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."
OTOH, Jefferson, who was a rather rabid francophile, was all FOR America being "entangled" with the French, on the side of the bloodiest of revolutionaries.
Times and technology change. The world is now a much "smaller" place, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans no longer act as protection for us, and being damned isolationists, in this day and age, is worse than being a pack of heads in the sand ostriches!
I don't know your age, but whatever it is, you appear to be completely oblivious to the realities and facts of the Cold War; not to mention the whys and wherefores of Nam.
"So what?" "So what" that Nam fell to the stinking Commies?
If after WW II America had just shrugged and said "so what?" to Communism taking over most of the world ( which we sort of did, sadly ), the good old US of A would NOT have lasted into the twenty-first century.
And if we don't stand up against the Islamonazis, there WILL be a world wide caliphate.
No flames from me. Thank you very much for your service. Those that lord a superior rank over the mere unwashed of us have been pinged, so that they may once again tell us how wrong we are.
I wonder what excuses they ill make, when he goes nuts, during the primary. LOL
I'd have to agree with you that the 'nation building' idea is asinine. I didn't think that was a reason we went into Iraq and it shouldn't be a reason to stay. I do think there are reasons to be there for now.
It is not about the fine men that gave everything in Vietnam. It is still a VERY sore point about those that were left behind. You may be too young to understand:
http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/pmsea/files.htm
McCain sold out as a POW in Viet Nam. Some forgave him. Others of us never will. It took many years to get a POW flag permitted. There are many friends and families that will never, ever forget. And the names are written in the books of life.
The Japanese had NO history of democratic processes and a religion based on the diety of the emperor. No, their present form of government is NOT exactly like ours, but it's their form and look at how long THAT took to get up and running.
Nobody, well, I'm not, saying that what finally emerges in Iraq will be a government that is a carbon copy of what we have in America. Why don't you climb down from that pedestal and look at what is actually posted to you, instead of seeing what you imagine you see?
Cyprus has had a very long history, predating Ataturk, of waring factions of Greeks and Turks. The Greeks don't have clean hands either and Greece has been a Commie/Socialist nation since WW II.
Christianity wasn't a religion of peace either, for most of its history. I can play that game too; should you choose to really get into this and I heartily suggest that you don't.
Would you like to talk about American riots, all begun by the native born, in the 20th century? Of course, a lot of the riots in the 19th century were caused by immigrants or first generation Americans of Irish ancestry.
How long has YOUR family been in America? Yes, that IS a serious question! Why am I asking that? Because I want to know just HOW you plan to "kick out" ALL Muslims living in America, when so many of them are blacks, whose ancestry goes back many centuries of living in the USA.
And I, for one, will NEVER forget nor forgive McCain.
If we pull out soon we can regroup let them NUKE us and we can return in full force as we should have in the first place.
Thank you for posting it.
I don't understand why someone as big and important and knowledgeable as you doesn't run for office yourself. You certainly have all the answers. However, if as you contend, what happens in Iraq has no bearing on the US what difference does it make whether we've "set up conditions" for a civil war. They'll only be killing themselves and probably in far fewer numbers than Saddam was killing them (heck, they're probably not as important as us anyway).
I think Saddam was a destablizing force in the Middle East which made him a destabilizing force in the world. The potential danger (we have found WMD's...do a search the evidence is there, he was actively seeking nukes, and meeting & making deals with Al Qaeda...jveritas has provided the evidence from Saddam's own papers as did the Clinton administration and the 911 commission)...that "gathering threat" made leaving someone as defiant as him in power a very bad idea. Even the Bremmer report said Iraq was growing more dangerous by the day. What's the point of sanctions, of a ceasefire based on Saddam meeting certain conditions if he never has to live up to them?
As we deal with other nations (Syria, Iran, NK) how could we (by "we" I mean the UN/world body since that's how these issues are dealt with at this point in history) possibly convince other rogue nations we expect them to live up to their agreement(s) if we aren't willing to enforce consequences for noncompliance...or worse, make backdoor deals with the very nations who are supposedly responsible for determining compliance? Might as well try to pound a nail with a wet noodle.
