molson_golden2002

I'm not surprised you can't see the difference. And BTW, we we saying that even before the invasion started. So were others who were not liberals at all: WASHINGTON - Not many people foresaw the postwar difficulties the administration has endured in Iraq. Of the few who did, two stand out, both lions of the Republican Party. One was President George H.W. Bush. The other was his secretary of state, James A. Baker. "Incalculable human and political costs" would have been the result, the senior Bush has said, if his administration had pushed all the way to Baghdad and sought to overthrow Saddam Hussein after the U.S.-led coalition ousted the Iraqi army from Kuwait during the Persian Gulf war in 1991. "We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect rule Iraq," Bush wrote. "The coalition would have instantly collapsed. ... Going in and thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations mandate would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. "Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different — and perhaps barren — outcome." The senior Bush's thoughts are outlined in "A World Transformed," published well before his son became president. After Desert Storm, the nation was deeply split over whether Bush was right to bring the troops home while leaving Saddam's regime intact. Although the political context of the region at the time was different from what the incumbent President Bush faced in 2003, the father's predictions about a post-Iraq war situation were eerily prescient. Baker had a similar view on the perils of a regime change policy in Iraq after Desert Storm. In a September 1996 opinion piece, he said, "Iraqi soldiers and civilians could be expected to resist an enemy seizure of their own country with a ferocity not previously demonstrated on the battlefield in Kuwait. "Even if Hussein were captured and his regime toppled, U.S. forces would still have been confronted with the specter of a military occupation of indefinite duration to pacify the country and sustain a new government in power. "Removing him from power might well have plunged Iraq into civil war, sucking U.S. forces in to preserve order. Had we elected to march on Baghdad, our forces might still be there." Seven years after Baker wrote those words, in 2003, the political situation in the region had changed dramatically. As the incumbent administration saw it, Saddam had systematically ignored for 12 years U.N. Security Council demands that he eliminate his weapons of mass destruction. Also, the administration believed, perhaps wrongly, that Saddam had reconstituted weapons programs that had been uncovered and destroyed since 1991. So the Iraq war that former President Bush chose not to fight in 1991 was carried out by his son in 2003, and cast by the current President Bush as part of the global war on terrorism that had begun with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks 18 months earlier. Saddam was perceived — at least by the current President Bush — as a far greater menace in 2003 than he had been in 1991 when the senior Bush was content with liberating Kuwait and foregoing regime change in Baghdad. The current President Bush undoubtedly was warned about the possibility of heavy U.S. troop casualties in the 2003 war. But one wonders whether those warnings were as clear-sighted as those of Baker when he wrote about the perils of ousting Saddam militarily. If that had been the policy in 1991, Baker said, it "would certainly have resulted in substantially greater casualties to American forces than (Desert Storm) itself. For this reason, our military and the president's senior advisers were properly dead-set against it." Defense Department figures show that, as of Tuesday, 109 U.S. soldiers died during the 2003 Iraq war as a result of hostile action, compared with 611 since Bush declared an end to major combat actions in Iraq on May 1, 2003. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0825-08.htm

Animal House! Nice one

Sorry bozo, the Republicans are just as bad as Dems in spending money. Take off the political blinders

In a way I can't disagree with you. AA is 'racist' in that it favors a group based on race. But it was put in place to to try and make up for a much, much greater wrong of much longer standing. I think its time to do away with it myself, but I also think that it did serve a purpose. Hopefully America can continue to make significant progress on the race issue. Americans should be very proud of how far we have come in this regard. I think its one of the greatest achievements the country has made, though obviously there is still progress to be made

Yup, just like you have.

LOL!!! Commonly referred to as? Oh, that settles it! Think for yourself once and awhile. Turn off Rush Limbo and take a deep breath

Which party is that? The Democrats or the Republicans? Or are you so mstupid you think the Republicans are against them? You really think that?

Do a web serach yourself, many examples of these pampered clowns holding pro-war rallies. Not my fault if you missed them when they happened. I'm really surprised I'm not getting the answer I thought I would from you guys. Damn!

They are not joining anything. These are spoiled brats trying to cause a scene with alittle stunt.

Be that as it may, these college republican organizations have held pro-war rallies all over the country yet they are in college and not the military. I have very little respect for these cowards. Put up or shut up.

