Loved the article. I had made some of the same predictions he did! nm

• The last paragraph of - Lurker
  • Iraq war - RK
    • Dirty foreign policy - gt
  • This article sure hit home. - American Woman
    • This crises was coming way before Bush - Reality check
      • ANWR would only supply us for six months... - Observer
        • Oklahoma alone has a huge oil supply. sm - sm
        • From ANWR.com - Reality check
          • This article is about Alaskan oil production in general... - Observer
          • Where did these statistics come from? - Lurker
  • Bush's daughters and sacrifice - Reality check
    • Remember Pat Buchanan? - American Woman
      • Cindy S/Pat B. - Reality check
        • Comment on enlistees in the military - Observer
          • The military is not a kid club. sm - sm
            • But that's my point, the military HAS turned into a kid club... - Observer
              • Recruiters *prey* on young people. sm - sm
                • They don't *prey.* - They STALK.
                • They not only *prey* on young people - Libby
                  • It's always somebody else's fault - reality check
                  • This is so totally untrue. How can you just make things up like that? NM - MT
                    • Just because you're uninformed - Libby
                    • But it IS true. - Observer
                      • channel 2 reported on recruiters tactics - gt
                        • Still, nobody puts a gun to their heads - reality check
                          • Why don't you research the tactics and find - Democrat
                          • Educate yourself. Read the post above that says they stalk. - PJK
                      • Who is *they*, where did you see it, what channel? NM - MT
                        • Link - Observer
                          • I read the article. sm - sm
                            • Poster asked for the link and I provided it. - Observer
                              • This is bulls**t. Pure and simple. But you guys LOVE the troops. News flash. SM - sm
              • Okay, another question - Reality Chec k
                • Just making sure - Reality check
                • I'm not - NOPE. - Democrat
                • EXCELLENT point! nm - sm
          • You have a point but I disagree with the other - Reality check
      • LOL, this is rich! sm - sms
        • I'm no fan of Pat Buchanan by a longshot. - American Woman
  • Ridiculous claptrap. sm - sm
    • How silly. Who cares what - Barbra Streisand drives or where
    • I think perhaps you read a different article than the one posted by Lurker. - Observer...nm
  • Loved the article. I had made some of the same predictions he did! nm - Observer
    • The point. - Lurker

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don't think he will run for president on any ticket. I like him because he chose to withdraw from both parties. He says he does not want to answer to a particular party's platform or mollycoddle special interests of that party (whichever it may be). I would LOVE it if this country had a truly feasible viable third party. I believe we need more choices, not less and not the same tired old candidates with their same tired old plans and policies. I don't suppose that will happen in my lifetime but there is always hope.

So we now have war from Palestine to Pakistan. I cannot keep the relgious sects, the insurgents, the terrorists apart any more. There are so many names and so much going on. This is quite a mess we have created; and I do not say that because I hate America or Bush. I say it because I do not believe that we would have this level of calamity throughout the entire region if we had not invaded Iraq (at this time). The region, as most of us know, has been in turmoil for thousands of years. There is nothing anyone can do about that but those who are involved themselves. They have to want it first and foremost. They have to want to live more than they want to be right or more than they want to be in power or more than they want a theocracy. People who are willing to go on suicide missions for a cause don't value life in the same way that I do.

