Redstate

much easier to have ongoing discussions with this format. I'll go and read your rs blog and see what all the heat was about.

Gamecock DeVine in
The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

There is a lot to be said for being green. I don't think it's nonsense.

What's nonsense is thinking that the world is going to just stop using energy and that attempts to do so won't create far more damage than trying to find other sources of engery.

The whole issue is being driven for totalitarian desires, but that doesn't mean there is no truth in it. It's just exagerated. Dangerously.

Gamecock DeVine in
The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

Newt is actually trying to put the debate in terms of conservation and a goal of greater energy independence that Americans can live and work with, as opposed to the anti-capitalist proposals from the left. I hope that's what he's saying, anyway...

lesterblog.blogspot.com

and his change from being a strong advocate for drilling oil everywhere first in his book a few years ago to emphasizing the amorphous "alternatives" are not the means to acheive his goal IMHO.

Gamecock DeVine in
The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

and balanced with the Chinese, who absolutely are digging for coal everywhere. The pro-Kyoto people still haven't really articulated why China and the other worst-polluting developing nations ought to be exempt from emissions standards. That is, they haven't articulated why this exemption is for any reason other than to cripple Western economies.

lesterblog.blogspot.com

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/iran/articles/20070531.aspx

Yes, Bush did have to deal with the tech bubble and a mild recession at the beginning as well, even before 911. Tax cuts work. Carter plus dem majorities plus Carter's manipulation of the fed chair were simply a disaster on econ policy. Carter refused to back the Shah. He said he could deal with the Ayatollah since he was religious man. Great deal eh.

Gamecock DeVine in
The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

Yes, Carter should have backed Pahlavi. He should have prevented one dictator from being replaced by an even worse dictator. Furthermore, the USA has a right to act in its own interest. Do you think France (aka ELF Petroleum) was being altruistic when they sheltered Khomeini and his supporters?

There's a good chance that Iraq, Afganistan and Pakistan will all be lost within the next ten years, and history will probably blame Bush for that. I'm not very happy with either Bush or Carter at this point.

Well if you prefer the world of realpolitik that's fine.

I'm sure a President in the late 1970s would have had no problem getting the American people to support sending large numbers of troops to prop up a corrupt dictator. It's not like they had any recent bad experiences in that regard.

The clerics came to power because of the will of the Iranian people. Had we gotten involved we simply would have hardened their resolve.

Not everything on this planet happens because of us.

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy

Who Should Apologize to Whom?
Amir Taheri

Where is the country that Bill Clinton, a former president of the United States, feels ideologically most at home?

Before you answer, here is the condition that such a country must fulfill: It must hold several consecutive elections that produce 70 percent majorities for “liberals and progressives.”

Well, if you thought of one of the Scandinavian countries or, perhaps, New Zealand or Canada, you are wrong.

Believe it or not, the country Bill Clinton so admires is the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Here is what Clinton said at a meeting on the margins of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, just a few weeks ago: “Iran today is, in a sense, the only country where progressive ideas enjoy a vast constituency. It is there that the ideas that I subscribe to are defended by a majority.”

And here is what Clinton had to say in a recent television interview with Charlie Rose:

“Iran is the only country in the world that has now had six elections since the first election of President Khatami (in 1997). (It is) the only one with elections, including the United States, including Israel, including you name it, where the liberals, or the progressives, have won two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote in six elections: Two for president; two for the Parliament, the Majlis; two for the mayoralties. In every single election, the guys I identify with got two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote. There is no other country in the world I can say that about, certainly not my own.”

So, while millions of Iranians, especially the young, look to the United States as a mode of progress and democracy, a former president of the US looks to the Islamic Republic as his ideological homeland.

But who are “the guys” Clinton identifies with?

There is, of course, President Muhammad Khatami who, speaking at a conference of provincial governors last week, called for the whole world to convert to Islam.

“Human beings understand different affairs within the global framework that they live in,” he said. “But when we say that Islam belongs to all times and places, it is implied that the very essence of Islam is such that despite changes (in time and place) it is always valid.”

There is also Khatami’s brother, Muhammad-Reza, the man who, in 1979, led the “students” who seized the US Embassy in Tehran and held its diplomats hostage for 444 days. There is Massumeh Ebtekar, a poor man’s pasionaria who was spokesperson for the hostage-holders in Tehran. There is also the late Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, known to Iranians as “Judge Blood”.

