Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

[Rover]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

"Cavalier about civilian deaths?" That's a GD lie. You'd prefer GI's get killed instead? You've really just reverted to type here lately, haven't you? Arrogant, condescending and untruthful.

As long as we're giving Deadmeat credit for every military success in US history, from Breed's hill to Gettysburg and everything since, why don't we give him credit for liberating Auschwitz? He's claimed his uncle (or was it grandfather?) was there. 'Course that meant the old boy had to be serving in the Red Army, but these are just details for the greatest military leader since Gengis Kahn. Or as John Kerry would pronounce it: Jen jis.

Soooo....when the governor of your state talked about her father dying for his country in WWII...even though he died approx 10 years after the war was over....you were similarly outraged, right? Right?

PS - Good luck with your dream of seeing a President Perry or President Romney. Might as well hope for Reagan's ghost to win in 2012 as it has about the same chance as those two.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

Continuing with your straw man stupidity, who said drones should have been as robust in 2002 as they are now? However, by 2008 there's no reason we shouldn't have been refocused on Afghanistan AND upped the drone attacks to the level they're been at since Obama mercifully took over.

You're still missing the fact that the ramp up in drone attacks DID start in 2008. Per wiki, there were only 4 in 2007, 33 in 2008, and 53 in 2009. So if you want to give Obama credit for having the good sense to expand on a program that Bush started, by all means be my guest.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

You're still missing the fact that the ramp up in drone attacks DID start in 2008. Per wiki, there were only 4 in 2007, 33 in 2008, and 53 in 2009. So if you want to give Obama credit for having the good sense to expand on a program that Bush started, by all means be my guest.

I thought your point was that these are internal military decisions made perhaps decades in advance given the design cycle, and that the administration makes no difference? Or is that what you are saying -- giving Obama credit is as silly as giving Bush credit? I am honestly confused by what you are arguing here. I made the point upstream that tech roll-outs can be very slow and the fact that drones have been used more under Obama does not per se argue that Bush had the option and declined it.

Are you really this stupid, because usually you're one of the more thoughful ones out here.

Please stop that right now. Save that kind of thing for the genuine eejit posters who earn it (or better still, Ignore them). LynahFan is far, far more likely to both post intelligently and take the high road than pretty much anybody who posts regularly on political threads. I don't agree with him on this point, either, and there are points he is making that appear to me to be either muddled or perhaps just poorly expressed, but for goodness sake, he's way more careful with his rhetoric than most of us, and if he doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt than none of us do. All ad hominum does is this:

 

[LynahFan]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

I thought your point was that these are internal military decisions made perhaps decades in advance given the design cycle, and that the administration makes no difference? Or is that what you are saying -- giving Obama credit is as silly as giving Bush credit? I am honestly confused by what you are arguing here. I made the point upstream that tech roll-outs can be very slow and the fact that drones have been used more under Obama does not per se argue that Bush had the option and declined it.

You're very close, so maybe my message isn't too badly muddled. My point is not that it makes NO difference, but it makes much less difference than partisans on either side would like to believe, particularly on the economy and foreign relations. These things do take many years (generally not decades) to develop, so there's only so much that any one administration can do. Partisans assign far too much credit to the guy on their side and 100% of the blame to the guy on the other side - and all four combinations bug me, so I can't resist calling it out when I see it. So yes, giving Bush all the credit is exactly equally silly as giving it all to Obama. It just so happens that right now 1) we have a Democratic President and 2) there are more outspoken partisan liberals on this board than conservatives, so my comments tend toward calling out liberals for over-crediting Obama right now. Check back with me when we have a Republican president and the board is dominated by posters from the newly formed SEC hockey conference...

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

You're very close, so maybe my message isn't too badly muddled. My point is not that it makes NO difference, but it makes much less difference than partisans on either side would like to believe, particularly on the economy and foreign relations. These things do take many years (generally not decades) to develop, so there's only so much that any one administration can do. Partisans assign far too much credit to the guy on their side and 100% of the blame to the guy on the other side - and all four combinations bug me, so I can't resist calling it out when I see it. So yes, giving Bush all the credit is exactly equally silly as giving it all to Obama. It just so happens that right now 1) we have a Democratic President and 2) there are more outspoken partisan liberals on this board than conservatives, so my comments tend toward calling out liberals for over-crediting Obama right now. Check back with me when we have a Republican president and the board is dominated by posters from the newly formed SEC hockey conference...

