Barack Obama (election coverage only-official)

[mooktarr]

I heard that Obama refuses to recite the pledge of allegiance, wtf ?

[AKAKBUCK]

Originally Posted by mooktarr

I heard that Obama refuses to recite the pledge of allegiance, wtf ?

Bad memory?

[BuckeyeMike80]

Originally Posted by generaladm

There's a big difference between being religious and believing God has chosen you to become president. While I certainly don't condone what the Irani leaders are saying, I don't see how Bush is much different.

So me where he doubts the holocaust? Or where he says that homosexuals should be executed? Or how about he promises to annihilate Israel?? Start there first before you go through the strawman BS below.....

If you were seeing Bush thru the average Irani's eyes, he would appear much as Ahmadinejad does to you.

You do realize that the average Iranian likely doesn't HAVE a clear view of what and who President Bush is right? You also realize that the average Iranian probably also only gets whatever news is fed to him by his government. There is a subtle reason why the Nutjob et. al are saying they'll annihilate israel/us/Europe and all that other stuff - they are slowly losing control of their country. The furor of their religious revolution that brought the mullahs to power in the late 70s has waned with the next generation.

Imagine if a country had declared the US, Canada, and England the "axis of evil", and proceeded to bomb the [censored] out of and occupy Canada. Now imagine that we do not have a large standing army, and the other country does. What do you think would happen?

Straw man rejected for 3 reasons:

1) Iran has a large standing Army. Iran is 8th worldwide and has the largest number of "paramilitary" in the world. List of countries by number of active troops - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2) Iran does not have a large military coalition or a web of treaties like the United States/UK/Canada have. If someone tangles with Canada, that brings the US and the UK into it along with NATO.

3) Iran and Iraq have never had a "treaty" like the US and Canada has. The reason the US and the Canadians have the longest undefended border in the world is because the Canadians know that we'll look after them, so to speak.


Iran is acting like Iran because they are the spoiled kid on stage and want to be the center of attention. their leadership thinks they, as a country, are destined to bring the Mahdi back (think Rapture). Rationalize it all you want, but our current President isn't anywhere near that level of crazy.

And I still don't quite understand how or what this has to do with Barack Obama.

[Muck]

Originally Posted by MaxBuck

With respect to naivete and dialogue, I hope everyone here looks at the Bush administration's abrupt about-face on North Korea. All I can say is, Kim Jong-il is one lucky mofo that his nation isn't sitting on an ocean of petroleum.

Abrupt about face? The actual US foreign policy towards North Korea has been generally consistent over the past eight years.

The US has also been more than willing to open a dialog with Iran.

In both cases the carrot has been as often as the stick.

Originally Posted by generaladm

EDIT: I went back over the posts and I realized my comment about Obama's path to DC was not quite clear. I meant his was different than most in congress now, not ever.

Well sure, not many people in Congress have had all of their elections handed to them without actual opposition.

Originally Posted by generaladm

Imagine if a country had declared the US, Canada, and England the "axis of evil", and proceeded to bomb the [censored] out of and occupy Canada. Now imagine that we do not have a large standing army, and the other country does. What do you think would happen?

You do realize that Iran & Iraq are bitter enemies don't you?

I mean we make fun of Canadians and all but the Persian/Arab relationship isn't quite in the same neighborhood.

[BoxCar_Willie]

Originally Posted by MuckFich06

The nuke issue jumped out. The star wars/missile defense issue has been dead for years, so I didn't pay it much attention. I don't have any problem with more oversight into weapons systems development. I've looked at his military proposals and I'm comfortable that he's not going to tear down the armed forces. If anything, he'll add troops and spend on developing smarter weapons systems.

Thanks for answering, I'm interested in how people think and perceive statements. When I watched that the Nuke issue to me is completely not important to me. Of all things a President has control over what other countries like Russia do with their nukes is not very high on that list. It just seems like lip service to me. Is it good setiment? Yes

The Missile Defense agency is alive and well and has had many successful tests. Getting rid of it or cutting the funding would throw about 30 years of development down the tubes. Of all programs I would like this one to continue.

And finally I don't believe that he would develop smarter weapon systems, he just said he would cut and slow our development of future weapon systems.

That's what I got out of it when I watched it.

I looked at his proposals as well and found 4 in the economy area that contridicted each other and threw that big binder book in the trash.

[generaladm]

Originally Posted by BuckeyeMike80

So me where he doubts the holocaust? Or where he says that homosexuals should be executed? Or how about he promises to annihilate Israel?? Start there first before you go through the strawman BS below.....

