Sen. Barack Obama has filed binding legislation that lays out an aggressive plan for Iraq. His plan would cap the number of troops in Iraq at their present level, and sets a goal of redeploying all but a minimal number of American troops by the end of March, 2008.
The Obama plan offers a responsible yet effective alternative to the President’s failed policy of escalation. Realizing there can be no military solution in Iraq, it focuses instead on reaching a political solution in Iraq, protecting our interests in the region, and bringing this war to a responsible end. The legislation commences redeployment of U.S. forces no later than May 1, 2007 with the goal of removing all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008, a date that is consistent with the expectation of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.
The plan allows for a limited number of U.S. troops to remain as basic force protection, to engage in counter-terrorism, and to continue the training of Iraqi security forces. If the Iraqis are successful in meeting the thirteen benchmarks for progress laid out by the Bush Administration, this plan also allows for the temporary suspension of the redeployment, provided Congress agrees that the benchmarks have been met and that the suspension is in the national security interest of the United States….
Key Elements of Obama Plan
* Stops the Escalation: Caps the number of U.S. troops in Iraq at the number in Iraq on January 10, 2007. This does not affect the funding for our troops in Iraq. This cap has the force of law and could not be lifted without explicit Congressional authorization.
* De-escalates the War with Phased Redeployment: Commences a phased redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq not later than May 1, 2007, with the goal that all combat brigades redeploy from Iraq by March 31, 2008, a date consistent with the expectation of the Iraq Study Group. This redeployment will be both substantial and gradual, and will be planned and implemented by military commanders. Makes clear that Congress believes troops should be redeployed to the United States; to Afghanistan; and to other points in the region. A residual U.S. presence may remain in Iraq for force protection, training of Iraqi security forces, and pursuit of international terrorists.
* Enforces Tough Benchmarks for Progress: These 13 benchmarks are based on President Bush’s own statements and Administration documents and include:
o Security: Significant progress toward fulfilling security commitments, including eliminating restrictions on U.S. forces, reducing sectarian violence, reducing the size and influence of the militias, and strengthening the Iraqi Army and Police.o Political Accommodation: Significant progress toward reaching a political solution, including equitable sharing of oil revenues, revision of de-Baathification, provincial elections, even-handed provision of government services, and a fair process for a constitutional amendment to achieve national reconciliation.
o Economic Progress: Requires Iraq to fulfill its commitment to spend not less than $10 billion for reconstruction, job creation, and economic development without regard for the ethnic or sectarian make-up of Iraqi regions.
Should these benchmarks be met, the plan allows for the temporary suspension of this redeployment, subject to the agreement of Congress.
* Congressional oversight: Requires the President to submit reports to Congress every 90 days describing and assessing the Iraqi government’s progress in meeting benchmarks and the redeployment goals.
* Intensified Training: Intensifies training of Iraqi security forces to enable the country to take over security responsibility of the country.
* Conditions on Economic Assistance: Conditions future economic assistance to the Government of Iraq on significant progress toward achievement of benchmarks. Allows exceptions for humanitarian, security, and job-creation assistance.
* Regional Diplomacy: Launches a comprehensive regional and international diplomatic initiative – that includes key nations in the region – to help achieve a political settlement among the Iraqi people, end the civil war in Iraq, and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe and regional conflict. Recommends the President should appoint a Special Envoy for Iraq to carry out this diplomacy within 60 days. Mandates that the President submit a plan to prevent the war in Iraq from becoming a wider regional conflict.
Good move by Obama. Everyone knows that the silly non-binding resolutions floating around Capitol Hill right now will have no effect whatsoever. Obama’s bill, in contrast, smacks of an effort to provide some actual leadership. Imagine that!
Under his plan, would we be keeping any airbases there under U.S. control along with the nominal troops that would remain?
Well, even if he removes our men from Iraq’s airbases, we’ve got Diego Garcia, and we could build some airbases in Kuwait and/or Qatar to substitute. We’ve got NATO bases in Turkey already. Any strategic disadvantages to losing airbases in Iraq should be overcome by these options.
We can just go into those soverign nations and do this if we want to? I think it’s dangerous to refer to countries as squares on our chess board. This attitude is, in my opinion, part of the problem.
