A Message to All the Cut and Run Freepers Currently Polluting Free Republic

Friday, November 24, 2006 | Kristinn

[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."

[MaineVoter2002]

I agree. I also voted all R's

[gardencatz]

Name one good thing it has done for us to have him gone -- and I mean for US, not for freedom or democracy or the Iraqi people or any of that BS. Iraq won't be free or a democracy anyway, what it needs is a new dictator and a return to the stability of earlier.

1) Saddam is no longer sending large checks to suicide bombers' families.

2) Salman Pak has been shut down

3) He's no longer harboring Zarqawi

4) He won't be able to reconstitute his nuke or chem/bio weapons programs and pass them on to a terrorist who could use them against us.

5) He's no longer undermining our efforts to inspect his country by making deals under the table with other countries on the security council

Cindie

[gidget7]

Great post! I for one do not want my country becoming a place where there are suicide bombers on every street corner, where kids have to worry when they board the buses for school, whether they will get bombed. Israel has been dealing with this kind of thing for longer than anyone cares to say, and if we don't stop these terrorists over there, they will be here!

That's the bottom line for me. I thank the troops every day, and pray for the safety of each and every one of them.

[Soul Seeker]

kristinn, my concern is that the admin is preparing to fold up.

There was a time I was confident he would not, there was security in that. Recent events such as Rummy being sacked, Gates appointment, Baker's commission, certain statements by the admin and his presser following the elections have made me pessimitic about Bush's committment.

Hell, I don't want to leave. And damn those that do. I don't care if they call themselves a Freeper or whatever worth they assign themselves. Americans that let Hitler build into a force that almost won were selfish, blind cowardly and stupid. People have quesioned decades later how they could be so dumb to ignore Churchill's warnings and toss him overboard. Well, they are getting a prime lesson today watching the world, descendents of those Americans, and even some Freepers repeat history they evidently skipped when it arose in class lessons.

The threat is real and it is going to much more painful to eliminate if left to the future. And most of the willfully blind here will still be around to experience the pain, unlike today when most of them are able to have happy safe lives absent the reality of a real war unless they turn on the news. Yes, war is SO difficult nowadays when only a few are really living and breathing it over in the desert sands while the most people have to do here is bellyache about it taking too long while chomping on a turkey leg and watching a soap or football game. Give me a break.

But, like I said, I worry about the admin's committment. And quite honestly these days I'm hanging my hopes on Leiberman, not the admin. As Leiberman now controls the slight Dem Majority and could conceivably prevent retreat if inclined.

But those hopes are held together by a string and I'm just going to have to wait and see what Bush and Leiberman do. If Either folds up the future will be hellish.

The troops, however, I have supreme confidence in. Having more sense then to allow time, inconvenience or the media to detract from realiy the war must be won.

[HighWheeler]

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is." - George W. Bush - Houston Chronicle April 9, 1999"



Bush already gave us his version of our exit strategy: "We win."

[wku man]

Are you going to answer his question? Name names.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[The Old Hoosier]

BTW, you asked for one good thing, which I gave you. If you've ever been to the paradise known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, you'd know just what I meant.

I've never been. But such a tiny thing, and with costs (a new, bigger occupation) that immediately mitigate any good it does -- it seens kind of like breaking the pipe to stop a drip.

[Cobra64]

And I know for a fact that you're not allowed on that thread.

Prove it sonny.

[Prokopton]

I just posted this on another thread:

"My feelings on this (Iraqis killing each other)is much like my feelings would be about Germans and Italians killing each other during WWII. Let them at it. Yes, innocent civilians will be killed, but this is a fact of all wars, international or civil. The worst possible position to be in is standing between belligerent parties yelling "peace". You get killed and accomplish nothing.
Reconstruction only works with a totally defeated enemy. This is not the case with Iraq. We consciously decided not to fight an all out war that would have brought Iraq to it's knees. Whether this was right or wrong is now a moot point. We can't stop the hatred and we can't stop the civil war. Our only strategy should be what is in the best interest of the United States, accepting the escalating violence as a given. I want to hear our "leaders" talk about this. It might be that we take sides with the Kurds and watch the carnage as spectators, only to insure that the aftermath is not a threat to the U.S.
We must become more hard nosed and abandon our wishful utopian ideas about "forcing" others to be peaceful, freedom loving, patriots. That our Country is blessed by such people is enough for me."

