The Briefing Room
General Category => National/Breaking News => Topic started by: mystery-ak on July 07, 2014, 09:35:25 pm
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/poll-iraq-blame-bush-obama-withdrawal-right-thing-to-do (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/poll-iraq-blame-bush-obama-withdrawal-right-thing-to-do)
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TOM KLUDT – JULY 7, 2014, 10:49 AM EDT
Republicans have hammered President Obama in recent weeks for the unraveling security situation in Iraq, arguing that he should have left some American troops behind in the troubled country. But a poll released Monday found that Americans widely disagree with the GOP.
The latest national survey from Quinnipiac University showed that 58 percent of American voters believe Obama's decision to withdraw troops in 2011 was the right thing to do.
Conversely, 61 percent said that George W. Bush's decision to invade in 2003 was the wrong thing to do. Fifty-one percent of voters blame Bush for the current calamity in Iraq.
With Islamic militants storming through Iraq, the GOP's criticism of Obama has centered around the 2011 withdrawal, the terms of which were actually negotiated under Bush in 2008. Republicans such as Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) have assailed the President for the withdrawal, insisting that the decision squandered security gains made in Iraq after the 2007 troop surge.
Obama didn't earn high marks in the poll either, with 55 percent saying they disapprove of his handling of the situation in Iraq. And despite Bush's own woeful numbers on Iraq, 39 percent said he conducted foreign policy better than Obama. Thirty-five percent gave the edge to the current President.
The neoconservative pundit Bill Kristol, a vocal cheerleader of the war, said last month that Obama could rally the country to get behind yet another military intervention in Iraq, but the Quinnipiac poll said otherwise.
According to the survey, 56 percent said it is not in America's national interest to get involved there, although 72 percent said it is likely that the U.S. will intervene if the militants take over Iraq.
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So 51% of Americans are ignorant......
What's new?? :smokin:
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So 51% of Americans are ignorant......
What's new?? :smokin:
you beat me to it.
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What questions were asked?
Polls are all about the way questions are asked.
In addition, that 51% blame Bush for what is clearly Obama's creation in Iraq shows a definite lack of knowledge about what caused the current situation.
Regardless, Iraq is of a piece with everything else, all of which contributes to a perception of incompetence on Obama's part.
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Guess what: Americans blame Bush for getting us into it in the first place, then they blame Obama for handling it poorly, since he took over.
Any last gaspers still wanting to shed yet more blood and treasure are clearly hanging on to a minority view.
Investing hope, treasure or blood in muslims generally is not a good investment. See Iraq and Afghanistan for recent examples.
There may be exceptions, with Kurds, perhaps Turkey.
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Guess what: Americans blame Bush for getting us into it in the first place, then they blame Obama for handling it poorly, since he took over.
Any last gaspers still wanting to shed yet more blood and treasure are clearly hanging on to a minority view.
Investing hope, treasure or blood in muslims generally is not a good investment. See Iraq and Afghanistan for recent examples.
There may be exceptions, with Kurds, perhaps Turkey.
Not sure who you're referring to as "last gaspers," but most people who are critical of Obama's handling of Iraq think we should have left a residual force there instead of yanking everyone out, and are not "wanting to shed yet more blood and treasure."
I, for one, believe that if Obama had not been a foreign policy idiot for the sake of political gain, none of this mess would have happened, and the blood and treasure we DID spend would not have been in vain.
Bush had Iraq under control.
Obama destroyed what our troops bled and died for.
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Bullshit.
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Not sure who you're referring to as "last gaspers," but most people who are critical of Obama's handling of Iraq think we should have left a residual force there instead of yanking everyone out, and are not "wanting to shed yet more blood and treasure."
I, for one, believe that if Obama had not been a foreign policy idiot for the sake of political gain, none of this mess would have happened, and the blood and treasure we DID spend would not have been in vain.
Bush had Iraq under control.
Obama destroyed what our troops bled and died for.
We trained Iraqi troops a great cost and time. And when they vastly outnumbered the opposition, they threw down their weapons and ran away, trying to get rid of their uniforms.
That has nothing to do with either Bush or Obma, but has to do with the futility of the delusion they will behave as "trained."
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We trained Iraqi troops a great cost and time. And when they vastly outnumbered the opposition, they threw down their weapons and ran away, trying to get rid of their uniforms.
