recceguy said:
I guess the war on terrorism and the decimination, at any cost, really mean nothing to you. You'd rather sit around and wait until they take the CN Tower down or blow up the CNE before you get your socialist *** off the couch?
:facepalm:
I don't know why I'm stooping to respond to such a stupid argument, but here goes:
The War in Iraq was POINTLESS. It was totally unnecessary, totally unjustifiable, and it cost some 4600 American soldiers' lives, plus how many other "coalition" lives, plus a wildly varied toll of Iraqi civilians variously estimated between 100,000 and 700,000, with the higher figure being more generous and including deaths that could be attributed to the complete breakdown of Iraqi society, infrastructure, etc. While Iraq was ruled by a brutal tyrant, they had NOTHING to do with 9/11, nor did they have any active WMD. In short, they posed zero threat to "the West". They were well contained. For whatever reason, the Bush Adminstration invented and inflated a casus belli, and they bet correctly that the public would be too wrapped up in the post-9/11 horror to question the hubris. With that, at least a trillion dollars was wasted, and generally, it was borrowed from China. The fact that they failed to have a workable plan for what to do after Saddam was gone was ample demonstration of how poorly thought out the whole thing was.
The Dems forced the war expenditure onto the books when they took Congress in 2006, and now President Obama is doing the right thing by getting out of there in as orderly a fashion as possible.
Afghanistan is a slightly different story - intervention there was justifiable. Sadly, Iraq became a huge distraction and I am left with the impression that the US tried to do Afghanistan "on the cheap" and I suspect made things there much more complicated. There too, there's a general sense of "war weariness" and unease about the cost that is leading a lot of people in the US to conclude that it's time to start winding up there as well.
This "You'd rather sit around and wait until they take the CN Tower down or blow up the CNE before you get your socialist *** off the couch?" is a bunch of bollocks, frankly. It's a giant non sequitur. Deciding as a matter of national policy to p*ss massive amounts of money against the wall (while making enemies in the process) on the basis of such a nonsensical claim is frankly silly. Are there potential threats to our security that require vigilance? Yes. If I didn't believe that, I don't see why I'd wear a uniform. Does that mean that "the long war" on terrorism is to be accepted unquestioningly? Er, no, not by a long shot. And frankly, when you're going to discuss matters of fiscal responsibility, those questions have to be considered.
There's loads of room to cut the US defence budget without impacting national security, but it's funny when I hear "fiscal conservatives" decry them. Obama was attacked for concluded the New START treaty with Russia to downsize a nuclear arsenal that is massively expensive to maintain. Hell, the US could cut 90% of its arsenal, I'd wager, and still have more than enough nukes to form an effective deterrent. They won't, of course, and that's fine - but steps which do reduce the stockpile and the costs associated therewith are positive steps. Reducing some foreign bases can probably be justified too, particularly in Europe since the Soviets aren't going to be rushing the Fulda Gap any time soon.
And I'm not, never have been, and never will be a socialist.
recceguy said:
And given your previous, of course, it's all Bush's fault. right.
All? No. You can lump Reagan and Bush 41 in there too - they presided over adminstrations that helped make the mess. I still fail to understand why anyone with access to so much information can still fall for the Cult of Reagan.
Pardon me while I switch feet. Gotta love the taste of old sweat socks.
