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It seems that the Democrats have a fair share of evangelicals in their house. One need only look to the handling of the abortion issue within obamacare.
Democrats have a lot of Catholics...thus the issues in health care reform. Very few white born agains vote democratic.
Last edited by Randomstudent; 06-16-2010 at 07:39 PM..
I think you have to look at the possible ramifications of pulling out of anywhere or risk a similar ending to Vietnam.
I believe there is no foreign policy that can appease terrorists and the old saying always applies when it comes to pleasing all of the people all of the time.
As to the first part, the important reasoning behind being critical of engaging in foreign entanglements, no one wants to risk another Vietnam.
You would be right, there is no foreign policy that would appease terrorist, at the same time there is evidence that our current foreign policy has or will defeat terrorism.
A larger point here is that at one time, conservatives in America were far more critical of engaging in nation building, foreign adventures and interventionism. They tended to favor both personal and national self sufficiency and opposed dependence upon foreign sources of cheap goods, cheap labor, and cheap energy. They sought solutions more internally than externally. This is not to say that there will be no cases where we have to intervene, but when we do so it is done so under a premise of critical analysis and healthy debate. There was a time when the United States looked upon the British empire as a fools endeavor, yet here we are today.
I have a couple of questions for the neo's.
While we ran up 700 billion $ in debt and built hospital,schools and infrastructure in Iraq,in 2007 their gvt had a 200 billion $ surplus.Is that what victory looks like?
POTUS Bush told us that oil revenues would pay for the war,did we get any free oil for our countries reserves?did you get a free fill up? did any money come from Iraq to help pay for the war and other?
What would happen if there was a real complete withdrawl?The Bush doctrine is spreading democracy and freedom and it will take care of everything? If we left would there be a civil war? What does neo con victory look like?
Was it our interest to make sure the Exxon Mobile received one of the 3 biggest oil fields?Are our troops being used as corporate mercenaries? Is this what victory looks like?
Is victory protecting corporate interest on the backs of the tax payers or Barnanke printing money thus running up debt? Why are neo cons against the idea of a war tax proposed by Obey to pay for the Nobel goal of spreading freedom?
Please tell us what victory looks like?
As to the first part, the important reasoning behind being critical of engaging in foreign entanglements, no one wants to risk another Vietnam.
You would be right, there is no foreign policy that would appease terrorist, at the same time there is evidence that our current foreign policy has or will defeat terrorism.
A larger point here is that at one time, conservatives in America were far more critical of engaging in nation building, foreign adventures and interventionism. They tended to favor both personal and national self sufficiency and opposed dependence upon foreign sources of cheap goods, cheap labor, and cheap energy. They sought solutions more internally than externally. This is not to say that there will be no cases where we have to intervene, but when we do so it is done so under a premise of critical analysis and healthy debate. There was a time when the United States looked upon the British empire as a fools endeavor, yet here we are today.
I may be wrong but I think you need to look at the overall mood of the country when these wars were started, I think you will find that a vast majority of the country was all for them. Many things have changed since then but the one thing that IMHO we cannot do is pull out at the wrong time and let it fall back into terrorist, tyrannical, rule. That will do no one any good, in fact is could be disastrous.
After the major fighting in Iraq was over what should we have done besides what we have and are doing, that is to rebuild and instill a sense of freedom. I do not see that as nation building but rebuilding.
Afghanistan is another story, the Russians could not finish the job there but I am afraid we will have to and I agree that we should be there for the long term. With the recent findings of wealth the people should be much more inclined to want a government by, for and of the people to be able to share in it.
we spend 250 billion a year on our foreign bases worldwide, this doesnt even include afghanistan and iraq. what are we doing in germany 70 years after the war ? or in korea, or arabia. what are we doing anywhere when have so many problems at home.
what is all this gonna mean when our currency crisis and national debt drives us off a cliff. we use communist china like a credit card to force our western values on cultures that have nothing in common in with us. how can you not stop and think, what the heck is going on. we are slaves to commies and middle east oil gangsters.
I may be wrong but I think you need to look at the overall mood of the country when these wars were started, I think you will find that a vast majority of the country was all for them. Many things have changed since then but the one thing that IMHO we cannot do is pull out at the wrong time and let it fall back into terrorist, tyrannical, rule. That will do no one any good, in fact is could be disastrous.
