"The Dems have no plan", what does that say about republicans?

Question

I've heard a lot of criticism that the democrats have no plan for Iraq. I will admit they have not done a very good job of conveying and publicizing their ideas. But when republicans criticize democrats for not having a plan, think about what that says about republicans. To me, it means the mess is so bad that not even professional politicians can figure a way out. So when I hear a republican say that democrats have no plan, in my mind I am also hearing them admit that republicans made a mess that can't be cleaned up.

What are your thoughts?

Note that I am assuming that republican plan isn't working.

Answer 1

yea, your assumption is the problem with the statement. People want our people to come home. there is no doubt about it. Not one person would say they would RATHER have military fighting war than not. But some people understand the necessities of it. The Dems (like most every other agenda they try to push) keep saying they "have a plan" the uneducated masses believe this garbage and say "well if they have a plan lets let them inact it." Dems are praying on hope and ignorance of the american people and it is what is going to lose the war and leave us in a worse place then we are now.

Answer 2

That sounds bad. However sad that is, it is all true. Republicans have made a huge terrible mess of everything they've touched for the last 6 years. Much of the damage done may not be cleaned up in the foreseeable future, no matter what is done, or who is in the driver's seat.
Their poor judgment and massive failures are slowly being uncovered, and if the Democrats have a backbone at all, they will work diligently to bring justice to those who have been suspected of high crimes. We must do our own part to insist on criminal investigations. I don't mean the petty crap, I mean the grievous errors that can be laid on the top leaders' doorstep.
There is more to the Rumsfeld resignation, that need to be looked into. We need to find out the real reasons why the Bush Administration had private talks with Henry Kissinger (Nixon-Watergate era).

Answer 3

The Dems have been the first to criticize any and all plans of the President. However, the only real source document of laudible credit produced by the Dems is an 850 word document sent to the President from Pelosi and her little dance troupe condemning his actions without any real strategy involved nor invocation of planning for the future.

Having worked in Iraq the mess is promulgated by the media. Baghdad and the Sunni triangle are active hotbeds of terrorism. When we had Al Sadr in our sites to kill him, the intel folks said not to kill him. This would have broken the back of the Sadr Militia.

Our plan includes direct punitive actions against Iran and Syria for fomenting the insurgency. Our strategy forced North Korea back to the table for 6 way talks. Madeline Albright's basketballs were a huge gaff on the world stage of diplomacy. Your leadership has never and will never agree to anything much like the past two administrations under Clinton waffled to create any sizable change. Your strategy is always cut and run. Take it from someone who has experience from the way Somalia was handled by the cowards in charge then that the same will occur if you have your way.

Answer 4

Yep, a real neener-neener moment that.
I was hoping Dems would lose because the doodoo is so deep that the only way out of this mess is to do what the Reps are always accusing Dems of, repeal estate tax breaks, get the out of Iraq, and get accounting principals set up to see what all that money got us, not just in the war, but in education and prescription drugs. Bush took our credit card and had fun spending our money, but the bills come due and someone is going to have to pay. Someone has to be the grown up here and I hope the American public remembers that next election when the Reps have fun tell us how the Dems raised our taxes.

Answer 5

Maybe its me but it seems Dems haven't shown much in the way of leadership in the past few years. Maybe their ideas aren't getting out or not communicated well.

R's tend to have slogans and bumper sticker mentality. "Cut and run" , "Tax and Spend"... They're just catchy phrases that people latch on to but they have little in the way of substance. You even see it in responses to this question.

Bush and buddies have not shown they have a plan either. Stay the course is not a plan. And no "course" has been articulated other than, "when the iraqis stand up we'll stand down" or some such nonsense. Again, bumper sticker mentality. They don't articulate a clear plan of how to get them all trained. Further, what plans they have been executing are completely blown. The Iraqi army and police are a mess (even look at events today), infrastructure is a mess, unemployment there is a mess, I haven't seen recent oil numbers but I'm sure those are ugly too. None of their "supposed" plans have worked. And frankly, they ("R's")have no room to talk, they had no plan on how to deal with Iraq after they crushed the Iraqi army. That's why there was such strife, looting, crime and now all the sectarian violence. Even the things they DID do were completely wrong-- disbanding the army and police (wrong), not enough troops to secure the country (wrong), de-bathification (wrong), no diplomacy with top religious leaders (wrong), fellujah (wrong), abu garab (sic-- wrong) just keep going down the list.

Answer 6

You are not totally wrong. In war there is never a plan that stays as it was designed. Look at past wars for all the evidence you need they never go as planned. The dems say they will bring the troops home and by their claims they will do it in short order but that goes to the cut and run way of thinking. If they do as they say Iraq is in a world of hurt and if they fail to do as they say it is more business as usual. I hope that who ever is making the calls will listen to the military commanders on the ground in Iraq and that they don't just bail out on the Iraqi citizens.

Answer 7

I haven't said anything about Democrats not having any plans. In fact, the only plans I've heard from the Democrats is that they are going to raise my taxes, but my Democrat 'adviser" tells me that's untrue. Once again, I see a generalization here.

Answer 8

My thoughts are that having no plan is better than having a plan that is obviously failing, and sticking with it to the brink of disaster. The Dems, in usual Dem fashion, have not one plan, but many. Jack Murtha wants to pull everybody out immediately. Others want a phased withdrawal on a time table. Others want to increase our troop levels temporarily and really stick it to the terrorists. Others want to try to get Syria and Iran to the negotiating table and have them solve the problem for us. (Those guys are nuts: Syria and Iran ARE the problem.) Others think that if we solve the Israel/Palestine standoff, the Iraq problem will go away.

Dems don't have a SINGLE plan, they have a lot of competing plans, with no idea how well they will work. Republicans have a single plan, the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld plan, and it is failing.

Answer 9

It is the Repooplicans throwing down the gauntlet, so to speak. The Democraps have criticized everything sonce they helped authorize this war. The Repooplicans are telling the Democraps, "We hear you complaining, but can you do any better?" Well, here's their chance to do better.

Answer 10

its says that theyre tellin to truth because all i heard durin the campaign was we will have a different plan but not once did i hear a new plan