Here Today... Gone To Hell!

GOP support for Iraq war slips



By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer 3 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Republican support for the Iraq war is slipping by the day. After four years of combat and more than 3,560 U.S. deaths, two Republican senators previously reluctant to challenge President Bush on the war announced they could no longer support the deployment of 157,000 troops and asked the president to begin bringing them home.

"We must not abandon our mission, but we must begin a transition where the Iraqi government and its neighbors play a larger role in stabilizing Iraq," Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, wrote in a letter to Bush.

Voinovich, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released his letter Tuesday ? one day after Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the panel's top Republican, said in a floor speech that Bush's strategy was not working.

"The longer we delay the planning for a redeployment, the less likely it is to be successful," said Lugar, who plans to meet later this week with Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser.

Lugar and Voinovich are not the first GOP members to call for U.S. troops to leave Iraq. Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Gordon Smith of Oregon made similar remarks earlier this year. But their public break is significant because it raises the possibility that Senate Democrats could muster the 60 votes needed to pass legislation that would call for Bush to bring troops home.

Their remarks also are an early warning shot to a lame duck president that GOP support for the war is thinning. The administration is not expected until September to say whether a recent troop buildup in Iraq is working.

"Everyone should take note, especially the administration," said Snowe, R-Maine, noting Lugar's senior position within the GOP. "It certainly indicates the tide is turning."

More (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070627/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq)

It's getting hot in the kitchen for the GOP.

If they don't address Iraq and soon, they could very well lose in '08.

is it an election year for those guys or something?

why the change of heart.  A couple of years too late eh?

I bet if poland was there in force Iraq would ahve been done and over by now............................................................................ ::)

Don't you know the guys who caught Sadamm were Polish!!   :hihi:

Thankyou Prometheus for including we Poles in every thread! My work is done......  ;D

The Poles would have been smart enough to go after the actual terrorists and stay clear of Iraq.

We can't stay there forever, Iraqis and others in the region need to step it up. They say an insurgency takes about 10 years to break. America won't be there past 2009 i predict.  And nobody wants Iraq to become a failed state.

We should have stayed home in 2003. But we diddn't. But cutting and running would make things even worse.

Well, Iran borders Iraq, and we all know they want to go in there too. Would be cheaper than to fly them all the way home.

Yes, it is an election year for most republicans who are having the change of heart........

With out a 'strong man' in control , that whole region has been a clusterfuck since the first part of the last century . Lord Curzon was an intelligent man , but we are still receiving the dividends from his ignorance of geography .

Trust me when I say that Dick Lugar would be reelected to his seat if his competition were the ghost of Abe Lincoln. 

He may not be the first Republican to take this position, but he is the first Republican who's an expert on foreign policy to do so.  His position will give a lot of cover to others wanting to switch sides, and he knows that, as the senior Republican on the Foreign Relations committee.

I hear ya, but I would guess the majority of those saying we need to get out now are the ones who are more worried about losing their position than they are about the war itself.

Support for the war continues to decline, even amongst republican voters.  I'm shocked all of the major repub candidates are so pro-war.

On occasion, fear of loss of power actually leads people to make good decisions. 

ironically, its a choice between endless war fueled by the presence of foreign troops or genocide if they leave

I think its time to cut and run and do all we can to keep the genocide confined to one place

I suggest a giant wall

...you got a better idea?

A time machine?

Sure.  Dress code.  Treat clothing that is identifiable with a religious sect or tribe as "gang paraphernalia." 

How 'bout a "no touching" policy to boot?

 :rofl:  Good call! 

Time out corners

E=MC? ... I joke ... I joke.
I've been drinking; give me a break.

Maybe things will settle down once the new GnR C.D. is released.  Everyone will calm down and get along so we can leave.

Hang in there JMack, Axl will have you coming home soon!  : ok:

Saddam kept it together by killing off several hundred thousand of his enemies. It worked, but crimes against humanity is a problem in the international community.

