Nation at war?
The row in full swing here over whether when asked his initial reaction to the is part of a wider, so far unanswerable, question.
It is this: will the election of 2008 be a "post-war" election? Obviously as a matter of fact it will not be: but, will Americans, hungry for the pleasures of peace, turn it into one?
Plainly the Democrats would benefit from that - and I know some conservatives (James Pinkerton is one) who fear it may be the case. Does Pakistan help the cause of keeping the US focused on the task at hand?
Hello, I'm 
°δ΄Η³Ύ³Ύ±π²Τ³Ω²υΜύΜύ Post your comment
Pakistan's future is so dreary and such an example of the catastrophic diplomacy of the actual Administration that it should, later in the campaign trail, become a major issue.
Huckabe's gaffe will be forgotten, as the incompetent candidate himself, but this is where heavyweights like McCain, Clinton and Obama (who is briefed by a couple of very alert foreign advisers) should be in a position to make a diference.
The Presidential candidates where asked by CNN and others for their comments regarding the situation. How in your opinion did Dr Ron Paul compare and contrast with the rest? What do you think of his strategy of constantly thinking about things and trying to give intelligent, truthful opinions? Is it me or is this kind of behaviour a bit out of the ordinary?
It seems the Americans donβt like or want to be the worlds policemen. Yet they have army/naval/air force bases all over the world to βcontrolβ local issues as it sees fit, for its own advantage. So whether one agrees or disagree, the American president requires a knowledge of the world. He/She also requires a knowledge of world politics.
No one person can possible know everything or understand every event that is occurring world wide. So, there are advisors to assist and explain the situation and also provide more depth to the issue.
So, does this mean that the candidate with the most and better informed advisors will win the race for the president?
Whether you love or hate Bush, whether you believe he has done the right thing or the worst things during his presidency, he has a very tight-nit group of advisors.
Which of course then begs the questionβ¦who/what are you voting for, a mouthpiece of a group of unelected βwell informedβ people, or a βnormalβ person who has limited knowledge of the world, but knows his own country as any countryman does with his own point of view?
I'm not sure Americans are as "hungry for the pleasures of peace" as you think. The US isn't under siege or daily bombardment. In my corner of suburban America, food isn't being rationed. Supply ships laden with luxury goods still arrive daily on our shores. This war is nothing like, for example, Britain in the Blitz.
I'd say the Americans truly hungry for peace will be those brave souls serving overseas and - of course - their families back home. I sincerely hope this war is over soon, but with so few Americans having a personal stake in the war, I'm not sure. Hope I'm wrong.
This may be the year to watch for all
of these political losers on both
sides of the political aisles the
Democrats and Republicans see all of
their Incumbents in the US Congress
get voted out by a very mad and fed up American Voters and frankly there
is not a single 2008 Presidential
Candidate Democrat or Republican
that is worth voting for and that's
why so many Americans are now also
changing their voter registrations
over to Independent.
The issue with Huckabee is not his foreign policy. It is the fact that he has pardoned over 700 criminals in his state (including murderers and rapists)--more than all the Governors combined!
In one specific case he was warned by prosecutors and begged by past victims not to release the rapist...he did anyway. The man went on to commit another rape and murder.
Lets not forget that it was well known that George Bush had very little exposure to countries outside America before his election, yet when he came to power he embarked upon an ambitious program of spreading democracy to the middle east thought up by neo-conservatives who perhaps had equally little experience of the world outside of the universities and think tanks where they worked and got all their qualifications.
The world is now clear on what folly this has all been.
So we have a system where the uninterested put in power the unknowing being advised by the non practical. Not so much "lions led by asses" more the unseeing led by the unknowing whilst being egged on by the unaware.
Good point Justin. Uncle Sam, having got his hands well and truely burned in the Middle East will want to take them out just as soon as he can and head back home.
Trouble is, there is a good fire burning there as well - call it credit crunch, economic slow down, whatever. As the present Administration appears either unwilling or incapable of doing anything about it, it will probably be out of hand by the time the next President of the United States is sworn into office. Does not look as if there will be many pleasures of peace' for a long, long time.
As a European I'm not crowing far from it, we all of us gain if the U.S. does well and lose if it dosn't.
I couldn't have said it better. However, the "none of the above" is looking like an appropriate choice in our case. I haven't been impressed with anyone I have seen thus far.
