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is it just me or has he been strangely absent from the election limelight this go around. it kind of makes me sad.
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I like Nader, but I hope for the love of Bob that he stays out this year.
I would love for there to be a third party someday, but I'd love to have Bush out of the White House even more. It's best not to take any chances.
I don't blame Nader for 2000, but the 97,000 votes he got in Florida would've come in handy for Gore (the 200,000 Dems who voted for Dubya would've worked, too ).
My little cousin probably wouldn't be on a plane to Iraq right now, that's for sure.
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yea everytime i've heard the man speak i walked out angry at the two party system, but at the same time i agree ousting bush is priority 1, shaking up the system can be attempted again in another 4 years.
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I think Nader is the anti-Christ. Deliberately throwing an election so that someone that you know is bad for the country will win,just to make your party look 'good', is friggin wrong. I hope he gets eaten by rabid wolverines.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Nader has thrown his hat into the presidential ring: the Greens thus far haven't picked it up.
There was more wrong in Florida than Greens, chads, the "butterfly ballot", illegal decertification of qualified minority voters, absentee ballot tampering, etc. The reason the networks pulled their election predictions is that their exit polls did not agree with the early returns -- which is statisticly very odd from a quality control viewpoint -- from districts with electronic voting machines; which we now know are easily tampered with from remote locations.
And which we now know from the public record or their own internal documents that: The manufacturers were well aware of that remote tampering was possible; and are insisting that the possibility of remote tampering is not a security flaw, nor a problem which needs correction. The manufacturers tried to use the courts to block that information from reaching the public; and to prevent the public from examining the proprietary software running those voting machines to find&correct voting-security flaws. The owner of Diebold "guarantee[d] a victory for Republicans in Ohio" in the next election, after it appeared that Diebold had won Ohio's voting machine purchase contract. The manufacturers are strongly resisting any attempt to add a permanent paper trail about whom the voters actually cast their ballots for. And that executives decided to "charge them [voting machine purchasers] up the wazoo" for the additional use of Diebold proprietary software to create a paper trail; such an overly high charge meant to discourage the ability to even have any meaningful vote recount.
quote:It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes. Joseph Stalin
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Even with the Diebold issue aside, which I agree is significant and should be looked into (the security aspects), the Greens won Florida and, thus, the election, for Bush.
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You know, Storm, I'd be interested to know the number of people who voted Green in the last election that would have abstained if the Green option wasn't available.
As an independent, I'm pretty weary of having to choose between the head idiots of the two major parties. It's like a race to see who can put up the worse candidate.
Granted, I was overseas and didn't vote in 2000. But, I would have voted for Nader. If I didn't vote for Nader, I wouldn't have voted at all (which is what ended up happening). A lot of Nader supporters I knew were the same.
Many 3rd party voters are so fed up with the "Dummycrats" and "Repugnants" that they vote 3rd party as an alternative, *any* alternative, to the way things are going now.
So, I wonder what percentage of those Nader voters would have actually voted for Gore, and what percentage would have simply voted for another 3rd party candidate (or stayed home) if Nader wasn't in the race.
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I'm rather curious as to who is funding the Green Party: in the same way that I wonder how anarchists are able to afford to jetset around the world to violently sabotage peaceful demonstrations at WTO, IMF, WorldBank, Davos, etc meetings.
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If the Democrats will give you 50%(just tossing a number out) of what you want, and the Republicans will actually work to destroy 'Green' policies, I'd say that you're cutting off your nose to spite your face by going 'Nader or nothing'.
I can't answer your question about how many Greens would have voted for Dems had Nader not run. Hopefully, ones that recognized what I wrote above and actually wanted to see some kind of Green policies enacted.
If you want to talk about third parties not having a seat at the table, fine. But that doesn't mean that what I wrote is not fact, as far as I can see. Had even 1000 Greens voted Dem, Bush would not have won.
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And, had the military votes from overseas been tallied? What then?
