Posted on 11/24/2006 6:46:08 PM PST by kristinn
I'm reading an astonishing number of comments on Free Republic these days by posters who have joined the ranks of the anti-American left in calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Some claim to have military experience, some claim to be patriotic Americans and some claim to be smarter than the rest.
These posters are joining the Murtha-Rangel-McDermott treason caucus. Oh, they say they love the troops, but their decision to abandon them in the field speaks otherwise.
Three years ago, the United States led an international coalition to rid the world of one of the worst regimes on the planet. Saddam Hussein was an international terrorist: He financed terrorism, he trained terrorists and he harbored terrorists. He waged war on Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Israel. He waged war on the people of Iraq, including genocidal campaigns against the Kurds in the north and the marsh Arabs in the south.
Saddam successfully subverted the Oil-for-Food program and was wearing down support for continuing the sanctions keeping him in check.
He had numerous contacts with al Qaeda over the years. He tried to assassinate a former U.S. president. He maintained research capabilities to implement nuclear, chemical and biological weapons as soon as the sanctions were lifted. There is evidence that some of these programs would have been operational within a year even with the sanctions in place.
The decision to remove Saddam and his regime as part of the Global War on Terror was correct.
Three-and-a-half years after Iraq and the world were liberated from Saddam and his terrorist regime, there are those on Free Republic who are clamoring to give up, surrender, cut and run, stab the troops in the back, betray the Iraqis, betray our allies in the GWOT, spit on the graves of our fallen heroes and join Cindy Sheehan, Medea Benjamin and Ramsey Clark in bringing about America's defeat in the GWOT.
It's only been three-and-a-half years--only six months since the freely elected government in Iraq was formed. In that time, what has been called a mini-Marshall Plan of construction and reconstruction has come to fruition. The Iraqis have held three national elections, they have held numerous local elections, fourteen out of eighteen Iraq provinces are relatively peaceful and stable.
Six months ago, when the Iraqi government was formed, the experts said the war would be taken to Baghdad because our enemies in the region could not abide the example of a free, democratic society in the Middle East. For once, the experts were right. The battle of Baghdad has been a prolonged Tet Offensive style operation of headline-grabbing attacks intended to sap the morale of Americans and Iraqis alike.
From what I've been reading on Free Republic lately, a lot of Freepers have fallen for the enemy's ploy and are howling like barking moonbats for our immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Some of that talk is couched in talk of 'we're fighting a PC war like Vietnam!' The soldiers I met in Iraq recently told Debra Argel Bastian to pass on a message to the Vietnam vets criticizing the war: With all due respect to your service, this is not Vietnam. It is not being fought like Vietnam. Please let us finish our mission.
But our enemy is playing the Vietnam ploy to great benefit. They know they can count on the American and world media to broadcast their propaganda. They work with leftist Americans to sabotage the war effort at home. They know these leftist Americans have allies in the Democratic party. They know they do not need a military victory--only political and psychological victories are needed to defeat America.
You guys are playing right in to their hands. Congratulations.
There are those who argue that murder and dictatorship is the mindset of the Middle East and that will not be changed by our actions. Funny how those who smugly denigrate the Arab peoples' capacity for freedom forget the wholesale slaughter of millions of Westerners by Westerners at the hands of Western dictatorships just a few generations past.
I hear complaints that the Iraqis aren't standing up. Yet, to use one common example, when police recruits are slaughtered in bombings, Iraqis line up the next day at the same recruiting center. The insurgency is small in number, but they are able to do enough damage on a daily basis to stretch out the time it will take to secure the whole of Iraq.
At this time of our testing, the American people are starting to go wobbly. Sadly, many Freepers are too. Our troops and their Commander-in-Chief are not, thank God. It's only been three-and-a-half years. The progress made has been phenomonal. Throw in the towel now, and you'll just have the terrorists follow us home. Everyone knows that, including you. I'm not willing to pay that price, not now, not ever, but you are.
Let me close by offering similar sentiments recently offered by two men 'in the know' on the situation in Iraq who are not giving up. First, Kurdish Regional Government Prime Minister Barzani: "When I was in the United States recently and read the negative news in the Washington Post, New York Times and in the network TV broadcasts, I even wondered if things had gotten so bad since I had left that I shouldn't return."
Next, Gen. Abizaid: "When I come to Washington, I feel despair. When I'm in Iraq with my commanders, when I talk to our soldiers, when I talk to the Iraqi leadership, they are not despairing."
Do you have a link for your "military statement"?
Contrary to recent media reporting that four mosques were burned in Hurriya, an Iraqi Army patrol investigating the area found only one mosque had been burned in the neighborhood....The patrol was also unable to confirm media reports that six Sunni civilians were allegedly dragged out of Friday prayers and burned to death. Neither Baghdad police nor Coalition forces have reports of any such incident.
Okay the following is from one of our enemy's propaganda sites. Could this be the six that was suppose to be burned to death in that unconfirmed report?
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m28552
Names of six Iranian Revolutionary Guard agents killed in Baghdad’s "Madinat as-Sadr" car bombings on Thursday.
Names of six Iranian Revolutionary Guard agents killed in Baghdad "Madinat as-Sadr" car bombings on Thursday published.
In a dispatch posted at 1:42pm Makkah time Saturday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that on Saturday the Iranian embassy in Baghdad received the bodies of six Iranian members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who were secretly working in Iraq with the Shi'i sectarian militias and were killed in the car bombings of Jaysh al-Mahdi gunmen in the Madinat Saddam area on Thursday night. The Baghdad area of Madinat Saddam was nicknamed "Madinat as-Sadr" after the US occupation of Iraq in 2003.
The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported that the six bodies of the Iranian agents were received by Mujtabi Sari Nida, an employee of the Iranian embassy, from al-Kindi Hospital where they had been taken initially after the Resistance attack.
