Osama, Saddam, WMD's and the 2004 election

[habilis]

First, the good news for Bush in 2004;

1. The war was won quickly and cheaply(in American lives)
2. There have been no new major terrorist attacks on American soil under his watch (which talks to the possibility that the Bush plan against terror is a success.)
3. There are now indications that a stable ground is in place for a bull market to develope in the next year and facilitate major economic rebound. (Bush admin will claim that winning the war quickly and tax cuts helped to create stability and activate the rebound - which isn't far from the truth). In other words, an improving economy under his watch.


Now, the bad news for Bush in 2004;

1.Where the hell is bin Lauden's dead body?
2. Where the hell is Saddam's dead body?
3. Where the hell are the WMD's? (This one being by far the worst issue; Bush's credibility is on the line big time with this one. If WMD's aren't found soon, this is the issue the Democrats - and a large part of the anti-American world out there - are going to forge into a sword and cut his head clean off with.)
4. The doom and gloomer economy & tax-cuts-for-the-rich crowd. (There's nothing new about this democrat strategy of charging Bush and the republicans with giving tax cuts only to the richest of Americans and running our economy into the ground, but they're going to be louder then ever this time. Bush admin will defend, saying it inherited the post dot-com crash/tech-bubble burst economy - which again isn't far from the truth.)

Of course a lot will happen before 2004. It will be an interesting comming year.

[Decado]

they better make sure that that i fthey find WMD there will be a lot of independent dudes around, or else they will have hell convincing everybody that they didnt plant it

[toast]

It is too late to find WMDs now that fights have more or less stopped. GWBush now has to succeed where his father did not: economy. Is tax cut what Americans really need and ask for ? Isn't the main desire of the population security ? And isn't social security a form of security ? What about job precarity after the dotcom crashes ? After the economic spasms and mini-crashes ?

The coming year will be interesting indeed. History rarely repeats itself, and I am curious to know how America is going to get through this Bush 2nd period.

[habilis]

Sidenote: An interesting poll in the New York Times today;

The question posed to people who claim democrat as their party was "Can you name 1 democrat presidential candidate?"
66% could not. 33% came up with a variety of candidates from John Carry to Joe Lieberman.

Of course things change in time, but one way to interpret those numbers is that 2 of every 3 democrats out there apparently have no urgent interest in replacing the current president. Another interpretation; the democrats don't have themselves a strong leader.

[ebolag4]

Originally posted by toast
It is too late to find WMDs now that fights have more or less stopped.

Why is it too late to find WMDs? Just because the major part of the battle is over, that doesn't mean finding them is no longer important. Now is the time to find them since the fighting is over. Now they have the time to concentrate on searching rather than fighting.

And why is it that the very people who were urging Bush to take more time before going to war are the same people who are in such and all-fired hurry to find the WMDs. These are the people who urged patience, but they have no patience themselves.

If the things are hidden, it's going to take time. I wouldn't doubt if most of the WMDs made it out of Iraq before the first shot was fired. The question is, what do we do about it if they ARE found somewhere else? I don't even want to think about that one, but we must face the possibility.

I, for one, am willing to be patient and let the record show for itself what the future for GW holds. I'm not going to let what MIGHT be happening now determine how I will vote in the future. I'm going to wait and see what DOES happen and then act accordingly.

[serpicolugnut]

hey toast - if I were you, I'd be more worried about how France will survive under continuous control of Chirac, now that he has successfully alienated your country politically from the big boys (US/UK).

As for the WMDs, we've found bits and pieces that suggest a lot of them were moved right before the war, possibly to Syria, possibly destroyed. I find it funny that no one seems to think it odd that over 100 Iraqis who looted a suspected Nuclear facility (read: illegal nuclear facility) now are sick with radiation poisioning. Now, how could that happen if there was no nuclear program?

As for Usama and Saddam... Where are they? They are both dead. Until I see video footage of either of them with a current daily newspaper, I'm going on the assumption that they are both taking the eternal celestial dirt nap. Even if Saddam survived, he's not in command of his country, and there's no way in hell he or his sons/Baath party officials will ever run Iraq again.

[adambyte]

Anybody ever see "Wag The Dog?" Good movie

Granted, I'm not saying that the war is fake. Lost lives are a real thing. But when you're a lackluster president, you might as well go and be a good commander of the army. This was Bush's way of making an impression on the general population.

On a sidenote: About the dumbest thing Bush can do for the economy is cut taxes.... which is what he seems dead-set on doing.

btw, Vote for Dean. http://www.deanforamerica.com

[Gnomo]

Originally posted by ebolag4
why is it that the very people who were urging Bush to take more time before going to war are the same people who are in such and all-fired hurry to find the WMDs.

Hmm...let's think about this. Why on earth could people want the WMD to show up and in a hurry?

Um...here a shot in the dark: To Prove us WRONG~!

I don't know about all the other anti-war members of this forum or around the world for that matter, but I would love for Junior to prove us all wrong by finding (not planting) a large WMD cache. It would finally show that this war wasn't just a vandetta against Saddam, and that we actually had some intelligence rather than just propoganda. Iraq was claiming all along that "We don't have any" and so far it looks like they were telling the truth.

Now, I doubt that too many people in the world are really going to miss Saddam, but this will just add to the reasons that so many groups hate the US as it is. I mean we already (to some extent) alienated the French, Russians, and China (just to name a few) and we rendered the UN completely worthless (again). We aren't doing a very good job of making friends and we are upsetting the ones that we have.

If we don't learn our lesson soon and stop being the Bully of the world cramming our "be like us" doctrine down the throats of every other country and blowing them up if they refuse to listen to us (or even if they are and we just don't believe them), there are going to be more terrorist attacks and when there are, we might not have anyone to go crying to for help.

I love my country and I am thankful that I am American, but it is highly time that we realize that we are not Gods gift to the planet.