joggle's Journal: Continuing debate on who's best for president

This is a continuation of a thread I started here (as Shaun and Just Curious).

Here is the list of things that I found ridiculous in the post and explained why previously:

• (Detroit is) about as deadly as the entire war torn country of Iraq.
• FDR...led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us: Japan did. In context, this was implying that WW2 was a war of choice on our part as the recent war in Iraq is. Umm, ya... I don't recall Iraq declaring war on us or bombing our shipments of supplies to our allies (our bombing our allies for that matter).
• He mentions the war in Vietnam as a precedent. Well, I think virtually everyone believes that war was a mistake, or at least the way the war was carried out was a mistake. He's quite right that the war in Iraq is similar, though (dividing the nation, requiring a lengthy stay by a huge number of troops, being unbelievably expensive, etc.)
• put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot No, the inspectors where already in North Korea for over a decade and where recently kicked out, shortly after the invasion of Iraq.
• It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound. Umm, we don't really have Iraq (we have most of it granted, but NOT Falluja and Samarra). Also, that's not counting the amount of time it took to get troops and equipment over there. That's also completely ignoring cost, on which count the comparison is ridiculous.
• We've been looking for evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find her Rose Law Firm billing records. We (meaning the US or the Coalition?) have been looking for chemical weapons since the end of Gulf War 1 (remember the chemical inspectors). They were eventually kicked out, but reinstated a few months before the second war. I don't recall how long it took to find these billing records, but on that count have they found the military records on Bush yet?
• It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Ted Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick, drowning Mary Jo. The Guard was mostly destroyed in the first war. In the second, they retreated/disbanded once the government broke down (after suffering enormous casualties I'm sure). Nobody denies that the US has a very powerful military, though. The question is how quickly can we secure the peace. If we simply wanted to 'destroy' the Taliban, we could have just dropped some bombs on their officials and areas where they were fighting other tribes and let the other tribes take over. The hard part is ensuring a long-lasting peace and establishing law and order without the need for a huge standing military to enforce it.

I'll get back to the latest posts from Pete on the next journal entry.