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Priceless. Republicans are imploding like exploding chickens on Skyrim.
Yes. It is true. John McCain missed a critical Senate Intelligence hearing behind closed doors, to hold a press conference referred below, to complain we needed a special committee to get the truth on Benghazi. Senator Collins, who was also on the committee, and who was also in the briefing, said it was funny that McCain would miss such an opportunity to get the full facts from all sources.
The AP is reporting that the story told publicly about the riots being over the movie, was to stall Al Qaeda and the terrorists from knowing what we knew. In essence, it was done to throw a smokescreen across our spy system, buying time to make adjustments in personal who had been compromised by the attack…
It is all McCain needed to know. It shuts down the entire Republican attack. It shows that Obama is truly the best president we have had in our lifetimes. It suggests that the entire Benghazi event was scripted by Republicans just to create drag on Obama before the election.
Why would McCain do something so silly? Well here is an idea. McCain will not be head of any committee next term. He could if he wanted, be head of the Committee on Indian Affairs, but that is a step down in prestige. Perhaps if he could create a new committee, one on which he was chairman, one that would be in the daily news feed, inviting himself on talk shows and newscasts,… he could keep some of his prestige?
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There is one thing to keep foremost in mind. It is your life. No one else’s. Although you should get a wide range of perspective, what you will choose to do, will come down to who you are, how you are put together.
You will get a lot of advice. You should listen to see if they bring up any perspectives you would not have covered yourself, but you are under no obligation to follow any of it…
Because it is your life… You get to choose the path you want to take….
If you want to separate. That is fine. Do it.
If you want to divorce. That is fine. Do it.
If you want to move forward keeping the relationship together. That is fine, Do it.
If you want to pay it no mind and forgive it. That is fine. Do it.
There are a couple of potholes I’d recommend against. Being false. Playing like you are so hurt, when really you aren’t. Or the opposite: playing like you’re tough when you aren’t. Just stay honest. Because playing to the media may work for a certain time frame, but somewhere later the truth always comes out. And that baggage just makes it worse later.
Don’t worry how it affects others. Children are resilient. They will one day go through their own relationship trials. You obviously owe nothing to your partner… But here is the bottom line. When you die, you want to have no regrets…. You can do that.
Don’t think you have to rush any decision. When it comes to personal emotions, time is the best tester. There is no rule that says you have to rush into something before you are ready. There is no rule that says you have to wait for an express amount of time..
Don’t worry how people will judge you. At sometime in the future, you will all be dead. It will be too late then to change…
Don’t be afraid to explore new opportunities. Others opinions matter none. You have the obligation to make best of every situation you are given. This is one of them.
Don’t be afraid to try to make it work, if you really want to. Other’s value systems are not yours. What they think is totally irrelevant to your happiness. There is a lot of current that has passed under the bridge. Sometimes staying on the same path has its merits. Again, it is your life, and no one else’s.
Don’t think you are weak if you try to find your part in this issue’s cause. It will haunt you if you don’t look. So look into it. I would recommend counseling if you decide to go that route. Primarily you will be talking to your spouse, though your words are directed towards the counselor. Likewise you in that environment, will hear what he’s been thinking for perhaps the first time in your life…. It’s funny how it works that way.
Don’t think that infidelity has to automatically be a deal killer. Many will tell you it has to be. Again, you get to make up your own mind here. No matter who you wind up and spend your future with, they will have had sexual relationships with another…. That if anything makes things equal….
My recommendation is to like, take your hand and wipe everything off of the table, like on to the floor… All your past. Now, with a clean table before you, decide what you want your future to look like… Take your time; talk to different people who have tried different options. Find out how they are doing. Are they happy? Not in what they say, but… in the underlying tone of “how” they say it…. Then take the future in small steps. Don’t commit to anything too early, and just let life string out… Sooner or later, you will find, the one true path you were meant to take.
That path, makes all the difference….
I disagree with some of those who put down Petraeus as a liar, simply because they fail to agree with his assessment. It may come across to some as funny that I have thought, if not said, some to the same things against which I am now taking issue, and if so, so be it……
What changed?
What happened was this. I became more familiar with what was going on within Iraq. Of course, being of skeptic I tended to look at things hard. Very hard. To my surprise, I found out that I was seeing real signs of hope. This hope was not in the eyes of the politicos; it was the eyes of Iraqis. Since desperate souls grasp any rope tossed to them, I have waited quietly to make sure that these Iraqis were not suffering any type of delusion. I listened to all three reports expecting to see something in them dash my half submerged optimism, upon the reality of Iraqi shores.
