Just another Democrat

[Religious Dick]

NoBAMA is an extreme left wing liberal.
Even a nice, smoothe talking left wing extremist has to move to the center to be elected.
I notice he is already waffling a bit about Iraq, wearing the American Flag lapel pin.

The unfortunate reality is that the china-shop rule still applies - we broke it, and we've bought it. *No* candidate is going to withdraw our forces immediately, not the Republican, not the Democrat, not the Libertarian, nor the Green.

How we leave and our future course of action may be negotiable - but my money says we'll be stuck in Iraq for the foreseeable future, no matter who gets elected.

[Christians4LessGvt]

my money says we'll be stuck in Iraq for the foreseeable future, no matter who gets elected.

but the left loons cant stand to hear that
frankly they dont care what happens there
they want AMERICAN DEFEAT
so NoBAMA will play "cat & mouse"
he hammer and shout about what a mess iraq is
but at the same time he knows he wont order any mass rapid exit

[Michael Tee]

<<but the left loons cant stand to hear that
<<frankly they dont care what happens there
<<they want AMERICAN DEFEAT>>

If you were standing in a schoolyard, and saw a big Grade Six bully accost a small Grade Two student one-fifth his size, beat the shit out of the kid for no reason at all and steal the candy bar which was the smaller kid's only possession, wouldn't you want to see the big bully's ass kicked?

Sure, I want to see America defeated in Iraq.  They have committed terrible crimes there and have no right to be there.  What do YOU think should happen to aggressors, murderers, torturers?  They should be mobbed by beautiful naked virgins and rewarded with a thousand nights in Paradise?  Why on earth should they get away with their crimes and their atrocities?  The DESERVE to get their ass kicked, harder than it's ever been kicked before. 

[Xavier_Onassis]

but the left loons cant stand to hear that
frankly they dont care what happens there
they want AMERICAN DEFEAT
so NoBAMA will play "cat & mouse"
he hammer and shout about what a mess iraq is
but at the same time he knows he wont order any mass rapid exit

Make up your mind, silly person: if they don't care, they dont want defeat.
If the want defeat, then they care what happens.


I don't think you have a clue as to what you think, let alone the left.
===========================
I do not think that most Americans want a defeat in Iraq.
There is not likely to be a victory, because (1) the US cannot win an Iraqi Civil War, and (2) Iran is always going to be one of Iraq's most influential neighbors. Iran is not going to fold its tents, load everything on its camels and plod away to Australia or Antarctica or somewhere else.

Would it be a victory if ExxonMobil sold you gasoline they refined from Iraqi oil at $5.00 a gallon?
Would it be a victory if Iraq paid the US back all the money we psiied away on this useless war?
What do you expect, that Iraq becomes the 51st State and sends contestants to the Miss America and Miss USA pageants?
Are you prepared for the Basra Camels and the Baghdad Hyenas to vie for the World Series?

The war in Iraq was not started by the American people. The people did not vote for this war, not once, not ever.
It was a war planned and engineered by the oligarchy that is profiting from the war: the people who run Halliburton, Brown & Root, Blackwater. They get the profits, no matter who "wins", it is the unfortunate American smalltown military that get to do the dying, they get to come home in body bags, and armless, legless, blind and insane. It is the poor suckered American taxpayers who get to send their buggered dollars over to Iraq where Halliburton can steal them.

Obama will most likely get nearly all the troops out within one term. McCain clearly plans to keep them there, as Imperialist enforcers for every day that he is president.

I am sick of American soldiers, especially guardsmen who never signed up for war duty, coming home dead and maimed. I am sick of paying to support the thieving corrupt oligarchy that onloy needs to wave a flag and hum a few bars of the Star Spangled Banner to get dupes like you to salivate and cheer like you were actually goiung to benefit in any wah at all from this misguided and wrong war.

[Christians4LessGvt]

"They DESERVE to get their ass kicked"

Yes they do! and I assure you they will very soon and the others will fall into place.

[Michael Tee]

According to Wikipedia, the city of Tehran had a population of about 11 million people at the time of the 2006 census.  Your picture of a nuclear explosion over Tehran was colourful and dynamic, but I don't think it really demonstrates what a nuking of the capital would really look like.  It really looks like this:
     
                  WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC IMAGES AT THE END OF THE FOLLOWING LINK
           DO NOT CLICK ON THIS LINK IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH OR UPSET BY GRAPHIC PHOTOS

           http://fogonazos.blogspot.com/2007/02/hiroshima-pictures-they-didnt-want-us_05.html


I don't think that nuking Tehran is really the solution to any of America's problems.  The solution to America's problems is to remove its army of raping, murdering thugs and torturers from Iraq and begin to observe the basic tenets of international law with particular attention to the non-aggression portions of it.  There are far too many Americans who glory in death and destruction and revel in the harm that their powerful military forces can inflict on millions of civilians who lack any means of striking back at their tormentors.  Images of nuclear warfare which are bright, colourful and dynamic, depicting none of the human suffering which must necessarily attend nuclear warfare are just Satanic devices to blind people to the real harm that their military inflicts all over the world and permit the real rulers of America to continue their attacks on anyone anywhere who cannot hit back.

