<p>D’yer Maker -</p>
<p>Your post #14 rings so true. You nailed the exact problem when you said that normally a Nation goes to war, but in this case, the Military went to war.</p>
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<p>Sometimes I think that people don’t understand politics.</p>
<p>From the moment she stepped foot in the Senate in 2000, Hillary Clinton worked every day to establish her credentials on defense policy – credentials as tough, centrist, and the opposite of the stereotypical knee-jerk liberal. Anyone following her Senate career knows that she was relentlessly positioning herself as a DLC democrat, just as her husband had done. Why? For politics. The same reason all politicians positions themselves.</p>
<p>The 2002 Senate vote authorizing the war passed 77-23. It was a foregone conclusion, given the Republican control of both houses of Congress. And, even if it weren’t foregone, Bush had already said that he would press forward with or without authorization. The votes were “freebies”. Symbolic. With no impact on the outcome. Just like Obama’s and Clinton’s votes last week against the supplemental appropriations were freebies – cast after the outcome of the vote had been determined.</p>
<p>Clinton cast her 2002 vote for political reasons: to establish her “tough” credentials. That was as clear as the nose on your face at the time.</p>
<p>She’s not apologized for that vote. She takes responsibility for it, although it would be expedient to take the Edwards approach…or better yet, the Obama approach saying what he would have done if he had been voting on anything but appropriations to fix pot holes in Chicago.</p>
<p>Will that vote hurt her with the left-wing fringe in the primaries? No doubt. Will it hurt or help in the general election? Time will tell. My guess is that it will help. IMO, a Democratic presidential candidate needs some distance from the far left flank to be successful in general election.</p>
<p>As far as voting. You have to take elections as they come and chose among the candidates on the ballot. If a voter were interested in ending combat operations in Iraq, then I hardly see the logic in voting for “pro surge” McCain over “get out” Clinton, for example.</p>
<p>American Presidential politics requires triangulation: walking the tightrope between throwing enough red meat to the fringe to get the nomination while establishing an all-important centrist position to capture the middle ground that determines general elections. Every presidential candidate is (or should be) walking that tightrope. Some more effectively than others.</p>
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Initially I strongly supported the war because I believed Saddam had WMD and intended to use them at his first chance. He had used them in the past. In 1998 Clinton sent 450 tomahawk cruize missiles into Iraq because Saddam had WMD and was not letting inspectors do their work. </p>
<p>Now I realize was wrong. I don’t stand by my earlier position like ID does, I admit I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Saddam did not have WMD. My mistake was to think that people in Iraq are like us – they want the freedom to elect their own leaders. They don’t. They want to be told what to do by religious leaders. Their civilization is probably 300 or 400 years behind the
West. </p>
<p>Hillary Clinton won’t admit she was wrong. If those of you cannot forgive Bush for making a mistake, I cannot image why you would support Hillary Clinton who made the same mistake.</p>
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You are right. Hillary voted to send Americans to war for her personal political agenda. Pathetic. </p>
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Taking responsiblity for it would mean admitting she was wrong. She has not taken responsibility for anything. She merely blames Bush for everything rather than taking responsibility for her vote.</p>
<p>Of course, know what I know now, I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Trust me, I live with it every day. I voted for Bush in 2004 (not in 2000) and I have to live with the fact that I voted for perhaps the worst President in American History. I should have stayed home as I planned to do until my teenage daughter guilt-tripped me into voting.</p>
<p>But, I can’t make my position in 2003 magically disappear by “apologizing” for it. I have to accept responsibility for my position. Just like you have to accept responsibility for your position. Just like Clinton has accepted responsibility for her position instead of pulling some charade that apologizing for it would magically change a vote she cast five years ago. She’s said, in hindsight, that her vote was wrong.</p>
<p>Well, my position is much clearer. I didn’t vote for Bush in 2000 or 2004, was against the war from the get-go (used to post on a different forum, but under another name, so you’ll just have to take my word for it), and I don’t support Hillary Clinton.
