Is Obama done?

[cloudy]

And we have to be very careful about this "bringing dictators" down bit. Some of them are in our pockets and are helping us keep the status quo we want.

...as Saddam was until we turned on him.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Hillary wasn't sold on WMDs, I don't think. The Clinton White House was kept in the picture on where they went.

Hillary was a U.S. Senator from the city that got hit the hardest by 9/11. In the emotions of the time, just how well do you think it would have gone over for her to start thinking up reasons not to strike back at someone? Need to try to get real here. She was hemmed in by time/circumstance.

Speaking of the WMD, though, the Bush administration's dumbest thing, I think, was in not salting WMD in Iraq to be found so that all of this argumentation wasn't possible. Nixon would have figured this one out, so Cheney has a way to go yet in the diabolical, clever scheming realm.

And we have to be very careful about this "bringing dictators" down bit. Some of them are in our pockets and are helping us keep the status quo we want.

It was known that Saddam had poison gas at one time, because he used it against Iran and the Kurdish rebels. He may have used it up, or sold it or given it away.

Sometimes the dictator we know is better than whoever it is that might replace him. The Shah of Iran was nowhere near as bad as the current government and Batista was not as bad as Castro.

 

[Pure]

box. It was known that Saddam had poison gas at one time,

box, you're so innocent. of course the West knew. they sold it to him (or its immediate precursors).

outrage over dictators, when spouted by US politicians, is a sometime thing. like outrage over al qaeda methods.

 

[Boxlicker101]

box. It was known that Saddam had poison gas at one time,

box, you're so innocent. of course the West knew. they sold it to him (or its immediate precursors).

outrage over dictators, when spouted by US politicians, is a sometime thing. like outrage over al qaeda methods.

What I'm saying is that the suspected WMD's were not figments of anybody's imagination. It was also known that, at one time, Saddam had medium range ballistic missiles, capable of hitting Saudi Arabia of Israel or the Suez Canal. This was known because he had fired some of them at Israel already.

Almost all American pols are outraged over Al Qaeda methods. As for allies who are dictators, sometimes it is a fact of life. Probably the worst dictator to be an Anglo-American ally was Stalin. To say we "support them" might not be all that accurate. We deal with heads of state, who may be dictators, or may not. We should be willing to deal with any head of state, at least on some level, regardless how that person got to be a head of state.

 

[sr71plt]

It was known that Saddam had poison gas at one time, because he used it against Iran and the Kurdish rebels. He may have used it up, or sold it or given it away.

Sometimes the dictator we know is better than whoever it is that might replace him. The Shah of Iran was nowhere near as bad as the current government and Batista was not as bad as Castro.

God, do I have to keep repeating this? I think I've even responded to you a couple of times on this point. We know most of what he had because we sold/gave it to him to counter the Iranians with. (He also got stuff from the Soviets, but we had a pretty good handle on what/when). And we had pretty good records on what he did with most of it too.

And "the dictator we know" was relevant to Saddam, yes, as I've noted lots of times on these threads.

 

[sr71plt]

What I'm saying is that the suspected WMD's were not figments of anybody's imagination. It was also known that, at one time, Saddam had medium range ballistic missiles, capable of hitting Saudi Arabia of Israel or the Suez Canal. This was known because he had fired some of them at Israel already.

And for the 104th time, we knew he had used most, sold some, and some of it deterioriated. We're not talking figments, we're talking an administration knowing what it wanted to do and making up what suited them to get agreement to do it--and then being dumbies by not simply making sure there were WMDs there to find (the knuckleheads).

 

[Boxlicker101]

God, do I have to keep repeating this? I think I've even responded to you a couple of times on this point. We know most of what he had because we sold/gave it to him to counter the Iranians with. (He also got stuff from the Soviets, but we had a pretty good handle on what/when). And we had pretty good records on what he did with most of it too.

And "the dictator we know" was relevant to Saddam, yes, as I've noted lots of times on these threads.

Yes, we did have some idea of what he had or didn't have, but there was no certainty. The Soviets certainly didn't keep us up to date, and he may have gotten things from former SSR also, and he may have captured some from Iranian forces.

We supported Saddam aginst Iran, but I don't believe we ever supported him against anybody else.

 

[sr71plt]

Yes, we did have some idea of what he had or didn't have, but there was no certainty. The Soviets certainly didn't keep us up to date, and he may have gotten things from former SSR also, and he may have captured some from Iranian forces.

We supported Saddam aginst Iran, but I don't believe we ever supported him against anybody else.

I'll take what you know about what we knew with a bit more than a skosh of salt.

