quote:Really? One of the major sources of anger in the Muslim world is our bases in Saudi Arabia? I think that is a vast oversimplification if not a complete misstatement. I believe the radical Muslims' source of anger is our way of life rather than a military base.
Big fan of the kool-aid eh?
No seriously, the American presense in KKMC and other Saudi military bases was a primary recruitment tool for terrorist organizations in the 90's. They didn't put up recruitment posters talking about how evil Americans were for driving cars and eating McDonalds, they put up posters saying that heathens were desecrating the holiest sites in the Muslim religion by having troops in the same sand where Mecca and Medina are. That and our support of Israel were the two biggest recruitment tools then had until Iraq. Most American forces have pulled out of KKMC since then, there are only a handful left. But that's really a moot point now since they have Iraq to use for propaganda fodder.
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The post also ran this response to the Maliki withdrawl flap, written by a McCain adviser. Essentially it boils down to: Maliki is a politician, doing what politicians do. Ask the top Iraqi military commander and defense minister and they project an ideal withdrawl date between 2013 and 2020. With the caveat that it should be tied to conditions on the ground. Essentially the Petraeus/McCain line. So Obama agrees with the politician and McCain agrees with the people actually responsible for keeping the peace (both US and Iraqi).
For balance, there's also this rapturous analysis of Obama's ability to think geo-strategically, based on his assertion that we need to move troops from Iraq to Afghanistan.
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When I read Obama's Iraq strategy, I always got the impression that the 16 month time frame was best case scenario. Kinda like how when I say, I'm going to do x and y and get my thesis in May, I know that if z goes horribly wrong (as it has) I am going to modify that plan.
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: When I read Obama's Iraq strategy, I always got the impression that the 16 month time frame was best case scenario. Kinda like how when I say, I'm going to do x and y and get my thesis in May, I know that if z goes horribly wrong (as it has) I am going to modify that plan.
I believe your impression is wrong. The main critique of Obama's rhetoric is that he has (thus far) refused to tie his withdrawl deadline to conditions on the ground.
That said, he has moderated significantly over the past few months, and now includes the presence of a long term "residual force" of unspecified size as part of his plan. It may be that he'll add further nuance to his plan in order to demonstrate that 16 months is a best case scenario (indeed, better than the best case the perennially sunny al-Maliki can envision).
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Senoj, that's not true. Since I've been paying attention (before the primaries), Barack's position has never been "16 months, come hell or high water".
Have the media only been reporting the "16 month" line? Yeah, probably. But on the web articles EDIT: I mean sites like cnn.com, I realize that Obama's site has modified the language recently, there has always been some equivocation, as far as actual time, and how many forces would be left.
It's fashionable that this is some new revelation, but IMO it is just revisionist history based on the sound bite media.
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Sustaining current, or near current troop levels in Iraq until 2020, or even 2013 is ridiculous. Regardless of policy, it's not financially or physically sustainable. Key positions are understaffed in the army, though the new benefits package that Congress may pass in the new GI Bill might help with that in the future, but that's a guess. Regardless, we don't have the money, not with the massive domestic spending that will be required in the next decade to begin work on a number of things from education to necessary infrastructure improvements. That's to say nothing of the huge costs that are going to be paid over the coming years from veteran's benefits and care, and to the rebuilding of our military machinery.
Five years has cost us upwards of a trillion dollars, with perhaps another trillion in legacy costs. Another 5 is stupid. Another 12 is madness.
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quote:Originally posted by Bokonon: Senoj, that's not true. Since I've been paying attention (before the primaries), Barack's position has never been "16 months, come hell or high water".
Looking back at his 2007 Act, it seems you're right. He explicitly states that the deadline is a goal, not an actual deadline.
<edit>However, remembering the rhetoric during the primary (which I understand can be...overheated) I think there was a definite "iron will" aspect to his withdrawal plan.</edit>
If that's what he means, why isn't he saying that? The plan on his website reinforces the wrong interpretation, IMO.