So you (and others) probably wouldn't mind putting an end to this topic, esp with Keps reminder below.

But it doesn't appear that this is a matter of saying that Bush and Obama don't deserve all or none of the credit. There has been a big, huge difference in approach. One included pushing a handful of third worlders to be enemies...and disparging allies (like 'old Europe')...while taking up action by not just diverting 9/11 to Iraq but ignoring everyone elses input on the matter and errecting a missle shield with the obvious target of one of the world's most important independents (Russia). This was coupled with the number one message coming from the Bush administration being terror. This is almost the polar opposite approach from the Obama administration where in a hugely positive development, the GWOT has disappeared from the main stage (even as positive results pour in).

So sorry, but I find it hard to just gloss over the differences.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

Check back with me when we have a Republican president and the board is dominated by posters from the newly formed SEC hockey conference...

Both those things are awful to contemplate.

Though I hear rumblings the SEC is courting Notre Dame, RPI and Cornell.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

Both those things are awful to contemplate.

Though I hear rumblings the SEC is courting Notre Dame, RPI and Cornell.

I hear Vermont

 

[Kepler]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

I hear Vermont

Jesus, I've been down here too long. I glanced at the map and thought "what's up with New Hampshire?"

 

[Rover]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

Please stop that right now. Save that kind of thing for the genuine eejit posters who earn it (or better still, Ignore them). LynahFan is far, far more likely to both post intelligently and take the high road than pretty much anybody who posts regularly on political threads. I don't agree with him on this point, either, and there are points he is making that appear to me to be either muddled or perhaps just poorly expressed, but for goodness sake, he's way more careful with his rhetoric than most of us, and if he doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt than none of us do. All ad hominum does is this:

Kep, kindly stick to making your usual well thought out posts and skip being board moderator unless you're getting paid to do so. While I would normally agree with you, anybody who trots out a straw man argument and then argues against it gets the scorched earth policy (the drone attacks in 2002 in this example).

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

Soooo....when the governor of your state talked about her father dying for his country in WWII...even though he died approx 10 years after the war was over....you were similarly outraged, right? Right?

PS - Good luck with your dream of seeing a President Perry or President Romney. Might as well hope for Reagan's ghost to win in 2012 as it has about the same chance as those two.

Nobody's ever suggested she's the smartest guy in the room or gives anybody tingles. What difference does it make, anyway. Deadmeat is a gaffe machine, which goes unremarked upon by the MSM. Perhaps we can talk about the "spontaneous" trip to Target his wife "Michael" made the other day.

Maybe he wins, maybe he loses, we'll see. But there's more than a little flop sweat among national Democrats and your whistling past a graveyard doesn't change that a bit.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

Kep, kindly stick to making your usual well thought out posts and skip being board moderator unless you're getting paid to do so.

Rover, if you are using a public forum to personally attack a poster, any of us can object if we want to -- it's our air too. The difference between "that's a stupid post" and "you are stupid" is Basic Netiquette. You're better than that.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

Kep, kindly stick to making your usual well thought out posts and skip being board moderator unless you're getting paid to do so. While I would normally agree with you, anybody who trots out a straw man argument and then argues against it gets the scorched earth policy (the drone attacks in 2002 in this example).

That's pretty funny, since you're the person who suggested that it was valid to compare "the list of AQ bad guys bagged in the past three years vs the previous 7." The "previous 7" would include 2002, so you were, in actuality, saying that the fact that Bush didn't drone-attack many terrorists in 2002 should be counted against him. I merely emphasized 2002 in my post as a reductio ad absurdum to show that this was not a useful comparison.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

The Lynah Faithful are like Irish brothers. We can fight each other as much as we want, but attack any of us and we'll Battle of Benburb your ass.

Oh, and with the binge drinking, too.

