Romney isn't President, don't have to worry about protesting wars again. Election’s Over, Can We Focus on the Wars Now? Ed Krayewski|Nov. 8, 2012 1:59 pm Is there a charitable interpretation of much of the left’s silence about Barack Obama’s war policies? Either they don’t know about them, they don’t care about them or they find building the welfare state a more urgent cause than dismantling the warfare state. Maybe they assume he wouldn't be a Nobel Peace Prize laureate if he weren't a peacemakrer? You can suggest other interpretations in the comments. Nevertheless, while Barack Obama built a name for himself on his 2002 opposition to the Iraq War (as a state senator out of Hyde Park, Chicago, mind you, where supporting the Iraq War would have been political suicide), he made it clear on the campaign trail he wasn’t a non-interventionist. He promised if there was information on Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts in Pakistan and the Pakistani government didn’t act on it, he would. You couldn’t get through the campaign season without hearing at least one Obama booster (or even the president himself) trumpeting that kept promise. Ending the war in Iraq was another promise Obama ran on in 2008. He claims he’s kept it and campaigned on ending the Iraq war. Obama, of course, actually tried to renege on the status of forces agreement negotiated under President Bush and extend the war in Iraq. The war in Afghanistan, meanwhile, continues. There are more troops there now than there were when Obama took office. The president, having opposed the surge in Iraq, ordered one in Afghanistan. Any opportunities for resolution created by the surge, however, were promptly wasted by his government. Afghanistan’s grim milestones (2,000th dead U.S. soldier earlier this year) received a lot less attention than such milestones did during Bush’s prosecution of the Iraq war. Barack Obama called Afghanistan the good war in 2008, but in 2012 the mission in Afghanistan is as muddled and open-ended as the mission in Iraq ever was. Yet these two wars, seared into the public consciousness over the last decade, are far from a complete picture of American war abroad in the age of Obama. The president’s war in Libya received scant attention during the campaign trail. Congress never approved the action, but never did anything about being ignored either. An ambassador and three other Americans were killed by militants in Benghazi on 9/11, but the incident has been decontextualized from the initial intervention in Libya that very well may have helped lead to it. Though America’s intervention in Libya went along unchallenged, there was some measure of debate in Congress about its legitimacy. Not so for America’s drone war, accelerated at an outstanding pace since Barack Obama took office. In Pakistan, where statistics are clearest (though still quite murky, remember, the whole thing is technically a secret), there were about 46 drone strikes in Pakistan from 2004 until the end of the George W. Bush’s presidency. Since then, there have been about 288, likely killing more than 2,000 people. (Numbers from the New America Foundation, which undercounts civilian casualties). Most victims of drone strikes are identified as “militants” by the U.S. government. What’s a militant? A Muslim male of military age, according to the definition the government uses. The government, led by a president who “cares,” even targets rescuers and funerals, under the doctrine that anyone who would come to the aid of or to mourn a militant must be a militant too (you’re either with us or against us). Under Obama’s auspices, this drone war has extended from Pakistan to include Yemen and Somalia. Barack Obama’s victory Tuesday is being ascribed at least in part to empathy. Maybe he can spare some for these kids: George W. Bush’s critics (many on the left) skewered him for authorizing waterboarding, placing the issue on political center stage in his second term and forcing his apologists to insist it wasn’t torture. Barack Obama’s war critics so far have numbered much fewer, his apologists preferring to see no evil rather than having to engage or justify it. Here's hoping that changes in the second term. http://reason.com/blog/2012/11/08/elections-over-can-we-focus-on-the-wars
Republcians want to stop wars now? Excellent! So now you guys are for immigration reform, mar1juana legalization and no more wars. In just a few days. amazing
Bull$h!t. If you cared so much about the wars, why not talk about it BEFORE or DURING the election? Truth is, you're deflecting attention away from the fact that your party got soundly TROUNCED and their (and your) whole narrative was flushed down the drain by the citizens of this country. Oh, and FYI, you're not focusing on the wars either.
