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So just how important is the pacification of Iraq if we can put it on hold for political purposes? Kind of like being put on hold for a smoke break when you call 911, isn’t it?

Are there any chances that Kerry will hold Bush accountable for this? That he’ll pressure Bush about why they’re holding off on the attacks?

Well, it’s kind of a fine line. If Kerry pressures Bush it will make it seem like Kerry is encouraging military action in Iraq. But my prediction is that yes, we will hear Kerry challenge him on it. Next debate if not sooner.

Conducting war according to political polls ~~!!! Isn’t this a criticism of the Bush campaign against Kerry? That he would make decisions based on which way the political winds blow?

This hypocrisy is shameful for all our nation, pure and simple. But, don’t look for a lot of us critics of Bush policy to turn our heads if Kerry is elected.

I saw the following add next to this article on WatchBlog - in light of the huge pork spending bill just passed by Congress I thought it was a most appropriate political advertisement:

Gorillas
World Wildlife Fund Pictures, info & more.
www.worldwildlife.org/gorillas

Hilarious!!! Until I open my wallet !!!

Just goes to show which is more important. The people or the votes. It could be political suicide to have too many more casualties right now. They could end up with alot more casualties if they wait, but I guess that is a chance they are willing to take.
I wonder what the justification(s) for this one will be?

The wild thing about this thread is the utter willingness of those who don’t like George Bush to believe anything they see in print that feeds their frenzy.

The person cited in the newspaper article is a “senior administration official involved in strategic planning, speaking on condition of anonymity.”. Wow, how very revealing. Yet all the posters to this point have bought into it, hook line and sinker.

Now, its possible that there could be some truth in this article, and its okay to be skeptical about the administration. But I just love how y’all run off the cliff like lemmings to the sea when an article suggests something bad about Bush. Were the article negative towards Kerry, you’d all be howling for sources and documentation.

Its really rather pathetic.

Nice, jbod, nice. I hope to see you jumping on Bush the next time he spits out an outright lie. Haven’t seen that happen yet.

You’re right, anonymous sources are suspect. But I’ll bet you a case of Blatz that we’ll see no major offensive before the election. I’ll throw in a pint of Mad Dog if we don’t capture OBL in the next two weeks.

The wild thing about this thread is the utter willingness of those who don’t like George Bush to believe anything they see in print that feeds their frenzy.

Which is balanced by the utter inability of Bush supporters to believe anything that contradicts the party line.

Mark Mazzetti? Isn’t he the same guy who writes (or at least wrote) for New Republic?

Hey, do you think his senior administration official involved in strategic planning is the same as Dan Rather’s unimpeachable source? Of course it may have been Lucy Ramirez down there in Texas, who still has lots of ‘splainin’ to do about those Guard documents.

BTW, just so everyone has a handle on what Kerry’s going to be facing in the battleground states in the weeks ahead, check out Stolen Honor. The previews at the site were more potentially damaging than anything I’ve seen yet from the Swifties.

So does Stolen Honor talk about his drinking and drug habits, his DUI conviction, his failure as a businessman - oh, wait. Wrong guy, sorry.

William:

Which is balanced by the utter inability of Bush supporters to believe anything that contradicts the party line.

Your statement doesnt hold true——I am a Bush supporter, yet I specifically did NOT preclude the possibility of this being true. YOu’ll note that I said “Now, its possible that there could be some truth in this article, and its okay to be skeptical about the administration.”

What I didn’t do was blindly accept the story as true, especially given the utter lack of substantiation in it.

Alejo:

I’d say that I don’t expect any dramatic shifts in policy just before the election from either side…. especially not with the flip-flop charges that have been made. But the article leans towards an attempt to make Bush appear hypocritical and venal, placing political ambition over the safety of our soldiers. I guess you’d have to ask the soldiers whether they view him like that, or whether its an attempt by a reporter to make him seem that way.

jbod —

I agree, it is a partisan piece. You’re also correct that people tend to accept what they want to hear without criticism. It’s a hole most of us fall into once in a while, and I appreciate your pointing it out.

Alejo:

By the way, if we are to make wagers, let us do so perhaps by sharing an icy Sierra Nevada Pale Ale in place of Blatz, and a Yellowtail Shiraz instead of MadDog. That way, both the loser AND the winner actually win.

jbod —

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Yellowtail Shiraz? I don’t know, sounds suspiciously elitist to me…. ; )

Alejo:

To be truly elitist, I should have spoken about the “nose” of the wine or its “finish”, or perhaps the quality of the hops and the brewing process of the beer.