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In addition, we have women deployed in Iraq. This should never be forgotten. To speak of “our men” rather than of “our soldiers” is enormously disrespectful to the women serving and their friends and family supporting them here at home.
Every country pursues its interests. In this case, our interests coincide with those of the vast majority of Iraqis (and very specifically, the Kuwaitis and Qataris, trade hubs that they are), we want a stable Iraq. It’s understandable to think that that’s impossible and it’s not worth more American lives in the pursuit of that goal, but moral concerns of “how dare a nation try to influence the world” are overblown.
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Offhanded choice of colloquialism aside, I think our soldiers aren’t the primary audience for this legislation, democratic primary voters are. Let’s all be careful right now, it’s awfully easy to get into a “who will push hardest” mode before we think through how hard we want to push this. Domestically, do the democrats really gain much from taking ownership of part of the humanitarian disaster that will unfold immediately? In Iraq, should we give a new management team (Petraeus and Gates) a chance before we pull the plug on the whole thing? Hurt feelings from 2003 aside, there are lives at stake here.
not sure what you are getting at when you say
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“Domestically, do the democrats really gain much from taking ownership of part of the humanitarian disaster that will unfold immediately?”
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Are you worrying about politics or saving lives?
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Roots my friend…..Anti war movement has lost its roots
I think far fewer lives will be lost if we continue to stay there in some form.
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Obama? Politics.
Obama is trying to incentivize al-Maliki to work harder to meet the benchmarks he laid out. He’s not advocating a precipitous and immediate pull-out, which is what you seem to be arguing against.
I’m gonna choose to believe the simpler explanation, that 80-100% of democratic primary voters will read his name connected with “anti-war” in the papers.
Vast majorities of Iraqis, when polled, consistently say they want us out. That includes majorities of Sunnis and majorities of Shiites.
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The major problem right now is that there is no incentive for Sunni insurgents to stop their war of sabotage and destruction. You may have forgotten that the U.S. destroyed a Sunni city; they did not. You may have forgotten about Abu Ghraib; they have not. So the U.S. presence is simply not going to calm things or slow them down. Nor is there the slightest empirical evidence that it has. Hope is not data. The consistent over-reliance on force by the Administration is already creating a humanitarian disaster.
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As for giving these guys a chance, they’ve been telling us for four years, that the “next six months” will change things. They’ve been feeding the next six months line since 2003. They still feeding that line. There’s less reason to believe them now after their fact-denying track record.
But for 4 years we said let’s can Rumsfeld and change the strategy. That finally happened and we can’t give it a shot? I think you’re underestimating just how bad Iraq could get if we’re not there at all. I think to support complete and sudden withdrawal, you have to say “I understand we’re facing ethnic cleansing and another 2 million deaths, just get our boys out of there.” Which is a defensible position.
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As far as over-reliance on force, the new counter-insurgency manual authored by Petraeus emphasizes protecting the population over destroying insurgents. It specifically says that playing whack-a-mole with insurgent hideouts is a bad idea, and don’t even bother engaging them unless they’re causing trouble that moment. I like that approach, I like putting 27 companies in little forts across Baghdad, and I love the fact that Moqtada is cooperating to the point of letting us arrest and kill his lieutenants if they’ve been doing ethnic cleansing. These are all new developments, and my impression has been most of the Sunnis killed in Baghdad so far in the last week or two have been out-of-towners who are just here to cause trouble.
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Polls of Iraqis saying they want us out… they have a gov’t that can vote us out whenever. The gov’t unanimously approved Maliki’s plan last week. I’m also not so hot on the methodology and question wording of any poll, or whether those same respondents would vote the same way if it was binding. Not liking us being there is understandable and doesn’t necessarily preclude preferring us to the alternatives.
(If the Sunni insurgents killed last week are foreign, then they’re either they’re not picking up the bulk of the Sunni insurgents or they’re telling us exaggerations for propaganda purposes.)
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Every counterinsurgency effort will show immediate results. The whack-a-mole policies of the last four years showed immedidate results too. Immediate results are a bad yard stick.