I have a prediction as to how this all will end. Eventually, we will come home, meaning the majority of troops and surges and sorties et al will be over. Nothing will have changed in the Middle East other than it will have become more volatile than it was before we arrived in 2003. It has been this volatile before and it will be again, this particular time we played an active part but with or without the US, the Middle East will remain a volatile, recalcitrant area. The Middle East is a place you have to have been to, lived in or studied for a long time, to understand. I too have met **the enemy.** I lived there (in Bahrain) for a few years, and other places where Islam was alive and well (Korea, the Philippines, South Africa and the UK). So my prediction is that the last plane will be leaving the Green Zone and the surgents will be 5 minutes behind it and things will go on as they always have. I agree (in theory) that something had to be done after 9/11 and that we could not just suck it up and move on. The move on Afghanistan made sense to me. Iraq did not, does not and will not ever make sense to me. It is hard for me to see Saddam teaming up with Al-Que'da as he was a hedonistic  bacchanal who lived in a gold palace with heroin, diamonds and lots of women and the bin Laden's beliefs were quite the opposite. But, at any rate, my prediction is that this will end much like the conlict in you know where. Hundreds of thousands of lives will have been lost and nothing will change. As with the cold war and the conflict in you know where, manipulation through fear using that same old chestnut that the commies, the Russians, the Viet Cong and now the terrorists will be in our cities killing us is in full force. That scenario has not come to fruition yet and I don't believe it ever will. Crazy people possibly trying to carry out another attack somewhere here in the US is quite possible, another Oklahoma City is possible but in my opinion those possibilities are not worth the certainty of more US troop deaths and civilian deaths in a war without end. So while I grieve for those lives that will be lost between now and September, I pray that someone somehow will keep his word and get us out of there. Iraq is not ours to win or lose; it is theirs.

I'm past convinced but time will tell just how politically motivated *Iraqi freedom* is to this administration.  How much you want to bet nobody gets it? 

I agree with Murtha, now that we have relieved Iraq of the Saddam regime the mission sould be getting our soldiers home safely.  But its not that easy with the new wave of terrorism that replaced Saddam's regime as a result of the war.

I still say though we have our own battles to fight at home and need to accelerate training what Iraqi men are willing to fight for democracy and do what we can to restore their infrastructure and get out.  With the right enthusiasm (or upcoming congress elections) it can be done.  ~Democrat

------------------------

Murtha Details His Exit Strategy

Jan. 13, 2006

CBS) Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., believes the vast majority of U.S. troops in Iraq will be out by the end of the year and maybe even sooner. In his boldest words yet on the subject, the outspoken critic of the war predicts the withdrawal and tells 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace why he thinks the Bush administration will do it

“I think the vast majority will be out by the end of the year and I’m hopeful it will be sooner than that,” Murtha tells Wallace, this Sunday, Jan. 15, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

“You’re going to see a plan for withdrawal,” says Murtha. He believes Congress will pass it because of mounting pressure from constituents tired of the war that could affect the upcoming midterm elections.

The political situation will force President Bush to accede to Congress, he says. “I think the political people who give [the president] advice will say to him, ‘You don’t want a democratic Congress. You want to keep a Republican majority, and the only way you’re going to keep it is by reducing substantially the troops in Iraq,’” Murtha says.

The president has said publicly that any decision regarding Iraq would be based on the situation there and not on Washington politics.

Murtha rejects the president’s argument that the war on terror is being fought in Iraq. “The insurgents are Iraqis – 93 percent of the insurgents are Iraqis. A very small percentage are foreign fighters….Once we’re out of there, [Iraqis] will eliminate [foreign fighters],” says Murtha.

“[President Bush] is trying to fight this war with rhetoric. Iraq is not where the center of terrorism is,” he says. “We’re inciting terrorism there....We’re destabilizing the area by being over there because we’re the targets,” Murtha says.

When Wallace challenges him by saying, “General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, says your comments are damaging recruiting and hurting the troops,” Murtha responds by saying it’s the military’s own fault. “[Troops] are rotated [into Iraq] four and five times. They have no clear mission,” says Murtha. “One of the problems they have with recruitment is [that] they continually say how well things are going and the troops on the ground know better.”

President Bush has said there are only two choices in Iraq: victory and defeat. And he has implied that Murtha is a defeatist. Murtha, of course, disputes that.

There have been 13 servicemen from his Congressional district killed in Iraq. Could the families of those dead be offended? Wallace asks.

“Well, I hope [those families] understand,” says the Vietnam combat veteran. “It’s my job, my responsibility, to speak out when I disagree with the policy of the president of the United States,” says Murtha. “All of us want this president to succeed…I feel a mission here, with my experience, that I have to help the president find a way out of this thing.”

 GO OBAMA!!

it was truly magical -- made me cry... so full of hope and happiness right now.  proud to be an American...IMHO

decision without thinking about all she might miss with her kids.  My mom was at a lot of the things I did in school.  However, my dad was at work.  He was supporting his family by making a living.  He was making our situation better by working that overtime so we could afford stuff.  Would I have liked my dad to be at my tennis match.....sure.  But the reality is that even though he wasn't there watching, he still was literally the one supporting me and I appreciated and loved him for that.