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Well, it it all depends on the clause "responsible and phased", doesn't it? I don't know why the site isn't clearer. Probably because he doesn't personally oversee it's updating. I agree it is much more ambiguous than previous and current statements elsewhere.
I agree that the rhetoric was strong, I also think he put it such to contrast him as opposed to the then hand-waving of the administration about any thought of an end.
posted
The UN sanctions on Iraq were immoral and flawed and certainly doesn't equate to "regime change" as a viable consequence. And how do you know he failed to live up to them? Many documentaries I have read have shown very much that Iraq for the most part have lived up to them, they ceased their chemical and nuclear weapons programs and no evidence of a continuation of such programs have ever been found.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
He who defends everything, defends nothing.
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I didn't want to start a whole new thread for this, but I wanted to share that a friend of mine is throwing a big birthday party/fundraiser for Obama(her birthday...fundraiser for Obama. ) because, "the best birthday present i can have is an intelligent man as the president of this country."
edit: I'm seeing the oddest ad at the bottom of the screen right now.
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quote:We would be in the much bigger mess of Hussein getting millions, if not billions, of dollars funneled to him through the corrupt Oil for Food program.
Yes, that would be a much bigger mess.
Assuming, of course, that lives of american servicemen and iraqi civilians matter less than those few billions, and discounting entirely the loss of billions from our own end.
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quote:We would be in the much bigger mess of Hussein getting millions, if not billions, of dollars funneled to him through the corrupt Oil for Food program.
Since the US occupation began, $16 billion for the Iraq Oil for Food Program (money that was in the program before the war began), disappeared unaccounted for. In addition, at least $15 billion of US tax payer funds are unaccounted for. That is 3 times what people accuse Hussein of embezzling from the Oil for Food fund over 10 year period.
But then even though we can't account for that $31 billion dollars, we can be pretty confident its not in Hussein's hands so Alles Gut!!
I hate it when people claim that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein. It implies that somehow, "Saddam Hussein" is a variable that was or could have been eliminated in isolation of all other things. To really evaluate that question, you have to look all the other things that changed in order to eliminate Saddam Hussein. You have to look at what has replaced him. If you look at all the data, then you have to conclude that Iraq and the world are not better off today than they were under Saddam Hussein. So No, the world is not a better place without Saddam Hussein in it.
Perhaps there is some hypothetical world where Hussein was deposed without killing thousands and harming millions. Perhaps there is some hypothetical world, where following the deposal of Saddam Hussein, Iraq quickly became a bastion of freedom and prosperity. But that isn't our reality.
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quote: Assuming, of course, that lives of american servicemen and iraqi civilians matter less than those few billions, and discounting entirely the loss of billions from our own end.
How much harm would Iraq have done with the billions? They had already shown a willingness to use WMDs...although I am sure you believe Iraq was a peaceful paradise before mean old evil America invaded for no reason whatsoever.
quote: The UN sanctions on Iraq were immoral and flawed and certainly doesn't equate to "regime change" as a viable consequence.
The UN certainly did not believe their resolutions were immoral, neither did the rest of the world.
quote: Many documentaries I have read have shown very much that Iraq for the most part have lived up to them, they ceased their chemical and nuclear weapons programs and no evidence of a continuation of such programs have ever been found.
Iraq had clear goals they were supposed to meet and did not. Go back and do some reading on the decade after the first gulf war for more information. History did not start the day President Bush was elected.
quote: I hate it when people claim that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein. It implies that somehow, "Saddam Hussein" is a variable that was or could have been eliminated in isolation of all other things. To really evaluate that question, you have to look all the other things that changed in order to eliminate Saddam Hussein. You have to look at what has replaced him. If you look at all the data, then you have to conclude that Iraq and the world are not better off today than they were under Saddam Hussein. So No, the world is not a better place without Saddam Hussein in it.
Perhaps there is some hypothetical world where Hussein was deposed without killing thousands and harming millions. Perhaps there is some hypothetical world, where following the deposal of Saddam Hussein, Iraq quickly became a bastion of freedom and prosperity. But that isn't our reality.
