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."
They want to control everything we read or listen to. I am so glad that I did not check into this site while we were gone. It would have ruined our visit.
While the FBI had tracked many of Atta's movements, because of the Wall they could not compare notes with the foreign intel branch. Additionally, the Czech's still stand by their story. Atta was there.
Don't you find it at least interesting that the Anthrax letters went out shortly after 9/11, there were reports that Atta had given a package to be mailed to another conspirator in NJ, that he and another fellow showed up in a Florida drugstore three days BEFORE 9/11 with red, chapped hands, which the druggest attributed to bleach, and the other fellow looking deathly ill? And finally, that the anthrax letters stopped after Oct 2001, never to resume? Why? Perhaps the mailers were dead? If it WAS them, and many signs point to them as the Anthrax mailers, one wonders were did they get it? Well only two nations had weaponized anthrax, besides us, Russia and Iraq.
But just go ahead, believe the 9/11 Commissions distortions and ommissions, and believe what the DBM tells you. You'll at least be in good company.
Link provided below. Read and decide.
Stockholm institute of the international peace researches mentions that the importation of Iraq of the weapons between 1973 and 2002 was distributed statistically as follows :
Ÿ 57 % from Russia and Soviet Union,
Ÿ 13 % from France,
Ÿ 12 % from China,
Ÿ 1 % from America,
Ÿ and less than 1 % of Britain .
Now imagine how this thread looks from a soldiers POV?
I hope my son doesn't see this......sigh....I can barely read it!
Wow. You're a piece of work. Arrogant and ignorant all rolled into one.
It is not 'cultural relativism' to believe that God has the power to change hearts, and that the Gospel has been spread in Iraq since our soldiers freed them from the bondage of Saddam Hussein (my very solid, evangelical, mission-oriented soldier son was there for 15 months).
You ARE denying the power of God. You are saying that HE has to agree with YOUR liberal politics.
Your god is too small.
Yes, that makes sense - so many have the date 1998! I found that odd. And mean? Yes, very nasty...
We sure have a lot of uneducated people on this thread. I hope you son does not see it either. It would ruin his day for sure.
Nope, but the Japanese did have an ordered and industrious society before WWII. And they certainly had the "Protestant Work Ethic" down pat, even if they weren't Christian. Japan also had a homogeneous society = no sectarian violence.
This cannot be said for Muslims, particularly Muslims in Iraq.
You sir are a hypocrite as well as an ------- [fill in the blank]
wow, this thread is STILL going.. and still about the "same" in many respects...
We sure have a lot of uneducated people on this thread. I hope you son does not see it either. It would ruin his day for sure.
You can say that again...I hope he's too busy tonight to browse FR or just comes to the Dose...he doesn't need to see this sh--!
Check my profile. You might learn something that will make you a more informed conservative.
Yes sir you did. And again...thank you for your support.
Now a country has to have had an 'ordered and industrious' society in order for the people in it to want to be free.
And once again, you put cultural limits on God's power. I'd call that 'cultural relativism.'
Great post Kristinn.
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What country are you living in? There's no WAY you are living here in the U.S. and prattling on like this.
Either that or you are the most CLUELESS person I've met when it comes to fighting an asymmetrical war.
You are clueless. And the only way I can become more 'informed' about conservatism by you is that in you, I see exactly what conservatism is NOT.
Mystery, I'm assuming he's been there and knows what is really going on.
If that's the case this thread won't depress him...it will just make him mad at how many clueless people there are back here in the states.
Fine.
Perhaps when Iraq is nuked twice, with millions of civilians dead, everyone disarmed, and the survivors terrified to look at an American, with 350 000 occupation troops and an American governor - maybe then something can be accomplished.
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