Iraqis need to step up, I think that is the bottom line. I hope for everyone's sake they do, but who knows? We can't provide for their security indefinitely.

While this is true, it had nothing to do with the 9-11 attack. There are crimes of humanity all over the globe by vicious dictators and war lords, but those do not sit on the second largest reserve of sweet crude now do they?

Believe me, Saddam's connection to 9-11 is not there. In 2003, a broad picture was painted between the two and we were all still in post traumatic stress disorder as a nation regarding 9-11.

We haven't sent any troops to Danfur and there is a genocide happening there. Then again the justification :hihi: of going into Iraq was WMD's not  so much human rights abuses. 

We had Saddam pretty much in a box with the no-fly zones and sanctions. If Saddam did not overplay his hand maybe we would have never went into Iraq. Saddam knew he had no WMD's like Bush thought. If he did not have WMD's why did he not cooperate with the UN? I think it was a dumb move on his part.

To sum it up, we never should have gone into Iraq, but we can't go back in time. We need to be careful we don't leave a bigger mess behind. I guess I'm still somewhat of an optimist that all is not lost unlike most people around here.

I'm an optimist my nature, but the bottom line is reality dude.

The biggest lie after the WMD was the Saddam not co-operating bit. While it is true that he did not go along in the past, he was co-operating this time, according to Hans Blix and the UN, and it was Bush who kicked the inspectors out. That is key here, Bush kicked them out and proceeded to occupy that country.

I can't believe people still think the war was about oil. Gimme a fucking break.

quote from Bud Fox:

"Well, we're not just there for oil-it's really all about the freedom, and purple fingers. Dick Cheney loves purple fingers."?

 You gotta love those purple fingers.

What the hell is it about then?

Goldman Sachs is predicting 100/barrel oil very soon. India, China, and other emerging markets have driven up demand, and we use 25 percent of the worlds crude. We need oil.

The U.S.-appointed interim Prime Minister gave private corporations, not Iraqi Nationals, the exclusive right for oil exploration in Iraq. This means, those rights to create new oil fields go to the highest bidder. Who do you think that is going to be? And isn't it something else that a recent report (a few months back) concluded that there is double the amount of sweet crude under that sand, second now only to Saudi Arabia. The biggest prize in Iraq is the untapped, cheap to produce, sweet crude just waiting for the oil giants to dig up.

You put that with the fact that Cheney was looking at Iraq before 9-11 even happened-his secret energy task force-and it's pretty obvious what is going on.

Some smaller contracts have been given out already to those emerging markets, but those pale in comparison to what is to come. The big fish are waiting patiently on the sidelines for the storm to quiet down before they take their prize, there is no doubt about it.

I remember everybody telling me I was a conspiracy theory nut who hated my country years back. Well everything I said turned out to be dead on. This will be too, and I'll be here to tell all you guys "I told you so" when big oil takes there piece of Iraq.

Big oil taking their piece of Iraq will prove jack shit mate. Nothin. It's going to happen, plain as day. A fucking idiot can see that. That will only be a target of opportunity though. A case of "well we're here now, it would be idiotic to not harvest some of this oil"

But if you seriously believe Bush et al. invaded another country, sacrificing thousands of American and Iraqi lives just to get some oil then you're a head case man. Do you know how much fucking oil there is in the world? We're not running out anytime soon.

The hell it won't.




Do you know how much is left in the world vs demand? It's not a matter of running out. It's a matter of more demand than supply.

Ever read up on Hubbert's peak oil theory?

I think oil was not the primary reason, (although it was one of them ) but I believe Bush thought it would be a cake walk and never imagined what would happen in regards to the hundreds of thousands that have died over there. Cheney's secret energy task force's maps, forced out of his hands by the freedom of information act, seal the deal for me-so yea-sorry.

Hadn't heard of the peak oil theory so I hit the Wiki and found myself extremely unimpressed.

Basicly it goes like this ...