Now, if you think my views are "polluting" Free Republic, so be it. But I'm getting a little tired of those who seem to be more concerned about Iraqis than they do about the U.S. and our brave troops.
Iraqis are muslim and we are infidels. They will never be our allies i.e. people who could assist or aid the U.S. Whether in the future they will ever become civilized, whether they will ever believe in religious freedom, the rights of the individual, or even the rights of women, I don't know. These things are, frankly, not a big concern of mine. I'm concerned with my family and my Country. I believe it is within our capabilities to prevent Iraq, in the future, from gaining weapons of mass destruction or from becoming a training grounds for terrorists. These past capabilities were destroyed by our forces in short order and with a minimal loss of life. We can do it again if needs be. These are the reasons we went to war, and they were good reasons. They are not the reason we are still in Iraq which has become a war of attrition with elusive and naive U.S. goals.
Our troops, who are given missions to complete, are not losing as they are successful in their missions. They have done all that could be asked from them as soldiers. It is wrong to ask from them that they quell deep seated hatred or that they civilize thugs. This should never be a measure of their success.
Call me cut and run if you like, I don't give a damn. But I do care about people who are espousing a policy that has done nothing, since our original invasion, but get U.S. troops killed for a utopian goal in the interest of foreigners not worthy of our soldiers sacrifices and not obtainable in any realistic sense of the word. These people are tearing my Country apart and getting my countrymen unnecessarily killed.

You, obviously, are an internationalist, Iraqis pain is your pain. Fine. I, and many other FReepers are nationalist. I feel the pain of my own countrymen, especially those who choose to defend me. Do you hear me? Defend me and the 300 million or so other citizens of this great Country, not foreign religious madmen.

The only thing I want to hear from our "leaders" is what their going to do for the good of the U.S. Everything else is "pollution".

[DrDeb]

THANK YOU for posting this much needed REALITY CHECK!

[BTW: I'm sure you've noted that the 'Nuke 'em all' arm-chair generals, troopers and Commanders-in-Chief are already well-represented on this thread . . . PATHETIC!]

[wku man]

It's not really that hard a concept to grasp, is it?

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[jveritas]

Amen.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

There is a NEED for change in strategy and definitive action. In war the more timid the approach the more casualties.

Our strategy from the beginning was to let the Iraqis handle their own security....with our help. It is based on a strategy recommended and implemented by the Englishman and soldier Lt.Col. T.E. Lawrence. He convinced the British to adopt his strategy (circa 1916) and which was brought to the big screen in the epic movie "Lawrence of Arabia".

As Rumsfeld said about two years ago..."it's going to be a long hard slog".

..watching the war in Iraq thru the lens of the MSM

They cannot defeat us militarily....but they can play with the psyche of our weak sisters and brothers safely ensconced in their Lazy Boys back home.

Our own casualties are, by historical standards, extremely low. But I do seem to sense a modification to our original strategy. Albeit unspoken. It's to let the Shia and Sunnis slaughter each other until exhaustion sets in. That may be the best approach.

As Margaret Thatcher once said..."this is no time to go wobbly".

This is especially true when we see all those fine young men and women voluntarily serving their country with great courage and distinction.

The least we can do is support them in their heroic effort from the safe confines of our Lazy Boys.

[fish hawk]

Don't despair Kristinn as I firmly believe that the large majority of us out here feel exactly the same as you on this subject. Count me in as one of the good guys. Aloha

[rfp1234]

--Name one good thing it has done for us to have him gone--

Among many other things, it prevented Iraq from tying its oil sales to the Euro rather than to the petrodollar (which, with other oil producers following suit, would have had a devastating effect on the US economy).

It also exposed the UN oil-for-food scam. It exposed the reality that UN resolutions are crap, and future conflicts will be resolbved only with appropriate coalitions.

It ended the sanctions (BTW, prior to 2003, many anti-war types were claiming that the sanctions had killed 500,000 Iraqi chldren).

It sent Uday and Qusay to their 144 virgins. It brought Chemical Ali and other henchmen to justice. It ended the Scud threat to Israel. It ended the blood money paid to Palestinian suicide bombers.

Finally, it appears that much evidence is being recovered that points to Saddam providing not only money, but also TRAINING to said suicide bombers. To date there are zillions of untranslated documents waiting to be revealed.

[jveritas]

Misquotation as usual.

[khnyny]

[I've seen no evidence of this at all. Regardless, a cut'n run poster would be ZOTted. Ergo, I don't see the purpose of this thread.]

Ditto.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

You done throwing your little tantrum?

You done thinking you and others are "The S--t" here on FR and everyone else are just trolls?

[H.Akston]

http://www.bmj.com:80/cgi/content/short/333/7573/831?etoc

You aint kidding