Florida was a mess, granted. It still is. It had less to do with who voted, and more to do with who would be allowed to vote. On both sides. It was politics as usual, where the voice of the people really doesn't matter, so long as it's the voice you want them to have.
Again, on both sides.
Too many people see 3rd party voters as just two party voters who want something a little different. Many 3rd party voters feel that no matter what they want in terms of policy, neither party is going to get it for them because they're too busy sabotaging the other.
The politicians who cross the aisle with open arms in the hopes of cooperation and compromise are often shot by their own party. Neither side wants compromise. Neither side wants cooperation. They want their way. And every time one side gets control of the country, they run as far as they can with the ball - angering the other party even more, so that when the other team gets the ball they'll run even further in the other direction.
But if you're a Duke fan watching UConn v. North Carolina, who do you root for? If you're a Mets fan watching the Yankees v. the Red Sox, who do you root for? It's impossible for both of them to lose, which would be ideal in the grand scheme of things.
Though you could be morbid and hope for an injury. Though, lots of Democrats are eyeing Chaney with that in mind, I'm sure...
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The oversees military votes were counted -- upon the insistance of the Democratic Attorney General -- even those absentee ballots which Republicans had openly tampered with. And your "both sides are the same" is just a historicly absurd slogan meant to discourage voting.
"...will you be looking into the Kennedy assassination next?" Can't think of many who didn't have a strong motive, and an even stronger motive against. Charging "whacko conspiracy" is just another way of whining "I don't like to think."
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Cow, I agree that the optimal setup would be one that has many small parties, where compromise is essential, and everyone works together, rather than two giants who can safely ignore minority vote as long as they get elected.
That said, things are what they are. I still don't see how Nader and the Green party wouldn't be more effective as a kind of interest group. Nader, as the head of the Green party, could say, in order to get Green votes, the party that hews closest to what we want, gets our votes. This way, the Greens can influence policy by putting their votes in play. If a person says that the only party they will vote for is a third party candidate,regardless of what the big parties do, then why do either of the larger parties care about them? They effectively kill any chance they have of influencing policy.
Aspectre is totally right. Other Greens have gotten the message and have said that they will not support Nader or vote for him in the coming election. The Colorado Greens being a case in point.
I appreciate your idealism, but I don't see any practical value in it at this point in time. If neither of the parties have planks, or work to represent your interests, the best way of getting them to change is to involve yourself in those parties and making your vote important to them (edit: and work to change the system such that third parties are more powerful).
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As an aside, I think it would have been fascinating to run the election again, you know... make the election a week later all fresh all over the US. I bet the % of voting population would change. Would be cool to see how high it would go.
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Hinting at covert funding of anarchists to upset demonstrations without any evidence isn't thinking, aspectre.
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First, aspectre, the two parties are not the same in policy, but are the same in practice. Raise as much money as possible in whatever way possible from whoever you can, slam your opponent with ads during the election, polarize yourself once elected, point repeatedly at the flaws in your opponent whenever your own are brought up, blame the other guy when things go wrong.
The answer to this is "well, that's politics". My answer is that's why the joke "congress is the opposite of progress" is both funny and true.
Storm, you said:
quote: I appreciate your idealism, but I don't see any practical value in it at this point in time.
Idealism is rarely practical.
quote: If neither of the parties have planks, or work to represent your interests, the best way of getting them to change is to involve yourself in those parties and making your vote important to them.
All the party Democrats I speak to constantly tell me about "my president" doing things, though I didn't vote for him and don't particularly like his stance on much. All the party Republicans I speak to keep telling me how "my candidate" won't beat Bush, though I can't see how any of the Democrats could ever be considered my candidate.
I've resigned myself to the fact that I sit to firmly in the middle. I agree with the Democrats on a few things, but think they're idiots most of the time. I agree with the Republicans on a few things, but think they're idiots most of the time.
So which party do you suggest I join, Storm? Or should I join a "useless" third party that would only make one or the other major parties win indirectly?