It's time for sane, normal and decent human beings to take back the public dialogue on issues such as the Middle East from the psychotics and crazies who have clearly been seduced by the ruling class into accepting as "policy" an ever-escalating use of violence with no limits in sight, which now for some people is coming to be seen as an end  in itself.

[BT]

Rewarding good behavior
by kos
Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 11:05:46 AM PDT

So many of you are upset that I pulled back my credit card last night, making a last minute decision to hold back on a $2,300 contribution to Obama. Let me explain further:

First of all, obviously Obama is a great candidate who is running a great 50-state race. That much cannot be denied. But he's had a rough couple of weeks.

First, he reversed course and capitulated on FISA, not just turning back on the Constitution, but on the whole concept of "leadership". Personally, I like to see presidents who 1) lead, and 2) uphold their promises to protect the Constitution.

Then, he took his not-so-veiled swipe at MoveOn in his "patriotism" speech.

Finally, he reinforced right-wing and media talking points that Wes Clark had somehow impugned McCain's military service when, in reality, Clark had done no such thing.

All of a sudden, there was a lot of cowering when, just days ago, we got to read this:

   

When Mr. Wenner asked how Mr. Obama might respond to harsh attacks from Republicans, suggesting that Democrats have "cowered" in the past, Mr. Obama replied, "Yeah, I don?t do cowering."

Could've fooled me, and maybe he is. Maybe what looks like cowering to me is really part of that "moving to the center" stuff everyone keeps talking about. But there is a line between "moving to the center" and stabbing your allies in the back out of fear of being criticized. And, of late, he's been doing a lot of unecessary stabbing, betraying his claims of being a new kind of politician. Not that I ever bought it, but Obama is now clearly not looking much different than every other Democratic politician who has ever turned his or her back on the base in order to prove centrist bona fides. That's not an indictment, just an observation.

Now I know there's a contingent around here that things Obama can do no wrong, and he must never be criticized, and if you do, well fuck you! I respect the sentiment, but will respectfully disagree. We're allowed to do that here. But fair notice -- I will never pull a Rush Limbaugh and carry water for anyone. Not for the Democratic Congress, and not for our future Democratic president. When anyone does something I don't care for, I will say so. I've never pulled my punches before, so why start now?

Obama will be fine without my contribution, and he may even still get it before this thing is said and done, but it would be at a time when he has done something positive. That's called rewarding good behavior. And if that opportunity fails to arise because Obama goes on a Sister Souljah'ing rampage, then no worries. Chances are good that the DNC would get the money instead. But at this time, I simply have no desire to reward bad behavior. Some of you don't care about his behavior, or don't think it's bad behavior, or whatever. I didn't ask any of you to follow suit, and don't care whether you do or not. I didn't pull him from the Orange to Blue list. I'm not going to start praising Nader or Barr. I'll still vote for him. Yadda, yadda, yadda. At the end of the day, I'm pretty irrelevant in the whole affair. Obama is going to raise a ton of dough and win this thing whether I send him money or not.

Ultimately, he's currently saying that he doesn't need people like me to win this thing, and he's right. He doesn't. If they've got polling or whatnot that says that this is his best path to victory, so much the better. I want him to win big. But when the Obama campaign makes those calculations, they have to realize that they're going to necessarily lose some intensity of support. It's not all upside. And for me, that is reflected in a lack of interest in making that contribution.

That's it. No need to freak out. It is what it is. Others will happily pick up the slack. We're headed toward a massive Democratic wave, and what I decide to do with my money means next to nothing, no matter how much hyperventilating may happen on this site's comments and diaries about it all.

And if for some crazy hard-to-see reason my money actually is important to the Obama campaign, then they can adjust their behavior to get it.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/1/05546/22532/562/544544

[Plane]

What good behavior has the DNC done ?

[Plane]

I don't think that nuking Tehran is really the solution to any of America's problems.  The solution to America's problems is to remove its army of raping, murdering thugs and torturers from Iraq and begin to observe the basic tenets of international law with particular attention to the non-aggression portions of it. 

But which is more likely to be tried first?