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The issue is whether the effort shows long term results. In the last four years they didn’t. This surge (as Jon Stewart put it a 15% increase isn’t a surge; it’s a tip) is insufficient to hold much territory for very long. Even the extremely limited goal of holding the capital (the capital!) is not enough, and I’ll be surprised if they achieve that. Everything we hear about the Iraqi army is discouraging.
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The fundamental problem, though, is political. It is not shortage of force or unintelligence in the use of force. It is political. Since you haven’t replied to that point, are you saying that we can eventually cow the Sunni insurgency into submission with enough outposts?
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Or that we can just need to kill enough Sunnis in order to prevent ethnic cleansing?
I think the groups being annihilated will be largely Sunni if we leave. Plenty of shi’ite deaths to go around too, but there are too many of them to annihilate, shi’ite deaths will probably be from car-bombs and the like while sunnis while be wholesale evacuated from most of Baghdad with quite a few killed along the way.
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Holding the capital isn’t a limited goal, it’s everything. A quarter of the country lives there and it’s where any lasting stability will have to radiate from.
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The new plan is a departure from the last 4 years because it’s not based on force. It’s based on presence. We’re going to put a bunch of troops in the capital alongside Iraqi forces and establish presence and ownership block by block. It’ll be the same troops day after day in the neighborhood, sleeping there, establishing relationships instead of all of our forces hanging out on a base outside of town and occasionally doing “please shoot me” patrols through the city in armored humvees.
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As for the politics, the parliament there did vote unanimously for the new security plan right after accusing each other of high crimes and whatnot on the TV feed. I think day-to-day security is necessary before anything else, and as far as cowing the salafists… well, the wannabe martyrs will still find a way to martyr themselves but I think they’re a minority of the sunni insurgency. If we can cut down on the cycle of violence by being there and having each fort develop a relationship with the neighborhood they’re in, taking over the local militia’s function, we’ll be impacting the political situation significantly without actually meddling in their politics.
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If we left and a really bad genocide started happening, just theoretically here, say 10-20k a day, would you support going back in to stop it?
I should not have forgotten the women who are stationed there.
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A big part of the justification by people who don’t want to leave Iraq is that our airbases there will allow us to project influence in the region–and if that “needs” to be done in their eyes, Iraq is not the only possible location for said bases.
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And as for the later comment about the anti-war movement losing touch with its roots–roots alone don’t compose a successful plant. Oh, heck, let’s just abandon the metaphor entirely. To stop this war, we need a large majority of the public on the same side: getting us out of Iraq. People who think the U.S. needs to stop projecting influence around the world (the “roots” you speak of) don’t make up a majority. To get out of Iraq sooner rather than later, the “roots” will have to join forces with more conservative people who have an isolationist streak, as well as hawkish people who think this particular war is especially stupid.
Are a bit misguided, I think.
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Check the ‘developing markets’ section of your mutual funds or 401k if you have one. 15%, 20%, Not too bad, eh?
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That’s people making money and heading towards stability in most of the world. That’s 60 years of the US projecting influence.
That’s not exactly ALL it is.
You lose the ability to immediately react to things as you’re now involving multiple countries and international borders. Helicopters and AC-130s fly slow, and those are the best air support for urban combat.
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I don’t think we gain anything, unless the departure of an airbase in the desert that nobody ever went to anyways is likely to somehow stop the feuds and rivalries in every city and neighborhood.
To my understanding, Diego Garcia is on British sovereign land. We’re guests there, even if Britain is one of the few countries that Bush hasn’t managed to tick off yet.
for strategic purposes
…as your tag line, could you please use it in its entirety.
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In its entirety, the Bismark reden is
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“Nicht durch Reden und Majoritätsbeschlüsse werden die großen Fragen der Zeit entschieden – das ist der große Fehler von 1848 und 1849 gewesen – sondern durch Eisen und Blut”.
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You don’t have the slightest idea what the bolded portion refers to, do you?
As usual, our senior senator is out front on this: Kennedy filed a bill on Jan. 9 to stop the surge.
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Feingold wants ’em out in six months.
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Mrs. Clinton is waiting for the polling data to stabilize.
this is the spiniest move yet.
At least until the polling data stabilizes ;-}
Voting what 95% of primary believers want isn’t so spiny in my book.
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Didn’t he vote to confirm Petraeus? So he liked the guys haircut but not the way he wants to run the war?
