Question of the day: Are any of the Democratic candidates for president telling it like it is about the Iraq War?
And if not, who’s coming the closest?
15 Responses to “Question of the day: Are any of the Democratic candidates for president telling it like it is about the Iraq War?”
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September 10th, 2007 at 6:05 am
Are any of the Democratic candidates for president telling it like it is about the Iraq War?…
Question of the day: Are any of the Democratic candidates for president telling it like it is about the Iraq War? And if not, who’s coming the closest?…
September 10th, 2007 at 10:53 am
I believe the most correct Democratic candidate to speak of Iraq is the only candidate who has been against this “war” from the very beginning..Dennis Kucincih…he is also the only candidate who is NOT taking any money from corporations…he is the only completely independent thinker of the bunch…!
September 10th, 2007 at 11:13 am
No ones telling the truth. To quote Nicholson, “We can’t handle the truth!”
Kucinich seems to be the Democrat who would pull us out of Iraq the quickest, but he won’t discuss the impact. If he intends to end our presence there he should be willing to discuss the consequences. Of course, Kucinich will be elected President when Harry Potter becomes the Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan.
Clinton will leave an as yet undetermined number of troops there. She is hazy on the details.
Obama is honest about being against Iraq at the start, but avoids the fact that his voting record since entering the Senate is near identical to Clinton’s. His policy of removing our troops but leaving some undetermined number in the region is different nuance from Clinton’s and short on detail.
Leaving Iraq is going to lead to monstrous blood shed as they work out who is going to be the next strong man. Each of these deaths will be on the hands and conscious of every American. This is true whether we leave tomorrow or stay for another decade. Political stability will only come after we leave and the Iraqi’s vote with bullets to determine who will lead them.
No one is going to speak openly to American’s because the majority is either too self absorbed to want detail or not bright enough to handle the details.
September 10th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Mike Gravel probably has the best perspective and the best track recorder for telling the truth about our wars. Now everybody just wants to tuck him into the nut category, but he is far from it. There were a lot of lies about Vietnam, and only he had the courage to stand up and tell the truth. Most of the time in our political scene, if you tell the truth, you are ridiculed as being a nut. It is what they are attempting to do to Dr. Ron Paul because he is telling the truth on the Republican side. Mike Gravel proved his courage and stood up against the established line in the 70s and told the truth, and I believe he is not sugar coating it this time either.
Obama comes in second on the Democratic side. Hilliary, I fear, is another Nixon. Saying she is against the war, but waffling now about when to bring the troops home. If she gets into office, don’t look for the troops to come home anytime soon. I am a woman and would like a woman to be President someday, but this isn’t the woman for the job.
I haven’t seen anything in the Cafe yet about Gravel. Are ya’ll just ignoring him? Think he is unelectable. Only if you let the media control your thinking. If I wasn’t voting for Dr. Ron Paul, I believe my next choice would be Mike Gravel. He has proven courage, unshaken patriotism and a true show of responsibility to the people who elected him. We would not know about the lies of Vietnam if not for him. Dems, he is your most noncorporate candidate. Obama is not clean on this record, and I fear that he will be controlled by that if he were to be elected.
September 10th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Dennis Kucinich tells it like it is.
He calls the occupation of Iraq an unjust and misguided war and has vowed to vote against any new funding.
Also,
He is against the obscene “Patriot” Act. He hasn’t forgotten New Orleans. He put language in the Energy Bill that requires FEMA to consider the impact of Global warming in it’s long range planning. He introduced a resolution to impeach Dick Cheney and sent him a copy.
He walks his talk.
September 10th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Obama has made a new statement:
“Changing the definition of success to stay the course with the wrong policy is the wrong course for our troops and our national security. The time to end the surge and to start bringing our troops home is now – not six months from now. The Iraqi government is not achieving the political progress that was the stated purpose of the surge, and in key areas has gone backwards. Our military cannot sustain its current deployments without crippling our ability to respond to contingencies around the world. It’s time for a change of direction that brings our troops home, applies real pressure on the Iraqis to act, surges our diplomacy, and addresses Iraq’s urgent humanitarian crisis. I can only support a policy that begins an immediate removal of our troops from Iraq’s civil war, and initiates a sustained drawdown of our military presence.”