:)</p>
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<p>Every vote by every US Senator is a reflection of a political agenda and the political calculations at the time of the vote. Biden’s vote to fund the Iraq surge last week was a result of political calculations. Clinton’s and Obama’s votes against the appropriations were political calculations. That’s the way democratic politics works. It’s not a perfect system, but it lurches and staggers along as well as, if not better, than any other system.</p>
<p>The voters always have the “throw the bums out” option for candidates who get their political calculations wrong.</p>
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I don’t agree. </p>
<p>There is a big difference between voting to go to war because you believe our nation is in danger and voting to go to war because it will help you get elected president some day. Bush did the former approach. Hillary Clinton did the latter and that is precisely why she should never be President. At least Bush believed what he was saying was true; Hillary just thought she would get more votes if she voted the way she did. I don’t want a President to be focused on what makes him or her look good. I want a President who takes actions that he or she belives are in the best interest of America regardless of the political consequences. I then have to cross my fingers and hope the President is right. Unfortunately, Bush and former President Clinton, John Kerry, Madeline Albright, etc. were all wrong. And me too.</p>
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<p>Not being a supporter of Hillary Clinton, it is easy for me to go with much of what you said. And in particular I fault her for her war stance and just general political behavior.</p>
<p>However, I want to ask you why you think I should forgive Bush? If he turned around and said, “well, I was wrong and this was a misadventure,” I might just have the grounds to begin to forgive him. But when you talk about forgiving Bush are you suggesting that I should also ignore his primary responsibility for taking us into Iraq? I sincerely hope not, particularly since he doesn’t appear ready to admit his responsibility for what you and I both seem to agree are his mistakes.</p>
<p>I was against this war from the beginning and went to a peace march to protest it in advance of our attack. Now, in a sense I had to hold my nose at the peace march because I am not a pacifist. I believe some things are worth fighting for and in some cases a country simply must fight. It is interesting that some of the people at that peace march were like me, not blanket idealists who believe no fighting ever should happen.</p>
<p>From the beginning I thought the war was a strategic mistake and diversion from real tasks at hand like winning Afghanistan. I suffered through listening to people suggest that if I was against this war I must hate our troops – I don’t and I have friends who went – and I have suffered through years of listening to assessments about how success is just around the corner. Just within the past few days, Senator Lieberman has been in Iraq proclaiming progress and imminent success. In the early days of this war after we had committed our troops, I would scream at television sets “SEND MORE TROOPS” when I saw that Iraq that was slowly sinking into chaos, figuring that if we were there we da** well had better pull out the stops in trying to win – and knowing that chaos would lose us our credibility and embolden insurgents.</p>
<p>It is now never made clear where this effort we are expending our precious soldiers lives and our treasure is aimed to reach. We went their with the aerie-faeriest of notions about how we’d be welcome with open arms and democracy would bloom – driven by freaky, muddle-headed, well meaning but stupid, out of touch idealism of the sort that conservatives usually claim for liberals. But that hasn’t happened. Instead, we’ve put Iraq a lot closer to Iranian influence.</p>
<p>If you were suggesting that we should forgive Bush, can you understand why I am not ready to at all?</p>
<p>I am way beyond who is going to benefit or not politically; I just want us to stop the wasted effort. Oh, and I am well aware that after us, in Iraq, the deluge, more than likely.</p>
<p>I honestly don’t know what Bush’s true political motives were (well, I have my hunches, since I have read the PNAC), but I don’t for a second believe that it was Bush’s altruism and true caring for the security of the country that led us to war, as Razorsharp suggests.</p>
<p>War and oil profit, geopolitical hegemony…these are more honest reasons for Bush’s warmongering than security, and we all know it (well, most of us do, at this point).</p>
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<p>Clinton has made it clear that she voted the way she did in 2002 because she thought it was the right way to vote based on what she believed at the time. That’s the whole point of not taking the “cheap out” and disavowing her vote. </p>
<p>Ask mini: he’ll tell you that the Clintons have always been confirmed war mongers! You yourself have pointed out that Bill Clinton bombed the heck out of Iraq in 1998. Hillary’s 2002 vote was not inconsistent with Bill Clinton’s policies toward Iraq, although the Clintons have historically shown much more interest in pursuing diplomatic avenues than the current Bush administration.</p>
<p>77 Senators voted for the war authorization in 2002. This really wasn’t a hotly contested vote in the context of the time.</p>
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<p>I am not suggesting we should forgive anyone. What I am saying is that the same people who bash Bush on a daily basis for the Iraq war are often the same people supporting Hilliary Clinton who was equally responsible for the war. These people are hypocrits. They are bashing Bush because he is a Republican and they are not. They are giving Hillary Clinton a pass because she is a Democrat and they are Democrats. </p>
<p>I don’t look at the world in such distored lenses of the democrat party or republican party. If Bush should be thrown out of office for the Iraq war, then every last one of the Senators who voted for the war should suffer the same consequence. The view of most liberals is to say throw out the republicans who voted for the war, but let the democrats who voted for it remain.</p>
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<p>As someone who was against this war from the beginning, I think there was a lot of altruism in it, actually. This is the letter I wrote to my family and friends before the war. I stand by my close reading of why this administration was going to war, though maybe I slightly overemphasized religion. It doesn’t matter: the road to hell is paved with good intentions – and in this case really shoddy logic and planning as well.</p>
<p>Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 18:49:25 -0800 (PST)
From:
Subject: Why We Are About To Go To War: A View From Right and Left
To: </p>
<p>Hello:</p>
<p>Okay, we aren’t supposed to talk about religion and
politics to our friends, acquaintances and loved ones,
but I am sending this because I am
concerned that our slide to war seems to be inexorable
and inevitable for reasons that are not clear to
many. The reasons should be made clear, in my view.
