and the Pentagon has acknowledged it numerous times in recent years

If it is so important that we not leave Iraq, that we stay until the job is done, until we achieve our objectives, until we WIN (as though this were a game of Yahtzee) then what are we waiting for?
We know what it takes to win: more troops, a bigger Army (maybe even a draft), a bigger Iraqi Army (again, maybe a draft), a diplomatic offensive, home furlough equal to current military guidelines…the list goes on. There are two problems here:
1. Nobody in this administration is willing to take the necessary steps to achieve victory.
2. Nobody in this administration is willing to even DEFINE what victory is.
Despite all of his assertions to the contrary, this President is playing politics with our men and women in uniform. He constantly spews rhetoric that victory is the only option all the while ignoring the necessary means to accomplish that victory. Maybe he should print up a banner that says “Mission Accomplished” and call it good.

Mr. Tapper, your question to Mr. Reid was fair, relevant, and quite appropriate a question to ask a US Senator who has said the US has lost the war and who says we need to pull our troops out immediately. Your question to Reid is a good question. It is a question worthy of debate and Reid, being a US Senator, should do a better job of clearly answering such an important question. If the US pulls out all of its troops right away, does Harry Reid really truly think that there will be less violence in Iraq, that Iraqis will be at less risk of bloodshed, and that the country will experience less conflict with Islamic radicals poised to try to take over the country and institute Sharia Law? It is easy to take a position to be against something that is so hard and the sacrifice so great. History is replete with examples of the “high road” being a difficult and and not necessarily popular one. But Reid would have to be a statesman to understand that but alas, as it is he is just a politician. It is not his responsiblity to define American foreign policy, but he seems to have the luxury of undermining the very trooops he espouses to save, even coming dangerously close to making what some would call treasonous statements, giving “aid and comfort” to the enemy, consequentially making matters worse for our troops … making their job harder and more dangerous. The war being a mistake, or not, can be debated in the history books. It defintiely would be a mistake right now to pull out now and abandon the millions of Iraqis who do need us until the job is done.

Unable to vote in Nevada but I hope all Vegas vacationers will call to cancel their Vegas vacations and credit Reid. Maybe we can get to him!!

To call Harry Reid a weasel does a disservice to weasels.

Remember the MILLIONS of people Pol Pot murdered when US troops pulled out of Vietnam? Harry Reid is the leader of a political party that seeks the same for Iraq.

I think Jake Tapper is an American patriot. I think Jake acted like a real journalist, an anomaly in today’s media where only the repubs get asked the tough questions while dems get to peddle their DNC talking points.
Thanks Jake for revealing the utter incompetence and cowardice of a spineless little “man.”

Sean, you need to learn what marginal means.
I guess you define yourself by who you don’t care about… like the Iraqis that we have an obligation to.

ABC’s Jake Tapper stymies Senator Harry Reid

Via Curt at Flopping Aces comes news of this line of tough questioning from ABC’s Jake Tapper, whose career may not be in jeopardy:From today’s press conference with the Senate Democratic leaders. I tried to get an answer to what

Jake,
Great work attempting to pry useful information from our elected leader in the Senate.
The sense I get from the exchange is that he is uncomfortable with serious and persistent questions meant to test his (and much of the Senate’s) reasoning behind his Iraq position. He’s used to softball questions from reporters and approving nods from them in response to his glib or evasive responses. Reid is not alone in this attitude; it can be observed with much of our political class at all levels.
I applaud and encourage your persistence. It’s what I expect from real journalists, but rarely see applied these days.
Regardless of party affiliation, and regardless of our positions on Iraq and the war, we should all want journalists like Mr. Tapper drilling into the minds of our politicians with such probing and intelligent questions.

Food for the thoughtful….
How many of the Iraqis who didn’t vote for the venerable Senator Reid must die before they are worth more than our own expenditure of “blood and treasure”?
1?
100?
1,000?
100,000?
1,000,000?
100,000,000?
1,000,000,000?
How much “treasure” is one Iraqi life worth?
Food for the thoughtful: After those who “hated violence” by American “Baby Killers” in Vietnam scorned and forced our troops to return home in shame before the mission was accomplished, over 2 MILLION innocent people died at the hands of non-American “Man, Woman and Baby Killers” communist madmen who swarmed in after our retreat — just as the American peace lovers were forewarned.
You KNOW there’s going to be a horrendous bloodbath if we pull out before their fledgling is stable.
How much “treasure” is one Iraqi life worth?
What do you think Al Quaida will do after we leave? Roast 11 year old sons and feed them to their family in order to “convert” them to their religion? How many will they slaughter of the Iraqi Security Forces, government officials and, yes, those patriotic and innocent human beings with the Blue Thumbs of the voting booth?
Food for the thoughtful: Historically speaking, how long has it taken an enslaved people to recover from their enslavement? It took 40 years for the Israelites. African Americans are still claim they are suffering about their former enslavement — 140 years after their emancipation.
How long does it take any human to learn to embrace a life of freedom and self-government after a life of enslavement and terror?
How many years of freedom do Iraqis deserve? More than 2?
How much “treasure” is one Iraqi life worth?
Is an Iraqi worth the same as an American life — or, just the 3/5 ths American slaves were worth?
How much of your treasure is one Iraqi life worth?
How much was YOUR freedom worth to those who died for YOU?
Was the high price of YOUR freedom too high?
Food for the thoughtful….

Blame Bush? Bush didn’t do it – hell, Bush has done nothing but screw up for the last six years. Republicans sell the myth they’re strong on national security when the extreme opposite is true. Republicans are weak, sniveling, inept and incompetent – and George W. Bush proves it. Take Jimmy Carter’s incompetence and Richard Nixon’s corruption, stir them together and you have the Bush Administration.

Mr. Adkins, I totally DISAGREE with your assessment. President Bush will go down as one of the most courageous presidents of all time! We ARE fighting al Qaeda in Iraq. And every time we capture their members we learn more about them. President Bush has a vision for peace in the Middle East. And an integral part of that vision is to have thriving democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq. Then a few years down the road the citizens of the other nations will demand freedom and democracy as well.
It was the Democrats who attempted to curtail the CIA’s intelligence gathering. It was the Democrats who have tried to hamstring our military for years. AND it was Al Gore himself during the 1992 Presidential campaign who chastised President Bush 41, for not doing more to stop Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs and the threat he posed to our national security. Yet he and President Clinton did very little during their 8 years…little to stop Saddam Hussein and even less against al Qaeda. Democrats ARE weak on defense. They believe appeasement is the path to peace.
Wake up Bushhaters! President Bush is NOT the enemy. We are in the battle for survival of the civilized world and you all just can’t see it because you hate Bush so much. When al Qaeda does obtain a nuclear weapon, and they destroy one of our great cities…I truly hope that you Bushhaters are NOT anywhere near the blast. That way you will have to live the remainder of your lives knowing that President Bush was RIGHT! And you just wouldn’t listen!

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID, D-NEV: As reported in the news this morning, 69 percent of Iraqis feel they are less safe because of the presence of Americans; AS REPORTED BY MSM, THERES A SOURCE FOR YA. 21 percent of the Iraqi people feel they’re safer. That’s pretty clear that American troops who are over there protecting the Shias, the Sunnis and the Kurds — they’re not welcome. DANG, MY HUSBAND CAME BACK ADDICTED TO THE TEA OVER THERE BECAUSE OF ALL THOSE IRAQIS WHO DON’T WANT US OVER THERE. That’s the reason that they’re doing a good job of protecting the Shias, Kurds and Sunnis,HUH? but they are all trying to kill our soldiers. ALL TRYING TO KILL US? THE KURDS? AND LETS NOT ADDRESS THE ISSUE OF ALL THE SUNNI TRIBES NOW HELPING US IN THE FIGHT AGAINST AQI. That is a recipe to bring our troops home. WHAT RECIPE? THE KURDS LOVE US AND THE SUNNI ARE TURNING TO US FOR HELP. And that’s why the Levin-Reed amendment is so critically important. …It transitions the mission within 120 days, and by the first day of May of next year, our troops will be out of there, our combat troops will be out of there. They will be left to do counterterrorism, training the Iraqis — continuin THIS PART I DON”T GET, IF ALL OUR TROOPS ARE OUT OF THERE INCLUDING OUR COMBAT TROOPS WHO EXACTLY WILL BE LEFT TO TRAIN THE IRAQIS AND AND FIGHT AQI, AND WHO WILL SUPPLY WHOEVER WE LEAVE BEHIND? AND PROTECT THEM WHILE THEY”RE TRAINING THE IRAQI ARMY ALL THE WHILE FIGHTING TERRORISM? WHO IS THE THEY HE”S TALKING ABOUT? THE IRAIQS? IF SO SHOULDN”T HE OF SAID TRAINING THEMSELVES?
Does this man even hear the words coming out of his mouth?

I love Whole Foods. For the benefit of Iraqi’s, we should make sure they open a store there too.

When did Republicans start caring about people other than themselves? Yeah, Bush wants the Iraqi people to be free and secure… he wants the oil and could care less about the people. The US should not have gone into Iraq in the first place. So the question of what about the Iraqis was disregarded from day one of the war and that was not the decision of a Democrat.

spock – Following a leader blindly is stupidity. When are going to help the people of North Korea, Iran, Sudan, Cuba, etc? Answer: the US won’t; why? No Oil! Well, except Iran and their military would actaully give us a real war. I wonder for our future, for every day of occupation the US is in Iraq how many new terrorists is the US breeding? Ask Bush that question and you know what he’ll say, NOTHING! Reid’s failure to answer a question is straight out of the book of Bush’s tactics of deception. Maybe Jake should start a new colunm outlining all of Bush’s failures to answer questions. Wait, that would take up way to much space on ABC’s servers.

JB, I for one am NOT blindly following President Bush. My eyes are WIDE OPEN and I thank God for the courage that President Bush has shown since 9/11. Were mistakes made? Yes! For one, we tried to balance overthrowing Saddam Hussein and fighting the insurgency while attempting to rebuild the infrastructure (from years of neglect by Saddam Hussein) and while trying to maintain some diplomacy with the DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED leaders of Iraq. While I understand the reasoning for the balancing act, I would have prefered that we had just gone in and cleaned house and worry about rebuilding after the country was secured.
President Bush knew from the very beginning that this was going to be a very difficult war. He also knew that the American people’s patience would wear very thin; and that the Democrats would quickly revert back to their anti-war and appeasement mentality very quickly. THAT is why the balancing act was implemented. But the insurgency got a real boost from the Democrats with all their anti-war rhetoric during the 2006 election. The insurgency easily figured out that the more violence and blood shed the louder the Democratic rhetoric would be. It was no coincidence that the violence in Iraq spiked so heavily during our election campaign season.
For your information, there is one thing worse than blindly following a leader and that is blindly following the opposition — especially when the opposition is more interested in getting re-elected rather than putting national security first. We are at war with al Qaeda, yet the Democrats would rather fight President Bush tooth and nail for political points rather than uniting with him in an effort to defeat al Qaeda.

Iraq does not equal Al Qaeda. I don’t know how many times I hear people defend Bush with, “He’s fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq”… BS. The only thing that fighting in Iraq is doing is breeding more terrorists and more hatred against the US. There is a point where the value of winning in Iraq is less than leaving. That point we have passed. Al Qaeda is supposedly more strong now than before 9/11.. thanks Bush. Great! Good leadership! Good thing we put all our eggs in Iraq and not being more stratigic in our placing assets to fight the real terror networks all over the world. Iraq was never about freedom for the Iraqis, it was about the OIL, otherwise the US could really care less about a terrible dictator. Case-in-point, North Korea, Cuba and all over Africa. Keep beleiveing the lies from Bush, history will reviel the truth and the all the lies.

Reality,
You write:
“…and if you believe that it’s our fault that Iraq will be worse off once we leave…
that’s all the more reason to stay, and finish the job.”
This is typical of many conversations I’ve had over the last few years. Follow the logic here, how does staying result in our finishing the job? What steps do we take that would change the calculus on the ground in Iraq? I never seem to get much of an answer to this question other than empty talking points. “We need to finish the job” is not a strategy. It won’t stop Iran, it won’t stop the insurgents, it won’t stop the sectarian war. It might make those that supported the war feel better. Meanwhile, our troops are trying their level best to do what they can under the worst of conditions. Do you care more about your egos and the Iraqis than you do about our troops?

James D,
Okay, then what should we do? How do we deal with Iranian meddling? What’s your plan for getting the sectarian genie back in the bottle? Also, I’d be careful with using the revolutionary war as an analogy. The British invaded America, we didn’t invade England. We defeated a superior army because we had some built in advantages. Sound familiar?