Still, he doesn’t talk about consequences, and I think American’s should be told up front the cost of staying or leaving.
Gravel is out to abolish the income tax and prefers a sales tax. He claims this isn’t regressive, but ignores the fact that the impact of a sales tax falls most heavily on those who make the least because a higher percentage of their income will be taken to pay it. As for electable; so far he hasn’t set the progressive left or the Democratic base on fire. He will not win the nomination. That makes him unelectable. If the man can’t demand enough of a following in his own base of voters, he will never win a general election.
September 10th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
i believe Bill Richardson. Read this from the Washington Post
Why We Should Exit Iraq Now
By Bill Richardson
Saturday, September 8, 2007; A15
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have suggested that there is little difference among us on Iraq. This is not true: I am the only leading Democratic candidate committed to getting all our troops out and doing so quickly.
In the most recent debate, I asked the other candidates how many troops they would leave in Iraq and for what purposes. I got no answers. The American people need answers. If we elect a president who thinks that troops should stay in Iraq for years, they will stay for years — a tragic mistake.
Clinton, Obama and Edwards reflect the inside-the-Beltway thinking that a complete withdrawal of all American forces somehow would be “irresponsible.” On the contrary, the facts suggest that a rapid, complete withdrawal — not a drawn-out, Vietnam-like process — would be the most responsible and effective course of action.
Those who think we need to keep troops in Iraq misunderstand the Middle East. I have met and negotiated successfully with many regional leaders, including Saddam Hussein. I am convinced that only a complete withdrawal can sufficiently shift the politics of Iraq and its neighbors to break the deadlock that has been killing so many people for so long.
Our troops have done everything they were asked to do with courage and professionalism, but they cannot win someone else’s civil war. So long as American troops are in Iraq, reconciliation among Iraqi factions is postponed. Leaving forces there enables the Iraqis to delay taking the necessary steps to end the violence. And it prevents us from using diplomacy to bring in other nations to help stabilize and rebuild the country.
The presence of American forces in Iraq weakens us in the war against al-Qaeda. It endows the anti-American propaganda of those who portray us as occupiers plundering Iraq’s oil and repressing Muslims. The day we leave, this myth collapses, and the Iraqis will drive foreign jihadists out of their country. Our departure would also enable us to focus on defeating the terrorists who attacked us on Sept. 11, those headquartered along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border — not in Iraq.
Logistically, it would be possible to withdraw in six to eight months. We moved as many as 240,000 troops into and out of Iraq through Kuwait in as little as a three-month period during major troop rotations. After the Persian Gulf War, we redeployed nearly a half-million troops in a few months. We could redeploy even faster if we negotiated with the Turks to open a route out through Turkey.
As our withdrawal begins, we will gain diplomatic leverage. Iraqis will start seeing us as brokers, not occupiers. Iraq’s neighbors will face the reality that if they don’t help with stabilization, they will face the consequences of Iraq’s collapse — including even greater refugee flows over their borders and possible war.
The United States can facilitate Iraqi reconciliation and regional cooperation by holding a conference similar to that which brought peace to Bosnia. We will need regional security negotiations among all of Iraq’s neighbors and discussions of donations from wealthy nations — including oil-rich Muslim countries — to help rebuild Iraq. None of this can happen until we remove the biggest obstacle to diplomacy: the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq.
My plan is realistic because:
? It is less risky. Leaving forces behind leaves them vulnerable. Would we need another surge to protect them?
? It gets our troops out of the quagmire and strengthens us for our real challenges. It is foolish to think that 20,000 to 75,000 troops could bring peace to Iraq when 160,000 have not. We need to get our troops out of the crossfire in Iraq so that we can defeat the terrorists who attacked us on Sept. 11.
