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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (228315)	4/23/2007 5:04:55 PM
From: Keith Feral	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Great post, Hawk. I can't understand the defeatist attitude of the liberals. Well, they have an election to win, so I actually see through their criticism of Bush. I just can't accept this pov that America should back out so the Democrats can declare victory for their hatred of Bush. There is a serious responsibility we have to our new friends in Iraq. They need our help to prevent the terrorists from defining their intolerant way of life. They are ruining the way of life in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia and all over the place. We had better make sure that Baghdad doesn't fall, and I'm quite convinced none of this political mumbo jumbo is going to make much difference in the long term. We are going to do whatever it takes to resist Islamic intolerance. Thanks for all the good posts to bring some common sense back to these threads. It gets so frustrating to read the apologies the Democrats want to make to Al Quaeda in Iraq. Doesn't make sense.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (228315)	4/23/2007 9:26:55 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Oh for heaven's sake.... People who refuse to recognize that leaving Iraq before a government with the ability to preserve internal order is in place would only create GREATER BLOODSHED, and possibly reintroduction of EVEN MORE US SOLDIERS to stave off regional aggression by adjacent states (especially Iran or Syria). Whether we stay or we leave, there will be bloodshed. Great bloodshed. You don't think that a hundred or more deaths and casualties a day is great bloodshed? It has become a far more complex war over the past 4 years--it is a war against Americans, but even more than that it is a civil war of old enemies against each other. That is what removing Saddam has done. It was almost inevitable that this would have happened; even if we had sent in the numbers Shinseki called for. Those numbers just would have postponed the inevitable, IMO. People who are so short-sighted that their focus doesn't reach past their belief that the overthrow of Saddam was illegal.. They think the war was illegal so all of those terrorist bombings, and beheadings by Jihadists trying to fill the power vacuum must be justifiable. No, that isn't what many of us think at all. Or rather, yes, the war was illegal, IMHO, but even more than that--it was stupid. Stupid because the probability of actually creating a functioning government for Iraq was so low. Stupid because we had bigger game to hunt than Saddam, who was already boxed in. Stupid because we had inspectors in there to search for WMDs, and we could have kept them for quite a while, giving us time to focus on the real problem up in Afghanistan. Stupid because even though, yes, we could overthrow Saddam without the help of the rest of the world, we could never have kept the peace without that help, especially with Rumsfeld lite and the Chalabi delusions of grandeur dancing in Cheney et al's little brains. After all, if we hadn't overthrown Saddam, those Jihadists wouldn't be there, right?? So if we leave, they'll all simply go away and stop being such bad people... Good grief, surely you've read the analyses that say that the number of al Qaeda people in Iraq is fewer than 1,500--and if the reports of all of our kills and the recent Sunni kills are accurate, then there are far fewer than that there. You appear to be stubbornly averse to the notion that the vast majority of killing and maiming going on Iraq today is done by Iraqis to Iraqis. Vengeance killings. The millenia old battle between Sunni and Shia raising its ugly, disturbing head again, giving special force by the power structure of Iraq set up by the British in the 1920s, and continued into the 90s. You appear to be incapable of getting that the Shia don't particularly like us either--they actually remember <gasp> what happened in the early 90s when Saddam mowed them down. And in the 80s when we were supporting Saddam. What a concept--a people with a memory. If we leave, my guess is that the Jihadists won't leave voluntarily. But they will be killed by Iraqis, Sunnia and Shia and Kurd alike. Not many of them have any use for hard core Sunni fundamentalists. Shia fundamentalists are a different group--they still pose a danger to the broader Iraqi society and, IMO, the US as well. But there isn't much we can do about them at this point. Bush41 threw the first punch at them, and Bush43 has compounded the problem.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (228315)	4/23/2007 9:57:39 PM
From: neolib	Respond to of 281500

They think the war was illegal so all of those terrorist bombings, and beheadings by Jihadists trying to fill the power vacuum must be justifiable. Uh?? Justified is not the issue. Predictable is. The Jihad and our current quandary were predictable. That is the difference between you and Ed. He and many others understood that ahead of time, which is why we thought the war was bad news. Even in hindsight you don't understand the difference, and can't get it right, yet you crassly talk about @sses.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (228315)	4/24/2007 1:14:23 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hawkmoon, you simply don't get it. That's too bad. It's even worse for the Ferals of the world who see you put together sentences and follow behind. The blind leading the blind into darkness and despair, celebrating each step of their doomed journey. It's as though you and Bush are stuck in one of Shakespeare's tales of tragedy and human folly. And your answer???? For you to attempt to justify the horrendous toll America is paying by claiming that people like me are justifying beheadings and that we, by voicing our pragmatic views, "create ...total failure" is simply childish. But you're still stuck on "Half of the battle in fighting any war is the belief that you MUST WIN." (Even in the face of hard facts that portend certain defeat.) But maybe you've learned a little. In the past you didn't qualify that simplistic, sloganistic jingo with the "half the battle" thing. You simply said that we'd win if we had the will. Does that mean that you now recognize that the other side has a say? Whatever, it's not enough. I'll tell you what I've told Nadine. You've been totally, dismally and heartwrenchingly wrong on just about every issue at just about every juncture on Iraq. That is a FACT. It's too bad that you're so wrong but wrong is what you have been, what you are and what you'll evidently continue to be. Your path undermines America's future, devours her young and consumes her treasure. And the toll keeps rising. While your solution seems to be, "[t]oo bad people like you don't spend more time convincing the Jihadists that they can't win, instead of telling the American people that we've already lost." If it wasn't for the facts on the ground that might work. Unfortunately, reality doesn't care about hopes, or magical fixes or spin. It simply is what it is and what it is in Iraq is a loser. Now that's too bad but it isn't going to change with happy talk. You better stick to the blame game. Your odds of selling spin there are much better. Ed