One more sign the tide is turning.

[GumboYaYa]

My mom and her husband are die-hard Republicans. My step dad is the President of the Chamber of Commerce of a major city in the US and is very politically connected. He was the campaign chair for his Congressperson and he and my Mom run at the highest levels in their local Repuke politics.

Tonight I talked to my mom on the phone. I poured my heart out to her about how I felt about the war. I explained how powerless you can feel sometimes when you are in the ten percent who opposed war in Afghanistan. I told her that me and all the others who agree with me fight the fight constantly because we truly do believe that it is wrong to kill people. I walked her through the whole series of lies that got us into this war. By the time I finished she was crying.

My conservative Mom told me I was exactly right and that she felt terrible for supporting a man like Bush. My mom promised me that she and her husband would join our fight; she promised to personally call her Repug congressperson and express her dismay with Bush.

It was very emotional and a great cleansing for me and her.

[diplomats]

1. Wow

Thanks for posting this.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Congratulations

And yes the tide is turning...

bout bloody time

[Cha]

3. Gumbo Ya Ya! That was very beneficial for me, too!

What a Sweet Mom you have!

[GumboYaYa]

4. My mom is a tough lady,

partly because she had a tough life. She turned Repuke when she married her current husband. Money does that to people.

If she gets pissed off she is an unstoppable force. A part of me really feels sorry for her Congress person right now. He is about to get an earful.

[aquart]

5. That's okay. He deserves it.

And maybe it will be good for his immortal soul.

[IDUDOYOU]

7. The Pope and Afghanistan

Even the Pope stated Afghanistan was a just war.
Clinton wanted to send special ops into Afghanistan to get bin Laden when he was President, but was denied by the Pentagon.
The choice for war was pretty clear cut in Afghanistan.
The choice for war in Iraq was not.

Sorry, when anyone says that they opposed the war in Afghanistan, it seems like they are too idealistic and not realistic enough.

[GumboYaYa]

8. Before the war in Afghanistan I said

that we would bomb rubble to dust, kill a bunch of people (most of them innocent) and never catch Osama bin Laden. I always felt the right response was to declare a plan to rid the US of dependency on Middle East oil (we only have to increase average fuel efficiency by 3mpg to do that)and draw on the resources and sympathy of the world to catch Osama through police efforts.

Your plan did not work. What makes you so sure mine would not. At leats the US would not have been creating recruiting posters for Al Qaeda if we had taken a more reasoned response designed to achieve our goals. Instead we chose revenge and our soldiers are still dying in Afghanistan. Osama lives and gets stronger every day.

It may seem idealistic to you, but to me it looks like I am the one who had a more realistic view of the world.

[IDUDOYOU]

9. The problem with Afghanistan

Afhganistan had to be done.
It was really Reagan and Bush I's fault because they ignored that country after the USSR withdrew.

8000 American troops in a country the size of Texas.
Little or no American aid flowing into the country.

Iraq-Over 200,000 troops in the entire theater in a country the size of California

Like Bob Graham said, we took resources out of Afghanistan and unnecessarily into Iraq.
No brainer. The Taliban is coming back because we ignored Afghanistan after the war.
For someone against war, it appears to me that you are pretty hostile.

Also, argue with the Pope. You seem to know more about war and peace than someone who fought Nazism and who Mikhail Gorbachev credited the most with the collapse of communism.
Personally, I think the Pope has more credibility than you.
I am not sure, but what totalitarian system did you bring down?

[IDUDOYOU]

10. Let's compare the Pope and you

The Pope-Doctor of Theology
You-Probably not
The Pope-Head of the largest institution in the world
You-Not the head of the lartgest institution in the world
The Pope-Most recognized and respected religious figure in the world
You-Not the most....
The Pope-Fought Nazism in Poland, the most enslaved nation during WWII
You-Did not fight Nazism in Poland
The Pope-Mikhail Gorbachev said the collapse of communism would not be possible without him
You-Ummm, yeah.
The Pope-Most feared enemy of the KGB, as stated by KGB generals in 1990
You-yeah.
The Pope-The war in Afghanistan fits the criteria of a just war
You-Against the war

Do you kinda see how the Pope is a little more credible on this issue than you?
Like I previously mentioned, Bush is good at winning wars and good at losing the peace. The problem with Afghanistan today.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

16. Hi, Inbreeder

Go along and fuck off now.

[Touchdown]

23. The Pope also

Took no responsibility for pedophile priests, and instead blamed it all on the gay rights movement, and gay priests.

Sooooooooo....what's your point?

[GumboYaYa]

11. There was absolutely no hostility in my post.

I won't fall for a strawman argument like that.

The Pope made no statement that the war in Afghanistan was just that I can remember. I remember the Pope saying that Religion should never be a reason for war. I remember him pleading with the American government to show their evidence re Al Qaeda to the Taleban in order to enable them to turn Osama over to Pakistan. Remember that was on the table before we rushed to war. If the Pope endorsed war in Afghanistan please show me where, because I don't remember it.