I should start the disenfranchized party. Round up the 50% of the country that doesn't vote, and get them to vote None of the Above, like in Brewster's Millions.
Edit to add: Ben, that's an awesome song, and an awesome album. Forgot to mention that on the first go round.
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Storm, Like Cow was saying, for many people, voting Green isn't necessarily a matter of policies. It's one of practice. Quite a few of my friends are very active in the Green party (one is driving around two of the possible presidential candidates today in Reading, PA) and, expet for voting for the lesser of two evils, they want nothing to do with the Democratic party. Many of them don't consider themselves Democrats that are voting Green, but Greens who are voting for their candidate.
Even if you could blame that on them and not on the Democratic party while keeping a straight face, blaming them doesn't change that situation. They (and I, who doesn't respect the Green party all that much) will still be voting Green in the next election. It's exactly lesser-evilism that's led to the destruction of any positive, progressive politics and allowed the current "screw the interests of anyone who doesn't give me money or a huge block of voting support" system for both parties to develop.
I'm willing to have Bush win again, if that's what it's going to take to reform things in the long run. I'm frankly disgusted with the lesser-evilists who are willing to vote for someone who's going to screw them somewhat less than the other guy. You want to look at why Gore lost the election, you need look no further than yourselves. You've betrayed the foundations of a democratic society, and now you're trying to blame the people who are standing up for them because you want them to stand with you in your support of plutocracy and mediocrity.
They aren't your votes. They aren't your voters. They are there own. They at least they aren't like the majority of the population who doesn't even vote anymore (and yeah, that's what at least parts of both major parties tried to have happen). They are making their voices heard. The problem is that American politics has sold the idea that people can only say red or blue, so that's all they listen for. So, when someone says green, you don't hear it. And then it's their fault that you don't have their support.
quote: Storm, Like Cow was saying, for many people, voting Green isn't necessarily a matter of policies. It's one of practice. Quite a few of my friends are very active in the Green party (one is driving around two of the possible presidential candidates today in Reading, PA) and, expet for voting for the lesser of two evils, they want nothing to do with the Democratic party. Many of them don't consider themselves Democrats that are voting Green, but Greens who are voting for their candidate.
O.K.
quote: Even if you could blame that on them and not on the Democratic party while keeping a straight face, blaming them doesn't change that situation. They (and I, who doesn't respect the Green party all that much) will still be voting Green in the next election. It's exactly lesser-evilism that's led to the destruction of any positive, progressive politics and allowed the current "screw the interests of anyone who doesn't give me money or a huge block of voting support" system for both parties to develop.
No. It's a simple matter of numbers. The party that is representative of the most number of people and/or has the most money wins elections. If a candidate aligns themselves with so-called 'fringe' interests and doesn't raise money, they will almost certainly not get elected.
The idea that if a 'real' progressive would just materialize, all these voters would suddenly start voting is rather suspect, imho. There are any number of people out there who have impressive progressive credentials, Nader first and foremost. If people wanted the Green party, they would vote that way.
I can blame Nader for helping the Republicans win because Nader himself has stated that that is his policy. He and the Greens absolutely have targeted states where the race is close strictly to throw the election to the Republicans. Which brings me to your next point.
quote:
I'm willing to have Bush win again, if that's what it's going to take to reform things in the long run. I'm frankly disgusted with the lesser-evilists who are willing to vote for someone who's going to screw them somewhat less than the other guy. You want to look at why Gore lost the election, you need look no further than yourselves. You've betrayed the foundations of a democratic society, and now you're trying to blame the people who are standing up for them because you want them to stand with you in your support of plutocracy and mediocrity.
