My favorite poll for undecided voters;

Since 1956, Weekly Reader students in grades 1-12 have correctly picked the president

http://www.weeklyreader.com/election_vote.asp

Weekly Reader kids select Bush in Presidential Poll

The students who read Weekly Reader’s magazines have made their preference for President known: they want to send President Bush back to the White House.

The results of this year’s Weekly Reader poll have just been announced, and the winner is President Bush. Hundreds of thousands of students participated, giving the Republican President more than 60% of the votes cast and making him a decisive choice over Democratic Senator John Kerry.

Since 1956, Weekly Reader students in grades 1-12 have correctly picked the president, making the Weekly Reader poll one of the most accurate predictors of presidential outcomes in history.

Ya’ know, your post reads like so much unsubstantiated bunk.

Man, I’m amazed. Off with his head.

I don’t agree. The problem is how to decide what to do next. Would Kerry do better than Bush? It makes no sense to replace Bush unless the alternative would be better. I don’t think it would be, but clearly many people disagree with me.

I think people always ignore the problems we would have faced if we had sent more soldiers. The whole incompetence argument out there, if I understand it correctly, is that by not having enough troops initially we allowed disorder to develop which lead to frustration and, somehow, terrorism. That now seems clearly wrong. The whole incompetence argument out there, if I understand it correctly, is that by not having enough troops initially we allowed disorder to develop which lead to frustration and, somehow, terrorism. That now seems clearly wrong. There now seems little doubt that whatever the motives–the Islamist terrorists, Shiite fanatics or old regime loyalists–they were going to engage in this terrorist campaign no matter what.

If that is the case, I wonder how much differnce having more troops at the begining would have mattered? What makes the terrorists hard to beat is not thier arms–the amount of explosives you need for blowing up a couple of cars a day would seem to be triffling small–but the fact that they are willing to use civilians both as targets and as sheild. More troops alone would just have meant more targets. And the same people who are complaining about too few troops would be complaining about too many: “American insensitivity and insistence on running everything breeds resentment and terrorism. If only we had sent fewer troops as we did in Afghanistan we would not have these problems”
(by the way, the “too few troops argument seems to have fallen mysteriously out of favor in discussions of Afghanistan.)

The danger of not staying the course now is that we will be telling the dictators of the world they are safe. You don’t have to be able to beat our army, you don’t have to have the support of more than a fraction of your population (notice how car bombings slowed from 35 a month to 2 during the seige of Fallujia). All you have to do is have a couple of thousand terrorists out of 25 million people and one town that will give them refuge. That will be enough for you to keep up a steady trickle of public murders up to the next election cycle.

The real problem as always is within our own society. We are so unsure of ourselves, so unsure of our purpose, that we are poised to let an enemy defeat us armed only with the weapon of thier own depravity.

I was asked the following question by a journalist:

C — What do you make of this–should we really be focussed on it? How big of a threat do you think those missing explosives are–especially in relation to the total amount of ordnance lying around Iraq?