Reality,
“I believe that it is still necessary for our military to continue crushing the terrorists and training the Iraqis, so that someday, we can leave, knowing that Iraqis who love freedom the way that we do are in a position to defend themselves, their country, and their new way of life.”
Iraq, and generally the whole of the middle east is quite unlike America. There’s is a tribal culture. They may not react the way you expect them to. If given a choice between embracing American efforts to create a democracy and Irans efforts to create a Shi’ite super-regional power, we may not like the choice they make. And then there is the possibility that Iranian surrogates won’t bother to ask them.
“With all due respect, if we stay long enough that a solid, freely elected government can stand up and defend its new freedom, then we will have done exactly what you describe; we will have rendered Iran, the insurgents, the Islamists, and the sectarians impotent and irrelevant.”
Sir, with all do respect, one would have to be looking at the situation through very rosy glasses to interprete the outcome as you describe it.
For one thing, this government is split along tribal and ethnic lines and is completely disfunctional. We would need more than a government in name only to dissuade Iran from funding chaos in Iraq. You’re expecting the Iraqis to react in a way that is not consistent with the history and culture of the region. If your timeframe is measured in centuries, maybe we would have a shot.

I’m just sick after listening to Charlie Gibson’s report on 7-12-07 about thousands of our poor mentally injured post-traumatic-stress-syndrome military patients that have been kicked out of the military for “pre-existing-personality-disorder”, so our gov’t won’t have to heal them. THEN, they’re ordered to pay thousands of dollars BACK to the military!!
Bush claims to “love” the military? He’s what I call an “empty-suit”…He wears a suit, but there’s nothing in it!!! Brainless hypocrite!! And so is the rest of his selected criminal gofers!
Our poor military are fighting for what? There’s nothing to win over there, it’s a religious war that has been going on for hundreds of years! (Read Kite Flyer) Bring our brave soldiers home, we NEED them here. The Iraqi gov’t. is so “ready” that they’re taking a vacation right now. They’ll never be ready. What can Bush be thinking? We have a lunatic in the White House!! Scary stuff! Bush wants money to fight in Iraq, but he won’t take care of the poor sad souls that come home all messed up!! He’s just plain scary!
Yeah, get Cheney out, then the Bush-Rove combo. They’ve caused our country to backslide, and have everyone hating us.
GO ABC for reporting the facts and please keep it up!!!

Sorry Nick, you can’t invade your own country…it’s called defending! But enough about 1783!
I did not say that the Sadr militia was destroyed. I said that al-Maliki demanded that the militia disarm. And I did not say “attack” Iran with forces on the ground. I said bomb the heck out of them. We have plenty of fire power!
Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon. But they will soon. We (or Israel) will have to destroy these nuclear sites sooner or later, because we CANNOT allow Iran to have a nuclear bomb. So we might as well do it “sooner,” before they have the capability. Under my proposal, at least our bombing will be warranted because we will have publicly exposed the fact that Iran has already invaded Iraq with their Revolutionary Guard. THAT IS an act of war already!!

Jake,
If only you and your colleagues had been half as persistent and insistent with your line of questioning of President Bush, et al BEFORE the war, perhaps you wouldn’t be so frustrated by Senator Reid now… probably not, because the “non-answers” you’d have received for daring to question the Bush “ir-rationale” for invading Iraq would have probably gotten you fired… funny how now, 4 years after the fact, the same people who’d have vilified you for being “disrespectful” to President Bush lionize you for “standing up” to Harry Reid by badgering him with a question that quite frankly should have never needed to be asked…
Pfffft…

As a graduate of the University of South Vietnam, I somehow feel that I have been returned to the 60/70 era. It was a fair and excellent question which Reid just waved off.
I spent almost 30 months as an Advisor to the Army Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). The Iraqi Army, in my professional opinion, is about where ARVN was in 1965, perhaps maybe a little more advanced. When we left in the mid 70′s we gave our WORD that we would continue to support the ARVN with ammo, etc. Some of the same useless congressman, Dingle, Conyers, Rangel, etc are still around and do not wish to recall the “Domino Theory” and its resulting carnage. I suffer from PTSD, Traumic Brain Disease, yet I did not let that stop me from a successful private and public life. I can assure the woman who was so worried that the military is discharging troops and not helping them that story comes right off of MoveOn.org.
We need to get rid of these “Coward/Losers on the hill. I smell the same outcome in this war as Vietnam. Lost by the losers on the hill!! Did the President make some errors, sure, but that is not reason to give up and quit and leave Iraq to be conquered by Iran. We gave our word to the South Vietnamese and now the Iraqi’s. Makes you wonder just what this nation’s word is worth. Jake you are to be commended for taking on these clowns and trying to get them to be accountable. In closing for those of you posters who never had the “exciting experience of actually being in combat, wounded and rounds whizzing by your ear and living to tell about it” it is priceless….

Harry Reid is “defeating the democratic process”? Are you kidding?
George W. Bush has rendered it null and void…

Jeff, your latest post amounts to an ad hominem attack on “Republican” character in order to not have to answer tough questions.
Let me ask you one simple question without an attack on your character:
You want to pull out of Iraq.
I presume that if you knew that ZERO Iraqis would be tortured and murdered as a result of your decision, you’d have no moral or ethical qualms with your decision.
I further presume that if you knew that ALL 22 MILLION Iraqis (1997 estimate) would be tortured and murdered as a result of your decision, you’d have such significant moral and/or ethical qualms that you’d decide to stay.
Therefore, exactly what number of tortured and murdered Iraqis is the boundary that would cause you to change your vote from YES “get out” to NO “let’s stay and help these formerly enslaved people get on their feet”?
Just as with the decision to go into Iraq, there will be undeniable, inevitable and undesirable consequences to your decision to leave before it it stable for which you will be responsible.
Where’s your comfort zone end?
This is a question that everyone who advocates leaving Iraq unstable MUST ask themselves with honest and integrity.
There will be consequences to your political decision.

I ask the rest of those who want to leave Iraq in an unstable state to answer the same very simple question I asked Jeff.
Your theoretical political decisions have real world consequences for the Iraqis.

James – Do you really think that staying is Iraq is going to keep the US safe? Everyday we are over there it just increases the hatred that the middle east and the world has for the US. Are Iraqis going to die if we leave? Yes; are Americans going to die if we stay? Yes, maybe not now but I am in my 30′s and will face a much more hostile world in the future and in my kids futures because of a errored political decisions that this administration has made. Programs cut? Come on? Increase in spending on the war, no taxes raised, then something go to give.. Google the programs cut and you will find. One question that I pose is, what have we (the US) lost in opportunity costs since all the funding that has gone to the war? Hundreds of billions of dollars that could have gone to cure cancer, cure AIDS, our school systems,technology advancment, etc… That is something that people don’t think about, but really should before people vote. How much of tax money going to be wasted on Iraq? leaving the US worse off than before Bush.

Jake, After reading your Dirty Harry Q&A and hearing you on the Hugh Hewitt show……I have a lot of respect for you..Stay out of “left and right field” and always report from “center field” Great Job and hope to see more of your work very soon! Aloha

Jeff, I understand that you fear that our fight against terrorists will increase hatred and hostilities against Americans.
Do you think the same fears existed before we entered WW II? Did the hatred and threat against the US increase after we decided to fight their terrorism?
Of course. The hatred and threat always increases during conflict — until one side defeats the other.
In fact, ever, even after one side is defeated, some will continue to fight –
This is the way things work in war.
The question is: do you and your children want to fear terrorists for the rest of your lives? Or do you want to eliminate the threat?
You can’t reason with unreasonable people.
Are terrorists reasonable?

Jeff, do you think the Democrats really care about the poor? All the Democrats care about is buying their votes! The Democrats will give the poor everything (food, housing, spending money & free health care) off the backs of the working class. However the poor are forever stuck as “poor.” It takes a very strong willed and very motivated person to actually break out of their enslavement to the government and succeed on his or her own. That’s because there are penalties for trying to free yourself from the clutches of the government. There was a classic case several years ago. A woman wanted so desperately to get off welfare that she ate dog food for months and saved her welfare checks. But when her savings account reached about $5000 Welfare took all the money because it exceeded what they allowed the woman to have.

read your american historey books is this like vietnam? A waist

Jeff, instead of rational responses you appear to have surrendered with personally comforting prophecies.

Jeff, your decision to resort to comforting ad hominems about the inferior blindness of your opponents and vindicating prophecies about the future tells me that you actually do realize the enormous implications of your decision, but don’t want to think about it because it’s very unsettling.
If you are afraid to face these very real life dilemmas which people like Reid refuse to address before they make a political choice, which one of us, exactly, is the one following blindly?
How much American “blood and treasure” is one Iraqi life worth?
Your decision to leave this question unanswered leads people to conclude that your conscience will be free of guilt regardless of how many Iraqis die as a result of your decision.
Is there ANY number of Iraqi deaths that would cause you to change your vote from “get out now” to “let’s protect Iraqis from the mess we made”?
I realize this dilemma is hard to face (that’s why I raised it), but don’t you think you should resolve it in your own mind before you take action that will affect the lives of millions?
Will you be able to live with the inevitable results of your insufficiently considered actions?

“Americans only hope is that the Democrats take control of the White House in 08 to fix all of the administration failures.”
The leading Democratic candidates, Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton want universal healthcare (cradle to grave healthcare) for everyone like they have in Europe. Do you know how the Europeans pay for their universal healthcare? They are currently paying the equivalent of 7$-$10 per gallon of gas, with over 75% of that being taxes. Sens. Obama and Clinton (and others) want to eliminate the Bush taxcuts and raise taxes even more on the wealthy (even though the top 25% of wage earners already pay 84.6% of the total federal income tax revenues) and corporations — especially the oil companies. This will result in many layoffs since many small businesses will be hit hard. The average unemployment rate for the 27 European counties is 7.9% (United Kingdom is 5.3%; Sweden is 7.1%; Finland is 7.7%; Germany is 8.4%; Spain is 8.5%; Greece is 8.9%; France is 9.5%; Turkey is 9.9%; and Poland is 13.8% — 2006 statistics). And these are the fixes that YOU want?

Once – You’re wrong, Afghanistan is a just war, Iraq is not. If this so called “war on terror” was that the US would have more assets in Afghanistan than in Iraq. The US has more troops in Iraq because it’s a greater prize for Bush, it’s got all the oil. Bush thought Iraq was going to be easy to take and start producing oil and letting all his oil buddies get the contracts to extract the oil and makes a whole lot of cash along the way. Just think if the US did not have the diversion of Iraq and the US could have 150,000 troops in Afghanistan looking for and killing Al Qaeda, the US less than 20,000 troops in Afghanistan. Courage does not equal “stay the course”, courage is when you have to admit mistakes and seek a different solution. The US can leave now and have only 3,616 dead and somewhere in between 25,000-100,000 wounded or we can leave years from now and have 10,000 dead and many more wounded. Courage is to stand up and say “I was wrong. There was no WMD (remember that was the premise of the war)in Iraq. Saddam was a bad man, but not a direct threat to the US. Iran, North Korean and the Muslim extremists are a direct threat to the US. We need to concentrate on eliminating them, rather than nation rebuilding. Let the Iraqi’s take control of their country and their destiny.” Bush needs to say this to look like a strong leader. As to your comment about liberal pet social programs, it’s funny that if the democrats we asking for even a percentage of amount of money that the republicans have wasted on the war, all you guys would be in a uproar. Those social programs could have paid for more college grants to give more poor students a chance at a better life and giving back to the US economy. Those social programs could have paid for a possible cure to cancer, AIDS, Parkinsons, autism, you name it.. but instead the US has paid for bombs, guns, bullets, fixing Iraqi schools, rather than our own, fixing Iraqi roads, instead of our own. Those pet social programs are what makes the quality of life of the US better than the rest of the world. I’m only afraid of this dangerous world because of what Bush has done to it.

So are you saying that the current US military is no better than the 1970’s soviets? Hmm.. I would argue otherwise. What I’m saying is that we are not doing all that we can do in Afghanistan because the troops levels are too low and being sucked up in Iraq. If it was not about oil, we have more that 17,000 troops in Afghanistan. Iraq has the world’s second largest proven oil reserves. It seems a little coincidental that a administration so well connected to the oil industry goes after a country with those kind of reserves. North Korea was more of a threat to the US than Iraq, but we didn’t go after them because they don’t have any oil. If you haven’t noticed the price of gas and oil these days, it’s going up and supply is running out. Oh, you’ll say that demand is up for the price to be up, sure it’s up, but as demand goes up the supply of a nonrenewable resource has to go down. He who controls the oil will control the world. I think Bush is saving Saudi Arabia for the 51st state. I don’t know how anyone can say that oil did not play a part in the decision to go to war. Maybe you don’t think the world is running out of oil and you probably don’t believe in global warming and the impacts of our actions are negatively affecting the environment. Your statement of Saddam was a threat in 1992 is correct, but that was 10 years before we invaded. 10 years; it was not overnight. In the 10 years after 1992 Iraq continued to be less of threat, UN inspections continued to turn up no WMD, but Bush insisted that they had WMD, which was a CONSERVITVE LIE. And that’s were we are today, trying to correct Bush’s lie. Bush has said he wants a regime change in Cuba, are they next county is going to invade?

You’re right Jeff, if our cars ran on spicy cabbage we would have invaded North Korea instead.

