Vets for Freedom - Senator Obama: Talk with Dictators or Meet with Commanders?

[Jhhnn]

I love all this talk about how the soviets were defeated by the reagan era us arms buildup. hogwash. It really didn't matter, in the sense that the soviets still possessed an entirely effective deterrent against US aggression, regardless of the theoretical disparities involved. Each party possessed 30-40K deliverable nuclear weapons at the time. Even in a first strike 95% success scenario, the US would have been rendered into shambles by their retaliation. They didn't have to keep up, and they knew it. It's the functional difference between "I kill you a hundred times over!" and "I kill you once"... which is to say no difference at all.

Military spending, then and now, is largely pork, and very dangerous pork, at that. the problem with having a big gun laying around is that sooner or later some damned fool will just have to shoot it, which is what the Neocons said they wanted to do even before GWB laid out his stay at home foreign policy flimflam...

And the whole bit about Obama not going to Iraq, not meeting with Petraeus, or with a veterans group trying to set him up is just another flimflam. Meet with Petraeus? Why? He's bush's guy, meaning that neither has anything to gain from it. go to Iraq? Why? Self-aggrandizement? create war friendly propaganda? That's obviously why McCain went... Meet with a veterans group set up and financed by your political opponents? Why? Were they there to urge him to vote for the pending veterans benefits bill? probably not... Not that they actually tried to set up a meeting, just showed up unannounced as a publicity stunt...

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: senseamp

I am kind of sick of hearing Obama's plan is same as Clinton's. If I want Clinton's plan, I'll vote for Clinton. Obama has no substance of his own.

Please show me proof of how Obama co-opted Clinton's plan?

Ahhh, so now you're admitting that Obama and Clinton share policy positions. If you care about policy instead of some sort of stupid personality contest you should be very happy this is so. Let's be honest though, you don't. This has become some sort of sports team competition for you and we both know that nothing anyone says will dissuade you from your crazy Obama hating position.

This would be the first election I'm aware of where people are angry about the fact that a candidate that shares nearly all of their policy preferences is becoming a presidential nominee.

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: senseamp
Also, it's Eeee-rak, not Aye-rak

Umm, no.

It's i-RAK (where the "i" sound is like "fin" and "rak" sounds like "rock"). Accent on the second syllable.

Alternatively, the "rak" part sounds like "rack."

 

[Lemon law]

Of course we are having a very open and effective dialog with all kinds of terrorists and in a language we can all understand. Because they talk with ied's, shaped charges, rpg's, ak-47's, suicide, bombers, ethnic cleansing, assassination,
and that just a short list of vocabulary words. Of course established nation states have all that and ever so much more and may even employ terrorists in proxy wars. And maybe the bad dialog is best summed up by "what we have here is a failure to communicate."

Eskimospy is 100% right, we have become a nation convinced that even talking to anyone not in our allies list is appeasement of the Czechoslovakia variety, when in fact, its a stand alone, N of 1, worse case scenario. But in the end we talk in one of two basic ways, with stick and stone to break many bones, or with our mouths. Never in the history of the world has that latter method resulted in any direct deaths. And in the long history of the world, talk is what solves most conflicts, both sides air their grievances, some just accommodation is reached, and another problem is solved.

Thank God we have the shining example of GWB&co and his merry bunch of neocons to show us the folly of listening to posters like Eskimospy. I really have to love GWB's war on terror that has managed to create more terrorism and death than there were before.

 

[BMW540I6speed]

Reagan explicitly cited Nixon's opening to China as a precedent for his Iranian dialog. Here's a link to a very revealing speech of Reagan

It is illminating that in the speech, the US President talks about the US national interests in the Middle East - ending the Iran-Iraq war, ending Soviet influence, ending state-sponsored terrorism (of course) and finally, something about oil.

Reagan not only talked to Iran during the hostage crisis, he gave the Iranians weapons.

Its also worth remembering that Reagan negotiated with one of the VERY countries that Bush spoke of as being a terrorist state, Iran. Not only did he negotiate for the release of the hostages, keeping them in captivity until after Reagan was in the White House, he then later went back to the same state, one that many neocons today say that the US has been at war with since the hostage incident, and negotiated a deal whereby he could sell them weapons in order to fund his other terrorist friends in Central America, the Contras. Reagan actually negotiated with Iran on at least two separate issues, at a time when modern neocons insist the US was at war with Iran.

