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."

[mabelkitty]

Yes.
Next?

[ZULU]

We CAN'T cut-and-run.

Osama Bin Laddin himself said Americnas were "soft". Muslims and Islamic society is a war obsessed society and cutting and running is out of the question. To loose face by leaving at this juncture would endanger what little respect tehy might have for us. At this point it isn't much. It was quite a bit after Shake and Awe.

Equally out of the question is let things remain as they are. We should use Iraq and Afghanistan as military bases to take out the Baathists in Syria and the Ayatollahs in Iran. Iraq will never be secure with the Ayatollahs running Iran and the Baathists in Syria.

THEN leave and let them deal with the mess THEY hace cerated in Syria and Iran.

[fight_truth_decay]

I posted this earlier today on the RFK film review and likened the comparison to present day "cut and run" scenario:

In a series of oral history interviews for the JFK Library, RFK said that "it was worthwhile for psychological, political reasons" to stay in Vietnam.

RFK said: "The President felt that he had a strong, overwhelming reason for being in Vietnam and that we should win the war in Vietnam....If you lost Vietnam, I think everybody was quite clear that the rest of Southeast Asia would fall." (32)

John Bartlow Martin point-blank asked RFK: "if the President was convinced that the United States had to stay in Vietnam." The one-word response was "Yes." (33)

[FreeReign]

If we can't fight it the way he and McArthur would we should leave.

This isn't WWII.

[Mr. Mojo]

If the "PC" people ran football....

Already happening. I've seen countless "roughing" penalties this year for play only slightly rougher than flag football.

WWPD?

Answer: Certainly not what we're now doing. Different era, different breed. The PC that has infected almost every aspect of American life would've undoubtedly repulsed him.

[Sam Ketcham]

Well said young scholar. Guess the opening vitriol stopped you from posting specifics. Pulling out doesn't mean not going back, except to a Democrat. As I see it, leave 9MM ammo and weapons on every street corner. Go back in one year and shoot the winner.

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.

[M. Thatcher]

is there only one acceptable path

Yes. Victory.

[vbmoneyspender]

Huh?

[Choose Ye This Day]

Or: "I'm as Republican as anyone..."

Or: "I'm a Reagan conservative, but..."

[Cobra64]

FReepers don't cut and run from terrorists and we don't cut and run from democrats.

Truer words were never spoken.

[trooprally]

Reasonable discussion yes, but bashing the President, reveling secret programs aimed at stopping the radicals, calling the President a lier in Congress, preaching in schools that America is the blame for 9/11, trying to stop the President cold in every move he makes, makes one unpatriotic and a liberal, radical Islam lover.

[Mr] T

[He Rides A White Horse]

Or: "I'm a Reagan conservative, but..."

Invoking the name of Reagan.....I see such posters jumping up and down shouting, "I'm from Dummycrat Underground!"

[vbmoneyspender]

Exhibit A

The war in Iraq is lost.

[WatchOutForSnakes]

That is my point as well. I have no problem with going to war in Iraq. The problem I have is the way it is being conducted right now. You put it well, our forces over there now are not much more than policeman walking a beat. They are sitting ducks for every wacko with a bomb. I think a lot of us who question the war effort right now don't want to cut and run. We don't want to reduce troop strength. What I want is MORE troops. I want to fight to win this thing.

Which leads me to another subject. Are we so low in forces that it would be a strain to send more troops to Iraq? Is 140,000 or so troops all we can muster? What happens if we were to get into a war with a really serious, well trained army with a million troops? We are to PC right now to do what it takes to destroy an enemy.

[domenad]

Okay I read it. Now I have to ask some questions.

The Iraqi people were celebrating the death of our soldiers in Falluja. They danced on the corpses and spread the bodies out like sick animals. When Israel was defending itself from Hezbollah rocket attacks, they were marching in the streets and denouncing Israel. The rejoiced when American soldiers were killed, and they still do.

The Iraqi people, in my opinion, are animals. They have chained themselves to the post they called Islam, they are slobbering a rabid saliva called Jihad. They have put themselves in this situation, a situation where they were given the world and pissed on it. American blood is too good to shed for them.

[ZULU]

What too many Americans fail to realize is that the war in IRaq is really a battle ina greater war against Islam. Upon the outcome of this greater war lies everything western civilization has so dearly achieved over many centuries.

[Sir Gawain]

Yes. Victory.

Fair enough. Define victory. You might be able to do it, but our spineless politicians most likely can't.

[crazyhorse691]

You do us proud. Guess we will keep you around.

[PhilDragoo]

Tehran and Damascus are inciting, supplying and directing much of the current unpleasantness.

Yet, astonishingly, Robert Gates has been catapulted to SecDef, having written in 2004 in a CFR report that we should engage Iran in negotiations.

I posit we should engage Iran with a rain of penetrating bunker busters of either conventional or nuclear type.

The existence of a nuclear Iran under the new Hitler, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will mark a significant downturn in the prospect for a good ending to the neoislamofascist challenge.

Or we could simply party like it's 1938, as James Baker and Jon Cary would have us do.

[gondramB]

>>The decision to remove Saddam and his regime as part of the Global War on Terror was correct.<<

This is two separate issues and we should keep them separate. The key point is that we are in Iraq, in a war, a difficult war and we need to stand together in finishing the job there- to leave Iraq as a stable friendly country, as democratic as possible with as many freedoms guaranteed as possible.

A time table for withdrawal just tells the terrorists to wait til we are gone. A sudden withdrawal just leads to slaughter of all there who have stood with us. There is no "peace with honor" by leaving early.

Constantly re-examining whether it was wise to go in the way we did at the time we did with the level of support we had and the legal justification we claimed is not productive. The historians will handle that and their verdict will largely depend on how we fulfill our obligations there.