Jeff, you wrote: “In the 10 years after 1992 Iraq continued to be less of threat, UN inspections continued to turn up no WMD, but Bush insisted that they had WMD…” SO DID CLINTON & GORE. Why do you think Congress gave President Clinton the authority for regime change in Iraq in 1998? Go back to the statements by leading Democrats in 1998 on the floor of both the House and the Senate. Oh I guess when the liberal Democrats made statements (i.e. “Saddam Hussein is an imminent threat.” Or, “They have WMDs.”) that turn out to not be true it was the Right Wing Conspiracy that made them say it.
As for Afghanistan, armies have tried to defeat the people in Afghanistan (although by many other names) for nearly three millennium. Even Alexander the Great couldn’t completely conquer its people. It’s not the strength of the opposing army, it’s the terrain. You can’t even get helicopters up into many areas because the elevation is too high.
President Bush wants to drill for oil in Anwar. He also wants to expand drilling in the Gulf of Mexico to end our dependence of foreign oil. The MoveOn.org and George Soros puppets continue to spread their lies to push their own socialistic agendas.
We didn’t go after North Korea because we have been able to deal with them diplomatically. And it appears that has paid off! We tried dealing with Saddam Hussein diplomatically for 12 years. He reaped billions in his oil-for-food scheme during that time and ignored the UN Security Council’s warnings and our warnings. At the same time he was paying up to $25,000 to families of Palestinian suicide bombers — clearly supporting terrorists.
Hunter, you claim that since Iraq has the second largest oil reserves that naturally that is why we went into Iraq. Then what about the undisputed fact that in 1999 an Iraqi offical (Wissam al Zawahie) went to Niger on a trade mission. Yet the only commodity that would be of interest to Iraq is Niger’s uranium. Based on your logic that should be THE CONCLUSIVE proof that Iraq was, in fact, seeking to purchase uranium as late as 1999.

Once – Please stop with the Iraq was involved in 9/11, THEY WERE NOT INVOLVED. How many reports of saying Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 does it take to get through the Republican mindset? As for someone like me fight wars? It’s easy logic of why to go to war, imminent threat, retaliation (Iraq is neither) or all avenues exhausted (diplomacy) again in Iraq’s case not the case. If the Texas cowboy would have let diplomacy work thousands of people would not be dying today. Sure, I know what you’re going to say, Saddam would still be in power, big deal, he was marginalized a long time ago. There are many other ruthless dictators that treat their people like dirt, you don’t see us going in there and trying to clean house, do you? Oh, and about the diplomacy working in NK, it solidifies the argument that diplomacy and sanctions do work. What if we would have continued diplomacy with an administration that did not have a hidden agenda for oil with Iraq? Would we be here today, I believe no. But we will never know. Our future has been sealed with a stroke oil and money filled eyes of the President. Someone like me fighting war would be much different than the administration we have in place, I have the ability for logical and rational thought.

Jeff, I will see if Political Punch will post this portion of my response.
Jeff, you are absolutely correct. Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. BUT al Qaeda — the same group that was behind 9/11 — IS fighting us in Iraq (and they HAD a training camp in Northern Iraq before we invaded Iraq). Saddam Hussein was supporting terrorism. Remember President Bush’s words: “If you harbor a terrorist, if you support a terrorist, if you feed a terrorist, you’re just as guilty as the terrorists…”
The remainder were 6 quotes by Democrats Hillary Clinton, John Edwards (2), Al Gore and John Rockefeller (2), in 2002, on how much a threat Saddam Hussein was to our national security.

Jeff, Hunter…
You guys have made some wildly unbelievable accusations here.
Please provide demonstrable evidence that the 7 reasons given for invading Iraq are bogus and that the real “hidden agenda” behind the invasion was Oil.
I’m asking your to restate the convoluted extrapolations of your theory’s “logic and reason”.
I’m asking for hard, demonstrable, indisputable facts backed up by col minded, rational logic and reason.
You do have them, right?

Saddam was marginalized being a threat to the US. Sure, to his own people he was a threat, but don’t even start to pretend that you or other republicans care about the well being of other people other than yourselves or people that think like you. Bush and Cheney have voted many times to keep the poor poor – Headstart programs for the poor children, increasing student loan grants, stem cell research and additional 147 social programs cut by Bush. Yet, Bush provides tax breaks to energy companies totaling $14.5 billion, don’t you think that $14.5 billion dollars could have helped our nations poor children and given them a chance at a better life? Or repeal Bush disastrous tax cuts when he first took office. Oh, no if that means that you would have to pay an additional $500 a year in taxes, that’s your money, not the poors, right? So don’t argue that you are OK with rebuilding Iraq and caring about their people when you don’t care about our nations own. Don’t even pretend! So any argument that you say “save and protect the Iraqi people is a load of garbage. Moral and ethically issues should have been address by your president before he went into Iraq. Newsflash!! Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqi are dying with the US in Iraq, so are the numbers of Iraqi’s that are going to die greater if we stay or go, that is a question no one can answer.

Jeff, please prove that at the time of the US invasion, Saddam was known to have been marginalized.
Jeff, please prove that Republicans don’t care about the well being of other people other than themselves or people that think like them.
Jeff, please prove evidence of these cuts (explicit references please) and that whatever actual actions they took actually mean they don’t care instead of having a competing method to address the problems.
Jeff, please demonstrate that Bush’s tax cuts reduced revenue to the treasury that forced a reduction in social program funding, and explain how your theory correlates with the increases he made to social programs like AIDS assistance to Africa and the elderly prescription drug program.
Jeff, I must note that even after asking you to back up these statements, they are actually new unbridled extrapolations in addition to the ones I asked you to defend about Iraq vs oil. Your only attempt to address this is to libel me, a classic evasive debating tactic of someone who’s been cornered. Look up the term, ad hominem.
Now you have an even bigger mess on your hands.
Instead of providing demonstrable facts and sound reasoning, you again demonstrate the propensity to believe in conspiracy theories in which those who think differently and have ideas different than your own on how to solve social ills are evil.
You appear to live in a world of illusion, not one of logic and reason.
Please back it your statements with logic and reason (you proudly proclaimed you were good at this), or stop libeling others and promoting unbelievable conspiracy theories.
Try addressing the questions without libel.

I remember Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger B. Taney prior to the Civil in the Dred Scott decidion say that:
“beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”
So some in here look at Iraqi people in the same matter! They’re rights are not as important as the rights of others?

I often wondered why some would use the words like “marginalized” or for that matter redeployment. I thinking about World war 2 and how many Ameircans after Pearl Harbor would every consider using those words.
Could we have said that Hitler was marginalized since her hadn’t gotten off the Europe? Or during the campaign to retake Europe our leaders then would use the term; Redeployment, because the fighting got hard?
What would some say then? About the same as we are saying now when it comes to understanding that our country is in World War 3. It’s I afraid of the future. I can’t Hnadle that it! It is a Pre 9-11 attitude and it’s Melvin Chamberlin, I am afriad of the future attitude that compels people to try to make peace with people that would cut you throat in a mimute.
It is a guilt ridden society that hopes for peace when none is available. What a future we have with so many cowards that abound!

Jeff, you have not presented a cogent, rational question for me to address.
All of your questions are wrapped up in propaganda and condescension.
Since my first post, all I’ve repeatedly asked you is one simple question about where you draw the line.
All you’ve responded with are ad hominems and wild conspiracy theories that you have not demonstrated are anywhere in the realm of reality.
A famous person once said:
“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so”

“Or repeal Bush disastrous tax cuts?” Pretty hollow words when you think the Dow hit 14000 today and unemployment is lower than it was in the Clinton administration!
It just proves that low taxes work!

Once upon a time there was someone posting on a blog with the name, OnceUponATime, who made the most astoundingly ridiculous claim that “the cost of [theCivil War] in today’s money would be in the trillions!”
Once upon a time people use to at least Google before they opened up their mouths. Try $81 billion in 2007 dollars pal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701582.html

“as the senate will go consevative in the next election!”
and as for this gem, you wanna wager on that? Senate 56 – Dem, 44 – Rep. And that’s with Lieberman switching.
LOL, you probably bet Chicago in the Super Bowl too.

Hunter, honestly…hospitals vs. the oil fields? It doesn’t take a class in Economics 101 to understand that the Iraqi government needs revenue in order to function. Now if the hospitals were their leading source of revenue, then they would have been protected. But since, as Jeff pointed out, the Iraqi oil fields are the 2nd largest known oil reserves in the world, obviously it is was important to protect the oil fields — for the Iraqis AND for the world economy. Now if the Bush Administration really wanted gasoline prices to go up, wouldn’t you think they would have just let the terrorists destroy the oil fields? Gasoline would be about $100 a gallon! And American oil companies would have had $200 Trillion profits each quarter!
Jeff, regarding Halliburton, it IS the world leader in energy services, as well as engineering and construction. There ISN’T a more experienced energy service company anywhere in the world; and they have a long history in the Middle East. Doesn’t it make sense to send in the best? We certainly sent in the best military there is, why not send in the best energy service company to rebuild Iraq’s oil fields?

“”Or repeal Bush disastrous tax cuts?” Pretty hollow words when you think the Dow hit 14000 today and unemployment is lower than it was in the Clinton administration!
It just proves that low taxes work!”
It proves that low taxes help big business, but does not prove that it helps a poor college student trying to make a better life for himself because he cannot afford to go to college because the federal Pell Grants are too low. The more college educated people the US has the better the economy does overall. It does not prove that it helps a working family sending their kids to a under funded public school that is also overcrowded because there are not enough funds to help the schools hire and retain quality teachers in poor districts. The more federal school funding the US has the more high school graduates the US has, and likely more college educated people. But, those funds go to the DOD budget. But, I guess if someone does not have to worry about the Pell Grants because they have they wealthy parents or a trust fund paying for school, why would they care? And I guess if someone is sending their kids to private schools, why would they care and public school funding?
As for the Dow Jones, at the beginning of the Clinton Administration the Dow was at 3,250 at the end of his presidency the Dow as at 11,000 a growth of 7,750. At that rate by the time Bush leaves office the Dow would have to hit 18,750, considering that would have to be another 4,750 point jump in a little over a year… not likely. As for the unemployment rate, wrong again, Clinton’s lowest unemployment rate, according to the BLS, was 4.0% and this was for the year of 2000, not just one month. The unemployment rate for June 2007 was 4.5%, just June!

The war on Terror did not include Iraq until the US went in. Now Al Qaeda is said to be regrouping, I’m still hesitant to believe this because of the political spin that is involved because it takes focus away from the Iraq war failures, but if it is true then it is a perfect example of taking our eye off the ball.
As for the student, don’t you feel that everyone deserves a chance at a better life? You ask, “Why should I or anyone else pay for college student to get his education?” Easy answer, because not everyone is as fortunate as some. But, what about the Iraqi people’s health and welfare? Are you ok with paying for the Iraqi people’s success rather than our own?
Your scenario of a nuclear bomb going off in one of our cities is probably more likely today because the US has taken it eye off the ball and because of the increasing hatred of America throughout the world. Remember that Bush created this conundrum.

“Remember that Bush created this conundrum.”
Jeff, this conundrum began decades ago! President Carter could have acted and nipped this in the bud. When Iran took our hostages, Carter could have retaliated but he didn’t. President Reagan could have nipped this in the bud. But instead he pulled out of Lebanon. President Bush 41 could have nipped this in the bud. But he had agreed not to take out Saddam Hussein since the surrounding Arab nations were funding the Gulf War. President Clinton could have nipped this in the bud. But after the first World Trade Center attack, Clinton treated it as a criminal case…not an act of war (al Qaeda had already declared war against the United States years earlier). Then Clinton did very little regarding the bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. And absolutely nothing regarding the attack on the USS Cole. President George W. Bush decided enough is enough…and is now doing what Carter, Reagan, his father, and Clinton refused to do.

James – nice question diverson from – “Are you ok with paying for the Iraqi’s people’s success rather than our own? ”
Hey, isn’t that Reid did?

James – so are you saying it up to parents and children have to have the drive, desire and determination to succeed without government interference?

James, For Liberals they cannot see how anyone can succeed without Government inference. Even when you lay it in front of them, they still will not understand that people like Edison, Ford, Disney, Jobs, Gates and others, do it with and Government agency giving them help. It is beyongd their Understanding!

“…so are you saying it up to parents and children have to have the drive, desire and determination to succeed without government interference?
ABSOLUTELY, YES!

James – so shouldn’t the Iraqi people have to have the drive, desire and determination to succeed without government or outside interference?

My son asked me the other day about what was the difference between Democrats and Republicans; I said Republicans only care about themselves and Democrats care about themselves as well as others that are less fortunate.

“My son asked me the other day about what was the difference between Democrats and Republicans; I said Republicans only care about themselves and Democrats care about themselves as well as others that are less fortunate. ”
And he believe that? Gosh good Indoctrination! If you live in Tennessee or North Carolina, please show you son the Big Mansions of John Edwards or Al gore.

No, never. Just, showing how ridiculous of a comment that putting money into bad students is. You said it’s a waste, well if their so much of a waste
As for Al Gore and John Edwards, I definitely do not live in Tennessee or North Carolina, but I would not hesitate to show them their homes. I would tell him, “look you can be successful, rich and powerful and still care about the welfare of others.”
James – “Democrats think only of their own personal feelings — how good they feel when they give food or money to the needy. While Republicans want to give the needy the tools in which they can feed and fend for themselves; lead productive lives, earn an income and eventually own their own home.”
Yeah, that’s why Republicans cut social programs that directly affect the nation’s poor; to show them they really care.

