Who is happy that we won't have a nominee who voted for the IWR?

[JVS]

It really stuck in my craw last time that Dean didn't win and we were forced to deal with a ticket with a bad record on Iraq (and remember that this was before some recanting had been done). A few months ago I didn't think that Obama would make it. I thought we'd be saddled with Clinton or Edwards (an improvement over Clinton, but still not bearing a record that corresponded to his populist talk).

This is great :party:

[dkf]

1. Yup...I am very happy indeed.

[AllentownJake]

2. Hell yeah we don't

[sellitman]

3. It provides a clear choice.

:kick:

[abburdlen]

4. Kerry is a good guy

And should have made a great President but I didn't support him in the primaries last go around mainly because of the IWR.
Very glad this time that won't be an issue for our nominee.

[JVS]

30. Yeah, I was a bitter Kerry hater in the primary, but if he hadn't voted for IWR, I'd have liked him

In the GE you could really see that his criticism of Bush's war was hampered by his compromise.

[sniffa]

5. BUT HE VOTD TO FNUD IT

:kick:

[WillyT]

23. Exactly How Does One, FNUD Something ???

Is this a new acronym???

:evilgrin:

:hi:

[JVS]

31. zOMG!

[AnarchoFreeThinker]

72. FLLOOW TEH MNOEY!!!

[bluestateguy]

6. We can have the debate on Iraq that we want to have

Republicans won't be able to use the flip-flopper bullshit. They won't be able to answer every criticism of the war with "well you voted for this..." Those kind of charges would have made our nominee appear to be opportunistic and intellectually dishonest. Republicans will have to defend the position that the war was the right thing to do, and that argument is a loser in 2008.

[niyad]

7. we'll just have a nomineee who approves of mercs

jeremy scahill on obama's support for mercs in iraq: (something I have yet to see any obama supporters addressing)

. . . . . . .

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I started looking at Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s Iraq plans, and one of the things that I discovered is that both of them intend to keep the Green Zone intact. Both of them intend to keep the current US embassy project, which is slated to be the largest embassy in the history of the world. I mean, I think it’s 500 CIA operatives alone, a thousand personnel. And they’re also going to keep open the Baghdad airport indefinitely. And what that means is that even though the rhetoric of withdrawal is everywhere in the Democratic campaign, we’re talking about a pretty substantial level of US forces and personnel remaining in Iraq indefinitely.

In the case of Barack Obama, I wanted to focus in on what his position is on private military contractors, particularly armed ones like those that work for Blackwater. And the reason I focus on Obama instead of Hillary on this is because Barack Obama has actually been at the forefront of addressing the mercenary issue in the Congress. In February of 2007—this was way before the Nisour Square massacre, where Blackwater forces killed seventeen Iraqis and wounded twenty others—in February of 2007, Barack Obama sponsored legislation in the Senate that sought to expand US law so that—

JUAN GONZALEZ: This is just after he got into the Senate, right?

JEREMY SCAHILL: This was in 2007. This was a year ago. And so, this was a major piece of legislation by Obama, and it was done in concert with Representative David Price from North Carolina in the House, a Democrat. And Obama’s legislation basically said we realize that there are loopholes in the law that allow Blackwater and other contractors to essentially get away with murder, and so what we need to do is make it so that US law applies to not only Defense Department contractors, but State Department contractors like Blackwater. If they murder someone in Iraq, we can prosecute them back in the United States.

Now, that legislation hasn’t passed at this point, and it may never pass. I mean, the fact is that the Bush administration actually issued a statement opposing that legislation, and I want to read to you what Bush said. He said that law would have, quote, “intolerable consequences for crucial and necessary national security activities and operations."

And so, I started to look at this reality. Obama is saying he wants to keep the embassy. Obama is saying he wants to keep the Green Zone. Obama is saying he wants to keep the Baghdad airport. Who’s guarding US diplomats right now at this largest embassy in the history of the world? Well, it’s Blackwater, Triple Canopy and DynCorp; it’s these private security companies.