…but otherwise meaningless. If it is non-binding (intended to be legislation) it would have to not only be passed by both houses of congress, which is highly unlikely, but also signed by the pResident who opposes it, which is completely unlikely.
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The only thing that will come of it is an expression “well, I had a plan” when he goes into a primary election battle with sHillary, but unless Obama is a complete moron he would have known that his proposal had no chance, and I’m not impressed merely by the fact that he filed it.
Public perception & opinion are strong drivers of our government. Obama is getting out ahead of the curve here, and changing the terms of the debate.
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Good move overall.
Take your argument to its logical conclusion, and anybody who says or does anything to speak out against continued U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq is doing something “meaningless,” since it’s “non-binding.”
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I wonder, then, what that says about John Edwards’ anti-war activities. When he was actually in the U.S. Senate and in a position to block the war authorization, he voted for it. Now he says he’s sorry and speaks out against the war. I do believe he regrets the vote, but keep in mind that his words now have no political cost to him at all, but only benefit; he doesn’t even have to worry about doing the hard political work necessary to get anything passed in the Senate, binding or not.
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Obama was against the war from day one, and spoke out in public against it. Had he been in the Senate at the time of the war vote, he would have voted against it. Which is more than you can say for most of the other presidential or potential presidential candidates. That’s important to me when I judge leadership qualities.
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I believed a couple of weeks ago when people were criticizing Obama for not immediately jumping on the criticize the surge non-binding resolution bandwagon, that he was in favor of something more encompassing – to not simply stop escalation but start reducing troop levels in Iraq, and was considering what was feasible. That proved to be correct. I don’t know how much more you want from the guy.
… the proposed legislation has no chance of passing in either house of Congress, being signed by the pResident, or being passed over his VETO, how can anyone rationally believe that Obama’s stunt is anything other than a public relations stunt.
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Seriously. Cite chapter and verse. Did he pass it by any other Democrats in Congress. Did he get any indication that it might be likely to pass Congress? Unless you can suggest that he did, as far as I’m concerned it’s a public relations stunt.
When you run for President, you lay out your plans on the important issues of the day.
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You are saying he can only have a plan that will pass the House and Senate and that the President will sign (meaning none at all)?
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That’s just silly.
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Obama has changed the terms of the debate and showed massive strength, and mark my words, the ramifications of his courage in D.C. are going to be massive. This is a game-changer.
Perennial D pres candidate Joe Biden weighed in recently and had this to say on Obama [‘s war stance?]:
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http://observer.com/…
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…which i guess must be superseded by Obama’s plan which came out almost immediately afterwards, but something odd strikes me about this nonetheless:
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Why is one of Obama’s greatest attributes that he is African-American? Are we really judging people so heavily based on their race? (I had the same feeling about Deval, actually)
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Furthermore, if one of Obama’s parents is white, then why do we call him black?
Because he identifies as being Black. Of course, his identity was probably shaped, in part, by how he is perceived by others, but it is a reality nonetheless.
Biden’s comments are just plain prejudiced and ignorant. “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy …” Is he saying previous African-American political weren’t mainstream? or weren’t articulate? or were dumb? or had bad hygiene? or were ugly?
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Atrios has perceptively noted that African-American public figures are constantly being praised for being “articulate”. Sort of as if to say, “he’s Black but he can talk anyway.”
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The Observer interview had other gems from Biden; let’s hope he becomes less toxic as the campaign season gears up.
…isn’t it the same premise that underlies race-preferenced admission to colleges and graduate schools? And affirmative action?
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Personally I prefer not to use race as a factor in evaluating people but I’m sorry to say that that isn’t usually the case on the left.
Why do you think the left might generally have that preference?
because it is the left (D’s at least!) who consistently support all manner of racial preferences from admissions to affirmative action and far, far beyond.
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Do you disagree?
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The left is also, in my view, very prone to thinking of / identifying people in terms of oppressed groups and attempting to create handouts, favors, or “counterbalances” (“opportunities”??) targetting those groups. Stand up for the little guy and all, right?
