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."
You show a severe lack of understanding Hillary Clinton if you think there isn't any difference in her and Rudy. Perhaps it's time to start reading.... and for the record I'm not defending Rudy as being the best candidate, just that he is heads above Hillary in one area in particular -- he isn't a Marxist.
Big can o' whup there!
I certainly do not believe that Bush lied about WMD. He may have been misled by bad intel into a bad war. He may also have made a bad decision about what we do in cases where "we don't know."
It's a pretty costly thing to start a war and find out you were wrong.
"I have a son in Iraq and I'm not offended by well reasoned comments and I want the debate to continue. The answer to free speech is more free speech.You may be here to get a warm fuzzy feeling but others are not. As far as I know, FR has not become a chapter of the mutual admiration society."
Bump. Certain freepers are "cashing in" on their children's sacrifices to shut down other's opinions and score debate points and to be honest, its pretty low class.
you know, I have one criticism of Kristinn. He's like a cuckoo bird that laid this egg for other birds to sit on, then he cut and ran. Oh well, I suppose he's out Freeping somewhere. God bless him.
That's all well and good but we don't actually KNOW how its being conducted right now...we only know what the PRESS says bout how its being conducted right now. And therein lies the issue.
Counter Insurgency is not Total War. How about you stop ranting your Conventional War dogmas and read what Gen Abizaid said to the US Senate 2 weeks ago? If you had been around in WW2 you would be the clown ranting about how we had to fight it by recreating a WW 1 style army.
Different mission, different problems, different solutions. The Conventional Military dogmas you spend all your time screaming do not work for this sort of mission. Learn the differences. Quit just mindlessly shouting your slogans and try listening one time to what the people on the ground in Iraq are tell you. You can start with what Abizad told the US Senate two weeks ago. After that try examining the data here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_Security_Forces
http://icasualties.org/oif/
http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx
Maybe we should start referring to them as VS FReepers.
(VS=Viet Nam Syndrome)
I really don't know why he did that. There has been WMD's and evidence of WMD's found in Iraq. But even were that not so, the President said the intelligence was faulty, he did not admit to lying.
Look my friend. Nation building wasn't in the plan and it shouldn't have been. Period. Soon as we captured Saddam Hussein we should departed and offered financial carrot for stability. Then we would have leverage over Iran and Syria because we would be bogged down. The fact that Iran and Syria do not fear us now because of this bad post policy causes me concern. Regardless, I will always vote Republican, but you should be open to better policies.
If you made arguments instead of posting Santorum speeches, we might get somewhere.
You are exactly right.
not agreeing with your premise, maybe he's in the position Lincoln was said to be in with regard to his marriage: "If you make a bad bargain, hold it all the tighter."
The vilification of these acts would be nothing to what the Big Three would do if we went into this war gang-busters and killing thousands of citizens of terrorist supporting nations, let alone those of an actual enemy state. Right now, the Big Three is planning on taking Rumsfeld to the International Criminal Court for war crimes. Imagine what they'd do if he carpet-bombed Fallujah.
The executive branch of this nation is ruled by the judicial. Any action taken by the president can be over ruled by the Supreme Court, as we saw in the recent case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, we cannot even try a terrorist in a military tribunal, but must give them hapeas corpus and US Constitutional rights. And I hope we all realize that the Big Three has sharpened their knifes (lawyers) to beging more suits against the administration.
I don't have an answer to the solution of this war. But I do know that the Iraqi insurgents are not the only enemy we face. Until we agree as a nation to what the rules of engagement are, we'll face these same problems we're having in Iraq anywhere we'd fight.
Now you say that proves your point, so we sholud get out of Iraq and let the various factions kill each other but not us. Well, Dave, I'm here to tell you, they'll know a win when they see one, both the Terrorists and the Big Three, and we'll be in even worse shape if that happens. At least in Iraq we still have a killing zone where we can draw the flies to us there, rather than here.
That is just NOT true. The president is completely and utterly LISTENING to the men who are THERE fighting and giving them everything and anything they ask for. HE LEARNED THE LESSONS OF VN AND HAS SIMPLY DONE WHAT THE MILITARY HAS ASKED HIM TO DO.
Period. LISTEN to the people who are doing the work instead of assuming WE know what the heck is going on. We promised to do that after VN...and I WILL NOT go back on the promise...both to the men of that generation, and the men of this one. PERIOD. And yes, I am yelling because this is near and dear to my heart. We must quit thinking DC is running this war and listen to guys like Abazaid.
IRAN. There was NO WAY we could have put boots on the ground in the middle east in their backyard with Saddam in power. Saddam flew his jets into Iran during Gulf war 1 for safe keeping. With Saddam out of the way we won't get blind sided by him should we have to go into Iran. You can't hit Iran and have a hostile force to your backs.
Iran is NOW sandwiched between our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. If they tangle with us they're stuck in a 2 front war, and resupply for us is NOT a problem, because we own the airspace in Afghanistan and Iraq.
As I pointed out in posts *before* the invasion, this argument doesn't hold water. If Saddam wanted to team up with AQ and give them Chem/Bio weapons, our long and public build up to the invasion was the worst possible thing to do. It would have given Saddam plenty of time to funnel the weapons to AQ. On the other hand, if we weren't worried about the imminent transfer of WMDs to AQ, why invade? We could have used the Kurds like we did the NA in Afghanistan. Provide them with air cover and Saddam would have been toast.
When I read that I thought of one woman in particular who's doing the same thing.
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