Not surprisingly, Clinton’s utterances have been seized upon by the state-controlled media in Tehran as a means of countering President George W. Bush’s claim that the Islamic Republic is a tyranny that oppresses the Iranians and threatens the stability of the region.

Clinton’s declaration of love for the mullas shows how ill informed even a US president could be.

Didn’t anyone tell Clinton, when he was in the White House, that elections in the Islamic Republic were as meaningless as those held in the Soviet Union? Did he not know that all candidates had to be approved by the “Supreme Guide”, and that no one from opposition is allowed to stand? Did he not know that all parties are banned in the Islamic Republic, and that such terms as “progressive” and “liberal” are used by the mullas as synonyms for “apostate”, a charge that carries a death sentence?

More importantly, does he not know that while there is no democracy without elections there can be elections without democracy?

Clinton told his audience in Davos, as well as Charlie Rose, that during his presidency he had “formally apologized on behalf of the United States” for what he termed “American crimes against Iran.”

But what were those “crimes”? Clinton summed them thus: “It’s a sad story that really began in the 1950s when the United States deposed Mr. Mossadegh, who was an elected parliamentary democrat, and brought the Shah back and then he was overturned by the Ayatollah Khomeini, driving us into the arms of one Saddam Hussein. We got rid of the parliamentary democracy {there} back in the ‘50s; at least, that is my belief.”

Duped by a myth spread by the Blame-America-First coalition, Clinton appears to have done little homework on Iran. The truth is that Iran in the 1950s was not a parliamentary democracy but a constitutional monarchy in which the Shah appointed, and dismissed, the prime minister. Mossadegh was named prime minister twice by the Shah and twice dismissed. In what way that meant that the US “got rid of parliamentary democracy” that did not exist is not clear.

There are at least two things that Clinton does not know about Iran and Iranians.

The first is that the claim that the US changed the course of Iranian history on a whim would be seen by most Iranians, a proud people, as an insult from an arrogant politician who exaggerates the powers of his nation more than half a century ago. The second thing that Clinton does not know is that in the Islamic Republic that he so admires, Mossadegh, far from being regarded as a national hero, is an object of intense vilification. One of the first acts of the mullas after seizing power in 1979 was to take the name of Mossadegh off a street in Tehran. They then sealed off the village where Mossadegh is buried to prevent his supporters from gathering at his tomb. History textbooks written by the mullas present Mossadegh as the “son of a feudal family of exploiters who worked for the cursed Shah, and betrayed Islam.”

Apologizing to the mullas for a wrong supposedly done to Mossadegh is like begging Josef Stalin’s pardon for a discourtesy toward Alexander Kerensky.

Clinton does not know that it was President Harry S. Truman’s energetic intervention in 1946 that forced Stalin to withdraw his armies from northwestern Iran thus foiling a Communist attempt to dismember the Iranian state.

Clinton does not know that if anyone has to apologize it is the mullas who should apologize to both the Iranian and the American peoples. He does not appear to remember images of American diplomats paraded in front of TV cameras, blindfolded, and threatened with summary execution every day — images that did lasting damage to the good name of Iran as a civilized nation.

Speaking of apologies, Clinton also ignores the fact that Iranian agents in Lebanon, led by the “ liberal progressive” Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Mohtashami, organized and carried out a string of terrorist attacks in the 1980s that cost the lives of over 300 US citizens, including 240 Marines.

And does Clinton remember the dozens of American citizens who were held hostage by the mullas’ agents in Lebanon, sometimes for more than five years?

Clinton forgets that anti-Americanism, and hatred of the West in general, is the ideological backbone of Khomeinism; that that the devise of the mullas’ regime is “Death to America”, and that the American flag is burned or trampled under foot in thousands of official buildings throughout Iran every day?

Clinton claims that the mullas “still kind of like the West in general, and America in particular.” That must be as much news to the mullas as to anyone else.

The former president endorses another claim of the mullas that Saddam Hussein, the deposed Iraqi dictator, invaded Iran on behalf of the United States.

Clinton says: “Most of the terrible things Saddam Hussein did in the 1980s he did with the full, knowing support of the United States government.”