I don't think it's a valid arguement to say this allows Iran to become a dominate nuclear power since we know they were actively pursuing nukes while Saddam was still in power (as Saddam was also). Frankly, I highly doubt either would consider the other the first target. I also think our presence in Iraq has had a positive influence on the situations in Libya and Lebanon (the recent assiination not withstanding).
It's a little condescending to suggest I somehow think Iraq was involved in 911 since I said nothing like that (though were proof discovered tomorrow I certainly wouldn't be surprised). However, one investigative journalist (Laurie Mulroy, I believe) has done an incredibly thorough job of documenting Saddam's involvement in the OKC bombing. And then there's the indictment of Al Qaeda in federal court by the Clinton Administration, Saddam was named (and documentation given) as an accomplice. As far as I know we usually consider accomplices to be engaged in criminal behavior along with the indictee, even if that accomplice is a swell guy who passes out flowers to little old ladies. I would think someone as smart as you could make the connection between Saddam paying terrorists and it's impact on the rest of the world (that includes the US). It's an incentive to create more terror (do you honestly believe he WOULDN'T give a check to a suicide bomber's family if he suicided himself in the United States)?
But as I said, and I truly mean this, if you have all the right answers then you really should run for office. How could you not when you could save us from ourselves? Armchair quarterback is the easiest position in the game. You risk nothing and actually think you have greater insight and perspective than those actively engaged in playing the game and taking the hits.
Cindie
"McCain sold out as a POW in Viet Nam. Some forgave him. Others of us never will. It took many years to get a POW flag permitted. There are many friends and families that will never, ever forget. And the names are written in the books of life."
Wow, I really dislike disagreeing with fellow freepers and so it is good to know that you and I agree on this! This is the very reason I would not support McCain in '08. Had I not been so involved in defeating John Kerry, I'd have never known this about McCain.
I spit on Michael Collins and the IRA and those moronic Americans who have and still do support them.
Your suppositions are just that and frankly, NOT very well though out ones. So, we just sit back and ignore all of the Islamonazis and those who fund and support them, do we? And instead of them just killing off one another, they get nukes and set them off, as we sit back and just watch it happen on FNC? That's your answer?
We "sat back" and let Alger Hiss sign away most of Europe, to Stalin, at Yalta ( FDR was dying and Hiss was his go to man and yes, it was Hiss who made the deals with good old Uncle Joe! ) and then Ike did NOTHING, when the Hungarian Revolution came, 50 years ago. And yes, the freedom loving Hungarians thought that America really WAS going to help them, because of the things said on RADIO FREE EUROPE! Instead, I watched, with shock and horror, what the damned, stinking Commies did to the Magyar martyrs. And THAT is what you want me to see again, only this time, on a far larger scale?
You may have been in service, during the Cold War, but frankly, you don't know or understand a thing about the Cold War!
And a FORTRESS AMERICA is not only NOT going to happen, it would be IMPOSSIBLE to implement.
I'm still waiting to hear, from YOU, how YOU are going to throw ALL Muslims out of America, when so many of them are native born blacks and whites and Hispanics. Hey, how about concentration camps instead? That sounds about your speed.
Communism doesn't work well, but no, it most assuredly would NOT have just disappeared of its own accord, had we not fought it.
Oh, wonderful......what a great idea! Let them nuke us? Are you really THAT stupid?
Either you are using "mere conjecture" or you are using intelligence, which is it? C'mon do you really think if America has no political intercourse (how can modern state not have it?) with other nations, Islam wouldn't seek the destruction of the Great Satan?
You may have an opinion on what may have happened if America had not engaged into Vietnam or Iraq, but it's stark contrast to the prevailing policy advisers.
...when he talks, I listen.
TRUE TRUE TRUE!!!
Fight Islam over there. or fight it over here!
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