Bill Clinton says US must stay in Iraq

[Atlas Swallowed]

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dl.../511210307/1017 (http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051121/NEWS02/511210307/1017)

For the so called liberals who support the Democratic party. The two party sytem in the USA is a scam. Both parties are war parties. Both parties represent the corporate elite and not the working class or the poor. The Democratic party is not liberal they are moderate conservatives. Iraq was never a threat to the USA. All the lies that were given to invade Iraq were proven false. The Democrats are just as guilty of the crimes being committed in Iraq as are the Republicans. The Democrats are not an opposition party to the Republicans. They are just another brand of corporate whores.

The United States is not a Democracy. To become a member of congress or president you either have to be a millionaire or supported by one. It is a plutocracy. The more money, the more rights you have. The guilded age is here again and the Democrats have ushered it in as much as the Republicans. Bill Clinton is as big of a scumbag as George W Bush he is just a more likable scumbag.

[Stonewall]

The Democratic Party has become a center-right party, ushered in by the "New Democrats" in the late 1980's and early 1990's ---- much like "New Labour" in Britain. Clinton was our Tony Blair. I still like Hillary though =)

[Ownthink]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2005, 09:18 PM
The Democratic Party has become a center-right party, ushered in by the "New Democrats" in the late 1980's and early 1990's ---- much like "New Labour" in Britain. Clinton was our Tony Blair. I still like Hillary though =)
Hillary? That crazy b.. (warning point) attacks video games because she sucks so much at life.

I hope she dies soon, along with every Democratic and Republican politician.

[Master Che]

Both parties suck, when you think about it the US is a 2 party dictatorship. Actually a 1 party dictatorship since both parties are highly similar.

[Stonewall]

I know, her position on video games does suck.... but she's the first political figure to fight for universal healthcare.

[Red Powers]

I believe Harry Truman had a healthcare plan in the late 40s. Congress wouldn't go along with it -- too socialist.

[DisIllusion]

I like how the capitalists can outlaw this sort of thing, (oligopoly) in their markets, but ignore it when it makes up American democracy.

[18tir]

The Democrats are just as guilty of the crimes being committed in Iraq as are the Republicans. The Democrats are not an opposition party to the Republicans. They are just another brand of corporate whores.

Absolutely correct, and don't forget when Clinton was in office, America was blockading Iraq, preventing food and medicine from reaching its people and causing about 1.5 million to die. Clinton practically had the U.S. airforce bombing Iraq every day. His administration caused 1 million Iraqi children to die from malnutrition. More than anything else, this is definate proof that on foreign policy matters, the Democrats do not fundamentally differ from the Republicans. Both parties are working to expand and protect U.S. interests in the region and both are committing to destroying the sovereignty and independence of the nations in that region. Look at the past 60 years, and tell me when the Democrats have acted any different from the Republicans when it came to the Middle East.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Or when it came to anywhere. Vietnam anyone? Bay of Pigs?


"Democracy", as it exists now in most countries around the world, is bourgeois democracy, a system in which the people are free to elect their dictator for a predetermined amount of time.

Bourgeois democracy is nothing more than a disguised dictatorship of the capitalists over the exploited masses. Under bourgeois democracy, every few years, in a process that lasts only a few minutes, the masses are able to select a so-called “representative” (all of whom truly only represent the capitalists) to rule over them for a predetermined amount of time. After these elections occur, for the remaining days , months and years until the next election, the masses return to being “subjects,” without the ability to make the decisions which effect their lives.

From the Manifesto (http://www.fpm-mgl.org/manifesto) of the Free People's Movement.

[fernando]

Absolutely correct, and don't forget when Clinton was in office, America was blockading Iraq, preventing food and medicine from reaching its people and causing about 1.5 million to die. Clinton practically had the U.S. airforce bombing Iraq every day. His administration caused 1 million Iraqi children to die from malnutrition.
Funny how Saddam in that same time was living like a king in his giant palaces, him and his families had everything while his people starved. Sure the US isnt the good guy...but personally I think Saddam was a bigger piece of shit than Clinton was.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Well since the US installed Sadaam where does that leave us?