And so, I started talking to some of the Obama campaign people. And it really took days for them to actually get back to me and provide someone to talk to me on the record. I started doing interviews with some of his people, and they said, “We can’t answer these questions.” And so, finally I talked to a senior foreign policy person, who said, yes, the reality is that we can’t rule out, we won’t rule out, using private security forces. And I said, well, Senator Obama has identified them as unaccountable, and the reality is, his law may not pass before he takes office, if he wins, and so Obama could potentially be using forces that he himself has identified as both unaccountable and above the law. Long pause. Right.

. . . . .

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/28/jeremy_scahill_despite_anti_war_rhetoric

[niyad]

18. and, once again, silence from obama;s supporters on this fact.

[rug]

39. Hessians for Obama is experiencing server problems at the moment.

[SOS]

46. Clinton pretended not to know the "Hessians" were immune

1. "Clinton was asked about a statement she made when criticizing the Bush administration's conduct in Iraq. She said she hadn't known that Blackwater USA, the military contractor accused of killing more than a dozen Iraqi civilians last month, had immunity from prosecution in Iraq because of an exemption (Order 17) approved soon after the US invasion. 'Maybe I should have known about it; I did not know about it' she said." (Boston Globe, 10/11/07)

And yet on April 4, 2004 Wolfowitz testified to the ASC about Order #17 with Clinton sitting there.

2. Mark Penn did PR work for Blackwater, helping to prep the CEO for Congressional hearings, just weeks before the Iowa caucus.

3. Bill Clinton hired Halliburton as the logistics branch for the war in Kosovo. Halliburton's contract started as a $180 million deal but mushroomed to more than $ 2.5 billion as Halliburton built Camp Bondsteel and other military facilities on lavish, cost-plus terms.

4. Blackwater's first federal contract was in 1998.  At a House committee hearing on private contractor oversight, Blackwater USA counsel Andrew Howell was asked when his company received its first government contract.  Howell replied, "I believe that was 1998." Who was President in 1998?

5. Blackwater's lawyer: Former Clinton White House Counsel.  Representing Blackwater before Congress in 2007 was Beth Nolan. And who is Beth Nolan? Nolan served as Counsel to the President of the United States from 1999-2001. In the White House, she was responsible for overseeing all legal matters for President Clinton and the White House staff. 

6. Obama introduced legislation to hold the contractors accountable to US law. Since Clinton claims she was completely unaware of Order 17, it makes sense that Obama introduced the bill.

[progressive_realist]

66. This is really weak spin

To accuse the guy who introduced the bill to hold mercs accountable of approving of mercs. There was a long pause at the end of the cited conversation when the Obama staffer realized the caller was a complete moron, not because of any gotcha moment.

UP is DOWN!

WAR is PEACE!

BAD is GOOD!


p.s. Don't give up your day job.

[ekwhite]

82. Ummm

If the contractors are not accountable by executive order, can't they be made accountable by executive order? Just asking.

[Pawel K]

95. So wait, Obama cmae up with legislation to hold mercs accountable and thats a bad thing in your eyes

where does Hillary stand on this issue, or do you not care? Like you said she supports exactly what Obama supports, so please, do tell us. What the fuck is your point? Should we just hand McCain the election as a result of this?

[navarth]

97. It's very disturbing.

I still think Obama's the best shot we have; but it seems he's got some things wrong with him. I wonder how any of the candidates would have fallen on this particular issue...

[panader0]

8. For me, the war in Iraq, not the economy is the main issue

Sure our economy sucks right now, but how about the Iraqi economy. While Americans whine about higher prices, Iraqis are lucky to have clean water, electricity, garbage or sewer service. Every Iraqi knows tragedy first hand thanks to bushco. Get us out of Iraq, then worry about us. Ending the war will help our economy

[Milo_Bloom]

9. It means I can vote for the democratic tickets, which is good!

[whatchamacallit]

10. It feels good.

[brentspeak]

11. For about the millionth time, the IWR was meaningless

Bush was going to launch a war against Iraq, regardless. And it's been Obama, not Edwards, who's been voting to continue funding for the war. Obama and Hillary have been the ones keeping the war going, not Edwards.

