which is the bigger blunder, the new deal or the iraq war?
929323
The New Deal.\n\nAlthough the Iraq War has been very costly in both blood and treasure, it will probably be a historical anomaly. That is, once we get out of there (as victors or as failures), we won't really feel any continuing effects. Once the war is over, it's over.\n\nThe New Deal was also very costly, but that's hard for many people to realize. We can read about the men who were employed on public works projects or about the electricity produced by the TVA. The costs are less obvious though; we don't readily see the economic distortions caused by price manipulation or the consider the tremendous waste from farm subsidies and restrictions.\n\nBut more important than the immediate, economic cost was the philosophical damage caused by the New Deal. The New Deal radically and perhaps irreversibly altered America's beliefs about government. It was the final blow to the idea of limited, Constitutionally restrained government. It opened the floodgates of government expansion and intrusion into our lives. \n\nFor example, the rulings which prohibited states from decriminalizing drugs were grounded in rulings which supported increased Federal power during the New Deal.
757967
Huge mistake is correct.  What could possibly be wise about the whole exercise?  Wise to put the shiites in power thus strengthening Iran?  Wise to kill 150,000 Iraqis?  Wise to put our soldiers in the middle of a civil war?  Is it wise to execute Saddam thus heightening the sectarian violence?  Nothing about it is wise.
997952
Paul Wolfowitz, who fashioned the phony intellectual underpinnings of this catastrophe, told us that Iraqi oil revenues would cover the cost of reconstruction. He was as wrong about that as the president was about the weapons of mass destruction. (And as wrong as Dick Cheney was last June when he said the insurgency was in its last throes.). Here are the facts: The war so recklessly launched by the amateurs in the Bush White House has already taken scores of thousands of lives, and will ultimately cost the United States $1 trillion to $2 trillion. No one has been held accountable for this. While Mr. Bush's approval ratings are low, the public has been largely indifferent to the profound suffering in Iraq. This is primarily for two reasons: Because most Americans have no immediate personal stake in the war, and because the administration and the news media keep the worst of the suffering at a safe distance from the U.S. population. \nThe killing of American troops is usually kissed off with a paragraph or two in the major papers, and a sentence or two, at best, on national newscasts. \n(Imagine if someone in your office, sitting at a desk across from you, were suddenly blown to bits, splattering you with his or her blood. You wouldn't get over it for the rest of your life. This is what happens to the Americans and other racist crusaders on daily basis in Iraq.) \nThe 250,000 of Iraqis who are killed - including babies and children who are shot to death, blown up, or incinerated - remain completely unknown to the American public. So not only is there very little empathy for the suffering of Iraqis, there is virtually no sense among ordinary Americans of a shared responsibility for that suffering. Despite the frequently expressed fantasies expressed by President Bush and some of the leading politicians of both parties, the idea of a U.S. victory in Iraq is an illusion. The nightmarish violence is rising, not receding. Iraq is not being pacified. A suicide bomber blew himself up in a bustling market in Basra over the weekend, killing 27 and wounding scores. On Sunday, 20 people were stopped and pulled from their vehicles on a highway near Baquba and shot to death. \nJohn Burns, writing in yesterday's New York Times, told us: "The death toll in one of the most grisly recent attacks, in the village of Hadid, near the Diyala provincial capital of Baquba, rose to 17 on Tuesday when the police delivered nine severed heads to the Baquba morgue in the fruit boxes in which they were found in the village." \nEight other heads had previously been found. \nInstead of beginning to pull our troops out of Iraq, we are sending more in. The permanent Iraqi government, which was supposed to be the answer to everybody's prayers, is a study in haplessness. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al Qaeda's man in Iraq, remains at large. (As does Osama bin Laden, somewhere in Pakistan.) \nAs was the case with Vietnam, the war in Iraq is a fool's errand. There is no clear mission for American troops in Iraq. No one can really say what the dead have died for. And yet the dying continues. \nMilitary commanders in the field in Iraq admit in private reports to the Pentagon the war "is lost" and that the U.S. military is unable to stem the mounting violence killing 1,000 Iraqi civilians a month. Even worse, they report the massacre of Iraqi civilians at Haditha is "just the tip of the iceberg" with overstressed, out-of-control Americans soldiers pushed beyond the breaking point both physically and mentally. "We are in trouble in Iraq," says retired army general Barry McCaffrey. "Our forces can't sustain this pace, and I'm afraid the American people are walking away from this war."\n\nhttp://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11674.htm\n\nNumber Of Iraqi Civilians Slaughtered By The Americans: As Many As 250,000\n\nhttp://www.marchforjustice.com/shock&awe.php\n\nCost of War\nBelow is a ru
742690
No, many of them are policy developers. If you look around many of the very ones who advocated the war in Iraq are stepping back and heaping blame on Bush as being the primary factor in our failure there.