That has nothing to do with either Bush or Obma, but has to do with the futility of the delusion they will behave as "trained."
I'm still not sure who you're referring to as "last gaspers."
This post and your last post seem unconnected to each other and to the point of the thread.
And you didn't answer my question.....
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We could have avoided all of the problems completely if we had never invaded Iraq unnecessarily in the first place. That said, I don't think Bush is to blame anyway, because I don't believe he was ever truly in charge. We probably would have invaded Iraq no matter who was in the White House at the time.
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We trained Iraqi troops a great cost and time. And when they vastly outnumbered the opposition, they threw down their weapons and ran away, trying to get rid of their uniforms.
That has nothing to do with either Bush or Obma, but has to do with the futility of the delusion they will behave as "trained."
People are typically unwilling to die for what they don't passionately believe in. You can't build a Democracy and expect people that don't believe in it to uphold it after you leave.
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We trained Iraqi troops a great cost and time. And when they vastly outnumbered the opposition, they threw down their weapons and ran away, trying to get rid of their uniforms.
That has nothing to do with either Bush or Obma, but has to do with the futility of the delusion they will behave as "trained."
Exactly, which is why it was stupid to leave US bases around for ISIS and AQ to use. If the US was going to leave Iraq, the former bases should have been incinerated after the last troop left. Instead, Obama gave ISIS functional bases. The terrible idea was not leaving permanent US bases in Iraq, though. What a stupid idea by both Bush and Obama it was to agree to pull out troops after announcing a timetable. Iraq even told the US that they weren't ready, yet Obama still pulled out US troops.
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Exactly, which is why it was stupid to leave US bases around for ISIS and AQ to use. If the US was going to leave Iraq, the former bases should have been incinerated after the last troop left. Instead, Obama gave ISIS functional bases. The terrible idea was not leaving permanent US bases in Iraq, though. What a stupid idea by both Bush and Obama it was to agree to pull out troops after announcing a timetable. Iraq even told the US that they weren't ready, yet Obama still pulled out US troops.
Call me a conspiracy nut, but part of me thinks this was all intentionally engineered to force the continued presence of the U.S in the ME. It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out. If it somehow ends in us waging another full scale war you might want to take a closer look.
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We could have avoided all of the problems completely if we had never invaded Iraq unnecessarily in the first place. That said, I don't think Bush is to blame anyway, because I don't believe he was ever truly in charge. We probably would have invaded Iraq no matter who was in the White House at the time.
Should we have gone into Iraq? In all honesty, no. Concentrating on completely denuding Afghanistan of the Taliban and their AQ affiliates would have been more sensible. Give AQ no where to run and no where to hide. Saddam were a total bleep, but he didn't tolerate their stripe in his country, and Iraq itself had as much involvement with 9/11 as Norway.
Still, go in we did. Took out the regime, and my God, we were welcomed. Stayed a while, got things stable - then the Worm came to power. He forgot the lessons of WW2, assuming he ever knew them - when you win a war, you don't ask the country you defeated about things - you bleep well tell them.
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Should we have gone into Iraq? In all honesty, no. Concentrating on completely denuding Afghanistan of the Taliban and their AQ affiliates would have been more sensible. Give AQ no where to run and no where to hide. Saddam were a total bleep, but he didn't tolerate their stripe in his country, and Iraq itself had as much involvement with 9/11 as Norway.
Still, go in we did. Took out the regime, and my God, we were welcomed. Stayed a while, got things stable - then the Worm came to power. He forgot the lessons of WW2, assuming he ever knew them - when you win a war, you don't ask the country you defeated about things - you bleeping well tell them.
North Korea, China, and countless places in Africa have just as many atrocious human rights violations as anybody. I don't really really think the hindsight bright side makes up for what happened at all. It's not our responsibility to cleanse the world of everybody that runs their country in a way we don't like.
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Should we have gone into Iraq? In all honesty, no. Concentrating on completely denuding Afghanistan of the Taliban and their AQ affiliates would have been more sensible. Give AQ no where to run and no where to hide. Saddam were a total bleep, but he didn't tolerate their stripe in his country, and Iraq itself had as much involvement with 9/11 as Norway.
