2016 US Presidential Election Pt. II

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wolf said:
Its a great thing that Saddam is gone, but I guess I should not be surprised there are those that wish for his return. There are people out there that wish Hitler would return.
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Actually, this is what you say when you realize you're wrong and have no counter argument.
 
Nice to see Sting has made it back.

It's literally the same tell...every. damn. time.

The same one. I'm talking about an objective thing here - not a "feeling".

I'm not telling what it is though.
 
Irvine511 said:
Indefinite occupation is not a policy.

I have no desire to live in Israel.

You were given endless blood and treasure to build a functioning state and army in Iraq and you've failed to do so. Western intervention has only made the Middle East worse. We cannot solve problems for other nations -- in fact, they are not even nations.
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No one is suggesting indefinite occupation. But we need a policy that is going to achieve U.S. national security objectives in the region. The current policy appears to weak to do that.
No one was given endless blood and treasure for anything in Iraq. March 2003 to December 2011 is only 8 years and 9 months. Plus, given the many mistakes that were made early on, the right policy was not in place until 2007. So only 4.5 years after having the right policy in place, the United States was gone. Yet, in that short period of time, Saddam was removed and a functioning state was established although now it is struggling to regain control of 2 of its 18 provinces. U.S. intervention in the middle east has made countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates safer. Iraq would be doing very well if the United States had not abandoned it after 2011. Still, Obama has sent several thousand U.S. troops back to Iraq and has been bombing the enemies of the Baghdad government now for a year. Unfortunately, these actions by Obama have been to weak to accomplish the objectives of retaking the large parts of Al Anbar province and Ninawa Province under control of ISIS. A proper response by Obama in the summer of 2014 would of had these areas of Iraq back under the Iraqi governments control by the end of 2014. As of right now unfortunately, Obama's policy to roll back ISIS is not moving at all. Hopefully in his last year as President he will adopt a more aggressive policy to help Iraq retake its territory in the northwest of the country.

Syria, where there has been little U.S. intervention of any kind at all, has suffered the most of any country in the Middle East in just the past four years. Over 300,000 people are dead and the population is declining at a annual rate of 10%. Obama has started to reverse his hands off policy in Syria as U.S. military has been bombing ISIS and other terrorist positions in Syria, but this is primarily to support U.S./Iraqi operations in Northwest Iraq against ISIS. Syria for the most part is still being left alone and the results have not been good at all.
 
nbelcik said:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

100,000 civilians were killed during the Iraq War. Do you want to repeat that again?


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Saddam murdered millions with his invasions and attacks on various countries and his own people. Do you want a repeat of that?

In addition, U.S. inaction and weak action over the past two years has allowed ISIS to murder and rape thousands of people in Iraq. Think of the untold horrors that people in Mosul and Falluja suffer daily at the hands of ISIS.
 
wolf said:
Saddam murdered millions with his invasions and attacks on various countries and his own people. Do you want a repeat of that?

In addition, U.S. inaction and weak action over the past two years has allowed ISIS to murder and rape thousands of people in Iraq. Think of the untold horrors that people in Mosul and Falluja suffer daily at the hands of ISIS.
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You know what we need?

https://youtu.be/MGQaH3-LK54

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wolf said:
No one is suggesting indefinite occupation. But we need a policy that is going to achieve U.S. national security objectives in the region. The current policy appears to weak to do that.
No one was given endless blood and treasure for anything in Iraq. March 2003 to December 2011 is only 8 years and 9 months. Plus, given the many mistakes that were made early on, the right policy was not in place until 2007. So only 4.5 years after having the right policy in place, the United States was gone. Yet, in that short period of time, Saddam was removed and a functioning state was established although now it is struggling to regain control of 2 of its 18 provinces. U.S. intervention in the middle east has made countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates safer. Iraq would be doing very well if the United States had not abandoned it after 2011. Still, Obama has sent several thousand U.S. troops back to Iraq and has been bombing the enemies of the Baghdad government now for a year. Unfortunately, these actions by Obama have been to weak to accomplish the objectives of retaking the large parts of Al Anbar province and Ninawa Province under control of ISIS. A proper response by Obama in the summer of 2014 would of had these areas of Iraq back under the Iraqi governments control by the end of 2014. As of right now unfortunately, Obama's policy to roll back ISIS is not moving at all. Hopefully in his last year as President he will adopt a more aggressive policy to help Iraq retake its territory in the northwest of the country.

