McCain: War detractors offer no ideas

[totalcommand]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: shadow9d9
"So far, all the Dem plans I've seen start with some sort of withdrawl. "

What is wrong with that? Just because YOU don't like it, doesn't mean it isn't a valid plan. The post says there are NO ideas... there ARE ideas, but you may not like em... tough crap..

Ok, if the Democrat plan is withdrawal then why aren't they offering it up as a resolution?
Why make a big deal out of this "we don't agree with the surge" resolution?

Why offer up a resolution that will fail? Republicans are already filibustering the "we don't agree with the surge" resolution, and it does squat.

That was McCain's point. Complaining about Bush's plan without offering your own alternative does not accomplish anything positive.

McCain doesn't even understand the plan. Apparently we won't see the results in six months, but we'll be able to see if the Iraq government is working with us in six months. That's very reassuring - it's completely open ended. Plans have an end in mind, and this is no plan.

The Democrats could offer a non-binding resolution tomorrow that says "we in congress feel that all American troops in Iraq should be withdrawn by date X" Why don't they do that?

Because they don't agree with that. Read the Iraq Study Group report.

And all you guys with your Republican talking points get over yourselves already. I am posting what McCain said.

Everything in this post I'm responding to has been said already by you in this thread. You're just parroting the talking points over and over. I will keep rebutting them over and over.

He is a very well known and respected member of congress and therefore his comments DO have weight. Especially in lieu of his possible run for the Presidency.

People's respect for him are falling every day, just look at the latest Rasmussen Reports. His comments mean crap, since he's just trying to become a conservative before the Republican primaries come around.

 

[LumbergTech]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: shadow9d9
"So far, all the Dem plans I've seen start with some sort of withdrawl. "

What is wrong with that? Just because YOU don't like it, doesn't mean it isn't a valid plan. The post says there are NO ideas... there ARE ideas, but you may not like em... tough crap..

Ok, if the Democrat plan is withdrawal then why aren't they offering it up as a resolution?
Why make a big deal out of this "we don't agree with the surge" resolution?

That was McCain's point. Complaining about Bush's plan without offering your own alternative does not accomplish anything positive.
The Democrats could offer a non-binding resolution tomorrow that says "we in congress feel that all American troops in Iraq should be withdrawn by date X" Why don't they do that?

And all you guys with your Republican talking points get over yourselves already. I am posting what McCain said. He is a very well known and respected member of congress and therefore his comments DO have weight. Especially in lieu of his possible run for the Presidency.

Mccain pretends to be moderate in an attempt to avoid some resistance...his votes on policy are almost never moderate. the only time i agreed with him was the anti-torture issues. and thats because he himself was tortured

as for a plan..it seems to me that the only plan we can have is to leave...i honestly believe that the same people we are training now will be our enemies once again......we have already gone through many figures in the iraqi gov which have become enemies..

unless we simply beat the country into submission by a maximum amount of force i dont know what we can hope to accomplish by staying

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
Pointing out that a plan is a bad idea does not require an alternate plan to prove that it is, in fact, a bad idea.

Bush's "victory" in Iraq is a pipe dream. There is no plan that can achieve it.

Bush is chasing unicorns and requiring anyone telling him it will not work to show him a better design for a unicorn trap.

I think a better anology is that Bush (or we) has a tiger by the tail. Simply saying let it go is clearly a bad idea. It will most likley turn around and bite him/us.

Victory? Saddam is dead & gone. The war is over, we are past that and in the "nation building" stage. Obviously that is not going as well as we would like.

Clearly the American people have indicated that they agree with the Dems that this war was a mistake, and have voted the Dems in power in both House & Senate. McCain's remark echo's that of many others - OK we got it, Bush was wrong, now what? If the Dems answer to the "Now what?" question is just let go of the tiger's tail, well IMHO that's simplistically craptastic.

But I fear that craptastic is all we're going to get. These boobs in Congress don''t even know the difference between Shia & Sunni, and can't look past the next election cycle in order to try and resolve what many justifiably fear may be a long-term problem. And this problem (radical Islam) has been developing for many years.

Fern

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
Pointing out that a plan is a bad idea does not require an alternate plan to prove that it is, in fact, a bad idea.