Jeff, I have a question for you. Does one learn more if he or she has to study hard for a difficult exam, OR if the teacher just provides the answers?
In this case I will give you the answer!!! The answer is the former! Going through the process of studying instills a work ethic that will help you through your entire life. You learn how to find the answers on your own, so that you don’t have to depend on someone else for the answers.

“Jeff, I have a question for you. Does one learn more if he or she has to study hard for a difficult exam, OR if the teacher just provides the answers?
In this case I will give you the answer!!! The answer is the former! Going through the process of studying instills a work ethic that will help you through your entire life. You learn how to find the answers on your own, so that you don’t have to depend on someone else for the answers.”
I agree, but it’s kind of hard for a student to study when they can’t take the book home because there isn’t enough to go around because of lack of funding because the US is spending billions on a war that should have been started. The Iraqi people are not the only people suffering in this war. The US people could be a lot better off too.
Like I’ve said before, history will judge this administration and war and I’m willing to bet it will not be a favorable judgment.

“…but it’s kind of hard for a student to study when they can’t take the book home because there isn’t enough to go around because of lack of funding because the US is spending billions on a war that should have been started.”
Now see that is where you are TOTALLY misinformed. It is the responsibility of the state and local governments to actually fund the schools. If students don’t have enough books it’s NOT due to the war in Iraq. It is due to the mismanagement of the administrators of the school districts or tightening of the belts by state governors.
The federal government does give money to the school districts on a per student basis for military children. It is somewhere in the range of $3,500 for a student who lives on a military base and about $700 if the student lives off base. And the federal government also gives some money for special programs.

An illustrative example of “same compassion, same goals but different solutions” is the school funding discussion.
Indisputable Facts:
- We spend more per capita on students than any other country
- We don’t have the correspondingly top educational system
- There is NO correlation between funding levels and performance
- The current school system doesn’t work efficiently
- The current school system has been molded by liberal policies
- Therefore, current liberal policies don’t work; they have failed to produce desired results
- Central governmental control has many inefficiencies
- Centralized planning always creates shortages on some products and overproduction on others, causing prices to skyrocket on badly planned products (like food)
- Free market governments have been proven to be far superior to centralized control
- The free market has far fewer in efficiencies than centrally planing
- The free market always brings costs down, making formerly expensive products cheap enough that even the poorest by American standards can afford (the iPod is a perfect example)
- Those with money can move kids from poor schools to better ones
- Such schools can charge higher prices because they are better and there are fewer seats
- Such schools perform better than their competition
- Some complain that “rich” people do this while at the same time refusing to allow people school choice.
- Others see it as the free market at work within the limits available to Americans and want it to be extended to all of education.
Analysis
Central planning advocates prefer to employ the significantly inferior centralized planning model for schooling rather than allowing everyone to use the far more efficient free market system, which would harness people’s self-interest & greed to provide a superior product to everyone.
If you really cared about the poor rather than ideological policy, you’d permit everyone to “vote with their feet” by taking the huge amount of money spent on their kids in public school to any school that performs up to their standards.
It produces far superior results more efficiently at a much cheaper cost.

If you REALLY want to understand the fundamental differences between the two ideologies, I recommend “A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles”, by Thomas Sowell. It’s a very well written academic exploration of the subject. It’ll help dispel the myths you’ve erroneously come to believe as fact and diminish the hatred some seem to harbor for conservatives.

Thanks James for making is perfectly clear where our priorities as a country are. How could anyone doubt our Compassionate Conservative Freedom Spreading Liberating happy fun time war mongering policy? Oh! How about by putting the economic interests of Iraq above it’s people. And how’s that working out, hmmmm?
“Now if the hospitals were their leading source of revenue, then they would have been protected.”
Yes, and if hospitals WERE Iraq’s leading source of revenue, we wouldn’t have invaded.
And I’m not sure what your argument with Jeff is over Halliburton, so pardon me if I misunderstood, but by the sounds of it you are missing the point on the issue of Halliburton. The problem is called NO-BID CONTRACTS. I mean we all knew the Bears would win the 1985 Super Bowl but they still played the game, right? By bypassing the typical contract bidding process that happens (hey aren’t you “conservatives” supposed to be for competition? You know, the whole Free Market thing?) the Bush administration has made Halliburton a de facto division of the US military.
I admit that they kick ass at most of what they do. And they very well might win many contract bids but it is downright anticompetitive, anti-American behavior to just pencil them in as if no other company had a chance. But IOKIYAR (It’s OK If You’re A Republican).

Hunter,
The reason no one uses your criteria is because it is potentially never ending.
Actually, your right about that it would be never ending and no, and yes allot of people do use this criteria when you consider the Iraqi war> Is this not going to be fun?
“In calculating their estimate of the total of direct and indirect costs of the war, Bilmes and Stiglitz include an estimate of the economic value of American soldiers killed and wounded, and the estimated future costs of caring for those wounded, while excluding any calculations of similar costs for other countries, including Iraqi soldiers, civilians and insurgents killed or wounded. They include the direct and indirect costs of the American military arms and equipment used and destroyed, but not that of the destruction to the land and economy of the Iraqis. They include the increased costs of providing greater security for military bases, but not the costs of increased counter-intelligence activities by the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Bilmes and Stiglitz admit that they were unable to include most of the economic costs associated with Bush’s war; for instance, they omit the damage to international trade … the world as a consequence of the increased trade barriers imposed in the “War on Terror.” They omit the economic damage caused by higher prices for oil because of decreased production in the Middle East, and the consequent lower production of other goods and services as energy expenditures replace others in budgeting. They omit the loss of investment expenditures in the American economy as military spending replaces domestic spending and interest payments on debt from deficit spending on the war crowd out business borrowing.
If all economic costs could be included, Bilmes and Stiglitz speculate that their estimate of the Iraq war costs would rise to $2.2 trillion. We submit that this is still too low because it fails to allow for the fact that military expenditures are expenditures for destruction, not for the creation of value and increases in the standard of living. Resources wasted in the destruction of human life and property are resources that cannot be used for building houses or feeding the hungry. It also fails to allow for the demoralization and destruction of the whole American military establishment that is one of the seldom-mentioned results of fighting this immoral, pointless and savage war.”
So Hunter, other people do use the very same criteria I used in dealing with thte civil war.. And in fact it is a very correct accessment of what war cost a nation going to war. Even using a Radical werido like Cindy Sheehan. Hunter War is hell

It’s not what Historians will say now it’s what they will say a hundred years form now that is important.
Durning the Lincoln adminration, No one respected it. He was by far teated worst than any presiddent up til GWB.
Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) has effected even current historians.

It is common among Historians. I think it goes with the old saying “Can’t see the forst from the trees” Something like that!!

Yeah, who needs details? Psst, details are for losers. That’s probably what Bush says, Advisors – “Don’t bother me with the details!”

Like I said before, keep telling yourself he’s the man, he’s great, this is how the world is supposed to be.

Pst. Jeff, Newspapers are for the most part not Highly recommended sources for History! One source amoug thouands!

1. How much “blood and treasure” is one Iraqi worth?
That’s a question maybe you should answer, since it’s the Bush’s treasure and Bush’s fault any Iraqi blood is spilt.
2. Prove that the 7 reasons given for entering Iraq were lies and that the only real reason we went in was for oil.
I cannot find the reference to 7 reasons, provide and I’ll answer.
3. How was going to war against Germany after Pearl Harbor different than going to war with Iraq after 9/11?
Well, my quick answer is Germany was not related to the attack of Pearl Harbor, it was Japan and we nuked them. Germany was on a completely separate issue of genocide and aggressively attacking it neighbors, which were the US’s allies. Vastly different, Iraq posed no threat at the time, it was not attacking its’ neighbors, Kuwait was over ten years prior. And the genocide of the Kurds was years and years ago. Maybe we should we have nuked the mountains of Tora Bora, that would have been the correct comparison to Pearl Harbor. But Iraq does not and did not equal a WWII Germany. If you say that Iraq harbors terrorists, then the US needs to attack much of the middle-east, Indonesia and many Muslim nations. Don’t get me wrong Iraq was a bad country and Saddam was a bad man and leader, but they were a sovereign nation with a government. I am not a fan of Iraq at all, but we have to respect other countries if we like them or not, unless attacked, which we have determined in earlier discussions that Iraq was not part of 9/11.

Iraq DID attack us!!!
Jeff, what do you call shooting at our planes? Back in July 2001, Iraq very nearly hit one of our U-2 spy planes with an unguided surface-to-air missile while flying in the southern-no-fly zone. And a week earlier Iraq fired a surface-to-air missile at a U.S. Navy E-2C “Hawkeye” surveillance aircraft on a routine patrol several miles INSIDE KUWATI AIRSPACE.

Just a few quick responses….
1. Re: How much blood and treasure? Nice evasion: YOU’RE the one advocating leaving them to get slaughtered, not I. It’s your responsibility to address the consequences of your decision. I’m not going to do your homework. I’ve already made my decision that saving 1,000,000 people at the expense of 4,000 is the only decision we can make right now.
2. Re: 5 years from now: Difficult question, but it’d support a decision to leave. However, one of my other unanswered questions was how long do you help a formerly enslaved people? We’re still helping American slaves 140+ years after their emancipation. How much is enough?
3. Re: being attacked: If we’re attacked, we’ll deal with it. No matter where we are, it’ll take time to assemble our troops. However, being over when we’re attacked by someone in that hemisphere puts us far closer to the new war. However, we’re discussing future possibilities vs current reality. Reality trumps theory.
4. Re: why attack only Iraq: Are you actually suggesting it’s tactically better to attack nobody or everybody that harbors terrorists? Again, where’s your dividing line?

Kim Jong Il has blink recently to get his oil and Porno tapes. He is in a situation very much like Erich Honecker and I really don’t think China will help this bad guy out, very much in the future. The North has pretty seal it poor citizens up with a wall very much simular as the wall between East and West Germany. The sad thing is the poor people of the North are very trap in a situation simular to Germany.
Funny it was sure nice of Bill Clinton help Jong II out with those guided missles and and maybe Bill sent Kim a new copy of Debbie does Dallas.

So stop trying to blur the issue by moving the goal posts.
Hunter Moving the Goal is something Liberals do all the time. In 1906 the US government spend 3.3 billion in pensions for civil War vets and in the Southern States spend close to 2 billion in pensions.
Now Hunter these are direct cost to the Civil war. Someone that loses a limb doesn’t end when the last bullet flies.
The cost of Demoblization of the armies. The cost of everything connected with that war and the cost of the pensions given to the men.
Like any liberal you have no Idea what the real cost of a war brings. The Civil war like any other war has hidden cost much more than the published figures!

I think we gave Saddam plenty of time to comply with the sactions and not matter what this man did not. He was hiding something something. BTW Hunter you get very emotion. Pull back take two breaths and remember ad homs are not nice.

Funny, Liberals don’t know war? What a laugh. And I suppose conservatives do? GWB and almost everyone in his administration with influence doesn’t.
Remember one of the rightwing’s biggest boogeymen, FDR, presided over WWII.
But there are prominent lefties that screwed up, LBJ kept us in Vietnam far far longer than we should have been. As did JFK and McNamara.
There are lots of liberal/Dem/left-leaning people in the military and many of them in prominent positions. I dare you to call Wes Clark or Jim Webb wussies or tell them they don’t understand war to their face.
It’s tired line of argument that only works with those of lower intelligence to claim that liberal don’t understand war or military matters.

oops sorry, I sould’ve been more specific.
Two minutes was how long it took for my post to be deleted.
To anyone just happening upon this page and reading it, one might think, “hmmm, look at all these conservatives arguments and the “liberal” posters have no response.”
That’s how it’s done on conservative blogs, no reason to abandon that tradition here.

Jeff, I don’t know which uneducated people you’ve been talking to, but they obviously don’t know much about history, economics or the 20 year repeating bull / bear cycle which has been the pattern in the US for hundreds of years.
I won’t go into detail, but 2001 started a 20 year secular bear cycle — the Clinton recession, if you will, but it was actually because of the same “irrational exuberance” of the 1990′s “.com” market that mirrored that of the 1920′s when the new technologies were things like indoor plumbing. The mini-bull (cyclic) cycle we’re currently enjoying has actually been abnormal: the stock market has returned to levels above the peak before the crash (like in 1929), which doesn’t normally happen.
This is actually pretty remarkable and doesn’t bode well for your simple political analysis that “the percentage change over the first 7 years of Clinton’s is much greater than that of Bush’s. The sophomoric sophistry of such an argument may impress the uneducated, but it certainly doesn’t me and the hordes of highly educated conservatives.
There are many things that have apparently contributed to this economic aberration, but a part thereof are the Evil Bush Tax Cuts that spurred the economy, generated larger tax revenues even as taxes went down (an irrefutable fact that liberals still can’t comprehend even though JFK was one of the first to employ such a technique).