It is now time to focus on the War on Wealth. To quote anther poster in another thread, we will have "trickle up poverty".
The pictures you posted are unnecessary. We all know the travesties involved in war, so why post pics of children? You aren't shocking us. More than anything, we see it's a weak attempt on your part to divert attention from the epic defeat Romney received. Your party spent the last 4 years damaging the United States, and when you had your opportunity on Tuesday to gain some power, your guy didn't even win the popular vote. You don't even have the grounds for posting anything related to war when your American failure, George W, started the single most idiotic war ever. You have no room to speak on unwarranted deaths. Wash your hands clean and move on. America is progressing with or without you.
Do you have enough wealth to get targetted in the war on wealth, or will you just sacrifice yourself so that the wealthiest people may continue to live?
The photo is directly from the article. Sorry you can't face it. I had nothing to do with the war. I actually was dumb enough to vote Green party in 2000. Again the cultists cant deal with Obama's realities without saying "Bush" did it.
I am not wealthy myself. I do however work for wealthy people or rather a wealthy international corporation. When their profits drop, they look for ways to cut things to make them up like laying people off and combining jobs, giving very crappy healthcare (since Obamacare), and/or raising prices. Attacking the rich has an adverse affect on the middle class. It usually moves more middle class people to the poor class. I can only assume that is the overall goal. The more people living off of the government the more people voting for the Democrats. It is self defeating for the Democrats to try to elevate anyone.
That's a silly theory. It's better for the whole nation including Democrats to have a strong middle class. It is not self defeating at all to move people from impoverished to the middle class.
^This. Why don't you go and scrounge up 200,000 photos of the dead innocent civilians (before Obama) directly resulting from the wars Bush/Cheney started -for profit, and that the Republican party perpetuated- for profit, then start a thread in 2008 titled "GOP voters, Now look what the **** we've done."
Threads like this make me sick. You're quickly joining the ranks of bigtex, basso, (insert self righteous radical right here), where the only time you all give a flying fk about people who are suffering is when you can use it for your gain.
Franchise, I will not start a back and forth with you. Your guy won. I hope the Republicans let the Democrats have whatever tax policy they want. I don't really care if they do like France and tax at 75%. Let them have it and tie them to it. I am tired of all the liberal BS. I personally think the Republicans saved Obama from himself with gridlock. Let him have whatever he wants. The only things they should obstruct are laws that increase abortions, limit religion, or limit guns.
Support for the war was not only nearly unanimous within the GOP, but bipartisan. Half the Democrats in the Senate and key Democratic leaders in the House joined Republicans in the march to war. Consider this abbreviated list of prominent Democrats who supported the Iraq War: Joe Biden, Harry Reid, Steny Hoyer, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Richard Gephardt, John Kerry, John Edwards, Joe Lieberman, and Robert Wexler. All of these Democratic leaders, many of them potential presidents, had less sense than a congressional backbencher from Texas who mainly wanted to give speeches about Austrian economics. Seven Republican members of Congress voted against the Iraq War—six congressmen and one senator. The number of conservative legislators who opposed the war was even smaller still, the redoubtable trio of Jimmy Duncan, John Hostettler, and Ron Paul. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/who-killed-rudy-giuliani/
Obama's stance on drone bombing is despicable. However, his appointment of liberal justices to SCOTUS means that just on that alone, he will have moved the needle on the fight for civil liberties beyond anything a Republican president would do, lest we forget that Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito voted to uphold suspending habeas corpus for prisoners through the technicality of the "territorial supremacy" of a foreign power. The problem for America is that there is a pick and choose between three distinct poisons---a moderate centrist ruling party that has to pander to the right on security issues, and thus has to endorse despicable tactics, a rightist ruling party that could care less about sacrificing anything for "security", and a far-right movement that might have some good ideas socially speaking, but terrible ones economically speaking. A social democratic government with a strengthened hand at civil liberties would be ideal, though I do not think the United States will ever enjoy the privilege.
