Honest Question for Dean Supporters

[absyntheNsugar]

I like Dean (he's second on my list), but take issue with his being against the war, and being for the occupation. Yes, I know he wants to shorten that occupation but any occupation for me seems to have quagmire written all over it.

And yes, I realize the only candidates out there who are against the occupation are the single-digit candidates. But this issue bothers me...

How do you, especially if you're like me and anti-occupation, deal with this? Also - perhaps I'm reading it wrong. Please correct me if I am.

[dsc]

1. We have a series of bad choices

A leave Iraq and let it disolve into civil war or be a Shiite haven.

B stay in Iraq for several years

or

C get the UN to let us off the hook. Dean prefers C

[absyntheNsugar]

2. I used to think he preferred C

but at the New Hampshire debate, he stated that we would US presence in Iraq for a couple of years. This is what troubles me.

[dsc]

3. He is being realistic

The UN can't jump right in and won't jump right in. We will need to stay until the troops can replace us.

[pruner]

4. he favors a gradual reduction of US forces…

augmented by an increased presence of (Arabic speaking) international forces.

despite Kucinich's claims, this can't happen in 90 days.

[tsipple]

6. With the U.N.

The U.S. would be a participant together with the U.N. and, particularly, lots of Arabic-speaking troops.

Of course this all presupposes that the place isn't so f***ed up by the time he takes office that it's irretrievable.

Under present conditions, though, he'd like to give it a try. Why? Because there are innocent men, women, and children who would suffer greatly if U.S. forces leave Iraq to the thugs and criminals.

I think you're talking about Dennis Kucinich, and I'd be much more comfortable if he'd acknowledge that problem more. Lots of Iraqi people would die under his proposal. And the sad thing is, he could be correct -- that his is the best among a set of miserable options. Maybe Dean's thinking is wishful thinking, but (I think) we have to try.

[KaraokeKarlton]

5. We can't leave now that we're there

But we do need to do some things differently so it isn't like an "occupation". I don't think we've gotten anywhere close to it being that bad yet, but it certainly will end up that way if we don't change gears.

We blew the place up and it's our responsibility to clean up the mess we made. Until there is a leader the Iraqi people can accept and an Iraqi security force that can handle things we can't just bail. We need to find a way to bring in some muslim speaking security forces to help.

If we leave there will be a hundred or more different groups trying to take power and we'll see a horrible mess. The people of Iraq would end up being the victims of that because it would be like 50 different Civil Wars going on all at once.

If we can get other security forces in and see things stabilize, then we can get out. Until that happens we can't leave. Dean is right on this, and he wants to get a coalition built and international troops in. Leaving would put the Iraqi people in danger. That would be inherently wrong.

[virtualobserver]

15. exactly

it would be immoral to abandon the Iraqi people now.

I do think that we will pay a horrible price for Bush's foolishness but now we are obligated to pay it.

[Paxton_Free]

17. And that's what it's really all about.

We can't go into a country, fuck it up, then piss on them.

[Padraig18]

7. When life gives you lemons,...

... you make lemonade. Dean has proposed a sane plan for graduated withdrawl which will not imperil the safety of the Iraqi people or plunge the country into civil war and chaos.

[Code_Name_D]

8. I am not sure I agree with it ether. However...

My oppinion that we pull out is defantly in the minority. And the resoning behind it is preswasive, even if I do not agree with it. In fact, I am defeantly open to a US staying option, given some caviots.

The thing is that most Americans don't like leaveing a mess behind. Forgeting the fact that this is exactly what Halibertain is counting on.

The resononis is that we need to fix what we broke. And I do agree with that.

[littlejoe]

9. I had a thread yesterday, concerning this.

The Bush administration has made a thorough mess of things. We have committed troops to fight and die, to get wounded, both physically and psychologically for absolutely no good reason at all. We have killed thousands of Iraqi people, turned hundreds of thousands into homeless people, bombed and torn up their cities, their infrastructure and so on.

Most of the people on the underground didn't want or ask for this. But, to simply walk away from this now would constitute the height of insensitivity and irresponsibility.

Howard Dean is aware of the complexities of this tragic situation, and, while working to try and get our people home as soon as possible, he understands that it will take time and a committment to rebuild. If elected, it wouldn't be an occupation as we know it.

But, to simply say, as another candidate has said, that we are just going to dump the problem in the U.N's lap and have our men and women out in 90 days is simplistic and unworkable.