Don’t be surprised if Clinton’s next apology is addressed to Saddam Hussein, another victim of American Imperialism!

Gamecock DeVine in
The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

Well done is better than well said. —Benjamin Franklin

how this relates to my comment in any way and I just can't, other than both involved Iran.

Bill Clinton polemics are not a cure all debate response.

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy

Gamecock DeVine in
The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

I'm telling you that YOU HAVE to put the Clinton bit in a post of it's own and get that on the front page somehow. Everyone HAS to read that!!!!

Well done is better than well said. —Benjamin Franklin

http://www.redstate.com/blogs/gamecock/2007/jun/03/bill_still_clueless_p...

Gamecock DeVine in
The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

Carter wouldn't have used military power if we were directly invaded. Your just wrong about that part.

There is probobly a bend in the perspective here at RedState where we would recognize actual fascism a little slower than the left, but only because the left had been calling it fascism long before it was.

You are making the opposite mistake with Carter. The guy covers for every tinpot dictator in the world as long as they are on the left side of midway. Squeak to right and you are condemned. Unless you are really far right. Then your left enough for the guy again.

So now the theocratic Mullahs are Leftists?

We are speaking about his time in the White House and what he could and could not have done. Your claim that Carter wouldn't have used military power if we were directly invaded is just downright absurd. Carter DID use military power to try and get the hostages back. It failed and he then lost his resolve. A failure on his part, to be sure. But let's not create some false caricature of him.

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy

partially because Khomeini's revolution opposed Soviet communism as much as anything Western, so in terms of strategic balance there was no net loss to the Communist bloc. It might not have been the most thoughtful position but that was pretty much the basis of foreign policy in those days.

Having said that, letting go of Nicaragua would seem to be at odds with that thinking but that was just one of the many valid complaints against the Carter administration's decisionmaking.

lesterblog.blogspot.com

Bush dealt with a minor recession. Carter came into office with the United States experiencing its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression

The worst crisis was the 1974-1975 recession under Nixon/Ford. By the time Carter took the oath in January 1977, that recession was over. The economy deteriorated steadily under Carter again, but it was not entirely his fault. Keynesian economics had no answer for the configuration of the economic variables in the 1970's.

Joblessness under Carter never reached the levels of the early 70's. Inflation-plagued economies often do OK in terms of employment, as labor is substituted for capital investment, whose real value is plunging. Wages have a hard time of keeping up with inflation as well. Meanwhile, wealth flees from capital investment to collectibles - gold, silver, coins, antiques - and real estate.

It was a vicious spiral that sapped the vigor of the economy and contributed to the famous "malaise" associated with Carter. And, yes, I know he never used that word.

in fact, that's why he left office.

He refused to give a green light, like Reagan subsequently did, to the Fed to squeeze inflation out.

Yes, the US should have kept the Shah in power.

Sticking to the truth...

Gamecock DeVine in
The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

I'm not going to jump into the discussion about Volcker and Burns and Keynesianism and all the rest, but I will point out that an extremely interesting amendment was made to the Federal Reserve Act in 1977.

You can go look up the exact wording, but Congress in that year added an additional requirement to the Federal Reserve's duties, which was to maintain the "monetary aggregates" (as they were presumably understood at that time) at levels consistent with a steadily growing economy.

Since 1977, the law has required the Federal Reserve to inflate the economy. Someone ought to do a careful study of the resulting monetary levels in the following years, both before and after Paul Volcker (under Reagan) raised rates to levels that damped the over-inflation out. (The person I think most qualified to have done the study in a perceptive and impartial way is now the Fed chairman.)

This is not the place for a full analysis, but I assert without proof that the inflation which culminated in the 1974-75 economic crisis was the end result of a long process of gold-overvaluation which started around 1960 and ended in the collapse of the global commodity-money system. In short, it's a different phenomenon than the inflation that plagued the Carter years.

Why have the business cycles been so muted in their effects on the real-world economy after the two recessions of Reagan's first term? My theory is because the Fed has become extremely skilled at keeping the economy just inflated enough to prevent major changes in private investment. Not being tied to any external commodity standard gives them the ability to do it.

A minor data point in support: I mentioned here several months back that Ben Bernanke announced his willingness to monetize (he didn't use the word "sterilize") any sales of long-dated US Treasury debt that the Chinese might engage in, as they were threatening to do at the time.

