Democrates lose again to Bush

wintersprings

wintersprings

New Member
"Democrats no longer talk of the 18 benchmarks for measuring progress in Iraq because so much progress has now taken place"

Wow. Did they finally get it? Support the troups, not stab them in the back.
 
ImnoMensa

ImnoMensa

New Member
I dont know much about Benchmarks, but I do know that the Media has been keeping quiet on Iraq, and that probably means we are doing good.

If it were bad they would be shouting it from the rooftops/
 
Vince

Vince

......
ImnoMensa said:
I dont know much about Benchmarks, but I do know that the Media has been keeping quiet on Iraq, and that probably means we are doing good.

If it were bad they would be shouting it from the rooftops/
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You can bet your azz on that. If it's not bad news or they can't blame something on Bush they won't report it.
 
SamSpade

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
Vince said:
You can bet your azz on that. If it's not bad news or they can't blame something on Bush they won't report it.
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This I can't fault the media for - way back when I was 10, I wrote to David Brinkley and asked him why the news broadcasts were about bad news. At the time I was bothered because my grandfather had died - a survivor of the Bataan death march and innumerable atrocities as a POW, and a hero to many - but while I knew he wasn't going to get a blip on the news, during that cycle some rather awful people had met their end - and THEY made the news.

Brinkley told me - after reassuring me that my grandfather was in fact, heroic - that it is the nature of the news to report bad news. As he said it, if a plane or train arrives on time, that is not news, but if one crashes, that IS. He also added that they do *try* to balance their coverage.

So what do they say? Iraq - a lot better than you think? There's no doubt that if say, FOX tried to report good news from Iraq, it'd be touted as propaganda.

It's also the nature of the war that it's hard to assess how well it's going. It's not WW2 where the measure of the progress of the war was how close are we to Berlin, and have they captured Hitler yet? THAT part of the Iraq War ended five years ago. We no longer care if they've rolled into Baghdad yet, and most Americans are not the slightest bit aware of what the current campaigns are.
 
wintersprings

wintersprings

New Member
"nature of the war that it's hard to assess how well it's going."

are you hiding in a hole? The good news is every where, but mainly on the bloggs. Even the French now say we won (That made CNN).

So where do you get your news? When Bagdad is safer than DC, I think you got your answer.
 
ImnoMensa

ImnoMensa

New Member
SamSpade said:
This I can't fault the media for - way back when I was 10, I wrote to David Brinkley and asked him why the news broadcasts were about bad news. At the time I was bothered because my grandfather had died - a survivor of the Bataan death march and innumerable atrocities as a POW, and a hero to many - but while I knew he wasn't going to get a blip on the news, during that cycle some rather awful people had met their end - and THEY made the news.

Brinkley told me - after reassuring me that my grandfather was in fact, heroic - that it is the nature of the news to report bad news. As he said it, if a plane or train arrives on time, that is not news, but if one crashes, that IS. He also added that they do *try* to balance their coverage.

So what do they say? Iraq - a lot better than you think? There's no doubt that if say, FOX tried to report good news from Iraq, it'd be touted as propaganda.

It's also the nature of the war that it's hard to assess how well it's going. It's not WW2 where the measure of the progress of the war was how close are we to Berlin, and have they captured Hitler yet? THAT part of the Iraq War ended five years ago. We no longer care if they've rolled into Baghdad yet, and most Americans are not the slightest bit aware of what the current campaigns are.
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I find your reference to World War 2 and how we cannot judge this war by that one to be so true

Another thing we cannot judge by World War 2 standards is the treatment of POW's
1. We arent capturing POW's in uniform so are they POW's or are they sabateurs. Being dressed as a civilian during WW2 while fighting would have gotten you shot as a spy.
2.Certainly these IED's are not laid by people in uniform ,but saboteurs.
3. After WW2 the prisoners were returned home where the war was over,they went to work. With this bunch the war will never be over. They wont return to work, they will return to kill again.This bunch arent fighting for their country, they are fighting for a child molesting prophet.
4. During WW2 , we fought to win. We didnt worry about how the citizens would accept us after we won, and President Truman had no intention to talk with Hitler.
 
awpitt

awpitt

Main Streeter
cwo_ghwebb said:
Baby Alex has a better chance of getting murdered in D.C. than killed in action in Iraq. Mischaracterization politics at its best. But what does one expect from folks with a September 10, 2001 attitude.
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The McCain camp used that term yesterday. I was wondering how long it would take before it started getting recycled.
 
SamSpade

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
wintersprings said:
"nature of the war that it's hard to assess how well it's going."

are you hiding in a hole? The good news is every where, but mainly on the bloggs. Even the French now say we won (That made CNN).

So where do you get your news? When Bagdad is safer than DC, I think you got your answer.
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I'm not hiding in a hole. It's just that progress now is a matter of judgment rather than a matter of lines on a map. It's the difference between a judged competition, like gymnastics, and one with clearly defined win conditions, such as baseball. In baseball, you win if you score the most runs at the end of the game. In gymnastics, it's a judgment call.

When you go to war against a nation, typically the capture of the capitol or the seat of government ends the war. When you go to war against a rebellion, you win when they surrender to you or when you've eliminated their ability to fight you. They come to the table with their hats in hand on their knees, and you sign the papers. They gave up.

You can observe progress in a conventional war by the amount of land captured and secured. When their soldiers start to surrender and drop their weapons, and you know they've only got so many soldiers left, you are winning. You know when you've won campaigns or battles.

This one has been hard to judge. You make progress - and then you lose a lot of troops in a month. You clear out an area - and come back later to find it infested again. You kill the enemy - but he keeps reappearing. It's been like a huge game of Whack-A-Mole.

I'm not saying we haven't been winning - I'm saying there's not an easily quantifiable means of observing win conditions. Seems like we declare we've won when the smoke clears and we don't hear anything for a while.
 
SamSpade

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
awpitt said:
The McCain camp used that term yesterday. I was wondering how long it would take before it started getting recycled.
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You mean like Bush Lied, People Died and No Blood For Oil? This illegal and immoral war? I support the troops but I'm against the war?

Best one I know of is the Cheney "gravitas" meme - everyone on air used that word, one that has barely been used since.

McCain uses an accurate term - before 9/11, we were under the impression that terrorism doesn't happen here. We weren't paying attention to the fact that extreme Islam had been trying to kill us and had openly declared war on us - written, and openly spoken. That police and security were sufficient to stop terrorism.

Dems STILL believe that one - that terrorism is a law enforcement matter.
 
wintersprings

wintersprings

New Member
"amount of land captured and secured"

are you really that narrow minded? We bombed Iraq 3 times, then invaded, and you judge results by "amount of land captured and secured".

Geeee, its a new world folks, we win by killing, and thats the only answer that makes them stop, or did you miss the zero attackes after 9/11, thanks to Bush.

Thats the only yard stick you need. Number killed, and the result, no attacks.
 
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