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On a less empirical note, in my personal experience whenever I’ve been in super-liberal settings, it seems that the more “disadvantaged” statuses you can claim, the higher you rank on the totem pole. White males, of course, are the spawn of Satan. Best to be a handicapped, African-American lesbian know what I mean?
First of all, “far, far beyond” is hyperbole, as there is hardly any affirmative action in America these days, other than in admission to some schools.
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Were any members of your family negatively affected by the legacy of slavery in America?
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Do you think the existence of a seemingly permanent African-American urban underclass in America is just random?
oh I get it – you meant in your original question “why would the left have that preference” in my view, not why do I believe that this is on the left. (as if challenging the idea that this is a leftist notion)
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anyway, you rarely make any sense at all to me, and your don’t feed the trolls post is laughably hypocritical coming on the immediate heels of your own “feeding”.
First off, affirmative action is alive and well – the biggest affirmative actor also happens to be the biggest employer: the US Government. Not only that, but all government contractors, and theoretically subcontractors etcetc are required to take affirmative action as a condition of doing business with the government. here’s the reality:
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http://www.dol.gov/e…
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(ironic that they think they ban discrimination at the same time as they require it)
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I have a feeling there are a few other companies in existence who also partake of affirmative action, like, say, IBM.
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OK that aside, the whole reparations for slavery angle runs into a few difficulties: 1. the implication that blacks are inferior in the present (e.g. in admissions – slavery 100 years ago means bad grades and test scores today?)
2. the tremendous difficulty and propesity to fail encountered by such blacks
3. the perception that all blacks must be beneficiaries of this benefit
and last but not least, the achilles heel of your slavery argument:
4. it applies to hispanics too.
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Should we kick out the hispanics? Add back in the asians?
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The whole thing is a mess, fraught with unintended consequences, and ultimately represents – you guessed it – discrimination. Let me tell you, slavery or no slavery, a white college applicant today did nothing to deserve getting passed over in favor of a black based on race alone.
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I think permanent underclasses are largely due to bad culture, and to some degree bad leadership (to the extent it is followed). Also, the whole science and consequence liberal victimology, to the extent it is embraced, tends to cement classes into their oppressed box.
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Personally, I do not subscribe to the idea that different races are naturally less capable than others.
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Slavery ended before any of us were born. Discrimination is discrimination.
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First off, I will grant that the government regs use some confusing nomenclature, but read a little further down and you will see that they don’t actually support your argument:
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“Based on the utilization analyses under Executive Order 11246 and the availability of qualified individuals, the contractors establish goals to reduce or overcome the under-utilization. Good faith efforts may include expanded efforts in outreach, recruitment, training and other activities to increase the pool of qualified minorities and females. The actual selection decision is to be made on a non-discriminatory basis.”
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Read that last sentence again: “The actual selection decision is to be made on a non-discriminatory basis.”
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Go read some discussion of the Supreme Court cases on affirmative action, and you will see that the outcome was effectively to end most forms of affirmative action in America, as we think of affirmative action in the traditional sense of racial preferences. Your random suggestion of IBM as a company that may “partake” in affirmative action further proves that you don’t know much about this topic, as do your 4 pointless arguments, all of which can be dismissed by saying that it’s all about having a level playing field.
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Nowhere did I say that “different races are naturally less capable than others,” but the effects of slavery and Jim Crow are long-lasting and deep-seated. The passage of the Civil Rights Act is relatively recent in the history of our country. You even admit to the effect of cultural issues, although you seem to be implying that those are due to issues with minority culture alone, rather than with larger problems in our American culture.
it is the left (D’s at least!) who consistently support all manner of racial preferences from admissions to affirmative action and far, far beyond.
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So in answer to my question, you tell me that the reason the left supports this is because the left consistently supports it.
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Huh?
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Could I suggest that if you wish to engage us liberals in something other than baiting that you at least learn why we think the way we do?
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Otherwise, it’s clear that you’re not trying to engage in discussion so much as trying to instigate a flamewar.
so you are a liberal who thinks this way and I’m supposed to tell you why you do?
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What the heck?
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What don’t you tell me why you think it? What am I a mind reader?
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Jeez
the “clean” comment is particularly grating. Fortunately, no one other than Joe Biden thinks Biden has a snowball’s chance in hell at getting more than a few credit card company executives to vote for him.