I'm an optimist or the Merlot is kicking in. Again, in your media PR wisdom, can you point out where Mr McNerney is back tracking.
My viewpoints are slowly fading away from liberal intervention wrt military policy. There's not a lot of long term success in the past 20 years when we have pursued this policy. Most of it isn't because we made the wrong decision but rather the nature of American politics makes it highly difficult for us to follow through any endeavor. Once we pick up a wounded bird, such as Darfur, to clean and tend to its wounds, do we just let it fly back into the nature that hurt it the first place? Or do we keep it caged, while feeding it with no definite release in sight? Most likely, whatever we do, we do it halfway, and that type of interventionist policy is the worst way to go. Furthermore, (I might be stealing the sage words of Brzezinski, Scowcroft, Huntington but it is so accurate and widely ignored) there is a growing political awareness around the world that rocks all cultures to the bone, even if political Islam is the most prominent. It is not a salient ideal to impose a directionless and passive liberal way of life anymore. This is because our view of liberalism is borne out of free markets and self determination, whereas several cultures are nationalistic and collectivist. Also, as a result of 19th century imperialism and its drawn borders, the internet and satellite media has begun to erase those artificial constructs and groups are coalescing into a pan regional identity. Yet these identities can be neither liberalist nor "free" in our cultural point of view. They definitely are deterministic, and that deterministic sentiment is what makes them strong, heard, and unified. An example of this is the growing political influence of Christian fundamentalism in our backyard. Sure, we can strive for a secular Iraq, but how do we react when they vote from their own free will to consecrate a theocratic Iraq through open and democratic election? Do we free them again only for them to repeat the process? Perhaps we just re-enforce the iron bars of the bird cage and leave it at that for now.
You are a joke. There isn't one person in the whole world that knows me personally that thinks I'm a liberal. You label me that just because I disagree with you. You are completely blind to what I'm pointing out because you can only see a dichotomy, as if you are color-blind. It's either people like you or "liberals". You remind me of some folks I meet for the first time who just cannot conceive that I dislike both major parties, a lot. Their attitude is why don't you just join a side (party) and defend it? FWIW, NYer, I've ripped liberal Democrats here on many many occasions here and been blasted for it. There are a good many issues where I take the "conservative" side. It would surprise you, obviously. By the way, you still haven't answered my questions about the surge. Still waiting. If you don't mind, just stick to facts and leave out the political labels.
you are acting like one. so ya know the saying, if the hat fits, let him wear it. perhaps if your reactions were not so caustic and quick to personalize, you wouldn't come across as a defensive liberal...i label that not because you disagree, but you resort to personal attacks when you can not debate - usually a good indicator that someone is very partisan and when faced with a challenge, results to using whatever means possible to try to "win" an argument by digging up dirt or tarring their counterpart in the discussion. Politicians do this all the time - the more partisan they are, the more then tend to do it. personally i detest our two party system, and i blame both sides for the the acrimony and division today in our country....there isn't a moderate party for the middle of the country to embrace - we're forced to choose between two sides that are both wrong and can only hope to split them evenly enough to force them to compromise. Each side spews forth it's total garbage and spin.
That is only true if ignore the reason the violence is going down is because the U.S. is cutting deals with the Sunni squads that are undermining the elected govt. of Iraq. You have to ignore that in order to believe that the current drop in violence can result in some political successes. As far as getting rid of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the best thing we can do to speed that process up is to leave the country.
take a page from sishir - he knows how to respectfully have a discourse with someone. it's why i will always reply to his posts even though i often disagree with his point of view.
both of those conclusions are speculative and conjecture. No one knows the full impact of cutting deals or how much that is a part of it - nor does anyone know what would happen if we left. Except that you have a powder keg of a situation that could erupt into a region conflict with Iran getting involved on one site, turkey on another, and Egypt from yet another. Iraq has the potential to completely destablize the entire region because of the various ethnic groups. What happens if Shiites start murdering the minority Sunnis in droves? Do you think Sunnis in other parts of the Islamic world will not get involved? And leaving Iraq will rid of us Al Qaeda? Base on what precedent? Leaving Afganistan sure didn't do much to quell the Taliban who then gave safe harbour to Al Qaeda. Sorry, I don't see much to back up what you are saying, and rather history points to the opposite happening. We've created a mess, but leaving now will only make that mess turn into a nightmare of catastrophic proportions. It's too risky in my opinion, and if it did destablize the region, we'd be screwed totally. Like I said, there's more at stake here then you realize.
