Posted on 04/27/2006 10:04:02 AM PDT by Jeff Head
If Gunner sees yer post, he's gonna call ya a tard!
Info bump & ping for the Canteen gals!
I mean heck, I didn't call him a Canteen Gal! Har.
LMAO!
Leni
100,000 is a good start, but just a start.
You are welcome. Progress is being made. A nation is being secured from tyranny and terrorism and the people themselves there are voting with their own actions...as well as the ballot.
The more of them who are so inclined, who have been indoctrinated with this ideology of hate and terror, to come against us in these places, the better. Lots of harvesting yet to do in that field...but it is an essential harvest and the more we do to draw them into these fly traps, again, the better.
In the mean time, we have two nations and other tens of millions liberated (or at least with a clear shot to be liberated) from that same terror and tyranny and that is a great bonus because it gives the real prospect that we will not have to go back there and do it again. As I say, that is a nice bonus and strategic plus in the overall fight to destroy the terrorists and their ideology.
Just in keeping a running tally of the insurgent deaths since the beginning of Iraqi Freedom, I put the number of guerilla/terrorists killed in Iraq at well over 20,000. (We had one sniper . . . ONE . . . in Fallujah who accounted for 100 kills). If you factor in "catpured," wounded, and "dissuaded/deserters," I think you are looking at total casualties/MIA/desertions at somewhere around 50,000, probably out of a total "committed" terrorist/insurgent force of 100,000 (and that includes virtually all the criminals from Saddam's jails and "imports" they could get from Iran and Syria)
No force in human history has survived this level of losses, which is why you have seen a dramatic decrease in the number, scale, and effectiveness of attacks.
The really good news is, as you say, a) we aren't having to fight them here, and b) we won't even have to fight these that we are now killing later in Iran or Syria!!!
Why don't you speculate?
I also believe there were tens of thousands of enemy KIAs in Afghanistan.
Whatever the number, the more who are so inclined to come to that party, to that fly trap, the better.
As a character in the LOTR trilogy said, "Let them come."
I certainly did not include the Afghan numbers, and those alone are in the many thousands.
Second, even if militarily we could, politically it isn't going to happen. Americans are not finished with the War on Terror, but I think they need a period of consolidation---to see that the sacrifice in Iraq was worth it, and this will come as some of the troops come home and there is no civil war, or as the Afghan and Iraqi governments continue to build.
Right now, I don't think ANYONE could "sell" a new offensive against either Syria or Iran to the general public. You can complain about it all you want, but it's reality. Probably, it will take another attack before we take the next step and clean out two or three more cesspools.
It would be great if we were wise enough to see the handwriting on the wall (and what happened on 911 was the essences of that hadnwriting written in large script) and mobilize and defeat those who wish us ill...but in all likelihood, you are right, it will take another, potentially worse attack, to move us there.
In the mean time, the geo-political situation with China and Russia courting Iran, with North Korea supplying Iran with long range missiles (too mauch of this is far too close to:
scenario for my liking), with China courting Venezuela and Cuba (and about every other nation who will listen in our own hemisphere), with China planning to drill for oil 45 miles off our coasts, etc., etc. continues to line up against us.
I think there are a lot of different levels of "mobilization." It wouldn't do us any good right now to have a draft or to ration. Indeed, a good argument can be made that by NOT engaging in a lot of full-scale mobilization, our economy is making it possible to substantially defray the costs of the war far more than is appreciated. If we think the debt is big now, imagine what it would be if the government had to borrow more and tax even less.
We shall see. In general I am supportive of the President's actions in taking the fight to the Islamic radicals. But he is not only slow, but reluctant in our response to China, and to the sieve on our southern border. Not to mention his domestic spending and support of big government domestic programs.
As I Say, IMHO, in the mean time China is lining things up against us strategiacally and globally.
Very difficult to see clearly enough into the future to warrant huge changes now in order to forestall or avoid even larger impact later. Particularly with the very split electorate we have.
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