[sniffa]

12. For about the millionth time

:boring:

[brentspeak]

15. Have you considered changing your DU handle to...

"Unctuous"?

[sniffa]

26. No

[rug]

40. Give him a link to dictionary.com.

[sofa king]

104. Why? S/he is not butter.

[dogday]

84. Would you stake your child's life on it? Because I am going to

have to and I have been up and down Obama's plan and it reeks...

[whatchamacallit]

16. The Powell Doctrine is the reason for Obama's votes, not support for the enterprise

There IS a difference.

[JVS]

37. Maybe that's because they don't ask former senators about fudning!

[JTFrog]

70. You mean fnuding! n/t

[sampsonblk]

43. ...then why did Bush put so much effort into getting it passed?

Because it made a huge difference. It was huge progress for Bush in his effort to get us into this disaster.

[TahitiNut]

45. Then WHY vote FOR something so "meaningless"??

There was absolutely no compelling reason for the IWR other than as cover for an illegal war based on total frauds.

[SOS]

50. Meaningless?

The "Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq 2002" was not meaningless.
It gave Congressional authorization to Bush, bypassing the WPA, to launch an attack against Iraq based only on the determination of George W. Bush.

And if Bush was going to invade anyway, why vote yes?
Let him do it and suffer the consequences of his fiasco alone.

[JVS]

62. You are underestimating its importance.

[CTLawGuy]

79. no

Bush keeps the war going, he's the C in C, he decides what to do with the troops. Congress has the power to begin a war by authorizing it, but cannot just end a war, even if it cuts off funding, because Bush can use other funds.

War is like mailing a letter for Congress. Once that letter gets in the mailbox, it's out of their hands.

[Kahuna]

13. I'm elated. nt

[nomorewhopper]

14. the fact that jk voted for the iwr was a huge political problem

which meant that the democrats were unable to attack bush about iraq

this time around, we will not have such problems!

[krkaufman]

17. Pleased. n/t

[Johnny__Motown]

19. I am... I think it is the main reason Kerry lost.

[Bensthename]

47. Me too.. GOP kept thowing his vote back in his face..

They cant do that with Obama..

[pipi_k]

98. I thought that too, for a while, but then

came to the sad conclusion that no matter who the Democratic opponent (in both '00 and '04)had been, he (or she) would still have lost.


Because the Bush machine would have seen to it, you know.


I believe those slimebuckets would have made Jesus Christ himself look bad enough to keep things so close they could steal the elections.

[uponit7771]

20. Hell yeah

[WillyT]

21. Yes I Am !!!

:bounce::woohoo::bounce:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

22. Even happier that we won't have a candidate that did vote for the war.

[BlooInBloo]

24. (raises hand)

[DogPoundPup]

25. : > )

[tabasco]

27. Count me in.

I still can't believe Kerry.

[Catherina]

28. Me. I'm ecstatic. Candidates can't say they weren't repeatedly warned n/t

[LynneSin]

89. So how did Obama vote for IWR??

Wait, that's right - he wasn't in congress having to make that decision.

So easy for someone to say they wouldn't have voted for it when they weren't actually there to make the choice.

:eyes:

[JVS]

93. Just because Obama wasn't in congress doesn't mean that the people who voted for it didn't...

fuck up badly. That's the point of the celebration in this thread. He isn't one of the fuckups.

[ecdab]

29. That would be me.

:toast:

[Middle finga]

32. Hopefully it teaches our democratic congressmen and women

that in the long run pandering do not pay off.

[rug]

33. Obama never had a chance to vote on it one way or the other.

A speech in a state Senate campaign does not equal a vote againt the Resolution.

[niyad]

38. some people seem to forget that he wasn't in the US senate when that vote took place, and act

like he voted against it.

and I just love the fact that those who think obama is so anti-war don't respond to the scahill piece about his plans for iraq.

