Posted on 01/18/2007 7:50:55 AM PST by jveritas
The most lasting tragedy of the Vietnam War is that it has legitimized “giving aid and comfort to the enemy”. We are seeing the giving of aid and comfort to the enemy running wild in this war on terror and sadly not only among liberals and their media but also among some conservatives who some of them are right here on this great Free Republic.
When Al Qaeda terrorists, or the terrorist regimes in Iran and Syria, or the Iraqi insurgent terrorists whether they are Sunnis or Shia hear the speeches of defeatism coming from liberals and their media, or unfortunately coming from some conservatives who some of them are right here on Free Republic, will they feel comforted and aided by these speeches? Of course they will be comforted, and they will be embolden to fight more and more, kill more and more, destroy more and more, because they realize that many Americans do not have the will to fight a long and hard war.
Defeatism and providing aid and comfort to the enemy was something that we expected from liberals and their media because their hate to President Bush and the Republican Party is hundred of times more than their hate to the terrorists. However it is really sad that some conservatives and some members on this great forum are doing their share in providing aid and comfort to the enemy through their defeatist attitude.
Do the defeatists want to amend the Constitution so we will have the following? Stop the war and leave if we lose more than one thousand troops, or stop the war and leave if it lasts more than one year, or stop the war and leave if it costs more than 50 billions dollars, whichever comes first. Do they want to do this?
The defeatists who argue that Iraq is not part of the war on terror but rather it is just a civil war between Sunnis and Shia are wrong and naive beyond belief. Iraq is most definitely the central and most important front in the war on terror. It is in Iraq where Al Qaeda and their local Iraqi allies decided to fight the US. It is in Iraq where the islamic terrorists from all over the world are pouring in to fight the Americans. It is in Iraq where the terrorist regimes of Iran and Syria and their local Iraqi allies want to defeat the US so they can have total control of the Middle East. Since the terrorists are all over the world, then the best way to fight them is to attract them to one place to kill them. Whether it was planned or not, Iraq turned out to be the magnet that has been attracting the terrorists from all over the world, and that is the ultimate way to fight the war on terror and to kill as many terrorists as we can.
Every defeatist who is giving aid and comfort to the enemy should ask himself or herself this question: What will happen if we leave Iraq before we achieve complete victory? The First thing that will happen is that the enemy will be embolden beyond belief and the terrorists whether they are Sunnis or Shia, whether they are Al Qaeda, or Iran or Syria, will be given the ultimate victory that will embolden them thousands more time then when they were emboldened when the US left Beirut after the Marines barracks terrorist attack in 1983, or when the US left Somalia in 1993 after the terrorist killed 19 troops, or when no reprisal happened against the terrorists when they attacked many American targets through out the Clinton years. If our passiveness to the past terrorist attacks emboldened them in such a way to attack us on 9/11, think about what they can do to us if we give and leave Iraq and thus handle them the ultimate victory that they have been dreaming about for decades.
The defeatists must understand that if few terrorists sitting in a cave in Afghanistan with a small budget and few volunteers were able to do the 9/11 terrorist attacks, killed 3000 Americans, and caused over one trillion dollars in economic damages, then the terrorists control of Iraq and of the whole Middle East, and its vast oil resources will allow them to conduct terrorist attacks against us that we cannot imagine even in our worst nightmares. By controlling Iraq and the Middle East the terrorists will have hundreds of billions of dollars under their control that they will use it to attack us everywhere in the world and the US and cause unimaginable death, destruction and economic losses that will make 9/11 terrorist attacks look like a picnic in comparison. They will also use the oil weapon to bring the world economy to a disaster that will be many folds worse than that of the 1929 Depression.
Fellow Free Republic members, we are fighting the most important war since WW II. We are not fighting for the Iraqis in Iraq but we are fighting for ourselves, for our freedom and for our way of life. Let us all support our President and our brave troops because they need our support now more than ever.
Partition doesn't solve the problem.