Syria, where there has been little U.S. intervention of any kind at all, has suffered the most of any country in the Middle East in just the past four years. Over 300,000 people are dead and the population is declining at a annual rate of 10%. Obama has started to reverse his hands off policy in Syria as U.S. military has been bombing ISIS and other terrorist positions in Syria, but this is primarily to support U.S./Iraqi operations in Northwest Iraq against ISIS. Syria for the most part is still being left alone and the results have not been good at all.
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It's amazing how they can blame Obama for all of Bush's mistakes.

You had 10 years. You failed.
 
Irvine511 said:
It's amazing how they can blame Obama for all of Bush's mistakes.

You had 10 years. You failed.
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Plus didn't Bush sign the agreement with the gov of Iraq to pull the troops out of there by 2011? Or failed to renegotiate

But yeah, it's Obama's fault. He should have just invaded the country again.
 
The way to deal with ISIL is how we should have continued to deal with Saddam -- containment.

That was always the strategy.

It was only after 9-11 when the hardliners in the W administration decided to manipulate understandable public fear and trauma (remember WMD's and Condi warning of "mushroom clouds" and how we had to remove Sadsam so we wouldn't see terror "like we saw on 9-11"?)

Why did the administration seek to link 9-11 to Saddam? Obviously, if it were as clear cut and logical as STING has presented it, a President Gore would have invaded in 2003 as well, right?

Or is it because this was never Clinton policy, because the invasion of Iraq was always right wing fringe policy, that it needed an event like 9-11 to ever make it palatable to a then deeply divided public?

This isn't 9-11 conspiracy theory. An event happened, and Rumsfeld and Cheney saw and opportunity to take a fringe idea (invasion and occupation of Iraq) and pull it into the mainstream.

"Regime change" happens by means other than invasion and occupation. It can and is part of a containment policy. The radical idea was invasion. No one wanted to invade Iraq in 1991, or 1998. And with good reason.
 
Last edited:
Latest Rasmussen poll has Trump dropping 9% in the polls down to 17%. Rubio surges to 2nd at 10%. It shouldn't be much of a surprise, though, Trump's constant bad mouthing of the other republican candidates have turned people off. But he is still doing well with Independents. I expect his numbers to continue to drop while he tries to stay relevant until the next debate, which is September 16th.
My prediction: Rubio will have a solid lead heading into the Iowa primaries.

And on the Democratic side, Sanders has just pulled ahead of Hillary in New Hampshire. Things are getting interesting over there. We're still a long way out, but Bernie has a very loyal following and many people are excited about his candidacy. However, 52% of democrats believe Hillary wins the nomination and only 11% think it will be Bernie. Those debates should be interesting.


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Mrs. Garrison said:
^ Wow yes. I was gung ho for removing Saddam back in the day. But damn if we don't miss him now, knowing what we now know. Most of you were correct way back then. We've been looking for the next Saddam ever since we took out the original. Pretty sad when most everyone agrees now that Iraq under Saddam was...better...for pretty much everyone compared to where we stand now. Damn.
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wolf said:
Yep, the invasion of Kuwait and its annexation several days after was a real "cool" event. So was the invasion of Iran. Or how about the launching of ballistic missiles against Israel, dozens of them. Saudi Arabia was also invaded and had a hail of ballistic missiles launched against it. Yep, lets resurrect Saddam so the world can experience these uniquely "cool" events again. Or how about the March 16, 1988 Chemical attack on Halabja that murdered 5,000 people and injured over 10,000. Do you want to repeat that again? Its one thing when northwest Iraq and half of Syria are in trouble, its quite another when Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Israel are in trouble.