How bout we leave it at virtually ANYthing but Blatz and Maddog. That leaves us with a world of opportunity without elitism. LOL

jbod —

It’s a deal. Blatz may be union-made and all, but it sucks like an emphysema victim.

William:

Which is balanced by the utter inability of Bush supporters to believe anything that contradicts the party line.

Your statement doesnt hold true——I am a Bush supporter, yet I specifically did NOT preclude the possibility of this being true. YOu’ll note that I said “Now, its possible that there could be some truth in this article, and its okay to be skeptical about the administration.”

What I didn’t do was blindly accept the story as true, especially given the utter lack of substantiation in it.

“Utter lack” is pretty strong for a story in a national newspaper (Dan Rather, see what we have to put up with because of you?) But ok, fair enough. Maybe I am pathetically gullible at that. In fact, I’ll go a little further with you on this. I hope it’s not true - I posted it from a sense of outrage, without thinking it over - and I hope we don’t live in a world where he CinC really thinks like this.

If it is true, this would be much worse than other cases in which Bush has caved to political pressure (like his flip-flops on the 9/11 commission and its recomendations) or in which Bush has jeapordized the troops to make political points (like his “bring it on” quote). So maybe that’s a reason for thinking it’s wrong.

NOTOTH:

But is Stolen Honor as damaging as http://www.secondterm.us?

Also, can Stolen Honor by itself counter http://www.thekerrymovie.com?

Joe-
You are prepared to defend the decision of this administration to go to war, despite tons of evidence that indicated that they ignored warnings about intelligence, knowingly used false intelligence to stir up support for an attack on Iraq, and have yet to prove any conspiracy between that country and the terrorists of al-Qaeda. Your people also accepted what the SwiftVets said about Kerry unconditionally.

The Democrats have followed the facts to their oppositions. The Republicans have run away from them.

NOTOTH-
It’s interesting to hear that the group that supports that this attack on Kerry is deciding to merge with the SwiftVets, since you mention them. The sickening irony about this is that they almost take on the divisive point of view of the torturers themselves.

I’m sure this would be a horrific idea to these POWs, but in essence they are agreeing with their captors about what Kerry’s intentions were: to divide the nation against them, to declare them war criminals. They have taken that so much to heart that they can’t even see past their captor’s intentions: to make them feel abandoned. What the captors told them about Kerry was propaganda, meant to sound like he was encouraging people to abandon them. It’s just too bad they’ve taken what the interrogators intentionally wished to use as a wedge issue to heart.

Kerry fought for them, fought against a war that would kill tens of thousands more soldiers under Nixon’s escalations after his testimony. Kerry never placed the blame on them, never fingered them as the villains in his protests. He never protested against soldiers.

I will not say that these men haven’t earned their point of view, but I think you should read General Zinni and Tom Clancy’s Battle Ready before you settle into some kind of tirade about how these men’s points of view should be taken as the gospel truth about the war or about Kerry in the whole.

General Zinni experienced the Vietnam War on multiple levels, and came to the conclusion that what the war might seem like to you- A standup pitched battle, or a guerilla campaign- would depend on where you served and when. In areas near North Vietnam, the pitched battles were more common. Farther south, it was the Guerilla campaigns.

It’s instructive, then, to look on the Stolen Honor Site, and find that all the veterans included there are pilots. Not one of them is without a distinguished flying cross or some kind of air medal.

These were people who had little contact with the civilians on the ground, who weren’t set upon by guerillas or by assaults like the Tet Offensive, or Khe Sahn. These weren’t people whose experience would lead them directly to the view that the war was stupid and useless, as many on the ground would.

In the end, these people have been picked because they won’t question the war in Vietnam, and thereby fall vulnerable to the questions men like Kerry, Cleland, and others had to deal with, questions that would hinder their ability to speak without controversy.

The filmmaker himself has his share of connections that would expose him to unwanted scrutiny. This is a guy who did a documentary a while back about how unfairly the Reverend Moon was being treated by the government, even submitting it to the Moons for approval.

