Whoa: Obama worried about voters' despair, will lower expectations

[findingmesomeday]

Originally Posted by Joe_Ryder

Every single freaking time! They're all a bunch of liars. Or maybe they actually believe the crap they say but it's always the same. There isn't enough money on the planet for even 1% of Obamas wonderful ideas and McCain doesn't seem to understand that occupational armies have accounted for the downfall of every western empire so far. McCain will HAVE to raise Taxes to support the war or he'll have to quit. We shouldn't have gone to Iraq in the first place but we won the war in 72 hours and then decided to stay and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Obama's promises would make a really great world to live in but I live here in the real world. Here in the real world it takes a little more than words and wishes to make things happen.

This is a bit off topic for this thread but since people keep bringing up Iraq.

Whether or not you believe we should have gone in there in the first place is moot, IMO. We did, and you are right--as the most powerful nation in the world, we were easily able to topple a dictator's regime and do it in very short order.

The problem, in my opinion, is that we went in without a clear exit strategy on how to get out. Or maybe there just isn't a good exit strategy for that kind of situation, given the political and cultural climate of the Arabic countries. I'm not a White House insider so I don't know. I do know that WMD or not, I firmly believe that if we hadn't gone into Iraq when we did, at some point, Saddam would have made some kind of aggressive move in that area of the world that would have destabilized things even further and *THAT* would have been a threat to our national security. So if nothing else, I supported the war in Iraq as a preventive measure to protect our security.

And for the people who I see complain (in real life and on C-D) about the USA pushing it's military might around---well, we do have the strongest military and that establishes us at the top of the pecking order in this world. Someone has to be at the top. That's just the way it works. And if it's not the United States it would likely be China. Would you rather have that? Not me . That scares me more than Obama.

[Joe_Ryder]

Originally Posted by findingmesomeday

This is a bit off topic for this thread but since people keep bringing up Iraq.

Whether or not you believe we should have gone in there in the first place is moot, IMO. We did, and you are right--as the most powerful nation in the world, we were easily able to topple a dictator's regime and do it in very short order.

The problem, in my opinion, is that we went in without a clear exit strategy on how to get out. Or maybe there just isn't a good exit strategy for that kind of situation, given the political and cultural climate of the Arabic countries. I'm not a White House insider so I don't know. I do know that WMD or not, I firmly believe that if we hadn't gone into Iraq when we did, at some point, Saddam would have made some kind of aggressive move in that area of the world that would have destabilized things even further and *THAT* would have been a threat to our national security. So if nothing else, I supported the war in Iraq as a preventive measure to protect our security.

And for the people who I see complain (in real life and on C-D) about the USA pushing it's military might around---well, we do have the strongest military and that establishes us at the top of the pecking order in this world. Someone has to be at the top. That's just the way it works. And if it's not the United States it would likely be China. Would you rather have that? Not me . That scares me more than Obama.

I was only using that as an example and didn't mean to take the thread off course. I never had any objection to taking ol' Saddam out of commission. I do have a problem with another police action. The point is that a long term siege is very expensive and kind of pointless. That part of the world has always been unstable and we won't be changing that. All we can really do is swat them down if they become a threat. I'm sure the French won't like that but that's just too bad. Continuing to throw lives and money at a police action is like herding cats. Obama wants to go over and talk to them. That's just as much a waste of time.