Bitcoin Forum

Bets on the first war to be waged?

I say...at least 30,000 troops back in Iraq by summer.

Total countries attacked...at least 10 by 2016.

Its not like democrats where peaceniks. I lost count of how many undeclared and/or covert wars they started recently.
Anyway, I bet the new focus will be on Africa. It holds untold mineral riches, lots of warlords to do their dirty business and very weak armies.

I agree, but now that Republicans are in charge they don't have to fake like they are worried about the budget.

Time to ramp up the military spending. Gonna make it rain.

Well, maybe the use or non-use of military will begin to be somewhat logical, instead of unabashedly crazy like it has been for six years.

I doubt you're serious about this (since Obama is still the one who would need to order this, not the Senate), but in case you are:

I'm willing to bet you one bitcoin that as of June 21, 2015 (first day of Summer) there will be fewer than 30,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. We'd need to agree on some details (e.g., a mutually agreed upon source of information).

To be fair: I'd advise you not to take this bet because it's obviously not going to happen. I remember when Bush got reelected in 2004 and a lot of people were saying he'd bring back the draft. Didn't happen. And it was always obvious it wouldn't.

Interesting. Someone willing to put money behind a prediction. Seems if he doesn't take you up on it, he doesn't really believe it. I wouldn't call it a reckless prediction, just not a likely one.

You'd have to define "troops". If you include military contractors aka mercenaries, then factor in ISIS, you would probably lose that bet.
http://www.stripes.com/news/in-place-of-boots-on-the-ground-us-seeks-contractors-for-iraq-1.301798

The bet would not be a bad one to take considering I work as a defense contractor and more war for me tends to mean more money.

But I would actually pay out the bet as my reputation on here is more at stake than someone new to the site.

Exactly.

Not sure there is a difference between the two parties anymore.

The Democrat party voted for the Iraq war all the same as the Republicans did, and the rank-and-file dems had access to the same intelligence files as Bush did.

Let's get real, shall we?

1.  Party affiliation of POTUS during WW1.  D.
2.  Party affiliation of POTUS during WW2.  D.
3.  Party affiliation of POTUS during the Korean war.  D.
4.  Party affiliation of POTUS during the Vietnam war. D.

I guess "get real" means trying to think things out from facts, or better still, from first premises, and not just spouting a party line spin.

As usual Americans even in this forum actually think that the Democrats and Republicans believe in different things when in reality the only thing they disagree on is how to achieve their goals and a few social issues.

No, clearly "get real" means misconstrue as meaningful historical coincidence, and ignore all historical context so you can attempt to prove a shallow point.

I hope the republicans are ready to handle leadership. All I have seen them do so far is say NO to everything they hear. That does not work when you are in the majority. Let's see.

I agree "troops" is ambiguous. I hoped to be clear by saying "U.S. troops." I mean members of the US armed forces who are there under orders from the U.S. federal government. I'm not counting contractors or Americans who (for private reasons) go to fight for or against ISIS. I'm doubtful that including contractors would get the number to 30,000, but it gets more difficult to count the numbers.

Well, I'll leave it up to you. I don't spend much time on the forum, but if you decide to take me up on it, post it on the thread and I'm sure I'll notice within a few days. There's no reason for you to trust me not to pull a "Matthew N. Wright" on you, so you're welcome to suggest someone reputable as an escrow. We could make a 2-of-3 address and both put 1 bitcoin there now. Once June 21 comes, it's likely that it will be obvious to both of us who has won and we wouldn't need the escrow to decide.

In case my offer seems mean-spirited, it isn't meant to be. I can understand what it's like to be disappointed in election results. After Obama was reelected I did a lot of predicting of economic disaster that was, in retrospect, exaggerated. I guess I'm glad I didn't make any bets based on those predictions in November 2012.

I have mixed feelings about these election results. It's nice to see Obama get rejected, and a relief to think he might have trouble getting the worst kinds of Supreme Court nominations through. (He'll have to find a stealth Souter type.) On the other hand, I'm more of a small-government-Tea-Party guy myself, and the Republicans fought us much harder and dirtier than they ever have or would to Democrats.

Whether or not the republicans (I voted for them) do what they're supposed to, it's nice to see the people thumb their nose at Obama and the lefty progressives. I work in a sea of leftist drones so I'm in my glory.

Huh?  The basis of the argument was Repubs not Dems are Warniks, right?

Fraid I am not seeing evidence to support that.

Congress actually has zero control over the military. The closest thing they have to control is to cutoff the military's budget (or to shrink it) however this would only bring the troops home, not deploy them overseas

Well Iraq feels like old news but they are hunting for ISIS off to Syria as well
War war war fund time.
And Canada gets its pipeline  :D

The military won't see much change from now unless something else crazy happens overseas.  What will probably really happen is major changes and challenges to the Healthcare (Obamacare) industry and the future of social security. 

America is currently led by Obama, Obama came from Democrats, Democrats still control the Senate at this time in the White House, all policies in the White House of course dominated by the Democrats, as we all know that Democrats prefer diplomacy than republican who likes deploying troops to fight, I hope republican democrat can emulate in making its foreign policy ...  :o

lol...actually, you know nothing about US politics and have been well fooled by your media.

To find warmongers, look at Muslims in Africa, Putin, the Ukraine and Crimea, or the ISIS/Al Queda groups in the middle east. 

They are all warring along quite happily.

As Spendulus indicated with his list, the historical evidence does not support the idea that wars are more likely to start under Republicans than Democrats. Bob Dole got in some hot water in the 1970s when Bob Dole pointed this fact out in one of Bob Dole's debates.

Nevertheless, most people do seem to believe that Republicans are the pro-war party and the Democrats aren't. It's strange, but I guess there are lots of things lots of people believe in spite of evidence to the contrary.

Yeah, the phrase used to be "Hawk"....and there were and are lots of Democratic hawks.  But you don't see the term being used anymore.

Add the Cuban missile crisis under Kennedy(D) to the list, which brought us to the brink of nuclear war....

Mitch McConnell's face commands respect for his gruesome power.

Perhaps I misinterpreted the response. It seemed to me you were attempting to disprove it by just listing the party affiliation of the POTUS during four arbitrarily selected wars. This doesn't make sense because WWI and WWII had declarations of war, which means the party affiliation of the POTUS is irrelevant, because it's Congress that decided to go to send troops somewhere, not the President. Therefore, you're left with a list of party affiliations of the POTUS during a biasedly-picked sample of US wars, which ignores all historical context surrounding the wars in attempt to draw significance and a correlation from coincidence. In other words, the list doesn't prove what you want it to.

Not to say I disagree with your point, I believe Democrats are just as war-happy as Republicans. My point was just your list doesn't support that conclusion because the party affiliation of the POTUS is not directly related to the war.

Actually I think we are in agreement, mostly. 

The spin I was objecting to was as I understood it "Republicans Like War", with implicit that Dems do not like it or are somehow morally superior.   

Utter nonsense. 

However, I didn't pick some biased sample, I just went right down the list of major wars of the 20th century and simply listed the party of the Commanders in Chief.  I guess a valid rebuttal might be "Yeah but since 1990...."

So the democrats have finally paid the price for Obama s dithering on anything even vaguely resembling domestic or foreign policy

It might take time again for the democrats to gain their foothold of the US congress. :)

Nobody remembers things more than a year away.

Remember last year when Republicans shut down the government and everyone talked about the political price they would have to pay in the 2014 elections?

That was so long ago.

I think that was the liberal media saying that. It was their way of trying to manipulate congress into giving up their demands and giving into the demands of president obama