Then you also have to admit that the reason the US Congress cannot get bills forward is that the Republican minority has set a new record for fillibusters in the Senate. Remember when “Conservatives” said fillibusters were so evil that they were going to use the “nuclear” option to abolish them? Now it appears that Conservatives LOVE fillibusters, and will not even admit that Republicans are doing it.

But Conservatives do not have “double standards”, do they?

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Re: “DNC tries to please everyone, and ends up pleasing no one.”

Republicans do not have that broad a problem, I know. All they have to do is obey James Dobson’s every command and everything else will fall in line.

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Re: “Such disorganization and uncommittance doesn’t bode well for power of all branches.”

You obviously share Geroge W. Bush’s view of what the form of govenment for the United States should be.
“If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier…just as long as I’m the dictator…”
George W. Bush–Washington, DC, Dec 18, 2000, during Bush’s first trip to Washington as President-Elect

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Re: “I have plenty to beef about. But going after terrorists…”

Speaking of which. How is GWB doing getting Osama bin Laden (”Dead orAlive”), the leader of the September 11 attacks? Or are Conservativers not allowed to talk about that?

Re: “Or are you talking about the US Congress and our immigration laws?”

What has that got to do with this discussion? or did you just toss that in for spite.
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No spite, Phillie Steve. Just a continuance of my previous point to you of your double standard… that you demand performance from the Iraq Assembly which you do not demand of your own Congress.

I repeat what I said in the March 19th, 7:44pm post.

Seems to me that, under the circumstances, a newly formed nation of those who’ve lived under oppression either all (or most) of their lives is making more impressive progress than our own Congress.

I give GWB *no* free passes. I have serious issues with his domestic policies, allowing Congress to spend unfettered, allowing Congress to continue to hold up self-sufficent energy policies, letting Romney team up with Kennedy and stop the MA coast wind farm with nary a word, and royally PO’d that he has lousy mouthpieces and allows the liberal media to miseducate people beyond redemption.

I have plenty to beef about. But going after terrorists… for a change, after previous admins have ignored it… is not one of them.

And I don’t blame others for the issues I have. I blame Bush for his choice of support personnel (’cept Tony Snow).

Thus you are obviously confused, for it the DNC who is the constituency of “victims”. The party who never met a felon who wasn’t an innocent byproduct of his/her environment, his/her parents, his/her race, lack of govt welfare programs, whatever. The party that made the world so PC that everyone is tiptoeing around for fear of “offending” the other person. For a group that wants “dialogue”, they sure know how to shut it down.

DNC tries to please everyone, and ends up pleasing no one. Hang, that group can’t even get a clean pick of nominee with their primary/caucus system because it’s so dang politically correct. Delegate selection, outside the supers, is just a reflection of the popular vote. Why have it? It decides nothing. Such disorganization and uncommittance doesn’t bode well for power of all branches. Dang, I’m already reeling from the GOP blowing that much power it big time. (yes, I said and believe that!) It’ll be even worse economically under all DNC. A split in these powers is far more productive for the US.

You obviously were not “allowed” to see that conservatives went ballistic in response to President Bush’s bi-partisan bill on amnesty. But that does not fit your mind-number world view dictated by your leftist “thought leaders”.

What has that got to do with this discussion? or did you just toss that in for spite. As I recall, that great hero George W. Bush was pushing for amnesty and open borders (through lack of enforcement) for quite some time. Of course you will give him the automatic Conservative Free Pass, won’t you and tell us, as always, it’s all someone else’s fault.

The thread’s latest excuse – money. Since most citizens are clueless on economics, they erroneously assume that our defense spending is the cause for the housing market decline which drives our current economic woes and deflating dollar. “We coulda spent in on welfare programs here at home”. Uh huh…..

Federal budgets, appropriations and allocations don’t work that way. But I forgot… schools don’t teach civics anymore.

BTW, the poll linked above? 70% responders believe the war is the cause for the economy. 66% of them oppose our aid to Iraq. Goes to show the level of miseducation.