That unwanted attention goes for the Sinclair group, which might have to deal with some pretty thorny issues dealing with a broadcaster acting as a shameless political shill for one party. According to the law, Broadcasters cannot put out such political material without giving an equal opportunity to the other side. Having a little discussion group afterwards will not necessarily satisfy that requirement.

Political rules exist for broadcasters so that they don’t take their public trust and degenerate into propagandists for one side or the other. The Sinclair Group treads on thin ice in being so blatantly partisan.

The link that proves the collusion between the SwiftVets and the “Stolen Honor” POWs-

On their own site, no less.

Stephen:

Joe- You are prepared to defend the decision of this administration to go to war, despite tons of evidence that indicated that they ignored warnings about intelligence, knowingly used false intelligence to stir up support for an attack on Iraq, and have yet to prove any conspiracy between that country and the terrorists of al-Qaeda. Your people also accepted what the SwiftVets said about Kerry unconditionally.

The Democrats have followed the facts to their oppositions. The Republicans have run away from them.

First of all, I have no people. I speak for myself, as I would hope you do. I’ve not held you accountable for anything but your own words. I’d ask you do the same for me.

Secondly, I have supported the military action against Iraq, and the regime change of Saddam Hussein through 2 administrations. I supported Clinton for Desert Fox, though I felt he stopped short of achieving any real progress. I’ve supported this action against Iraq because Saddam did not live up to his own peace treaty. It’s clear to me that he was “playing” the system and biding his time. Our playing the “mouse” to his “cat” made us appear weak, which I believe emboldened other terrorists, and we know that Saddam supported terrorism.

You may castigate others for THEIR statements, but hold me accountable for MY statements only. I’ve laid out my thoughts often enough for you to have a firm grasp on my conclusions, and while they differ greatly from yours, they are nonetheless supported by facts (i.e.; it is well documented fact that Saddam broke his cease fire treaties many times, supported terrorism, and agreed to promises only under the greatest of duress, usually of a military basis)

Stephen, I’ll agree with you about the appropriateness of showing the Stolen Honor film right before the election on the public airwaves. Something just strikes me as wrong about it. On cable, fine, but I don’t think the network channels should go down that road.

Unfortunately, however, the networks already do exactly what you complain about—act as shills for one political party. Before the Sixty Minutes II forged documents fiasco, that show did nothing but broadcast one Bush bashing segment after another. Clark, O’Neill, and a blatant attempt to pin Abu Ghraib on Bush without substantial evidence. The major media has scrutinized Bush’s National Guard record ad infinitum and has NEVER seriously looked at Kerry’s Vietnam record or the connection and possible coordination between North Vietnamese authorities and the Soviet Union after Vietnman. And now Mark Helprin’s infamous memo at ABC News reveals that they even see it as their RESPONSIBILITY to hold Bush to a different standard than Kerry. Somehow because Kerry’s fabrications in their view “aren’t central” to his campaign and Bush’s are.

The media’s cheerleading for Kerry, their refusal to mention any good news from Iraq and constantly demand that Bush “admit mistakes” so they’ll be able to bash him when he does or bash him when he doesn’t has reached the point of shameless partisanship.
Humvee

JBD,
There is one point of view that both sides are overlooking in this pause in the action. After wittnessing the Armed services hearings this summer where we found out how stupid and imcomptant the management of this war was, I have to believe that somehow the upper management in the Administration may be at fault.

Lack of the correct armor, rotating troops, bullets, the list goes on and on. The things I found out about how screwed up Bush and company thought patterns were could make the best seller list of “How Not to Win a War.”

My question with this news is “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?
Are we taking a vacation?
Are we saying to the people in those towns that they will have to wait until after our elections to be free from the terrorist? or;
Is it a political move to find a peaceful solution?
Is it a lack of supplies?

No, I don’t to hear the spin of the parties when it comes to the safety of our troops. Americans made that mistake when we listened to the Nixon’s Adninistration back in ‘72.

No, what I want to know from the president own mouth is exactly what we as a country face if we are going to force the elections in January? Do we have the right stuff and troops in place? And How are we insuring the safety of Iraq Civilians during these operations?

Yes, America is at war Mr. President, but it is with a group of people not an idea. Other wise our policy will lead us to a failed state and a failed country. Sort of like Nixon and company did in the 70’s.

Henry:

I too want to know what we face, though knowing this kind of information requires a certain level of crystal ball gazing. I want to hear more about what our plans are and how we intend to carry them out. I don’t feel the need to know everything—-part of war is in keeping information close to the vest, rather than telling everyone, including the enemy, your battle plans.