Still, go in we did. Took out the regime, and my God, we were welcomed. Stayed a while, got things stable - then the Worm came to power. He forgot the lessons of WW2, assuming he ever knew them - when you win a war, you don't ask the country you defeated about things - you bleeping well tell them.
Obama showed how much he knew about WWII when he said his grandfather liberated Auschwitz (which was liberated, of course, by Russian troops).
Of course, had the media called him on that silly lie in 2008 (and the 57 states, and Jeremiah Wright, etc. etc.) he would never have been elected, and the world wouldn't be in this mess.
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Obama showed how much he knew about WWII when he said his grandfather liberated Auschwitz (which was liberated, of course, by Russian troops).
Of course, had the media called him on that silly lie in 2008 (and the 57 states, and Jeremiah Wright, etc. etc.) he would never have been elected, and the world wouldn't be in this mess.
The people that are truly destroying the United States and everything it once stood for are not going to constantly be in the public's eye, in my opinion. They are hiding themselves and pulling strings from the shadows, because cowards like that would never make themselves vulnerable enough to be a target. Obama is a small fry, a front man, an empty suit. He's not the evil you're looking for, he is simply their representative.
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The people that are truly destroying the United States and everything it once stood for are not going to constantly be in the public's eye, in my opinion. They are hiding themselves and pulling strings from the shadows, because cowards like that would never make themselves vulnerable enough to be a target. Obama is a small fry, a front man, an empty suit. He's not the evil you're looking for, he is simply their representative.
Oh, I don't have to "look for" evil.
I see it every day in everything he's doing.
That, of course, doesn't mean that his handlers aren't evil.
But it's naïve to think he's just a puppet. He hates this country, and loves that he gets to be the one to destroy it.
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Oh, I don't have to "look for" evil.
I see it every day in everything he's doing.
That, of course, doesn't mean that his handlers aren't evil.
But it's naïve to think he's just a puppet. He hates this country, and loves that he gets to be the one to destroy it.
If he has handlers as you seem to agree he probably does, then he is indeed a puppet. They pull the strings and he responds accordingly. I believe that little would be different no matter who the president was right now.
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If he has handlers as you seem to agree he probably does, then he is indeed a puppet. They pull the strings and he responds accordingly. I believe that little would be different no matter who the president was right now.
You left out a critical word from my post.
I said it's naïve to think he's JUST a puppet.
And I think you're entirely wrong regarding a lack of difference no matter who was president.
He is most likely the only person who could have fulfilled the leftist, Marxist dream of bringing down America.
He had to be black. He had to be smooth talking. He had to be faux suave.
And he had to be a hard core ideologue.
Letting him off the hook because he has handlers is looking evil in the eye and letting him off the hook.
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It's not our responsibility to cleanse the world of everybody that runs their country in a way we don't like.
No, it's not. But if you do need to go in, you go in to win and you do the job properly. Bush understood that. The Worm? All he knows is how to divide and destroy.
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If he has handlers as you seem to agree he probably does, then he is indeed a puppet. They pull the strings and he responds accordingly. I believe that little would be different no matter who the president was right now.
I don't believe he has handlers, or that he is a puppet. He has too much power in the position he has—without his position, and the ability to gain and hold onto it, his “handlers” would be powerless. I do, however, think he has collaborators.
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Letting him off the hook because he has handlers is looking evil in the eye and letting him off the hook.
Nobody said anything about letting him off the hook. My belief that is he mostly just a puppet does not mean that I believe he is ignorant to what he is doing. He knows full well that he is looking Americans in the face and lying to them.
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Nobody said anything about letting him off the hook. My belief that is he mostly just a puppet does not mean that I believe he is ignorant to what he is doing. He knows full well that he is looking Americans in the face and lying to them.
You're disagreeing with your previous post.
You said he wasn't evil. He was just a "representative."
I think you're absolutely wrong.
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A couple of you need to get a room.......
:smokin:
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truth_seeker wrote above:
[[ We trained Iraqi troops a great cost and time. And when they vastly outnumbered the opposition, they threw down their weapons and ran away, trying to get rid of their uniforms.
That has nothing to do with either Bush or Obma, but has to do with the futility of the delusion they will behave as "trained." ]]
Who was it, many years ago in reference to the Vietnamese, made the comment about "hearts and minds" ??