How do you figure Bush winning again is going to help further the Green cause? Please give me evidence that this is something with a chance in hell of happening and not just based on some pie in the sky idealism and I'll listen to what you're saying. Meanwhile, let me point you in the general direction of what the Republicans are doing. They are filling the benches with judges who will never vote Green and will set back any kind of 'Green' polices. Please explain to me how this is helping the Green cause. Eventually when it gets bad enough, people will see the 'truth'? Would that that might be the case, but I sincerely doubt it. The changes will come so gradually,and the evidence supporting the changes will be changed or bought to make what's happening legitimate, and no one will ever realize that what is around them could ever have been anything other than what it is.
If Greens worked within the Democratic or Republican party, they could at least help get people in power who were sympathetic to what they were talking about, even if they weren't 100% 'real' Greens.
Or maybe you're one of those people who who won't take anything less than 100% of your policies enacted and damn the consequences. You'll only vote for purists regardless of their electability. That's fine. You just relegate yourself to a political wasteland.
Look, I am absolutely sympathetic to the need for third, fourth, fifth parties in this country. However, again, this is not the case. It will probably never be the case for the simple FACT that he who has the most votes and money will almost always win.
quote: They aren't your votes. They aren't your voters. They are there own. They at least they aren't like the majority of the population who doesn't even vote anymore (and yeah, that's what at least parts of both major parties tried to have happen). They are making their voices heard.
I dispute this at their current numbers. The Green party can only reliably get maybe 1 to 2% of the vote. These votes could be absolutely critical in getting one of the two big parties elected, but by themselves they are totally, 100% meaningless. Again, if you say you will never vote for a party unless that party changes to represent 90% of your views, you have relegated your views to the dustbin of history unless you either have a ton of cash or a lot of votes behind you, neither of which the Green party has.
quote: The problem is that American politics has sold the idea that people can only say red or blue, so that's all they listen for. So, when someone says green, you don't hear it. And then it's their fault that you don't have their support.
I agree that there are lots of changes which could be made to give third party candidates more exposure and I would love to see them made.
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Storm, Again, this is not a matter of specific policy, but rather a complete difference in the ways things are done and the way they should be done. I regard the current two party system as a violation of the democratic ideal. I believe that it is part of a larger problem in American society and not a matter of people supporting one issue over another. Rather, it's the way that they go about choosing and supporting issues.
I specifically don't support Green issues. I think that some of their stuff has merit and some of it doesn't. That's not the issue though.
We've somehow or another preverted the meaning of the word progressive to simply mean highly liberal. That's insane. Anyone with a good understanding of the intellectual revolutions of the Enlightenment and of post-Enlightenment thinkers like John Stuart Mill knows that it's a complete misuse of the term.
The current liberal and conservative (or maybe I should call them Republican and Democratic) agendas could never be described as progressive, specifically because they are agendas. They have created a sort of ideological and social grouping and are trying to force everyone to conform to that grouping. They focus on ends over means, preferring the lie that helps them to the truth that hurts them. They have ceased to aim towards the public good, and instead pander to people who can keep them in power, with support of their ideologies as an important secondary goal.
I vote, not to advance my agenda or because I think that the person I vote for is going to support my interests. Rather I vote because I want the winner in an election to know that they win with say 42% of the vote. People ignore the peopel who don't vote. We don't talk about how the majority of eligible voters don't vote (or how the big two parties have tried to foment this type of situation). We talk about how many of the votes cast that they get. I want the country and the world to know how little support any of the representatives of our current system has.
I don't see the world we live in being much different if Al Gore was elected President. His similarities to President Bush far outweigh his differences. They were both awful choices for the leader of our country. I think it's a mockery to our country to even pretend that they are anywhere near the best that we can do. In my opinion, Al Gore lost in part because more people who are inclined to vote Democratic realized how bad a choice he was than Republican-leaners did with George Bush. OR at least those people were less inclined to lesser-evilisim.