Rather ironic that today, any attempt at diplomatic ties to Iran is considered appeasement, but that in the 80's, using the hostages as a political bargaining chip, and even selling weapons to the same terrorist state is simply overlooked. Forget appeasement, if I am not mistaken, selling weapons to a state that the US is at war with is treason. Should it matter that it was a Republican President did it? A rose by any other name or stinkweed.

Of course, what all the modern appeasers of the Republican Right don't want people to remember is that back in 1938-41, it was the Republican Party that favored isolationism and appeasement. That quote Bush used was from Republican Senator Willaim Borah of Idaho, the man most responsible for creating as many difficulties as possible for Roosevelt to aid the Allies before Lenf-Lease, whose "cash and carry" policy in the Neutrality Act he authored nearly bankrupted Britain at the time they were most in need of help during the Battle of Britain.

Let's recall that it was the Republican Party that was deeply involved in the pro-fascist America First movement, a movement that advocated negotiating with Hitler and recognizing his conquests of western Europe. These are the guys who were so anti-communist they saw Hitler as their best defense against Stalin.

Let's recall that it was Republicans like Prescott Bush (Little Georgie's grandfather) who financed the rise of Hitler back in the 1920s, who did business with Hitler throughout the 1930s, and refused to give up their investments in Nazi Germany after the war began. Let's remember that Republican-run American corporations had the chutzpah to sue the United States government after World War II for the destruction of the physical plants of their German subsidiaries, companies that actively supported Hitler's war machine.

Prescott Bush himself only avoided indictment and trial for treason under the Trading With The Enemy Act in 1942 by getting himself elected Senator from Connecticut.

Remind me again which is the party of Appeasement and Public Treason???

 

[Jhhnn]

The only thing inaccurate in what you just wrote, BMW540I6speed, is that the Reaganites negotiated for the release of the embassy hostages with the Iranians. They were actually released on the day of his inauguration, through the efforts of the Carter Admin. There has been a great deal of speculation over the years that the Reaganites may have even encouraged the Iranians to hold the hostages longer so as to create the false impression that the Iranians were somehow skeered of Reagan, giving him a PR coup.

"Despite losing the November 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan, President Jimmy Carter, in the final days of his office, negotiated the release of the hostages through Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Algerian intermediaries and members of the Iranian government."

See the "final months" and "october surprise conspiracy" sections of this wiki article-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis

They did play both sides in the Iran-Iraq war, supplying the Iranians via the Israelis (imagine that) and the Iraqis directly and indirectly through a variety of surrogates... not to mention the Contras and the brutal death squad methods of the Salvadoran govt at the time... Christian Lebanese militias... while supporting the mujahedin, the precursors to the Taliban and AlQ in Afghanistan...

Nevermind all of that- Ronnie was a Saint, a Savior, and the greatest President who ever lived according to his fanclub...

 

[JohnnyGage]

Prescott Bush himself only avoided indictment and trial for treason under the Trading With The Enemy Act in 1942 by getting himself elected Senator from Connecticut.

Umm, you can still be indicted for treason if you are a US Senator--especially during WWII.
A simple search on Prescott Bush scroll down to 'business links with Fritz Thyssen:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescott_Bush

In other words that Prescott Bush somehow brought Hitler to power is a stretch.

One other tidbit, we have never been at war with Iran.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: BMW540I6speed
Reagan not only talked to Iran during the hostage crisis, he gave the Iranians weapons.

Wow... what planet are you from??

Reagan gave the Iranian's weapons during the hostage crisis? Wow!
How did a man who wasn't even in government at the time of the crisis manage to get them weapons?

Furthermore, despite all the claims that Reagan kept the hostages in captivity until his election there has never been one bit of proof that this happened.
Plus, if he had the ability to convince the Iranians to hold the hostages until the day before he took office why didn't he convince them to hold them a few more weeks so he could claim credit for their freedom?

 

[wirelessenabled]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: Queasy
New ad campaign from the Vets for Freedom PAC.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 23, 2008
Contact: Judy Mayka 202-834-5931
Or Brian Marriott 703-593-1679

This morning Vets for Freedom Political Action launched its first internet advertisement, which asks Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) why he is willing to meet, unconditionally, with foreign dictators, but has shown no interest in meeting with Commanders on the Ground and has not visited Iraq in over 2 years.

The 60-second ad, which was released at 8 am E.T. today, features retired Iraq war veteran Sergeant Garrett Anderson. Click here to view the ad. Sergeant Anderson served in Iraq with the Illinois Army National Guard, and was severely wounded when his patrol was hit by an IED.
The ad highlights the unfortunate fact that:

1) Senator Obama has never met, one-on-one, with the Commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus.

