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Don't you just love the idiocy of the Junk Media? They simply state their opinion as if it were fact and keep screaming it week in and week out until everyone simply repeats it as "fact". Juan is a perfect idiot Representative of the group think that drive the US Junk Media.

Since so many Junk Media types completely are incapable of any sort of historical context, I will try yet again to pry open their welded shut minds.

Why Iraq

One of the really infuriating things in modern politics is the level of disinformation, misinformation, demagoguery and out right lying going on about the mission in Iraq. Democrats have spent the last 3+ years lying about Iraq out of a political calculation. The assumption is that the natural isolationist mindset of the average American voter, linked to the inherent Anti Americanism (what is misnamed the "Anti War movement") of the more feverish Democrat activists (especially those running the US's National "News" media) would restore them to national political dominance. The truth is the Democrat Party Leadership has simply lacked the courage to speak truth to whiners. The truth is that even if Al Gore won the 2000 election and 09-11 still happened we would be doing the EXACT same things in Iraq we are doing now.

Based on the political situation in the region left over from the 1991 Gulf War plus the domestic political consensus built up in BOTH parties since 1991 as well as fundamental military strategic laws, there was NO viable strategic choice for the US but to take out Iraq after finishing the initial operations in Afghanistan.

To start with Saddam's Iraq was our most immediate threat. We could NOT commit significant military forces to another battle with Saddam hovering undefeated on our flank nor could we leave significant forces watching Saddam. The political containment of Iraq was breaking down. That what Oil for Food was all about. Oil for Food was an attempt by Iraq to break out of it's diplomatic isolation and slip the shackles the UN Sanctions put on it's military. There there was the US Strategic position to consider.

The War on Islamic Fascism is different sort of war. in facing this Asymmetrical threat, we have a hidden foe, spread out across a geographically diverse area, with covert sources of supply. Since we cannot go everywhere they hide out, in fact often cannot even locate them until the engage us, we need to draw them out of hiding into a kill zone.

Iraq is that kill zone. That is the true brilliance of the Iraq strategy. We draw the terrorists out of their world wide hiding places onto a battlefield they have to fight on for political reasons (The "Holy" soil of the Arabian peninsula) where they have to pit their weakest ability (Conventional Military combat power) against our greatest strength (ability to call down unbelievable amounts of firepower) where they will primarily have to fight other forces (the Iraqi Security forces) in a battlefield that is mostly neutral in terms of guerrilla warfare. (Iraqi-mostly open terrain as opposed to guerrilla friendly areas like the mountains of Afghanistan or the jungles of SE Asia).

Did any of the critics of liberating Iraq ever look at a map? Iraq, for which we had the political, legal and moral justifications to attack, is the strategic high ground of the Middle East. A Geographic barrier that severs ground communication between Iran and Syria apart as well as providing another front of attack in either state or into Saudi Arabia if needed.

There were other reasons to do Iraq but here is the strategic military reason we are in Iraq. We have taken, an maintain the initiative from the Terrorists. They are playing OUR game on ground of OUR choosing.

Problem is Counter Insurgency is SLOW and painful. Often a case of 3 steps forward, two steps back. One has to wonder if the American people have either the emotional maturity, nor the intellect" to understand. It's so much easier to spew made for TV slogans like "No Blood for Oil" or "We support the Troops, bring them home" or dumbest of all "We are creating terrorists" then to actually THINK.

Westerners in general, and the US citizens in particular seem to have trouble grasping the fundamental fact of this foe. These Islamic Fascists have NO desire to co-exist with them. The extremists see all this PC posturing by the Hysteric Left as a sign that we are weak. Since they want us dead, weakness encourages them. There is simply no way to coexist with people who completely believe their "god" will reward them for killing us.

So we can covert to Islam, die or kill them. Iraq is about killing enough of them to make the rest of the Jihadists realize we are serious. They same way killing enough Germans, Italians and Japanese eliminated the ideologies of Nazism, Fascism and Bushido.

Americans need to understand how Bin Laden and his ilk view us. In the Arab world the USA is considered a big wimp. We have run away so many times. Lebanon, the Kurds, the Iraqis in 1991, the Iranians, Somalia, Clinton all thru the 1990s etc etc etc. The Jihadists think we will run again. In fact they are counting on it. That way they can run around screaming "We beat the American just like the Russians, come join us in Jihad" and recruit the next round of "holy warriors". Iraq is also a show place where we show the Muslim world that there are a lines they cannot cross. On 9-11-01 they crossed that line and we can, and will, destroy them for it

To start with Saddam's Iraq was our most immediate threat. We could NOT commit significant military forces to another battle with Saddam hovering undefeated on our flank nor could we leave significant forces watching Saddam. The political containment of Iraq was breaking down.