We develop the ability to gather oil from the earth - production goes up
We refine these techniques - production goes up more
We develop technologies that require the use of oil - production goes up yet again
We use these technologies to futher refine the collection process - that damn production never slows down

BUT THEN

As the earth runs out of oil - production goes down AT THE SAME EXACT RATE AS IT WENT UP ... HA! LMAO!

Gimme a fucking break. How the hell can you put an exact year on when the world will find oil collection unsustainable when we have no fucking clue how much we have and are constantly finding more?

To me, the whole things reads like someone has over simplified the argument, made a nice symmetrical bell curve and whacked NOW in the peak.


Now of course there is no exact answer when it comes to environmental science (which is primarily why I find the whole "people are causing global warming" argument to be so irksome as environmental scientists spout their educated opinions as fact), but I find this funny. Anyone wanna have a poll o how many times that target gets pushed back until one day in 2027 or something he starts shouting "SEE I WAS RIGHT!!".

Did you support the invasion?

There is endless reading on the subject, and you seem to have really twisted it around to avoid the point. I glanced at the wiki page and it explains why the date was changed a couple of times, nice n clear.

I don't want to get side tracked on the peak oil theory though. Some people thought real estate would only go up forever too, and those people are shitting themselves now. In reality, demand is up for oil, and supply is on shaky ground. America uses 1/4th the worlds oil, our population is booming, as is emerging markets.

A post sanction Iraq had us way down at the bottom of the ladder in regards to oil contracts. Cheney's secret energy task force maps showed that we were behind China, France etc.  Those maps had Iraq broken down into exploration, reserves, refineries and so on...and all this before 9-11. Why do you think that was?

We discarded Saddam, appointed a US appointed puppet government to draw up a Constitution that rewarded new exploration sites to the highest bidder, and have since found out that Iraq has double the amount of sweet crude under it's sand. That is all fact, no disputing it. You may come to the conclusion you like, but I prefer going by what we know.

If going into Iraq wasn't motivated by oil, which  is essential to our economy and every aspect of our life as we know it, then what was it for? Bush thought it would be a stroll in the park-that's what he thought. He'd reward fat cat contracts to his corporate buddies (who have since been found guilty of ripping off taxpayers-yet still given more contracts after that), and set up the big oil firms for the future. The worst thing about it all was that the occupation was under the guise of "fighting terror" and played on the emotions of the image of 9-11 in order to receive the green light from the public. All while letting the real terrorists run away and grow stronger (Again, another fact.) You think this isn't about oil, you are out of your fucking mind.

Tho it wasn't right going to war at that time, getting Saddam out of power is good.
If the end justify the mean is something we can argue about in 5-10 years.

USA don't have any credibility being an exmple for forwarding human rights and peace so maybe this is an solution.  :peace:

Purple fingers, served Sunni side up...


(http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/247/purplefingersac1.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)

Damn! ... I was drunk yesterday. There is about 40- 50 years worth oil left on this planet ... that is it, no more.

(http://www.marvel.com/universe3zx/images/9/96/StrawMan.jpg)

Call me whatever the fuck you want mate ... couldn't give a rat's awse

What are you going on about by the way? 

One would have to be in the know, to be in the "know".

How is that for subterfuge?

Goddamn, I learn real well.

Transfer your American stocks over to an International fund. Our dollar sucks now, and with the latest downturn in housing the pied-a-terre of cards is about to come crashing down.

The domestic exception is "Bud Fox's Magic Member Cream with real Inuit DNA", which of course I'm long on.




(Just between the two of us I'm shorting the republican party for 08, it's a dog with fleas.)

Yeah, but what the fuck where the muslims thinking "bombing" USA, who'd they think they are.
They are only alive cause the western world is civil, as they used american planes for it and it was an inside job...that says much.

What else they were gonna do? Throw rocks at america? :hihi:

A few pedantic corrections:

America was attacked by terrorists. Religious affiliations irrelevant.

They probably think they're freedom fighters. You know, fire-fighters fight fire, crime-fighters fight crime, etc.
 
Muslims, in general, are "alive" because they managed to survive or defend themselves against the many invasions, crusades and regime changes that the civilized western world has embarked on from time to time over the last few millenia.