As for Palin, did you ever think that maybe....just maybe she is willing to sacrifice time with her kids to make a better country for them as well as all of us?  Have they asked Obama about sacrificing time with his kids?  No....because we all just assume Michelle will take care of the kids. 

Or is that another conservative "fact"? 

And, yes, those dang whacko liberals like Robert F. Kennedy and those of his ilk should be ashamed of themselves for connecting the presence of thimerosal in vaccines and resultant autism and attempting to STOP it.  Who cares about the children who are already here?  The most important thing is that we make sure not to hurt those inanimate cells in a petrie dish.

And, yes, it's certainly has been proven that there can be side effects associated with the smallpox vaccine where a small percentage of people might get sick and die.  We COULD maybe let the people CHOOSE whether they want the vaccine or not (if enough of it ever actually EXISTED to protect the entire country), but, no, free choice isn't a very "red" thing to do.  So the only logical thing to do is make sure that we deny the vaccine to all Americans so we can ALL die if terrorists decide to use that as a form of bio warfare. (By the way, I truly doubt that lawsuits will be much of an issue if we're all DEAD.)

Right?  I mean, you "red" guys know what should be allowed and denied in the life of every single American, don't you?  You've got some kind of special "divine knowledge" where you know what I should be "allowed" to do with my own personal body, who I'm "allowed" to love, how I'm "allowed" to plan my family, when I decide I'm "allowed" to die, and which God I'm "allowed" to worship without being doomed to eternal damnation?

Title of you post is lifted straight out of TT112OldTimer's post responding to Free Speech Rocks.  When spinning soooo out of control that the brain becomes blank, you can always resort to plagiary.  Hello.  Are you listening?  Vitriol out, vitriol in.  You might be shocked by how much respect you earn with just the simple gesture of extending some.  Respect is NOT a 4-letter word. 

Common sense is exactly what I used when I decided to attack my own bigoted tendencies back when I was still a teenager.  I did not learn any of that from books or courses I took in school.  I took it to the streets and reaped benefits beyond measure from those lessons. 

Au contraire.  The bluster of bigots is easy to bury under fact and logic.  No need to be thwarted by that.  Their reservoir of insults runs very shallow, but the intellect is a well that one can dig as deep as is necessary.  Fact/truth is another arch-enemy of the bigot.  You at least had the wisdom not to attempt to ridicule the context post since you knew you would be in way over your head and besides, you are allergic to the other side of the coin.  As they say, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.   It can’t be much fun to find yourself dumbfounded by your own narrow mind.  Frustrating too...remember it well. 

On the shortcut post:  That was your snipe, not mine.  Snipe begets tripe.  Vtriol out/vitriol in.  Garbage out/garbage in.  Is there an echo in here? 

Not the slightest bit interested in agreement, validation or vindication.  I am secure enough by now not to need all of that.  But in political contexts, the journey down the road to consensus will never begin in the absence of flexibility, open-mindedness and a good dose of patience.        

What part of my posts reflect your tactics do you not understand?  You absolutely refuse to look at yourself in the mirror, but you do know enough to be outranged when someone sends you your own reflection.  It’s not a pretty sight and furthermore, you become every bit as enraged as you seem to think I am.  You are constitutionally incapable of seeing what a spiteful little vixen you become when your brick-wall logic is thrown back in you face. 

No surprise there.  Bigotry is always blind.  Here’s another example you are bound to ignore:  You are so driven by your hatred of illegals that you would actually weigh in on the side of transnationals and cast your vote for the party who empowers them to outsource your profession overseas and drive your own wages into the ground.  

Well shut my mouth!  Could it be that you have finally run out of insults in the face of the realities of logic and have arrived on the threshold of the next level where most other right-wingers eventually find themselves...running for the hills and back into the open arms of the choir members?  You are big on cliché.  Here’s one for you...you can run, but you can’t hide.  Have a safe journey and I am “sending up a prayer” that you find the sanctuary you seek.