[Anarchist Freedom]

Im going to have to agree with bill clinton because we have been in Iraq for to long now that if we where to just pull out an all out civil war would occur.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Originally posted by Anarchist [email protected] 22 2005, 06:12 PM
Im going to have to agree with bill clinton because we have been in Iraq for to long now that if we where to just pull out an all out civil war would occur.
What do you call what the US is doing right now? Are they not attempting to train puppet Iraqi fighters to fight the insurgency? How is that not a civil war between the "Iraqi government" and the insurgents? If the US leaves there may or may not be a civil war. If the US stays there will definately be a civil war but one side will have the might of the US military at it's disposal.

If the US stays, then there will be a civil war helped along by the US and then the US will use this war to justify to Americans and other countries in the middle east why it must "reluctantly" stay in Iraq to "help".

[Iconoclast]

As much as I oppose the war in Iraq and almost everything about it, from its reasoning to its conduct, I have to agree with Clinton that the US cannot leave now. Going beyond any danger to our military forces, which I don't much care about, thousands if not millions will be in danger if we leave. If we leave the country without a functioning government and security force established, it will just turn into a civil warzone and Iraqi civilians will be even worse off.

Push aside your thoughts about the paltry 2,000+ US grunts who died there. Realize how many civilians have died, and how many more will die unless the country is given some sort of operable government and military.

[Stonewall]

Well, if we stay, as mentioned above, Iraq will turn into a Civil War. Look at what we accomplished in Afghanistan, it’s no different than the Taliban. However, if we pull out, it’ll also turn into a Civil War…. So it’s damned if we do, damned if we don’t. This war doesn’t have to end like this, but with Bush and PNAC prescriptions and Halliburton and Lockheed running the show, it will end up like this.

[ComradeOm]

It is a shitty situation but, as I've said before, I'd rather a liberal democracy than a Somalia. Of course we're unlikely to get any democracy. This is one of those times that everybody (but the fanatics) loses.

[Gura]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2005, 02:18 AM
I still like Hillary though =)
Hillary was a supporter of the Nicaraguan Contras. She's no left-winger.

It's not at all surprising what Bill Clinton said. Currently the Democratic talking points are:
1) We're there now, so we have to help the Iraqi government.
2) We can't pull out because that would create chaos (Yeah? Who's causing the chaos, nimrod?)
3) We were given bad intelligence! (Okay, sure you were. But you were also pretty eager to give the president the authority to go to war too. Didn't you remember that only Congress can declare war? Even if you were given the intelligence that Iraq was a threat, you were pretty quick to say "fine, fine, okay. We believe you. Let's go bomb the shit out of some third-world country")

The US is not in Iraq to support democracy. If that were the case, why woudl the US (and it's friends in the Iraqi Interior Ministry) be torturing and killing people? Why would the US be supporting every corrupt Iraqi puppet government (also: strong possibility that Chalabi will become Iraqi PM after December elections)? For democracy? Only if one's definition of democracy includes death squads, torture, and a American-backed, CIa/corporate owned government.

The best thing to do would be to pull out immediately, as quickly as possible (as in: how many troops is it physically possible to withdraw at one time?). Sure, Saddam Hussein was a bastard, but what makes anyone think the new leader(s) are better?

[Stonewall]

Faulty intelligence my ass, I was swearing up and down before the war that Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. If a, then, teenager knew that Iraq didn’t have WMDs, how come to the CIA didn’t!?

Reasons I had for believing Iraq didn’t;

[1]. Iraq’s economy was a piece of shit, less than $57 billion. Any active WMD development project worth a damn would have drained the economy of every penny.