 

[Plainly_Jane]

Condi Rice is a joke as secreary of state. She has no policy and is inept at the ones she attempts. We have no foreign policy except war and threat of war, and now we've shown how hollow that threat is. That's why the dollar has plummeted against the Euro and the Yen, because while European economies are fluorishing, we're pouring money we could be using for investments down this ass-sucking sinkhole of Iraq. The United States is a 20th century nation in a 21st century world. We need a leader who understands this.

Our economy is in a tailspin and it's not going to get better soon. The past seven years under this administration have been catastrophic in so many ways. Our infrastructure is crumbling and there is no money left in the coffers to fix it; it's being sucked away into an endless and pointless war in Iraq. And while Rome burns, President Bush blithely goes on his way, unaware of what the average American must face every day, and not really caring to know.

"You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie!" That's exactly how tuned in this man is to reality.

The only one of the three candidates who seem to be offering some hope for at least attempting to change the way we do business is Obama. McCain is old and tired and ready to spent another 100 years in Iraq; Clinton may be quite good as a Senator but she's firmly entrenched in Washington politics as usual and she supported the invasion of Iraq. Obama may be green, may not have the chops of some other politicians, but he's an extremely intelligent man. He offers hope, for those of us who feel like this nation is floudering on the brink - can he bring us back from the edge if elected? Only time will tell. But he's the only one who I feel would make a real effort to do so. He's the only one of those three who I will give my vote to.

 

[Boxlicker101]

I'll take what you know about what we knew with a bit more than a skosh of salt.

I will readily admit that I don't actually KNOW anything about what we know, except that we knew there had been WMD there earlier.

 

[Belegon]

Yes, we did have some idea of what he had or didn't have, but there was no certainty. The Soviets certainly didn't keep us up to date, and he may have gotten things from former SSR also, and he may have captured some from Iranian forces.

We supported Saddam aginst Iran, but I don't believe we ever supported him against anybody else.

DAMN IT, BOX!

We didn't just support him.

We created him.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

DAMN IT, BOX!

We didn't just support him.

We created him.

I always wonder of these kind of statements aren't the flip side of neocon hubris - rather than asserting nothing good can happen in the world without US involvement, they cite the US as the cause for many if not most of the bad that happens in the world.

 

[sr71plt]

I always wonder of these kind of statements aren't the flip side of neocon hubris - rather than asserting nothing good can happen in the world without US involvement, they cite the US as the cause for many if not most of the bad that happens in the world.

I don't remember having seen him created by anyone myself. We just turned around and there he was. There are dictators the United States put in place (I even fondly remember one who was an agent of ours and then took over in a coup against a leader we really liked and tried to blackmail us to support him), but I don't remember Saddam being one of those. Our problem with him was that he was pure, typical Iraqi. Every option promised to be no or little different.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Our economy is in a tailspin and it's not going to get better soon. The past seven years under this administration have been catastrophic in so many ways. Our infrastructure is crumbling and there is no money left in the coffers to fix it; it's being sucked away into an endless and pointless war in Iraq. And while Rome burns, President Bush blithely goes on his way, unaware of what the average American must face every day, and not really caring to know.

"You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie!" That's exactly how tuned in this man is to reality.

The only one of the three candidates who seem to be offering some hope for at least attempting to change the way we do business is Obama. McCain is old and tired and ready to spent another 100 years in Iraq; Clinton may be quite good as a Senator but she's firmly entrenched in Washington politics as usual and she supported the invasion of Iraq. Obama may be green, may not have the chops of some other politicians, but he's an extremely intelligent man. He offers hope, for those of us who feel like this nation is floudering on the brink - can he bring us back from the edge if elected? Only time will tell. But he's the only one who I feel would make a real effort to do so. He's the only one of those three who I will give my vote to.

And what are the miraculous public policies that will bring us back from this supposed brink? Where are the demonstrated skills to steer complex policy agendas through the obstacle course represented by Congress and executive branch bureacracies - scores of fiefdoms all with their own agendas?

From a post I made on this very subject a year ago:

I thought about a word that seems to be theme in the enthusiasm for this candidate: Hope. Perhaps it's unkind of me to take any of that positive feeling away from anyone, but it doesn't matter because you are bound to be disappointed anyway. And not because Obama is insincere or even that he would be ineffective - for all I know he is sincere, and would be effective once he’s decided which policies to be effective about.

No, you'll be disappointed because you're seeking hope in place where it won’t be found: Politics and government. The hallmark of these is dishonesty and disappointment. The reason isn't because the people involved are necessarily bad or dishonest, but the very structure of the thing. Specifically, two characteristics of it, I think: Bureaucracy and the mutually conflicting policies are are the inevitable outcome of a political process.

Government is at root bureaucracy (backed by coercion.) Bureaucracies are capable of performing routine, repetitive functions that can be laid out in a legal code or manual. Max Weber described one of them (the legal system) as "a vending machine into which the pleadings are inserted together with the fee and which then disgorges the judgment together with the reasons mechanically derived from the Code."

