Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Arizona CD 8 Open Thread: What Shall We Do About Iraq?

The title tells the tale. Let's hear from all political partisans of whatever stripe exactly what you want the man or woman we elect to Congress to do about Iraq.

On your marks, get set, go.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

(1) "Stay the course"--Stay there until things stabilize. I think that our presence and the Bush administration's incompetence in executing this war is exacerbating the violence/anti-Americanism and our soldiers and the Iraqis are paying the price. This administration has screwed up so many aspects of this war/reconstruction, even if the Democrats were in power now, I don't know if they could stabilize this country.

(2) Get input from other foreign powers re a gradual redeployment of U.S. forces outside of Iraq [but remain at U.S. bases nearby] over the next year or so, and begin redeployment.

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The downside of (1)is continued violence, permanently maimed or killed American soldiers and Iraqi civilians, continued over extension of our armed services, continued $100s billions deficit spending.

The downside of (2) is worse civil war then is already occurring now; however, I don't think we can "win" this. I think the amount of resources [soldiers, $] needed to win this, if that were possible, would break us.

Both options are BAD. If forced to choose, I would go with option (2) over option (1) at this point.

Art Jacobson said...

CC...

Thanks for your comment. I am inclined to agree with you on preferring your second alternative. The devil is in the details of course.

I should add that I believe we have a moral obligation to the Iraqi people to assist in rebuilding all the infrastructure assets that have been destroyed.

Anonymous said...

This isn't a comment about Iraq. Does anyone have any info on the Latas campaign's pathetic fundraising. How long has this guy been running? He's got like 6k in the bank. What up?

Art Jacobson said...

Jeff Latas has been running since November. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that he has raised about 10,000 dollars. There is a current report at the Center's web site: Open Secrets

Take a look at the Feb 11 Data Report for more.

Anonymous said...

ART--I agree that we definitely have an obligation to help Iraq rebuild.
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ANONYMOUS--It should not be surprising that Giffords has a load of money or that the other relatively unknown candidates have not yet been able to raise much money if you know anything about how politics work.

However, the primary election is SIX months away. I'm one grassroot that is supporting Latas.

May the best person win the primary and may the entire Democratic party come behind whoever wins the primary so that we can win CD 8!

Anonymous said...

I to i'm grass roots and a Latas supporter. The last CD-8 race, no one had any money until early summer and Bacal won the primary with only $10K aginst her $100k opponent.

Latas' grip on the issues far exceeds the pack and he also ran away with both forums thus far. Don't sell him short.

He also is making great strides with Band of Brothers, a grop of 52 veterans running for congress, all dems. Word has it, good things are coming.

I would also like to point out that he changed the race on Iraq. Gabby and Patty were both for staying in Iraq at Patagonia and now they are all for getting out. Latas is the only one with a plan for this action, the others are just in the follow mode.