[2]. Mutual Assured Destruction [MAD] --- know what this is? If you’re Country A and your enemy is Country B and Country B has a missile capable of reaching country A and causing tons of damage, would it make sense to make a “preemptive strike” on Country B? No…… MAD pretty much rules out “pre” shit.

[3]. WE, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, GAVE CHEMICAL WEAPONS TO SADDAM TO USE AGAINST THE IRANIANS [I GUESS THIS IS WHERE THE FAULTY INTELLIGENCE CAME FROM? WE GAVE IT TO THEM, SO WE FIGURED THEY STILL HAD IT?], to bad that shit expired years and years ago.

[4]. Iraq did have a nuclear program once…… Israel took care of that. All that shit on uranium and nuclear reactor roods? Those all date back to pre-Israeli strike.

[5]. If “WMD” was the real reason, we’d have invaded North Korea, or Iran. If “terrorism” was the real issue, we’d have invaded Saudi Arabia.

So what would I do to solve the problem? Unfortunately, I’m not President, so like the issue of invading in the first place and on the issue of intelligence, MHO doesn’t really amount to flip, even though I’m way smarter than those idiots @ the CIA. But, just in case you’re interested;

1. Get the United Nations involved in providing security forces and peacekeeping in Iraq. We can’t do it without more support from Germany, France, Britain, China, Russia, etc. We should also work within the region to gain support from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, etc.

2. Begin training our soldiers serving in Iraq a crash course in Islamic & Iraqi history, tradition, culture, literature and values.

3. Provide serious resources for modernizing Iraq’s economy [this requires investment of at least $35 billion per year over the next couple years] ---- I think we’re not contributing less than $7? Billion…. Which is shit in a country with over 26 million peeps. How can we honesty claim to be serious on reconstructing the country when we’re providing less than $269 per Iraqi for reconstruction? Unemployment in Iraq is like a plague….. I’m sorry, if I was a poor Iraqi, I’d take a job for a terrorist group, so at least I could support my fucking family…… we need a significant Iraqi WPA-PWA to modernize Iraqi infrastructure and provide for full employment and we need to forgive Iraq of all debts owed [why should the new gov be responsible for Hussein era debts!?] We did a Marshall Plan in Europe, what we need is something equivalent for Iraq.

5. Stop always siding with Israel…. Now I’m a supporter of the Jewish people and they’ve been through hell and back, but why does a first world wealthy country need BILLIONS IN AID from the U.S.? For fuck’s sake, we’re giving more to Israel in aid than we’re appropriating for Iraqi reconstruction!

6. Work with the Iraqis to employ more domestic police [hell, maybe hire 250,000 of Iraq’s unemployed for policing efforts?] and have a valid timeline with the withdrawal of U.S. forces [Jan 07’ being the max].

7. Work with the U.N. to establish a parliamentary democracy in Iraq; complete with proportional representation, a constitution, public financing of campaigns, finance restrictions, voting age @ 16, etc.

Course, none of this will happen...... so it's: we're damned.

[Stonewall]

And I'm sorry, I just like Hillary. She might not be the symbol of "progressive", but I just like her and I think her intentions are / or at least were, noble, it's just she left the system corrupt her ideals and cloud her judgement.... but she's still for universal health care, "it takes a village", anti-poverty programs, etc., she'd be the most "left" Prez since LBJ, least on economic issues.

[Ownthink]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2005, 05:19 PM
And I'm sorry, I just like Hillary. She might not be the symbol of "progressive", but I just like her and I think her intentions are / or at least were, noble, it's just she left the system corrupt her ideals and cloud her judgement.... but she's still for universal health care, "it takes a village", anti-poverty programs, etc., she'd be the most "left" Prez since LBJ, least on economic issues.
No. She doesn't have any good judgement or good intentions. For Christ's Sake, she's "anti video game". Stupid.