But we have asked bureaucracies to do much, much more; we’ve demanded they do something they are inherently incapable of because it's impossible to break the task down into routines: We've asked them to solve social problems and meet complex human needs.

And that points to the second reason you'll be disappointed if you look to government as a source for hope. The laws that give bureaucracies those missions impossible are themselves filled with contradictions that sabotage the effort from the very start. That's because those laws are created in a political process that balances demands and limits from many different directions. The result is called a "compromise," and it means a program that can't work.

An example those here will appreciate: Yes, we provide welfare, but in amounts small enough to guarantee that no recipient will get really ahead. We insert a trap door - if you make more than X amount the welfare stops. Then we try to counter all these perverse incentives by imposing an intrusive bureaucracy and regulations over these people's lives. (BTW, if you’re response is, “Yeah well we should raise the benefits” – fine. Double them. Nothing fundamental changes, and you create a bunch of new problems. The entire system is a Gordian knot.)

The bottom line is, we have learned in the past century that government is incompetent at dealing with complex human needs.

 

[Belegon]

I always wonder of these kind of statements aren't the flip side of neocon hubris - rather than asserting nothing good can happen in the world without US involvement, they cite the US as the cause for many if not most of the bad that happens in the world.

If you look at my history on various subjects and check my blog (just google) you'll see that while that statement may apply to some, it doesn't apply to me...

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

If you look at my history on various subjects and check my blog (just google) you'll see that while that statement may apply to some, it doesn't apply to me...

Yes, I've seen that right here.

 

[Pure]

canard

rox, we have learned in the past century that government is incompetent at dealing with complex human needs.

"we" being those at the Rand or Von Mises Institutes.

the rest of the Western world has seen government deal with all manner of issues, e.g. health care. and the bureacracy is no worse that your private ones, and nearly every one is covered.

the government dealt with the nazis rather well, and helped get the A bomb rolling. the present government with its 'private contractors' is having an iffy time in iraq.

the government set up space programs too, that have gone rather well.

the "anti government" thing with Americans is one part hypocrisy and one part baloney. all your favorite cos. are at the trough; all the conservatives are getting their 'earmarks.

and your most admired producing country, China, has the government suppressing unions and free speech so the "private" cos. can do their thing.

and this is the sort of stupid debate that occurs "only in America". debating "is government evil/incompetent/ etc. ?" while being happy with one's federally insured savings accounts, is a foolishly broad and vague question. a bit like debating "is family a good thing?"

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

rox, we have learned in the past century that government is incompetent at dealing with complex human needs.

"we" being those at the Rand or Von Mises Institutes.

the rest of the Western world has seen government deal with all manner of issues, e.g. health care. and the bureacracy is no worse that your private ones, and nearly every one is covered.

the government dealt with the nazis rather well, and helped get the A bomb rolling. the present government with its 'private contractors' is having an iffy time in iraq.

the government set up space programs too, that have gone rather well.

the "anti government" thing with Americans is one part hypocrisy and one part baloney. all your favorite cos. are at the trough; all the conservatives are getting their 'earmarks.

and your most admired producing country, China, has the government suppressing unions and free speech so the "private" cos. can do their thing.

and this is the sort of stupid debate that occurs "only in America". debating "is government evil/incompetent/ etc. ?" while being happy with one's federally insured savings accounts, is a foolishly broad and vague question. a bit like debating "is family a good thing?"

Ah yes, the "stations of the cross" for statist orthodoxy: The Good War; the Manhattan Project; the man on the moon boondoggle; the unsustainable, innovation-stifling health care rationing systems of Europe; etc.

Hmmm - weren't Social Security and Medicare in the news this week? Two more of the high holy places.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

The fact of the matter is, there are some things the free market does better, there are some things government does better. The free market would never get off the ground if it weren't for the rule of law and infrastructure that government provides. The free market would never have come up with innoculation and vaccination as a means of health care because it makes more profit from selling medicines than it does from selling prevention and it would never sink the billions into R&D prevention requires in order to undercut its own profits. The free market is helpless to deal with environmental degradation, which is why Roxanne can't deal with it either and insists it's a hoax when it's so clearly not. The free market can't deal with interstate transportation or long range planning. Like Big Business, government power can be abused or it can be a force for good. To look at it any other way is to be doctrinaire and simplistic

If government doesn't make a difference, then how come the last time we had a budget surplus and lived in peace we had a liberal government and since we've had a conservative government we've had war and debt and a falling dollar?

 

[Liar]

If government doesn't make a difference, then how come the last time we had a budget surplus and lived in peace we had a liberal government and since we've had a conservative government we've had war and debt and a falling dollar?