“Al Qaeda hordes currently in Iraq”
Do you know what a horde is? Apparently not. First of all, less than 4% of the insurgecy in Iraq are foreign fighters. Of those ~50% are from Saudi Arabia (at least according to the military’s capture of combatants). That’s not a horde by any stretch.
Second of all, the figiting in Iraq is mostly a civil war between the Sunni and Shia factions. They both hate and fight us because we are in their country, uninvited and unwelcomed.
Thirdly, al Qaeda is not supported by the majority, the Shia. They hate al Qaeda and vice versa. Almost all al Qaeda are Sunni Muslims. The Sunni are also the minority group in Iraq to the majority Shia.
Your inability to understand these simple, basic things about the makeup of these political/religious factions in Iraq is one problem in discussing the issue.
Please get it straight before you speak. Here’s something to start with. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/09/africa/ME-GEN-Iraq-Enemy-No.-1.php

Hunter,
My friend, look the direct impact of any war either economic or direct Military action is part of the overall cost in a war.
Are so blind that don’t realized that the Civil War didn’t just start in 1861, But on the day the constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787 with Slavery as part of union.
Most historians all agree that this war was going on long before the first shot was fire. Please don’t tell me when the last bullet leaves the end of Gun, that is when the cost of the war ends. There is no seperation and you very well know it.
Vietnam did end when the fighting stop it begun long before the Americans arrived and it will end when the suffering of those men are living with the after effects of that war. The cost of that war is still be adding up and will continue to add up. The civil war ended when the last man in 1958 was lay to rest.
One solider said in his journal that the war when on for him years afterwards, while this nation was picking itself off the ground.
We had vast cities destroy namely Altanta Colunbia, Richmond. We had railroads destroy those two are the after effects of that ward. Sorry my friend you have to add those pensions totaling 5.3 billion to the cost of that war. And the hidden billions which would add up to trillions.
Not counting then is like Not counting the poor Iraqi that would be killed if we up and leave. The untold billions of dollars that the terrorist could use throught oil reveunes to attack us and cause many more deaths in this country.
Of course that is not something you will worry about. Since this is such a unnecessary war. You liberal folks are so quick and so willing to judge this war. Your BDS is one thing that will blind you to a attack as it happens. When it does you will blame Bush rather than your own very actions!
“Thought Provoker” suggested you folks read Thomas Sowell’s “A Conflict of Visions”. It is a Masterpiece and a very good read. Check it out from the library, You might even learn soemething!

While you’re debating the definition of “Hordes”, wondering if conservatives know where Noah’s Ark and Atlantis are, declaring that you have inside information that WMD’s and oil were the “real” and only valid reasons for the invasion (I DID notice that you quietly changed from oil being THE reason to only being A reason)…. I’ll simply continue on with cool reason.
First of all, to correct your misunderstanding…. ad hominem attacks are intentionally used by those with weak arguments in order to try to diminish the credibility of the opponent’s argument by attaching them personally whether or not the ad hominem tirade gives lip service to the issue.
Secondly, while you were sidetracked on the use of “Al Qaeda horde” you neglected to address the actual significant question posed to you.

The 7 REAL Reasons We Invaded Iraq
A quick reminder for those who want to believe it was about “lies” about WMD’s in order to acquire oil rights.
If you take out the 1, repeat, THE ONE of SEVEN items that dealt with the grave and growing danger” of WMD’s, you’re left with:
- Saddam Hussein’s Defiance of United Nations Resolutions
- Saddam Hussein’s Repression of the Iraqi People
- Saddam Hussein’s Support for International Terrorism
- Saddam Hussein’s Refusal to Account for Gulf War Prisoners
- Saddam Hussein’s Refusal to Return Stolen Property
- Saddam Hussein’s Efforts to Circumvent Economic Sanctions
The question is, since these were ALL true, were these enough to invade?
That’s a difficult question, but it’s reasonable to conclude that the pressure to attack would have been much smaller. However, when taken together, they could constitute justification to go in and make changes.

“Refusal to account for Gulf War Prisoners?” Really? That’s a reason for war?”
Hunter, the Gulf War (1991) was NEVER ended. It was a truce as long as Saddam Hussein met specific conditions. And one of those conditions was to account for Gulf War Prisoners. But in reality it was Saddam Hussein’s violation of the arms control agreements in UN resolutions 687 and 689 and he violtated the dozen or more subsequent UN resolutions, including UN resolution 1441 — which was an ultimatum. And THAT was the legal, moral and actual basis for sending American troops to Iraq, not the alleged existence of Iraqi WMD. And certainly NOT for oil.
The first rationale presented by President Bush for going into Iraq was REGIME CHANGE — the removal of Saddam Hussein. Bush was only following through on the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 — approved by Congress and signed by President Clinton.
President Clinton was a typical liberal. He talked a mean game, but that’s all he was TALK. He talked about how that Iraq had WMDs; he talked about how dangerous Saddam Hussein was. He talked such a good game that Congress agreed with him, the media agreed with him, and the people agreed with him. But in the end, all Clinton did was drop a few bombs. No meat to his action.
That was similar to his “100,000 New Cops on the Beat” bill that passed Congress. The very moment Clinton signed the bill into law, he exclaimed, “We now have 100,000 new cops.” YET, three years after the fact, the most we ever got was 47,000 new cops. And two years after that HALF of those were gone. Yet Clinton got such high ratings for his talk.
President Bush on the other hand follows up his talk with ACTION. He says what he means and means what he says. He may not get the high marks now, but history WILL be very kind to President Bush.

Chalabi was one that provided the US with intelligence including the reports of WMD in Iraq and ties to Al Qaeda, later turning out that most of the intelligence was wrong. When the US began to control Iraq Chalabi was selected as the interim OIL minister in Iraq. Even later he was made acting OIL minister.
This article outlined just how the US and UK are trying to get their hands on the counties oil without having to answer to share to the Iraqi people. Western companies can take the profit and run. I would argue that if the Iraqi laws were written to give Iraqis all profits from their oil, violence would decrease or cease all together.

Jeff
Your Grand conspircy when it comes to oil is really amazing. So lets see over the past 5 years oil production hasn’t even been able to cover the Iraqi government expensives.
Now exactly how is Bush or Cheney or anyone else in the adminisration suppose to profit from a Iraqi Oil insustry that is in total disarray.
Although the US invested around US$1.3 billion in the rehabilitation of oil plants damaged by lack of maintenance during 13 years of UN sanctions, the daily output of approximately 1.3 million barrels remains far below Iraq’s pre-war production level of 2.5 million barrels and tell me Jeff and Hunter how is anyone going to profit?
The Iraqi government looks set to lose US$8 billion a year in potential oil revenue, due to the poor current state of the oil industry.
Iraq appears set to pump less crude in 2005 than last year’s disappointing showing in 2004 and far less than under Saddam Hussein according to the Seattle Times.
Gosh Man Bush and Cheney are making out!
If this was really about oil we would see wild profits! It is a Red herring, Can you come out with anything better?

Please answer the questions?

James,
They don’t want to answer questions because they have no proof other than pretty wild imaginations.

One thing I can’t keep from asking myself to try to see the basis of Jake Tapper’s questions, “What about the Iraqi’s?” is why he hasn’t asked Bush, What about the Darfur people? If Bush really cared about people wouldn’t the US be trying to do something about the Darfur region? With the count of over 400,000 dead.. 400,000.. 400,000! Why don’t we send our military there to save the people? So using the excuse of “it’s to save the people” is a load of garbage that even the non-blind can see.

Jeff, if you’ll read carefully, you’ll notice that none of us have said that oil wasn’t a consideration. All we’ve done is laugh at your unbelievable conspiracy theory that oil was the ONLY reason. Now, as you and Hunter have been successfully challenged on this nonsense, you’ve both started sheepishly backing off your wild accusation, going from ONLY to AT LEAST A factor.
Of course oil was part of the calculus, DUH, but it was not predominant. As our nation runs on oil, it is in the interest of our national security to ensure free governments exist that can supply not only us, but the world. Duh. The first gulf war was about Kuwait, freedom and oil. Do you really think that Iran, Russia and China wouldn’t LOVE to control all of the Middle East oil? Of course they would and are currently maneuvering to do so. What do you think will happen if Iran gains control of the Middle East? Is that something YOU want? Compare and contrast Iran’s control vs a free market control of Middle East oil.

Jeff, why do you insist we invade Darfur and reject Iraq? Do you want to redeploy to Darfur leaving Iraqis to fend for themselves? Both share ONLY 1 of the 7 reasons we invaded Iraq: genocide. There’s lots of genocide around the world. We went into Bosnia for the same reason — AND ARE STILL THERE.
Are you actually suggesting that we solve everyone’s problems invading all countries all at once? Shall we also expend the infinite resources required to find every last drop in the Earth all at once, or shall we spend only enough to find new reserves as we need them?

Jeff, why do you insist we invade Darfur and reject Iraq? Do you want to redeploy to Darfur leaving Iraqis to fend for themselves? Both share ONLY 1 of the 7 reasons we invaded Iraq: genocide. There’s lots of genocide around the world. We went into Bosnia for the same reason — AND ARE STILL THERE.
Are you actually suggesting that we solve everyone’s problems invading all countries all at once? Shall we also expend the infinite resources required to find every last drop of oil in the Earth all at once, or shall we spend only enough to find new reserves as we need them?

TP.
They have no answer and no plan to fight terrorism. They really don’t want to fight any war and had Afghanistan turned into a problem very much like Iraq, they could run from that in the very same matter, they want to run from Iraq.
So if we did it, and one of our cities was destroy by an al Queda nuclear device how many people might get killed? Any ideas? 400,000 dead, 500,000.One million? This isn’t about the poor Darfur and they could care less. It’s again the selfish need to gain power control it and look good.

Bosnia was a war backed by the world community.
It is more in our national security interests to develop alternative renewable fuels rather just sipping out of an almost empty glass of oil. But, that takes funding, Hmm, I wonder how much research, say $600 billion would have bought. But, that would not have made the oil companies and their lobbyist any money.
Yes, if Iran gains control of the middle-east that would be bad. But, what’s a better way to deplete a military by letting them fight another war (Iraq). So, I contend that it’s actually making the US weaker militarily by continuing in this dead end war.
It’s a war that was started unjustly, illegality and only continues to get worse as time goes on.
TP, you only discount polls because it shows that Bush in unpopular. If Bush’s numbers were in the eighties, I’m sure you would love those numbers and use them at the drop of a hat.
Once- as for a plan to fight terrorism, I might not have the answer, but I can tell you this, the war in Iraq is definitely not it. Every day the US kills someone’s mom, dad, brother, sister, child it only breeds more deep seeded hatred towards the US. And I’m sure they will look one day to retaliate for the US’s illegal aggression. The one day might be the nuclear attack all of us fear. Like I said before the longer we continue this unjust occupation the more likely of our fears coming true.

Got it. — $242 million for humanitarian needs in the Darfur crisis.

Jeff, you’re trying to pull the same nonsense those who demanded we leave Vietnam: absolve yourself from the guilt for the consequences of YOUR decisions by lamely saying that your opponents made you do it.
This is actually a tacit admission that you KNOW your way will kill more, but because you believe in your political vision of the way things SHOULD BE, you want to project the blame for what WILL BE onto the very people warning you not do make that choice.
Sorry, that ain’t gonna cut it.
I want to stay. My choice will minimize deaths.
You want to leave. Your choice will maximize deaths.
Man up and and fight for what you believe in and the choices YOU make.

Jeff, if you’ll notice, I haven’t tried to blame YOU for the consequences of MY decisions.
Why do you want to blame ME for the consequences of YOUR decisions.
If you believe it’d be best to leave for Iraq, stand up for your ideals and take the blame for the consequences no matter how bad they are.

Jeff,
Divorcing yourself from the known consequences of your own decisions leads only to far worse results than those you are protesting because you can blame THEM for the results of YOUR decision.

Jeff,
As long as we do not drill in the lower 48, due to environmental extremism we going to have difficulty in the future.
When a Gallon of Milk cost more than a Gallon of Gas, we need to start looking for Milk driven cars!

My response to this was deleted before, I guess, he doesn’t like the truth.
“Why did we go to war with Germany in WW II? They were not involved with the attack on Pearl Harbor. They had no connection to Japan.”
For someone who loves to compare WWII to this Iraq conflict you sure don’t know much about WWII. It was called the Tripartite Pact. Do you know what a pact is? This was an agreement between Germany, Italy, and Japan, signed in 1940, over a year before Pearl Harbor, that explicitly stated that they all will defend each other, share intel, and so forth in their conflicts. Therefore an attack by Japan WAS an attack by Germany, and Italy too. Read Hitler’s speech at the Reichstag, 12/11/1941.
Forgive me if I sound belligerent, but you are profoundly wrong in this regard.

