150,000 killed (so far), and $2+ trillion spent?

22 Democratic Senators and 126 Democratic Congressmen - a majority of the Democrats in Congress - voted against going to war.

At least Edwards has apologized. Clinton still believes that those who voted against the war were in the wrong.

twisted it around to go to war. But I do remember vividly that Obama gave an interview to a Chicago Tribune reporter, exclusive, by the way. He said he would bomb Iran. He said that he believed the president when he said Iran had nuclear weapons. WAIT WAIT...I think the reason Edwards and Hillary voted to give bush permission to go after WMD IS THEY BELIEVED bush when he said Saddam had them..

But then I suppose the doodle boppers think it is OK for the Obama to want to bomb Iran and approve of sending in missiles, because oh joy, oh wonders, he believes bush,....... but it's not OK for someone to vote to give bush permission to go after WMD...because THEY believed the evidence (false) bush gave them.

I remember that Trib interview well, I have posted the link three times.

....before voting for WAR!

Say that 10x as fast as you can.

Nope. And no, neither she nor Edwards read 'em. But as far as I know, Pat Leahy didn't either and he made the most cogent argument against voting for a blank check of anyone in Congress.

....aggressiveness, I've already had about 5 cups of coffee.

Have a cup of herb tea.

Were those who voted for the AUMF a little dimmer than most Americans?

Also, could you please repost the link on Obama wanting to bomb Iran? Thanks.

Ha Ha


HA HA HA HA

HA HA HAR HAR HA

. . . oh . . . thump

are pretty vacant as far as I'm concerned. Edwards supported his vote and pretty much supported the war -albeit saying it was being fought wrong- until November of '05, long after a couple of thousand troops had been killed and thousands of Iraqi civilians had perished. Same with Clinton. And Clinton has never said, as far as I know that she believes that those who voted against the war were wrong.

bull shit and yet our so called leaders in Congress did not?

Clearly it's an uncomfortable topic for Hill.

Politicians do not.

....arsenal of WMD's,mushroom clouds, and all the other bull shit. It was a rush on the part of many politicians to jump on the bandwagon of "fighting terrorism".......they didn't bother to think about the lives that would be lost and continue to be lost to this day.

Or do you think that a "no" vote was wrong?

I'd like to see where it says "leave your instincts at the door" on Cap. Hill.

and 22 other Senators. Not to mention the majority of House dems.

What's the incentive for being skeptical?

As long as it doesn't endanger your re-election or injure people you care about, everything's cool. It's just strategy, doncha know.

Besides, who would've suspected that such a fine, upstanding gentleman like George W. Bush would do anything underhanded or aggressive? I sure wouldn't have. I mean, I always thought he was the sort of guy you'd want to have a beer with.

and to those who would spin it that the resolution was not for war, I say rubbish.

Everyone with a single working neuron knew what Bush would do.

Everyone with a single neuron knew IRAQ posed no imminent threat.

And sorry, Edwards mea culpa after so much death and destruction doesn't cut it.

At the very least, such presidential hopefuls as HRC and JE should have listened to the sage words of their colleague Sen Robert Byrd who warned about the president's hubris, about the legislative body's Constitutional responsibility, against the haste of voting on IWR and against the rush to WAR

The time to show leadership, good judgment and political courage was in October 2002. They failed.

She probably did know Bush was full of shit, but at the time, she thought it might play well with the DLC, Repug lite crowd down the road.

Sending kids to die because it might help your image and ambition when it's time to run. Disgusting and inhumane. But hey, you go girl!

No amount of disavowing and hot air from Hillbots can make that go away.

:hi:

.....even though she was telling everyone she had no such plans.

I remember like it was yesterday. And I remember so many of us complained and they still wouldn't listen.

We didn't hear this being trudged out when Obama was "unstoppable" just a few days ago.

with HRC's vote for the IRW here at DU prior to the NH vote. ;) To some it is a major, deal-breaking issue; to others it is just one vote on one issue in commendable career.

I suppose it is human nature to let up on attacks against an opponent if you think you have them beat. (In retrospect perhaps easing up was a tactical mistake.) Supporters of any of our candidates would probably act that way if they felt things were going their way.

Few supporters of any of our big three spend much time dumping of any of the second tier candidates. The latter are effectively "beat" so why bother, it just makes you look petty.

I've said repeatedly here that I wouldn't vote in the primary for ANYONE who voted for the IWR. Period. No exceptions. And I've written dozens of posts about why I feel that way. I've also said I'd vote for whoever get the nomination.

As for Obama's "epic collapse"- he got just about what he was projected to get. Hillary won by approx 3 pts. Hardly a crushing defeat or epic collapse unless you're so mindless that you can't distinguish between media hype and reality. It's particularly amusing coming from a supporter of the candidate that actually did underperform in the first two contests, and has a strong chance of coming in third in every state from here on out.

Yes, I thought Obama would win, based on polling, but I was hardly crushed when he didn't. And I certainly didn't post about Hillary's and JE's dreadful vote on the IWR because Obama didn't win in NH. As I said, I've been excoriating both for a long time re that vote.

Why so many Edwards supporters grab in desperation to the thinnest of narratives and explanations is no mystery to me.

They both got nine.

Get real.

Has anyone else done that before in the history of the New Hampshire primary? The polls were right. Women flocked to Hillary at the very end. Funny how this happened to the so-called new JFK and he needed Republican and "independent" votes to even stay close.