What a stupid reply. You don't have to be a psycho to join the military in time of war and these College Republicans supporting this, BTW, do sound like wack jobs. And cowards

I have no problem with this program. AA had its place but I think is dated. But why are not these College Republicans in the military? Are they lacking in patriotism? They wanted the war so bad

1) Ike got us in on the ground there first and VP Nixon was calling for full fledged ground forces, probably the first public official to do so 2) Yes, and was contimplating getting out[JFK]. Remember, nothing happens in a vacuum. Party politics are always taking place. China was a major set back for Democrats and Republicans--Remember McCarthy?--had a field day labeling Dems as soft on communism. LBJ didn't want that happening again. His mistake, though 3) True, Dems are hardley blameless, but remember Gulf of Tonkin incident was a lie, the whole country was lied to, Congress included. Hell, the guy who led the attack on NV the next day had also flown on the night on GoT 'incdent' and saw nothing. He knew it was crap and has said so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stockda...Tonkin_Incident Yes, wikipedia, but still the source is accurate. 4) Ya, way in the futre after it was clear this was a fiasco 5) Ike was a real good President, and he was under attack from the Republican right win also

1) I really like your definition of Proressivism. Back when it was beginning a key goal was to reform government to get rid of the Boss Tweed characters running things. This was mainly with the Republican party, but so many immigrats benefitted from corrupt government they fought it. Alnog with this cleaning up of government was a move to make it more interventionist to help society run more smoothly. 2) I dunno, maybe, maybe not. 3) Also the Republicans, who originally took up the Progressive casuse, came to distance themselves from it, especially in the 1920's. With the New Deal, Progressivism and the Democratic party became much more closely tied together

I agree you cannot look at Vietnam and seperate from it the Korean conflict. Still, the similarities offered lessons both for and against escalation and on top of that they were two very different countries. Just because they were both Asians does not make them identical, as I'm sure you know. Remember, we advanced int North Korea in the early stages of the war, after that we didn't. Chinese intervention hurt and scared us, and it hung over Vietnam as a giant factor. LBJ was afraid to mine Hiphong (sic) harbor for the reason he didn''t want to blow up a Chinese ship. And I strongly disagree with your assessment that a stronger policy would have worked in Vietnam. What if we had invaded the North? Remember they were just as much, if not more, anti-colonial than communist. The Koreans accepted the Americans, the Vietnmese, north AND south did not. The government we put in place in the South was corrupt, favored the wealthy--in a society riven with class tensions, I'm not against the rich, just putting this in perspective--and could not put together an army that would fight. Look at the Tet offensive. Yes, we won. But the larger significance was that the communist were able to put weapons, soldiers and other personal in every major center in the South and we knew nothing about it. Think about that. You are right that they were willing to die for their country more readily. We tried to make up for that with bombs. We used a massive amounts of fire power used against this third world nation. Two and a half times the amount of bombs were dropped there as we used in all of world war two. Just massive fire power. I agree that political considerations at home mattered, but I see it in a different light. The Right wing of the Republican party made Vietnam a larger issue than it should of been. The communist boogie man was going to take over the world if we didn't win there, they argued, and that was simply scare tactics. When China went Commie in 1949 the Democrats took a big political hit for that. LBJ hoped to just get rid of the issue quickly but it blew up in his face. There is some evidence that Kennedy was going to get us out of there after the 1964 election, but that we shall never know.

Interesting tactics. You are caught making a big mistake so you flood the post with garbage. Ok, here is what you did. You tried to trap me with a word game. Fair enough, I thought you were making a serious post and I fell for your childish game. Then you tried to demonstrate to me "thinking." That is where you made your mistake. You said Medicare was created in Great Depression, it wasn't. Then you actually tried to draw conclusions from that false premise that were also false. I called you on it and you posted a bunch on stuff that said LBJ was influenced by New Deal. I agree, but that does not make Medicare a New Deal program. Why would it end with Great Depression if it had not even been in existenace then, as you did state? And BTW, I do not need Google to learn history, I'm very well versed in it. But let me ask you, should the government have never gotten involved in helping people with health care? Is that what you think?

Dude, stop digging when you are stuck in a hole. You made a mistake, do not compound it.

FDR was President during the Great Depression.

Oh please, I feel so played! Give me a break. You typed out some nonsense and I tossed out a quick response, i.e., that "progressives" by which I thought you meant liberals have been playing defense for the past ten years or so. Grover Norquist's comments of shriking Federal Government down to the size where it can be drown in a bath tube comes to mind. I made a mistake responding to a know knothing like you, I admit that now. Believe me pal, I think for myself, for instance, I happen to know, unlike you, that FDR didn't create Medicare or medicade. You think it was created during Great Depression You have only proved you know knowing about why this program was put in place or why it continues, who needs health care and who does not. Unless you think the Great Depression was in the 1960's? You might be that ignorant, I do not know. Here is a history lesson for you little boy: http://www.kff.org/medicaid/40years.cfm

My 'exact' words were qualified by the next sentence I wrote which you left out. Yes, dishonest

Last ten years? The Progressives have been playing defense the last ten years, so there has not been a lot of, ummm, progress.

No, but there are electorial votes in Florida, lots of them. No one wants to piss off the Cubans in Florida. Look at the 2000 election, so close. Did the Elian Gonzalez affair cost Al Gore the Presidency? Maybe.

Because they do not trust anybody. And in Iraq, that is kinda of a good thing!

Being dishonest are we Darin? Why don't you post the rest of what I said? Add yourself to the list and take me off, you and Rush