No, no, no. We did NOT find any WMDs. A shell from 1991 with a trace of decomposed sarin gas is not evidence of WMDs. A small component of a centrifuge, found buried and rusted in someone’s yard is NOT evidence of WMDs. A few rockets with ranges just outside of that allowed by the terms dictated by the UN resolutions in 1991 are NOT evidence of WMDs. Mobile weather ballon trucks are NOT WMDs. “Weapons of MAss Distruction related program activities” are NOT WMDs. We didn’t find the stockpiles of anthrax, sarin, nukes, etc. like Bush admin said we would. The burden of proof is on YOU not me to refute this, since it has been investigated ad nauseam and the conclusions are that he had no WMDs. Every weapons inspection team before and since has come to the same conclusions – he dismantled and destroyed all of the stuff he was supposed to. THAT is what we knew before the war began. And those were the reports coming in from Blix’s team, and then later Duelfer’s report. You keep hanging onto fantasy, a “you can’t disprove a negative” maxim that dismisses reality and the obvious.
Yes, it is true Saddam played cat and mouse and was evasive about stuff at times but, as is perfectly clear now, he had to maintain the APPEARANCE of possessing dangerous weapons to keep Iraq’s neighbor’s in check.
But even if there was a little doubt, expressed in terms like “we believe he might have prohibited weapons, “it appears that weapons are being moved,” or other vague, non-specific language used in intelligence reports and opinions from experts it is not justifiable to invade a country on such non-specifics! Perhaps, Saddam should best be remembered as the ultimate boy-who-cried-wolf.
Spin it how you like. The facts have long been in. Bush deceived us by cherry-picking intel, using unreliable and discredited defectors, fear mongering, and flat-out lies about connections to al Qaeda and Saddam’s ability to attack us. Aside form the WMD angle, none of those “7 Reasons” can be taken seriously. Nobody except you dead-enders accept them as just. It’s a joke. And not a funny one either.

Now if you would pay attention to what I wrote, you would have read that 1) you don’t know what a horde is, and 2) since al Qaeda (who are there to fight us) is such a tiny percentage of those fighting in Iraq, AND that they are despised by the Shia, who constitute the MAJORITY, and that the killing is between rival religious factions (Sunni/Shia) in a civil war (that is when WE aren’t killing them indiscriminately, which happens occasionally) the claim “Iraqi men, women and children [are being] tortured and murdered by the Al Qaeda hordes currently in Iraq…” is completely without merit. Did you even read the article I linked to? Google! Google! Google!
If you think you have the facts on your side, back it up. Show us some reports to justify your claim that there are hordes of al Qaeda killing (Iraqis) left and right.
Also, do you want to make a distinction between al Qaeda and al Qaeda inspired? I think the latter is worse. Maybe that’s where some discrepancy arises. But there are very very few al Qaeda members in Iraq, that’s just the fact of the matter.

LOL Hunter.
You’re still musing about “Al Qaede hordes” and missing the important question, rephrased here to help you focus:
Do you want us to abandon Iraqi men, women and children to be tortured and murdered by the hordes of THE REALLY BAD GUYS currently in Iraq and “redeploy” our military to invade Pakistan to attack THE REALLY BAD GUYS who attacked us on 9/11?
You crack me up.
You still refuse to address the important question of how big a slaughter you’re willing to tolerate in pursuit of your political agenda and your hatred for Bush. If your political calculus concludes that we should pull out NO MATTER THE COST, man up and fight for what you believe in. If you believe it’d be best to leave Iraq, stand up for your ideals and be mature enough to take the blame for the consequences no matter how bad they are. Quit hiding in the closet.

T.P., I was actually referring Hunter to the International Herald Tribune. You can refer me to the Rush Limbaugh letter anytime. I know Rush is correct 97.5% of the time!!

“Yes, it is true Saddam played cat and mouse and was evasive about stuff at times but, as is perfectly clear now, he had to maintain the APPEARANCE of possessing dangerous weapons to keep Iraq’s neighbor’s in check. ”
That’s hindsight, which means it was not in evidence at the time we made the decision and therefore irrelevant to the discussion of the conspiracy theory you want people to take as fact:
“Bush deceived us by cherry-picking intel, using unreliable and discredited defectors, fear mongering, Saddam’s ability to attack us.”
Yours is the Al Gore form of the “Bush Lied” lie.
Hunter, if you insist on promoting this conspiracy, you really need to back it up with fact.
Please prove Bush lied.
Do you know the difference between a lie and being factually wrong?
Are you going to ever do this?

Hunter, what aggression did Germany commit against the US before we went to war with them, beyond declaring war against the US after Pearl Harbor?

LOL. This is just lost on you people: no al Qaeda in Iraq before we invaded, we knew that (one of Bush’s many lies and reasons for invasion). We invade, al Qaeda rushes in (though in small numbers) which, according to Bushian logic, means we have to stay.
And of course, you people continually dismiss the facts that our presence in Iraq is the central recruitment tool for al Qaeda – WE are making them more popular and stronger. We are the problem there now. Our military did what they were suppose to do. The war is over, we are occupiers caught in a civil war.
Rewind to 2000: Bush: “The vice president and I have a disagreement about the use of troops. He believes in nation building. I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders.” Right. Who’s the neoliberal now?

You are simply wrong, wrong, wrong! about WMDs in Iraq. Those shells you spoke of were lost shells from the Gulf War either that failed to reach a target and explode or just got lost by, who knows, militaries lose stuff. It’s unavoidable. Regardless, none of them had viable toxins in them. They had decomposed. They were useless, all of them that were found.
And as for the 1.77 tons of uranium: http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/MediaAdvisory/2003/ma_iraq_0606.shtml
You people REALLY need to go outside of the Limbaugh Newsletter or some random freeperland post to get your info.
READ THE REPORTS on WMDs in Iraq! Here’s the ISG summary http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2004/isg-final-report/isg-final-report_vol3_cw_key-findings.htm
Your claims are so profoundly ignorant that the only venue you people can find to continue with these canards are on obscure BLOGS. No respectable Republican out there even makes these claims any more. Even Bush himself has had to abandon these claims after lying so much about them. I guess he’s just a hopeless optimist. You are quickly falling into the Roswell/UFO crowd. Maybe you’ll soon start having conventions in dingy hotel ballrooms. Maybe you can join forces with the International Ghost Hunters Society. You have a lot in common.

Hunter, are you able to discuss these issues without childish ad hominem attacks? You remind me of a person by the same name I used to debate on the old CNN boards. Your conspiracy of fools theme keeps making your look silly.
Hunter, I’m not sure what false premise your laboring under, the only thing I stated is that it is false to claim that we didn’t find any evidence of WMDs and that he wasn’t trying to hide what he had. That is not the same as claiming he was producing them or had large stockpiles at the time of the invasion. It’s completely irrelevant whither or not the nerve gas had degraded in weapons he wasn’t supposed to have had.
Calm down. Take a pill and read the BBC’s accounts of these stories:
US reveals Iraq nuclear operation
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3872201.stm
Troops foil Iraq Nerve Gas Bid
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3861197.stm
Pay particular attention to the statement, “The general said the ammunition had been buried in order to avoid it being discovered by UN weapons inspectors.” indicating active deception.
Also read “Iraqi chemical stash uncovered”, 14 Aug 2005, Washington Post p, A18
BTW: Whom are you accusing of saying Al Qaeda was in Iraq before the war?

If my reading is correct, we got into tangles with German U-Boats while protecting convoys long before Pearl Harbor, but that didn’t lead to war. Germany and Italy declared war on us 11 Dec 1941 because of the pact and we on them the same day or soon thereafter. However, we didn’t actually engage German troops until 14 Feb 1943 when Rommel attacked us in S. Africa trying to obtain supplies. I think the first US action on the European mainland was sometime thereafter, but I don’t know if it was related to the Rommel battles.
That doesn’t support the premise of my original question very well, so I won’t pursue it unless I find a brilliant angle thereto.
Your argument about the pact isn’t persuasive as a differentiation between Germany and Iraq: we don’t have to go to war with someone just because they declared war on us because of a pact with those who attacked us. We’d only do it if it made tactical sense or if it was necessary.
Which brings me back to Iraq. Given the state of our intelligence at the time it was perfectly reasonable and tactically sound to go to war with Iraq as part of the War on Terror and trying to preempt a “grave and growing danger” everyone though Saddam was.
That’s just the way it is — unless you can prove Bush KNEW he was lying, which you have, so far, failed to do.
I’m waiting on pins-n-needles for your proof.

Hunter: “What a laugh. I’d put the IHT or the NYT or the Houston Chonicle or AJC, etc. up against the Limbaugh newsletter.
“This is how I know you’re not serious; that your source of info is from Rush Limbaugh.”
Hunter, I didn’t cite the Rush Limbaugh Newsletter as my source. I cited the INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE as my source.

Once, it wasn’t an oversight on my part.
It’s because I’m so incredibly ignorant.

Hunter & Jeff, here are the important questions you still refuse to address with clarity, or for that matter, at all
- Can you prove Bush lied? You’ve claimed this so much that you obviously have undeniably irrefutable proof. Why do you refuse to share it?
Hunter & Jeff, here are the important questions you still refuse to address with clarity, or for that matter, at all
- Can you prove Bush lied? You’ve claimed this so much that you obviously have undeniably irrefutable proof. Why do you continually refuse to share it?
- At this precise point in history, what is the exact, concrete policy you’re willing to proudly stand behind and maturely take responsibility for, whatever the outcome, on whether more US “blood and treasure” should be spent to stop the inevitable massacre that will surely follow a “redeployment” from Iraq to “fight the real fight” elsewhere before Iraq is stable? Obama stood up like a man and proclaimed that preventing such a genocide isn’t worth our “blood and treasure”. Do you agree? Will you take responsibility for such a genocide, or seek to blame others for the outcome of your decision?
These are VERY important questions, far more significant than the other issues we’ve been discussing (and precisely on the topic of this article). Why? They are at the heart of everything you’ve said about Iraq. Upon these two issues your arguments stand or fall.
Time to abandon ideological theory and get down-n-dirty real.
Are you up to the task?

Hunter,
If the Civil War end when Lee sign the surrender? Did the Iraqi war end when Saddam’s Iraqi army surrendered by gving up?

“If the Civil War end when Lee sign the surrender? Did the Iraqi war end when Saddam’s Iraqi army surrendered by gving up?”
YES! YES! For God’s sake YES!
We are occupiers. We are policemen. Calling it a “war” is not accurate. We are no longer at war with the Country of Iraq and their standing armies. We are caught up in civil strife, sectarian violence, a civil war. And it is our fault. There was a reason Saddam had to be brutal at times. Look at the maniacs he had to deal with.

“we got into tangles with German U-Boats while protecting convoys long before Pearl Harbor, but that didn’t lead to war.”
Good catch, I remember reading that before. Yes, THAT didn’t lead to war. Perhaps because that wasn’t severe enough of a reason to bring a nation to war! Yet, so many of you are comfortable with inane “reasons” such as “refusal to Account for Gulf War Prisoners.” Bush really lowered the bar for war declaration.

Yes, I’m well aware of the house and senate resolutions that lots of Dems voted for. It was a travesty and the overwhelming majority of them regret it now. It was cowardly of them to vote that way, many of them hardly even read it, just as with the Patriot Act. They knew Bush was not trustworthy yet they did anyway because at the time the WH was using the 9/11 cudgel against everyone “if you aren’t with us you’re with the terrorists.” What a load of crap. The cowardly Dems were thinking more about reelection than doing the right thing. That’s why, for instance, I won’t do anything to support Hillary Clinton. Kerry was a tool for not admitting the mistake early on. I appreciate his apology, though it was safely behind the comfortable line of “4 years until my reelection campaign.”
Yes, don’t think for a minute that I’m letting these jerks off the hook. That’s why I helped Ned Lamont try to get rid of Joe Lieberman.
But as the saying goes, a good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. Well, in that resolution there were a lot of ham sandwiches, and Bush/Rove and Co. made Johnnie Cochran look like an a two-bit ambulance-chaser.

As for the Bush administration’s lies that got us into this war, just throw a rock, you’ll hit one. As if I need to list them all! I’m not saying I know who really shot JFK or where Jimmy Hoffa is buried. The lies are multiple and verifiable. I won’t go through them.
And of course I realize you can’t prove a negative but don’t think that exonerates Bush. Beyond A Reasonable Doubt, he knew everything he was saying was a lie. It’s true he’s not a reader. He isn’t interested in reading and doesn’t have any meaningful level of curiosity so I guess if people were lying to him he has the air of plausible deniability but that would only mean he is egregiously incompetent. The Ken Lay defense isn’t going to work here. Once the Impeachment hearings begin it will become abundantly clear that his administration, beyond a reasonable doubt, has lied and deceived far beyond what is acceptable or could be considered simple errors.
I just bought “When Presidents Lie” should make an interesting read. I imagine in the future it will need to be a three-volume set to cover this administration on Iraq alone.

Ah, Hunter, our armed forces have fought not only for our own freedom, but also for that of millions of non-Americans — just as they are now in Iraq, but their own choice and conscious desire to bring democracy to Iraqis and the middle east. So, yes, comparing any segment in the war on terror, Iraq included, is aptly compared to any war in which Americans were fighting for the freedom of other peoples.

And Hunter, I’m still waiting for you to address this simple question:
At this precise point in history, what is the exact, concrete policy you’re willing to proudly stand behind and maturely take responsibility for, whatever the outcome, on whether more US “blood and treasure” should be spent to stop the inevitable massacre that will surely follow a “redeployment” from Iraq to “fight the real fight” elsewhere before Iraq is stable? Obama stood up like a man and proclaimed that preventing such a genocide isn’t worth our “blood and treasure”. Do you agree? Will you take responsibility for such a genocide, or seek to blame others for the outcome of your decision?

It’s just as likely that it will be proven that “Bush Lied” as it for us to finally find those nukes we ALL know are buried beneath Iraqi sand.
It’s even more unlikely that Hunter or Jeff will back their accusations up with fact.

