Well, Kerrys been on the stump for months now and still hasn't said what his plans are. All he does is bash Bush, bash "special interests" after taking more lobbying $ than any other Senator. He voted for the war, now he rails against it and voted against the money needed to end it successfully. If you want to know where he stands on any issue, first you have to go outside and check on which way the wind is blowing. He voted against the Apache helicopter, Abrams tank, Bradley Fighting Vehicle, F-16, F-18, F-22, B-1 bomber, B-2, F-117 Stealth Fighter. If he'd had his way we'ed be defenseless today. That is not the man I want as President during a time of war. A war that we did not start(remember 9/11?). You can debate all you want about domestic issues and Viet Nam but if we are all dead the point is moot.--Jack

 

9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq, as stated by the administration. We did start the war in Iraq. Bin Laden is still at large.

 

Mohamed Atta, pilot of the first plane to hit the twin towers trained in Iraq with Abu Nidal who later commited 'suicide' with 3 bullets to the head. Besides, there is still the greater war on terror which Kerry recently said should be fought with intelligence and law enforcement. A throw back to the Clinton policy. That turned out well. When we find Bin Laden ask him who he'd rather have as our president Kerry or Bush. NEWSFLASH-- JOHN KERRY WINS ENDORSEMENT OF OSAMA BIN LADEN!--Jack

 

My opinion would be that Bin laden would prefer Bush in office. He's expending more of our resources in Iraq than Bin Laden's group could ever hope to match without nuclear weapons and digging us into a financial hole that will eventually require only someone throwing dirt over it, like a slowdown of bond purchases, to seal our fiscal fate.

 

Bin Ladens stated purpose is to kill us not force us to expend our resources. I wonder what odds the Vegas oddsmakers would give on Bin Ladens survival vis a vis a Bush or Kerry presidency?--Jack

 

I believe that his purpose is to bring us down. Underestimating your enemy is a good way to lose - do you really think they are not aware of the drain on our treasure and the effects?

quote:
When we find Bin Laden ask him who he'd rather have as our president Kerry or Bush. NEWSFLASH-- JOHN KERRY WINS ENDORSEMENT OF OSAMA BIN LADEN!--Jack

Got a laugh from that - sometimes the ridiculous makes good comedy. I believe we will catch him in the coming months (a 6'6" sick man can't hide forever even in those mountains). We can ask him your question, as well as equally suitable questions such as, "Have you been eating enough fiber?" or "Do you use fabric softener on that robe?". I hear that Vegas has it eight to five for the fiber.

 

When Georgie's boys dig Osama out of his hole, he'll wish that Kerry was the President, especially since Kerry doesn't think we should pre-judge him.

 

War has always had a positive effect on our economy. Jobs created, income taxes paid etc, etc. WWII pulled us out of the depression. Viet Nam drove economic growth in the sixties. After we pulled out and cut back the military in the 70s we went into a severe recession and didn't emerge from that until Reagan rebuilt the military in the 80s. Like it or not war has always been good for business and American workers. So the economic argument against war doesn't hold water.--Jack

 

http://dsc.discovery.com/anthology/s...rough=campaign|osama|yahoo

 

Which American workers and which businesses? WWII built our industrial capability and capacity in a manner that was easily converted to civilian production after the war which allowed us to become king of the industrial world, consisting of other nations mostly devastated by WWII.

Regan stimulated the economy with a series of tax cuts, including investment tax credit and accelerated depreciation, when we still had a manufacturing sector and world markets to stimulate. Vietnam was nothing but a tax drain and assumption of debt we're now paying interest on. Our national wealth was still coming from tax revenue derived from world industrial and consumer manufacturing supremacy through the early '80s.

War is a direct expenditure of tax revenue and incurred debt which is never recovered. Look at the DoD budget and determine any of the program expenditures convertible to civilian industrial applications. In our high-tech, low casualty military, that equates to almost zero. Even GI underwear is imported, as is most of the soft equipment and a good portion of hard goods. Just the interest on our past wars is 18% of the 2004 Federal budget.

While some people accept our current administration's definition of a robust economy being GDP numbers driven by consumer debt and government spending due to Iraq and expansion of services, considering war as a stimulus to any economic condition is not generally accepted by anyone but brokerage house and government economists. And that's a world condition, existing since looting and plunder of resources disappeared as a motive for war.

Study the results of WWII Germany or any failed communist bloc country for textbook economic examples of war/military expenditures in an isolationist society without trade profits. All we're doing is spending our future using debt for purposes of war and government spending.

 

One thing we have to remember is that every penny spent on war is tax money. If you think the government can do a better job of spending your money and stimulating the economy, by all means give them all you can. Personally, I'd rather spend my own hard earned money on things that benefit me or my family; I'm kinda selfish that way.

 

I think the Iraq war does more harm to the economy than good.It drove us deeper into deficit spending,and we don't seem to be getting any discounts on oil,so whats the good point's of it?The weaponery we used,we already had,but we did use a few bombs.The Cruise Missile program might be booming though.Seems we were a little short on those.

 

Money spent on defense does not go down some deep dark hole. It ends up in the pckets of share holders and workers who in turn spend it on things like homes, cars and consumer products which leads to employment in those industries which generates tax revenue and so on. The commercial spin offs of defense technology are almost too numerous to mention. Most of the current computer and comunication tech.(satellite) was developed for defense applications, ever hear of DAARPA? How about microwave or laser, fiber optic or gps just to name a view? Defense has driven technological innovation since the dawn of man. In a free economy they find their way into the market place and spawn whole industries.--Jack

 

Obviously, "some" money spent goes back in the US economy. If we're talking about military hardware, technological research, or even the salaries of the soldiers. If you look at it that way, we are using tax money to stimulate certain industries. However, when it comes to the post war "rebuilding", there is a lot of money that gets exported into the "warzone" that simply amounts to an expense for the US taxpayer. My opinion, if you want to stimulate our economy, buy a new Ford truck, in the long term it will continue to return dividends to our local economy.

 

I've done my part in that regard. BTW we've just created a 25 mil person market in Iraq and Libya will be coming off the economic sanctions list after seeing what happened to Saddam creating yet another market. The more freedom world wide means more markets for our products, including Ford trucks.-Jack