[deutsey]

10. Not only are we responsible for the growing disaster in Iraq

Bush has also alienated the world community and continues to do so with his bullshit ban on companies from countries that didn't support the invasion.

I want US troops out of Iraq (I never wanted them in there to begin with), but it's rather naive in my opinion to think we can pull out within the next few months and assume the UN or an international coalition will move in. We've got a lot of fence mending to do with our allies around the world before we can expect them to come in and help clean up this total catastrophe that we've unleashed.

[blm]

11. (Not a Dean supporter)but Dean was not against the war as most people

believe. So he's really not being inconsistent with his ACTUAL stand. However, Dean's rhetoric leads one to assume he's anti Iraq war.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/nj/rauch2003-12-09.htm

Howard Dean Is No George McGovern. He Might Be Bill Clinton.

Even on Iraq, Dean has planted himself subtly but distinctly to the right of his supporters

by Jonathan Rauch

<edit>
Don't bet on it. I spent several days recently poring over Dean's speeches and other public comments. The conclusion was not as expected. The Dean campaign may be set to the music of firebrand liberalism, but its words belie the notion that Dean has painted himself into a far-left corner. Even on Iraq—his signature issue—Dean has planted himself subtly but distinctly to the right of his supporters.

Dean's faithful believe the war was wrong, wrong, wrong. Dean seems to agree. "Had I been a member of the Senate," he said in a speech in February, "I would have voted against the resolution that authorized the president to use unilateral force against Iraq—unlike others in that body now seeking the presidency." In late November, he ran an ad saying, "I opposed the war in Iraq, and I'm against spending another $87 billion there."

High-octane stuff; but Dean has been more cautious on Iraq than his enthusiasts realize. For example, in that same February speech, he went on to say, "I do not believe the president should have been given a green light to drive our nation into conflict ... without a requirement that we at least try first to work through the United Nations." That sentence contains some artful phrasing.

In reality, Dean favored an alternative war resolution (sponsored by Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind.) that differed little from the one that passed. True, Biden-Lugar called on Bush to seek a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing the war, but it did not require Bush to obtain such a resolution, if the Security Council balked. In other words, Dean favored a congressional resolution authorizing exactly the course that Bush took.

more...

[stickdog]

13. Sure transparent bullshit, blm. WE FUCKING LIVED THROUGH IT.

We know what happened.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

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[deutsey]

14. For God's Sake

How many fricking times must we go through this?

I knew months ago when I was looking into Dean's stand on things that he would have been in favor of invading Iraq if we could make an argument to the world community that would have rallied them to our aid. This would have meant, of course, that we have such trivial things as EVIDENCE that Iraq posed any real danger to the world community. This was not a position that was out of step with a lot people I know in the anti-war movement. I also knew he was for bombing Afghanistan (which I opposed).

This is nothing new. I can't understand why Kerry and his supporters keep bringing this up as if they've uncovered something Dean's been trying to hide.

[blm]

18. Because Dean made it a black and white issue in his stump speeches

and didn't reveal that his stance was so close to the others, especially Kerry's.
Find me a speech of his where he explained how close the two were on Iraq.

[Padraig18]

20. You must not understand campaigning:

You don't go around explaining how close you are to someone (even though he wasn't); you explain why you are DIFFERENT from the rest. :eyes:

[blm]

21. But he didn't do it honestly, did he?

He took a sliver of a difference and turned it into a two by four. And the press sat by and watched him use it without holding him to any standard of honesty.

[Code_Name_D]

24. Dean lied about his position on the war?

Are you trying to tell me that even as he was vocolay against the war, he was secritly for it? You have already been shone to take Deans speaches out of contect. Why am I not to beleive you are doing so now?

[Padraig18]

26. LOL!

The press also never called kerry's 'nuances' on the IWR vote what THEY were, either---lies.

Get over it, dude. :eyes:

[deutsey]

25. He didn't have to do that

As I say, I've known for MONTHS that this was Dean's position, but according to this piece from Slate, he was saying this back in August 2002 (http://slate.msn.com/id/2086440/):

In August 2002, (Dean) said he would support a unilateral invasion of Iraq if President Bush could "show that there's evidence has either atomic or biological weapons and can deliver." Dean ended up opposing the war on the grounds that Bush 1) should have worked through the United Nations to disarm Iraq (or to depose Saddam, if Iraq failed to comply with inspections); 2) should have given more consideration to the concerns of U.S. allies; and 3) never should have claimed that Iraq presented an imminent biological or nuclear threat to the United States.