 

[Rover]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

That's pretty funny, since you're the person who suggested that it was valid to compare "the list of AQ bad guys bagged in the past three years vs the previous 7." The "previous 7" would include 2002, so you were, in actuality, saying that the fact that Bush didn't drone-attack many terrorists in 2002 should be counted against him. I merely emphasized 2002 in my post as a reductio ad absurdum to show that this was not a useful comparison.

Sooo...you're saying with better drone technology Bush would not have launched the Iraq war? Since of course, after the WMD fiasco the official reason for us being there was to fight Al Quada. This despite the fact that most senior Al Quada leaders weren't actually in Iraq. So, using whatever methods they had handy, why is it Obama's done a better job than Bush? Why was Iraq the focus of the previous admin instead of Afghanistan (where, you know, the terrorists actually are).

 

[LynahFan]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

So, using whatever methods they had handy, why is it Obama's done a better job than Bush?

I don't know whether Obama would have invaded Iraq in 2002 or whether Bush would have stepped up drone attacks in 2011 - nobody does. You can't compare across situations like that. That's like saying, "well, TARP and the Auto bailouts were a good thing, and the fact that Obama did those makes him a good President - excellent leadership on his part. But you know who didn't bail anyone out during his *entire* Presidency? Clinton. I guess he must have been a lousy President." Totally different situations, so it's not a valid comparison.

Why was Iraq the focus of the previous admin instead of Afghanistan (where, you know, the terrorists actually are).

I'm going to guess, "because Bush wasn't very savvy and he had daddy issues."

Did I win?

 

[Rover]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

I don't know whether Obama would have invaded Iraq in 2002 or whether Bush would have stepped up drone attacks in 2011 - nobody does. You can't compare across situations like that. That's like saying, "well, TARP and the Auto bailouts were a good thing, and the fact that Obama did those makes him a good President - excellent leadership on his part. But you know who didn't bail anyone out during his *entire* Presidency? Clinton. I guess he must have been a lousy President." Totally different situations, so it's not a valid comparison.

Ummm...this could be the strangest analogy I've seen yet. But, focusing on your first statement, I find it incredible that a Obama (or a Gore) Presidency would have invaded Iraq. At the risk of incurring Kep's wrath, that's stark raving stupid in fact. The only people who wanted to invade Iraq were the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld crowd. Far from painting all conservatives with this brush, I don't believe a McCain Presidency would have invaded once they saw the intelligence reports come in. The bottom line as much as it irks you is that a Republican Presidency owns the biggest misjudgement over going to war in the history of the United States. A collossal blunder that will reverberate for years. Kudos for keeping the faith in a guy who must have idolized at some point but I think its time to give up the ghost. I don't see any Dems holding up Jimmy Carter's management of the economy as something to defend. Kinda curious about your canine loyalty to GWB.

I
I'm going to guess, "because Bush wasn't very savvy and he had daddy issues."

Did I win?

About as much as your hockey team does I guess.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

Kinda curious about your canine loyalty to GWB.

You should really pay attention to what people actually write instead of what you expect them to write. How can you infer that I have any sort of loyalty to Bush in a post where I say that he wasn't very smart and had daddy issues? I don't think GWB handled the start of the "war on terror" very well at all - in fact, I think he screwed up royally. So royally, in fact, that it's taken 10 years to progress to a point where we probably could have been within 5 years. However, I think that things started to turn around in the 2007 timeframe and have been gradually gaining momentum ever since then - not due to a single flip of the switch on Jan 20, 2009.

In summary:
Bad start = Bush's fault.
Momentum since then = credit to the hardworking professionals in DoD, CIA, NSA, etc.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

At the risk of incurring Kep's wrath, that's stark raving stupid in fact.

 

[Rover]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

Hey, I finally got him to make sense in his last post, so its all good except for one name he left off the "momentum since then" list.

 

[Slap Shot]

Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation

I don't know whether Obama would have invaded Iraq in 2002...

I'm not ragging on Bush himself by saying this, but his admin wanted to go after Iraq and many would argue manufactured reasons to do so. I think it's pretty clear that had Bush lost that election GWII would not have begun. But I will equally refuse to aver that Junior would have failed to use the resources currently available to Obama to initiate the strikes that have outed Osama and many of his ilk these past few years.