Regarding the war management, there have certainly been miscalculations. To some degree, these are inevitable and should be accepted. Consider that at D-Day, we lost around 5000 men, we had ill-concieved intelligence about the terrain, we had ineffective and incomplete equipment for the task at hand, and it took weeks to accomplish what had been expected to take only several days. Yet it ranks as one of the greatest military achievement in United States history.

Its certainly fair to look at the management of the war with a caustic view, yet it also requires the ability to not simply look in hindsight. Many of the dire predictions that were made ahead of time did NOT come true, and many of the pundits were plain wrong in their assessment. It is far too easy NOW to look back and see the miscalculations—they are there to be seen, just as we can look at our own pasts and see our mistakes. The key is to use this information to prevent further mistakes.

Unfortunately, many simply want to use this information in a finger pointing exercise, which accomplishes nothing of substance.

JBD,
While the actual moves of an operation(s)should not be foretold, I would like the president to explain what he is going to do now intil January even if he loses the election. I think we deserve that as a nation.

On supplying the troops; the comments made by one general and one buruecrat in the House Arms Services makes me wonder if they realize the importance of the need for stuff QUICKLY!

But still the underlining news and conditions in Iraq drive me to wonder why we are moving so slowly considering the fact that we took Saddam down so quickly.

Excellent post, William. When it was announced last month that major operations wouldn’t start until November or December, I had exactly the same reaction: Bush is once again making life and death decisions based on which way the political wind is blowing.

It’s the same as how Bush ordered the Marines to retreat from Fallujah (now called the “Arab Alamo” by the brave defenders of Islam who repelled the US Marines - thanks GW) last March because his poll numbers were plummetting with the rising death toll.

Here’s a Friedman article I read recently where he points out a bunch of other examples of Bush’s political vacillations.

Joe-
However independent you would like to portray yourself, you constantly take standard Republican positions. If you’re going to use the collective opinion of the GOP, it’s not unfair to be addressed as part of that group.

Personally, if I differ from my party on an issue, I’ll be the first to say how. Just say it, and we’ll know differently.

As for this war:

We could have legitimized it by UN mandate, but we circumvented them. Tough luck.

We could have legitimized it by saying Saddam had both a relationship to terrorists and that he had WMD’s he could give them, except there’s no hard evidence of a mutual conspiracy, much less the armaments to make them more powerful.

Unfortunately that’s the case Bush made to the American people and the UN for pre-emptive war, for the need to disarm. When are you going to accept the fact that Bush has put this country in such an awkward position?

Jeez, you talk about D-Day. Eisenhower had the decency to be ready to assume full responsibility for the failure of that landing. He had the letter drawn up and everything. He lost five thousand men facing a technologically equal power, and at the end of the day, he had that beach taken. Fast forward a year and a half and the war is over. Eisenhower didn’t spend that year and half putzing around in France, waiting for the Soviets to meet him in Paris. He had us halfway through Germany before the end of the war.

If nothing else, your comparison falls apart because you’re counting your eggs before they’ve hatched. Iraq is not yet free, not yet stable, not yet able to preserve law and order in it’s own borders. The indications for just about everybody else but Bush and Co. aren’t encouraging. But hey, Bush knows better than all of those doubters, right?

Martin-
It’s not Bush bashing if its true. Your only defense against what they say is to call them liars. Well, alright, how are they lying? What lies did they tell. Is your basis for determining whether it’s a lie solely it’s negative PR effect on Bush?

As for that possible coordination Kerry says his people were function as observers against the Viet Cong, but oh, never mind, he has to be a treasonous bastard, otherwise Bush doesn’t look that good. I mean, lets face up to it- would you consider any look at Kerry’s record that exonerates him serious?

Bush Bashing. Has it ever occured to you that Bush has done things wrong? That he did put throught three tax cuts in a time of war and deficit, and then fired O’Neill because the former boss of Alcoa wouldn’t play his game of voodoo economics?

And as for Mark Helperin’s memo, he’s simply saying what should have been said a long time ago: That your president should be held to an equal standard, that he should factchecked and question just as hard as Kerry is. Maybe if you read what most of these people wrote or said closer, and more carefully, you’d be focusing your outrage in a better direction. Your president has put you in the position of being the apologists for just about every kind of concieveable failure, not the least of which is his failure to act like an actual conservative.

