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."
Um...a) I'm a girl and b) I don't care enough about you to waste my time trying to find which day you were told to stay off the Dose.
You would be correct; I have not seen it. I did see a comment recently and had to educate the guy as to the consequences of U.S. military failure. It's sad to observe folks supporting defeat and not realizing that we will be fighting terrorism on our own streets here at home if we fail.
If that doesn't have the stench of McNamara's Vietnam, I don't know what does.
To trust in the American Soldier to be able to do his job without his hands being tied does NOT mean I am a troll.
"A lot of us feel like we have our hands tied behind our back," says Cpl. Peter Mattice, of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment."
This is a recipe for losing. God bless our soldiers who are doing their best to win despite the obsticles put up by DC
What I'd like to know is if we have crossed a line where Americans are no longer able to fight a protracted war.
Maybe Osama was right. Perhaps we are too soft and will give up if the fight is too bloody.
I have come to believe that a Republican president cannot lead us into war because the Democrats and their media friends will try every treasonous trick in the book to see that we do not win lest Republicans prove to be effective at defending the country.
Perhaps a Democrat can lead us successfully into war if only because the Left will not try everything to destroy him/her however I don't trust any Democrat (except maybe Zell Miller) to fight a war without caving to political correctness and expediency. If they had the will to fight, they wouldn't be leading the Democrat Party.
I say, in jest, that the Democrats' response to terrorism would be to offer them Alabama, Mississippi and Utah as a gesture of peace. After all, as Charlie Rangel points out, Democrats have no use for them. The Democrat answer to conflict is always capitulation in return for empty promises - that is, unless they are fighting Republicans.
So, we may be seeing the end of our Republic - one that cannot fight for itself with a Republican in charge and one that will not fight for itself with a Democrat in charge.
Now I get it. You're a Kerry supporter.
Cheers.
I truly hope you aren't basing these comments off of the Gold Star Families' visit to Irbil. If so, then you have proven your complete unfamiliarity with the reality of Iraq.
Thanks. I have never read a post here on FR that clearly advocates that US troops should pull out of Iraq immediately, and if such a post existed, it would have been pulled by the Mods anyway.
This "cut-and-run FReepers" crap is nothing but a big fat strawman by the GOP diehards, just like "conservatives stayed home" was a strawman for the Republicans getting PWN3D on Nov. 7th.
I treat a tantrum from an "adult" the same way I treat a tantrum from a child.
That is NOT a cut and run stance. What you said is not only supportive of a victory against the enemy in Iraq but also very supportive of our troops.
I refuse to support cut-and-run.
I refuse to be a Murtha.
I understand it. I have written about the true nature of the struggle we're in numerous times in this forum.
But I've come to the conclusion that there is nothing more we can do to achieve "victory" in Iraq, for what it's worth.
We toppled Saddam and got rid of his henchmen. We overthrew the Iraqi military. We made certain their were no weapons of mass destruction hidden in the country. We pacified at least _most_ of the country. We have worked to reconstruct infrastructure that was destroyed in the war. And we laid the foundations for "free" elections, and [in what seemed to be a triumphant moment at the time] gave the Iraqis a democratically-elected government.
So what was one of the first things they did?
They wrote into their constitution that _Islam_ would be the state religion.
When I saw that, I realized that our efforts were doomed to go down the drain.
The closest analogy I could make is permitting the Germans to freely re-elect the Nazis to power after their defeat in World War II.
We have not "brought democracy to Iraq". If we were to have done that, one of the bedrock principles of a budding democracy would have been "freedom of religion" - NOT Islam as the "official" religion.
If we were to have brought democracy to Iraq as we did to Japan following the Second World War, it is we, and not they, who would have written a constitution for them that adheres to the precepts of western democracy and freedom. We HAVE NOT (shouting intentional) done so, when we have permitted Islam to be retained as the state religion.
Years back, Arlo Guthrie said halfway into Alice's Restaurant, "This is a song about Alice, remember?"
And like ZULU writes above, "the war in Iraq is really a battle in a greater war against Islam".
Fair enough, Mr. ZULU is telling it like it is, and I'm in complete agreement with him. I sense that many readers of this posting share similar viewpoints.
But if the war in Iraq _is_ but a battle in a greater war with Islam, why in tarnation did we permit it to remain an intolerant Islamic state? This is "victory"? What might BE "victory"?
To paraphrase Arlo, "this is a war about Islam, remember"?
- John
"You got something against free people living in a civilized World without fear?"
I have something against nation building and the U.S. acting like the world's police.
And trying to blame the media for this fiasco is B.S. too.
Americans have access to almost instantaneous reporting on the war from many national and international news outlets. They're able to phone and e-mail their active duty sons and daughters about the conduct of the war.
It's not as if they're getting a handful of letters home every few months while they depend on Walter Cronkite to give them fifteen minutes of war news at 5:30.
Yes the liberal media still sucks, but Republicans need to stop whining and accept the fact their mismanagement of Iraq cost control of Congress.
"If people really support the troops, then express the need to blow the living ... er .. out of the Iranians; put the Chinese feet to the trade fires and generally give the terrorists the idea we are going to win. As it is now, these guys are pop-up targets. There is a NEED for change in strategy and definitive action. In war the more timid the approach the more casualties."
Under your assumption that more timid fighting equals more casualties, we must have been very timid during WWII since we lost over 100,000 and in this war we have been there nearly twice as long and have lost less than 3,000.
Or maybe you were talking about the Korean war where we were there between 2 and 3 years and lost 65,000 versus this war where we have been there between 3 and 4 years and have lost less than 3,000.
Do you accept status quo?
Is your definition of refusing to accept status quo a "cut and run?
If it is and many share your opinion, the GOP's in BIG trouble in 2008
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