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A bunch of them are now saying that it was a mistake to go in based on the bad intel. If they had known Saddam was playing rope-a-dope with hypothetical WMDs, they'd have stayed home. That's an easy dodge.

I think the right question to ask is, given that it would cost us over a trillion dollars, 5000+ Amerkin lives, and basically give Iraq to Iran and ISIS to fight over...might war have never been a good idea in the first place? Potentially another approach?

I'd like to ask them that question, and see what they'd say.

ANSWER, FUCKERS

I'm not running for President but several people have suggested I should in various forums.

I reject the premise of your question, that the war in Iraq had to "cost us over a trillion dollars, 5000+ lives, etc etc."

It didn't have to. Our "leaders" chose to conduct a 10+ year war in such a fashion, with typical results.

nafod wrote:I'd like to ask them that question, and see what they'd say.

I think they'd say something like they'd have done a better job so it would have only taken 25 minutes and cost three fiddy.

Protobot wrote:I'm not running for President but several people have suggested I should in various forums.

I reject the premise of your question, that the war in Iraq had to "cost us over a trillion dollars, 5000+ lives, etc etc."

It didn't have to. Our "leaders" chose to conduct a 10+ year war in such a fashion, with typical results.

I agree with you.

But it did play out the way it did, and the candidates are being posed the question of whether they would have invaded or not. None of them are saying, "Holy $%^ that was expensive in terms of cost, lives, and strategic position, maybe I might have planned this shit out a little better than W's team", they are all just saying, "No-go if no WMD" which sort of implies they'd have gone if there were no-shit absolute 100% confirmation of them.

Going into Iraq was never a good idea, and WMDs were a red herring. Whether they were real or not is irrelevant.

What difference does it make?
Whoever wins, we'll be at war somewhere this time in 2017.

nafod wrote:A bunch of them are now saying that it was a mistake to go in based on the bad intel. If they had known Saddam was playing rope-a-dope with hypothetical WMDs, they'd have stayed home. That's an easy dodge.

I think the right question to ask is, given that it would cost us over a trillion dollars, 5000+ Amerkin lives, and basically give Iraq to Iran and ISIS to fight over...might war have never been a good idea in the first place? Potentially another approach?

I'd like to ask them that question, and see what they'd say.

You don't have to ask them that question because we have a much smarterer than you super media to ask it. They haven't, and they won't of course, because your question requires more than a 5 word pandering declarative sentence to answer.

And, if the media did ask the question and the candidate did answer it thoughtfully, 0.01% of us would hear about it and fewer would understand.

Same is true of the media and Dem candidates IMO. Hillary, Kerry, and others voted for that war and all she does is spout blame Bush platitudes.

The smell of decay is strong.

DrDonkeyLove wrote:Same is true of the media and Dem candidates IMO. Hillary, Kerry, and others voted for that war and all she does is spout blame Bush platitudes.

I think if Hillary had voted "no" on the war back in the day, she'd have been President for 8 years now. Her "yes" vote and Obama's "no" were as important than Obama's blackitude, I think.

Jim Webb is the best Dem pick. I hope he gets heard. I'd love to see him debate a repub. He actually had skin in the game, with his son in the Marines (is he still in?)

nafod wrote:

DrDonkeyLove wrote:Same is true of the media and Dem candidates IMO. Hillary, Kerry, and others voted for that war and all she does is spout blame Bush platitudes.

I think if Hillary had voted "no" on the war back in the day, she'd have been President for 8 years now. Her "yes" vote and Obama's "no" were as important than Obama's blackitude, I think.

Jim Webb is the best Dem pick. I hope he gets heard. I'd love to see him debate a repub. He actually had skin in the game, with his son in the Marines (is he still in?)

Jim Webb is easily the best candidate. I do not know if he has much of a chance to win the Democratic nomination.

I have occasionally posted a news item about him on my facebook account. Once, a former elite distance runner who had recently asked to friend me on FB, replied that Jim Webb
was a racist. This from a college educated 60 or so aged ectomorph. He seems typical of the stauch Dems I met when I was heavily involved in distance running.

Webb has managed to raise more than $9m in the past decade of campaigning. Hillary has aims at $2.5b.

Good luck to the guy getting his message out.

nafod wrote:I think the right question to ask is, given that it would cost us over a trillion dollars, 5000+ Amerkin lives, and basically give Iraq to Iran and ISIS to fight over...might war have never been a good idea in the first place? Potentially another approach?

You say cost a trillion dollars, I say pump a trillion into the economy. Halliburton and several other companies easily topped a billion in profits and many, many others were in the high nine figures. American companies owned by American people. If the invasion had never occurred, this money would have never been seen. Those of you bitching that it was unnecessarily prolonged are not thinking in the proper way.

Protobuilder wrote:

nafod wrote:I think the right question to ask is, given that it would cost us over a trillion dollars, 5000+ Amerkin lives, and basically give Iraq to Iran and ISIS to fight over...might war have never been a good idea in the first place? Potentially another approach?

You say cost a trillion dollars, I say pump a trillion into the economy.

I know, but there were other places to dump that money.



ISIS has a done a "booming" business in taking our up-armored HMMVs left for the Iraqis and converting them into very hardened VBIEDs, just about unstoppable with what the Iraqis have in hand. Part of that trillion.

Do you know how hard it is to have a few billion disappear in domestic infrastructure projects?

Again, you're not thinking forward enough. When ISIS runs amok who do you think will come in to stop them? USA! People will have forgotten about the last few Iraq wars by then.

Protobuilder wrote:Webb has managed to raise more than $9m in the past decade of campaigning. Hillary has aims at $2.5b.

Good luck to the guy getting his message out.

Webb won't even stand a chance when Hillary drops out of the race, and that's a shame.

Pinky wrote:

Protobuilder wrote:Webb has managed to raise more than $9m in the past decade of campaigning. Hillary has aims at $2.5b.

Good luck to the guy getting his message out.

Webb won't even stand a chance when Hillary drops out of the race, and that's a shame.

Webb & Carly 3rd party!