To answer the question of do I want things to get bad. Yes, I do. Right now, I think we're playing a shell game with so many important issues, such as education, economics, the environment, etc. and we're playing these shell games on tables that are constantly getting smaller. However, people are mainly comfortable now, so they aren't going to do anything about it and are even going to deny that there are any problems. It's only when there are severe changes in the average American's life that there is going to be an impetus to change, a call for a new revolution. I'd rather that revolution happen sooner than later, so that we still have enough room to pull ourselves out of the crap we're heading towards.
So, when say that I should support the guy who's going to preside over things getting worse at a slower rate than the other guy, forgive me if I'm not exactly ecstatic.
edit: Because I still think that foment is really forment, even though nobody else thinks so.
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Storm, I'm wondering: do you call Nader "anti-Christ" because of the votes he took away from others, or because the same old corruption may already have taken roots within the Green party?
Personally, I think the two-party system is a much, much greater evil than having Bush instead of Gore or any other Republican or Democrat.
That, and that it takes a whole lot of money to ever make it into the round of "electable" candidates.
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Storm, for the record, Nader has never been registered with any party, not even the Greens. It was a promise made to his dad, I believe. So he threw no election.
Of course, since the Greens are "really" just petulant Democrats, they shouldn't have their own party.
I think calling Nader the antichrist is a bit strong.
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Sal, railing against the two party system makes no sense. Once again, the easiest way to get your agenda passed is to have the greatest number of people and money on your side. The more you have, the greater your chances to see something done. This is pretty obvious. You could have a bunch of small parties, but you know what would happen when they went up against a big party composed of people who can put aside some of their differences and work towards broad goals? They lose. Every time.
Nader is not the anti-Christ, he's just a misguided fool tilting at windmills while the real enemy burns down the town. All the money that goes into pushing Green candidates and touring Nader's old ass over the country could be used in PACs, or could go to environmental lobbyists, or commericals, and could make a difference. Going into the Green party it accomplishes exactly nothing beyond helping to ensure the policies that you supposedly believe in get demolished, destroyed and rolled over in the hopes that things will get so bad that people will wake up and smell the coffee. Greens might as well light the match and burn down the forests themselves just to make their point, rather than be such cowards and have Republicans do it for them, but I guess they don't have the integrity to do that.
The two parties are not completely the same. I can't remember what head of which environmental organization said it, but in discussing this very same issue, he said something to the effect of 'Democrats will return my calls, Republicans won't'. Period. End of story.
God, I had hoped to end this thread on a friendly note, but I guess that's not possible. Sigh.
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No, the two parties aren't the same (though funtionally they differ less than their rhetoric, or else why the near-unanimous vote for the patriot act?). I was just saying that calling Nader the antichrist is akin to conservative radio folk calling liberals (which more or less means every democrat) "evil". Yes, I heard it.
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I apologize for my rhetoric. I would edit my post(s), but I don't want to be accused of editing after the fact. I will henceforth refer to Nader and Greens as 'silly people'. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Ben, I deleted my post because it could be pretty inflammatory. I wanted to express my opinion, but not if it makes somebody really angry. It's just not worth it when it comes to somebody's family.
Hey, I disagree with your "We're not being attacked by Iraq" comment. Maybe not directly, but Saddam supported terrorist groups with money. The same terrorist groups that attacked NYC in 2001. That's well documented. How do you know that the flight schools that the terrorists went to were not paid for with Saddam's money?
[ February 01, 2004, 03:40 AM: Message edited by: Nick ]
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Me personally? You think I have access to that kind of information? I'll leave that to intelligence agencies, though they have hidden more than they have shown in the past.
First of all, I didn't say that Saddam personally saw to it that the WTC was funded. You seem to want to pin that on me.
EDIT: I see your confusion and my typo.
quote: The same terrorist groups that attacked NYC in 2001.
I forgot to add type of. "The same type of terrorist groups that attacked NYC in 2001.
[ February 01, 2004, 04:35 AM: Message edited by: Nick ]
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ummm WE supported terrorist groups with money too. Bush Sr. trained bin laden in terrorist tactics...no i dont have any documentation in front of me but if requested i can scrounge it.