[Michael Tee]

<<Obama is going to raise a ton of dough and win this thing whether I send him money or not.>>

At this point, hope is the only reason to back Obama.  Hope that once elected, he'll turn his back on the centre that he is presently chasing and repudiate the conciliatory moves he is now making towards them.  Won't do a whole helluva lot for his integrity, but integrity isn't what we're looking for right now.  More important is to put into office a man who is going to restore respect for international law, end U.S. aggression, end the stranglehold of the Israel Lobby  and protect the integrity of the Supreme Court.  If that can only be accomplished by the betrayal of the centre that he is currently courting, so be it.  We hope that the promises we consider to have been made to the electorate with a wink and a nod in the early days of his campaign will be the promises we all understood them to be and will be implemented across the board.  The electorate has been lied to and fooled before, it will undoubtedly happen again as well.  But right now the Obama campaign is fueled by hope - - hope that he won't sell out, that he WILL make a difference.

[Plane]

<<Obama is going to raise a ton of dough and win this thing whether I send him money or not.>>

At this point, hope is the only reason to back Obama.  Hope that once elected, he'll turn his back on the centre that he is presently chasing and repudiate the conciliatory moves he is now making towards them.  Won't do a whole helluva lot for his integrity, but integrity isn't what we're looking for right now.  More important is to put into office a man who is going to restore respect for international law, end U.S. aggression, end the stranglehold of the Israel Lobby  and protect the integrity of the Supreme Court.  If that can only be accomplished by the betrayal of the centre that he is currently courting, so be it.  We hope that the promises we consider to have been made to the electorate with a wink and a nod in the early days of his campaign will be the promises we all understood them to be and will be implemented across the board.  The electorate has been lied to and fooled before, it will undoubtedly happen again as well.  But right now the Obama campaign is fueled by hope - - hope that he won't sell out, that he WILL make a difference.

I think that you are hopeing that he will sell out , just that it won't be your favoriates he sells out.

Do you really feel that a sellout of one or the other is unavoidable?

Isn't it possible that he means what he says and says what he means?

[_JS]

"They DESERVE to get their ass kicked"

Yes they do! and I assure you they will very soon and the others will fall into place.

No, we tried not long after 1979. We used Iraq. We gave your murdering, thug buddy Saddam Hussein support. You don't recall special envoy Donnie Rumsfeld shaking Hussein's hand with a big shit-eating grin? They sent thousands of people to their death. Hussein even bombed his own Kurdish people with chemical weapons, but your boy Ronnie Reagan cared more about attacking Iran.

It was a miserable failure. It only distanced the people of Iran and made the extreme right-wing of Iran's position even stronger. And that is all warmongers like you are going to do now.

[Michael Tee]

<<I think that you are hopeing that he will sell out , just that it won't be your favoriates he sells out.>>

Well sure, that's exactly what I had in mind when I said it wouldn't do his credibility a whole helluva lot of good.

<<Do you really feel that a sellout of one or the other is unavoidable?>>

Sure, you can't promise Joe to pull out of Iraq right away and promise Bob to stay indefinitely with no end or even timetable in sight and then satisfy the two of them.  Joe wants the U.S. out yesterday and Bob wants them not to leave under a cloud of defeat, which means he wants them to stay indefinitely. 

<<Isn't it possible that he means what he says and says what he means?>>

It would be possible only if I and a lot of other people misunderstood what he was really saying, read our own wishes into his words.  But it was BECAUSE we read those wishes into those words that Barak came as far as he did.  I could be wrong, but of course I have to assume I am right.  He said what he said about the war becuase he wanted the votes of the people who wanted immediate exit from Iraq.    When he promised "change" a lot of people took that as the end of the Israel Lobby's stranglehold on U.S. foreign policy, the end of the war in Iraq and the end of the cult of death and militarism.  When he now says how much he respects John Insane, that is going back on his pledge to end the cult of militarism.  He CAN'T mean both.

[BT]

You don't recall special envoy Donnie Rumsfeld shaking Hussein's hand with a big shit-eating grin? They sent thousands of people to their death. Hussein even bombed his own Kurdish people with chemical weapons, but your boy Ronnie Reagan cared more about attacking Iran.

I guess you don't recall that Iraq invaded Iran in Sept 1980, months before Reagan's election. The war was launched with Carter's blessings.

[_JS]

You don't recall special envoy Donnie Rumsfeld shaking Hussein's hand with a big shit-eating grin? They sent thousands of people to their death. Hussein even bombed his own Kurdish people with chemical weapons, but your boy Ronnie Reagan cared more about attacking Iran.

I guess you don't recall that Iraq invaded Iran in Sept 1980, months before Reagan's election. The war was launched with Carter's blessings.

So?

The fact that Carter and Reagan supported it makes it somehow less of a miserable failure? That changes the fact that we supported Iraq or that Donnie Rumsfeld was there kissing Saddam's orifices?