? By hastening the peace process, the likelihood of prolonged bloodshed is reduced. President Richard Nixon withdrew U.S. forces slowly from Vietnam — with disastrous consequences. Over the seven years it took to get our troops out, 21,000 more Americans and perhaps a million Vietnamese, most of them civilians, died. All this death and destruction accomplished nothing — the communists took over as soon as we left.
My position has been clear since I entered this race: Remove all the troops and launch energetic diplomatic efforts in Iraq and internationally to bring stability. If Congress fails to end this war, I will remove all troops without delay, and without hesitation, beginning on my first day in office.
Let’s stop pretending that all Democratic plans are similar. The American people deserve precise answers from anyone who would be commander in chief. How many troops would you leave in Iraq? For how long? To do what, exactly? And the media should be asking these questions of the candidates, rather than allowing them to continue saying, “We are against the war . . . but please don’t read the small print.”
The writer is governor of New Mexico and a candidate for the
September 10th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
I think their opinions about the Iraq War should start with the Rule of Law in America. We’re we misled by this administration? Have they been held accountable for laws already broken? Are they neglecting their current jobs of defending the Constitution for their ambitions of being President in 2008? If they are not working to the best of their ability to do what they were elected to do, it’s irrelevant what they think about Iraq. They have already been elected and being paid to be the voice of the people who elected them. I don’t hear them speaking for the people who elected them; they are speaking for themselves! I WANT TO BE PRESIDENT. I would say get a job, but they have one. They swore to uphold the Constitution, I think they should read it and if they feel they are already doing their jobs to uphold the Constitution, they are not competent to run for President. I am a democrat, I vote for democrats, but Ron Paul speaks more for me than they do. Listen to the segments of the Fox Republicans debate featuring Ron Paul, he makes sense. He talks about things going on now, what is wrong now, we are living in today, not tomorrow. When I think about 2008 a saying comes to mind; Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift - that is why its callend PRESENT! They should be using the gift they have today, UPHOLD THE RULE OF LAW. If they don’t have the fortitude to do what they should to this Admistration, why would we trust them to do what is right with a foreign country. How can we trust them to do what is right later, when they have not proven to do what is right TODAY!
September 11th, 2007 at 10:03 am
For the other posters stick to the question
My answer: Joe Biden, he’s been to Iraq 8 times, he says that the reduction in violence is minor, it is not stopping factions from killing each other and that the central government can’t run the country let alone themselves. Central government he claims is not a workable solution in a country that is so divided. He doesn’t give canned answers like “stay the course”, or “all troops out now”, he goes into detail and tries to explain the problem. No other candidate has shown as greater comprehension for the reality in Iraq and of a solution to the problem than Joe Biden.
He has a vested interest in Iraq, his son is going soon, he’s been campaigning for rapid delivery of life saving MRAP vehicles into Iraq and he’s the only one with a detailed plan on getting out of Iraq in a way that mite actually work. All he thinks about is Iraq, all he ever talks about is Iraq.
I’m not going to comment on other candidates because they have all given oversimplified out of touch explanations on the problem that only conclude in staying or leaving with no further insight. No one is more real about Iraq than Joe Biden, period.
September 11th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
fdarbe, I will have to disagree with you on the sales tax vs. poor people. Here in Texas, we don’t tax food which I don’t believe the National Sales Tax would. Poor people tend to spend their money on the necessities like food instead of high dollar items like yachts, second homes, expensive cars, designer clothing, etc. Of course, they do have to buy clothing and maybe a car, but they tend to shop Wal-Mart and buy cars that aren’t high end.
September 11th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
FreeThinker is right Joe Biden is the best candidate running. Joe Biden did well in the hearings today. I still have hope Al Gore will get in the race. The media doesn’t really give Joe Biden coverage, they appear to have already picked their candidates, Hillary and Obama. Al Gore would get coverage and he has already won once. I don’t think the American people would let it be stollen again. I would like to see Gore/Biden.
September 11th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
CCone, food items are taxed in California either, but at least half the stuff people buy in grocery stores arn’t food items. Some food items if packaged in a certain way, are luxuries and you pay tax on them anyway.