What else could they do? I don't know. I remember the Aum Foundation set off a bunch of homemade sarin gas bombs or something in Japan, and they were just a cooky compound-based cult. I guess that with better resources and a global reach they could have done more.

No doubt about it, what was done on September 11th was pure evil...........but you never fight evil with more evil.

The age old battle has always been Good Vs Evil.

Yes, with both labels applied after the fact by the winner of the conflict.

But if you consider War and the impact it has upon a human life and the human suffering that is caused by war you would label it evil.

So with the knowledge that war is indeed evil, then good must be a better way.

So you're saying that it would have been a lesser evil for the Allies not to go to war with the Nazis, what with war being inherently evil and all. They should instead have taken the relatively (by your definition) good position of inaction? For example.

No the allies had to deal with what they were dealt with and face the beast of war on it's level. Think of comic book heros.
There is nothing more evil sounding than a Stukker about to drop. The Nazis did actually change the face of war for good. Warfare became very nasty - Prussian ideals were no longer to be seen and the allies had to get to know the nature of the new beast very quickly.

No human being should be asked to do that.

Your reply suggests that your previous black & white, good & evil definition is woefully simplistic, given that it can't possibly account for the statements you just made. There is no room for nuance in the "age old good vs evil" idea nor the "all war is evil" statement you made, and both fly in the face of your rationalization above. Hello, cognitive dissonance!

Aside: I prefer not to think "comic book heroes" when defining anything more complex than comic book logic. 

Let me use the example of the Warsaw Uprising:

The Poles had been occupied for 5 years under some of the most extreme war circumstances that a human being could find him/herself in. The Poles knew that the Russians were simply waiting to take over the country and subject it to communist rule after the Germans left.

I think it is good that the Poles decided to make a defiant stand in the face of such odds. They had been living under war conditions for 5 years, their survival instincts would have been peaking. The took up arms and faced the enemy and made a stand and said I'm sick of it and I am not going to put up with it anymore! Now is that not an example of a human being living up to his /her peak and rising up against pure evil? These human beings provided future generations with a massive statement about war.

So in weighing up their actions, under those circumstances I say that what they did was ultimately good. My great aunt is totally against any war. Here is something taken from "Fifty Years of Europe: An Album" by Jan Morris.

"Who could fail to be touched, though of whatever nationality, whatever age, whatever ideaology, whatever background of faith or experience, by the sculpted monument to the Little Insurgent which stands beside the ramparts of the Old Town in Warsaw/ It remembers the heroism of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, when the Poles in a splurge of hopeless romantic courage rose in arms against the overwhelming forces of the Nazis who oppresssed them.

A very small boy, in a steel helmet far too big for him, holds a sub-machine-gun as if ti were a toy, and bears himself ready for all corners, as so many children did at that great and awful time".

It stands for what Poland would never be again after WW2, and the rest of the world also lacks for it.

No good and evil is never black and white but the ideals behind it should be. No cognitive dissonance there at all - ultimately!

You could argue that there's less dissonance in that statement (even if it doesn't entirely make sense) - largely because you've added a number of qualifiers, your black & white statement has been forcibly nuanced  ;)

However, it still doesn't solve your "all war is evil, except for these good wars" problem.

If: All war is evil
And: The Warsaw Uprising is an act of war.
Then: The Warsaw Uprising is evil.

So either the Warsaw Uprising is evil or acts of war aren't inherently evil therefore war itself isn't inherently evil. You can't have it both ways. Dissonance!

In all ethical discussion about good and evil, one must consider the unique circumstances particular to the situation and then apply a universal yardstick to it as a means of measurement.

You usually start with the statment "All war is evil" and then define what is evil. A good universal yardstick to use is one that considers "human suffering".

Then one must consider what is good - and that's where the rationalisation comes into it. And then you have to think about "the common good".........