Which is worse? Discounting the holocaust, spouting homophobia, and threatening Israel; or blatantly falsifying intelligence to create the grounds for decalring war against a largely non-threatening country for the purpose of profit? At this point, Ahmadinejad is all talk. Bush has waged a real war that has resulted in tens of thousands of real casualties. The fact that Bush's lies directly led to over 4,000 US military deaths in an unnecessary war makes him much more despicable than any crackpot who makes empty threats.

Originally Posted by BuckeyeMike80

You do realize that the average Iranian likely doesn't HAVE a clear view of what and who President Bush is right? You also realize that the average Iranian probably also only gets whatever news is fed to him by his government. There is a subtle reason why the Nutjob et. al are saying they'll annihilate israel/us/Europe and all that other stuff - they are slowly losing control of their country. The furor of their religious revolution that brought the mullahs to power in the late 70s has waned with the next generation.

Ever hear of Sean Hannity? If the truth about the Bush administration's misdeeds had been reported truthfully, he would have been impeached long ago. Ask Scott McClellan about governments feeding people lies.

Originally Posted by BuckeyeMike80

Straw man rejected for 3 reasons:

1) Iran has a large standing Army. Iran is 8th worldwide and has the largest number of "paramilitary" in the world. List of countries by number of active troops - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2) Iran does not have a large military coalition or a web of treaties like the United States/UK/Canada have. If someone tangles with Canada, that brings the US and the UK into it along with NATO.

3) Iran and Iraq have never had a "treaty" like the US and Canada has. The reason the US and the Canadians have the longest undefended border in the world is because the Canadians know that we'll look after them, so to speak.


Iran is acting like Iran because they are the spoiled kid on stage and want to be the center of attention. their leadership thinks they, as a country, are destined to bring the Mahdi back (think Rapture). Rationalize it all you want, but our current President isn't anywhere near that level of crazy.

And I still don't quite understand how or what this has to do with Barack Obama.

1) If you had bothered to click on this link: Military of Iran - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, you would would have learned that the paramilitary numbers listed in your link are overstated by about %1000, and most members are lightly trained volunteers. Also, "large" is a relative term, compared to the US armed forces, Iran's are about 1/3 the size.

2) In hypothetical land, treaties don't matter. I was merely reversing the roles of the US and Iran. My point was that if a country from half way around the world invaded a bordering country, and we were militarilly outmatched, you would see our leaders calling for the destruction of the aggressor by any means, including guerilla warfare (terrorism). Guerilla warfare is the only way a country can defend itself from a superior military power.

I'm not going to defend or rationalize Iran's actions or policies. They are a potential danger to their region. But to say that communication (Obama connection) with them and their neighbors is useless because their leader is a crackpot is short-sighted. It may not prove to be the solution, but the strategy of threatening to bomb them back to the stone age (whether sung to a Beach Boy's tune or not) only exacerbates the situation exponentially. I'm surprised you don't see what this has to do with Obama, seeing as you're the one who diverted the discussion this way.

Originally Posted by BuckeyeMike80
Iran's leadership thinks they are on a mission from God himself

[BuckeyeMike80]

Originally Posted by generaladm

Which is worse? Discounting the holocaust, spouting homophobia, and threatening Israel; or blatantly falsifying intelligence to create the grounds for decalring war against a largely non-threatening country for the purpose of profit? At this point, Ahmadinejad is all talk. Bush has waged a real war that has resulted in tens of thousands of real casualties. The fact that Bush's lies directly led to over 4,000 US military deaths in an unnecessary war makes him much more despicable than any crackpot who makes empty threats.

So to you President Bush is worse than Nutjob in Iran? And we wonder why political discourse in this country is about as worthless as hoping for a Cooper team to beat Michigan in the 90s.

Typical.....

Ever hear of Sean Hannity? If the truth about the Bush administration's misdeeds had been reported truthfully, he would have been impeached long ago. Ask Scott McClellan about governments feeding people lies.

As if this is the first administration to lie. Better yet, as if this administration is the first to lie that ended up leading to military deaths. Hell Obama lies all the damned time too, that's what politicians do. It's all about who and why they are reporting it and the spin those individuals put on it. As for Sean Hannity, do you REALLY think anyone actually listens to the guy? Or that pussy Colmes either for that matter? Other than the 2 million or so who actually watch Fox News (give or take), I seriously doubt you can any take news person seriously no matter the network. And Hannity and Colmes aren't even that, they are biased observers who want to give their opinions what happenings just to get people like YOU riled up (since you seem to care so much).....same goes for Olbermann, same goes for Dobbs, all of them.