Regardless though, there is no way to say the current approach to Afghanistan has worked. Osama gets stronger by the day. Did you really think the Bushes would stick with Afghanistan after the initial combat?

[rasputin1952]

13. Interesting little dialogue you had with....

IDUDOYOU.

I saw no animosity in your posts, but I hold the bar pretty high for animosity.

I agree with you wholeheartedly, and am glad to see your mom has the integrity to stand by her convictions.

As for Afghanistan, a country eternally at war; they now hold the distinction of being the only country being bombed FORWORD into the Stone Age. My heart goes out to the innocents there, that now have less than what little they had before.

The legacy of this administration will be failure compounded by failure. Just as bush 1 let the Kurds hang out to be slaughtered, bush 2 will leave the Afghans and the Iraqis to the same fate.

No matter what the spin of the day is; this action was for control of the oil in Iraq. There is just no way around it.

[GumboYaYa]

14. But don't you know...

I am not the Pope, therefore I have no credibility.

LOL

[leesa]

24. What a foolish thing to say...Afghanistan had to be done

What on earth is "right" about carpet bombing a country for 10 months to catch a handful of alleged criminals??? You would NEVER condone such behavior if Afghanistan were a white "christian" country like Germany, would you??? If the alleged terrorists came from Germany you would carpet bomb Germany for ten months to apprehend them????? Of course not! You would do it in the usual way, which is to form an international investigative team to find and capture the alleged terrorists. But brown-skinned Muslims are open-season at all times to racist Americans.
The accusation of the Taliban was pure bullshit...just another con job by Bush. The Taliban refused to cooperate with an oilfield deal in June and they were threatened with a carpet of bombs...had NOTHING to do with 9-11. The Taliban AGREED to hand over bin Laden TWICE and Bush refused. All of this has been just one giant con job by the most evil men the planet has ever seen
Why is OBL still alive??? Because he is a Bush business partner...same with Saddam.


Wake Up!!!

[Ein]

25. wouldnt Carter era CIA be heavily to blame

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html

fill me in.

[bpilgrim]

6. thats an AWESOME story!

i know the repuplicans who consider themselves AMERICANS FIRST will wake up be as REPULSED as the rest of us AMERICANS are :bounce:

we gotta keep spreading the word folks it is WORKING :bounce:

i am so happy you were able to connect with your mom on this i know we all need our loved ones support in these dark days more then ever.

:hi:

peace

[Eloriel]

12. Wow indeed

Thanks for sharing that with us. Hugs to you both!

Eloriel

[Plaid Adder]

15. Congratulations to your mother!

I wait in vain for similar conversions to take place in my family, but I'm glad it's working for you.

If it makes you feel any better, I was against the Afghanistan campaign too:

http://www.plaidder.com/oldnomore.htm

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[GumboYaYa]

17. Thanks PlaidAdder.

I really don't feel bad about being against the war in Afghanistan. Some of the responses on this thread just prove my point that we were a distinct minority.

[Plaid Adder]

20. We were just ahead of the curve.

In hindsight, the Afghanistan debacle will stink just as badly as the Iraq war. It was just hard for people to see that because of 9/11. It still scares me when I think back about how nuts people went. I remember seeing normal people who I had never thought ill of ranting about how we should just be turning the entire Middle East into a radioactive pile of sludge. It was frightening.

I just happen not to have wanted revenge, or at least not in that particular way. When I thought about bombing Afghanistan, all I could see was that we were going to repeat the disaster of 9/11 all over their country. The same thing happened in Iraq. We just keep on doing it, over and over, and somehow we don't think we're ever going to pay for it.

Sigh.

Ah well, no sense getting more depressed. Good for your mom; I hope she gives her congressman hell.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[GumboYaYa]

22. Don't be depressed.

We sowed the seeds of Bush's demise. I'm becoming more convinced it is imminent.

I don't want to minimize the costs the world paid in lives to get here, but the end is in sight now.

[LiberalLibra]

18. Thank You So Much For Posting This, I needed some encouragement.....

....after my experience with my rethug neighbor. Maybe there is hope after all. :dem:

[MODemocrat]

19. Wow! what uplifting news

Personally thank your Mom for me.

Marian from Missouri

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

21. Good going Gumbo...that's what grass roots is

one blade at a time...I ALWAYS open my mouth...everywhere I go...I can plant a seed of distrust for the current admin.. it really is powerful.

[RandomKoolzip]

26. Thank you for posting, Gumbo YaYa

This was a great story.

Did you name yourself after Dr. John, the Night Tripper?

[GumboYaYa]

27. You are correct.

"grisgris Gumboyaya," that song chills me to the bone.