Moral and practical course

[Lanya]

Rev. Jim Wallis:

The only moral and practical course now is to change U.S. policy, starting with an open, honest, and full national debate about one question - how to extricate U.S. forces from Iraq with the least possible damage to everyone involved - Americans, Iraqis, all their Middle Eastern neighbors, and a world longing for security. To achieve real security, we must defeat the agendas of both the terrorists and the militant neo-conservatives who seek endless war in response to terrorism. It is the neo-conservative's domination of American foreign policy that has so severely damaged our integrity around the world. We need a national debate on both how to get Americans out of Iraq and how to stabilize that devastated nation - neither of which can happen without the involvement of the international community, including Iraq's neighbors who have so much at stake in the outcome.

Everyone in Washington is now waiting for the recommendations of the Baker/Hamilton Commission, the bipartisan group authorized to come up with desperately needed new directions for U.S. policy, and whose recommendations will come in December. The Commission report will be the beginning of our needed national debate. For that debate to be successful, I believe the United States must agree to three things:

1. Reject all plans for permanent American military bases in Iraq.
2. Give up any unique claim on Iraqi oil.
3.Agree to substantially fund the re-building of Iraq without any special relationship to the contracts to do the job.

That's just taking responsibility for all the horrible damage we have done. Only after we have done so can we search for the practical and honorable ways to leave Iraq while seeking to help ensure its security and the political resolution of its future. Neither "staying the course" nor "cutting and running" is morally responsible or politically practical anymore, and a new course must now be found - given the rapid deteri0ration in Iraq, as soon as possible.

We must hope and pray that President Bush will heed the voice of the people in this last election and become a key participant in the national debate of how best to get out of Iraq - how to correct the mistake of his war. The first thing he should do is to stop saying the things he again said in Estonia this week - that there really isn't a civil war in Iraq, and al Qaeda is just stirring up sectarian conflict. More denials of the realities in Iraq while merely blaming outside terrorists is as ridiculous as it is embarrassing. Stop it! Just stop it! Such statements travel around the world and make the president sound like he wasn't paying attention on November 8.

We the people, through the Congress of the United States, must have that national debate. Hopefully this debate will include the White House, but if necessary, we must have it in spite of the administration. The American people have now spoken and must now change the course of the war in Iraq. Conducting that national debate must be one of the first orders of business for the new Congress - a real debate of the sort that the Bush administration failed to allow before, but now must politically accept. George Bush says he is responsible for this war, and he is. But we are all now responsible for stopping this war.

The House and Senate must lead the national debate on the war in Iraq, and seek alternatives to the flawed and failed policies that will just continue to kill more people. The lives of many Americans and Iraqis are at stake. We cannot afford to wait two more years.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-levine/the-best-thinking-on-how-_b_35386.html

[sirs]

Rev. Jim Wallis:  The only moral and practical course now is to change U.S. policy, starting with an open, honest, and full national debate about one question - how to extricate U.S. forces from Iraq with the least possible damage to everyone involved - Americans, Iraqis, all their Middle Eastern neighbors, and a world longing for security.

With the worst thing that could be done, which would cause the greatest possible damage, especially to the Iraqis & all their middle eastern neighbors, is a facilitated pull-out before Iraq is prepared to man their own security

And what the hell is a "world longing for security"?  Who makes up that "world"?

[Michael Tee]

<<With the worst thing that could be done, which would cause the greatest possible damage, especially to the Iraqis & all their middle eastern neighbors, is a facilitated pull-out before Iraq is prepared to man their own security>>

And you know this because of your extensive study of the conditions in Iraq and your vast network of contacts with all of the warring factions in the country? 

Or is that what you are told by the same "leaders" who persuaded the U.S. public that Iraq had to be invaded because of the "threat" posed by its "WMD," that the Iraqi people would be infinitely grateful for your intervention, would in fact "greet you as liberators?" and that the major part of the fighting was over just a few months after it started?

[sirs]

<<With the worst thing that could be done, which would cause the greatest possible damage, especially to the Iraqis & all their middle eastern neighbors, is a facilitated pull-out before Iraq is prepared to man their own security>>

And you know this because of your extensive study of the conditions in Iraq and your vast network of contacts with all of the warring factions in the country? 