[Bensthename]

51. bull shit

When Hillary and Co. were all voting for the war it was a popular idea = polling at about 70% approval. At the same time Obama was campaigning for senate and people were telling him to go with the polling.. He didnt, and spoke on what would happen if Iraq was invaded. He was right.. Same way with his campaign strategy, he went against the advise of many, and again he was right.

You need to deal with the fact that Obama is a better candidate then Hillary or McCain, who ever you are for...

[niyad]

54. how about responding to what obama says he plans to do in iraq?

I notice that none of his supporters on this board ever responds to the scahill piece, which deflates his standing as the oh-so-noble peace candidate.

but nice try at the distraction

[Bensthename]

57. wtf are you talking about?

He has said many times what he will do with Iraq.

Nice distracion on your part, not really.. Maybe if he would have voted for the war you would be able to trash him.. Sorry he wasnt for it and didnt vote for it, again not really... Sucks to be you.

[niyad]

59. the scahill piece on his plans for iraq is what I was talking about.

I notice that none of his supporters on these boards ever has anything to say about that.

no, I think it is going to suck to be obama supporters when it turns out your candidate isn't the peace saint you seem to think he is.

unfortunately, we are all going to have to pay the price.

[SOS]

60. The Scahill piece does nothing of the sort

Obama has never presented himself as the "oh-so-noble peace candidate".
Obama fully supported Afghanistan, because that's where bin Laden was.
Obama said he opposes "dumb wars" which is exactly what Iraq is.

But now, thanks to Bush and the 77 morons in the Senate who voted to authorize Bush to use military force in Iraq, the US is in a quagmire.
This is the reality President Obama will inherit.
Obama's plans for Iraq are clearly laid out on his web site.

Scahill's piece only presents a potential problem for President Obama: how to utilize the military contractors put there by Bush.
Once Order 17 is voided and the Obama/Price bill is passed, the contractors will be firmly under US law.
Once under US law, Obama could utilize them or withdraw them.

[SOS]

55. It would have been politically expedient to not give an anti-war speech

eight days before the AuMF vote.
But he did.

Somehow it's hard to picture a scenario in the Senate where Obama says to Kennedy, Feingold and Wellstone: "Sorry guys, but I'm joining Jesse Helms, Joe Lieberman, John McCain and Hillary Clinton on this one".

[CTLawGuy]

81. two things

1. at that point he was considering running for the US Senate, and

2. the mere fact of NOT having voted FOR it is good enough for me, because a non-vote can't be used to frustrate the debate we NEED to have about whether the very idea of the war was bad, like a YES vote can.

[girl gone mad]

34. Thrilled.

Kerry's waffling cost us.

Right makes might.

[Egnever]

35. Ecstatic!

Hopefully we will have to make that choice fewer and fewer times in the future.

[AtomicKitten]

36. Me!!!!

[sampsonblk]

41. Me!!!

The IWR vote was an embarrassing failure of leadership.

[smoogatz]

42. Me.

Finally.

[Patchuli]

44. Me, myself and I!

For that matter, I'm happy to have a nominee who sees the same reality that I do! WoooooHoooooooo! :headbang:

[killbotfactory]

48. Me!

I am so, sooooooo, happy. It's about time we stopped rewarding politicians for massively fucking us over like those who voted for, and supported, the Iraq war.

[Guaranteed]

49. It's a good thing.

It pretty much means we win.

[Warren DeMontague]

52. Me. That's huge.

I could not agree more.

[Bullet1987]

53. I'm VERY happy we have a candidate who didn't vote for the war...

[Adelante]

56. YAY

[Solon]

58. Happy is a strong word, more like barely satisfied...

Seriously, I don't understand this, uhm, happy go lucky shit. Its not like Obama is some great pro-peace candidate or something, yeah, he opposes the Iraq war, but that isn't the argument, the argument is, is he less likely to get us into another "military adventure" in the future? I don't think so, so what are we supposed to be happy about?