He was down 4 on Thursday and lost by 3 on Tuesday. That's an "epic collapse"?

Talk about desperation.

Edwards and many of the others who voted for and supported or sponsored the IWR were given information that was little more than politicized intelligence bent to make a case for war with Iraq.

THE WMD question was not at all clear at the time. http://www.ips-dc.org/iraq/primer1.htm#10

What Edwards and everyone else who voted for the IWR did was, in good faith, and based on incorrect information provided to them by the White House, was authorize an American President to handle a national security matter and deal with the UN in a manner that would best protect the interests and safety of the people of the United States of America.

Edwards and the others did not let the American people down when they decided to vote on the side of defense to protect us. After all, the worst terrorist attack ever on American soil had just happened, and no one wanted to chance another attack like that.

George Bush was the one who took advantage of this good faith effort on the part of Congress to protect America. He was not under any commitment to do what he did; that was his decision and his decision alone.

Yes, he was able to make that decision based on the IWR; but given the circumstances at the time, I think it's difficult to understand all the facts. And no one knew at the time how bad President Bush truly was. He had the overwhelming support and approval of the American people at this time as well.

Edwards has stated what he did was a mistake. And I respect him for that. I believe he regrets his decision every time he hears of another casualty in Iraq. And I believe he wants to do as much as possible to address his bad decision by getting our troops out of harm's way as quickly as possible, attending to their needs and the needs of their families here in America, and making sure that relations around the world are improved to the point where dialog is open between countries to avoid further acts of violence.

We all now know that there were no WMDs in Iraq at the time; we also know that Saddam was not a threat; he wasn't harboring terrorists; and that much of the information provided at the time was conflicting, or was an outright lie. No one knew for certain at that time, however, that this was the case. Yes, many voted against the IWR and they deserve credit for doing the right thing. But the biggest mistake Edwards, Clinton, Biden, Kerry, and the others who voted for it made was trusting President Bush.

I think Congress and the American people should be able to trust that their President will make the best decisions for their country; and he/she will do that based on what's best for the population at large, not just big corporations. We now know it was a mistake to allow Bush to have this power, as he has abused it, the same as he's abused the power of his office to a degree unprecedented in American history.

I still don't believe we know all the facts, and we may never know all there is to know. So it's difficult to second guess in hindsight what someone should or shouldn't have done. At the time, based on what I heard, I thought the IWR was an appropriate thing. I didn't like Bush, I didn't trust him, but I also didn't want to be a sitting duck again.

Had President Bush acted presidential and appropriately, the war in Iraq would have never happened, and we would have still likely had a lot of support from other countries. But Bush flushed all that goodwill and support down the toilet.

The blame for this is solely President Bush's to bear, (along with his crusaders in war Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld) and I believe history will prove this to be so.

I don't know all the facts. You don't know all the facts.

This is what William Rivers Pitt wrote about the IWR:



It would appear there were a lot of things in the IWR designed to prevent war, but Bush abused his power.

I'm as angry about it as anyone, and I do hold those who voted for it responsible for their votes. But you can go back and dredge up every mistake a candidate has ever made, and they've all made them. Barack is not free of bad votes, endorsements, and decisions, either. Some are worse than others, but all of the candidates have made mistakes.

....they weren't planning to run for President; they weren't trying to straddle the fence so they could jump in one direction or the other depending on which way the winds blew; they didn't trust Bush and his criminal cabal; they cared about the lives of the young servicemen and women of this country and chose not to rush to war.

:eyes:

So why should I support someone who did? 150,000 and $2+trillion spent is a lot of blood to have on one's hands and should not be trivialized. That is not worthy of an "Oops,Sorry - was misled" I watched from the confines of the news media, even less information then any of these politicians, and I was completely against going to war, since any captain obvious with a modicum of logic and sanity could see that it was a ludicrous undertaking.

Lets then not forget all the events that followed proving captain obvious right, yet it seemed like the country had been forced to drink some noxious kool-aid where fantasy is supposed to be taken for reality. And now I am supposed to believe that we can only change the bad dream we have all been subjected to by taking a middle of the road position as if all this was excusable in some obscene twist of logic? No way! In fact no way in hell!

squares things? I seem to remember several scurrilous threads of yours to the contrary.

While I commend Obama for his 2002 speech against the war, you can find similar statements by nearly all the Dems who voted for the IWR. I am confident that even with the IWR, none of our candidates would have invaded Iraq.

Since he arrived in the Senate, Obama's votes and positions wrt Iraq are nearly identical with those of Clinton, excepting the K-L vote/absence. He repeatedly votes to fund and continue the war. Obama then gives a great speech inspiring you to believe otherwise, hope against hope.

Both Obama and Clinton foresee US combat operations in Iraq continuing indefinitely, possibly past the end of their first term. While they talk of immediately beginning to withdraw the troops if they are elected, they each cleverly gloss over an annoying detail: they each plan to leave many troops in Iraq and to continue combat operations in the name of "anti-terrorism". Even when asked directly, both Obama and Clinton repeat their "immediately begin" talking point and usually weasel out of giving a direct answer to a direct question.

Edwards would immediately stop all combat operations and withdraw 40-50 thousand troops, and then withdraw the remaining troops by the end of the first year, leaving only a Marine contingent to guard the embassy.


So yes I remember and that is why I will continue to support Edwards. I am confident he will not repeat his mistake, and I appreciate that he states his positions clearly, directly, and concisely.

Glib free or die.


"Where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great"
-- from the official toast of the State of NC