All very true. In addition, we were spending $7 to $9 billion a year in enforcing the no-fly zones for over a decade. To maintain these no-fly zones, the US had a large footprint in Saudi Arabia, which was not helpful to that regime.

Iraq was on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism. Itr was providing safe haven for terrorists, including training facilities. It had invaded two of its neighbors. It had used WMD against the Iranians and the Kurds. It was funding Palestinian suicide bombers. It was not adhering to the UN truce agreement. The real question is how could we leave Saddam in place and still fight and win the WOT. I suggest that these Monday morning quarterbacks reread the Text of Joint Resolution On Iraq Passed By The United States Congress passed 296-133 by the House of Representatives and 77-23 by the Senate on October 10 and 11, 2002.

Did any of the critics of liberating Iraq ever look at a map? Iraq, for which we had the political, legal and moral justifications to attack, is the strategic high ground of the Middle East.

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This is the point at which I want to just give up -- when pundits, etc refuse to acknowledge that Iraq is the key to the entire situation.

Brilliant post here MNJ. We have indeed run away so many times that the Ben Laden types think they can just wait us out and sooner or later we will fold.

That's what the surrender monkeys are advocating now. If we do it,cut and run, it will stimulate more money and men flowing to the terrorists and the WOT will only grow larger and larger,if not now than later on after several more 911's.

Next time we will be liberating France and other European countries to dumb to fight for freedom.

We need to draw the proverbial line in the sand and let the terror types know, that no matter how long it takes, we will not be cutting and running. Anything less as you have already said becomes just another sign of weakness that the terror types will jump on instantly. One thing that continually surprises me is the similarity between the rats and the terror types. They both fight asymmetrical wars. The terror types come out, blow themselves and a few good guys up up, and go back into hiding. The dems sort of play the same game. Every once in a while they come out, advocate cutting and running, and when it doesn't work go back to hiding again. Both insurgents(dems and terrorists) think that time is on their side, after all they only need us to surrender "once" to win.

Since we cannot go everywhere they hide out, in fact often cannot even locate them until the engage us, we need to draw them out of hiding into a kill zone. Iraq is that kill zone.

Nothing could be clearer...

The president[Ahmadinejad] then said: "And God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism," according to a quote published by Iran's state news outlet, the Islamic Republic News Agency.

"As for the Americans, if they do not swiftly succeed in casting off the yoke of the New York Jewry (which has the same intelligence as a monkey that saws through the branch on which it is perching), well - it won't be long before they go under"...The Testament of A. Hitler.

Some things never change. The free world was asleep in 1936, and it's slumbering now in another time of great peril. Thanks for your excellent synopsis. There really isn't much more to say; we can only hope that the sleepy, pampered majority in the West can be roused before it's too late. Sadly, this has always been the case.

Iraq is also a show place where we show the Muslim world that there are a lines they cannot cross. On 9-11-01 they crossed that line and we can, and will, destroy them for it

Re your Post #160. Good analysis.

I agree with most of it. Our move into Iraq was a brilliant strategic move. We have made plenty of mistakes there, but name me one war in which we have not made plenty of mistakes?

But we will win only, repeat - only - if we persist in Iraq and not dump the entire project and avoid confronting all our enemies on all levels - whether nation-states like Iran and Syria, or supranational Islamic networks.

The ISG Report is just one more in a long series of efforts by those of influence to have us abandon the project to the luring siren call of a pre-9/11 world.

Unfortunately for us, there are huge pluralities of somnolent voters, media mavens, bureaucrats, and politicians who have been gulled into seeing this War otherwise, thanks largely to a traitorous political party seeking it's own power above all else and the prevailing sniveling MSM. If they succeed in evaporating support for this brilliant struggle in Iraq today (and they are well along on that track), we will be facing an even more deadly struggle on less favorable ground tomorrow.

Winning in Iraq is not an option. It is an essential. It is our great misfortune so many in influence who claim to be on our side see it otherwise and act on their jaded views. We may as well count them in the camp with the enemy because they stand with them whether they claim the territory or not.