[L0oniX]

61. ...

[BlueCaliDem]

63. Me! Happy AND relieved. eom

[chknltl]

64. Quite happy and quite worried

These rat bastards who have all but stolen our country will not be goin down without a dirty fight.
I believe that We The People with Senator Obama can handle anything but bullets and Marshal Law. I suspect that the bfee are/(were) counting on Senator Clinton's pardons when she got into the White House. That rug has been pulled out from under them and they may be facing accountability issues....(well I hope they are going to be held to an accounting for their crimes, B.O. has said that he would put his AG to such a task!)

[Califooyah Operative]

65. me. nt

[progressive_realist]

67. Add me to the list

My going-in position for the primaries in both 2004 and 2008 was that I would not support anyone who had voted for the IWR. Nor will I in 2012, 2016, or any other year.

I am so glad I don't have to compromise when I vote in the GE this year.

:party:

[Dems to Win]

68. Me Me Me Me Me Me

YES!

[VotesForWomen]

69. Dems 2008: We voted for the war before we voted against it. yeah, that's a winner. look, i voted f

for Nader in 2004, precisely because of my opposition to anyone who supported IWR. I was of course smeared and slandered in every vile way by the lock-steppers here on DU. the time for dems to take a stand on IWR was in 2002 and 2004. that train has left the station; dems have their hands all over this war and nothing is to be gained by nominating a candidate who advertises himself as being 'against the war from the beginning.' in the first place, while in the senate Obama has voted just like hillary on the war, and secondly, since he wasn't in the senate in 2002, his lack of a yes vote on IWR doesn't amount to a hill of beans. hell, hillary 'spoke against' taking unnecessary pre-emptive action in iraq; doesn't mean she didn't vote yes on IWR. pushing Obama's (bogus) anti-war stand is lose-lose for dems; he's not *really* anti-war, so we don't gain anything there, and we will also lose on the perception side, because the democratic party will appear weak and fickle by nominating a candidate who claims to oppose a war that dems helped to start.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

91. Yeah, we should just go ahead and nominate "Cluster Bomb" Clinton.

:sarcasm:

BTW, Clinton made speeches from the floor of the Senate parroting Bush admin. talking points about Saddam Hussein and WMD.

[LWolf]

71. Only because he wasn't in the senate to vote for it.

Not because he wouldn't have, or because he doesn't support the war now.

[The Night Owl]

73. Present!

:rofl:

[tekisui]

74. I am.

:thumbsup:

[D23MIURG23]

75. Count me in.

[beezlebum]

76. oooh yeah

i was just about to write an op vowing to support obama no matter what for this very reason.

so what's so special about that?

well, my husband came in from night shift this am around 5 and woke me up to check on my surgery wounds, and flicked on the early edition nooz.

i effing HATE the nooz and refuse to watch it. it never fails to ruin my day, and sure enough, the first thing i heard nearly made my blood boil- "Clinton may be caving to pressure to run as Obama's running mate."

thank goodness for lortabs...otherwise a stitch may have popped. obvious reasons. reasonzzzzz. plural...

right now, while i'm still under influence, groovin the warm fuzzies, it's probably best i express my current feelings, rather than the explosive ones i'll likely experience later when the thought creeps back into my mind.

i decided that, despite my many tears (not the warm fluid that seeps from the eyes, but furious rips that often evolve mid-rant) about how i would never vote for clinton, and i would probably not support a clinton VP either, i WILL do that, if obama makes the profoundly weird choice the run her (as would actually be "tradition" :eyes: ), i will support him anyway- because he still is not the war candidate.

okay, i would continue, but i better not....otherwise i should have just written the op...

end-loopy-rant

[harmonicon]

77. I am

I'm not some huge Obama fan (shit, my state didn't even get a say in the primaries, so it's not like it matters), but I'm glad that one of the few people who hadn't voted for IWR (I think that would be Gravel, Kucinich, Richardson and Obama - yes, I know some of them weren't in congress at the time) will be the candidate. I'm glad that the candidate, and I'd hope the next president, isn't someone who makes me ashamed to be an American.