Kurdistan is already effectively autonomous, and largely peaceful.
The rest of Iraq is in a civil war, and Sunnis are concentrated in Baghdad as well as Anbar Province, in the West.
You could partition Anbar off (although NOBODY will accept that: the Shi'ites hate their Sunni former tormentors, and even the Kurds aren't willing to just let the Ba'athists who gassed them go. No, those people need to die.), but you can't partition Baghdad itself. That's where the death squads are, and will remain, until we firmly take one side and drive the other out.
But you needn't worry too much.
We won't do that.
The President has been given the advice I am repeating here.
He's been given it at least three times. He firmly rejects it on the same grounds you do: immorality. He thinks it's immoral to take sides and doom the Sunni Arabs to subjugation and death.
So we're not going to do it.
We're going to follow Bush's strategy to the bitter end.
The Clinton/Obama team will order the general pullout.
One other little matter. Your policy might cause a regime change in Saudi Arabia, and cause it to become a fanatical anti American state, and a host of terrorist perps. I guess we would need to send in the troops there. How large an increase are you proposing for the American army, and how will we secure the "surge" of additional bodies? Doubling or tripling the pay, or the draft, or what? The military other than the airplane and boat services, can barely meet their quotas now. Not to put too fine a point on it, it (your policy) is all quite insane. In any event, insane or not, it won't happen, so maybe getting real, do you have an opinion about the Plan B issue that I posed to jervitas, who has taken a break, apparently?
You said -- "Count me out. Your policy is immoral. I cannot support it. It is not in accord with anything that remotely resembles the rationale for America to intervene via a just war."
There is only one just war, and that's the one that you won. I'll guarantee you that the Islamists have no qualms in asserting their will over you. So, your response to them will be to say, "Well, I won't do this to you -- but you can do whatever you want to me..."
Stupid policy and guaranteed to get you another 100 years worth of fighting. The Islamists are not going to give up. They've got the oil, the countries and all the people they need to throw into this kind of war -- forever. So, you won't be getting out of this war the way you are thinking...
Regards,
Star Traveler
Bagdad or course, would become the New Jerusalem, prior to the 1967 war, in any US underwritten partition.
Sunnis dominate more than just Anbar province; I think it is at least three provinces, including those around Tikrit (sp).
We need to stand strong, support our President and our brave troops. They need our support now more than ever. We are fortunate that our President does not go by the public opinion polls but he is a true leader who does what is required to win this war.
It "might" cause a regime change in Saudi Arabia, but that would depend on the willingness of the Saudi Royal family and their detainers to die rather than fight to the death in a civil war.
Far more likely would be that Islamists within Saudi Arabia would go ballistic as the Sunni Arabs were systematically driven out of Iraq, and try to move against the government, provoking a very violent crackdown by the monarchy against the insurgents. This makes things miserable for the Saudis, but also makes it damned hard for the Saudis to sit back and use their money to export terrorism.
In any case, we have very little leverage over there now, and once our surge has wilted and the insurgency in Iraq renews, the very thing you're wondering about will come to pass. Already the Sunni Arab population in Iraq has dwindled from a pre-war 10% of the population to about 9% of the population. Sunni Arabs are leaving the country. The Shi'ites hate them and are going to fight this civil war.
The difference is that my "insane" plan (it's not just my plan, you know, I'm not just making this all up out of my hat) has the Shi'ites doing it armed and controlled by the government, which is distinctly Arabist and focused on its own position in Iraq. They would be OUR bad guys. Instead, if we do nothing and refuse to support that faction, the Iranian armed and organized Shi'ite faction will do the fighting and dirty work, and dominate the country.
Either way you get the Sunni subjugation. The difference is that if it's OUR guys doing it, you get a government that is relatively allied with us at the end. If it's not (and under our current strategy, it won't be), you get a pro-Iranian Shi'ite government. The Sunnis get creamed, in time, no matter what, and the very problem you're worried about in Saudi Arabia arises no matter which path we take.