After being gone for the weekend I cannot believe some of what I read. I cannot believe the naivety on the part of the conservative crowd. How to follow a horrible leader like a sinking ship but still believing that’s it still floating is a lesson the Bush backers could defiantly teach. Conservative crowd: You point a lot of fingers, but one that you lack is the same as Bush, the ability to point it at yourself. The lack of even a slight admission that Bush’s actions have for even a second make the US more unsafe is ridiculous. The belief of Iraq war is equivalent to WWII, oh my god, are you freaking serious, do you really believe that load. If you guys lack the ability to read the writing on the wall, you guys deserve Bush. If you guys think that world has enough oil to last for hundreds of more years, please! I think the comment of “please back up you absurd claim of “almost empty glass of oil.””, to “the reserves we haven’t spent the money to discover yet.”, hilarious. Spoken like a true brain-washed Republican, – “Oh, we’ll find more oil, yea-haw!” (driving down the road in your Hummer) instead of confronting the reality of that the world is running out. Ethanol is not the answer and I never said it was, the answer is solar energy because it is the only truly renewable source that doesn’t look to run out for a couple of billion years. What we lack is the ability to harness it for our way of life, that’s where money comes into play, $600 billion could have made it a reality. I work for a military research facility where some of the WORLD’s brightest researchers agree that the ability for solar energy to work for our current demand is just years away, well with enough money for research and not for a war.
“Humanity’s way of life is on a collision course with geology—with the stark fact that the Earth holds a finite supply of oil. The flood of crude from fields around the world will ultimately top out, then dwindle. It could be 5 years from now or 30: No one knows for sure, and geologists and economists are embroiled in debate about just when the “oil peak” will be upon us. But few doubt that it is coming. “In our lifetime,” says economist Robert K. Kaufmann of Boston University, who is 46, “we will have to deal with a peak in the supply of cheap oil.”
Google End of Cheap Oil from National Geographic
Watch “A Crude Awakening” then tell me you have such an optimistic view of the future of our world and the oil crisis.

The 2006 Senate Intelligence Committee report found that:
Findings do not support the 2002 NIE judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.
Findings do not support the 2002 NIE assessment that Iraq’s acquisition of high-strength aluminum tubes was intended for an Iraqi nuclear program.
Findings do not support the 2002 NIE assessment that Iraq was “vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake” from Africa.
Findings do not support the 2002 NIE assessment that “Iraq has biological weapons.
Findings do not support the 2002 NIE assessment that Iraq possessed, or ever developed, mobile facilities for producing biological warfare agents.
Findings do not support the 2002 NIE assessment that Iraq “has chemical weapons” or “is expanding its chemical industry to support chemical weapons.”
Findings do not support the 2002 NIE assessment that Iraq likely retained covert SCUD SRBMs.
Findings do not support the 2002 NIE assessment that Iraq and developed a program for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle to deliver biological agents.

Hunter, do you proudly proclaim your solidarity with Jeff’s and Obama’s admission that even the prevention of the slaughter of millions isn’t worth our “blood and treasure”?
Does that leave you with the same warm fuzzy feeling he has?

Jeff, “having a connection” and “being tied to 9/11″ are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS. It is a FACT that Iraqi officials had meetings with al Qaeda between 1992 and 2003. The 9/11 Commission acknowledges the existence of these contacts; but states that “…they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship.”

With the slight casualties that we have received, what are the Liberals whining about? Is this amount worth cut and running from when we are in effect wining and when you figure the amount of insurgents who have been killed?
Someone, someday will answer that question. I can imagine the answer being: ” How bad of you to____ triviualized the deaths of so many people” Yet that is exactly why nations has a Army. They are a part of the weapons one has like a gun or a bomb.
One General said of his Army, I believe it is Patton or Lee that said that he love his Army and yet express a view that you had to learn to send to the deaths that which he loved!
Sad to say that is what a Army is. It is a end to the means, They are not relief workers or something to keep waring factions seperated.
They are there to kll other Bad guy!

And, Jeff, please name the “former Bush counter terrorism advisor” and provide a reference for your quotes.

T.P., odds are it is Richard Clarke a very disgruntled former chief counter-terrorism adviser in the latter part of the Clinton Administration and the early part of the Bush Administration, who was very ticked off because he wasn’t given more authority and direct access to President Bush.

Hunter, I hav finally found a area where you and President Bush agree and in some ways I think you should now thing about supportiong him. On May 1, 2003, President Bush’s speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln to mark the end of major combat operations in Iraq. and since Liberals have been critzing the adminsiration for years on this very subject, now becasue of that banner, perhaps it time for you to defend the adminsiration for it, since you claim that “Calling it a “war” is not accurate. We are no longer at war with the Country of Iraq!”
So major operations are over according to Hunter, and we are now in a stage of reconstruction of the country of Iraq! Since that is the case, removing the troops would really unecceassary since this is just simple local strife with a occasional IUD place by El Qeada!

Oh, of course you discredit Clarke. However, if Clarke was saying the opposite you would be jumping around with pom-poms. You talk about wild conclusions, well what about you? “odds are it is Richard Clarke a very disgruntled former chief counter-terrorism adviser in the latter part of the Clinton Administration and the early part of the Bush Administration, who was very ticked off because he wasn’t given more authority and direct access to President Bush.” WHATEVER, is this your new conspiracy theory?
Every time I provide reference for my quotes they get removed.
And the Senate Intelligence Committee report is irrelevant? Only because it backed up the claims for Saddam, that he did not have anything to hide. You ask me to think, you should probably do that for yourself, rather than believing everything that comes out the Bush’ cake hole, I know it’s hard have an intelligent thought after listening to Bush, but maybe you guys should be asking yourselves more questions than you do. If god himself, aka – Rush Limbaugh, came down and said that Bush lied, you still wouldn’t believe it.
As for the plane simulation – What? Evidence? You want the computer program to specifically to identify the WTC on 9/11? Come on. They had knowledge and they were running a scenario to find out the result if it actually did happen. Come on, does everything have to spelled out for you guys. I guess you guys specifically need to have Bush say the exact words to draw a conclusion, kind of like my son, “Your room is dirty” you need “Go clean your room.” You need to be told everything by Bush rather than stepping out and thinking for yourselves.
By the way, you have failed to give seven reasons for the war, you have given sever excuses for the war, but the real reason is oil. A two year could figure that out.
Here’s another conservative – CBSNEWS
Buckley finds himself parting ways with President Bush, whom he praises as a decisive leader but admonishes for having strayed from true conservative principles in his foreign policy.
In particular, Buckley views the three-and-a-half-year Iraq War as a failure.
“IF YOU HAD A EUROPEAN PRIME MINISTER WHO EXPERIENCED WHAT WE’VE EXPERIENCED IT WOULD BE EXPECTED THAT HE WOULD RETIRE OR RESIGN,” BUCKLEY SAYS.
Asked if the Bush administration has been distracted by Iraq, Buckley says “I think it has been engulfed by Iraq, by which I mean no other subject interests anybody other than Iraq… The continued tumult in Iraq has overwhelmed what perspectives one might otherwise have entertained with respect to, well, other parts of the Middle East with respect to Iran in particular.”
You want some Bush lies:
LIE: Saddam Hussein was a threat because he could have given weapons of mass destruction to terrorist enemies. (Presidential Debate)
Truth: HAD NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION TO GIVE OUT.
LIE: “The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was . . . enriching uranium for a bomb.” (State of the Union)
Truth: The IAEA found that Iraq’s nuclear capacity had been completely dismantled by 1998 and the current IAEA inspector reported to the UN Security Council in January 2003 “we have found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons program since the elimination of the program in the 1990’s.” A former Iraqi scientist who participated in the nuclear program and now lives in Canada said that Iraq lacks the expertise and hardware to produce a nuclear bomb.
Of coarse these are all in hindsight, yeah, how do you find out someone is lying if you don’t look back?
Clearly, Bush could tell you guys the sky is green and the sun revolves around the earth and you guys would believe them!
Did you get a good look last night at the America’s future president on CNN’s Youtube debate? I did!
Bush- 18 more months – good riddance and out with the garbage.

Jeff, which Richard Clarke was telling the truth? The one who on August 2002 gave a background briefing with Jim Angle of Fox News or the one who you cited?
Now you can’t have it both ways. First you write:
“LIE: ‘The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was . . . enriching uranium for a bomb.’ (State of the Union)”
Then you write: “TRUTH: The IAEA found that Iraq’s nuclear capacity had been completely dismantled by 1998 and the current IAEA inspector reported to the UN Security Council in January 2003 ‘we have found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons program since the elimination of the program in the 1990’s.’ ”
DID YOU READ THESE, THEY ARE CONSISTENT. Bush said Saddam Hussein HAD a nuclear program in the 1990s and the IAEA said the program they HAD in the 1990s was dismantled by 1998. This testimony was given in January 2003. In February 2003 the UN gave Saddam Hussein a 1-month ultimatum to prove he no longer had WMDs or face war. Which Saddam Hussein failed to do. Then on March 17, 2003, President Bush gave Saddam Hussein 24 hours to leave Iraq to avoid a war. Saddam Hussein refused. As I have said many times before, President Bush says what he means and means what he says. President Bush followed through on his ultimatum. Unfortunately, the UN failed to follow through on its ultimatum, instead continued its usual talk no action policy. We might have avoided war had Germany, France and Russia not convinced Saddam Hussein that the United States wouldn’t invade.

Jeff,
“The only real reason for the Iraq war was for oil and to prevent OPEC from controlling price and supply!”
How Much currently do we import from Iraq? If we only get 1 to 10 percent from Iraq then you have to re evaluate you, we when to war fro oil idea!

“There is plenty of proof of Palestinian Bombers families being pay off by our friendly niegborhood Saddam.
Our President said that supporting terrosim is as bad as commiting it, I wonder would the Democrat Party or liberalism as a whole be considered supporting terrorism?”
So I’m assuming that since Bush is so keen and insightful that he can make such an obvious statement that he has done something about the Saudi’s supporting terrorists groups? Oh but wait there’s that whole Bandar Bush thing and their decades old ties to the kingdom giving us nice access to their oil. Right. And I’m sure Bush is doing all that he can to wean us off foreign oil because that supports terrorism too. And of course when we terrorize entire countries with our invasions, it’s not really terrorism because we are the U.S. of A. Yes, Bush is a pillar of virtue. No hypocrisy there.
You really have to be a 25%-er to keep up with the canard that Dems/Libs support terrorism. The facts that this invasion of Iraq has actually increased terrorism worldwide are completely lost on you people. Supporting Bush is in fact supporting the proliferation of terrorism.

“first of all, President Bush was very clear…from the very beginning…that there was NO credible evidence that Saddam Hussein was in any way connected to, or responsible for, the attacks on 9/11.”
You are only getting by on a technicality! And you know it. It’s called conflation and he is still using this misleading and dishonest tactic even today. Why do you think that for the longest time poll after poll showed that the majority of people thought that Saddam played a role in 9/11? Because that was what Bush was suggesting!!!!!! What if instead of Iraq Bush said, “The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between France and Chirac and al Qaeda, because there was a relationship between France and al Qaeda.”? If he had been saying that it would have been the Eiffel Tower that was pulled down instead of that giant statue of Saddam. And though you conservatives probably relish that thought, you know what I’m saying is true. Bush knew exactly what he was saying. He knew exactly that people would take it that he was saying that Saddam was behind 9/11 and support his stupid invasion. He was lying then as he is now.
But you are flat out wrong because Bush HAS said that Iraq trained al Qaeda fighters. There may have been an al Qaeda member in Iraq (I think there was one such example in Northern Iraq, which WASN’T under Saddam’s control) that may have learned some bomb making skills. This of course is not true any more than saying the United States trained al Qaeda to attack the WTC because Mohammed Atta learned how to fly planes in the United States!!!! Do you understand your cognitive dissonance here?
These questions remain: If Saddam had no role in 9/11 why did Bush continue to utter their names in the same sentences over and over again? Why didn’t he say King Abdullah and Saudi Arabia and al Qaeda? Or Mussharaf and Pakistan and al Qaeda, or any other combination? The only reasonable answer is buried under their sand.

“This is Basic Lies 101 material.”
Apparently Bush has a PhD in it.
You are getting stuck in technical BS. All leaders do it, surround themselves with plausible deniability to evade prosecution or blame. He did that in the SOU re: the uraniumin Africa claim. He said “British intelligence.” Even though WE knew the claim was bogus. But he can always say “that’s what I was told by the Brits.” And when we say Bush lied we mean his administration. Many of the lies were from Cheney or Rumsfeld or a whole bunch of other admin. officials. But unfairly or not, as the President, when his appointed officials lie, that makes him part of the lie, especially since none ever get punished for it (e.g. outing Valerie Plame).
Maybe it is more accurate to decribe Bush’s lies as deceits. Bush’s claims about Iraq were deceitful. And so malisciously so, they can only be called a lie.
Saying he didn’t “lie” in the strictest inane use of the word is in itself dishonest.