I don’t know whether you’ve picked up on the irony yet, but here I am, the Democrat, stumping for a candidate with a proven track record of tough deficit reduction, and you are stucking having to be the apologist for a wasteful spender and fiscal liberal.

We’ve had you guys on the defensive all year, defending the president on all kinds of nasty shit, and yet, you still think we are the one’s who need to rethink our positions. Perhaps defeinding your positions would be easier, if you didn’t have to defend Bush’s.

Well said, Stephen. From a conservative point of view, this administration has been a complete disaster.

We could have legitimized it by UN mandate, but we circumvented them. Tough luck.

I don’t know what Bush was thinking when he wouldn’t allow the UN inspectors back in after the war - petty revenge for not finding those WMD that he “knew” were there, I suppose - but now we reap the consequences,

Equipment and materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons have disappeared from Iraq, the chief of the U.N.’s atomic watchdog agency has warned.

The U.S. government prevented U.N. weapons inspectors from returning to Iraq — thereby blocking the IAEA from monitoring the high-tech equipment and materials — after the U.S.-led war was launched in March 2003.

Stephen:

While you may take party positions as your own, I typically do not. I take my own positions—-if they happen to align with the party, then so be it. For instance, I’ve never been much of a fan of the Medicare bill, have spoken out against the size of the budget deficit, and stated quickly that Bush looked bad in the first debate. That you choose to take the easy route and attempt to paint me with the party brush, rather than examine the things I write, is beyond my control. It’s much easier for you to do that, since it requires little thought. If you choose to continue in that vein, so be it.

You missed the key point in my D-Day comparison. (Perhaps you were still looking for party line connections) The key point is that the media and some of the people did not view D-Day in the manner that the media and the anti-war crowd does now. Had they done so, D-day would have been pilloried as a failure, charges would have been made, generals and SecDef’s would have been called on the carpet, and radical changes would have been made.

Look at Iraq—-within a couple weeks, the “left” was complaining because the US offensive paused to reinforce supply lines. The naysayers were out in force discussing the poor strategy—-TWO WEEKS into the war. Apply the same lack of perspective to D-Day, and attempt to see the difference.

Perhaps it is impossible for you to move past the intellectually easy point of view of seeing those who disagree with you as being caricatures. But I would urge you to at least make the effort.

jbod —

I can’t help but point out that when we went into D-Day the best intelligence we had was from primitive radar and reconaissance planes that were subject to heavy anti-aircraft fire. Nowadays we have satellites and unmanned drones, not to mention the fact that we have been flying planes over Iraq every day for the last twelve years.

I find it much harder to forgive this intelligence failure — in fact I find it hard to believe it IS a failure. I know others are quick to point out that “the world” and Bill Clinton thought Saddam still had WMD’s, but the difference is that the world and Bill Clinton didn’t take us to war in Iraq.

I see your point in that no war can be flawlessly executed; I just think there aren’t many excuses for the botch-job this administration has made of this one.

George W. Bush has decided to make unilateral, religious based decisions along with his majority Republican House and Senate to destroy the principles and promises that our forefathers made into law. This tyrant should be imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay with the other prisoners of war and should be prosecuted for every lie since the 2000 presidential election. The disenfranchisement of minorities,the military, and the uneducated people that elected this phony is unprecedented. They call themselves conservatives, that is just a label that covers up many prejudices. Decide on November 2 if you and your family can afford to be lied to and manipulated anymore! Enough is enough.

JBOD,
Who complained because we were reinforcing supply lines?

As I recall the complaint was that not enough boots were on the ground to conduct a blitzkrieg AND protect supply lines and armament stockpiles.

I think that complaint in hindsight was well founded.

Be a part of the revolution! Visit info@citizenchange.com. We are 40+ million strong,underrepresented and misinformed. Be a part of history and be at the poles on Nov.2,2004. Bring a buddy or a neighbor between the ages of 18-30. MAKE SURE YOU’RE REGISTERED. You can check your registration status and polling location from a link on the info@citizenchange.com website. VOTE OR DIE!

Look at Iraq—-within a couple weeks, the “left” was complaining because the US offensive paused to reinforce supply lines. The naysayers were out in force discussing the poor strategy

The problem was not enough troops to secure the supply lines. In fact, there weren’t enough troops to secure the suspected WMD sites, either. There still aren’t apparently.