How am I acting like a liberal? Is it because I've asked questions and made comments about the surge that you refuse to answer? That's exactly what I'm talking about. Defining the subject under discussion as "conservative" vs. "liberal" by people like you automatically degrades the discussion. Digging up dirt? You mean by quoting something you just posted? Personalize? Oh my goodness. It figures you start responding on a sidetrack issue instead of the main point. Talking to you is like pulling teeth. I see why so many here flame you. "Defensive liberal"? Wait till I tell this to a couple of my friends. It will be good for a laugh. "Spewing garbage and spin?" Your statements in this thread alone show how versed you are.
No. Sorry, but Lenin and Mao are not classic liberals. Classic Liberals are people like Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. You cannot lump Lenin and Mao into Liberalism anymore then you can lump Hitler and Mussolini into conservatism. You can say "here's a line, let's cut it in half," but that's not classic liberalism, Wilsonian liberalism, New Deal liberalism, or Cold War liberalism.
Yep, I'm sure she'd be for killing people so she could make out with their widows. Pathetic. By the way, you do know this soccer fatwa has been around awhile right? http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3265595,00.html
by labeling moderates such as myself as knee jerk conservatives who blame liberals for everything. i'm Bush's biggest critic and yet you pound me as a conservative for not being part of the anti-war rhetoric and blindly against military operations. dealing with your strawmans and caustic attacks is very tiring. People flame me here because of flaws in their character, not mine. There are plenty of people here who I have debated with who do not stoop to that level. Basso and Trader Jorge are great examples of not stooping to that level, I've always been impressed with the way they handle themselves when personally attacked. They show a lot of class that this liberal tilted board doesn't always follow. Perhaps it's because they are in such a minority that they do that. no one sidetracks the issue more when you start throwing out accusations how someone is blind, in denial, muse upon who I am or whatever. Really, if you are going to cry about people not being civil, maybe starting with yourself would be a good first step.
Now Batman, you know we're supposed to be elitist. "Duncish" is so much more sophisticated. "Jobbernowl" also works.
The deals we cut are based on people who have been in Iraq over the long haul and are familiar with the situation there. Their testimonies are displayed in this thread. As far leaving Iraq and Al Qaeda vs. leaving Afghanistan and al-Qaeda is a silly comparison. Al-Qaeda are Sunni, the Taliban was as well. They were allied. The majority in Iraq are Shiite, and at odds with the Taliban. Furthermore Al-Qaeda didn't go to AFghanistan originally to combat a U.S. force there. They did go to Iraq for that reason. Furthermore we know from Al-Qaeda's internal documents that they want us to stay in Iraq. All of those factors point to the best situation for fighting Al-Qaeda in Iraq would for the U.S. presence to withdraw. There is plenty to back up what I am saying, you just choose to ignore it to keep trying some of your contradictory experiments.
Wow. Just wow. To the "liberals" and lefties here, I don't agree with you on a lot of things. But on this guy, I do 100%. NYer is a special talent.
Yep, he was cool. Whatever happened to that guy anyway? I gotta say I'd trade him for this clown noobie rocketsjukeya anytime.
The problem is that even Petraeus says that we have to withdraw sometime. The surge to me strikes me as a bandaid without considering what's causing the bleeding in the first place. Citing Petraeus again though he is on record as saying that military victory isn't possible in Iraq. There have been periods of relative calm before in Iraq since 2003 but those have proven to be short lived in localized. We don't know whether that is the case with the surge but there's nothing that would definatively say that progress seen now isn't illusory. Once again with the liberals... Ignoring that for the moment my own opinion of the surge is that it is a waste and is trying to solve a symptom rather than a cause. The momentum of creating localized security can't last unless there is a political structure to guarentee that over the long term.
