Yeah, that's nice (you'd make a great General, seriously) -- but not the topic. You didn't answer the accusation -- Obama doesn't want out "now," does he?
He wanted out four+ years ago. "Now" doesn't work when there is over 100,000 troops and equipment on the ground due to logistics. "16 months," is synonymous with "now" in military terms.
And again, that nice, but you didn't answer why it was okay for politicians to get you into the war, but not get you out. If you trusted Bush to get you in the war ("flawed" intelligence or not), you should trust politicians to get you out.
Powell and Bush made a case for the war (weapons of mass destruction) which Congress accepted. Bob Woodruff wrote a lot on all the failures of the Bush administration in regards to the Iraq war and it really shadows the failures of previous Presidents like Nixon where they tried to micromanage the war instead of letting the generals do their job. Let me put this in points:
-With the intelligence we had in 2003, it was correct action to go into war.
-In hindsight, knowing the intelligence was flawed, the war was most likely unecessary.
-Bush mismanaged the war from when he declared "Mission Accomplished" in 2003 up until 2007 when the push for the surge began.
-Bush did not take the advice of generals to heart; the same can be said of Nixon during Vietnam.
-Wars like Iraq end when the existing government has been destroyed; however, whenever you unseat a government, you have to replace it with a new one which takes at least a decade.
-The war officially ended when Bush did the whole "Mission Accomplished" apperance. Ever since, it has been a peace keeping and counter-insurgency operation.
-We should never get completely "out" unless our relationship with Iraq goes south. There should always remain a small force to show we have vested interest in the area (see Germany, South Korea, Japan).
-I trust McCain to take the advice of the generals and make appropriate decisions from that. By that, I mean the number of troops deployed and the amount of resources available in Iraq will be kept at appropriate levels for the conditions the Iraqi government requires to maintain stability.
-I trust Congress to grant whatever is necesssary (within reason) to the comamnd-in-chief in order to achieve success.
-Success is defined by the Iraqi government no longer relying on USA for anything major.
And you have to "follow through or else you make a lot of enemies" -- could Americans
make any more enemies than you've made from the Iraq war?
Eh? Right now, I don't think we have any sworn enemies except bin Laden's crowd. There is diplomatic hostilities with Iran and Venezuala but Iran's President has little public support and Chavez still gets most of his money from oil trade with USA. North Korea is being more cooperative, Russia has a big question mark on their head, and China is excited about trade with the West.
Yeah, lots of people weren't happy about the decision to invade Iraq but who ever is? War is ugly; no one likes it. Fight the little wars to prevent the big ones.
According to that article, he gave that money not to ACORN, but to a subsidiary. Please find me some links regarding the nature of the relationship between that subsidiary and ACORN -- not all "subsidiaries" are directly controlled by their parent organizations.
A "subsidiary" is owned/operated by a common leadership. An "affiliate" has no leadership ties but a common goal.
This is from a lawsuit filing against ACORN...
http://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/acorn.pdf
19. ACORN's political wing has endorsed Barack Obama for president, and during the primary season, the Obama camp paid Citizen Service Inc., $832,598 for various political services according to Federal Elections Commission filings. Citizen Services, Inc. and ACORN share the same board of directors.
All red states. Wonder why? Sources don't give enough info to do any fact checking.
Actually, they are all toss up right now. Michigan also has had complaints which the McCain campaign has withdrawn campaigning from. These fraudulent votes could easily sway the states one way or another and in turn, sway who gets elected.
