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Originally Posted by roachboy
scout: your entire post presupposes that the current "strategy" in iraq is rational--when it isn't--and necessary, simply because it exists. the motivation for these assumptions appears to be little more than conservative partisanship. what i think is interesting in your post is the repetition of the entire conservative-specific set of assumptions that enable continued support for the iraq debacle and the administration responsible for it:
a) the attempt to characterize criticism of that policy as elitist positions you as "defender of the common man"--i confess to being baffled as to how that fits in with anything else in your post. you hear this alot though from the right--the curious claim that "authentic america" is made up entirely of petit bourgeois reactionaries.
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So it really truly is a fucking waste of time for Obama to visit the troops? And thats not an elitist attitude? Thanks for setting me straight.
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b) a wholly irrational assumption that you and those who support similar politics views have a monopoly on "what's really going on" in iraq. what exactly is the reality of a war?
this is a serious question, if you think about it.
for example, how is the "reality" of war not logistics?
if you consider what a war is and where the majority of activity connected to it happens, it is mostly in shifting things from one place to another.
but maybe the history channel lets you conservative-types define reality in whatever manly way is convenient for transient argument purposes.
so reality would be what you like, and not anything else.
so what you're really saying is obama should go to iraq so that he would end up agreeing with your claims.
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I made no claims as to what was actually happening on the ground. I haven't been there and have no plans to travel there. However if I was running for the President of the United States and there was a pretty good chance I would be elected you can bet your ass I would be there every chance I got just to see for myself what needed to be done. I don't know whats really happening over there and neither do you. We can both produce witnesses and articles posted somewhere on the net supporting our particular viewpoints but the reality is you aren't there and neither am I and we ain't got a fuckin' clue so we probably better keep our mouths shut and hope for the best for our friends and family that is over there.
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c) the american position on iran has made no fucking sense from the outset. the is compounded by the simple fact--one which is self-evident to everyone except that tiny segment of the population that substitutes conservative filtering devices for anything remotely like an analysis of what's happening on the ground, to the extent that any of us know about it in this information-controlled, filtered and packaged continual public-relations farce of a system---by the simple fact that the administration had NO strategy going into iraq. the wolfowitz doctrine WAS the strategy. it is mind-boggling to think about that--not that i expect you to--but if you do, it's amazing stuff. given that there was no strategy, it follows that there was and could be nothing but reaction along the way--the american position on iran has been nothing but reactive. it makes no sense. the business about the iranian nuclear program has fuck all to do with anything--it is a red herring--but if you and your conservativeland buddies ARE concerned about it--don't you think that reducing iran's sense of being-threatened by the united states would be a good step forward in undercutting the rationale for such ambiguity as exists about their program?
but that would require you think in terms not unlike those jimmy carter laid out about iran last week. and carter would be an elitist, so his positions are ruled out a priori.
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Our policy regarding Iran has been fucked for a long time, since Jimmy Carter himself was in office. He in fact started the Iranian problem and had no clue how to fix it after he fucked it all up. Funny you should mention him and a wise solution to the Iranian problem in the same sentence. It's like suddenly after 30 years of hindsight he can see clearly now, lets just give up the worlds nuclear secrets and everything will be all better. The Isreali state has nukes so it's ok for the Iranians to want them to. He was an idiot then and he is still an idiot today, nothing has changed. / threadjack
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Originally Posted by The_Jazz
Can I at least get a concession that he's had other things on his plate that seem more important? Going there in the midst of a tough, drawn-out campaign doesn't seem like the best way to garner votes in, say, Oregon.
Once the convention is over, I am sure you'll see him there.
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I feel he's had it pretty well wrapped up for quite awhile, since before the Indiana/North Carolina primaries and his campaign managers must feel the same way because sometime before those primaries they began shifting the focus of the campaign away from Hillery and onto McCain. Now I will concede he may not have had enough time to make the actual trip over but he's had ample time to get it on his schedule or at least start talking about making a trip over to visit the troops don't you?
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Originally Posted by Willravel
My little brother knows more about Iraq than John McCain and he's never even been out of the country.
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Yea yea I'm sure it runs in the family
