The story of one man who went to Baghdad to be a human shield.
The people he describes are the people that the Democratic party now wants us to abandon, for “budgetary” reasons. If we walk away now, we consign them to a new hell, either with a new dictator, the return of the old one, or some religious fundamentalist state. Staying will be hard. But the right thing to do is never the easy thing.
(Thanks to Jim Woosley, who sent me the link.)
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Okay … ONE MORE TIME — in answer to the "Free Speech" argument:
For exactly the reason she said. This is her private forum and she don’t have to foot the electronic bill to have up anti-war rhetoric when she has a different view. In other words, this ain’t a free speech forum.
I note that she left intact dissenting views that approached their opinion with logic and reason and not just "Bush is a moron" type posts.
It’s good to see a conservative is so honest in her appreciation of free speech.
Oh, and if your point of view is so obviously right, why do dissenting points of view have to be deleted?
I am passionate in the defense of free speech. I also, however, happen to know what free speech is, which you have now TWICE demonstrated that you do not. I strongly suggest you educate yourself before you post here again. — Holly
On the budgetary debate, I’ll note that I was wrong. I’ve been doing addititional reading, and have found that we do have ways of financing the rebuilding of Iraq that DON’T have to come out of our pockets. Fine. We should do that. We need to stay. We need to rebuild. We need to be there as long as it takes to do the job right. But we DON’T have any obligation to pay debts that Saddam Hussein incurred.
NOTE TO THOSE WHOSE POSTS WERE OR WILL BE DELETED: I’m not providing a forum for anti-war folks to vent their spleen. If you happen to think that the world, Iraq, and the Iraquis would all be better off with Saddam Hussein still in charge of Iraq, you may think that. If you post along those lines, however, I’ll simply delete your post. Private stupidity is one thing, but I see no reason why I should have to foot the bill for its public airing.
I think a lot of the diminished support for President Bush’s Iraq policies is directly tied to biased news reporting and influence.
I supported him then and I support him now. He said from the beginning this was not a short term project, nor a cheap one.
We, as a culture, are being more and more addicted to "immediate gratification". Some things take time. Some things are worth the wait. Surely the rebuilding of a country, the "chance" given to an entire nation (and perhaps an entire region) are one of those things.
It is easy to pass judgement on what has not been found… what has been found is an interest in nuclear weapons, and that is enough for me to say "well done". Dictators usually act on interests.
Just an opinion.
I’m not sure I quite follow that crack about farmers and snail darters. From the link you gave, the total budget of the Department of Agriculture is about $72 billion. In addition to farm subsidies, that includes the school lunch program, food stamps, crop insurance, and food safety programs. They don’t break out the amount devoted to harassing farmers, but the crop insurance program is only about $3 billion, or 12 days worth of Iraq reconstruction and occupation costs.
The Department of Interior’s total budget is about $10 billion dollars, and includes the salary of every single Park Service employee, including the ones who keep stupid hikers from killing themselves. They don’t break out the snail darter budget, but the total devoted to endangered species protection, $129 million, would cover about 12 hours of Iraq occupation and reconstruction costs.
Assuming, of course, that the costs of occupying and reconstructing Iraq don’t exceed the $87 billion that the administration is currently willing to admit to.
I was (and am) opposed to President Jr’s war as he ran it, but now that we’ve destroyed what little remained of Iraq, we can’t leave her people to twist in the wind, however much it costs us. With a little luck, the ensuing financial quagmire may help the Bushies acquire some much-needed and long-overdue humility.
Let’s see. In spite of liberal foot-dragging at home and pro-Saddam-ism here and elsewhere and the obstructionism of the UN, Bush won the war in a couple of months, without huge damage to the Iraqui infrastructure (which was in shit shape to begin with) or huge loss of life to either our troops or Iraqui civilians, and is currently doing a kick-ass job of rebuilding the country (which took us seven YEARS to do in Japan) with reasonable estimates that there will be a democratic vote within twelve months and that we’ll be able to hand off completely to the Iraqis in a few years, for about the same amount of money that we’ll be spending to protect snail darters and harass farmers who want to farm their land as taken from the current Oct 14th 2003 US budget.
As opposed to the Kennedy/Johnson/Democrat-controlled House and Senate who took fifteen years to fucking micromanage and lose a war that competent leadership could have won.
And Bush is supposed to deserve a comeuppance for doing well.
This attitude is simply stupid.
Ummm…. I think the proposal that has actually been made in the Senate calls for the Bush administration to offer a detailed plan for reconstruction, and makes further financing contingent on following that plan. See link.
Seems pretty reasonable to me. Financial oversight *is* Congress’s job, after all.
I find it ironic that the media seldom reports the number of Iraqis now trained to be policeman, the newly opened hospitals, the establishing of schools where none were before. I guess Bush just can’t get it right, can he?
Yup.
I was (and am) opposed to President Jr’s war as he ran it, but now that we’ve destroyed what little remained of Iraq, we can’t leave her people to twist in the wind, however much it costs us. With a little luck, the ensuing financial quagmire may help the Bushies acquire some much-needed and long-overdue humility.
You’re welcome, as always.
And of course I agree. 🙂
Thank you Holly for sharing that. I have a couple military friends who came back from Baghdad, and they claim it was so powerful to see such a welcome. Sadly the mass media doesn’t seem to care about the good that’s coming from this.
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