2) Senator Obama has not visited Iraq, and our brave troops on the ground, in over two years. His last visit to Iraq was January 2006, and he was there for less than two days.

3) On April 8, when two-dozen Illinois veterans went to his office for a meeting, Senator Obama was unwilling to meet with them. He was in the office, just wouldn?t come out. Sergeant Anderson was a member of that group.

The ad can be viewed at www.VetsforFreedom.org and can be downloaded HERE.

We're going to have dueling Veterans PACs going now as well as dueling whacko ministers. Yay!

Though, I have to say, #1 is kind of bad and #3 is potentially damning. I kind of give Obama a pass on #2 because he's been campaigning for the Presidency for about that long.

This ad is totally retarded.

1.) Obama is one of the most junior senators there are, do you think he just dials up the commander in Iraq and tells him to stop on by the office? What does that even mean to imply? Smear by vague insinuation.

2.) I fail to see why taking a guided military tour lends you any greater insight about Iraq then knowing what the military wants you to see.

3.) What was he doing at the time? What were the veterans going to his office for a meeting about? Did they schedule an appointment that Obama broke? Etc.. etc.. etc. I'm a veteran, I bet you I could go to the white house today and ask to meet with Bush and I wouldn't get in even if he were there. WHY DOES BUSH HATE THE TROOPS!?!!? Another smear by vague insinuation.

Are you going to be like this all the way up to the election? Are you honestly attempting to use "Obama wouldn't meet with 12 random veterans at a time and place I know nothing about" as a legitimate point for discussion? These threads are getting more and more pathetic.

You saved me having to write all this:thumbsup:

 

[Bitek]

Originally posted by: bl4ckfl4g
I think the (R) are focusing too much on this"meet with our enemies" thing.

It is not going to harm Obama like they hope.

There is nothing wrong with having a dialog and encouraging our enemies to change.

..Its like they never heard the word "no" before.

Of course, the way the Rs ran the Congress under Bush they certainly acted like they never learned to say No. If they couldn't even stand up to that halfwit Bush, no wonder they are afraid to talk to some two bit dictator from some backwater hellhole. God knows what shit they would let themselves get talked into. Obviously they can't even trust themselves to not sell out the country.

Obama should really take a staged tour of Iraq tho. He should walk through some well defended markets with a battalion of marines to prove how safe they are, and therefore our troops aren't needed there anymore. Obviously to get the best picture of Iraq you need to be there on the ground and not in Washington talking to Patraeus and Crocker at the Senate Foreign Relations committee meeting.


[C>end sarcasm [/Y] ]

 

[Drift3r]

Hmm.....will these vets hold McCain to the same standards when he has to meet with the King of Saudi Arabia or has to pay a visit to Muammar ? How come they never were as outspoken when Bush was slapping spit with the SA royalty.

http://cache.wonkette.com/asse.../2008/01/bushtrip5.jpg

 

[RightIsWrong]

Just found this bit from one of the founders of Vets for Freedom.

"You can have your Tiger Woods, we've got Senator McCain!"

As a poster on the site commented:

Tiger Woods made a huge splash when he entered the PGA, he's an incredible golf player, he brought in tons of new fans (and therefore $$$) to the sport, and broke down a lot of the barriers for minorities in that sport.

I have to say, if Barack Obama is to the presidency what Tiger Woods was to golf, who in their right mind would vote for Jack Nicklaus in 2008?

 

[ayabe]

Originally posted by: ZeroIQ

Originally posted by: jpeyton
This has "backfire" written all over it.

Like I said before, if the GOP thinks they can win the general by bringing the Iraq war into the spotlight, they are in for the biggest surprise of their life.

The GOP will win if the Iraq war becomes a topic of discussion. I hope you're noticing they aren't calling it a failure as much now since Iraq has been out of the headlines... and it's been out of the headlines because it's been going well.

No it's because gas is $4/gallon and people are losing their jobs.


***************************************************

It's not even worth the time anymore, you can guys can start these crap threads in vain attempt to deflect the reality of the situation.

What you haven't received your 2008 Election GOP Survival Kit? It includes a picture of the Gipper, some Astroglide, and a box of tissues.

In other words, get over it, you already lost.

 

[SP33Demon]

Originally posted by: Arkaign
Epic fail @ smear.

/nod