Was the war in Iraq worth the costs?

[John Reynolds]

Some of us would just go "Huh huh... Errr... Did you watch Britney last nite? Didn't she look FAB!!".... I know a couple or more that would do something like that....
Sorry couldn't resist...

LOL I used to work with someone just like that. "Hey, let's eat lunch at the Cracker Barrel." Me: You know they've had policies of discriminating against gays, don't you? "Who cares? Hey, did you watch Buffy last night?!"

 

[Joe DeFuria]

If you have a person in your office who's gay, ask them what they think of the right wing's handling of AIDS has been for the past twenty years and then come back and do some more eye rolling.

Um, who cares what GAYS think or feel about AIDS, vs. the facts at hand? (Again...why are you asking me about GAYS. If you weren't the least be hypocritical, you would have asked me instead about someone with AIDS in the office.)

How has liberal leadership handled "aids" when they were in power? And how was that better than what conservative leadership is doing?

 

[John Reynolds]

Um, who cares what GAYS think or feel about AIDS, vs. the facts at hand? (Again...why are you asking me about GAYS. If you weren't the least be hypocritical, you would have asked me instead about someone with AIDS in the office.)

Joe, I'm addressing the fact that the neocons have a very strong history of not giving a hoot about AIDS because, shock, gasp!, it was very much perceived, and still is in many quarters (witness our very own special ByteMe's attitude, for example) as a "gay" disease. No, I don't believe it is, and you know me well enough for that.

Again, how many years was Reagan in office before he even said the freakin' acronym publically? You know, the time period in which probably 90% of those suffering from AIDS were gay.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

While I'm not against AIDS research, cancer and heart disease are bigger killers by far, and their contributing factors aren't as well understood. Alzheimers is a 10 fold more terrifying disease than AIDS is, and we barely begin to know what causes it and what might help treat it. Considering all three of those are in my family, and AIDS is easily preventable*, I think it's getting more research than it deserves.

I tend to agree with you. And while heart disease has not been an issue with my family, we have dealt with cancer and Alzheimers as well. Alzehimers is particularly devastating.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

John,

With all due respect, WTF does any of that have to do with your "Does anyone seriously think Bush's administration would increase funding for anything AIDS related? "

My point is, that's statement couldn't be any further from the truth...AND YET, that's EXACTLY what many people do believe. Mostly because of heat-tugging, emotionally driven lies and rhetoric.

 

[London Geezer]

The thing is that while AIDS is a VIRUS, heart disease and Alzheimer are caused by other factors that are not immediately addressable. Factors like the brain's degeneration (for Alz), AGE, diet (for HD)... While some people still think it will be possible to beat HIV, which in turn will beat AIDS.

There's nothing to "beat" with regards of Alzheimer and Heart disease. All i can think of is genetic research (even for HIV really), and that's gonna take long even with all the money in the world.

Car accidents kill more people than AIDS, but that wasn't the point was it...

 

[John Reynolds]

John,

With all due respect, WTF does any of that have to do with your "Does anyone seriously think Bush's administration would increase funding for anything AIDS related? "

My point is, that's statement couldn't be any further from the truth...AND YET, that's EXACTLY what many people do believe. Mostly because of heat-tugging, emotionally driven lies and rhetoric.

Because I have doubts (though, yes, I could be very wrong) that a neocon such as Bush has actually fulfilled his promise and budgeted the money accordingly, mainly because of the neocon history concerning AIDS. And it wouldn't exactly be unlike Bush (or a lot of other politicians, left or right) to announce support and then fail to fund it. I'm not being emotional about it at all.

You still haven't comment, though I've repeatedly asked, about Reagan's silence in the '80s. The Great Communicator, eh? Dead silence when one of the most horrible epidemics we saw in the 20th century swept the nation.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Because I have doubts (though, yes, I could be very wrong) that a neocon such as Bush has actually fulfilled his promise and budgeted the money accordingly, mainly because of the neocon history concerning AIDS.

Why don't you instead, judge Bush's ability to carry out a promises or initatives, based on his actual track record? (When he states that he want's something done, does he usually follow through on it?) Seems to me that one big problem liberals have with Bush, is that he has for the most part stuck with his promises (and not all things that conservatives agree with, either)

Tax Cuts
Medicare Bill
Education Bill
Following through on War once he started it.

You still haven't comment, though I've repeatedly asked, about Reagan's silence in the '80s.

Because Bush is Not Reagan.. Ergo, not relevant.

The Great Communicator, eh? Dead silence when one of the most horrible epidemics we saw in the 20th century swept the nation.

Aids was and is hardly one of the most horrible epidemics. One of the most emotionally charged? Sure.

 

[RussSchultz]

most horrible epidemics

Excepting the flu, of course.

 

[RussSchultz]

The thing is that while AIDS is a VIRUS, heart disease and Alzheimer are caused by other factors that are not immediately addressable. Factors like the brain's degeneration (for Alz), AGE, diet (for HD)... While some people still think it will be possible to beat HIV, which in turn will beat AIDS.

There's nothing to "beat" with regards of Alzheimer and Heart disease. All i can think of is genetic research (even for HIV really), and that's gonna take long even with all the money in the world.

You can "beat" AIDS by removing risk factors from your lifestyle. You can't beat heart disease, cancer, or alzheimers because we don't know what the risk factors are, or if they can be removed. If we can't prevent the problem, then we need to know how to treat it.

 

[London Geezer]

Aids was and is hardly one of the most horrible epidemics

The only other biggest epidemic in this century was the flu. And pop music. And the Nazis. But i could be wrong.

 

[RussSchultz]

I think the flu regularly kills more than AIDS does on an annual basis.