I remembering some commenters here reacting to that by saying that the US would never engage in that kind of banana-republic inflationism.

Yes, they can. Yes, they would. No, you won't particularly feel the effects.

"Why have the business cycles been so muted in their effects on the real-world economy after the two recessions of Reagan's first term? My theory is because the Fed has become extremely skilled at keeping the economy just inflated enough to prevent major changes in private investment. Not being tied to any external commodity standard gives them the ability to do it."

thanks BH

Gamecock DeVine in
The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

Carter was no doubt the worst President in my lifetime.

But I don't blame him for the economy he inhertited which was a hangover from guns and butter during Vietnam, along with the 1973 oil shock, along with wage and price controls and a massive currency devaluation during the Nixon years, and the second oil shock which happened while he was in office. The economy was miserable during his 4 years but he did not cause stagflation and he played a positive role in ending it.

I'm not sure what "manipulating the Fed Chair" means but Carter appointed Paul Volker and Volker deserves as much credit as Reagan for the strong economy in the 1980's and really the Fed's have been following his monetarist policies ever since.

I worry that future Presidents are going to have to pay the price for Bush's guns and butter strategy now. Who is to blame? The guy who causes the mess or the guy who inherits it a decade later?

the money supply and wring out inflation.

Gamecock DeVine in
The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

Just remember that under Carter the fed continued to increase the money supply. I think Volker was the type of chairman that thought in terms of what the president wanted because that would get the biggest budgets for the Fed itself. So Carter wanted him to print, Reagan wanted him to shrink. Look up Reagan's, "If not us, who?; if not now, when?" speech and thats when Reagan gave Volker the green light to start shrinking the money supply.

to be vilified by sitting Presidents as well. What reagan and volker did was historic and took a lot of courage. Reagan understood economics and that we had to defeat inflation before we could employ the kind of Milton Freidman like monetary policy we live under today. Even Clinton bowed to Greenspan on this.

you get it 'Hibb

Gamecock DeVine in
The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

of the Executive Branch.

Gamecock DeVine in
The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not."

I thought you might like to know that the above quote was not original with Robert F. Kennedy, although he used it and apparently because he did many thought it was his own. In fact, the quote is from George Bernard Shaw.

Actually the quote I use is a direct quote from Kennedy in which he paraphrases the Shaw quote, which is slightly different. I use Kennedy as the source for a reason though.

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy

Radical Islam is waging war against our country. Bush is waging war back, has been stedfast in waging same, is the only CINC we have, and to undermine him is to undermine the country.

He has made the right moves to keep the economy humming and has mostly fixed the Supreme Court.

I strongly disagree with his support for the current immigration bill and regret his unwarrented attacks against opponents of the bill, but I know his motives are good.

I don't much care for the fake reality show of the MSM story lines or what they call "news." I don't define success by getting good MSM news coverage or being entertained by a president. I care about the real world where we are killing terrorists, the economy is good, etc.

Too many people let how the MSM covers presidents be their reality.

The realities of 1977-1981 vs 2001-this minute are, well...real.

thanks guy, in a strange kind of way

Gamecock DeVine in
The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

Bush makes the right choices, but he is horrible at implementing them. The Islamists declare war he declares war back and then starts blowing it. That's why he focuses every discussion on whether or not to fight back and thats something he can win, but if the debate shifted to is the route to achieve it good or are there better, and he would get in destroyed in that debate. I personally think that Bush's idea of limited war is retarded. You either have the support and the tenacity to do a short total war and throw the kitchen sink at it, or you adopt the Reagan policy of long term subversion because the American people would allow presidents to fight that for 50 years because they don't see it affecting them. Reagan's policy of long term subversion is relentlessly inspiring and aiding the oppressed people of the dictator, and constantly angering and subverting the government with powerful words, powerful presence, manipulation of money, manipulation of weapons and munitions, and short conflict raids. If you don't know what I'm talking about I will go more in detail.

Reagan pulled the troops out of Lebanon or did you forget that?

Afghanistan is now a democracy that has held elections, the war was brilliantly fought and won in hardly any time at all when everyone predicted a protracted battle akin to what the Russians had been dealt.