G.W. Bush isn't "to blame" for attempting with Iraq and Afghanistan the same approach that The West has used in previous times with other [non-islamic] countries throughout history.
Where G.W. Bush erred -- and nearly everyone else around him (and a large chunk of "conservatives", as well) -- was in believing that this tack would work in islamic countries.
I've written about this before, and I'll state it again:
The reason our efforts were destined to fail in both Iraq and Afghanistan (and I possibly was the first to point this out over at TOS when I was back there) is because it's pointless to overthrow "the leaders" of islamic nations. We accomplish nothing by replacing one of their "governments" with another.
The reason is that "the leaders" in dar al-islam aren't really the leader.
I realize that's a play on words that doesn't seem to make much sense. But the real "leader" in any islamic nation is not someone living, breathing, elected, chosen, or self-appointed.
Nope. The leader of islamic nations died over 1,400 years ago. Yet the populations of those countries still follow HIM first, and whoever happens to be "in power" second.
Regardless of what written documents govern the day-to-day business of islamic countries, the REAL "manual of operations" is a book written roughly 1,400 years ago by that long-dead person. So it is, and so it will ever be, so long as those nations remain "islamic".
That's why one of the first things the Iraqis did when they "wrote" a new Constitution, was to make islam "the state religion", as per that Constitution.
When I saw that, I knew from that point on that whatever "efforts" we (as a nation of The Judeo/Christian West) were futile there. What would eventually happen was but a matter of time, not certainty.
I don't know whether Mr. Bush (and those around him) even considered this. I sense the bulk of their prior historical training and attitudes were such that they never even stopped to consider it. But, as I've said here before, "reality is what it is; it is not what we believe it to be".
In Iraq and Afghanistan, G.W. Bush, his advisors, and many Americans ran straight up against such truth. It's not a rewarding or comforting notion to know that our time and effort there was, essentially, wasted -- as were the lives of those lost and maimed. But again, reality is what it is.
Bush & company believed it to be something else.
Truly, a matter of "hearts and minds".
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I don't believe he has handlers, or that he is a puppet. He has too much power in the position he has—without his position, and the ability to gain and hold onto it, his “handlers” would be powerless. I do, however, think he has collaborators.
You may be right about that.
But I do think he was groomed and prepared for years to take power because of his unique "qualities" (including his hardcore Marxism).
He had to have a lot of people greasing the wheels to allow him, as a completely unqualified, incompetent punk, to win the Presidency.
I'm not sure we'll ever fully know how that happened.
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I'm not sure we'll ever fully know how that happened.
The voting statistics make it pretty obvious how that happened. Young people wanted a hip young president that they could relate to, and who they believed would change the world for the better.
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The voting statistics make it pretty obvious how that happened. Young people wanted a hip young president that they could relate to, and who they believed would change the world for the better.
That isn't the "how" I'm talking about.
I'm referring to years of choosing and preparing this Marxist punk to rip apart everything this country stands for.
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We could have avoided all of the problems completely if we had never invaded Iraq unnecessarily in the first place. That said, I don't think Bush is to blame anyway, because I don't believe he was ever truly in charge. We probably would have invaded Iraq no matter who was in the White House at the time.
That's nutz, IMO.
Iraq was supposed to be where we plugged the " Bug Zapper" to attract jihadists of all stripes. It was working and we gave the Iraqi citizen what was supposed to be...a stable government with a Constitution and fair elections.
Instead, due to Obama's wish to destabilize as many Middle Eastern countries as possible, we essentially gave many Iraqis a death sentence.
......nice. :whistle:
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That's nutz, IMO.
Iraq was supposed to be where we plugged the " Bug Zapper" to attract jihadists of all stripes. It was working and we gave the Iraqi citizen what was supposed to be...a stable government with a Constitution and fair elections.
Instead, due to Obama's wish to destabilize as many Middle Eastern countries as possible, we essentially gave many Iraqis a death sentence.
......nice. :whistle:
I wonder how many have already died because Obama's policies. He has a lot of blood on his hands already, and a lot more is to come.
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I wonder how many have already died because Obama's policies. He has a lot of blood on his hands already, and a lot more is to come.
A LOT more........
And he doesn't care one whit.
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A LOT more........
And he doesn't care one whit.