 

[Legion]

First off, it's lovely how you equate "leftists" with Clinton. Last I checked, it was Clinton and his entourauge that turned the Democratic Party into "Republican lite".

I certainly wouldn't associate him with the right. If anything he politics were often more left leaning. If anything i'd say he was partyless in the sense he was self serving.

Secondly, there's a key difference between railing on Clinton's failures vs. Bush's at this point in time. That difference being the Clinton isn't the goddamned president right now!

That is hardly a rational for why Clinton failed at so many things on a foreign policy level. I simply wanted to remind the individual i was replying to the dems don't have as good a track record in combating terrorism and foreign affairs as they'd like to believe.

 

[John Reynolds]

I think the flu regularly kills more than AIDS does on an annual basis.

When was the flu last perceived as God's wrath upon a minority? Mentioning the flu in this thread is nothing more than sophistry.

 

[Legion]

I think the flu regularly kills more than AIDS does on an annual basis.

so do heart disease and cancer yet HIV/AIDS research dominates the charity fields in terms of funds.

 

[Legion]

I think the flu regularly kills more than AIDS does on an annual basis.

When was the flu last perceived as God's wrath upon a minority? Mentioning the flu in this thread is nothing more than sophistry.

How is this even relevant to the question wrt to HIV research and its funding? Who the fuck cares what some religious nut felt about HIV?

 

[John Reynolds]

Why don't you instead, judge Bush's ability to carry out a promises or initatives, based on his actual track record? (When he states that he want's something done, does he usually follow through on it?) Seems to me that one big problem liberals have with Bush, is that he has for the most part stuck with his promises (and not all things that conservatives agree with, either)

Like his woefully underfunded no-child-left-behind education initiative? Sounds good on paper, the country's educators should be very happy with him, but go ask them what they think of Mr. Bush.

Following through on War once he started it.

You want me to give the man credit for avoiding the inevitable political fallout from prematurely pulling out of Iraq? It's not like it's his life on the line, just his chance at a re-election. And go ask our troops how they like watching their benefits being cut by our "war president".

Aids was and is hardly one of the most horrible epidemics. One of the most emotionally charged? Sure.

Emotional? Sure, just as Reagan's administration's reaction to it was for years criminal. Regardless, as I've already said, prove to me that Bush has indeed spent the money as he stated (and not by more links to whitehouse.gov).

 

[Sazar]

I'll throw it right back @ you.. what about north korea/pakistan/saudi arabia/libya/iran @ the time we attacked iraq?

And i will throw it right back...

What about them? NK will certainly be far more difficult to invade an maintain then Iraq. i'd say it would take considerable planning and staging before an attack could go underway.

why? there are fewer people in NK... they are not surrounded by porous borders allowing tons of insurgents to come in and they will have the help and support of the nations around them ie china/south korea and japan during redevelopment...

they obviously posed a far greater risk to global security per the criterion set... and at least in the case of nortk korea the people are in FAR worse condition than they were in Iraq... hell its almost like the Gulag's over there with the number of people in slavery...

Interesting that you suggest that at least NK is far worse then Iraq and yet the world community has done so little to aid their situation.

Again the level of difficulty of removing Kim will undoubtedly be higher then removing Saddam.

ah so we attacked iraq coz we knew they were weak and thats it ? from a humanitarian standpoint and from a security standpoint I would think that north korea is a little worse off

besides I thought that america was hell-bent on eliminating threats to its national security and whatnot... we didn't care about anyone else going into iraq.. why should we going into north korea?

what callous people these trigger-happy republicans are fighting a war to make themselves look good w/o considering the millions of north koreans...

Have the historically myopic american leftists forgotten the Bill Clintons Cruise Missle Crusade in the middle east? What was the point of that onslaught? Oh yeah, an attempt at saving Clinton's career.

Did his missle tirade accomplish his goals? I have yet to see evidence...

Have they also forgotten how little Clinton did to help the NKs way back when before Kim was as missle capable as he is today? Clinton was certainly better able at the time to remove Kim do to his lack of preperation for a US invasion.

when clinton left power there were deals on the table that were progressing... I suggest you have a quick read through the IAEA documents pertaining to the period in question... naturally timelines and agenda's change when one party or another comes into power but then again clinton did not have a declared war on terrorism going on and had not vowed to remove using whatever force necessary anyone who threatened us and declared we were going to win because god was on our side...

btw since the republicans have such an excellent war on terrorism record please explain the continued growth of al qaeda in afghanistan and the lack of action v/s pakistan...

Explain if the dems had such a good tract record why Osama Ben Ladin was allowed to escape so many times during Clinton's regime?

undoubtedly this is a burden that clinton will have to bear... he was offered bin laden by sudan in 1996... didn't take bin laden for whatever reason... in hindsight he realised it was a mistake and ordered bin laden's assets frozen and signed an order to authorize the arrest/killing of bin laden as well.... all could have been avoided and I am not going to make apologies for clinton...

but my point remains... why have we done nothing against pakistan ?

 

[John Reynolds]

How is this even relevant to the question wrt to HIV research and its funding? Who the fuck cares what some religious nut felt about HIV?

Some of those "religious" nuts were neocons in Reagan's cabinet.

 

[RussSchultz]

I think the flu regularly kills more than AIDS does on an annual basis.

When was the flu last perceived as God's wrath upon a minority? Mentioning the flu in this thread is nothing more than sophistry.

Showing that there are better places to put our research money than an entirely preventable disease is sophistry?

Just maybe, there's reasons other than your simplistic "hates gays" theory as to why people don't support increased AIDS research.