Here is a little counter balance to use with this commy SOB!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1010274/posts ANOTHER VIETNAM? NO
New York Post ^ | 10/29/03 | RALPH PETERS
Posted on 10/28/2003 11:57 PM PST by kattracks
October 29, 2003 -- LET'S leave the phony pieties and hand-wringing to the presidential aspirants and celebrity journalists. Here's the truth:
* Thirty-six dead in a series of suicide bombings in Baghdad? The chump change of strategy. Cold-blooded, but true.
* Another American soldier killed in a roadside bombing? Every lost service member matters, but at the present casualty rate it would take 15 years for our dead in Iraq to surpass the number of Americans butchered on 9/11. Better to fight like lions than to die like sheep.
* Iraq another Vietnam? Hell, even Vietnam wasn't the Vietnam of left-wing baby-talk politics and campus political astrology. Our Vietnamese enemies represented a mass movement. The Iraqi terrorists represent a small, bloodthirsty movement to oppress the masses.
* Did Operation Iraqi Freedom create terrorists? No. It terrorized the terrorists. Now it's flushing them out of their hiding places. We'll be killing and capturing them for years. But that's the only approach that works.
* Has the War on Terror made Americans less safe? Despite the dishonest claims of Democratic presidential hopefuls, the answer is an unequivocal "No!" Where is the evidence that we're in greater danger now? Where are the terrorist attacks on our cities?
In this war, the only measurement that matters is the absence of attacks. Since 9/11, our government has taken the war to the terrorists and kept us remarkably safe.
* They'll attack America again and prove the War on Terror was a failure. Bull. Oh, we'll eventually be hit again. No counter-terror effort will ever be 100 percent effective. But if Terrorist No. 500 gets through, it doesn't mean there was no value in stopping the first 499. The proof of our success in this war is the undisturbed routine of our daily lives.
* Isn't there some way to stop the attacks in Iraq? Not in the short term. We face those who wish to turn back the clock, in some cases to the days of Saddam's rule, in others to a primitive theocracy. Our enemies are fanatics in the truest sense of the word. Every one we kill is a service to humanity.
* Doesn't the continuation of the attacks mean our approach is flawed? No. There's no magic bullet. This isn't a movie. It's a deadly, long-term struggle for incalculably high stakes.
And there is no rational, responsible alternative to persevering. The only disastrous choice we could make would be to give up.
* How long can the Iraqi terrorists maintain this pace of attacks? We don't know. The Iraqi terrorists themselves don't know. But we should be encouraged, not discouraged, that the best they can do is to ram a few suicide wagons into public buildings. They're not overrunning our troops. They're desperately scraping up all the suicide drivers they can. It's only surprising that they've been able to find so few.
* Do the Iraqi people support the terrorists? No. The Iraqi people just want to live in peace - without Saddam. They don't want our troops to stay forever, but few want us to leave tomorrow. The terror attacks will keep reminding them why they don't want the old regime back. What should we expect in Iraq? Imperfect results. It's an imperfect world. But even a partial success in establishing basic human rights, the rule of law and some form of democracy would be an unprecedented triumph in the region.
* Why are so few nations willing to help us? Because many political leaders want us to fail. Because the United States has returned to its original ideals, supporting freedom, self-determination, the rights of the individual and simple human decency.
Our example terrifies every one of Iraq's neighboring governments and infuriates the Europeans - who long profited from their political love affairs with dictators, even as they damned America for similar behavior.
We have taken a stand for freedom. And freedom still has few friends in this world.
THERE is only one way in which the situation in Iraq resembles Vietnam: Our enemies realize that they can't win militarily. This is a contest of wills much more than a contest of weapons. The terrorists intend to wear us down.
Our enemies are employing media-genic bombings to leap over our soldiers and influence our political leaders and our elections - just as the Vietnamese did. The suicide bombers themselves are deluded madmen, but the men behind the terror campaign calculate that, if they can just maintain a sufficient level of camera-friendly attacks, our military successes and all the progress of our reconstruction efforts will be eclipsed by a mood of dejection in Washington.
If the terrorists turn out to be right, the butcher's bill in the coming years and decades will be vastly higher than the casualty count in Iraq.
Ralph Peters' new book is "Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace."
The death of our troops in Iraq is tragic, but most Americans would be horrified to learn how many die over the course of six months as victims of illnesses unrelated to war; of crime; of automobile and training accidents; and of mishaps that occur during "routine, peacetime operations".......