A 10% sales tax on all American’s is going to severaly affect a person making 10,000 a year. It will h ave a negligable affect on a person making 100,000 a year. Such consumption taxes have a disproportionate affect on those with the least amount of disposable income.
To my mind, taxes are really user’s fees. We have the privaledge to live in this country, and it is a citizen’s duty to pay for that privaledge.
September 12th, 2007 at 9:57 am
it appears even democrats can”t handle the truth.Only dennis kucinich has unwaveringly told the truth from dayone.i see one “democrat”says he can”t support him because he has no exit strategy.Face the truth,it is going to be a bloodbath whether we pull out now or later,the onl,iraq will to after they pick the kind of government they not us want. the question is how many more american soilders will die before then.In vietnam we pulled out and the country survived.kucinich addresses all the major issues dragging down America to ruin.He says pull out now and he always has,he supports a government run single payer health program which would put america on the same footing as the rest of the world.he is against the free trade agreement which have destroyed our economy.These things are the nly things that will bring back the america we once new.All the other candidates are stooges of the corporatiojnhs.I see some people pulling for new mexicos Richardson another conservative democrat.haven’t we had enough conservative republicans and democrats like bill clinton.Its time people started thinking of America instead of just themselves
September 12th, 2007 at 10:10 am
who is the only candidate to speak to all the major issues destroying America,Dennis Kucinich thats who.Do you want to change America back to the wayt it was before regan,clinton and bush or do you prefer to watch it go downhill .Kucinich has oppossed the war since its start,he says pull out now and always has.Some say he has no exit strategy.We had no exit strategy in Vietnam.it will lead to large bloodshed but so will fightin. another 10 years in Iraq.the causualties will be the same except less americans will die for amorally bankrupt war started for oil.Kucinich advocates a single payer government run health care system so American can enter the 21st century like the rest of the world.He advocates getting rid off the free trade agreements which have destroyed our living standards and put us in hopeless debt.Why don”t supposed democrats want to save America instead of just winning elections with another corporate candidate
September 12th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
fdarbe, last time I checked, I was born in this country. The government maintains itself on my back and the backs of other taxpaying citizens of the USA.
If you feel that the government needs to take care of you from cradle to death, then maybe you should pay taxes and feel an obligation to your government. I, on the other hand, who had to begin taking care of my one month old son and my husband, who was in an car accident (not the same one where the drunk hit me) and was in coma for 3 1/2 weeks coming out like a baby. He is still brain damaged. I was 26 years old, but I got out and pulled myself up by the boot straps. There is no responsibility in this country anymore. No self sufficiency. Our forefathers didn’t fall down on the ground like victims. They took care of themselves and won our freedoms.
The income tax is an illegal tax anyway. It was never ratified by the number of States that were needed to enact it into law. There are no provisions in the tax code that we must pay taxes. It is all a lie. They misappropriate the money they get, our federal bureaucracy is overbloated and incompetent. Our Congressmen have very large pensions that they get for life and only have to serve one term to get it. Except for Congressman Ron Paul who doesn’t participate in the Pension Program and gives part of his salary back every year to the US Treasury.
Our government owns property. In fact, I lease it all the time for the oil & gas companies. They make billions of dollars in royalties from their onshore and offshore minerals. This is just one form of capital that our government generates. In a free market and under the form of capitalism we are suppose to have, this government should be able to generate its own revenues so we don’t really need taxes. If we would get out of other countries affairs, start tending to our own and “Make trade with all nations, Alliances with none.”, this country might establish a strong economy again.
We don’t need the income tax or National Sales tax. We need someone who has business and common sense to run this country. We need an honest Congress who isn’t on the take and who puts this country first instead of their own ambitions. We need term limits, very short limits so that the common man may serve again.
We are the masters because the Constitution says so “We the people of the United States, in order to form a perfect union”. We are also responsible for ourselves. We have the right to the pursuit of happiness, but nowhere is it guaranteed by our government.