Unless of course you or one of your family was killed by Saddam, raped by his sons, worked in the child slave labor camps, and so on. After the first gulf war, Iraq stood up to the world and said we will not comply. The world backed down and said let's make a deal. The UN made some great 'deals', along with Russia, France, Germany, Jordan, and Turkey. Iraq had money to pay to the families of suicide bombers. Iraq had money to fund terrorist training. Your 'world at peace' with Saddam is a total hypothetical situation and was not reality. Saddam defied the world at will with little to no consequences. Iraq has a chance to become a better country, to become a friend of the US, none of that was possible under Saddam.
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quote: How much harm would Iraq have done with the billions? They had already shown a willingness to use WMDs...although
Saddam's use of WMDs happened two decades before we invaded and we didn't have any problem with it at the time. In fact, we sold him the weapons.
quote:I am sure you believe Iraq was a peaceful paradise before mean old evil America invaded for no reason whatsoever.
While Iraq had plenty of serious problems before we invaded, the invasion has made it far worse. It's not a question of Iraq was bad before the invasion and is better now. Or Iraq was great before our invasion and worse now. The reality is that although Iraq had be problems before we invaded, it has had much bigger problems since.
Oh, and I quite confident that the Bush administration didn't invade for no reason at all. Just that those reasons were immoral and illegal.
quote:Iraq had clear goals they were supposed to meet and did not.
Not true! Iraq had destroyed all their WMDs as required by the UN treaties before the invasion.
quote:Unless of course you or one of your family was killed by Saddam, raped by his sons, worked in the child slave labor camps, and so on.
Unless you or one of your family was murdered by Blackwater, raped by US soldiers, or tortured in US prison run prisons.
You are missing the point when you continue to repeat how bad things were under Saddam Hussein. The point is, they aren't any better, in fact in many measurable ways they are worse, now.
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posted
While Iraq made some token payments to the families of suicide bombers, no evidence has been found that it was a significant supporter of terrorism in money or other assistance. In fact, quite a lot of evidence has been found otherwise.
I was for toppling Saddam's regime, but quite quickly in the planning for this invasion I realized I was not for the way we were going to do it. We needed to meet the obligation we entered into when we invaded the country by leaving it better than we found it.
As for the surge, I was calling for a massively increased troop presence on a scale beyond what happened at the peak of the surge over a year before we started hearing about a planned 'surge'. I think the surge was too little, too late, but that it was better than nothing. It is working, but only in a limited sense. It has not yet brought us particularly near an acceptable state of affairs in Iraq.
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quote:Your 'world at peace' with Saddam is a total hypothetical situation and was not reality. Saddam defied the world at will with little to no consequences.
Saddam lost a war, was required by the UN to disarm and complied, he was subject to very severe sanctions the adverse impacts of which have been well documented and his country was bombed nearly continously for 10 years,
I have never claimed there was a world at Peace with Saddam. There was a world in which the CIA and UN judged that Saddam was contained by sanctions. Now there is a world in which Saddam's regime has been deposed by a violent and illegal invasion.
By all measures, things are worse now than they were before. Your claims that things would be worse if we hadn't invaded because Saddam would likely have continued the same behavior pattern he'd established during the previous 10 years of sanctions don't hold water because things were measurably better during those 10 years than they have been since.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I hate it when people claim that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein. It implies that somehow, "Saddam Hussein" is a variable that was or could have been eliminated in isolation of all other things. To really evaluate that question, you have to look all the other things that changed in order to eliminate Saddam Hussein. You have to look at what has replaced him.
I'm with you up to this point...
quote:If you look at all the data, then you have to conclude that Iraq and the world are not better off today than they were under Saddam Hussein. So No, the world is not a better place without Saddam Hussein in it.
...but I think telling me what I have to conclude, implicitly assuming you have accurately understood all the ramifications of the war while I haven't, is arrogant. For instance, I think democracy in Iraq is of high value. I think the intimidation that lead to Libya abandoning its terrorist support and nuclear ambitions is a positive. I think having US stabilizing forces on the ground at the time of the Iraqi civil war to keep the nation from falling into a failed state (which is what I think would have happened had Saddam Hussein departed through more organic means) is a huge positive.