933990
It seems most logical to blame those directly responsible for beginning the mess: the Bush Administration. It was they who went around mustering support for the war at the start and then went in over and above the United Nations and invaded. It would be inaccurate to blame the Democrats, they were not in power. It would be inaccurate to blame the 'Liberal Media' because there was much more talking up of the war amongst the likes of Fox etc than there were from more 'Liberal' media sources. Blaming Liberals or people in the blue states is silly for the same reason as blaming the Democrats. And to blame "Islamo Fascists" is just plain uninformed. Anyone who has any idea of the Middle East pre-9/11 and the Iraq invasion knew that Saddam and Osama were as far away from allies as they could be. Osama hated the secularist rule of Saddam in Iraq. And although Al Qaeda is not the only "Islamo Fascist" group, it is far above and beyond the power and reach of any other such group.
361855
Poor Job.\n\nNo, we shouldn't have went into Iraq in the first place.
369362
A higher probabilty.\n\nBecause in the 91 war, the war plans were drawn up properly with a complete set of goals in mind. IE- Push Iraq out of Kuwait. \n\nWith the war in Iraq now, the US government really messed up but won't admit it of course.
115854
Wake up. His Bushyness does not care in the least what the American people think or say. According to Neocons who support  his Bushyness, he's smarter than anyone in Congress. After all he went to Yale, he must be smart, right. What i want to know is how much is Bu$h Sr. involved in this $6.8 billion deal. \nIf Money is involved the Neocons will find a way to steal it from the tax payers. We still don't know what Paul Bremmer did with the $6 billion that went missing in Iraq.\nThe truth will always find them out.
872680
I strongly disagree. Their foreign policy is disastrous. Look at Iraq continually sliding to all-out civil war. Look at the support Bush gave the repressive regime in Azerbaijan just because it is a supporter in the war on terror. Even though I agree with both Bush and Blair on social issues, I would not think twice of electing even the most liberal candidate to replace them.
1111816
First off, I'm not going to fully accept this story until I see something about it in the news on pbs. (hasn't happened yet)\n\nWith that said, I see 2 problems:\n1. We can't make deals with the insurgents. Only the new Iraqi government can and if they accept it then we should.\n\n2. Are the insurgents willing to accept the new Iraqi government as the controlling power in Iraq... even after we leave?\n\n3. From reading your link onthe story, it appears to only be a portion of the insurgency. So that would be a problem.
282123
No... Neo-Liberal economic policies, combined with crippling western-backed wars (Congo, Iraq, US bombings in Nigeria, Western intervention in the Balkans, etc.), senseless economic blockades (like those imposed on Cuba or Iraq), have led to a wide increase of poverty and unemployment world-wide, this having, as a consequence, the rise of crime, radical ideologies such as fundamentalist islam, and terrorist movements.\n\nThe Bush decision to invade Iraq and Afghanistan has actually increased terrorism exponentially, by creating more poverty and desperation among the Arab populace, while Bush's imperialist expansionist foreign policies have propped rogue states like Iran or North Korea to adquire nuclear weapons to defend themselves, and to become more radical themselves. (such as Iran's election of Mahmud Abdinehab)\nNeo-liberal economic policies are also causing industries to close in the first world, under the guise of this so-called globalization, so that production can be moved to sweatshops in Asia, under dictatorial or weak governments that allow bussinesses to pay less than 15 cents per hour to their workers. This is causing the slow destruction of the middle classes, worldwide, increasing poverty, social-inequality, and reducing economic security.\n\nIn politics, the so-called war on terror has led to a widespread reduction of civil rights, in the US (with the PATRIOT Act and domestic eavesdropping), in Europe (shoot-to-kill policies, and other examples) and in dictatorial countries like China or Pakistan (who are using the "War on Terror" to crack down on their resistance groups, like the Ughiur or the Tibetan independence movements).\nIn addition to all this, neo-liberal policies have implicated the reduction of healthcare and education budgets in many countries, reducing the education level of its populaces and the access to proper healthcare for the poorest segments of their societies.