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."
The division here on FR is a reflection of the lack of leadership in DC. Just as the election was.
war is politics by other means?
"Sorry to be the one to break the news."
No need for apology. Everything I've read at least hints at it. I really am, however, looking for a positive rationale for Robert Gates as Secretary Of Defense, as far as this war in Iraq. Thus far, I've only seen domestic politics put forth as a possible benefit.
FR has become infested with frauds; they claim to be "CONSERVATIVES", but they don't know the meaning of that word. They claim to LOVE America, but they spit upon all that makes her great and good. They claim to support the troops, but as you said, they support the cut and run cowards and our enemies abroad.
Iraq is NOT the Vietnam War and nobody should want to make it one!
Thank you, Kristinn.
I agree with you totally.
One down...so many more to go.
You may be right. Your point about the "western mentality" is well taken. But I will be the first to admit it-the fact that we have not gone postal on them and haven't just taken their oil shows just how different we are. I know they view it as weakness. But I know that the Western Man, with moral righteousness behind him, is a force to be reckoned with. That morality is what makes the Western Man great. It does come with a price, and to stress the point as an example, the Nazis did not have moral righteousness behind them, and most of them knew it. It was a good thing for the rest of us.
Do you think the US had a civil war at the end of the Revolutionary War? Did you know the American population was reduced by approximately one third, as times very violently before our Founding Fathers could finally put together our government? What do you know about the War of 1812?
When it comes to Iraq I am firmly on the side of John Howard, our long serving PM. History will show that in 2003, the US and its friends went to war to rid the world of the most ruthless tyrant since Adolph Hitler. This same ruthless tyrant had been using weapons of mass destruction on his own people. History will show that those on the left and some to the centre and right, lacked the morality to support this just and noble cause.
bttt
"war is politics by other means?"
Are you meaning to say that the domestic media harangue has hampered Donald Rumsfeld, and Robert Gates will be more effective in prosecuting the war in Iraq to a victorious conclusion as a result?
The first sane post in this thread. Thanks.
Swift, vicious, and utter destruction would have ended this experiment in 'democratization' long ago. But, we're not interested in a 'quick' solution. Lots mo dollars git spent if'n you carries it out a while.
Look, we went there to bust *ss for the twin-towers, pentagon, and flight 93. Now, we're concerned about purple thumbs, elections--what's next, handicap parking spots for camels sporting a wheelchair sticker? You can lead an arab to democracy, but you can't make him vote.
Name the Americans and where they were killed. For you can not. I am not here to prove a negative. Hezbullah killed 241 Americans on October 23rd, 1983 in Beirut. This is the same Shiite Iranian/Syrian backed Hezbullah that the "stay the course" crowd is sucking up to, and is in power in the Iraqi government. Yay! Support the troops in Iraq to protect the killers of 241 US marines, Army, and Navy personnel. Sickening.
It does depend on how one defines "victory", not an inconsequential point.
I know that the word "proportionality" is a hot button word, and I considered leaving it out, but...surely you can agree, that as a rhetorical device in helping to define the opposite ends of a spectrum, that it IS valid?
Surely you and I can agree that a crazed mulim extremist who shoots one lone American on a street corner would not be valid grounds for dropping a nuclear weapon on Damascus and killing a million people?
That was how I was primarily using the word.
but the Iranians are the guys who marched 10 year olds into mine-fields to clear the way. that experience is supposedly part of Ahmadinejab's radicalization.I don't believe that the possibility of Iraq gassing their troops would have deterred them anymore than inflicting thousands of civilian casualties deters Shi'a or sunni in Iraq now. Sooner or later, mainly sooner, Hussein had to be rehabilitated or removed to have a counter-weight to the rise of Iran.
--other oil producers, especially Iran and Venezuela, are still talking about switching to the Euro, so it could well happen anyway--
The U.S. gets 80% of Venezuela's oil exports. If Hugo wants to commit political / economic suicide, he can be my guest.
"What do you know about the War of 1812?"
What's your point?
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