The peace and continued growth of the newly established government is not going to spring from the ground. We are not a people that would beat them into submission but offer them a hand, often that hand gets bloodied yet the purpose is the same and the long range objective worthwhile, so we stick it out and make adjustments to ensure our objectives.

Iraq is now a democracy that has held elections, the war was brilliantly fought and won in hardly any time at all when everyone predicted a protracted battle akin to what the Iranian's had been dealt.

The peace and continued growth of the newly established government is not going to spring from the ground. We are not a people that would beat them into submission but offer them a hand, often that hand gets bloodied yet the purpose is the same and the long range objective worthwhile, so we stick it out and make adjustments to ensure our objectives.

Well done is better than well said. —Benjamin Franklin

No I didn't forget that Reagan pulled troops out of Lebanon. That actually benefits my argument. That was apart of short conflict fighting aspect of his strategy. His thought process was quite clear, either you send in more troops and retaliate producing a war that ties you down or do you pull out and continue the subversion without getting tied down. He elected the latter.

Lets just keep in mind that your responses are nothing really knew, a White House spokesman would have given me the same response(but thats off subject). I'll also say that I am in support of the war, but I also can point out specific mistakes that have been very costly which I'll address in a second.

Also the first campaign of the war in Iraq was fotten using almost total war tactics toward our enemies. Shock and Awe was desigend to destroy all known Baathists as well as destroy the most amount of useable enemy structures, all the while demonstrate to the public that any form of resistance is pointless. This is the goals of a total war just set in a 21st century battlefield.

Okay the problem in Iraq is that, the terrorists are capable of doing things that we legally, morally, and ethically bar ourselves from doing, and we didn't really have anything we could up the ante with for a while until we trained Iraqi troops. You probably would agree that in a war you need to always be able to come back with something bigger, stronger, etc. to destroy what your opponent comes up with. In every case we weren't willing to take it to the next step to destroy the will of the insurgents to fight. I'm not proposing any of these, but more troops(draft), more bombs(civilan casualties), torture(bad press), internment camps(bad press), etc. So there is nothing we were willing to do to smash the will of the insurgents.

The alternative and practically what we did in Afghanistan was a conflict coup. It requires less troops and is dependent on using existing structures of security to maintain it. In Afghanistan we used the local non-Taliban warlords, and kept them in power as almost regional police paid for by the U.S. gov. You don't create a security vacuum.

Now to the problems in Iraq that produced this security vacuum that we had to fill, go find an Iraqi because I've talked to a couple, and ask them, "What was the biggest mistake in Iraq." They'll all tell you the same thing...dismantling the Iraqi military. Where unemployment usually increases crime, what do you think a bunch of unemployed career soldiers would go do? They would elect to feed their families by continuing to be soldiers, and since we weren't empoying them guess who did? In Afghanistan we created an interim Afghani government immediately when we got there, in Iraq we allowed the state department to run it for a while.

Read Makiavelli the Prince once. The fact of the matter is that you go in and replace the regime the new leaders to sort out the mess and take care of anything and you only fix what they mess up, or you completely destroy the will of the people to fight back like we did in Germany, Japan, and the South(Civil War). The resistance wasn't anything, because we didn't screw around. Now in the last few months we have started to get it right in Iraq and do more like what we did in Afghanistan. We just tell the Iraqis we aren't going in to clear this house, you have two options either you do or somebody in that house will blow you up in a couple days. So they breach it. And if our intel is wrong and instead of 5 people there are 50 then we send us in as back up. We are telling the Iraqi gov., "Us as a crutch has been nice for a while, but you have two options either you do this or we pull your funds." Guess what their response is... they kick in high gear.

Since we are sucked in this is where we need to continue to move forward is to provide harsher treatment to insurgents and more catchability, and provide economic conditions for people to drawn away from the battlefield. In terms of harsher treatment we have a catch and release policy(i bet you didn't know that)your performing insurgent activities we catch you, we release you, we catch and release you, I mean you should be thrown in jail on the first let alone the fifth. We took down a bunch of checkpoints at the request of the Iraqi gov., bad idea I think we put some back in, but we should be adding more not removing them. We don't have enough analysts to even go throw all the tips and transcripts we get on terrorist activities, etc. On the economic conditions, we need to employ Iraqis to do infastructural work not put our soldiers to work doing it. We keep them employed which reduces insurgent numbers and attacks on infrastucture projects and it frees up more of our guys. I could go on a bunch more details.

