Hey, iceman:

Whose mind is closed? A bunch of us slightly left-leaners posted in a row there.

(I didn't hear anything the least bit closed-minded from any of us, but then I probably wouldn't, since it's confirming my biases anyway.)

By the way, I am far, far, far from a leftie. Typical left-wingers really tick me off. They think they know the solution to every problem. I don't. And I certainly don't think that for every problem, there's a one-size-fits-all solution that will always involve left-wing principles. A lot of problems require market-based, Republican-style solutions.

But sometimes these days I feel like a crazy leftist, just because the Bushies are so insanely bad. You may not believe that they are that bad. But as you said, you don't pay that much attention to politics. The stuff that you may have missed ... whoooooeeeeeee, there's been some doozies.

I was talking to CJ. His posts are full of propaganda. For example. He says that the government is operating under the biggest defecit in history under Bush. Well NO SHIT. We are fighting a war on terrorism in general and more specifically on in Iraq.

Like I said before, whether you agree with it or not. Its fight it now or fight it later and the longer you wait the worse it will be. All these "government blamers" blamed the government for allowing 911 to happen when they had intelligence suggesting an attack was coming but they didnt stop it. Well, now they are trying to stop it and even more worse attacks in the future, but everyone is pissed about that too. You cant have it both ways. If we wouldve sent troops to stop some dude named Bin Laden that nobody had heard of 5 years ago, everyone would bve outraged that we were in the middle east for no reason.

Also, Clinton reformed welfare? Thats a joke. Last I heard nobody was supposed to be able to receive welfare longer than 3 years ( I think that was the max). Well, that "reform" was put into place about 8 years ago and theyre still collecting checks every month.

I could rebut almost every one of things on CJs list. Like all propaganda, he spins things his way and the truth never comes out.

Iceman,

Thanks for your thoughts. I do understand where you're coming from. And of course I have a lot of respect for you and your ability to think through and analyze complex situations.

Let me try to defend CJ. What he's saying may not be 100% correct, but it's not "propaganda" either, IMO.

A few responses to your main points:

(1) Why should the US deficit be bigger when we're fighting in Iraq than it was when we fought World War I, World War II, Vietnam? It's bigger, not just in absolute dollars, but in terms of percentage of GNP. Why? Is this war bigger and more expensive than WWII?

The deficit is bigger because spending is up across the board, and taxes are down, although primarily on the very richest Americans. In every other war in American history, taxes were raised to pay for it. Spending on unnecessary projects was curtailed. Sacrifice was asked of all Americans. Not this war. Why not?

(2) In what states are people continuing to collect welfare checks for years and years? I hadn't heard about that. It seems pretty unlikely to me, but if you have hard evidence I'm very interested to learn about this.

(3) I do blame the government for not paying attention to all the warnings we had about 9/11. If I thought the war in Iraq had anything to do with stopping terrorism on American soil, I'd support that, too. I really would. I don't blame the government for trying to stop future attacks. I blame the government for going into Iraq because I think it will NOT stop future attacks -- and it's not even intended to.

If we had wanted to stop terrorism, we would have gone after, you know, the people who actually perpetrated 9/11. Bin Laden, remember him? Why is he still at large? When was the last time you heard George Bush mention his name? When was the last time we heard anything about attempts to get him?

Instead of pursuing Bin Laden, we attacked Iraq. Why? Was Bin Laden hiding in Iraq? Um, no, he was in Afghanistan. We pulled all our resources OUT of Afghanistan -- everything from military people to spies to linguists and translators -- and INTO Iraq, BEFORE we got Bin Laden. Why? Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

Bush specifically intended to attack Iraq, even before 9/11, even before he became president. (He is on the record saying things about that during the months and years before 9/11.) 9/11 just became a nice justification for it. Trumped-up "weapons of mass destruction" arguments were another nice justification. Even if none of those things were true -- and they weren't true, and the Bush team knew (or should have known) they weren't true -- Bush wanted to attack Iraq anyway. It's a completely unnecessary war that is killing thousands of people and costing billions of dollars.

Now, you may disagree with some of what's in the above paragraphs, in terms of facts. Heck, some of it may not be true. But it's not propaganda. I'm not a left-winger. I don't think all war is wrong or that corporations rule the world or that the war in Iraq was all about oil or any of those whacked out things. But the facts above seem, as best as I can tell, to be true. I'm an honest, decent person, doing my best to work through what seems to be happening. And what is happening is pissing me off!!!

Thanks to all for the reasonable conversation. Knock on wood it can continue to be an exchange of ideas and views, not a way to attack each other.

This is a fascinating topic, and one that I've been following with a great deal of interest.

The civil manner in which you're debating such emotive political issues is a testament to the quality and intelligence of the BTP membership, and I salute you all, I really do!

If anyone being unreasonable or mounting personal attacks, please inform me. I will do everything I can to protect these healthy intellectual debates from 'personality politics'.

Once again, great topic!

Kent,

I'd bet my bankroll that british and american special forces are still being sent into Aganistan to find Bin Laden on missions that are somewhat under the radar.

Molina

Now this might sound stupid, cause I'll admit I don't follow the news as much as I should... but wouldn't the whole memogate thing pretty much confirm that Bush was intent on invading iraq before 9/11? As far as I heard, both governments refused to comment on the whole thing, and then it magically stopped coming up on the news I dunno, maybe someone proved it was a fake or something, but I sure never heard it.

What if they had the plans to invade Iraq for a bunch of right reasons, but they thought the American populace would not buy or even understand the "right" reasons, and so had to wait for a disaster of convenience?

That is the way it was back in '41, could be the way it was in '01 too.

Just a thought.

Yes, I could come up with some very correct reasons for the war, none of which has anything to do with oil or proving the son has a bigger johnson than the father... or WMD or 9/11.

And I'm definitely not a supporter of Bush. I just recognize that at the highest levels of government, they're thinking and operating at a level the American people as a whole just aren't going to come anywhere near comprehending. Not that Bush himself can think that well, but those who put him there can...

I was watching Meet The Press a week or two after 9/11 and there was already saber rattling on Iraq. The premisis on that show for invading was terrorist training camps, which I'm not privilidged enough to know whether it was fact or fiction. This was the first real warning sign that I saw about the direction the country was taking.