Why is it you think raising taxes actaully INCREASES Tax revenues over the long term when the opposite is proven? Lowering tax rates increases revenues to a certain point (Laffer curve). If you tax people more, they will do everything possible to not be taxed. When you have “punished” the “rich” out of existance, who will you “punish” next? Who will fund your social programs?

What I fault Bush and the republicans for is not being conservatives and being more interested in using leftist plays of spending money to get votes. I called this “Democrat Lite” both here and letters to the RNC when I terminated my membership there. President Bush supported more than one costly leftist program with Ted Kennedy and other Democrats. All President Bush got in return was knives in his back and never credited for “bi-partisanism”.

Tax cuts work when pork cut and government growth is reversed. They work when society moves from a dependent/collectivist/”slave” state to a view of individualism/responsibility state. It is a multi-pronged approach which sadly never seems to be fully implemented. It is too easy to reamin dependent on handout/entitlements when one is told it is someone else’s (the “rich”, corporations, “Big whatever”, etc) fault they are in their economic/social position.

Worse in the continual confusion between “rights” and “entitlements”.

Tough “talk” about the Iraqi government getting to the needed compromises is all hollow. I hear on FoxNews about “great strides” because some bill has finally passed the Iraqi parliment. Knowing that it will never be enforced by a government that barely exists outside of the Green Zone (or are we not allowed to use that word for it any more?)

Which one of your leftist masters fed you this tripe Steve? I was there and saw things totally different. Or are those of us who oppose the left just supposed to shut up and let your lies run us over?

I, for one, am tired of seeing loyal Americans such as yourself

I am sure you see this as some “I support the troops” statement. I do not. I see it as hollow at best and an asinine insult of “you are too stupid to know the ‘Bushies’ are using you” at worse. Sorry, been to Iraq, saw the conditions and the work we are all doing, and fully understand and support our efforts. All I have to do is look at leftist websites to see what the left’s “support” really is.

Tough “talk” about the Iraqi government getting to the needed compromises is all hollow. I hear on FoxNews about “great strides” because some bill has finally passed the Iraqi parliment. Knowing that it will never be enforced by a government that barely exists outside of the Green Zone (or are we not allowed to use that word for it any more?)

Hummm… legislation that will never be enforced. Are you sure you are talking about the Iraq Assembly?

Or are you talking about the US Congress and our immigration laws?

Stone throwers in glass houses must be careful not to trip over their tongues….

I recall the military’s own estimate of the Summer of 2007 and prior pointed out that foreigners accounted for less than 10% of the insurgency. The Iraqi civil war would have happened, given the lack of preparedness, regardless if al Qaeda existed or not.

Your self-declared seer abilities aside, what Ryan said was the foreign elements, who organize and implement the suicide bombings, are responsible for the most Iraqi deaths and human collateral. Correct he is. It is not difficult for the 10% of AQ and affiliates to be responsible for the most damage when it only takes one fool jihadist with a suicide bomb belt.

As to your “wouldn’t have happened given the lack of…”, in a “perfect scenario”, you would most likely be wrong. For what, pray tell, would those minority “civil war” Iraq insurgents fight with, if they did not have the financial and weaponry aid of the foreign elements? Once the stockpiles of exising Iraq weapon caches in the country were exhausted or eliminated by US coalition troops and cooperating locals, they could have been contained.

In the not-so-perfect but real scenario, the Iraq thugs who seek to overthrow the elected will of the country would turn to foreign fighters for more weaponry when they ran short. Thus your predictions are highly questionable. Civil wars are not, in our modern history, a completely self contained State problem. We’ve armed a few “sides” in civil wars ourselves, as you libs all so love to point out. Why then do you vehemently deny foreign influence in this one?

Al Qaeda is doing just fine on the Pakistani-Afghanistan border, along with the Taliban controlling large regions of the country, along with supplying the world with heroin.

I see your lack of recent history is not only confined to Iraq. AQ always had Pakistan in which to retreat . Their Taliban hosts and cohorts were the conception of Bhutto’s ministry, founded by Maulana Fazlur Rahman (now of Pakistan’s JUI-F and the MMA) and Mulla Omar. It’s a right good hole in which to hide, but lousy for an operational base. Tough for transport of weaponry, training camps, and fighters in and out in on a large scale.