I think the death and destruction are tragic; I think war is evil; I think the mismanagement was criminal. None of that means that I must think the world is worse off as a consequence, because no one can see all the ends from the beginnings. Making absolute declarations of what must be concluded is arrogant in the extreme. Come back in 50 years and I think we can perhaps decide what must be concluded about the Iraq war. Maybe.
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posted
I didn't know we had good evidence of when they had abandoned terrorist support. I do know they didn't take significant measures to normalize relations (including dismantling WMD programs) until 2003.
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quote:I think having US stabilizing forces on the ground at the time of the Iraqi civil war to keep the nation from falling into a failed state (which is what I think would have happened had Saddam Hussein departed through more organic means) is a huge positive.
I think US forces on the ground were a destabilizing influence in the sectarian civil war which did ensue because of our invasion. Iraq has been a failed state that is s a state whose central government is so weak or ineffective that it has little practical control over much of its territory since the invasions. In fact, that is the grounds on which we continue to justify our occupation of the country.
quote:None of that means that I must think the world is worse off as a consequence, because no one can see all the ends from the beginnings.
I do not claim to see the end from the beginning. I claim to see the current situation. We may indeed have a different assessment of this war in 20 or 50 years, but that assessment could be either far better or far worse. So all I can do is assess on the present, on the harms and benefits to date.
Right now the overall human rights situation in Iraq (democracy added in) is worse than it was under Saddam Hussein. Living conditions are worse, safety is worse, health care and sanitation are worse, crime is worse, economic conditions are worse.
Yeah, voting is great -- but would you be willing to give up your job, your electricity, your running water, your health care, and your personal safety for it? If your children were among the hundreds killed by US bombs, would you be saying that voting was worth the sacrifice?
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quote: Yeah, voting is great -- but would you be willing to give up your job, your electricity, your running water, your health care, and your personal safety for it? If your children were among the hundreds killed by US bombs, would you be saying that voting was worth the sacrifice?
You are under the incorrect assumption that all Iraqis had running water, health care, and personal safety with Saddam. What if you, your family, your children were killed by Saddam, or raped by his sons? Here is a link you should really check out about your assumptions. A Better Life
quote: On a personal level, seven in 10 Iraqis say things overall are going well for them — a result that might surprise outsiders imagining the worst of life in Iraq today. Fifty-six percent say their lives are better now than before the war, compared with 19 percent who say things are worse (23 percent, the same). And the level of personal optimism is extraordinary: Seventy-one percent expect their lives to improve over the next year.
quote: Locally, unhappiness is highest by far with the availability of jobs (69 percent say it's bad) and the supply of electricity (64 percent negative). Local schools are rated positively (by 72 percent), and smaller majorities give positive ratings to the availability of basic household goods and the adequacy of local crime protection. About half give positive ratings to the availability of medical care, clean water and household goods beyond the basics, and to local government.
Iraqis divide in their rating of the local security situation now, but strikingly, 54 percent say security where they live is better now than it was before the war. However, for some, local security clearly is a great concern; 22 percent call it the single biggest problem in their lives, more than any other mention ("no job" is second, 12 percent). Local security concerns peak in greater Baghdad, where they're cited by 36 percent as the top problem, compared to a low of 8 percent in Kurdistan.
Notably, across the country, no more than 26 percent say any of these conditions are worse now than a year ago; in each about four in 10 or more say things are better; and in each sizable majorities — mostly three-quarters — expect things to improve over the next 12 months.
quote:You are under the incorrect assumption that all Iraqis had running water, health care, and personal safety with Saddam.
They were more reliable than they have been since the invasion.
quote: What if you, your family, your children were killed by Saddam, or raped by his sons?
I already answered that one. I would feel just about the same as if my family or my children were killed or raped or tortured by US soldiers or mercenaries. To me it doesn't matter who does the killing and raping, its an issue of how much of it is going. From what I can tell, conditions have not improved in this regard.