“And when we say Bush lied we mean his administration. Many of the lies were from Cheney or Rumsfeld or a whole bunch of other admin. officials.”
Oh my gosh the orgin of orginal sin… I started to laugh when i discovered that now Bush has to put words into his appointnees.
Rumsfled: Let me say this? But first I need to contact the President
Cheney: I need to contact the President before I say I can talk about that?
Tony Snow : Let me say this about that, I cannot say anything at all before I talk to the President
Please Hunter do you think Former president Clinton would have said: I did not have sex with that woman! or was he really thinking I did not have sex with that woman Hillay——!

Hunter,
I wondering if a lie from a liberal is as important as a lie from a conservative. Think about the impeachment issue under B Clinton and his coverups from the time he left Little Rock and the so called Lies you think Bush did?

“He did that in the SOU re: the uraniumin Africa claim. He said ‘British intelligence.’ Even though WE knew the claim was bogus.”
ONCE AGAIN YOU PERPETUATE A LIE! President Bush did not lie about the British intelligence report. That’s because The British DID report that Saddam had sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. And they STILL stick by that report.
As I wrote previously: “Hunter, you claim that since Iraq has the second largest oil reserves that naturally that is why we went into Iraq. Then what about the undisputed fact that in 1999 an Iraqi offical (Wissam al Zawahie) went to Niger on a trade mission. Yet the only commodity that would be of interest to Iraq is Niger’s uranium. Based on your logic that should be THE CONCLUSIVE proof that Iraq was, in fact, seeking to purchase uranium as late as 1999.”
Iraq did make the ATTEMPT. Nothing came of it, but they made the attempt NONE THE LESS!

Hunter, I never came away with the impression that Bush claimed, even tangentially, that Saddam was involved in 9/11. Maybe I’m just too ignorant to have noticed.
You keep paraphrasing what you claim Bush said. Please provide exact quotes and references to Bush claiming that Iraq trained Al Qaeda. Ensure you differentiate between that and Al Qaeda training camps being located within Iraq’s northern regions.

Jeff & Hunter: what is it about this concept that you don’t get?
FACT: In order to establish a statement as a lie, you MUST prove that the author KNEW the statement to be false BEFORE making it!!!
This is Basic Lies 101 material.
I refuse to believe that someone purportedly possessing the “logic and reasoning” capabilities of one of the “WORLD’S brightest military researchers” can be so easily bamboozled.
Even I, an ignorant conservative dimwit, get it.
Put up or shut up: prove these were lies as defined above.

Hunter, you need to stop paraphrasing people and provide direct quotes. Sorry, it’s something you just gotta do because you’ve already demonstrated that your paraphrases are not very accurate.

Jeff, I didn’t discredit Clark, He did it to himself.

James – you mention that Saddam was under 12 years of diplomacy, what is more important TIME or LIVES of the Iraqis and American soldiers? So what if diplomacy would have taken 3, 5, 7 more years? Does time outweigh people lives? I would bet many parents that have had their kids KIA in Iraq might disagree. Saddam was not a threat to the US. And don’t even start to say Al Qaeda and Iraq and 9/11 load. I mean, what if the US would have waited and it took two years more of diplomacy, what harm would have it done? All reports say the Saddam was not reconstituting his WMD. The US would not be in the situation we are today. So back to the question of the blog, since the conservatives are SO concerned about the Iraqi people dieing, don’t you think we have done them a disservice by jumping the gun? You might say Saddam was being defiant and not letting UN inspectors in, so. Continued sanctions and continued diplomacy might have and most likely would have ended up with the truth coming out (no WMD) without the need for war and without the need for so many lives being ended prematurely, both Iraqis and Americans. Yes, Saddam would still be in power, but so are many other ruthless dictators around the world. North Korea kicked out UN inspectors when it was absolutely known that they have nuclear capability and if developed into weapons would have the capability of reaching the US. But, you know what? We did not strike and gave diplomacy a chance rather the need for military action. So what about the Iraqis and diplomacy? Is time more important than lives?

Jeff, you wrote: “So what if diplomacy would have taken 3, 5, 7 more years?” NO AMOUNT OF DIPLOMACY WAS GOING TO WORK. Saddam Hussein continually defied the UN and he had no intentions of every complying. His oil-for-food scandal left millions of Iraqis starving while he reaped in billions. In addition, based on estimates from The Documental Centre for Human Rights in Iraq and Human Rights Watch, between 70-125 Iraqis PER DAY were killed by Saddam Hussein and his sons while he was in power. They weren’t just blown up by car bombs, IEDs or suicide bombers, they were raped and brutally tortured BEFORE being killed. Right Jeff, let’s bring back the good ol’ days.
Jeff, you also wrote: “Saddam was not a threat to the US.” HOW MANY TIMES MUST I REPEAT THIS? Go back and read the statements from the Democrats in 1998. Many of them said Saddam Hussein was a threat to OUR national security. And some even said he was an “imminent threat” to the United States. That was not President Bush…it was two years before he became President.
But even more recently (and less than one month prior to the invasion of Iraq), on Feb, 28 2003, in an interview between Bill Moyers and former Amb. JOSEPH WILSON (yes, one and the same, from the Valerie Plame fiasco), Moyers asked Wilson: “President Bush’s recent speech to the American Enterprise Institute, he said, let me quote it to you. ‘The danger posed by Saddam Hussein and his weapons cannot be ignored or wished away.’ You agree with that?” Wilson responded with, “I agree with that. Sure.”
Moyers then followed up with: “‘The danger must be confronted.’ You agree with that? ‘We would hope that the Iraqi regime will meet the demands of the United Nations and disarm fully and peacefully. If it does not, we are prepared to disarm Iraq by force. Either way, this danger will be removed. The safety of the American people depends on ending this direct and growing threat.’ You agree with that?” Wilson responded with: “I agree with that. Sure. The President goes on to say in that speech, as he did in the State of the Union Address, is we will liberate Iraq from a brutal dictator. All of which is true.”
And then on Dec. 16, 2003, Sen. John Kerry stated: “Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture, don’t have the judgment to be President, or the credibility to be elected President. No one can doubt or should doubt that we are safer — and Iraq is better — because Saddam Hussein is now behind bars.”

Jeff, WE HAVE BEEN OVER THIS SEVERAL TIMES. I WILL REPEAT IT ONE MORE TIME. Al Qaeda WAS in Iraq before the invasion. READ Congress’ Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq of October 2002! ONE CLAUSE STATES: “Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, ARE KNOWN TO BE IN IRAQ;”
This resolution was passed by Congress (81 Democrats in the House and 29 Democrats in the Senate voting for the resolution) and signed by President Bush a full FIVE months before we invaded Iraq. NOTICE it states, “are known to be in Iraq.”

Accordint tot he Washington Institute for Near East Policy | January 17, 2003: Ansar al-Islam, an al-Qaeda affiliate active in Iraqi Kurdistan since September 2001. In August 2001, leaders of several Kurdish Islamist factions reportedly visited the al-Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan with the goal of creating an alternate base for the organization in northern Iraq. Soon thereafter, Ansar al-Islam was created using $300,000 to $600,000 in al-Qaeda seed money, in addition to funds from Saudi Arabia.
Approximately 30 al-Qaeda members reportedly joined Ansar upon the group’s inception in 2001; that number is now as high as 120. Armed with heavy machine guns, mortars, and antiaircraft weaponry, the group fulfills al-Qaeda lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri’s vision of a global jihad. Ansar’s goal is to disrupt civil society and create a Taliban-like regime in northern Iraq.
Strange you didn’t know this Jeff, since you know so much?

Jeff, Hunter,
Both of you assert that our presence in Iraq must be abandoned because “we’re creating more terrorists”.
Well…
Answer these two simple questions:
1. Do you want to continue fighting terrorists?
2. If so, where can we do that without creating more terrorists?

“He (Bush) may be a simpleton but he knows what a lie is and what is a weaselly, lawyerly statement. But he inferred it. And you damn well know it.”
You still need to prove that Bush knew he was lying? Since you have not!

TP,
Still wondering if they can answer our questions?
1. Do you want to continue fighting terrorists?
2. If so, where can we do that without creating more terrorists?
3. You still need to prove that Bush knew he was lying?

Well, bravo, you weren’t part of the 70% that at one time did.
“You keep paraphrasing what you claim Bush said. Please provide exact quotes and references to Bush claiming that Iraq trained Al Qaeda. Ensure you differentiate between that and Al Qaeda training camps being located within Iraq’s northern regions.”
No I have quoted him, though I replaced France and Chirac for Iraq and Saddam. Went right over your head I guess.
You people are engaging in the same tactics the Bush administration has used for years and Republicans have in general been using for much longer. Conflation and misrepresentation.
When you demand so smugly exact quotes on Bush’s assertion that “Saddam was behind 9/11″ and do a victory dance when no such quote exists you miss the entire reason behind why 70-79% of American believed Saddam was behind 9/11!!! Conflation and misrepresentation. THAT is why I paraphrased Bush’s quote. If he had mentioned Brunei and Hassanal Bolkiah people would’ve been expecting us to invade Borneo! People expect the president to be truthful. And they expect he has intel from good sources. We want to believe that is he suggests Saddam is connected to 9/11 then he was! This conflation of Saddam and al Qaeda was purposeful and was a lie, even if it was a lie by inference.
So yes, technically, Bush never said Saddam was behind 9/11. He may be a simpleton but he knows what a lie is and what is a weaselly, lawyerly statement. But he inferred it. And you damn well know it.
Have you ever seen “Why We Fight”? Do you know the story of Wilton Sekzer? His son died in the WTC on 9/11. Afterwards he heard Bush talk about 9/11 and Iraq in the same sentence time and time again. Because of Bush he came to believe Saddam played a role in, if not actually being behind, the attacks. He wanted Iraq to burn. He even got his son’s name written on a bomb dropped on Baghdad. Go talk to him about whether he thinks Bush lied. Then come back to me again and tell me that Bush didn’t lie.

“Hunter you are talking about the French? Oh ok!”
Lovely. You aren’t in any way being a predictable anti-French conservative.
Actuallly I am not, you infer that I am, without know ing the facts.. Be it know I come from Canadian-french ancestry amd I know when a french-canadian is lying!

Hunter, there is still one very important item that you, and Jeff, have yet do address! Why is it that President Bush lied when he said Iraq had WMDs, but Democrats DIDN’T lie when THEY SAID Iraq had WMDs and was an imminent threat during the debate leading up to the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998? Or when the Democrats SAID Iraq had WMDs and was an imminent threat during the debate leading up to passing the resolution giving President Bush the authorization to use force against Iraq?

We’ve been arguing this point for over 2 weeks now.
In the entire time, you have never once been able to prove even one — just ONE — itsy bitsy lie.
Instead, you’ve employed convoluted innuendo and unprovable claims that “it’s obvious to everyone but dead-enders” and other ad hominem attacks on anyone who “smugly” expects you to factually prove your conspiracy theory.
The fact that you so frequently resort to this should tell you something about the veracity of your argument.

Hunter: “I have proven he was lying, whether it be flat out lying or in inference”
You have done no such thing, and you know it.
Let’s think a little here.
You’re claim that the “fact” that 70% of Americans thought Saddam was involved with 9/11 actually proves your presumptive accusation that you KNOW Bush conflated facts, intentionally misleading people — despite your inability to actually prove it.
Hunter, you must realize that this requires a HUGE leap of faith in your ability to read the President’s “real intentions”.
To show you the fallacy of your reasoning, let me ask this:
1. How many specific unique examples of Bush’s supposedly conflated statements are there?
2. Now, what percentage of those people in that poll actually listened to every word of each of Bush’s statements as compared to those who didn’t (getting their “news” by another source)?
3. Finally, compare the effect upon the poll participants of Bush supposedly conflated statements, made a mere handful of times, with the same effect of the thousands of times Democrats asserted he said it or even said it themselves.
Do you see the obvious weakness in your argument\, don’t you?

“…fact” that 70% of Americans thought Saddam was involved with 9/11 actually proves your presumptive accusation that you KNOW Bush conflated facts…”
The NEWS MEDIA is at fault not President Bush. From the very beginning the Bush Administration has stated up front that Saddam Hussein had NOTHING to do with 9/11. BUT the Administration also pointed out that there have been long connections between Iraq and al Qaeda — meetings in the Sudan and Afghanistan. And that al Qaeda was in northern Iraq with a training camp before we invaded Iraq. YET it has been the news media that continues, to this day, to say that Bush is linking Iraq to 9/11. Just the other day (July 24), President Bush stated that the al Qaeda that we are fighting in Iraq is the same group that attacked us on 9/11. YET, the New York Daily News headline read: “W. still ties Iraq, 9/11.” THAT IS NOT WHAT BUSH DID! Bush only reiterated that the al Qaeda that we are currently fighting in Iraq IS the same organization that is controlled by Usama bin Laden. Bush has NEVER said — either before or now — that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11.

Hunter and Jeff,
Please check the following if you believe in it?
US Army giving Disease Ridden Blankets to Indians Conpsricy
Masons / Founding fathers conspircy
Lincoln Asssassination Conspircy
Pearl Harbor conspircy
Kennedy assassination Conspircy
John Lennon Assaination Conapircy
Roswell Conpsircy
Black Helicopters
UFO’s
TWA Flight 800 Conspircy
9-11 Conpsircy
Ghosts
Vanpires
Little green men
All the above
And any new conspircies please not mention Below!

were to sky dive

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