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Deleted by topic administrator 07-21-2006 08:56 AM
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Rob McNair-Huff  03-04-2003
11:33 AM ET (US)
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Billy, you are right that had he won, Gore would have faced hell from the Republicans in his stint as president. The only difference would have been that Gore actually won a majority of the popular vote while Bush did not.
I actually don't know that the Republican ire at a Gore presidency would have been much worse than the attacks that Clinton faced during his presidency, but that is another story altogether.
As for the war, at this point the pawns have been lined up and there seems little that can be done to stop the machinations of war. All any of us can do is hope for the best and make our voices heard. Who knows...maybe if enough voices call out then the American people will be willing to pay the extra taxes and sacrifices here at home that will be required to make Iraq a safer country for its people and thereby create a safer world with one less enemy of the U.S.
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Billy
03-04-2003
11:21 AM ET (US)
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Rob, I can respectfully disagree with you. My wife is against the war too. Not that I'm "for" it, I just think it's necessary, and I wish they'd get it over with as soon as possible.
Regarding your comments about how Bush won the election. Had it gone the other way, millions of your counterparts on the right would be saying the same thing about Al Gore that you are now about Bush. That's a fact. The election was so close that no matter who came out on top, there would always be room for the opposing side to claim they were cheated. Just imagine all those angry callers to the Rush Limbaugh show, opposing every move by "president" Al Gore. Try to imagine what you would think of those people.
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Rob McNair-Huff 03-04-2003
09:29 AM ET (US)
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Billy, I have no problem with getting rid of Saddam. He is a bad actor who should have been removed from Iraq in the 90s when the first Bush called off his little war. But I cannot agree that in order to accomplish this act we need to bomb the hell out of the people of Iraq. We have special forces for a reason. Why not use a surgical attack to rid Iraq of Saddam? Then the U.S. will face a much easier task helping to rebuild a responsible government in Iraq. My severe doubts about Iraq revolve around the strategy we are about to use to fight this war and the complete lack of public comments about what will be done in Iraq once the U.S. overwhelms its meager military. It makes no sense to overwhelm this country and then walk away as we have done in Afghanistan, and if we do so in Iraq we are sure to put our country at much greater risk than we face today. I hold out a little hope that the president and the American people are ready to spend billions of dollars, much more than it will cost to fight this war, to rebuild Iraq. Our history in the Middle East predicts that we will set up another corrupt government that we will feel we can control and then move along... Yes, I do mistrust George Bush the lesser. He shouldn't even be president and I have my doubts that he has the capacity to manage the country. I cannot agree with his policies, which is not surprising I suppose since I support a more humane style of government, but I have absolutely no respect for the man or the way that he was appointed to lead this country. In fact, in the future when historians look back at this administration I would be willing to bet that it will always been seen that the root of its problems was a widespread feeling across the country that he was not a legitimate leader. As for my being too young to understand all of this complex international policy, you may be right. Maybe since I am only 36 I should just sit back and shut up, but I don't think so. This is simply a case where I along with a large percentage of the U.S. public cannot support. And so I support and hope for the safest war possible for our U.S. troops, but I have hopes that the Iraqi people are not about to be put through the ringer yet again in an effort to remove Saddam. This policy is wrong. I can respect that you disagree with me, but that disagreement will not make me stop making my comments... Edited 03-04-2003 09:37 AM
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Billy
03-04-2003
09:15 AM ET (US)
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Well Rob, it's your blog so I guess you get to "win" all the arguments. But my point in posting the Clinton quote was to show that all kinds of people, for a long, long time, have been saying that something decisive needs to be done in Iraq. Whether it happens this week, next week, or a year from now, you'll probably say it's "too soon".
You need to realize that your blind hatred of George Bush is clouding your judgment. Every political statement you make fairly drips with hatred and mistrust. I think you may be too young to realize that no matter who had been in the White House on 9/11/01, the U.S. would be pursuing an aggressive policy right now against Iraq. And if they weren't, they'd be run out of Washington on a rail.
Give me some reasons to be against the war that do not revolve around "Bush is a warmonger" or "Bush is an idiot". Until then, I just can't take you -- or the anti-war movement -- very seriously. All I've heard so far are ad hominem attacks and empty slogans (like "War never solved anything"). Kind of makes me think that if there were better arguments, I would have heard them by now.