I just don't see that its an improvement to have foreign NGO's embezzling the aid money for your country rather than having your own leader doing the embezzling. I just don't see that its a big improvement to be raped by US soldiers rather than Saddam's sons. To me, it just doesn't seem an improvement to be tortured by US occupies rather than your own corrupt government.
That's my point. Things were bad under Hussein but they are worse in most regards now. You can keep repeating how bad things were under Hussein until you get blisters on your typing fingers and it won't mean a thing unless you can show me that things are better now.
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quote: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Iraq had clear goals they were supposed to meet and did not. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not true! Iraq had destroyed all their WMDs as required by the UN treaties before the invasion.
posted
"Material breach" seems to refer to Saddam's obstructions of weapons inspections, not possession of actual WMD material.
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posted
BTW, DK, The poll referenced in the link you gave was from March of 2004, one year after the invasion. Here is a link to a more recent (2007) poll. link
It found that in 2007, Iraqi's were far more pessimistic.
According to the 2007 poll when Iraqi's were asked to compare their current situation to the situation under Saddam Hussein, that 54 percent of Iraqi's thought the security situation was very bad or quite bad, 79% thought the availability of jobs was very bad or quite bad, 51% percent thought the electricity supply was very bad and 37% rated it as quite bad. 69% rated the water supply as very bad or quite bad. 57% thought their local governments were either very bad or quite bad. 77 % rated their freedom to live where they choose as either very bad or quite bad.
Less than 45% of Iraqi's felt that democracy was the best political system for Iraq now and only a little over 50% felt that democracy would be the best political system for Iraq in 5 years. Both those numbers fell sharply between 2005 and 2007.
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quote: That's my point. Things were bad under Hussein but they are worse in most regards now. You can keep repeating how bad things were under Hussein until you get blisters on your typing fingers and it won't mean a thing unless you can show me that things are better now.
I' assuming you have not seen my post above...not that I will expect you to believe any of it
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posted
I think I responded to your post above by first noting that the poll referenced in your post is now 4 years out of date. I then updated it with the more recent data.
Not that I expect you will believe any of it either.
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Between 2004 and 2007 there has been a sharp rise and recently, fall, in outside terror-style attacks in Iraq.
The poll immediately after the war, before the intense rise in terrorist attacks, reflects the assumption everyone had that the fighting was over, and the rebuilding had begun.
The more recent poll (March 2007) reflects the sentiment of the population near the height of the attacks. I find it suprising how optimistic a lot of the people still are, tbh, considering this was at the low point in the new 'war' after the war that ousted Saddam.
Since this poll (March 2007 - July 2008) there has been a sharp decline in these outside terror-style attacks. I believe it would be interesting to see what opinion polls on these subjects are like today.
quote: What if you, your family, your children were killed by Saddam, or raped by his sons?
It's too bad that the Bush administration didn't make this case to the American people. Instead, we were told that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (which we have never found), ties to Al Qaeda (Al Qaeda hated Saddam), and ties to 9/11 (which was completely false). The case for the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with what was happening to the Iraqi people, and though it was not sold as a human rights mission, it was sold as an invasion to augment the war on terror. It is clear to me that this was not a humanitarian mission by the Bush Administration, this was the Bush Administration placing the Iraqi's themselves on the front lines so that Iraqis and not Americans would have to die in this new war.
The world may be a better place without Saddam, but that is surely not the reason we took him out in the first place. And to me, that matters.
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Hundreds of thousands (and possibly millions) of Iraqis have fled Iraq, and most show no intention of returning in the near future. This includes a great number of professionals (doctors, lawyers, news and entertainment media people, architects...) who are generally viewed as being highly necessary to re-creating a stable and forward-moving state.
Much of the U.S. progress in Iraq has come from creating alliances with Sunni militia groups, groups whose loyalties and actions when not under the eye of American forces are reasonably up for question. On the other side, the Prime Minister of Iraq apparently hasties to Shia Iran... And despite promises of reform, reports of rape and torture by Iraqi police forces continue.