What is at stake should be very apparent. </p>
<p>The justification for the war has been the supposed
links between Al Qaeda and Iraq. The actual rationale
for this war lies well before the events on 9/11 and
the increased concern we have about Al Qaeda. History
will be very clear about this, even if it does not
seem clear to many now. The facts are available right
now to understand what has driven this policy now and
that is why I am sending this email.</p>
<p>Below are two URLs from very different kinds of
newspapers – the SF Chronicle that many would deride
as a liberal rag and the Washington Times that others
would say is a right wing shill for the Bush
Administration.</p>
<p>Interesting that they both make the exact point about
why we are about to go to war, though their
conclusions about the merit of the course we are
pursuing are apparently different. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20030214-98615336.htm[/url]”>http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20030214-98615336.htm</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/02/13/ED152326.DTL[/url]”>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/02/13/ED152326.DTL</a></p>
<p>In the views of these columns, it is because a
hardline pro-Likud faction in our government that
views regime change in Iraq as a prelude to the spread
of democracy and markets in the Arab world, an
eventuality which it is thought would lead to peace
and possible friendship in that region and in the
world. In other words, Iraq would provide a
“beachhead” for peace and freedom throughout the Arab
world, a platform from which to “convert” Arab nations to democratic societies that don’t support terrorists at all.</p>
<p>The New Yorker’s current edition also has an article about this, and deems such plans as “breathtakingly ambitious”:</p>
<p><a href=“Reporting | The New Yorker”>Reporting | The New Yorker;
<p>The proponents of this position are in some cases joined in their opinion of the
goal, if not the means, by people viewed as less
hawkish – e.g., Thomas Friedman of the New York Times
suggests that using force to reconfigure the
democratic disposition of Arab governments could reap
wonderful benefits. Friedman distinguishes his views
by saying that we can’t undertake this initiative
without multilateral support and he also has
underscored the difficulties of administering a
fractious, multi-ethnic post-war Iraq.</p>
<p>One of the chief architects of this agenda is Paul
Wolfowitz, former Dean of SAIS at Johns Hopkins, and
now Deputy Secretary of Defense. He has been widely
known to have espoused this agenda well before 9/11 –
and to have aggressively pushed this policy post
9/11. This was documented in a long article written
for the New York Times Sunday magazine last year, a
piece that by the way was not terribly negative.</p>
<p>My personal view is that Saddam is a rat and it is
good to see him held to agreements that he has made to
disarm. But, as conceived by the policy’s
architects, the purpose of our preparations for war is
not ultimately, or in essence, to force this. Instead,
it is to attempt to orchestrate from the outside,
starting with Iraq, a complete change of how Arab
countries manage themselves (and thereby present a
threat to Israel and ultimately the world). </p>
<p>One of the newspaper articles quoted above calls this
vision, in very critical terms, messianic. The other
article says that it is the product of an alliance in
our Administration between the Christian Right
and pro-Likud elements. Both articles see the drive
to this war as having deeply religious underpinnings. </p>
<p>We might ask ourselves, given all President Bush’s
laudable attempts to tone down religious rhetoric
after 9/11, himself recognizing that to fan the flames
of religious hatred would be destructive – we might
ask ourselves whether it makes sense to fight a war in
an Arab land, in the heart of Islam if you will, that
is based fundamentally on religious convictions? Do
we want to take steps to encourage thinking that our
attack on Iraq as Judaism and Christianity against
Islam?</p>
<p>As Americans, I believe it is also incumbent upon all
of us to ask the following questions:</p>
<p>1) Do you believe that it is right to attack a country
that has not recently attacked us or an ally in order
to change its leadership? Do you believe in striking
pre-emptively? Do you believe that in the absence of