The Iranian regime claimed that the six Revolutionary Guards were present among the Jaysh al-Mahdi gunmen just as "ordinary citizens" on "pilgrimage" to the Shi'i al-Kazimiyah mosque.
The Iranian agents were killed in a part of Baghdad some 30km from the al-Kazimiyah mosque, the correspondent pointed out, noting that the area was, however, a stronghold for the Jaysh al-Mahdi and Badr Brigade Shi'i sectarian militias which receive support from Iran and the United States.
The following are the names of the six Iranian "Revolutionary Guards" killed in the Thursday car bomb attacks:
'Ali Shamkhani, killed by bleeding in the brain; Baqir Dhu al-Qadr Rida, killed by severe wounds to the chest and back; Muhammad Husayni, burned to death; Ramadan Fayruzandah, died of a crushed skull and burns; Qasim Taskhiri Rida Agha (passport NO. 01459872 from Karmanshahr, Iran) had his leg blown off and suffered a wound to the neck; 'Ali Farhad Salmani, died of a severe lateral cut on his chest and from having both legs blown off.
The Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent reported an informed source as saying that 30 commanders of the Jaysh al-Mahdi militia were killed in the Thursday attacks, among them Husayn Fattumah, who carried the name of his mother because he was a marked man after abducting three Sunni girls from a Qur’an memorization school on Palestine Street.
The regional hegemonic regime in Iran is seeking to secure its hold in Iraq by using Shi'i sectarian leaders and organizations in order to try to step into the shoes of the American occupation authorities whose grip on the country has been weakened by three years of increasingly severe Resistance attacks. To forestall Iran’s attempt to replace America as colonial power in Iraq, the Iraqi Resistance continues its offensive against pro-Iranian as well as US and pro-US groups and facilities.
Whiteguy is a moron, whatever party he hangs his hat in.
Excellent post Kristinn.
Now you are just being argumentative. Both (WWII and beginning of the GWII) was +85% of the population agreed with the war at the beginning of the war.
You are still ignoring the point. The American people want to see progress in everything we do. Iraq was at a stand still the clock timer is now up. We can not extend the time clock without it back firing in our faces. We can not reset the clock without the American people realizing their life or way of life is in serious jeopardy.
I am not saying I ‘want’ it I am saying we must have a bloody face to continue this war. We lost the support and the only way to get it back is if the American citizens get a bloody face.
We should have learned our lesson in Vietnam and Korea to never again fight a war with our hands tied.
"The American people want to see progress in everything we do. Iraq was at a stand still the clock timer is now up. We can not extend the time clock without it back firing in our faces. We can not reset the clock without the American people realizing their life or way of life is in serious jeopardy."
Did you know that in one year in Baghdad alone...500 schools were rebuilt?
That we have rebuilt nearly the entire infrastructure of the country from the ground up? This includes power generation...sanitation and water?
Did you know that we helped a farming community within sight of Baghdad finally get water to the sinks in their houses after waiting 33 YEARS for Saddam to do it?
Did you know that an Artillery Battalion commander and his troops helped rebuild a privately run school for children with Downs Syndrome and then with the help of the Kansas City Down Syndrome Society Chapter started a constant supply of books and clothing to that same school?
Of course you didn't know these things. That's because the DBM chooses to focus on the very small part of what's going on over there and totally ignore the larger picture.
If the American population knew a tenth of the good we're doing over there...you're whole "America wants to see progress" meme would get tossed out the window.
Exactly.
Kurdistan does not count because that is a region of Turkey and Iraq (and a little Iran), not a nation. In any case, the Kurds are largely secularized so they do not count.
Turkey has had three Constitutions in the past eighty years - not exactly stability. It is also a homogeneous Suni population without a significant Shite population. Finally, Turkey does have ethnic strife between Kurds and Turks, which a free and Democratic Iraq could possibly worsen. The Kurd-majority southern Turkey may want to secede and form their own ethnic state. This is a huge problem in Turkey.
And realize that as crummy as Turkey may be, it is by far the most successful of all Muslim democracies. The best you can aspire to. Iraq has none of these advantages. It has a mixed Shiite and Suni population with an ethnic minority of secularized Kurds. To expect Iraq to do as "well: as Turkey is foolish.
I just get so sick and damn tired of these people that keep bleating like sheep about "progress" when they never stop to think the progress that is happening is being purposely kept from them to further an agenda.
"To expect Iraq to do as "well: as Turkey is foolish."
To assume that Iraq will not do as well is moronic on your part.
The question is itself fallacious. If Osama wants to send someone over here, it's not like he's going to say, "Ooh, can't do it, we need more guys in Iraq." They're not that stupid, they can do multiple things at once. And many of them, willing to go to Iraq to fight for some cash and their cause, probably wouldn't want to come all the way over here. Most of the terrorist insurgents fighting there would never fit in here, they wouldn't be effective terror-cell members.
Also, many of the insurgents may not have had any motivation to go out and get guns in the first place if we hadn't entered the picture there.
But most important to the death of that argument is that we aren't draining them over there. They're draining us. Our military now says that the bad guys have made their Iraq insurgency into a self-sustaining criminal enterprise through counterfeiting, drug-dealing, and kidnapping. We have to keep tapping the taxpayers.
How can people who have been part of this forum since '98 be completely ignorant of what's going on in Iraq?
I am absolutely stunned that so many rely on the leftist MSM for all their information, and I have no idea why you're not embarrassed to admit that you know nothing on a public forum such as this one, where there are so many well informed people.
Just amazing......
From what I have read and heard from ACCURATE sources, that is an apt description of what has really gone on there.
I have a hard time arguing with that, j.... :)
I second.
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