Obama finds 'consensus' in Iraq for U.S. troop withdrawal

ib1yysguy said:
He was right. It's not that hard to say.

And predicting recession as a consequence of Republican fiscal policy is hardly crystal-ball worthy. It was bound to happen, as it has every time since Nixon.
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LMAO... hey twit... the last recession began under Saint Clinton...
 
ib1yysguy said:
And who was making fiscal policy by 1999? oh yeah, Republicans in congress.
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Then using your logic, all recessions since Nixon except for the last one were when a Democratic congress was making fiscal policy. Do you see the problem you have here. It was the same one that wanted to give the republican congress during the clinton years the credit for the booming economy when at the same time it was ALL Reagan that caused the economic turn around in the 80's and the dem congress had nothing to do with it. In reality, non oppressive taxation can only influence the economy so much, the rest of it is up to the markets and politicians can do very little.
 
Dungheap said:
Actually, not they didn't. General Casey opposed the surge and was promptly removed by Bush, who then nominated Petraeus who already agreed with the surge plan.
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Yes, I should have put in my disclaimer that I did when I earlier noted that. Some here suggest that the General who didn't suggest it was fired for that. I'll note that the person you speak of was not in command at that time for whatever reason and that this was the plan put forward by the General who was voted in by the Senate to lead in Iraq 81-0....
 
ib1yysguy said:
And who was making fiscal policy by 1999? oh yeah, Republicans in congress.
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ROFLMAO...you need to reconcile your opinion with Desh. Got to get you lefties all on the same page....

That said, I agree with you on that point. Congress decides the budget on an annual basis. The President simply signs it. The boom in the 1990s was a result of the Rep Congress. Glad you could come to terms with that.

:rolleyes:
 
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Jarod said:
uhh, no. Generals on the ground said no to surge. Bush then replaced them with new generals who were already in agreeance to a surge.
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Again ignoring the 81-0 vote of the Senate to approve the appointment of the General whose plan has given those people the best chance they've had since the beginning of the war. A chance they would not have right now if the plan to withdraw before any level of security was obtained was the one implemented.
 
Socrtease said:
Then using your logic, all recessions since Nixon except for the last one were when a Democratic congress was making fiscal policy. Do you see the problem you have here. It was the same one that wanted to give the republican congress during the clinton years the credit for the booming economy when at the same time it was ALL Reagan that caused the economic turn around in the 80's and the dem congress had nothing to do with it. In reality, non oppressive taxation can only influence the economy so much, the rest of it is up to the markets and politicians can do very little.
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Now why ya got to go and burst his bubble like that?

If you haven't completed your homework, then I want you to set aside the keyboard and get back to it.
 
Damocles said:
Again ignoring the 81-0 vote of the Senate to approve the appointment of the General whose plan has given those people the best chance they've had since the beginning of the war. A chance they would not have right now if the plan to withdraw before any level of security was obtained was the one implemented.
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Yeah? Well Bush sucks... thus your argument is pointless. Yeah.... I went there
 
Is it really gonna kill the dems to admit that the surge worked. Fuck sake, EVERY OTHER ASPECT of this war was a goatscrew from beginning to end. Give credit where credit is due and hold the adminstration to their belief that if the surge worked the Iraqi government could get their shit together and run the place themselves. Because when I hear McCain talk, he doesn't talk about it like it is a short term deal. And comparing the bases in Germany to the bases in Iraq is CRAZY. It is like comparing this clusterfuckery to WWII, or the rebuilding of IRAQ to the Marshal plan. It is all nonsense and anyone with half a brain knows this. American troops were kept in Germany to create a speed bump for the Warsaw pact, American troops in Iraq would be there to bail the Iraqi's ass out of the first big melt down they have. The Marshal plan pumped money and materials into a Europe that was from Lisbon to Berlin ready to rebuild and get back to regular life. Fuck sakes, there are still neighborhoods in Bagdad where the rightful owners can't get their houses back because they are the wrong fucking sect. Al Qaeda is ramping up again in Afghanistan, the Taliban is on the march and we nurse our thumbs with our assholes in Iraq where the people really want us to go, but Maliki really wants us to go only after his grip is strengthened on his country.
 
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Superfreak said:
Yeah? Well Bush sucks... thus your argument is pointless. Yeah.... I went there
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True. It's hard to argue that Bush doesn't suck. I don't try. I used to try to figure him out, now I just hope he seizes yet another opportunity to end this before he hands it off to somebody else.
 
yeah right the surge has worked, for a bit. Do you people really have any idea of what it is like over there ? the generational hatred ? the class system and religious intolerance ?
Sheesh.
 
uscitizen said:
yeah right the surge has worked, for a bit. Do you people really have any idea of what it is like over there ? the generational hatred ? the class system and religious intolerance ?
Sheesh.
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There was never a claim that the surge was going to overcome all the hatred and the sectarianism there. Only that it would calm the violence. That has happened. Now time for the other shoe to drop and for the Iraqi's to run their own country. It won't happen, it will look like it is happening while the Iraqi government's big brother stands behind them with a big fucking stick, but we have all already heard the double speak. Can't pull out of Iraq because the situation is unstable, once it is stable we can't withdraw because it will become unstable, (thus another place where the Germany/Iraq comparison falls flat on its ass). We can NEVER leave Iraq, which was the plan to begin with. If it becomes apparent to the Iraqi's that we are never going to leave, then violence will tick up again. That don't want us there for 5, 10 or 100 years. This is not the BRD, this is Iraq.
 
Superfreak said:
ROFLMAO...you need to reconcile your opinion with Desh. Got to get you lefties all on the same page....

That said, I agree with you on that point. Congress decides the budget on an annual basis. The President simply signs it. The boom in the 1990s was a result of the Rep Congress. Glad you could come to terms with that.

:rolleyes:
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Actually the boom in the 90s was due to the Dem congress that passed Clinton's budget before the Republicans came to town in '94.
 
It occurs to me that the people in charge right now SAY this is a different kind of war, but then fall back on the old kind of strategies. If we can have permenant bases in Iraq then we can hold off the Muslem hoard. Only, this is not Fulda, we are not face to face with Al Qaeda Brigades that we can hold at bay just by our presence. Matter of fact, since Al Qaeda has no real materiel to speak of, they just move around alot which explains why Afghanistan is heating up again. New war reality, old war paradigm.
 
Socrtease said:
It occurs to me that the people in charge right now SAY this is a different kind of war, but then fall back on the old kind of strategies. If we can have permenant bases in Iraq then we can hold off the Muslem hoard. Only, this is not Fulda, we are not face to face with Al Qaeda Brigades that we can hold at bay just by our presence. Matter of fact, since Al Qaeda has no real materiel to speak of, they just move around alot which explains why Afghanistan is heating up again. New war reality, old war paradigm.
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Personally I prefer the approach to get off foreign oil and we lose interest entirely in the region. Of course that is pipe-dreaming. Israel would still be there and we'd still be all stupid about it.
 
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