In fact, all the complaints were about the lack of troops. Now all the problems in Iraq are attributable to lack of troops.

It was a cock-up, and everybody knew it.

BTW, it really was brilliant, the way our troops adapted and overcame, but if some thought - not just about the attack, but also the follow-up - had been put into it, it would have been unnecessary.

From a canadian non-partisan perspective.

How useles it is to try and debate bush supporters. No matter what facts you present, they’ll still find some way to justify why Bush is a genius.
George W. Bush screwed up royally, He has been a terrible president from day 1. Maybe Kerry is a dumbass too but Bush has PROVED he is a dumbass. He didn’t prove any WMD were in Iraq when the war started, He cant prove that he has been a force for good in the good ol’ US of A.
If you don’t like Kerry fine, but anytime someone says something bad about Bush, the table gets turn and someone says “yeah but John Kerry this….John Kerry that…”
If you cant justify why your guy is the best guy based on his own merits/decisions then you shouldnt vote for him.
All i know is the world is praying that GWB doesnt get re-elected in Nov. and when Kerry wins there will be a global celebration like we’ve never seen before. I cant wait.
It gonna be like the party at the end of Return of the Jedi. The deathstar exploding represents GWB’s political retirement.
If you want the world to keep hating America, then Vote Bush, if not Vote for ANYBODY ELSE……..

Haha! Codco, as parochial and xenophobic as the United Sates is, I’m not sure you’re helping. :D

I just LOVE revisionist history. You guys are really really good at it. Keep up the good work…maybe someday it will actually be believable. Its fortunate for many of you that your earlier comments are now lost in the great netherworlds of the internet, otherwise it would be so so simple to show you to be so amazingly wrong.

Alejo:

I understand your point about modern technology, yet the bottom line is that many different and diverse parties were fooled. We should get to the bottom of why and how this happened. But that still doesnt change the fact that it did, in fact, happen.

You say you find it hard to believe that it was an intelligence failure—Im not sure if that means you think it was outright lies and deceit. But if so, then what a deceit it was, in order to have ensnared both Democrats and Republicans, Americans, French and Germans, the Brits, the UN etc.

What galls me the most is that John Kerry is out in front in pointing fingers of blame at our intelligence agencies, yet it was his sworn duty to oversee these very same intelligence agencies. He couldnt be bothered to attend the meetings of the very committee he was a member of. Perhaps had he and others paid more attention, the errors and miscalculations might have been prevented.

just so you know, i’m not some foreigner from overseas. Im in montreal, im 3 hours from the border. If the U.S wants to be an example to the world and lead everyone then you have to accept a certain amount of foreign input. No one wants to listen to what the rest of the world thinks but there sure is a lot of dialog when the U.S. government wants our support/troops/resources.

jbod —

I’m not sure if it means I think that or not either. My mental jury is still out on whether Bush is a misguided zealot, an amazingly canny leader, or an absolute psychopath. I (we) may never know for sure.

I agree with you about Kerry. He was not my first or second choice among the Democratic candidates. As I’ve stated before, I’m not voting for the lesser of two evils so much as voting against what I perceive to be the greater of two evils. At least I don’t feel embarrassed for my country when I hear Kerry speak, which may be petty of me but is nevertheless honest.

You say you find it hard to believe that it was an intelligence failure—Im not sure if that means you think it was outright lies and deceit.

It’s no mystery why the Bush administration invaded Iraq, and it had nothing much to do with WMD.

Just like Hitler gave the world a sneak-peek of his plans in Mein Kampf, neo-conservative thinkers like William Kristol, Francis Fukuyama, and Robert Kagan have been publishing their master plan in books and magazines like the Weekly Standard for years.

Unlike Kerry, Bush didn’t have any foreign policy experience before he was president. After 9/11 he relied on his neo-conservative advisors - Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Perle - for a long-term foreign policy strategy.

There were no outright “lies and deceit”, just some misdirection and fear mongering to sell an otherwise unpopular neo-conservative foreign policy agenda - the “who’s next?” strategy of global democratization.

Cheney spelled it out in the VP debate when he said we must topple rogue nations and replace them with democracies. “This is the task of our generation.”

