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Old 07-27-2003, 03:10 PM   #62 (permalink)
Phaenx
The Northern Ward
 
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Quote:
Originally posted by ctembreull
It's every single bit as relevant as Clinton's Vietnam years. It also calls into question his fitness for the office - just as Clinton's draft-dodging did. So again, why hasn't he been called on it?




He never actually returned to his unit. And he was given an honorable discharge eight full months before his term of service was to end. The entire thing is shot through with evidence of political patronage and string-pulling.

And the question of whether or not we lost the last two wars is misleading at best, or a strawman argument. We supposedly went into Afghanistan to capture Osama bin Laden "dead or alive." We have not done so. We ostensibly went into Iraq to disarm that nation of weapons of mass destruction. We have not done so; we have not even found said weapons.

The question of victory is always shaped by the political objectives of a war. We have not met those objectives; at best, we have not lost these wars, but we have not concluded them, either.
I can't reply to your Clinton statement on the grounds that every time I do I'm accused of redirecting blame. Just kidding. I honestly didn't care about his draft dodging when he was running for office because I wanted to vote for other people for so many different reasons. What Clinton did was criminal, what Bush did was stupid, this is why he hasn't been called on it, because no matter what the democrats accuse the Republicans of, they know what their guy did was worse.

Whether he returned or didn't is not certain, Ctembruel. It's very likely there was string-pulling going on, but we're discussing whether or not what Bush did was desertion, and it's not, he served and was legally discharged.

That's so very moot my hands are starting to hurt thinking about how much arguing we'd type for the next 30 pages if I got into it. I'll just say that we're not done in both places, but if we were to leave now I would still think of them as victories.
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