No, common sense.  You should try it sometime

[Michael Tee]

The same common sense that allowed you to swallow all the Bush administration bullshit that I just referred to in my last post?

[sirs]

The same common sense that allowed you to swallow all the Bush administration bullshit that I just referred to in my last post?

Your opinionated version of Bush's supposed BS is hardly validating it as such

[Michael Tee]

<<Your opinionated version of Bush's supposed BS is hardly validating it as such>>

Forget my opinion. 

Was the common sense you were boasting of the same common sense that led you to believe your leaders when they told you that Iraq needed to be invaded because of the "threat" of its "WMD?"  that Americans would be "greeted as liberators?"  that most of the fighting was over just three or four months after the invasion?

[sirs]

Forget my opinion.   Was the common sense you were boasting of the same common sense that led you to believe your leaders when they told you that Iraq needed to be invaded because of the "threat" of its "WMD?"  that Americans would be "greeted as liberators?"  that most of the fighting was over just three or four months after the invasion?

No, that would be the common sense more in line with David Kay.  And your continued distortions of the truth still doesn't bode well for you when you're asking to "forget my opinion".  How quickly you ignored that supposed non-existant poll I produced for you, regarding what Iraqis believed.  Yep, no surprise there, either

[Michael Tee]

<<No, that would be the common sense more in line with David Kay. >>

[We were talking about the "common sense" that allowed sirs to swallow the administration line that they had to invade Iraq because of the "threat" posed by its "WMD;" that American invasion forces would be "greeted as liberators" by a grateful populace; etc.]

OK now we're getting somewhere.  So your common sense DID NOT permit you to believe that Iraq had to be invaded because of the "threat" of its "WMD" or that American troops would be "greeted as liberators."  Does this mean that you never believed either of those administration statements or does it mean that you believed them even though your common sense told you not to.




<<And your continued distortions of the truth still doesn't bode well for you when you're asking to "forget my opinion".  How quickly you ignored that supposed non-existant poll I produced for you, regarding what Iraqis believed.  Yep, no surprise there, either>>

Sorry, I believed we were discussing your predictions of the consequences of a U.S. pullout and how you knew what they would be.  ("Through common sense," you said, and so we were discussing your common sense.)  How did we get from there to some kind of poll of what Iraqis believed and what does the poll have to do with this discussion?

[sirs]

<<No, that would be the common sense more in line with David Kay. >>

[We were talking about the "common sense" that allowed sirs to swallow the administration line that they had to invade Iraq because of the "threat" posed by its "WMD;" that American invasion forces would be "greeted as liberators" by a grateful populace; etc.]

Actually folls, that's more of Tee's distorted opnion he keeps requesting that the rest of us forget.  I guess he's removed from following his own request

So your common sense DID NOT permit you to believe that Iraq had to be invaded because of the "threat" of its "WMD" or that American troops would be "greeted as liberators." 

What's with this pidgeon hole attempt, Tee?  I form my own decisions.  Ask me what I believe, not what I thought the Administration believed, or what common sense would or would not "permit me" to believe.  If that's the tact your taking, common sense, logic, and human observation would not permit me to ever consider that Bush would have sat on 911 had he known.  And with the addtion of facts, would not "permit me" to ever consider that Bush "stole the election".  So, if you have a question, keep it straight, minus the twists to try and get me to say something you think I believe

Sorry, I believed we were discussing your predictions of the consequences of a U.S. pullout and how you knew what they would be.  ("Through common sense," you said, and so we were discussing your common sense.)  How did we get from there to some kind of poll of what Iraqis believed and what does the poll have to do with this discussion?

Trying to, but instead you're talking about the rationale for going to war, the supposed lies that took us war, trying to make it out as some cool-aide approach that if I believed in why we went to war, I had to fall for Bush's supposed BS propoganda.  The fomer does in no way validate the latter I'm afraid.  And none of that has anything to do with what would happen if we pulled out prematurely. 

Nice dodge on the poll though.