All war is evil in that a 24 year old female (my aunt) should haven't to live in a world where she has no choice but take up arms - that decision was made with the higest ideals becuase otherwise why do it at that level? It is done in the hope and view that no 24 year old woman should have to do that again.

If you engage in an act of war with the justification that it should be the last ever act of war then question of good and evil are moot, lofty principles be damned, because you're engaging in a fool's errand.

If your justification is the liberation of your people from oppression then it could be said that your justification is "good," though that does not mean that your war is inherently "good," the justification and the act being distinct and separate functions.

If the execution of your war aspires to the "loftiest" principles of war-making, in that it follows rigidly the agreed ethical framework for the execution of acts of war (whatever they may be at any given time according to any internationally agreed conventions) then you could say that the justification and the execution of your war were "good."

That leaves a third and equally important factor, the result of your war. And if the result does not match the justification and honor the conduct of your war then regardless of the initial two factors your war cannot be "good." If the result were, for example, to replace external oppression with internal oppression (or like for like) then your war cannot logically be "good."

So, if the above is correct, I've outlined three factors which must be met in order to conduct war ethically. No "universal yardsticks" nor rationalization required, isn't that (or any other logical dissection) a more just way of evaluating a war? And doesn't it eliminate the need to generalize with bland labels like good & evil? No philosophy required!     

Yes, your way of putting the argument is very good, provided the logic is there in the first place, Mr Spock.....

Some people need the human empathy factor though. Then you are acting with your heart as well (Mind and Body), not just on pure logic. And in every aspect of learning 'discussion' is central to it. Good and evil must be discussed so one knows exactly what the 'loftiest of principals' must be.........

And yeh, the result of the Uprising is all good.

It gave birth to the Solidarity movement - the first bloodless revolution that restored Poland to full Independence. This was the beginning of the end of Communist domination in all of Central Europe? : ok: In turn,? this inpired some workers in Africa..........

Exactly. And to be discussed they must first be defined. And to be considered defined there must be consensus. And if there is consensus there is ethicality. So to be defined consensually and ethically there must be discussion. And what we end up with is a whole lot of people talking endlessly and way less time for war.

Ok, terrorist that just happened to be muslims...and what religion does most terrorist doing these kind of things belong to?

I agree tho, religion has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Women were tortured and burned in name of christianity but that has nothing to with christianity either.

You gotta look at things as childhood, knowledge, wealth and lifestandard.? :peace:
So thats why America has purple fingers!

They are everywhere tho, I even got in touch with one my age she just seems so isolated.
You can think in the banes of "the kid who isn't allowed to play with the other kids" thats the impression I get.

I hope to see that changed sometime :peace:

And that is the point. In this day and age we should be able to talk to one another without having to take up arms.
I just got the funny image of "The War Room" in Dr Strangelove. ?:rofl:

You mean the witch-finding thing? It would be unfair to lay that at the door of christianity in general. It was entirely the Protestants. Damned, dirty Protestants, jumping on the Inquisition band-wagon.

Oh, I thought it was the misogynists.

War usually begins with people talking. It's when they can't have what they want that the toys are thrown from the pram. As long as there's greed or envy or politicians there'll always be war. I'll simplify; As long as there are people, there will be war. Just another symptom of OPS, Other People Syndrome.

No, in Strangelove it was POE, Purity of Essence!? :rofl:

As long as there are musicians and artists and filmakers and superheros in this world......... :peace:

But aren't we all misogynists, really? Can't we set aside petty religious and social differences and bond over our shared love-hate relationship with the gender divide? I'll bring the marshmallows, you bring the stakes.

A deadly double-threat.

And the commune is where?

In that special place, deep inside all of our hearts, where cockles are warmed by immolated witch-flesh. Of course.

I wasn't being ironic, blaming religion is like blaming music for suicide/murder that was what I was trying to say :P

I wasn't sure. When in doubt, assume irony.

To cut in run is not good. If you must, say 'excuse me' and walk away after passing gas.  :hihi:

I recall a Ma?tre d' years ago who would tell us "Be sure to say slice the cheese."