Now, let's deduce the obvious! If she has let the system corrupt her ideals, then how in the hell does she have good intentions? Isn't that a contradiction? You could say she DID have good intentions, until she was corrupted by the system.

Any Politician, be it Democrat or Republican, is usually a reactionary pro America bastard. They SUPPORT the war, just not the way it's currently being conducted. Yeah, great steps indeed.

LBJ? :lol:

Politicians fucking suck. The Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans.

[Gura]

Bill Clinton put a shiny, happy face on imperialism and war when he was in office. See, Bush is bad because he's a dirty warmongering imperialist, and Clinton's a great freedom-loving leader.

Yes, or a liberal politician Hillary Clinton has some good ideas (national healthcare, for example). However, once she got into office these issues would disappear. She knows national healthcare is not going to pass Congress, but it's a good thing to run on to get liberals to vote for her.

[Iconoclast]

Hilary Clinton is bad news. She's not liberal by any means.

[Stonewall]

[1]. Hillary Clinton opposed the Republican tax giveaways to millionaires and billionaires and has publicly called for the repeal of the Bush regime's tax axing spree.

[2]. Hillary Clinton doesn’t just pay lip service to universal health care, remember, the issue was a political nightmare during the early Clinton years of 1993 and 1994 and paved the way for GOP victories in the House and Senate. She’s serious about health care reform and while we might not get universal health care, she will fight for something that’s as close to it as is politically feasible.

[3]. She has a radical feminist history, was a known socialist during her college years, had a Communist Methodist Youth Minister [odd indeed] and had an psychologically abusive father that, I believe, turned her into what she is today. “It Takes A Village” certainly had to have been inspired by her own father. Unfortunately, this sometimes translates into negatives - the video game instance cited above - as evidence has been shown that violent video games do increase violence in young children.

[4]. Hillary Clinton is a leading advocate of a united global vision and has deep rooted connections in the World Federalist Movement and other organizations and foundations working for expanding and extending the authority of the United Nations. The WFA, in particular, has many socialistic and left wing alliances and tendencies.

[5]. One of Hillary’s role models is Bella Abzug [do some historical reading if you don’t know who Bella Abzug was].

As for Iraq, I don’t know if she REALLY supports the War in Iraq, or it’s just a political alignment that she thinks will minimize scrutiny from opponents and allow her to gain political leverage. After all, being but one Senator in a chamber filled with Senators, one vote doesn’t make much of a difference, but it does make a difference if you’re planning to make a Presidential run in a few years.

[Stonewall]

Most Americans are now against the war, but few would support withdrawing. So, from a political standpoint, it comes down to this: support keeping troops in Iraq and hope stability can last until the Presidential 08’ election --- it’d play to Hillary’s advantage, or withdrawal now and have Iraq turn into an immediate cesspool --- it’d play against Hillary’s 08’ bid, or we remain in Iraq and it turns into a cesspool before the 08’ election --- this would be the worst of backfires and would totally rip to shreds any chance of Hillary winning. So, she made the most prudent gamble, stay the course, but demand an investigation into the Bush White House to uncover corruption, scandals, etc.

If I were in her shoes, I'd probably have voted the same.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Where did all these fucking liberals come from?


Push aside your thoughts about the paltry 2,000+ US grunts who died there. Realize how many civilians have died, and how many more will die unless the country is given some sort of operable government and military.

Uhh... Who was it that killed those civilians??

What's your argument: "The only way to prevent the death of more civilians is for the people to killed and continue to kill the civilians to stay there"??

[Stonewall]

From the whore house down the St.

[Atlas Swallowed]

Hillary votes with the Republicans agenda approximatly 60% of the time, for those who support Hillary do you think the Republicans are correct 60 % of the time? She is a wolf in sheeps clothing just as her husband. She will kiss you after she f**ks you, but she will f**k you just the same.