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Was it a mistake to help train Osama bin Laden in guerilla tactics and give him support?
Sure. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, and it could be argued that we should've known better when we did it.
Of course, we were still in the Cold War with the Soviet Union, attempting to thwart their invasion into Afghanistan. We did this for self-centered reasons, sure, but it's not as though we were just handing out terrorism training at a Job Fair and Osama bin Laden came to our booth.
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And it bears repeating that Saddam Hussein publicly voiced support for Palestinian suicide bombers. Gave the families chunks of money as well, publicly.
Seems to me that open financial support for people who openly murder civilians in an allied nation is kinda provocative. Also I am frequently amazed that the question isn't more often asked: if he's doing that in public, what's he doing in private?
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Then of course there's the coup we funded against Salvador Allende, the democratically elected ruler of Chile (who did happen to be Marxist). This included numerous killings of innocent politicians in Latin America which CIA memos strongly suggest were known about and condoned by higher ups, including Kissinger.
Was it to stop the spread of communism? Sure, but considering the communists in this case weren't participating in any particular oppression and happened to be democratically elected, I fail to see how what the US did is particularly defensible -- to allow Kissinger his say:
quote:"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its people."
-- our motives were clearly high minded.
Was what the US did better than what OBL and Saddam were doing? Probably (this is just the released stuff, so I'm more than a bit suspicious). Is it morally defensible? Not a chance.
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And Rakeesh -- we do offer terrorism training at a job fair, even today. How familiar are you with School of the Americas?
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I think the problem I have had with the whole Iraq thing is that we want it both ways.
If we wanted to invade Iraq, we should have used the least-hypocritical process possible, or just admitted we (as a nation) screwed up previously, and that we are going ot make amends. And no, that doesn't mean saying we should have taken out Saddam in 1992, that means admitting we were a fairly sizable amount of his support for a time, and that it was wrond, and that we will work to avoid it in the future.
quote: And it bears repeating that Saddam Hussein publicly voiced support for Palestinian suicide bombers. Gave the families chunks of money as well, publicly.
That's what I was talking about fugu.
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I just can't vote for the guy because his name sounds too much like "Darth Vader" when I hear it, and for some reason, that scares me.
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I was never scared of Darth Vader as a child. I thought Star Wars was silliness anyway.
That is, until I watched them again when I was 13. I must have watched the whole trilogy 5 times. It's been about 2 years since I have seen them though.
*pops in Episode IV*
Oh yeah, I also wanted to say that if you think Bush alone is responsible for this war, then you're being foolish. The entire Congress voted to go to war. If you think we went to war just because Bush said so, that just shows your lack of knowledge--or ignorance--of how American Government works. Bush didn't trick America, people. I may not like the man or his tactics a president, but he's better than anybody the democrats (or any other party for that matter) can muster up.
[ February 02, 2004, 01:22 AM: Message edited by: Nick ]
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Yes, I am familiar with the School of the Americas. Likely not as familiar as you are, but I listened to the NPR reports on the subject some months back. It's been awhile though, so if you want to talk about that I'll have to refresh my memory.
Concerning the Cold War, I've always been of the position that we (America) let the Cold War influence our thinking so much that we did all sorts of dishonorable and wicked things, which are indefensible. I admit that. Or I admit that we used the Cold War as an excuse to do all sorts of dishonorable wicked things. Take your pick. That's something I never dispute.
But depending on who's pointing that out, I might make an addition that every nation-state government does despicable things to other people and sometimes its own, and if you think yours doesn't or hasn't in the past, it's because you're either naive or you have an agenda.
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Many people are often all too willing to dismiss assertions that the US may be doing something very, very wrong. For instance, there is solid evidence (training manuals released by the Pentagon, testimony by former students, and testimony by a former teacher) that the US has been teaching techniques of torture (at the School of the Americas) as recently as the 80s, even while the same practice was being denied. And as previously mentioned, not long before that we funded the overthrow of a democratically elected, peaceful government.