As for the "lies" of the Iraq campaign, that's been covered about a million times over. They didn't have to lie to prove that Saddam was a threat. And while we did find SOME WMD type stuff, it wasn't anywhere near the level or scope of what was presented to the Useless Nations. I don't see anyone here debating that except you.

1) If you had bothered to click on this link: Military of Iran - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, you would would have learned that the paramilitary numbers listed in your link are overstated by about %1000, and most members are lightly trained volunteers. Also, "large" is a relative term, compared to the US armed forces, Iran's are about 1/3 the size.

First off, you understand that their standing Army is larger than ours right? Now any war with those regular forces will turn out very very badly for the Iranians, but that's not the only people we would have to deal with. It's those irregular forces that we would have to deal with on an every day basis if/WHEN the war with Iran kicks off. Disregarding them blatantly is a dumb idea.

Now I think we have the Low Intensity Combat or LIC problem beaten - we have the right equipment and our troops adapted to it as well as anyone could have, but that would still be an issue.

2) In hypothetical land, treaties don't matter. I was merely reversing the roles of the US and Iran. My point was that if a country from half way around the world invaded a bordering country, and we were militarily outmatched, you would see our leaders calling for the destruction of the aggressor by any means, including guerilla warfare (terrorism). Guerilla warfare is the only way a country can defend itself from a superior military power.

Except the hypothetical has absolutely no basis in reality. We can argue hypo-patheticals ( ) all night long, but I don't have the time and neither do you.

I'm not going to defend or rationalize Iran's actions or policies. They are a potential danger to their region. But to say that communication (Obama connection) with them and their neighbors is useless because their leader is a crackpot is short-sighted. It may not prove to be the solution, but the strategy of threatening to bomb them back to the stone age (whether sung to a Beach Boy's tune or not) only exacerbates the situation exponentially. I'm surprised you don't see what this has to do with Obama, seeing as you're the one who diverted the discussion this way.

Originally Posted by BuckeyeMike80
Iran's leadership thinks they are on a mission from God himself

Who said useless? I said it's incredibly naive to think that talking with them will get anywhere so I guess you could infer the term useless there, especially considering how they'll try to bluster their way through everything, but the effort has to be made no matter how fruitless....The point to this is that Obama can't say or take anything off of the table. Military action (not some stupid measured response either), diplomacy, it all has to have the same goal. Look at what happened this week....Iran says they'll mine the Straits of Hormuz. We can't allow that to happen obviously, but as you know, people will still complain if we have to do something there.

Iran understands right now that they aren't the big dog in the neighborhood. They couldn't beat Iraq even in Iraq's weakened state in the early 2000s and they know that unless they do the LIC type conflict, they can't possibly beat the US either. They understand that even if they start the war they can wear the US home front down. AQ tried it but didn't have the horses in Iraq although they came damned close. Just think what a nation-state could do.

[generaladm]

Originally Posted by Muck

Well sure, not many people in Congress have had all of their elections handed to them without actual opposition.

You do realize that Iran & Iraq are bitter enemies don't you?

I mean we make fun of Canadians and all but the Persian/Arab relationship isn't quite in the same neighborhood.

You can't put blame Obama for Jack Ryan being a sexual deviant and Alan Keyes being a complete outsider in Illinois and a complete asshole to boot.
He did get his ass handed to him in the 2000 senate primary.

I was just making the parallel of bordering a country that gets invaded by an outside aggressor. I could have just as easily used Mexico. My point was that Iran has seen the US stage an unprovoked invasion of their neighbor, they are aware of anti-arab sentiment from the US, and they feel very threatened. I thought the analogy would be more effective than saying, "Imagine if you were an Irani.". The relationship between any countries besides the aggressor and the neighbor to the occupied are irrelevant.

[CookyPuss]

Originally Posted by mooktarr

I heard that Obama refuses to recite the pledge of allegiance, wtf ?

I dunno, let's ask him:

YouTube - Democratic Debate

[ScriptOhio]

[Wingate1217]

Originally Posted by generaladm

Which is worse? Discounting the holocaust, spouting homophobia, and threatening Israel; or blatantly falsifying intelligence to create the grounds for decalring war against a largely non-threatening country for the purpose of profit? At this point, Ahmadinejad is all talk. Bush has waged a real war that has resulted in tens of thousands of real casualties. The fact that Bush's lies directly led to over 4,000 US military deaths in an unnecessary war makes him much more despicable than any crackpot who makes empty threats.

So I suppose President Clinton, the CIA under both Clinton and Bush, MI 5 and almost every intelligence agency in the Western hemisphere falsified the same intelligence....
To accuse Bush of that is well misleading at best.....
Now if you want to talk about his administration's handling of the war that is a totally different story.......