[depakid]

78. It would be more relevant if he'd actually had to stand up and cast a vote

because his brief tenure in the Senate shows me VERY clearly that he's been all about going along to get along.

I doubt seriously whether he would have had the political fortitude to buck the tide.

But we'll never know.

[NJmaverick]

80. ME!

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

83. Me too.

[lojasmo]

85. good golly, yes.

Thank you for the 50 state strategy, governor Dean.

Even though they took you out in 2004, we're still taking our country back!

We're going to West Virginia, and Kentucky, and Oregon, and South Dakota....and, um, Guam...Yeeeeearrrrgh!

[Jacobin]

86. Extremely happy

[WA98296]

87. Yes! Very happy about that!

[AnarchoFreeThinker]

kicked and recccccccccccccccccc'd

[LynneSin]

88. That's a bullshit assumption you're making there

Obama didn't vote for IWR because HE WASN'T IN FUCKING CONGRESS AT THE TIME.

Sure he can easily say "Oh I wouldn't have voted for that" but it's bullshit for anyone to believe that's what he would have done if he was in the Senate (or House) in 2002 and faced with making that decision. (And no, I'm not assuming he would have voted for it either)

We do NOT have a candidate who didn't vote for IWR, we simply have a candidate that was not in DC in 2002. That's all you can give Obama no matter what Obama has stated he would or wouldn't have done IF he was in congress at the time.

BTW, I'm an Obama supporter - just pointing out the clearly obvious. It's so easy to say what we would have or haven't done if we were never in the position to do it in the first place. Armchair QBs do NOT make us look good.

[JVS]

92. I make no bullshit assumption.

I never said he voted against the war. I said he is not someone who voted for the war. As Darboy points out above, this keeps us from being put in the position of having to explain opposition to a war that our candidate voted for.

Actually voting against would be better, but I'm pleased that we don't have anyone who actually fucked up bad enough to vote for it.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

90. I am! And I see the haters are out in full force on this thread.

Silly haters.

[JVS]

105. Some people are just fucked in the head, you know.

[electron_blue]

94. It would mean more to me had he actually had an opportunity to vote for it and did not.

Many legislators gave nice speeches about being against going to war with Iraq and then voted for the IWR in the end. That's the ultimate test. I still like that he gave that speech, but honestly it is not a big reason why I'm voting for him. He wasn't really tested on that issue.

[Galway girl]

96. The Iraq War was the elephant in the room that's why Obama won the nom

I love the Clintons and believe Hillary was against the War like I also believe she wouldn't bomb Iran. However she voted for the war in my opinion to look tuff and that was her undoing . This war was never going to turn out well and even if she was for it she should have factored that in

[DCofVA]

99. me

I'm happy! :hi:

[Arugula Latte]

100. Meeeeeeeeeee!

:bounce:

[MessiahRp]

101. I am happy Obama didn't (was unable) to vote for IWR but I'm not going to slam Kerry

If that was the intention of this OP it's not at all benefitting us to slam a good man, a good liberal and a man who would have been a terrific president.

Look the Iraq War in 2004 was screwed up but not to the level it is now. Not voting for the IWR may have made the war hawk argument they made against Kerry even stronger when they pulled their October Surprise with OBL.

I'm not saying it's right but the mass majority of the country was not on board with us liberals who knew better so it would have been a harder sell to convince Americans of how necessary a pullout would have been.

Four years laters things have been so dramatically bad that having a candidate that voted against the IWR is a necessity rather than the luxury it would have been in 2004.

John Kerry is an honorable man and someone I have great respect for. He was a good candidate who was screwed by rigged voting machines, a thief as Secretary of State in Ohio and the media who made sure to play the swiftboat attacks on endless loops and not ever play his rebuttals.

-Rp

[susankh4]

102. I would prefer a nominee who voted.

Rather than gave a speech.

[Ignis]

103. I would have held my nose, but it's great not to have to. (nt)