This is getting really long, but the general premise is that if you want to win a war either you don't get sucked in and you do what you can while providing support or you don't mess around and destroy any will to fight, and if you do that than your saying we don't care if they like us or hate us, but they will fear us and that's all that matters.

...writing is incoherent (and your grammar and spelling pathetic for someone who is actually in college), you have zero understanding of the situation in Iraq (or of war at all), and your history is lacking at best.

Outside of that, nice work.

...that much to say, put it in a blog/diary, not the comments. Just helps with readability (and you sorta need all the help you can get in that area).

Its hard to convey some of these more complicated subjects. I didn't want it to be so long, but otherwise people would be even more confused. And to the person that complained about the grammar and spelling, I'm sorry, but as the 10th guy that has said that, get a life. I have different thought processes on writing and speechmaking than are really norm, it is more based on conveying unique grouping its hard to explain, but it is more centered on demonstrating in a sense than proving, it works really well, when I go back and proofread, but in this format I'm to lazy to. As a result of going back and adding in statements in the middle of paragraphs and stuff, the grammar can get a little off and spelling I just type as I go and I rarely take second looks at words. Sorry, but I can do traditional styles, but my unique writing and particularly speech making WHEN PROOF READ is very well liked.

Rereading my comment their is a ton of spelling/grammar mistakes I made. More than even usual, but yet again I don't reread comments and posts and I don't intend to start. I always believe that the content is always more important than that stuff.

up to a point!

Gamecock DeVine in
The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

...if your "unique writing and particularly speech making WHEN PROOF READ is very well liked." If you want to be taken seriously here, do a better job of proofreading.

...comment on your writing," but (a) I'm one of the ones you need to listen to if you want to last here, and (b) that should be a wake-up call to you to slow down and check your work.

Do you write like this in school?

No I didn't forget that Reagan pulled troops out of Lebanon. That actually benefits my argument. That was apart of short conflict fighting aspect of his strategy. His thought process was quite clear, either you send in more troops and retaliate producing a war that ties you down or do you pull out and continue the subversion without getting tied down. He elected the latter.

Much has been written on this subject and it wasn't anything like that...

Well done is better than well said. —Benjamin Franklin

might not have been our proudest moment but we also didn't know everything we've learned since. Intervening to protect the PLO's evacuation and play referee to the various Lebanese factions was a bad idea, certainly, but it was probably also not the most opportune time to challenge the Soviets by destroying one of their client regimes (Syria). Withdrawing might have felt better if all of the foreign forces left Lebanon at once but of course that didn't happen.

lesterblog.blogspot.com

.

They continued to occupy there until 2005! So I'm still not getting the point of how that falls into a long term plan of Reagan's, since it can be attributed to GWB's intervention in the area that they are now looking in from the outside despite their continued arms shipments and support for militant factions.

Well done is better than well said. —Benjamin Franklin

:>)

The Shah died in 1980. Unless you believe we should have installed a government after he died the Mullahs were going to take charge no matter what. And anything short of occupation of Iran would not have been enough to keep the Shah in power.

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy

Yes, it's true that any Republican will separate himself from the President, but you say that with the implication that all will do so for the same reason.

I assert that it's not true. Some of us would prefer a candidate different from the President on domestic policy, who would be that way independent of poll numbers.

These candidates would be running on these issues, and asserting policies different from the Presidents, even if his polling never dove below 60%.

Run like Reagan!

the notion that the federal government can prevent any suffering from Hurricanes within two seconds of its landfall. Newt goes too far.

Gamecock DeVine in
The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

I agree that Newt has gone too far w/ creating false expectations of FEMA w/ his Katrina example. He only feeds into the MSM hysteria on that point. He needs to emphasize the real failure was at local and state levels.

Just because you have the right, doesn't mean you should.

There is this creepy socialist notion that some people have to depend on the government, (local state, and federal), to take care of keeping them happy. They think they have right to happiness as declared by the founders of the USA. They forget the Declaration of Independence reads ...life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Anybody that does not realize how much more they need to rely on themselves, and how much less they need to rely on the government in their pursuit of happiness is making a big mistake.

You’re a persistent cuss, pilgrim.
John Wayne to Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance