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It Didn’t Work (Buckley declares Iraq a failure)
National Review Online ^ | 02/24/06 | William F Buckley Jr

Posted on 02/24/2006 7:12:07 PM PST by CometBaby

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To: Revolting cat!
...army would succeed in training...

The United States Army is not the Department of Education. We dominate in ways that the Romans couldn't even imagine and yet idiots in this country continue to chant "failure".

If success is turning the Iraqis into Americans, then by all means, lets annex Iraq.

If success is reducing the state sponsorship of terrorism, then we have aced our first test, and need only to school Iran and Syria to get an A+ for the semester.

The fastest way out of Iraq is through Tehran and Damascus.

101 posted on 02/24/2006 8:44:22 PM PST by Theophilus (Abortion = Child Sacrifice)
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To: hosepipe

I think that will be the ultimate result, but currently there are two obstacles: 1) our "ally" Turkey objects strenuously to the idea of a sovereign Kurdistan, as it would likely result in the loss of territory currently controlled by Turkey, and 2) Southern Iraq would be absorbed into a greater Persia, which is currently controlled by a madman.


102 posted on 02/24/2006 8:46:04 PM PST by B Knotts
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To: Revolting cat!

In point of fact, we are winning. The insurgency led by AQ does not represent a military threat to the Iraqi government. They have been foiled in every attempt to prevent the movement towards the formation of a democratic government. Over 8 million Iraqis voted in the latest election. The violence has been exaggerated and doesn't represent what is going on as a whole in a nation of over 25 million people. The naysayers have been predicting dire consequences before we ever entered Iraq and they have been wrong every time. Buckley is buying the MSM version of events.


103 posted on 02/24/2006 8:46:44 PM PST by kabar
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To: B Knotts
Also, he suggests that if we were willing to take the kind of measures we did after WWII, we could still make it work.

I thought he was implying we need to take some of the measures we used DURING WWII to make it work.
104 posted on 02/24/2006 8:48:02 PM PST by BubbaTheRocketScientist
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To: kabar

There has certainly been progress; I guess the question is more a political one: is there much of a future for a multiparty ruling coalition in Iraq? Or will the Shiites simply dominate the Sunnis? I think that is what WFB is reacting to.


105 posted on 02/24/2006 8:49:47 PM PST by B Knotts
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To: BubbaTheRocketScientist

That too.


106 posted on 02/24/2006 8:50:13 PM PST by B Knotts
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To: All
As far as I can tell. We just won. In desperation, Al-Qaeda tried to ignite civil war with something so outrageous that it’ll back-fire in the long run, and look: No civil war even in the sort run.. CNN etc.. are drumming it on, but the fledgling Iraqi Security Forces stopped it. Now as time passes, and the concept of Al-Qaeda reduced to blowing up 1200 year old mosques sinks in, we win.

This was not Al-Qaeda's Tet, it was their Battle of the Bulge. Now they've got nothing left, not even moral credibility among Islamists.

107 posted on 02/24/2006 8:52:48 PM PST by elfman2
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To: SteveMcKing
Good evening.
"If FReepers seriously start questioning William F. Buckley with such infantile criticism as "HE'S OLD", then I will say goodbye to this liberal piece of crap website."

Why? We constantly see great minds and good people lose their cutting edge because of age, so we shouldn't be surprised.

Do you really think the FreeRepublic is a liberal piece of crap website?

Michael Frazier
108 posted on 02/24/2006 8:53:01 PM PST by brazzaville (no surrender no retreat, well, maybe retreat's ok)
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To: jennyp

"First you have the winter and then you have Spring"...C. Gardner.


109 posted on 02/24/2006 8:53:41 PM PST by DCPatriot ("It aint what you don't know that kills you. It's what you know that aint so" Theodore Sturgeon)
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To: LK44-40
Iraq isn't Vietnam. There are no organized military units fighting us or the Iraqi government. AQ is largely composed of foreigners and very small in numbers. The insurgents are disaffected Baathists and some other Sunni Arabs. They were the ones oppressing the Sh'ia and Kurds who are the majority. The Baathists must recognize that they are no longer in charge and be part of the solution rather than the problem. Eventually, they will be destroyed if they continue to resist.

The division between the Sh'ia and Sunni is exaggerated and not as stark as some portray. They intermarry and Sunnis are part of the government. The Kurds are Sunnis.