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Rob McNair-Huff 03-03-2003
05:16 PM ET (US)
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Billy, I won't get into circular arguments. I asked a simple question: If you were trying to say that Bush can use Bill Clinton's statement from five years ago as justification for why we need to go to war this week with Iraq. I guess that is your argument. Great stuff... What I am getting at here is that Clinton obviously didn't see a need five years ago to push for war, no matter what the consensus of the U.N. Security Council. Meanwhile, flash forward to today and Bush is ready to go it alone without giving the American people or the rest of the world any real reason other than general statements about evil doers. Bush wants war, pure and simple. Edited 03-03-2003 05:38 PM
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Billy
03-03-2003
04:38 PM ET (US)
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Back at ya, Rob. How can Bush be "pushing for immediate war" if people like Bill Clinton realized the need to act five years ago?
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Rob McNair-Huff 03-03-2003
02:52 PM ET (US)
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Billy, are you trying to say that Bush is justified in pushing for immediate war because of something that Bill Clinton said five years ago?
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Billy
03-03-2003
01:25 PM ET (US)
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"What if [Saddam] fails to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction? ... Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal." - president Bill Clinton, 1998. Edited 03-03-2003 01:35 PM
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Rob M 03-03-2003
12:56 PM ET (US)
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I really don't have any solutions and if I did no one of importance would hear anyway, but I really hate the idea of going to war again with Irag. No, not because I am a peace monger, because I really don't think it will help and I think it will hurt in the economy even more in the long-term. We should have taken Saddam out in 1990, but that was then.
Now, our economy is hurting. The stock market has been down for years. I wonder what the rest of the world thinks of us now. Will going to war with Irag help? Not the economy.
Unless we get Saddam this time it is not worth it. I really feel special forces could that. I don't like the idea of losing any military personnel over there in a large-scale conflict that is impending. I would much rather send a few elite troops and do it that way.
Is this about oil. Don't know. Is it about fear? Maybe. Is it about a political advantage. Most likey. Is the world going to be safer if we go to war with Iraq? Maybe short term, not long-term and it may be worse for the short-term. Still, I want Saddam taken out.
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Rob McNair-Huff 03-03-2003
12:17 PM ET (US)
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Ed, of course you are right that we cannot trust Saddam. But the U.S. and the rest of the world gave up on trying to handle Iraq throughout the entire Clinton Administration and there has been nothing presented by the Bush Administration to show that there is an imminent threat that creates the need to attack Iraq now rather than working to create a much more extensive inspections and weapons destruction program. Bush has other motivations for this attack at this time, and he has done everything in his power to paint the U.S. into a corner and present this as a msut-do-now situation, even though there is nothing to back that up...
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Ed
03-03-2003
11:06 AM ET (US)
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I think the message a lot of people are missing is that how long are we going to allow Iraq to disarm? It has been over twelve years and the latest action is a trickle. Do you really trust Iraq with tons of chemical weapons knowing their hate for us and Al Qaeda's hate for us? As far as North Korea goes, I agree that we need to have a dialogue with them ASAP.
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Rob McNair-Huff 03-03-2003
12:57 AM ET (US)
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I hear ya, Thad. This is one of those cases where once again the people have let their voices be heard and no one on the top is listening. Meanwhile, it is those people - those in the streets in Iraq and those here at home - who will be hurt when the bombs start falling and the terrorist attacks hit new heights.
Right now it feels like all we can do is keep our fingers crossed and hope the world will eventually forgive the arrogance of our actions.
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Thad Hoffman
03-02-2003
11:30 PM ET (US)
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We're just going to alienate ourselves further. We are the last remaining superpower and we're getting cocky. We need to clear up the North Korea issue via diplomacy before lots of people get hurt, and we need to back off the Iraq issue until the inspections completely fail, then go in as a united front. But what do I know.
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Rob McNair-Huff 03-02-2003
10:04 PM ET (US)
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Do you hear the drumbeats growing louder? At this point I believe there is nothing that people in the U.S. or Iraq or even around the rest of the world can do to stop this coming war. In fact, the only thing I see holding it back now is Turkey's no vote on hosting troops in the north.
What the U.S. does need to do today, no matter what is happening with Iraq, is to pick up the dialogue with North Korea, which has reportedly been reporting to its people through the state-run media that the U.S. is poised to launch a nuclear attack against North Korea at any moment...
Insanity.
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