Maybe it's my upbringing - my Dad is a church deacon and a teacher of Bible prophecy - but when I see what Obama is doing, I see biblical consequences being played out. What we are witnessing in this point in history and seeing Obama & Co's role in it...it's just epic evil.
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If he has handlers as you seem to agree he probably does, then he is indeed a puppet. They pull the strings and he responds accordingly.
Yes, he does have handlers and he responds accordingly. The NWO and one-world government cannot be implemented while a single superpower remains. That superpower must be reduced to a regional power and balanced by other regional powers before WW3 can be started. After that, the U.N. will move to Jerusalem and the one-world government will begin.
I believe that little would be different no matter who the president was right now.
I think it is much easier to control who is installed as president than to manipulate the one who is there. It is easy to look back and see how Obama came out of 'nowhere' and was installed as president. Like Bush II, Clintoon, Carter and Kennedy. Assassinations (attempted or otherwise) are messy and only used as a last resort when said president begins to think they actually were elected for purposes other than those their handlers assign.
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Maybe it's my upbringing - my Dad is a church deacon and a teacher of Bible prophecy - but when I see what Obama is doing, I see biblical consequences being played out. What we are witnessing in this point in history and seeing Obama & Co's role in it...it's just epic evil.
I see the same thing, alice.
And I've always been skeptical of end-of-the-world eschatology.
Obviously, we don't really know these things, nor can we, but it certainly looks like what we're observing puts us near the end.
And Obama seems to be part of the evil that's critical to having it happen.
(And I never thought I'd see these things, or say them.....)
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It is easy to look back and see how Obama came out of 'nowhere' and was installed as president. Like Bush II, Clintoon, Carter and Kennedy.
Obama is the only one of that list who came out of 'nowhere.'
Three were Governors, and one (Kennedy) came from a very influential, evil family......quite well known.
Obama is the only hologram. The only one with NO experience doing anything. The only one with a blank slate. The only one with no past.
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I see the same thing, alice.
And I've always been skeptical of end-of-the-world eschatology.
Obviously, we don't really know these things, nor can we, but it certainly looks like what we're observing puts us near the end.
And Obama seems to be part of the evil that's critical to having it happen.
(And I never thought I'd see these things, or say them.....)
Because of the constant barrage of Bible Prophecy I endured as a kid, I completely shut it out. I would walk out of the room, didn't want to hear it or think about it. I spent most of my life not thinking about it. But, I guess really - since 9/11 - I've had a turnaround. I'm recognizing the signs and seeing the direction we're heading and bells are going off in my head.
One thing is for sure, it's reaching critical mass.
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Because of the constant barrage of Bible Prophecy I endured as a kid, I completely shut it out. I would walk out of the room, didn't want to hear it or think about it. I spent most of my life not thinking about it. But, I guess really - since 9/11 - I've had a turnaround. I'm recognizing the signs and seeing the direction we're heading and bells are going off in my head.
One thing is for sure, it's reaching critical mass.
What the tipping point for me was....this time....the total blanket push regarding homosexual rights and other sexual deviant behavior as being "normal"...to the point of destroying anybody that deems to have an alternate opinion.
The key here of course, is the criminal mainstream media that is now the PR wing of the Democratic Party.
For example, today on page 7 of the Washington Post is a [buried] story regarding the fact that EIGHTY-FOUR people were shot...FOURTEEN of them fatally, in CHICAGO, ILLINOIS over the 4th of July weekend.
That same "Chicago" were handguns are outright banned and having the strictest gun laws in the United States.
All black victims in their teens or early twenties.
Probably all from single parent households. On either side...perp or victim.
Sorry for derailing the thread....but the media is Domestic Enemy #1.
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Because of the constant barrage of Bible Prophecy I endured as a kid, I completely shut it out. I would walk out of the room, didn't want to hear it or think about it. I spent most of my life not thinking about it. But, I guess really - since 9/11 - I've had a turnaround. I'm recognizing the signs and seeing the direction we're heading and bells are going off in my head.
One thing is for sure, it's reaching critical mass.
It certainly is reaching a critical mass because, as messy as the ME has always been, it has never been on fire like it is now.
We know the end will come there. The final battle.
It's not emotional nonsense to be sensing that things are coming to a close. It's actually pretty rational.
This is where belief in both the love, and sovereignty of God are a big help to me. It's in His hands.
"Be not afraid."