110 posted on 02/24/2006 8:55:46 PM PST by kabar
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To: BubbaTheRocketScientist
The media hasn't changed much since those days.

I think they have. They've gotten much worse.
111 posted on 02/24/2006 8:56:42 PM PST by Liberty Valance (Keep a simple manner for a happy life :o)
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To: B Knotts
I think that [dividing Iraq into three parts] will be the ultimate result, but currently there are two obstacles: 1) our "ally" Turkey objects strenuously to the idea of a sovereign Kurdistan, as it would likely result in the loss of territory currently controlled by Turkey, and 2) Southern Iraq would be absorbed into a greater Persia, which is currently controlled by a madman.

That is the way I see it, too. And that is a ~dismal~ prospect.

If we do not have the stomach for the long go (and I don't think we do) the wreckage is going to be enormous. The things you said plus the general chaos in the M.E., the emboldening of Islamo facisits everywhere, and, at home, a bloodletting among conservatives and devastation at the polls. I am only hanging in with the war because the pain of a backdown there will be calamitous.

112 posted on 02/24/2006 8:56:49 PM PST by LK44-40
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To: LK44-40

I agree. Under the right conditions, it might work out for the best, but currently, we just can't let it happen, if we can in any way prevent it.

But it might not be up to us.


113 posted on 02/24/2006 8:59:06 PM PST by B Knotts
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To: Theophilus

Amen brother! Only the ignorant claim failure. I have read the successes and failures throughout history. I look around at my fellow countrymen. They don't know what failure is. The final chapter hasn't been written yet in this fight! Everyone knows where the enemy is. Where the beast lays. We haven't confront the real enemy yet. For almost 30 years they have been fighting us. They took over our embassy, killed our Marines in Beirut, attempted to disrupt oil shipments in the Gulf in the 80's and are directly supporting attacks against our troops as we speak. I'm not stupid I know who the enemy is. Maybe this government should come to grips and realize it's under attack and the threat is serious. My entire life I have watched the mullahs in Iran do what they please against our people and never have they been fully confronted. Now is the time. Because if we don't in the end the cost will be greater than what we have suffered so to date! Your right the fastest way of of Iraq is through Tehran....... Why does our government continue to jerk around with these folks?


114 posted on 02/24/2006 9:01:18 PM PST by rip033 (.)
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To: B Knotts

2) Southern Iraq would be absorbed into a greater Persia, which is currently controlled by a madman.

The Sh'ia Iraqis are Arabs and have a different culture, language, and history from the Persians. Any "absorption" would have to done by force and that won't happen.

115 posted on 02/24/2006 9:02:10 PM PST by kabar
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To: Bahbah

Maybe I'm wrong, but sometime about ten years ago a dear friend of WFB got sick and died and somehow it came out that he was "gay" and Buckley bit his lip and eulogized him all the same and somewhere in that slow, staccato, stuttering march of arch and curve that makes up the unmistakable voice of one who speaks for God himself before the world, an epiphany worked its worming way under the depths of an otherwise inpenetrable palisade alongside the man who thought he trod on gilded walk; a crack appeared, and the carefully crafted path gave way.


116 posted on 02/24/2006 9:02:32 PM PST by Old Professer (Fix the problem, not the blame!)
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To: CometBaby

3 years after the war is JUST A BIT TOO EARLY to be making the "we lost" call, don't ya think Mr. Buckley?


117 posted on 02/24/2006 9:05:21 PM PST by joseph20
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To: kabar
The Sh'ia Iraqis are Arabs and have a different culture, language, and history from the Persians.

That's true, but the Iranians would surely like to get control of the Shi'ite holy sites in Iraq.

Given a chance, I think they'll try to take them.

118 posted on 02/24/2006 9:05:48 PM PST by B Knotts
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To: kabar
Perhaps you have been there...you sound well-acquainted with the situation on the ground.

My gloomy assessment is that we are close to losing on the home front, just as we lost Viet Nam at home while Gen. Giap was in despair over the military hopenlessness of his situation.

However good the situation is on the ground, American public opinion is at the point where very little alarming news is needed to tip it against the war, IMO.

119 posted on 02/24/2006 9:06:36 PM PST by LK44-40
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To: Siena Dreaming
Didn't Mr. Buckley almost get in a fistfight with someone on TV one time?

I would have liked to have seen that!

http://kronykronicle.com/1968/BV4.mpg

120 posted on 02/24/2006 9:07:27 PM PST by cynwoody
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