And meanwhile, the Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, which is once more the world's opium dealer.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
If the polls say that many Iraqis think things are better than they were under Saddam, but they want U.S. forces out of Iraq, one really must consider a) what those absent refugees might say if they were present to participate in such a poll, and b) that the long-repressed Shia majority in Iraq is now in ascendancy, which to some minds eclipses lack of electricity and health care.
This Iraq is not... Stable. And it doesn't look like it's going the right way, frankly.
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I'm not sure what to make of this really. I suppose it's the conservatives who are using MTV to strike down Obama's popularity with youth. I don't think it will be effective at all really.
Honestly though... the only thing political thing that MTV should do is well- nothing.
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posted
That's a great place to advertise if you're going after Obama.
However I agree with Shawshank that it probably won't really sway them. Most of the young people who are for Obama aren't going to be swayed away by a 30 second spot.
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If the polls say that many Iraqis think things are better than they were under Saddam, but they want U.S. forces out of Iraq, one really must consider a) what those absent refugees might say if they were present to participate in such a poll, and b) that the long-repressed Shia majority in Iraq is now in ascendancy, which to some minds eclipses lack of electricity and health care.
Also, c) the ones who aren't present to pardticipate in polls because they are dead.
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posted
I'd just like to pause and thank you guys for your invaluable analysis of all the flood of various news articles and everything so that
1. I can understand the current political weather and 2. it makes me more aware of the issues that I need to be aware of when making my political decisions.
Specifically it's useful because this is the first presidential election I've been able to vote in.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Also, c) the ones who aren't present to participate in polls because they are dead.
Indeed.
EDIT to ADD: Although I must make a parallel point. While I don't in any way mean to dismiss or minimize the grim death toll among Iraqi citizenry, many of the civilians killed in Iraq seem to have been the targets of random or quasi-random violence; while bombers may target areas particular to the Shia or Sunni (or Turkamen... Or Kurd...), those struck down by the violence seem to be a more or less random sampling of their populations. Part of what makes the fleeing refugees so frightening, by comparison, is that they're largely people who, having the wherewithal to leave their country, choose to do so.
Or to put it another way: all you need to do to be a victim of violence in Iraq is to be looking to buy food in the wrong place at the wrong time. If you're fleeing the country, you're probably taking material resources and valuable skills with you.
posted
Sterling, we might also include in that death toll people who died because proper food, water, and medical care are less available now. Especially since many of the refugees with valuable skills are doctors.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Sterling, we might also include in that death toll people who died because proper food, water, and medical care are less available now. Especially since many of the refugees with valuable skills are doctors.
I think the toll has been tragic; I'm not sure that the picture in Iraq would be better after the inevitable civil war after Saddam Hussein died. In fact I think it would be much worse.
So making emotional statements about the Iraq war dead, while valid, ignores a lot of other important factors.
If we're going to engage in hypotheticals about how people without a voice may or may not feel, ideally, you'd like to go back to the days before the war began, give Iraqis a clear and accurate view of what the world would be like under the two possible scenarios (invade/not invade) and ask what they'd prefer. Perhaps someone would choose invasion, even if it meant their own death, if it also meant that their children wouldn't perish in the Iraqi Civil War of 2020.
Sidenote: If we want to talk about this further, I think we should start (or resurrect) and Iraq War thread, rather than clogging up the General Election thread.
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Obama seems to be spending a lot of time lately talking about Afghanistan. It's interesting to see how this will play out with people. People are split down the middle on Iraq, but Afghanistan is very much the forgotten war. I supported going into Afghanistan back in 2001, and I still think that, with international support, that it's a battle worth fighting, so long as we have European, local, and especially Pakistani support. Without those things I'm much more hesitant.
But how will this play out? Obama is saying get out of Iraq, get out of Iraq, but he wants to shift troops and dollars to Afghanistan. On the one hand, I think it'll serve to bolster his tough guy cred. He's worried about McCain's attacks that he wants us to lose and wants to abandon the war on terror, but he's changing the argument by saying Afghanistan is the REAL war on terror and that he wants to reinvest new resources there from Iraq. On the other hand, he really risks criticism from his anti-war base.