We can anticipate it, of course, and arm the Saudi government against it.
In general, it is a stupid thing for US to be fighting these Arab civil wars. Arabs need to be fighting them. There are plenty of young Arabs itching for a fight. We choose the side we need to win and arm them so that they do.
Yes.
Kurds are Sunnis too, don't forget, which is why we get some shelter by supporting Kurds in the North and Arabist Shi'ites in the South, as opposed to supporting a blanket Shi'ite solution for the nation.
But why do I speak as though what I am saying has any hope whatever of being adopted?
What will happen is that we'll surge. Spend money and lives. The Shi'ite pro-Iranian militias will quietly stand down and await our retreat, and arm, arm, arm. There will still be killings in the provinces. And once we've spent another few hundred billion dollars or in January 2009, whichever comes first, we'll retreat. Then the Shi'ites will wipe out the Sunni Arabs, but it'll be pro-Iranian Shi'ites, and they'll attack the Kurds too, something our Arabist Iraqi Shi'ites wouldn't do if we supported and armed them.
You're right about the other provinces. The Sunni total in Iraq is about 24%, with 15% Kurdish and the other 9% Arab. The Arab Sunnis are the historical masters - and butchers - of the country. They are in diehard mode. They've also been the ones killing our boys left and right.
They'll be liquidated by the Shi'ites one way or another. If it were our Shi'ites doing the liquidating, we'd get the win. Bush won't do it.
So, it'll be Iran's Shi'ites doing it, and getting the CREDIT among the Shi'ites of Iraq. And we'll take the loss.
Pity.
No thanks.
"I won't let him take credit for it, the theme has been kicked around. I won't let him take credit for it, the theme has been kicked around."
Quite a bit more than kicked around!
Bush has explicitly rejected variants of it thrice, publicly.
He hates it.
He'd rather lose.
So we will.
Pity.
The end game has to moral at least, even if some eggs are broken in the process. Liquidating the Sunnis in Iraq is not moral, and fraught with practical consequences, negative to US interests, of which I listed just a couple. I-N-S-A-N-E.
That word "our" is the disconnect. I don't want the US sponsoring sectarian killing. Period.
Some thoughts on this thread if implemented would lead to the US becoming aking to those Orwellian pigs in Animal Farm. The shining city on the hill that we strive for, would become a dead letter. The US would cease to have any moral influence, because it had none.
In the meantime, the Shia are cleansing Bagdad with the cooperation of the Iraqi government. Bush just said no, or else, I hope. I also hope that if it is else, the US hangs around to effect a "just" partition. THAT is moral. Anything other than that, is not.
Well put. Then why are we playing politics with this battle in Iraq? Why are we pussy-footing around with ROE?
I'll tell you why. It's the same reason Patton got in trouble for slapping the crap out of that coward soldier hiding in the med tent.
Image.
We are not fighting to win. We are not fighting our enemy. We are fighting politics. Why is Sadr still around? Why can't we go into mosque we know are hiding terrorist and arms? Politics. Image.
It's all about image and PC crap. Can't profile so pull granny out of the line and check her cane for explosives. Can't piss of CAIR so have them "train" the TSA in "sensitivity".
I want to win. I want to defeat the enemy. And I know we have the greatest men and women in our military to do the job. Let them do it. Stop hindering them.
Stop playing politics which, frankly, is now what Bush is doing? Too bad if you don't like that opinion. If he's not then why has it taken two years to announce "the gloves are coming off". Why only now does Tony Snow go on talk shows and state they'd get phone calls from Iraqi ministers asking us not to arrest this person, or not to go into that neighborhood? Why were we granting them those request?
Image. Politics.
Let's fight this war. Let's make our enemies fear us again.
That you use his name as a pejorative and as many a fellow traveler, pinko, and/or card carrying Commie did and still doesm says much about YOU; far more than you realize.
Spot on!
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