\n\nSo, no, the world is not safer than in 1996. Terrorism, poverty, social inquality, crime and uncertainity have increased, while our civil rights, economic and physical security, health and education levels, have decreased.\nThe world is becoming more and more a dangerous and competitive place, a jungle, if you will, for us commoners, while those in the upper half of society become richer and more powerful each day at the expense of the rest.\n\nVery good question, by the way.\n\n\n\nEDIT: To answer "The Wise One": I am Latin American, and let me inform you that the process of democratization happened during the 1980's, not during the 1990's.\nThe latin american countries that were democracies in 1996 are still democracies now (Including Venezuela and Bolivia, whose governments were democratically elected and, in the case of Venezuela, ratified by a referedum.)\nAlso, the "banana republic dictatorships" (a very offensive term, by the way) you are mentioning were in most cases implanted and backed by the US government, (like, for example, the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, Videla in Argentina, Fujimori in Peru, The toppling of Arbenz in Guatemala, "Papa Doc" Duvalier in Haiti and many others.\nSo, please learn your facts before opening your mouth.\nAs an Argentinian, we have a democracy that, albeit its dictatorial interruptions, has been in existance since 1912. A term like "banana republic" proves to be very bigoted and offensive.\n\nDon't fool yourself, Oh Wise One... when all serious ONGs and international organizations in the world say that famine and social inequality are increasing worldwide, when the UNESCO says that education levels are decreasing, when millions of people are starving in Haiti, Congo, Sudan and elsewhere (in a situation WORSE than 10 years ago), when the number of terrorist attacks per year worldwide has multiplied iself by 8 or more, the world cannot be a better place.
922473
Bush was wrong from the beginning.\n\nSadam Hussein was a dictator and he deserved to be overthrown. But the idea of "teaching democracy" to Iraq was wrong and non-executable from the beginning. You cannot teach democracy from today to tomorrow. You cannot force democracy. The process of transformation should be slow and should be internally driven. You need wandering 40 years in the desert until a new generation grows up.\n\nAdditionally, the reason of existence of mass destruction weapons were entirely faulty. The only reason America went to was was controlling the oil of Iraq.
705952
Vietnam was the biggest military blunder I've seen in my lifetime. And ya know, people said back then, "This is one grade "A" boneheaded disaster!"\n\nBut there were a whole lot of Americans who had an answer for that. They said, "How do we know it's a disaster? Don't you think our Government would pull our boys out if there wasn't very good reason for them to be there?? This will probably turn out to be...a blessing!"\n\nWell, only if you call many thousands of dead Americans, a country left in ruins and absolutely no good achieved..."a blessing".\n\nBut it did teach us something didn't it? It wasn't for nothing, because we learned our lesson, didn't we?\n\n...No. No, I guess we didn't.
1054072
Enraged is a more appropriate reaction.  War is the ultimate horror.  Unfortunately, it has been a necessary evil throughout history.  An unnecessary one as well!  The current war in Iraq conforms to the latter and not the former.  What a reckless and disdainful waste!\nThe ignorance of so many of my fellow Americans is what frightens me.  Allowing the perpetuation of this administration (i.e. a 2nd term), to recklessly and capriciously disregard not only international law, but the 'laws of the land', i.e. the Constitution, is inconceivable! Failure to hold this administration accountable is disgraceful as well as shameful.  \n\nThat's what makes me want to weep!
199989
I believe that FDR wins on both count.  FDR brought out the New Deal to helped to bring America out of the Depression that saw huge unemployment of the people.  FDR was also there for foreign affairs in forging a relationship with the Soviet Union and UK to find the Axis powers.
826847
it is worse than a huge mistake. it is a war crime. bush/rove/cheney (the real axis of evil) should be tried as war criminals for their actions in iraq and afghanistan.
469315
There is no difference, which is why the new Medicare Part D drug plan is the biggest scam in history.\n\n...well, the biggest scam after Bush's 2000 judicial overthrow of the electoral process.