Bush's "victory" in Iraq is a pipe dream. There is no plan that can achieve it.

Bush is chasing unicorns and requiring anyone telling him it will not work to show him a better design for a unicorn trap.

I think a better anology is that Bush (or we) has a tiger by the tail. Simply saying let it go is clearly a bad idea. It will most likley turn around and bite him/us.

This analogy is terrible for a number of reasons. If you ever end up in a situation where you are holding a tiger by the tail, your immediate thought should not be "I'll continue to hold on because if I let go, I will get bit." If you keep holding on, you're probably going to get bit, and you'll be a whole lot closer to the tiger.

Realistically, the best plan is to slowly back away from the tiger, never taking your eyes off it, hoping it doesn't decide to turn on you (notice that this sounds an awful lot like withdrawal). Bush's surge plan is equivalent to giving the tiger's tail a nice, vicious yank. It's stupid. A withdrawal is far more intelligent.

The final problem I have with this analogy is that a tiger could destroy an unarmed man. Iraq cannot destroy the United States. It's just not possible. We're not taking on some overpowering force that we need to tread gingerly around to avoid disturbing...

I'm going to have to agree with jack on this one. If you do something stupid, and I tell you it's stupid, why should it be up to me to fix your stupid mistake? George "The Decider" Bush gets us involved in a war. His administration's poos planning bungles the operation, and plunges the country into "sectarian violence" (not unlike a civil war, but less damning in the media), and leaves our soldiers playing police force to a bunch of insurgents who simply want us gone. This goes on for a long time, and Americans get sick of it. Bush, never once admitting fault, mind you, ignores the will of Americans, and his supporters offer a rebuttal of "you fix it" to his detractors. This is the most assinine political debate, or it would be if thousands and thousands of lives didn't depend on the outcome.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy
This analogy is terrible for a number of reasons. If you ever end up in a situation where you are holding a tiger by the tail, your immediate thought should not be "I'll continue to hold on because if I let go, I will get bit." If you keep holding on, you're probably going to get bit, and you'll be a whole lot closer to the tiger.

Apparently you're not familiar with the old "tiger by the tail" cliche. Contrary to your analysis, it does mean that "you can't let go, or you'll get bit" etc.

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy

Bush's surge plan is equivalent to giving the tiger's tail a nice, vicious yank. It's stupid. A withdrawal is far more intelligent.

Seems to me if the tiger were trying to turn around to bite you, a good hard yank on the tail would temporarily prevent it.

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy
The final problem I have with this analogy is that a tiger could destroy an unarmed man. Iraq cannot destroy the United States. It's just not possible. We're not taking on some overpowering force that we need to tread gingerly around to avoid disturbing...

We disagree here. You seem to think that this 100% Iraq centric. I don't agree, I fear it's a far broader looming problem, both geopolitically and economically. I hear reports from creditable sources (Robert Behr, sp? +20 yrs as an undercover CIA operative in Iraq etc) that the Shia vs Sunni tension is spreading. Ex. Sunni Immans in Saudi Arabia have been issuing fatwahs calling for death to Shias etc. Even here in the states (Detriot) tensions are reportedly rising between the two groups. As far as enonomically, if that whole region gets engaged in the type of Sunni vs Shia, and Shia vs Shia, violence and chaos, well "bye bye" to the worlds oil production & "hello" to the next world-wide depression.

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy

If you do something stupid, and I tell you it's stupid, why should it be up to me to fix your stupid mistake?

Seriously? We can't expect our polititions to fix the problems of their predecessors? Isn't that what they campaign on? What, are we supposed to re-elect the same politition who caused the problem to fix it, since another politition won't because (s)he didn't cause it?

There are significant similarities between large corporations and the government. After some CEO screws up the company and gets fired do we every hear of a new CEO saying "I'm not fixing the problem. Why should I? The other CEO caused it, not me". That's flat out retarded and irresponsible.

At this point I really don't give a sh!t about who caused what, I want it fixed. I fear that just pulling out and pretending that fixes the problem may lead to far bigger problems in the (near) future. But isn't that the way politics works here in the USA? Our polititions seem to push problems into the future, (Social Security?) no matter that they will grow larger and become far more difficult to fix, then claim credit for how successful they were because the problem didn't mature on their watch.

Fern