I received another robocall call earlier this week:
Hello, I'm calling from the Campaign to Defend America. Congressman Randy Kuhl needs to be honest with the American people. US intelligence agencies have revealed that Iran stopped building nuclear weapons four years ago. Congressman Kuhl, George Bush and Dick Cheney were wrong about having [?] to bomb Iran, just like they were wrong about invading Iraq. Call Congressman Kuhl at 585-223-4760 and tell him to stop pushing us into wars based on lies.
Update: Reader lean, who considers these calls harassment, sends along the full contact information for Campaign to Defend America:
Campaign to Defend America, Inc.
1825 "K" Street NW
Suite 400
Washington DC 20006
Phone (202) 454-6200 main
(202) 263-4528 (direct)
(202) 263-4530 (fax)
info@iraqcampaign.orgwww.noiraqescalation.org
Comments
Robo calls, from all sides, are an invasion of privacy and of American voters homes.
The members of The National Political Do Not Contact Registry are fighting back and demanding that Politicians stop calling us at home.
Regards,
Shaun Dakin
CEO and Founder
www.StopPoliticalCalls.org
Is this negative advertising? While things are not going as well as we would like in Iraq, they have improved and in my mind the jury is still out.
Very speculative about Bush and Cheney and Kuhl wanting to bomb Iran.
And before anyone gets excited - I know the Kuhl campaign will also conduct similar phone calls.
This is a MoveOn organization. Subtlety isn't their thing. Whether Bush and Cheney were really planning to bomb Iran, it's off the table now because of the NIE. Certainly Kuhl was never beating the drum to bomb Iran.
As for Iraq, I think the jury's out on whether we'll be able to leave a functioning country there. But it certainly isn't on the easy liberation without occupation that we were sold at the start, and I think it's pretty clear that we're worse off strategically and financially due to the war.
the jury is still out.
The jury is out on how things will end up in Iraq. But it's in with a guilty verdict on the war having been a terrible mistake. (Of course, Randy can argue he wasn't in Congress when that decision was made.)
The war has been mis-managed but I don't think it was a big mistake. The rewards would be great if things had been taken care of properly.
In what way would the rewards be great? I would describe the reward thusly: there are none. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Squat.
Please cite one way in which the war has helped the country.
And, to be clear, I don't see this as liberal or conservative. The "liberal hawks" are the ones most likely to see the war as a good idea gone bad.
I think it's important to resist the urge to blame the war's failure on the incompetence of George Bush. Yes, I believe he is incompetent, and that Rumsfeld was as well, but I just don't see how the war was worth it, regardless. The whole decision was a terrible mistake and one embraced by nearly as many "liberal" foreign policy "experts" as "conservative" foreign policy "experts".
It's worth noting, for example, that the George Will and John Tierney (conservative columnists for the Post and Times) opposed the war while Tom Friedman and the entirety of ed board of the New Republic (all of whom are described as liberal, accurately or not) favored it.
Not to go on and on, but the decision was catastrophic and I hope the next president, whoever he is, recognizes that it was a failure of our entire foreign policy establishment and doesn't dismiss it as Bush being stupid.
Let's not forget: Amo voted against the use of force resolution, Hillary voted for it. Kuhl brings this up a lot and, while I think he is being disingenuous, he makes a good point.
The removal of Sadam Hussein and a peaceful Iraq would have given some of our more “moderate” Arab friends a reason to rest easier at night. Sadam was a danger to his neighbors (see Kuwait) and would have continued to be a destabilizing actor in the most volatile area in the world. It would have almost guaranteed that the free flow of oil would continue (we shouldn’t be so dependent on oil – but that’s another story) and, along with Afghanistan, would have given terrorists pause before they struck at us again.
Some good things have happened – Libya has behaved, Iran (we now find out) dropped their nuclear processing after the invasion, Syria is starting to come around, and we have not had a repeat of 9-11. All coincidence? – possibly, but I’m not sure.
The extremists in the Arab world have launched a cultural war against western values. I would think that my liberal friends would not like:
1. Lack of diversity – if you are not Muslim you have no opportunities.
2. Lack of even the most basic rights for women
3. No freedom of expression ( see the European cartoonists)
4. Government by theology.
5. Desire to obliterate Israel just because they exist.
For the record, I never voted for Amo – I always found a third party candidate to support.
Elmer, you can find some good things happening during any period. The fact that you can cite so few is quite telling.
In fact, remarkably little has gone well with respect to our policy in the middle east. The Libya deal is meaningless, for example. And I don't think there's been anything positive happening with Syria. Lebanon is worse than ever, Palestine is ruled by Hamas and on the verge of civil war. It's not clear that Iran was ever that serious about a nuclear program nor is it clear that their suspension of it had anything to do with the invasion. Our own standing in the middle east is at an all-time low.
We will have spent upwards of two trillion dollars and succeeded only in making things worse.
I hope that conservatives realize that the invasion of Iraq has nothing to do with their own political philosophy and everything to do with having an idiot as president.
If you are looking for me to defend Bush, you'll have a long wait. I still maintain some good things have come out of the war, and many other good things could have been accomplished if the war had been properly run.
I know you're not a Bush defender! That was my point.
It's nice to argue with someone who is more pro-Iraq war who is also as rational and fact-based as you are. There aren't enough discussions like that going on in general.
Exile - thank you - I enjoy our give and take - The entire blog has been a pleasure to participate in