But if so, then what a deceit it was, in order to have ensnared both Democrats and Republicans, Americans, French and Germans, the Brits, the UN etc.

You’re ignoring the timeline, joe. Before the inspectors got back in - thanks in part to Kerry’s vote backing up the president on the Iraq resolution (BTW, how underhanded is that? Kerry helps Bush out with the vote, then Bush twists it and tries to skewer him with it later.) - no one knew one way or the other. There were discrepencies in the accounting for the destruction of WMD, but no direct evidence that Saddam had reconstituted his programs or built new weapons.

After the inspectors had been in a few months and found nothing, most everybody else rethought their positions and decided not to back an invasion.

Joe-
You really don’t get it, do you? D-Day was necessary. We had to take France, and to take France we had to take Normandy. And why did we have to take France? To roll back the Nazis, defeat them. And why did we have to do that? Because there was no dispute that the Axis powers, left alone would always be a threat to us. The facts of what the Nazis and Japanese had done spoke for themselves.

D-Day had the support of the American people Because they knew what they were fighting for, what they had to do, and why they had to do.

Troop in Iraq and American citizens at home are not so lucky. If D-Day were like Iraq, we would have shown up on the Beaches of Normandy and found sunbathers, not hardened bunkers raining machine gun fire. We would have rolled through Germany and found a peaceful Europe, and a Germany in the hands of the Nazis, but with Hitler a toothless old man we had defeated and humiliated once before.

We have put a hundred and forty thousand troops into harm’s way to answer a threat that didn’t even exist. It would have been nice, considering we were making the first move, to be right. Now we’re on the defensive about every damn thing we went into this war to face.

It’s a good thing you love revisionist history, because your president gives it to you every day. He tells you the threat we were facing was five years off now, when he was talking before about the smoking gun being a mushroom cloud. He tells you the Clinton Administration was soft on Terrorism when he reduced many of that administration’s priorities on terrorism when he got into office. He’ll tell you the Department of Homeland Security was his idea when it was Joe Lieberman’s bill, with a few changes, that made the department.

He’ll tell you Kerry’s copying his plan when Bush is actually copying Kerry’s. He’ll tell you he saw the first plane hit the first tower on television when that footage wouldn’t reach audiences until the afternoon. That of course means that Bush either knew about the second plane two minutes before Chief of Staff Card told him, or his powers of observation were so unacute that he couldn’t make sense of what he saw. He said Osama was unimportant, after saying he wanted him dead or alive, But years later, of course, that is all a lie, Senator Kerry. I could have lived a president that was somewhat conservative.

I just can’t live with a president who can’t tell me the truth.

Oh, and it’s not purely an intelligence failure if you put pressure on people to tell you what you want to hear. That’s also a leadership failure, and that, more than anything else, is what makes me committed to making sure Bush is nto re-elected.

I LIKE BUSH VERY MUCH. I CAN’T WITHSTAND TO SEE HIM LOSS THIS ELECTION. I PRAY THAT AS MANY AS AMERICANS, EVEN HIS OPPOSITIONS WILL VOTE FOR HIM IN THIS COMING ELECTION.MAY THE GRACE OF GOD ALMIGHTY BE WITH HIM ALWAYS, AMEN

Kerry and his true face!

I saw Kerry disgraced the entired body of American people. His personnal view about VietNam’s war compares to 300,000 combatants on the danger field is

unacceptable. Anyones can tell me if 300,000 of the combatants agree with what Kerry is stand for? I respect this 27 years young personal views. He scared to

death, didn’t dare to serve and stood by his believed, could not figure out or understood the word “FREEDOM” and “COMMUNISM” is really mean.
I saw Kerry came from no where and said he stood for 300,000 troops??!?!?! to stirr up and mislead the nation by his act. Resulted of 65,000 GIs died is a part of

his act.

WHAT KIND OF FREEDOM OR PRINCIPLE IS HE STAND FOR?

Over 78 millions Vietnames under communist control without freedom of speech. Ask Kerry if he stand for the freedom of the human kind or the movie here is just for

DEMS political interest.

I’M TELLING YOU RIGHT NOW ANY PEOPLE WHO IN CHARGE WITH THIS UNTRUTH STORY ABOUT KERRY WILL FAIL AND AFTER NOVEMBER 2, DEMS and LIBS WILL SEE THE REAL FACE OF

KERRY AS A MURDERER AND A BETRAYER.