I think my conversion may have come about when I was studying the conversion of Al Anbar province. Those Sunnis chose to back us because they like us. Of course it wasn’t much of a contest, considering who their alternative was…..But it may have also come while studying the criticism leveled at us by the British, as they packed up and split. They criticized our arrogance , heavy handedness, and unwillingness to trust: all valid complaints Each of these were addressed under the Petraeus doctrine. After reading the Petraeus Book on the suppression of Insurrections, I realized his tactics were not part of the problem. They were in direct opposition to the problem. I understood what he was trying to accomplish.
What happened under Petraeus, happened not because of the amount of troops we had at our disposal, but because of the way we used them, that made a difference.
The surge may have helped. For before the surge, we, due to our insufficient numbers, acted like Soviets, if I may be blunt. We were there to suppress and pacify. We, with our own patriotic roots, should have been more aware that by taking that stance, we directly increased our own opposition.
Once we added just a few more troops on the ground, we were able to interact with the local population, while still having enough force surrounding us to protect us. Prior to the surge, the problem was that whenever a few shots were fired, we would have to shut down our clinic, and head out across the desert. However with additional troops able to chase the insurgents, the military medical corp could continue to cure the local citizen’s ills. That was the difference. We could finish what we started.
Of course the original problem was created by republicans, Rumsfeld in particular. Had we ramped up enough ground forces from day 1, we never would have needed the surge in the first place. Yes, we know their insurrection began because they believed we wanted their oil. (That republican Cheney messed everything up). But if I understand correctly, we dropped that privatized oil plank as a “no go” and are now supporting the nationalization of oil assets. We are pursuing more of a Biden local strategy, tribal leader by tribal leader, and doing so because of the surge. Paul Bremmer’s national unification strategy was not working.
What I found, in essence, was that everything I said eight months ago that we needed to do in Iraq to win, we were now doing.
Can this late development be twisted to mean I justify this war that was fought on false pretenses? Hell no. It will always stand as a stupid war, instigated by stupid ass republicans. Nothing can ever change that. We could have achieved much better results at far less cost, had we chosen to use other means.
But we didn’t. We went in against all common dignity, history and sense. So since we did, does the resulting mess lie at our doorstep? Does we broke it, mean we own it?
Perhaps. But instead of a “oops, I broke it” moment, it is more of an “Honey, I’m pregnant” moment. Whatever happened way back then, has now changed things permanently.
Of course we can put up our hands and say, “Whoa, that’s your problem bitch…” and walk out the door. Many people do and feel no remorse about doing so. But that is not how I want my America to be perceived. I want My America to be responsible. I want My America to do the right thing. My America will be no punk. My America will be a Dad……….
So emotionally, that is how I have come around about to see how we could win in that barren land. It is nothing new. Biden has pushed it for years.
To win, these things must happen. They are in our control.
Congress must finally stand up to the President. If Iraq can finally realize that America does not equal Bush, that we too think he’s a moron, that we too can admit and correct our mistakes, our relations will improve. If the American Congress ever gets some backbone, and forces upon the president a withdrawal timetable, the Iraqis too will get some backbone and begin controlling their own affairs.
Congress must stand up to the president, and eliminate the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy 2%, and invest that money into Iraq’s infrastructure, hiring Iraqis to build their own sewers, roads, and buried electrical conduits. If Congress could do that, then the Iraqis might get some back bone and start controlling their own affairs.
Congress must stand up to the President, and force impeachment if he fails to comply with Congress’s orders. Only then will Iraq realize that America is not over there to conquer, but sincerely is over there to help. If we are decisive over here, they will be decisive over there,……. instead killing time and each other until our next inauguration day.
Actually all three of the reports support Biden’s permise.
First fix the local issues, then move on to the national challenges. That is the essence of the Biden plan, and was practically speaking, the essence of all three of the assessments on the surge.
The military is not bound by platitudes. If something works, they do it. Obviously as Al Anbar province shows, empowering locals to police their own, …works. Just being there for back up, is enough.
The Petraeus further scores how poor our administration led Iraqi policy has been. Comfortably one can say that had someone else been in control, we would have had consistent improvement over the last 5 years, not backsliding.
If any wisdom can be given to this administration, it is that they allowed ANY option to be pursued, even if it came from Biden.
Watching the Petraeus report, I was dismayed by the insolence of the leading republican on the committee from California.
He brought up every negative he could find to lay out in front of Petraeus’s on national TV. Hat’s off to Petraeus. Only his eyes showed his outrage at being dis’d by this representative of the republican party.
Such top shelf Republicans have no morals.
There is a time an place for everything. But going to extreme efforts, to dig up someone’s septic tank, transport his shit, and dump it at his feet in the sanctity of the halls of Congress, oversteps the line.
Republicans are a disease upon America’s values. Of course shit happens. But good taste decries that one does not play with it in public.
kavips 