He's walking a careful line, but McCain I think isn't being as artful in his attacks as he could be. He's wielding a club instead of a scalpal.
Obama is on CNN right now on the "Unity" presidential forum. His speaking style has evolved a bit I think over the last year. He stuttered and fumbled a bit more six or seven months ago than he does now. He still stutters a bit, but I think now it's less of a stutter than it is taking a pause to gather his thoughts before he gets going, because once he really starts talking, he goes on a roll. I just think he's much more obvious in his choosing of words than most people.
Some of the glow has worn off of Obama for me recently, mostly because of his vote on the FISA bill, but because of a few other "move to the center" things he's done lately too. But some of what I've heard on his trip and what I've heard in this forum and other snippets of interviews I think have reminded me of what I liked about him in the first place.
I do feel a bit sorry for McCain lately. The press coverage of Obama has been glowing lately. They've been treating him I guess like a bit of a rock star. Of course there's been plenty of hand wringing about the trip he made and they've been critiquing his every move, but mostly I think it was positive press, and regardless, it was free media. McCain on the other hand has barely been heard from, and when we have heard from him, he's been rambling about a grocery store or giving angry diatribes about how Obama wants to lose the war to win the election (yipes! usually you have your staff say stuff like that). He's getting angry I think, and it's only going to make it harder for him to regain control of the conversation.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: The press coverage of Obama has been glowing lately. They've been treating him I guess like a bit of a rock star. Of course there's been plenty of hand wringing about the trip he made and they've been critiquing his every move, but mostly I think it was positive press, and regardless, it was free media.
"And when network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative.
"Network reporting also tilted against McCain, but far less dramatically, with 43% of the statements positive and 57% negative, according to the Washington-based media center." -LA TimesPosts: 254 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote: But how will this play out? Obama is saying get out of Iraq, get out of Iraq, but he wants to shift troops and dollars to Afghanistan. On the one hand, I think it'll serve to bolster his tough guy cred. He's worried about McCain's attacks that he wants us to lose and wants to abandon the war on terror, but he's changing the argument by saying Afghanistan is the REAL war on terror and that he wants to reinvest new resources there from Iraq. On the other hand, he really risks criticism from his anti-war base.
I'm not sure about that last part. How much of Obama's "anti-war base" is actually anti-any war and how much is anti-Iraq war? I, for one, was completely in favor of invading Afghanistan and taking out the Taliban there, but opposed to the Iraq war from the beginning - with Afghanistan being one of the really big reasons.
Huh, I've seen polling data recently that somewhat refutes that, but I'll have to find it. The last poll on the media I found asked if there was a media bias for Obama and something like three quarters of the people said yes, and maybe 10% said there was one for McCain. But I guess technically that's a different question since one is about press coverage and one is about the quality of the coverage. Personally from what I've seen, there's been a lot of talk from the pundits about the potential failures of Obama's actions in recent weeks. They're microanalyzing his every move, which could be potentially disastrous, except I don't think most people, except hyperpolitical ones, really watch the 24 news networks enough for the cumulative effects of all that coverage to mean anything. The fact that they cover every speech, every movement, every event I think regardless of their commentary ends up being more of a good thing. It's free media. I really do wish they'd cut out the "If Obama can win this tiny percentage of people in this one state with this many electoral college votes, he'll win it all!" hypotheticals crap. We're still 100 days out and they have polling data on top of polling data that refutes itself.
The media's attempt to make themselves seem important is infringing on the election itself.
Enigmatic -
That's a good question, and I've yet to see anything resembling a poll that attempts to answer it. I was in favor of Afghanistan too, and was totally opposed to Iraq from the beginning, but it's five years after the invasion of Iraq, and I think a lot of people want to just wash their hands of the whole region. I'd be curious to see numbers on who thinks we should ditch Iraq and bolster Afghanistan and who says let's just dump the whole thing.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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) because, "the best birthday present i can have is an intelligent man as the president of this country."![[Wink]](wink.gif)
