RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] [MLUG][Politics] State of the Union

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Wed, 1 Feb 2006, Hargus, Diana wrote:

> I was providing another viewpoint to the ones you expressed.  A poll can 
> be phrased to frame the appropriate outcome.

I don't know the details of the poll.  Here is some info from 
factcheck.org:

http://www.factcheck.org/article366.html

ABC/Time/BBC poll asked "How long do you think the US and other coalition 
forces should remain in Iraq?" The results:

      26 per cent said "leave now."
      19 per cent said "remain until the Iraqi government elected in
         December is in place."
      16 per cent said "remain until the Iraqi security forces can operate
         independently."
      31 per cent said "remain until security is restored."
       3 per cent said "remain longer but leave eventually."
       1 per cent said "never leave."
       4 per cent expressed no opinion.

Which is somewhat different than John Murtha suggested.  Murtha's numbers 
are explained here:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200511230002

No matter which numbers we rely on, it looks like about 1/2 of Iraqis want 
us out now or soon.  I'm not one of those who thinks we should simply 
leave, but I do see the merit in that proposal.


> True, they will be unhappy.  But did your parents use loans to go to 
> school?  My father did not, yet he got it done.

My dad was on the GI bill.  He graduated from college in 1962 and was the 
first in his family ever to go to college (as far as we can tell).  It 
wasn't that long ago that only the wealthier Americans went to college. 
We can return to those old ways but I don't think it's a good idea.


> If they want it badly enough, they will find a way.

If we make it harder for people to go to college, fewer people will go to 
college.  I think that is a bad way to design your society.  Sure, some 
people will be wanting it badly enough that they'll manage to pull it off, 
but what about the effect of reduced college attendence on society?  What 
we need is to encourage higher education to retain (or regain?) our edge 
in technology.  Money spent in education is money well spent, if you ask 
me.


> * If all actions can be traced to selfishness, what selfish
> * needs is our selfish President satisfying by having our
> * military fight in Iraq?
>
> Playing soldier?  Trying to look good for daddy? Ego (in a poli?It is 
> anybody's guess...  But, I wish I knew why you don't want us there, 
> perhaps because we don't know?  If we had answers, maybe we could say 
> more than what we are.

One fact is that a "war president" (as Bush has sometimes called himself) 
is given more power.  Another is that during wartime, the people tend to 
be more supportive of their leader, so starting a war helps you to get 
re-elected.  I'm not even saying that Bush could have come up with these 
ideas on his own, but his advisers could have.  Also, it looks like some 
of the so-called neocon group, like Wolfowitz, have been really interested 
in invading Iraq for a long time.  They had some kind of theory to test.

Anyway, the reason I think we should not be in Iraq is that we didn't want 
to go there.  The US was drawn into Iraq based on false information.  The 
American people wanted to fight the terrorists who had attacked us on 
9/11.  Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, so we didn't really want to go 
after him at that moment.  We had to be deceived to be persuaded to 
cooperate with the war plan.  Now that we know better, we know that we 
didn't want to be in Iraq and we know that we should have kept after Osama 
bin Laden.  It's too late to just abruptly withdraw from Iraq, but we 
should be trying to get out of there -- we need to start planning it now.

Here are some of my arguments in favor of the war back when I didn't 
realize how badly I was being deceived:

http://taxa.epi.umn.edu/~mbmiller/iraq/


> And thank you for the clear, concise answers.

You're welcome.  And thank you.  It's nice to have my answers appreciated.

Mike

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