a smoking gun – otherwise known in our court systems
here as evidence – we are justified in undertaking
this effort? How do you think this is judged by
disinterested parties?</p>
<p>2) Do you believe it is possible for an outside force
to impose its form of government on a society, through
war, that that society may not be ready for or willing
to accept it? In other words, is it possible for an
outside force to graft democracy and free markets onto
a society that has not evolved or been allowed to
evolve to accept this? Do you believe that the
attempt to do so is a valid justification for war?</p>
<p>3) If you do believe that we can build democracy in
the lands of our vanquished, pointing perhaps to
Germany and Japan post World War II (rather than to
Vietnam or the colonial attempts of Britain, France,
the Netherlands, etc.), under what conditions do you
believe that it is possible to achieve this? Does it
require “nation-building,” the long presence of our
troops in that country, a plan as expensive and
extensive as the Marshall Plan for that country? If
you believe that it requires such efforts and outlays,
do you believe that the US has the stamina and will
spend the money to achieve these goals? Play out
scenarios in your head of US troops occupying Iraq:
in small numbers, perhaps in larger, will our
country’s men and women likely be the targets of
assassination in the company we occupied? Would we
want to keep our armies there for 40 years? Or
would we want to pull them back sooner. If we pull
them back sooner, in what state do we leave the
country? Does it become another lawless country like
the Afghanistan that eventually gives rise to havens
for other Osama Bin Ladens? </p>
<p>4) Do you think that attacking Iraq will in the long
run create more hostility among Arabs and Muslims
toward us or will it, through our benign
administration of that country into a state of
Democratic and Free Market peacefulness, spread a more
pro-US tendency to other countries in that region? </p>
<p>5) What do you think in the long run be worse for us:
the violence arising from the level of hostility –
and the drive for more terrorist attacks on US soil –
that might arise in various parts of the world owing
to our attacking and occupying Iraq? Or the things
that a contained Iraq either directly or through other
parties might try to do to us? In other words, ask
yourself whether an Iraq contained if not de-fanged is
worse for our security? Or put another way: do you think it’s possible that Osama Bin Laden might actually be happy if the US invaded and occupied Iraq on a unilateral or perhaps even multilateral basis – that it might serve to galvanize the view that the US is anti-Muslim?</p>
<p>6) If you do believe that undertaking a war is a
worthwhile thing, do you believe that it should be
done without the political support, the cost-sharing,
the other burden-sharing of other countries? Can we go it alone?</p>
<p>I think my view is probably obvious. I am no
pacificist. We were in my mind more than justified in
dismantling Afghanistan’s government and fighting
there in the wake of 9/11, though we haven’t lived up to our agreements for post-war Afghanistan in my mind. And I don’t think we should
be acting from fear. We have enough military power to
vanquish the entire Middle East, if that’s what we
wanted.</p>
<p>The real question, from my standpoint, is do we want
to make the governance of a country in a region of
great hostility our responsibility? What do we hope to
gain? Is it on the utopian fantasies of pro-Likud
academics and policy wonks in our administration that
we want to be placing our bets? Are we ready for the
costs? </p>
<p>And the other question is what are we afraid of?
Terrorist attacks here in the US by agents supplied by
Saddam Hussein? Terrorists don’t need his supplies –
there are other sources. In our lifetimes, however
long we may live it is probably inevitable that others
try other attacks and some of them may succeed.
Getting rid of Saddam will, in my view, do little
against this. If we knew it would, I might take a
different view.</p>
<p>But I am quite sure that, if we attack, particularly
without UN support, it will enhance the likelihood or
speed of this eventuality. We shouldn’t cower
in fear of this – we should prepare for it, best we
can, and know that fearing it will not change it unless we want to completely remake our society into a much more secure, police-type state.
We need to contain Saddam as we have been, but
changing the regime there and occupying the country
will recruit others to the cause of terrorists who
already hate us.</p>
<p>If I believed this were entirely about maintaining a
credible threat to ensure that UN resolutions were
enforced, I would be of a different opinion. My
conclusion is that the aim of our current policy is
much more ambitious. To me, it reads like a world domination fantasy.</p>
<p>I am going to a peace march this weekend, not because
I am a pacificist, but in my calculations, we are
about to drive our car into a very serious quagmire.
I don’t like our rationale for doing so or the odds
for our success. This war will kill a lot of people
and we will be less safe because ot it.</p>
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You were right and I was wrong, wrong, wrong. In fact I better throw in an extra “wrong” for good measure. I was wrong to the fourth power or higher.</p>
<p>BTW, I would also point out a benefit of Clinton’s political stance in the Senate: she has the respect of our military leaders, who believe that she understands the fundamental issues facing the 21st century armed services. This kind of working relationship will be hugely important in 2009 when the next President is faced with the daunting task of implementing a policy to get us out of Iraq. </p>
<p>The defense and foreign policy issues in the Middle East accompanying a disengagement from Iraq are staggeringly complex. It will be critically important to have a President who can work with the Defense Department and the State Department. The failure of the Bush administration to do so was really the fundamental mistake that led to the Iraq disaster. The career leadership in the military and diplomatic corps were the voices of caution leading up to the Iraq invasion. They were systematically ignored.</p>
<p>One of my concerns going into the election is that we can’t really afford to have the kind of on-the-job Presidential training that we usually see in the first two years of a new administration. We will have been bogged down in Iraq for six years at that point, with a dangerously eroded military. The next President is going to have to hit the ground running. That President is going to have to quickly cut to the chase with the Joint Chiefs and the State Department in devising and implementing a strategy.</p>
<p>Realistically, I only see two first tier candidates who have the connections to do that. Clinton and McCain. Given that McCain wants to increase our troop levels in Iraq (the definition of insanity, IMO), I obviously can’t support that.</p>
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<p>Well, short of impeachment – which ain’t happening – Bush isn’t getting tossed out of office, so you can put yourself at ease. But I do think you are being naive about presidential power if you actually think that each Senator should share equal blame for a drive to war pushed by the Bush Administration using the rhetoric of mushroom clouds and the credibility of Colin Powell before the UN, particularly in the post 9/11 climate when America was susceptible to what could seem like easy revenge. Our leaders are sometimes there to save us from these kinds of impulses. And the Administration, not Republican or Democratic legislators, should by any reasonable estimation be held to higher account.</p>
<p>But the real question is: now that we know it’s gone wrong, how can we stop jockeying for political advantage and find the easy way to cut our losses? How about declaring victory – we did win the fighting conclusively – and leaving soon? Sure, Iraq will fall into chaos, but our staying there won’t help it become a viable nation-state.</p>
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<p>That’s because it’s Bush’s war. It was his idea. It was his strategy. It was his reconstruction plan. It was his occupation. It was his first surge. And second surge. And third surge. Until last November, he implemented his plan with control of both houses of Congress.</p>
<p>Clinton was a member of the minority party (i.e. no power to do anything).</p>
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<p>Not going to happen until January 2009. We might see a small reduction in troop levels in late 2008, but only because we’ve run out of soldiers to send. Bush only needs two additional Freidman Units (6 months each) to get to the end of his administration. He’ll be able to run out the clock, with some minor window dressing.</p>
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I am not naive at all. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitute gives Congress the power to declare war. The president does not have the power to declare war. A better argument would be that Congress is more responsible for the Iraq war since only Congress can declare war. Bush could not have engaged in war with Iraq without the approval of Congress. </p>
<p>Are you trying to re-write the constitution?</p>
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<p>Agreed. And so the body politic should focus on a way of setting that up. It’s going to be tough. There is a very short window when it is not a new president’s problem. Very short. And anyway, the Democrats are wise to be wary about tainted as the party that lost the Iraq War because the Republicans spin machine has been working on that angle non-stop.</p>