[DaytonBuck]

Originally Posted by generaladm

Which is worse? Discounting the holocaust, spouting homophobia, and threatening Israel; or blatantly falsifying intelligence to create the grounds for decalring war against a largely non-threatening country for the purpose of profit? At this point, Ahmadinejad is all talk. Bush has waged a real war that has resulted in tens of thousands of real casualties. The fact that Bush's lies directly led to over 4,000 US military deaths in an unnecessary war makes him much more despicable than any crackpot who makes empty threats.



Ever hear of Sean Hannity? If the truth about the Bush administration's misdeeds had been reported truthfully, he would have been impeached long ago. Ask Scott McClellan about governments feeding people lies.



1) If you had bothered to click on this link: Military of Iran - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, you would would have learned that the paramilitary numbers listed in your link are overstated by about %1000, and most members are lightly trained volunteers. Also, "large" is a relative term, compared to the US armed forces, Iran's are about 1/3 the size.

2) In hypothetical land, treaties don't matter. I was merely reversing the roles of the US and Iran. My point was that if a country from half way around the world invaded a bordering country, and we were militarilly outmatched, you would see our leaders calling for the destruction of the aggressor by any means, including guerilla warfare (terrorism). Guerilla warfare is the only way a country can defend itself from a superior military power.

I'm not going to defend or rationalize Iran's actions or policies. They are a potential danger to their region. But to say that communication (Obama connection) with them and their neighbors is useless because their leader is a crackpot is short-sighted. It may not prove to be the solution, but the strategy of threatening to bomb them back to the stone age (whether sung to a Beach Boy's tune or not) only exacerbates the situation exponentially. I'm surprised you don't see what this has to do with Obama, seeing as you're the one who diverted the discussion this way.

Originally Posted by BuckeyeMike80
Iran's leadership thinks they are on a mission from God himself

I have many leather bound books

[BuckeyeMike80]

Originally Posted by generaladm

I was just making the parallel of bordering a country that gets invaded by an outside aggressor. I could have just as easily used Mexico. My point was that Iran has seen the US stage an unprovoked invasion of their neighbor, they are aware of anti-arab sentiment from the US, and they feel very threatened. I thought the analogy would be more effective than saying, "Imagine if you were an Irani.". The relationship between any countries besides the aggressor and the neighbor to the occupied are irrelevant.

Who are the Iranis and are they Arabs in the first place???

[Jake]

Bush has waged a real war that has resulted in tens of thousands of real casualties. The fact that Bush's lies directly led to over 4,000 US military deaths in an unnecessary war makes him much more despicable than any crackpot who makes empty threats.

Lies?

Let's see, we jerk around with the UN for 14 months telling Saddam we're coming, we finally get there and can't find WMDs, so the only possible conclusion is Bush lied?

Setting aside the distinct possiblity that Saddam simply made a deal with another country and got them out of Iraq during those 14 months, how does one explain several members of Congress (not to mention Gore and Clinton) saying the same things about Saddam's WMD as far back as the late 1990s? Were they lying, too?

Then there's the best part: apparently, ABC News was laying the groundwork for a not yet elected Bush when they ran a story in 1999 detailing Saddam's history of harboring terrorists, and working to secure nuclear weapons. Hell, they even talk about Saddam's government having discussions with Bin Laden. Were they lying, too?

YouTube - The Saddam Connection To Osama

I'd have more respect for Obama fans if they didn't routinely exhibit an ignorance of history beyond Democratic talking points spewed since 2006.

['BusNative]

Originally Posted by Jake

Bush has waged a real war that has resulted in tens of thousands of real casualties. The fact that Bush's lies directly led to over 4,000 US military deaths in an unnecessary war makes him much more despicable than any crackpot who makes empty threats.

Lies?

Let's see, we jerk around with the UN for 14 months telling Saddam we're coming, we finally get there and can't find WMDs, so the only possible conclusion is Bush lied?

Setting aside the distinct possiblity that Saddam simply made a deal with another country and got them out of Iraq during those 14 months, how does one explain several members of Congress (not to mention Gore and Clinton) saying the same things about Saddam's WMD as far back as the late 1990s? Were they lying, too?

Then there's the best part: apparently, ABC News was laying the groundwork for a not yet elected Bush when they ran a story in 1999 detailing Saddam's history of harboring terrorists, and working to secure nuclear weapons. Hell, they even talk about Saddam's government having discussions with Bin Laden. Were they lying, too?

YouTube - The Saddam Connection To Osama

I don't want to fight you on this, Jake, but this is a tough sell and probably the wrong argument to get behind.