[Atlas Swallowed]

Originally posted by Anarchist [email protected] 22 2005, 06:12 PM
Im going to have to agree with bill clinton because we have been in Iraq for to long now that if we where to just pull out an all out civil war would occur.
OK somebody chose the wrong monniker. How about "Mildly Liberal America Imperilism" with beliefs like that it is more suitable. The USA has been starving bombing and killing these poor people for over a decade. The quicker the US leaves Iraq, the Quicker the Iraqis can try to solve thier problems (which most are from the US anyway, including Saddam). That logic it is like saying the fox should be in charge of the remaining chickens after he ate half of them and the chickens should like it. The US does not spread Democracy, they spread corporate friendly dictatorships, regardless of which corrupt party has control.

[Master Che]

I totally agree with you Atlas Swallowed. The US has installed over 10-15 dictators in the last 60 years ALONE! They invaded Iraq because Saddam didnt want any wal-marts or mcdonalds in his country. So they spew lies and propaganda against him to justify this autrocities commited there. I know Saddam sucks but they had no reason and right to even invade his damn country.

[Iconoclast]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2005, 04:08 PM
I totally agree with you Atlas Swallowed. The US has installed over 10-15 dictators in the last 60 years ALONE! They invaded Iraq because Saddam didnt want any wal-marts or mcdonalds in his country. So they spew lies and propaganda against him to justify this autrocities commited there. I know Saddam sucks but they had no reason and right to even invade his damn country.
Indeed. In 1990, the US had a lot of internationally-backed reasons to go to war with Iraq, the primary being a war of aggression that Iraq had initiated against Kuwait. Does this seem ironic to anyone?

I'm surprised to hear anyone here is actually thinking of supporting Clinton. I would think those who do not dismiss the concept of the Revolutionary Left would be smart enough to know that American Democratic Party is far from liberal.

[18tir]

Funny how Saddam in that same time was living like a king in his giant palaces, him and his families had everything while his people starved. Sure the US isnt the good guy...but personally I think Saddam was a bigger piece of shit than Clinton was.

Sure, but that doesn't give Clinton the right to continue a genocidal sanctions policy that kills hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. I remember once in Dec 98, he bombed Iraq for 4 days to distract the country from the impeachment proceedings. So he killed probably dozens of people to save his own ass. Now if that isn't low, I don't know what is.

[Maynard]

Clinton in many ways is one of the worst presidents of all time, he seems to be given a "pass” because George W. is worse but he was a murderer, lying scumbag, who preyed on innocent woman, who bombed nations because of his own domestic problems.



he's the first political figure to fight for universal healthcare
Her "universal healthcare plan" was not "universal” in any meaningful sense of the world and was in fact promoted by five of the biggest insurance companies in the United States.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1221


Im going to have to agree with bill clinton because we have been in Iraq for to long now that if we where to just pull out an all out civil war would occur.

They said the same type of thing when it came to Vietnam. This statement ignores the obvious, that there already is a civil war and it is fuelled by the US presence. To say that the US presence is preventing a civil war from breaking out is false.


it takes a village
Haha, her "book” promotes sexual abstinence for teenagers!


she will fight for something that’s as close to it as is politically feasible.

Who is deciding what is or what isn't "feasible"? Is it Bill O'Reilly, Thomas Sowell or whom? 62% of Americans according to this poll prefer Universal helath care to the current system http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/US/h...31020_poll.html (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/US/healthcare031020_poll.html) so why not support it? Could it be that Hillary is a lackey for "corporate America” who is scared that campaign contributions will be cut off if she supports something which is oh so radical?. A universal health care system has been feasible in nearly all developed nations, what makes the United States so different.


If I were in her shoes, I'd probably have voted the same.
That defines the Democrats we will vote for anything, if it makes us more popular, no matter what it is. How about standing up for what you believe no matter what the political costs, the Republicans have for the most part done this and that is why they have been more effective in shaping what is the modern day United States.


hey had no reason and right to even invade his damn country. Excuse me, his damn country?