Joe wrote:
> Michael Johnson > wrote in
> :
>
>> Joe wrote:
>>> Michael Johnson > wrote in
>>> :
>>>
>>>> Joe wrote:<snip>
>>> Bush and his cronies (and yes, he _is_ ultimately responsible for the
>>> actions of his people) outed Valerie Plame (which, by the way, is an
>>> act of treason and a capitol offense during wartime, and we are at
>>> war according to Bush) because Bush wanted revenge against her
>>> husband, Joe Wilson, for exposing the sham about Niger and yellowcake
>>> uranium. To top it off, Bush outright lied when he said that he'd
>>> fire anyone involved with leaking the name.
>> Her operations in the CIA weren't all that secret. She and her
>> husband made it no secret she was working for the CIA. They made it
>> sound like they were on some super secret mission when they were
>> supposedly outed.
>> This was just one of dozens of ways the Democrats tried to pin
>> something on Bush and his staff. They wasted so much time on this
>> stuff instead of solving some real problems like the rising cost of
>> oil. The Democrats have been fiddling trying to nail Bush while Rome
>> burned.
>
> By no means are the Democrats innocent. But I'm still convinced that
> the current administration is guilty of a lot more than they've been
> held accountable for.

I guess the very same complaints the Democrats had about the Republicans
when Clinton was in office are now applicable to them. They have wasted
two years trying to pin anything on Bush and it was all in vain. The
hypocrisy on both sides is so thick you can cut it with a knife. I only
give the Republicans a slight edge because when it comes to things like
taxes, drilling etc. they talk a good game but then even they never seem
to be able to close the deal.

>>> IMO, allegations (whether true or not) that news sources are all
>>> biased and untrustworthy is an excuse not to look at the facts.
>> That is the problem though. You can't rely on the media to present
>> the facts. All I know (and all 99.999999% of us know) is that
>> millions of dollars were spent on a witch hunt that yielded Libby
>> getting his hand smacked for perjury which had nothing to do with the
>> original reason for the investigation. Then after the investigation
>> was over Plame tried to suck off the government tit some more by
>> launching a civil lawsuit but her case was thrown out of court because
>> it had no merit.
>
> The facts are out there - it just takes a bit more legwork to find them.
> My only point was that some people's claims that they can't find facts
> to support certain allegations is nonsense. Facts are there, they just
> need to have all the crap scraped off them.

The facts are somewhere but neither side can be trusted to present them.
They each have something to gain from their story being accepted as
truth. This story is going the way of Roswell. The truth will never be
known.

>>>> I have no doubt that Bush sold the war to the public, Congress and
>>>> the world, in general. Then again all wars have to be sold in this
>>>> country.
>>> Maybe in this day and age, and that's one of the major problems. Why
>>> do wars have to be "sold" in the first place?
>> It has always been this way. The Revolutionary War had to be sold as
>> did the Civil War, WWI, WWII, the Vietnam War and the Afghanistan and
>> Iraq wars. The next one will have to be sold too.
>
> Perhaps we have different ideas about "selling" war. When a cause is
> obviously justfied, there's no selling involved IMO. The example that
> immediately comes to mind was Peal Harbor. Sure people can cite 9/11 as
> well, but the big difference is that the "enemy" in 9/11 was never
> correctly identified until recently. Even then, we continue to plunder
> along in the wrong arena.

IMO, the Iraq War is the same kind of war as the Vietnam War. They are
tactical wars that fit into a bigger strategic picture. Before the
worth of these kind of wars are known a good bit of time has to pass to
see the results. If Iraq does stabilize and becomes a positive force in
that part of the world then history will be a kinder judge of Bush. The
Middle East needs to be brought into the 21st century and a strong, and
basically democratic, Iraq would be a good start to accomplishing it.
If Iraq does prove pivotal in reshaping the Middle East would you change
you mind about whether the war was justified? I think there are some
people that won't regardless of the outcome.

