The opposition in Iraq is getting clever and ruthless. According to the latest from NPR, they are executing Western and Middle Eastern civilians who are cooperating with US forces. Strike terror into all civilians and no Westerners will want go there to work and no locals will dare cooperate with the US forces–which makes our mission there almost impossible to carry out. Unfortunately, my prediction is that the maniacs will win this type of conflict because US forces refuse to kill random people indiscriminately to intimidate locals (as the terrorists are trying to do). And our forces obviously do not jump into suicide missions with great relish.
I think the terrorists are waging these bloody battles in an effort to make Bushy very unpopular here and have him kicked out of office in November. And although I am no fan of Bush, sadly I think the terrorists’ approach will indeed work. As in Vietnam, the opposition will try to make this conflict very, very costly (in blood) and unpopular at home and we will be forced to leave.
Latest count of over 5,000 US soldiers severely injured and withdrawn from duty in Iraq.
Here’s my theory. The US will conventiently catch Osama say a month before the election. Boom Bush has the upper hand. Don’t you notice how they keep closing in on him, but still nothing? They probably have him cornered, and are just waiting for the right to time present him to the world.
As in Vietnam, the opposition will try to make this conflict very, very costly (in blood) and unpopular at home and we will be forced to leave.
Latest count of over 5,000 US soldiers severely injured and withdrawn from duty in Iraq.
As a verteran who also served in the first gulf conflict (among others), I will be the first to admit that the occupation has already been too costly for the military!
Your theory is very entertaining. I can tell you that after spending a little over 8 months on the ground in Afghanistan that there is no conspiracy. Everyday soldiers are out there looking for Osama and his associates. It is hard, dangerous, thankless work and eventually it will pay off. If they catch him right before the election it will be coincidence. The guys on the ground are mission focused and will find him. It is too big a prize for a Division/Brigade/Battalion Commander to not grab him when they can. Now lets get back to talking smack, powercranks and pictures of Becca.
Agreed. The Hussein capture came at a time when Bush was sagging in the polls. Bin Laden will be captured (or his body discovered) in September or October. I predict that some the government will also conveniently find another way to hide the rising unemployment numbers.
As for the terrorists, it is sad but their tactics do seem to work. Look at the results of last week’s elections in Spain after the terrorist bombings. And Bush and Sharon seem to think the best way to extinguish the fire of terrorism is to throw gas on it. It’s a sad state of affairs that the world is in right now. Sure we have ipods now, but I often wonder if civilization peaked a hundred years ago and we have been going downhill ever since.
Okay, I’m lost here. Is this some slowtwitch secret joke? Why does everyone here say “President George Bush.”
As far as I know, he’s not running, and President Bartlett isn’t stepping down again. And when President Bartlett’s term is up, Josh and Toby haven’t said anything about a “George Bush” running for POTUS.
All right for all you haters out there: check out www.bls.gov and you can check out the real labor/unemployment statistics. You will see that unemployment is actually dropping and that most of the news is just a spin on certain industry types that make unemployment look like it is rising. For a bunch of stats geeks when it comes to race times I thought most of you guys would be critical consumers of information. I know we are all still a little light headed from the Becca/Bjorn thread so a serious discussion on anything other than disc wheels or the new Cervelos may be too much just yet.
John, I spent time in the most elite light infantry unit in the US military and I can tell you it would only be a matter of time before the story broke. It would only take one guy to call his girlfriend/wife/family member to break the whole thing wide open. The Army was forced to break the story on Saddam because it would only be a few hours before it got leaked. Don’t mean to burst your bubble, but they couldn’t hide it for more than a day or two.
Not sure why I’m a hater, maybe because I don’t care much for either major party candidate. But:
Consider the fact that “discouraged” workers are no longer counted as unemployed.
Consider the fact that those who lose manufacturing jobs may stay unemployed but they often end up in service industry jobs or even as hourly workers. They may still be employed but their wages may be 50% or less of what they were prior to losing their original jobs.
If nothing is amiss, why is the DoL seeking to reclassify fast food workers as part of the manufacturing sector?
I apologize for letting myself get sucked into a semi-political debate. I’ll stay away from this thread from now on
Sorry Shakes, but you are just wrong about the unemployment statistics. While the economy is continually generating new jobs, what the statistics you are citing fail to point out is that the number of new jobs generated annually has dropped under the threshold necessary to keep pace with the rate of population expansion. This means that even though there are new jobs being created, there are more new workers than there are new jobs.
The way unemployment figures are calculated is also very, well, “fudgy…” If you are permanantly unemployed (“discouraged”) you are not counted as being unemployed (of course, some contract employees may be counted as unemployed…)
You may also be interested to note that the unemployment projections and job growth projections coming from the feds hav been undergoing a continual revision sinc they were first released (up for unemployment, down for job creation.) Which, is, of course a continual theme in the Bush administration - fudge the numbers loudly and publicly, and then release the real ones slowly and quietly (other examples being: the real Gulf war budget, homeland defense budget, Health care bill, “no child left behind,” etc., etc.
The sad thing is is that most major US cities have homicide rates that rival those in a war zone. We lost 500 or so soldiers last year and that’s not out of line with just daily living in our violent cities. MPLS is a fairly safe large city and we are outpacing Iraq this year. Just food for thought.