However if you are suggesting some segment of failure in Afghanistan, then I suggest you go whine to the UN/NATO and leave our guys out of it. The UN and NATO have been in charge of the “security” of Afghanistan since late 2003 in all but the far east provinces. Those were turned over to UN/NATO command, July 31st, 2006, putting the entire country into their hands. And of course, it was after that when Afghanistan’s progress started going retrograde.

Even in the past weeks, we’ve had to send add’l troops to the NATO command because the beloved and cowardly int’l community/NATO allies refused to send add’l troops of their own. Again the US must pick up for the failings of the rest of the world.

Regarding “costs”, take a look at Amy Proctor’s post: Iraq War Costs less than 1% of U.S. GDP. Interesting stuff.

Thank you for your service, by the way.

However the story that the occupation of Iraq was “going quite swell until al Qaeda caused a war” Is just plain wrong. The United States had ample warning that Iraq’s multiple ethnic groups were being held together solely through Saddam’s terror and police state. The civil war was gathering almost from day-one: Equiped by a total lack of guards on the Iraqi weapons depots after the occupation.

I recall the military’s own estimate of the Summer of 2007 and prior pointed out that foreigners accounted for less than 10% of the insurgency. The Iraqi civil war would have happened, given the lack of preparedness, regardless if al Qaeda existed or not. The “it’s all alQaeda’s fault” is, IMO, both a deceit and a diversion from the price that America and Iraq have paid for a total lack of preparation for the occupation of Iraq (as opposed for the invasion).

Al Qaeda is doing just fine on the Pakistani-Afghanistan border, along with the Taliban controlling large regions of the country, along with supplying the world with heroin.

The Iraqi civil war is not over, just being surpressed by force of US arms. How many times since 2004 have we been told “100,000 Iraqi police have been trained” But the streets of the cities are still patrolled by the individual militias loyal to one warlord or another.

Tough “talk” about the Iraqi government getting to the needed compromises is all hollow. I hear on FoxNews about “great strides” because some bill has finally passed the Iraqi parliment. Knowing that it will never be enforced by a government that barely exists outside of the Green Zone (or are we not allowed to use that word for it any more?)

I, for one, am tired of seeing loyal Americans such as yourself, tossed into yet another delaying action in Iraq, all in the hope that somehow the Iraqi’s will behave any differently tomorrow than they have every day since “Mission Accomplished” and “Major Combat Operations are Over in Iraq” in 2003.

Whether the “rapid withdrawl” from Iraq comes this year, or in two or three years, when China and the rest of the world fail to show up at a US Treasury Bill auction to lend America more money to fund the war, will not matter to the final outcome in Iraq. It will only mean that much more sacrifice in the time in between.

Still, that would be irrelevant because you can not change to past. If we were to leave Iraq right now then it would be detrimental. We have an Al Qaeda sub group that is responsible for the more killings than all the other sub groups in that terror network, who is currently losing and people just want to quit and cut our loses. That would allow them to recover. If there is anyone who is responsible for putting a hurt on America, it would be the idiocy of people like Vigil.

Sadly, when I become a Navy Seal, then I will be fighting to protect people like Vigil. Talk about a faith worse than death. Too bad I can’t just choose who I can’t protect, right? I mean, why would I want to protect someone who constantly says I am making things worse when I know better than that?

The thing is, I can’t think of things that way because I will be making a covenant to the country when I recite that service oath. It doesn’t matter, I will recite that oath proudly no matter what.

Seven of 10 U.S. adults blame the Iraq war for the country’s current economic problems, a survey indicated.

Only 28 percent of those surveyed for the CNN/Opinion Research poll found no link between the economy and the war. The majority said war spending is at least partly to blame for growing unemployment and other signs of a slowing economy.

On the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the war continues to be unpopular, the poll found. While 32 percent of respondents support the Iraq effort, 66 percent oppose it.
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http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/03/19/poll_iraq_war_blamed_for_bad_us_economy/3344/

Of course, the election is a long way off and many things can change from now ’til then, but here we have some initial evidence now of a interconnectivity between Iraq and the economy in terms of ‘cost’ on the public’s impatience on the Iraq war.