Its one reason I am vociferously against allowing the government many of the powers it has assumed recently through means such as the PATRIOT act. One of the only things protecting against abuse of the great powers already endowed many members of the government is the constant oversight of other members of the government and of the people. Laws which negate that oversight both invite abuse and prevent the correction of abuse that does occur.
Is the brutality of a regime a just criteria for invading a country? I'm going to go with probably. However, it was not the justification that was used, and attempts to say "well, the war was justified anyways" are duplicitous. The administration of this country ignored repeated intelligence that Iraq did not constitute a threat to the US, despite having, before 9/11 noted this intelligence itself and quite publicly.
Did Congress vote in support of the war on Iraq? Yes. However, this support for Iraq was given due directly to the intelligence the administration gave them and assured them was well founded. Congress also was not given much intelligence, despite our intelligence agencies possessing it, that suggested Hussein was not a threat to the US.
This brings me to the biggest problem with our shift of justification -- it is not a part of a coherent policy. Once the administration stopped sticking to its guns on the WMD justification and moved to a human rights violation based justification it fractured its policy of international relations, which had previously been based on the pursuit of terrorism and weapons of terror -- yet now that we have found Iraq gave comparatively little support to terror (the Saudi princes give many times his amount, for instance) and possessed no weapons of mass destruction, the administration has abandoned that policy without establishing a new one.
International relations are based upon serial consistency. That is, when a policy is in place, it is roughly followed, until a new policy comes along. Policies are statements of intent to the international community that allow other countries to know both what they can do to support us and what we consider the boundaries to be. When we do not have a coherent policy of international relations, other countries are less sure how to react and international relations stiffen, harming economies and peace, as countries tend to adopt staying positions rather than move in a particular direction and risk angering us.
Perhaps what will ultimately result will be a policy of humanitarianism as the administration has hinted at. However, this would seem deeply at odds with how the administration has handled foreign aid so far, how the administration has not been modifying our relations with our countries based on their humanitarian histories, and how the administration has not made humanitarian treatment a high priority in Afghanistan or Iraq, preferring instead to abandon most of both countries to their own devices, resulting in widespread conflict and a reversion to less humanitarian practices throughout except for those few areas closely held by US forces. For instance, little thought was given to the civil government of Iraq by the administration: there were no courts there for months after the invasion, as an example.
The administration needs to formulate a coherent foreign policy rather than this mishmash it is attempting to slide along with at the moment.
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pooka, I knew there was at least one reason to like you I was a Nader democrat. One of those despicable turncoats, y'know?
Nick, we give more blame to GWB because he was IN A POSITION TO KNOW. Yes, Congress gets briefed, but the intelligence agencies are all executive office surrogates, so odds are, they get only what the executive office agrees with. I don't mean that in some conspiratorial way, like GWB must have picked only intel that he wanted Congress to see so they would vote for his call to war, but rather you don't shw teammates/colleagues stuff you think is a waste of time.
That all said, GWB, or people in his administration, downplayed conflicting intel, and possible implications, except for what supported his war call. In fact, I think this is a textbook case of why the weird executive order run-arounds Congress' power to declare war (which Congress has continued to allow, mind you) is a bad thing, and why declarations of war, particularly when not done in immediate self-defense (not pre-emptive, since if you are being pre-emptive, you presumable have enough time to get a vote from Congress), should REQUIRE a formal declaration of war.
EDIT: I'll add a little clarification. THe reason I said the above is because it removes much of the politicking of war deliberations. As it stands now, both branches can reasonable pull the other one in to blame, to the point that everyone gets away with it.
Printer-friendly view of this topic
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Though, lots of Democrats are eyeing Chaney with that in mind, I'm sure...![[Cry]](graemlins/cry.gif)
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I'll leave that to intelligence agencies, though they have hidden more than they have shown in the past.![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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I was a Nader democrat. One of those despicable turncoats, y'know?