Or shorter: If government doesn't make a difference, why bother electing one?

 

[sr71plt]

rox, we have learned in the past century that government is incompetent at dealing with complex human needs.

"we" being those at the Rand or Von Mises Institutes.

the rest of the Western world has seen government deal with all manner of issues, e.g. health care. and the bureacracy is no worse that your private ones, and nearly every one is covered.

the government dealt with the nazis rather well, and helped get the A bomb rolling. the present government with its 'private contractors' is having an iffy time in iraq.

the government set up space programs too, that have gone rather well.

the "anti government" thing with Americans is one part hypocrisy and one part baloney. all your favorite cos. are at the trough; all the conservatives are getting their 'earmarks.

and your most admired producing country, China, has the government suppressing unions and free speech so the "private" cos. can do their thing.

and this is the sort of stupid debate that occurs "only in America". debating "is government evil/incompetent/ etc. ?" while being happy with one's federally insured savings accounts, is a foolishly broad and vague question. a bit like debating "is family a good thing?"

Agreed.

I'd do so wish it were possible for folks who deride what the various levels of government do for them (and with their share of the cost of that) to have a week's experience of life without what their governments do for them--and maybe trying to pay for whatever social benefits and services they get by direct negotiation and payment.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

The fact of the matter is, there are some things the free market does better, there are some things government does better. The free market would never get off the ground if it weren't for the rule of law and infrastructure that government provides.

I agree with that statement. The problem has been over the past decade that the "Rule of Law" has become a monster that seems to go through a magical metamorphisis every week or so, based on which corporation or friend of government needs a "favor." That leaves us, the public, sitting outside the arena wondering, "WFT?"

The role of president was fairly well outlined until the Bush Administration. Now the President has become a Czar due to creative legal inturpretation. NAFT has allowed Large corporations to screw the American worker while increasing profit margins. The Oil companies have lost whatever little social integrety they had in favor of "embarrasingly" large profits while screwing honest Americans both at the gas pump and the grocery store.

Business and Government need to be partners. That was just as true in 1929 as it is today. I see us going down the same road as we did in the days of Hoover because Government has ignored their part in the partnership.

 

[cantdog]

Hoovervilles

I volunteer in a breadline. There are already Hoovervilles again, too. Real news. I remember journalism. I kinda liked it.

What if there was a depression and nobody told?

 

[amicus]

Ah, it is time once again to remind the Pure evil one that it should stay with the usual pattern of plagarizing and stealing the ideas of others rather than attempting to type its own thoughts one finger at a time.

Everytime this individual forgets, the ludicrous personal ignorance of all things in general rings forth in clear terms calling for immediate support and coddling by the coterie of 'usual suspect' that rush to cover its ignorance.

Someone previously got it part right, the only legitimate function of government is to hire guns and judges to protect and adjudicate the rights of the individual. It isn't that government does this better than free men, it is that the Constitution delegates that responsibility and authority to the halls of justice and not the market place of free men.

The Manhattan Project? All government did was confiscate property and materials, Oppenheimer and Fermi did the rest of the serious stuff and the market place could have done it faster and with much less waste. As is the recipe for all failed government ventures such as socialized medicine and mandatory public education, both monumental failures.

It is really quite simple folks the more government you have the less freedom you have, not rocket science thinking required here, just an ounce or so of common sense, so sorely lacking among the left.

Ya know, their are countries and other hovel like nations where socialism is practiced that you could out migrate to, if you really desire to live in a slave culture. I for one will not forbid you to pack up and leave.

Kinda like those incarcerated in maximum prison environments, I hear you telling us how wonderful slavery is, never a worry for your food or shelter or clothing, big brother provides it all for you.

Somehow I prefer freedom, selfish as hell, aren't I?

Amicus...

 

[Pure]

only in america

ami the more government you have the less freedom you have

P: ami, american d.j. eyes turned away from the rest of the world, peddles this bs for the last decades. if indeed he's been in armed forces, he's getting benefits to this day.

he reminds me of the mississippi senators with the "evil governement" speech, while ensuring that the US Naval Shipyard stays in Mississippi, providing jobs.

he is, of course, opposed to the ideas of the founders, who DID bother to write a US constitution with considerable federal powers, the earlier "confederation" having failed, quite evidently.

he's opposed to democracy, 'government of the people, by the people, and for the people, as embodied in the constitutional amendments since the Bill of Rights, e.g. the antislavery and citizenship of black people amendments.

he favors the untrammeled executive, the Commander.

his "i favor freedom" is laughable in light of his support for the Commander.

his fatuous reply is going to be "Only the Commander and his decrees can keep us safe. " and "Under the Commander, no terrorist attacks in the US, since 9/11."