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 have tied down the greatest military power in the world to the extent it is virtually a war of attrition and one which changed the government in the most powerful country in the world.--
Not on their own. Iran and Syria haven't just been innocent bystanders. Like it or not, Iraq is a PROXY WAR with Iran and Syria.
Spot on!
We didn't hold the trials for the Nazis, here, they were held in GERMANY!
Thank you for the post....
You have my utmost respect for all that you have done to help the troops...and actually "DO" things..and not just post complaints all of the time.
Again, I disagree with you. You don't need to be polite and say "please" to me, I accept your points as you make them.
We are not fighting in Iraq simply to keep the Islamofacists off of our backs in the USA. That is merely one positive aspect of it. We ARE fighting over there to try to give a nascent democracy and capitalist society a chance to take root.
People can agree or disagree on whether it will work, whether we are doing it correctly and so on, I am on the fence myself. But we ARE trying, and I believe the benefits of trying to plant a seed to bring the Middle East out of the Middle Ages outweigh the benefits of just bombing the place into oblivion and trying to make them "Fear us more than they hate us".
I just happen to think there is a time and place for everything, and in my opinion, it is not yet the time to bomb the Middle East into rubble.
And it is not the time to disengage and let them go back to uniterrupted stewing in their own juices as they were prior to 9/11.
If the Democratic Senate confirms him, they have to work with him. Rumsfeld would have no such implied contract.
BTTT
Glad you followed some of the logic anyway.
Today's "carpet bombing" does hit its targets. Ask the Taliban. The BUFFs did close air support by dropping a load along their trench lines. Overlapping craters. Heck we could, at least on a good day, do that in '69, although not quite as well.
Area targets call for area bombing. Single targets, like old what's his name
And yes, the same thing IS true of RECONSTRUCTION...even with all its flaws.
Your point about Japan is correct. It was not racism, as SOME charge that made us drop the bomb...it was Bougainville, Peleliu, Saipan, Iwo Jima and Okinawa that did that, and correctly so.
Thanks very much for your polite and reasonable debate on this. It is a difficult issue for people to discuss rationally. It is pretty emotional for all of us.
I beg to differ. Each time we hear of another suicide bomber taking out 30, 40 or 50 iraqis, how often is it outside the recruting office for their Military or Police? And still, they keep signing up with the constant threat of death from terrorists who would enslave them all.
They have not reached the point to stand on their own just yet, but they keep coming.
Stop holding back and LET THEM HAVE IT.
The pantywaists who are afraid to stand up for what they know is right... Or are afraid to hold onto what they believed... Deserve to get the snot shaken out of them and have thier wings clipped big time.
THIS Freeper doesn't post much. But this freeper NEVER backs down from he knows is right. Never. We did the right thing, we're doing the right, and we better keep on keeping on. We're the last in the world to advance the cause of desposing tyrants and spreading liberty. NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER SURRENDER (my apologies to Galaxy Quest).
Thank you Kristinn, I have two cousins that served in Iraq. And right now three of my nephews are serving, two in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. They would appreciate what you have written as well.
Must have struck a nerve...;^)
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CUT and RUN, Vietnam =
Pictures of a vietnamese Re-Education Camp
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1308949/posts
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"Technically, he resigned, but I'm guessing he was asked to resign. There's not a big difference."
Name others that have been asked to resign, that continued to work in the same position.
"He's a very gracious professional guy, loyal to this country and his duty, and would never have stormed out in a huff in any event."
I agree
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