After the major fighting in Iraq was over what should we have done besides what we have and are doing, that is to rebuild and instill a sense of freedom. I do not see that as nation building but rebuilding.
Afghanistan is another story, the Russians could not finish the job there but I am afraid we will have to and I agree that we should be there for the long term. With the recent findings of wealth the people should be much more inclined to want a government by, for and of the people to be able to share in it.
The mood of the country as promoted in our press was decidedly different than what echoed within the military and intelligence communities.
Quote:
On July 28, 2002, eight months before the invasion of Iraq, the Washington Post reported that “many senior U.S. military officers†including members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff opposed an invasion on the grounds that the policy of containment was working.
A few days later, Gen. Joseph P. Hoar (Ret.) warned the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the invasion was risky and perhaps unnecessary.
Morton Halperin, a foreign policy expert with the Council on Foreign Relations and Center for American Progress warned that an invasion would increase the terrorist threat.
Brent Scowcroft, who served as National Security Adviser to President George H.W. Bush was an early critic. He wrote an August 15, 2002 editorial in The Wall Street Journal entitled "Don't attack Saddam," arguing that the war would distract from the broader fight against terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which should be the U.S.'s highest priority in the Middle East. The next month, Gen. Hugh Shelton, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agreed that war in Iraq would distract from the War on Terrorism
By January 19, 2003, TIME Magazine reported that “as many as 1 in 3 senior officers questions the wisdom of a preemptive war with Iraq.â€
However, among the bulk of contemporary Republicans along with a majority of Democrats, there wasn't even a questioning of the wisdom, it was go or be considered Anti-American as I personally found out for my views questioning the wisdom of invading Iraq. (not to mention a death threat)
Now that we are there and neck deep in the quagmire, things are decidedly more difficult and we find ourselves asking, just how long, how much should we spend in treasure and blood before we say, "victory" and come home. After all, it is a physical impossibility to end all threats of terrorism or the mindset that breeds these people by military means and this is something our own military agrees with.
I would ask that folks return to the OP and stare closely at those pie charts showing the amounts of our national wealth we dedicate to our military apparatus, and just ask, what is the harm of looking for waste or adopting tools and equipment that are best suited for the type of wars we are most likely to engage in. It is simply too much money that we are spending today and to even mention it, has an almost taboo, don't touch the sacred cow connotation to it.
Democrats have a lot of Catholics...thus the issues in health care reform. Very few white born agains vote democratic.
Latest stats show that there are roughly half as many evangelicals who vote democrat as there are who vote republican. Obviously not all were Catholic.
"The former prime minister robustly defended his decision to take Britain to war against Saddam Hussein in 2003 because he believed "beyond doubt" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
He insisted that the joint intelligence committee's assessments were consistently strong that Iraq had a WMD programme.
"It was at least reasonable for me at the time, given this evidence of what the JIC was telling me, that this was a threat I should take very seriously," he said.
"All the intelligence we received was to the same effect. There were people perfectly justifiably and sensibly also saying that you cannot sit around and wait ... you have got to take action clearly and definitively.
"I decided that this intelligence justified our [understanding] that Saddam continued to pose a significant WMD threat.""
Latest stats show that there are roughly half as many evangelicals who vote democrat as there are who vote republican. Obviously not all were Catholic.
As much as I like Pew polls (They sited the highest count of Pagans in the U.S a while back at 1.2 million) that 2007 poll did not pan out in the 2008 election. According to the 2008 exit polls only about 25% of white evangelicals voted Democratic. This accounted for about 13% of the total democratic vote...this is compared to minority religions and atheists who made up about 30% of the total democratic vote despite being a smaller group then white born agains. Catholics made up 29% of the democratic presidential vote share with main line white and non-white protestants making up the remaining 28%. So despite white evangelicals having a national religious plurality or close to it the make up by far the smallest part block democratic voters by religion. This is because they are almost all Republican and thus use the Republicans to push their religious foreign policy agenda.
Primarily through The Office of Special Plans (OSP), which existed from September 2002 to June 2003, was a Pentagon unit created by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, and headed by Feith, as charged by then-United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to supply senior George W. Bush administration officials with raw intelligence (unvetted by intelligence analysts, see Stovepiping) pertaining to Iraq.[1] A similar unit, called the Iranian Directorate, was created several years later, in 2006, to deal with intelligence on Iran
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