He also stated this quite clearly in this Feb. 2003 PBS interview (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june03/dean_2-25.html):

GWEN IFILL: You have said that the president has not made his case for leading an attack or starting an attack in Iraq. Why don't you make your case against that for us?

FMR. GOV. HOWARD DEAN: Sure. I think there's a high threshold for a unilateral attack, and the United States has traditionally set the moral tone for foreign policy in the world. My view of this is since Iraq is not an imminent danger to the United States, the United States should not unilaterally attack Iraq. Iraq does not have nuclear weapons. They do not have much of a nuclear program, if they have one at all left. And they have not... there is not any particular evidence that is convincing that they have given weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. All those three things would constitute, in my view, a reason to defend our country by unilaterally attacking. But those are not the cases. Sec. Powell and the president have not made those cases well.

We believe... I believe that Iraq does have chemical and biological weapons, and they are a threat to many nations in the region, but not to the United States. Therefore in my view, the United States ought not to attack unilaterally. The United Nations should disarm Saddam, and we should be a part of that effort. The risk for us to unilaterally attack Iraq is that other nations will adopt our policy, and I can very easily see perhaps the Chinese saying one day, "well, Taiwan presents an imminent threat, and therefore we have the right to attack Taiwan." What we do matters, and morals matter in foreign policy.

GWEN IFILL: Governor, you have criticized other Democrats in the race for seeming to support the president by voting for the use-of-force resolution last October in Congress, yet you say that you support... you would support... you'd be willing to support a United Nations-backed effort to disarm Saddam Hussein. How is that different from what the people in Congress voted for?

FMR. GOV. HOWARD DEAN: What they voted for was to allow the president of the United States to attack Iraq unilaterally without going back to Congress. So the four folks that I'm running against who are from Congress all voted to give the president that power. The objection that I have... the greatest objection is for the folks that voted for it and then went to Iowa and California and pretended they are against the war. That doesn't wash. We're not going to elect a president of the United States but nominating somebody who says one thing and does something else, and appears to be willing to say whatever it takes to become president. That's a guarantee that we won't beat George Bush that way. We have got to stick to our guns. We've got to defend our positions, and we've got to be proud of our positions.

GWEN IFILL: Are you supportive of the second resolution, which is now apparently making its way to the United Nations Security Council?

FMR. GOV. HOWARD DEAN: Sure. Look, I don't have a problem with the second resolution because the United Nations will ultimately make the decision about how Saddam is to be disarmed. My own preference is that we give the inspectors some more time-- we're making some progress there-- but that if Saddam refuses, for example, to destroy the missiles as the United Nations has demanded, then I think the United Nations is going to have an obligation to disarm him. I think our role in this has been pretty awful. We really have made it more difficult for the United States to carry out its policies by alienating practically everyone, including our friends, in regard to this matter of Iraq, and I think that's a mistake. I think it would have been a lot easier for us had the president not last July essentially declared that we were going to go in, and if people didn't like it, that was too bad for them. That was the wrong way to handle it.

GWEN IFILL: It sounds more like you disagree with our approach to this war than to the idea of waging war.

FMR. GOV. HOWARD DEAN: We need... well, I disagree with unilateral war. At this point, I don't think it's justified and I don't think the case has been made. I don't disagree with disarming Saddam. I support that. I think the proper folks to do that are the United Nations, and we should be part of that.

GWEN IFILL: Is Saddam Hussein, in your opinion, an immediate threat now?

FMR. GOV. HOWARD DEAN: No. If he were, I would advocate unilateral action. That's... the whole point I'm trying to make is unless he possesses a way of attacking the United States, either by giving weapons of mass destruction to terrorists, which the president has not made the case for, or by having a nuclear program, then he's not an imminent threat.

[stickdog]

12. He wants to get UN/NATO troops in there as much and as soon as possible.

That works for more as long as he finds a way to get it done.

[pansypoo53219]

16. we just have to

point out WHO PUT US THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

BUSH.

and that we have to do it right or the blowbaclk of 9/11 was peanuts.

[Woodstock]

23. He's trying to make nice with the rest of the world

Not a bad idea. He wants our soliders home ASAP, too, but he's trying to end this thing with a degree of humanity and respect for the rest of the world.