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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (261973)	11/24/2005 2:28:26 AM
From: d[-_-]b	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573927

I think its wonderful that the Hussein family is sending their only daughter to college; however, I find it disturbing that she has to carry an AK-47 to class. I wonder if it's one of those pretty gold plated ones her dad had made. And its true that 80% of the country is quiet and that the problems are mostly in the big cities but the reality about Iraq is that most of the 80% is desert and that not many people live in the desert. They mean cities, but if you go square footage it's probably way over 99% safe. But there are so many negatives that outweigh the good that its easy to question what good we are doing there. What negatives besides the insurgents? You claim there are so many rattle off a dozen. But for me, that's not the real issue at all. I don't think we should have been there in the first place. Like a broken record, we are there and to leave Iraq before they can defend themselves would be criminal beyond what got us into the war. most Americans are beginning to realize that Iraq was a mistake. They want the war ended They want us out asap - which is not the same thing as just cutting and running. By all signals it appears a draw down will occur mid 2006, which should create some heat for the Iraqi's to step it up - if it takes the threat of leaving to get them moving faster - I'm OK with that plan. I disagree. I lived in LA at the time. LA WAS a war zone. For a year after the riots, I heard gunshots every nite before going to bed. I lived in Hawthorne between 1985-1989, we heard shots and helicopters spot lighting the neighborhood nearly every night - but it never touched us directly. From a TV screen in Korea we saw only the pictures of the violence. When I lived in LA my perception of safety was greater than the TV images when I lived in Korea. The reverse is also true, before I left for Korea, riots in Seoul made me wonder what the hell I had signed up for. When I got there the riots looked completely different, drove right through one once, picked up a tear gas grenade as a souvenir. Speaking with Korean friends I realized the riots were (usually staged) they called the police and would wait for the TV crews before doing their thing. One friend said they even joined protests to simply get out of friday tests they had failed to prepare for, knowing they would lock down the campus and cancel the exam until next monday. Of course some had theirs hearts in it - but the media doesn't cover most issues to any depth. My problem with all parties in the Iraq debate and were the media is acting like pawns for the left - is their lack of coverage of the details that would allow the US to actually leave. Instead they obsess about pre-war intelligence, and body counts. I assume the violence will continue in Iraq for a few years, the measure is when can the Iraqi's handle the job on their own - they already take most of the casualties anyway. From the media I get the impression the metric for success is the body count goes to zero. That's just not realistic, the radicals are going to continue just as they have in several other countries around the world.