Hah! You seem to know alot of "conservatives"; judging by your posts that's all you know or care to talk to. One would never even know from your smatterings that Dennis Kucinich is a candidate or that there is a Green Party systematically excluded from mainstream media coverage - as are just about all third party candidates. The purpose of these nomonal elections is to reinforce the conservative two party Republi-crat duopoly i.e. the two war parties. So yes, you're right, "obviously as a matter of fact, it will not be a 'post war' election"; because America will almost always be waging imperial war somewhere, with bipartisan support, either directly or by proxy, to maintain its empire. And as long as we use a largely mercenary army of modern day Hessians as Britain did during its imperial heyday, then the majority of middle class Americans won't be much troubled by it. But for Iraqis and Palestinians and Afghani and many other victims of American foreign policies who are "hungry for the pleasures of peace", it's a much more urgent matter.
Romney is a fake - he's changed his positions on all the right wing hot button issues simply for the purpose of capturing the religious fundamentalists. The Christian Conservatives, however, are not that easily fooled and have given Huckabee a short term lift in Iowa, unlikely to carry him much further than the state line so he can fail in New Hampshire, but only because he isn't Mitt. Guiliani's reputation as the crusading mayor of New York won't counter the right's distaste for his business dealings and questionable personal life. McCain will win the nomination and is the only Republican with any chance of raiding the soft center Democrat vote and making a real competitor for Clinton in '08.
No prior foreign policy experience is of course better than our current "take what you can and blame radical Islam" foreign policy. I love the USA through and through, but this clown "W" is embarrassing. I recently saw a bumper sticker that instead of "W 04" proclaimed "WTF? 04" perhaps the American Public is finished with the rest of the world hating us because of this hill-jack from Texas. Anybody familiar with actual cowboys also knows that "W" isn't one. He is more akin to the clowns that get chased by the angry bulls, fall down a lot, and generally irritate the bulls into giving up and leaving other clowns alone. Man, I hate that guy!
It always amuses me how people fixate on Presidential candidates, and indeed Presidents themselves, as individuals. I would imagine that most informed adults understand the Presidential campaigns and administrations are in reality made up of dozens of highly connected advisors and their staffs. So decisions made by any candidate or President is in reality a decision made by a large group of people. The ramifications are too huge for any one individual to handle.
Huckabee's gaffe is for this reason irrelevant to his ability to manage foreign affairs. It doesn't matter what he knows: it's not as if George Bush has, or has had, any unusual knowledge of the workings of any country in the world, even his own! The gaffe is only relevant as a paux pas in the etiquette of the campaign, and as a possible toehold for his opponents' PR campaigns. But little more.
I cannot see why Bush wanted to spread democracy to the Middle East . The Bin Ladens - erstwhile 'friends' of the Bush group are Saudis - and they are not at all democratically minded . No it was a futile attempt to rationalise and sanitise the bungled invasion of Iraq . Even tying Al-Quaeda to Iraq was futile - Saddam was trying to suppress them . The bombers were Saudis but no one suggested invading Saudi Arabia . So why the Iraq war? - this was based on a foreign policy developed by Bush's advisors long before September 11 with a view to implementing it eventually - the events of that day gave them all the reasons needed to embark upon the military adventure . Sadly for all of us they miscalculated badly .
Look very carefully at the cohorts of advisors for the candidates and see what they say about foreign policy - Bush's supporters started to put down their thoughts for all to read in the 1990's .
It sounds like you've actually bought into all the war-hype the Bush administration has pushed out for 5 years, but any person with eyes to see knows now that Al-Qaeda is not the big dangerous consipiracy they've been made out to be--essentially they were just 200 more guys with box cutters who have been rounded up by police agencies. There is no growing military movement out there that represents a further threat provided we focus on Afghanistan and finish off the Taliban. Back home, It was never the case that the American public was going to sacrifice our rights and freedoms to stay on a war footing forever: we're focused on the future again, the 9/11 event is over, and Bush and his "wars" are finished. Events in Pakistan are not critical problems for our security, they are only critical political problems for militarist conservatives who have bought into the whole "war" mentality without understanding the limitations of the Islamist extremists or the disinterest of the American public in their military projects...
Can you explain to me why it sometimes seems from the accents I hear that half of England has moved to the United States either temporarily or permanently? Sometimes it also seems like half of ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ's employees are here too. Just curious. BTW speaking of wars, what will you tell your youngest when he comes home from school with stories about Britain being the enemy in the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812?
We have to be focused on Pakistan. As much as folks may disagree, the military is the only thing keeping Pakistan from going completely over the abyss.
Pakistan will certainly keep our focus, no matter WHO the next President is.
"Nation at war'???? Please. We are a military at war. Politicians use the phrase as a bad and sick punchline to get themselves elected. This may be the land of the free but the brave are all overseas doing the world's dirty work.
Please could you tell me where is any information about Ron Paul's ideas on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ webside?