Posted on 12/06/2004 8:02:26 PM PST by Happy2BMe
It is good to hear that my one example was not universal. The young Marine I spoke with may have been accurate regarding his environment but that was a limited perspective. It was still somewhat of a shock to me however.
My grandfather was away in WW2 for 3 yrs. This is as serious, actually more serious, of a war.
I think my father was overseas for 4 years during WWII. My son has been in Iraq since March. He is supposed to come home next March but if his tour is extended his wife and I fully understand the responsibility that comes with being in a military family.
Well, I was imprecise and you caught me on it. That came from typing the whole post and losing it, then having to try to type it in half the time!
What I should have said was that one sometimes has to make choices where available resources are not the primary factor in the decision. I did not imply that anyone ever should ignore that. And I do not believe that we did here.
One often has to make a calculation of risks versus benefits in a situation, weighing available resources (among other things) against other factors such as windows of opportunity, etc.
You do not know (or may choose not to know) that a course is doomed from the start due to insufficient resources. A pilot who takes off on a risky mission near the edge of fuel availability (say in a helicopter to rescue a downed pilot or trapped soldiers) may make a calulation that they have just enough to make it there and back. Enroute, they encounter headwinds, can't find the target, get lost, etc. A perfect example is the rescue helicopter that went down in the Perfect Storm. They calculated and lost. They did not know their mission was doomed when they made that calculation. Situational elements change fluidly (again, I am not lecturing you, you would be in a better position to lecture me on this) and you find yourself behind the eight ball due to optimistic assessments (could be the case here) or other factors beyond your control.
Even powerful, competent and responsible world powers cannot see the future and set a pre-ordained path all the time.
Do you agree that the uprising of the insurgents in Iraq is not a popular uprising?
And by the way, Semper-thank you for the reasoned and civil discussion. I found people like you on this site, that is why I started coming back, and keep coming back. Reasonable people can agree to disagree, as long as we can keep talking and not break out tin-foil hat rhetoric, blood-for-oil and the notion that Dick Cheney was steering the hijacked planes on 9/11 by remote control!
The two great unifers and dividers are blood and God. Unfortunately, we are growing more and more diverse, with neither blood nor God to bind us. IMO, the only thing that is holding America together is the desire to make a great deal of money so as to buy a great many things. If we ever get into another Depression, this frail bond will snap and only God knows what will happen.
Diversity is not a source of strength. It's actually unnatural.
Let's call them MohamMadmen
Multiculturalism = Multicountrialism = Disunity = Domestic Untranquility
I agree that we must get out, but disagree the election won't make a difference. It will make a difference in that it will enable us to get out. The elections will enable us to get out because it won't be our country - as much - after the elections. For the first time in eons, the Iraqis will feel (or should feel) that they have a little ownership in their country. We must be liberators not occupiers, and since any American southerner/red-stater knows that responsibility goes with liberty, we must relinquish responsibilty for Iraq in proportion to our divestment of it. Elections = divestment.
No need for this extension. Bush and Rummy both say we have plenty of troops, must be a mistake somewhere.
Yes. I believe that many of the insurgents are from outside Iraq adding to the radical element within. The longer we are there, however, the harder it is to get out. We are a magnet for all the radical Muslims in the region and it seems as though we have gotten into an impossible situation - we lose if we leave and we lose if we stay. I thought this war had that potential even before it started - but, I would love to be proven wrong about that.
thank you for the reasoned and civil discussion.
You are welcome. I feel about the same as you on this subject - there are too many posting here who can't seem to handle opinions contrary to their own and exhibit the immaturity of personally attacking those who express that which they don't like or can't understand.
"And it wasn't people in tin-foil hats who brought to light that the Iraqi regime was paying money to people engaged in terrorist acts (suicide bombers)."
You mean to families of anti-Israeli suicide bombers? If Israel had a problem with that, Israel should have dealt with it. Why was it our mission to start a war in behalf of Israel?
"The world changed on 9/11. The limits on what we realistically thought terrorists might do were obliterated. The terrorists hoped to kill 20,000 people, and we were lucky it didn't happen because the Twin Towers weren't full at the time of the attack. Do you really think they wouldn't have detonated a nuclear device if they could have got their hands on one? Who in the Mideast "might" have had or be developing nuclear weapons? If the terrorists could have got a suitcase full of Anthrax, do you think for one second they would not have used it? Who in the Middle East had or was developing substances like that?"
No one I or anyone else knows of. You sound like you still think Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks, was developing nuclear and biological weapons, etc. Even the administration has abandoned those arguments.
"the administration did not do this because they thought it would help them politically."
You are being very generous.
Why, thank you.
I think.
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