Posted on 01/18/2007 7:50:55 AM PST by jveritas
Agree 100%.
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.
Your screed reads like something out of the McCarthy era.
"Are you now, or have you ever been a defeatist?"
Please!
Bingo. You hit the nail on the head right there.
Great post, jveritas.
I will get that a 9 out of 10 for rhetorical flourish. No substance.
I haven't read any of the replies, but if true to form some of them will say the war is being fought incorrectly therefore we should just withdraw.
Don't let another son or daughter die for an incorrectly fought war, they scream.
Many, many "conservatives' justify their defeatism that way. But by their logic, we wouldn't have carried WWII on to victory, because that war was tragically ill-fought, resulting in hundreds of thousands of needless casualties. Because EVERY war is incorrectly fought.
EVERY BLASTED ONE OF 'EM.
Anytime :)
I don't think I've ever come across anyone here on FR who is against the POTUS new plan of more troops and new Rules of Engagement. I'd just add I wish he relaxed ROE 3 years ago!
Let our professionals do what they do best over there.
Nice post but there's nothing wrong with a debate as long as we have a good respect for one another
You are greatly underestimating Free Republic. This is the most important conservative political forum on the planet.
yep
We have people in charge who just can't bring themselves to pull the trigger on a Taliban funeral with heavily armed attendees.
[AID & COMFORT ALERT]
The WOT is lost.
Because the military is used as a policy tool to correct unwanted behavior and a discovery lab for social engineering.
Amen, my FRiend!
I am no defeatist.
I want to win.
I have always wanted to win.
But I have also always thought, since the very beginning, that to WIN a war you have to DECLARE a war, and we didn't, haven't and won't now. I think that was a monumental error, which imposed an utterly crippling handicap on ourselves from the get go.
Win?
Yes absolutely I want to win.
But I look at the strategy and tactics that have been used since we didn't declare war and embarked on these not-war interventions, and I see dramatic incompetence.
De Gaulle was called a defeatist when he railed against Maginot. But the establishment chose Maginot, and by God if you didn't march right along with the Maginot Mindset, you were a defeatist, even a traitor to France.
Or you were right.
The leadership team is incompetent.
They have organized the war incompetently and fought the war incompetently, and they are not showing any signs of improvement or changing their minds on ANY of the bad strategic decisions they made from the outset.
Happy talk about how "We are winning!" or how the Germans can't possibly get through Maginot is coupled with the sneering assertion that whoever says we are NOT winning, and that the GErmans CAN roll Maginot is a "defeatist", even a traitor.
No. No and no again.
We cannot win this war the way we are fighting it.
We have made stupid blunders, strategic and tactical since the very beginning, when we didn't DECLARE war.
The leadership are stubborn and determined to do it THEIR WAY, even though THEIR WAY is a disaster and will not get better. "Surge"? With a handful of troops? It's silly.
Refusing to take sides, still, is sillier still.
It was not defeatist for De Gaulle to look at the Maginot Plan and say "We will be destroyed." It was honest. It was factual. It was the truth.
If we continue on the present course in Iraq, we will lose.
That is honest. It is the truth.
I don't LIKE that truth, but I am no defeatest for calling a spade a spade.
Want to win? Then take the side of the Shi'ite Arabists in the South, arm them (the government) and let them wipe out all Sunni resistance in the South and win the civil war. And arm the Kurds in the North as a counterpoise. Favor the government Shi'ite faction and give IT the arms and support so that IT, in its own self-interested lust for power, can face the Shi'ite militias.
And start bombing convoys and camps inside of Iran and Syria.
And unleash special forces to wreak havoc in Iran.
And deny it. Say it's the protest movement. Make the Iranians have to go into overdrive to defend their own turf.
Ignore the Syrians and Iranians screams at the UN about our violating their territory to hammer camps and supply trains. Just lay the law on the table.
Surge a lot more troops, assert your C-in-C power, and let Congress try to impeach you if they dare.
And SHUT UP about Iraq's government "doing it wrong" in the hanging of Hussein. What a pathetic milquetoast performance by W.
That's how you win.
We won't do that, and won't win.
Suspect your stress level decreased considerably after posting this?
It's time to call them and show our repulsion. The RNC and Chuck Hagel are top on my list. I think that Nebraska ought to recall Hagel.
you misunderstood my writing...You are ,of course, correct.Free Republic is unparralled,period.
That is why dems took screen names and post here is disruptive ways,which was my point
Iraq is but stepping stone to Iran, Syria and the Autonomous Tribal regions of Western Pakistan.
This focus on Iraq is like driving a car by only looking at the first 10 feet of road off the front bumper instead of the full road ahead.
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