Its a great thing that Saddam is gone, but I guess I should not be surprised there are those that wish for his return. There are people out there that wish Hitler would return.
Click to expand...

I don't think anyone, myself included, ever said that Saddam was a good guy. And i haven't seen anyone wish for the return of Hitler either. Perhaps you are not looking at the entire situation here. Saddam was a bad person and did a lot of really horrible things, to his neighbors and even to his own people. This much we know. We also know that at one point in time he was sort of our friend, as we had a common enemy.

donald-rumsfeld-meets-saddam-hussein.jpg


My point was, and is, that the world we live in today is currently less stable without Saddam in power in Iraq. I don't think these dots are too hard to connect, and im saying that as someone who has literally been sent to the region to fight Saddam and his army if necessary.

With Saddam in power there was no ISIS or ISIL. We cannot even exaggerate the Al Qaeda claims in Iraq, which were made by the previous administration. Saddam brutally executed anyone who wasn't loyal to him and his brutal regime would not allow for much of an uprising. And when his own people did try to rise up against him, he crushed them swiftly.

With Saddam gone, the power vacuum is immense and perhaps more dangerous than we could have imagined. It's a vast lawless hell hole. Temperatures can reach as high as 127 degrees, and yet some people there (perhaps many) still do not have electricity or running water, thanks to our bombs, as well as the insurgency, ISIS, etc. It's a horrible fucking mess, which we helped create, because we were foolish enough to think we could waltz in and spread our democracy to people who didn't really want us there to begin with.

It's an unfortunate statement or conclusion to be made, but it seems as if the so called "Butcher of Baghdad", while horrible, was the better choice for those people in Iraq instead of the alternative.
 
Irvine511 said:
The way to deal with ISIL is how we should have continued to deal with Saddam -- containment.

That was always the strategy.

It was only after 9-11 when the hardliners in the W administration decided to manipulate understandable public fear and trauma (remember WMD's and Condi warning of "mushroom clouds" and how we had to remove Sadsam so we wouldn't see terror "like we saw on 9-11"?)

Why did the administration seek to link 9-11 to Saddam? Obviously, if it were as clear cut and logical as STING has presented it, a President Gore would have invaded in 2003 as well, right?

Or is it because this was never Clinton policy, because the invasion of Iraq was always right wing fringe policy, that it needed an event like 9-11 to ever make it palatable to a then deeply divided public?

This isn't 9-11 conspiracy theory. An event happened, and Rumsfeld and Cheney saw and opportunity to take a fringe idea (invasion and occupation of Iraq) and pull it into the mainstream.

"Regime change" happens by means other than invasion and occupation. It can and is part of a containment policy. The radical idea was invasion. No one wanted to invade Iraq in 1991, or 1998. And with good reason.
Click to expand...

I am going to have to strongly disagree with you on part of this. Every administration since GHWB kicked Saddam out of Kuwait has had some sort of contingency operations plan or "regime change" policy on the table for Saddam/Iraq. The hope was, or should have been, this policy would NEVER be implemented. But it was most certainly there...just as there is a similar policy with Iran, NK, etc.

While i don't necessarily think a President Gore would have followed such a policy...it's important to remember that he publicly supported it, along with many other lawmakers, to include the Clintons' as well.
 
Mrs. Garrison said:
I am going to have to strongly disagree with you on part of this. Every administration since GHWB kicked Saddam out of Kuwait has had some sort of contingency operations plan or "regime change" policy on the table for Saddam/Iraq. The hope was, or should have been, this policy would NEVER be implemented. But it was most certainly there...just as there is a similar policy with Iran, NK, etc.



While i don't necessarily think a President Gore would have followed such a policy...it's important to remember that he publicly supported it, along with many other lawmakers, to include the Clintons' as well.
Click to expand...



And these "regime change" plans included wholesale invasion and occupation?

I guarantee you Hillary regrets her 2002 support to this day.
 
It's like this 2 decade long wet dream that conservatives have wishing they could send a Clinton to jail.


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