My response:
>
> C-1: To a certain extent, the missing explosives are not critical in and of themselves but are emblemmatic of multiple issues and failures in Iraq.
>
> * Were the inspections working? Duelfer report & otherwise tells us yes.
>
> * Were there enough forces in Iraq? Well, why did we not secure this weapons facility — which had far more than just these weapons and from which much was looted post-Saddam fall. What about looting of yellowcake? If this stuff is so dangerous (as part of case for war), why did we not control it?
>
> * Were the assumptions about post-conflict appropriate? Again, not enough forces for controlling the situation.
>
> * Did the USG work adequately with the international community in the end game & in the days/weeks/months after Saddam’s fall? When was the IAEA allowed to return to all its sites and inspect them? Not quickly …
>
> * Did the USG / US military understand the threat and respond to it adequately? Well, from my perspective, clearly not. And, with this type of stuff out there, you don’t need to be using artillery shells for car bombs. (By the way, taking explosives out of shells can be quite dangerous business — unlike handling these typse of plastique — how many reports have we heard about “terrorist” / “insurgent” bomb making factories blowing up?)
>
> * Has the Bush Administration been truthful and upfront with the American public about the situation in Iraq? If true that there was a USG effort to suppress reporting the missing explosives to the IAEA and there was no discussion of this issue with the US press, seems to be a clear example of trying to keep bad news off the front page.
>
> * Did the war in Iraq make us safer? Terrorists have their hands on 380 tons of plastique that they did not have before the invasion — makes me feel safer … Our resources (military, leadership, fiscal, intel, etc) are focused so heavily on Iraq that other arenas are getting short shrift. The situation in Iraq as Iraq — well, you talk to your reporters there. As for the terrorists movement worldwide — there are now open discussions that Iraq is now the Lebanon / Afghanistan / Bosnia / Chechnya for training Islamic fundamentalists … with Europeans Muslims now numbering 1,000s in Iraq and active recruiting ongoing. (This was a BIG French fear before the war and we are seeing it.) My terrorism experts tell me that beyond mestasticizing (spelling?), that there are more “terrorists” worldwide now than on 10 September 2001.
>
> The 380 tons points to weaknesses in the (a) case for war; (b) linkages between WMD and war planning (the 380 were not a high priority target for control as far as I’ve heard); (c) that the linkages between the USG/US military and international community were broke; (d) argument that the war made the American people safer; and (e) the Administration’s willingness to be upfront with the American people (can we say “lie” — the story has changed so many times in just a few days).
>
> Thus, the explosives are a metaphor for the weaknesses (failings) of the Bush Administration’s approach to Iraq. As a metaphor, they certainly deserve attention. >
>
> C-2: Am I scared? SHIT YES!!!!!!!! Let us put ourselves outside the circumstances of being in Iraq & “just” worrying about the real “war on terrorists”. Should we be worried that 380 tons of extremely high quality explosives have most likely made their way into the hands of people who would gleefully kill Americans? Should we be concerned that they (these terrorists) have enough explosives for between 2,584 – 8613 OK City-size bombs? That this is enough explosives for roughly 760,000 bombs like that used on Pam Am Flight 103? (Think about it — enough explosive potential to destroy all the aircraft in the world multiple times over …) How might we have reacted if Saddam had transferred 380 tons of this stuff to al Qaeda? It would have been a causus belli … Well, in this case, we don’t have Saddam to blame …

If Saddam had given these explosives to terrorists that would have fully justified the war in Iraq in the eyes of most of the world. The inadequacies of the military (and other) operations during the overthrow of Saddam and since have allowed these (and other) explosives / weapons to fall into the hands of those who wish to kill Americans. Who should we hold to blame for that? Bill Clinton.

I — and many I know in the military — plan to vote for John Kerry due to the systematic and virtually criminal incompetence of the W administraition.

Raw HMX was the LEAST dangerous thing stored there. In it’s raw form you can’t make it explode. You can get it to burn nicely, but that’s about all. To make it explode you have to 11) mix it with the right binder (and that’s not sawdust) in the right ratios. 2) melt it and cast it 3) fit it with a detonator. A terrorist is going to do that with 380 tons of stuff that looks like corn starch? When the entire country is awash in explosives that are READY TO USE?

If you were a soldier coming on this stuff, and a pile of RPG’s, which would you be worried about?

380 tons of 155mm shells, hand grenades, anti-tank mines, det cord, rockets or TNT is what they should – and did – worry about. Raw HMX is exactly as dangerous as sawdust or cake flour – both of which will explode nicely in the right conditions.

If we didn’t follow through and do something, other nations would have concluded — correctly — that we were incapable of credible threats.

And anyone who doesn’t think this wouldn’t have had serious consequences — not just for the Middle East but also for North Korea and China/Taiwan — isn’t fit to have anything to do with our foreign policy.

Duelfer is talking about 1995. I suppose it is not news to anyone that the UN thinks we are more dangerous guards than Hussein. Sometimes I’m struck by the difference between how one of us might frame an issue and how the MSM does.

-Message of Iraq war has been delivered in Araby to other Arab dictators – force is the only language they clearly understand – that led to capitulation of Qaddafi.

-Qaddafi led to the unraveling of AQ Khan nuclear business in Pakistan.

-Humiliation of AQ Khan enraged some Jihadists in Pakistan who attempted to kill Mushraff.

-Mushraff was forced to openly take sides as his own life came under threat.

-Pakistani Army, which probably looked the other way when Al-Qaedists crossed the Afghan-Paki border in 2001, started cleaning up the mess in the “no-go” lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. Ever wondered why Taliban/Qaedists were neutralized during the Afghan election?