>> During WWII the
>> government regularly manipulated the news and other information fed to
>> the general population to keep interest in the war high and bad news
>> in the shadows. It is just the way mankind works because wars need
>> the support of a majority of people to be fought and won.
>
> There is a huge difference between Americans supporting a just cause and
> Americans being sold a war like it's a used car.

I think saying Americans were sold a bogus war is ignoring the many
Americans that felt the war was worth fighting. Right now I think it
was worth fighting and I don't feel I was sold anything. Besides, Bush
did get re-elected so at least a majority of the voting public wanted to
give him four more years. There are still a lot of people that support
the successful prosecution of the war to the end. If the public is as
much against the war as the liberals claim, then Obama would be miles
ahead of McCain in the polls instead of being tied. By all normal
conventions, Obama should be wiping the floor with McCain.

>>>> IMO, what we have today is a bunch of Monday morning quarterbacks
>>>> whining about being duped and/or using this issue to score political
>>>> hits. The reality is the overwhelming majority of people whining
>>>> now bought into it and went right along with Bush. Then when things
>>>> got dicey they bailed and started revising history to make
>>>> themselves look like prophets. Now that Iraq is stabilizing they
>>>> are running back the other way. We won't know if the Iraq war was
>>>> worthwhile for another two decades, if not longer.
>>> I completely disagree. IMO, many of the horrible truths about this
>>> adminstration's chicanery are now being brought into the public's
>>> view, and as a result, more and more people are questioning what the
>>> hell has been going on.
>> IMO, we can all get whatever we want from the news reports. I don't
>> claim to know one way or the other who did what to whom. Whether the
>> war was worth the cost in dollars and lives won't be known for
>> decades, IMO.
>
> Sorry, Michael, but I believe that's utter nonsense. Simply put, we are
> involved in something we should not be because of certain people's
> agendas.

Every war is someone's agenda. The Revolutionary War was more the
agenda of the aristocracy than the common man. It was conceived,
planned and managed by the wealthy like Jefferson, Washington, Franklin
etc. Bush didn't start this war on his own. Congress and the UN was
right there with him. There is a lot of people trying to revise history
on the Iraq War before its history is even finalized.

>>>>> Bacevich certainly has an ax to grind; his son was killed in Iraq.
>>>> This explains his tone. It also requires a footnote be placed on
>>>> his statements. Things like this cloud people's judgment and can
>>>> skew their thought process.
>>> Bacevich has been up front all along about his son's death, and his
>>> views and ideas are all valid regardless. He's still one of the few
>>> people who make total sense.
>> He seems a little too sure of himself for me to give him my
>> unwaivering seal of approval.
>
> I'm not asking you to give him any kind of approval. I'm simply
> pointing out that what he says and what he's said make more sense to me
> than just about anyone else I've heard on the course of American
> history. If you disagree, that's fine. Please tell me who makes more
> sense to you and I'll gladly read him/her.

No one makes total sense on everything. This guy is no different. I
don't see how anyone can determine the worth of fighting in Iraq at this
point in time. It is too early to tell. Was the Vietnam War worth
fighting? That can be intelligently debated both ways. The only way we
can know for sure is to know what the course of history would have been
from not fighting it and that will never be known. Had we not
confronted the Soviets in Vietnam we might be fighting a conventional
war in Japan or South Korea right now.

>>>>> However, all his ideas are based on factual history. He's
>>>>> certainly one of the most respected and knowledgable people that
>>>>> have spoken on these issues, and what he says makes the most sense
>>>>> to me out of anybody I've heard to date.
>>>> From what little I have read I respect his domestic ideas more than
>>>> his
>>>> geopolitical ones.
>>> You might want to read more, as he's making the most sense of anyone
>>> these days.
>> He might be. I'll try and read his stuff more now that I know he is
>> out there.
>
> It's nothing to do with Bacevich, but this is a very interesting link
> nonetheless:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKFKGrmsBDk&fmt=18

He's definitely a person that sees the glass as half empty.