Posted on 04/22/2007 8:06:18 AM PDT by TennTuxedo
I always think it’s a bit sad when I read posts like yours on FreeRepublic. In the old days, when this forum was first formed and became popular, it attracted the best and the brightest minds. Now if you want to see how far it’s fallen, all anyone has to do is read your post.
Just that, nothing else to say? No points to discuss?
Like any good salesman, the media (and Democrats) can spin it either way they want, irregardless of the facts.
Look at Richard Nixon. The guy was a saint compared to LBJ, and probably JFK as well. But not even republicans today will say nice things about Nixon. They find any way they can to forget they ever had anything to do with him.
Nixon was destroyed by the media. They could have destroyed LBJ, but they chose not to.
Bin Laden and his ilk are empowered because they're fighting the US. They will fight in Iraq, or Saudi, or Manhattan. But they're going to fight us, and Bush has opted to engage them, rather than ignore them like Clinton's policy was, which was demonstrated to be ineffective on 9/11.
That we choose to engage them in Iraq is a good strategy. That we equip and train Iraqis to fight the war for us is good strategy. That we are in Iraq, right on the borders of Syria and Iran is good strategy.
We should be in no hurry to leave. As soon as we do, the target will again become American cities.
We "occupied" Germany and Japan years after we defeated them as nations. There was a considerable resistance movement in Germany after the war. We still have bases in Germany, and I know we still base aircraft carriers permanently in Japan. We're still in Korea. That the political argument is that we should leave Iraq in the near future is just stupid.
Leaving Iraq is just not smart. As soon as the Democrats publicly recognize that fact and end the politics over the issue, the killing in Iraq will no longer profit Al Qaeda, and they'll calm down there, and find other theaters, such as Africa.
The Democrats politics, and the media coverage, *enables* Al Qaeda to profit from violence. The Democrats and media can chose to stop rewarding Al Qaeda violence any time they want.
This is a different type of war being fought than our nation has ever fought. The stakes are much higher than they have ever been..our long term survival. Conventional methods of fighting do not apply and a different mindset has to be employed.
Short of nuclear powered genocide, ending the war with the jihadist ideologues will take generations. The current campaign just happens to be in Iraq, and that's a good place to keep it. We should seek to keep the fever down to a low key (the Democrats are *not* helping in that), but it is a fever that will have to burn itself out. There's no real alternative, short the nuclear holocaust I mentioned.
The media can sway the people any which way they want. They've been pounding on the surrender theme for years now, and it's finally bearing fruit.
So which democrat campaign do you work for?
On this we agree. We will regret it when we're politically forced to go. Later on, the Democrats (and waffling Republicans) will regret it, too. This doesn't change anything that I said above. We should have gotten into this to win across the region, and right after 9/11, we had a mandate to do so.
When the Democrats sweep up more seats in congress next year, and win the presidency, I could ask you why you couldn't listen to criticism.
The biggest threat to our survival comes from illegal immigration. And yes, the combined threat of Islamic WMD, a fascist China, and illegal (and legal Islamic) immigration is stupendous.
Constructive criticism is one thing, but your posts appear to cross the line into destructive criticism.
Politics should end at the water's edge. That goes for Bush's foes on the left, and it should go for Bush's foes on the right as well.
Criticize Bush for his border policy or any other domestic policy you like. But no parent wants their child to go to war for a controversial subject. Once war is engaged, patriotic citizens *must* support it completely. Who would want to die for something unless there was simply no question but that it was a valiant cause?
I look to Charles Lindberg for inspiration on this. Before WW2 he was the leader of the powerful America First movement. There was talk about him running for president, and his popularity in those days was higher than FDR's. But FDR called out the goon squads and rioted at some of Lindberg's speeches, and used the media so smear his name and label him a Nazi (that people to this day believe).
But despite this, on the day of Pearl Harbor Lindberg was dedicated to victory. He stopped all public criticism of FDR on war issues and did every thing he could to help fight the battle. Since FDR would not allow him to resume his commission in the Air Corps, he managed to become a consultant to various aircraft companies, and eventually flew in combat as a civilian, risking his life in a war that he tried so hard to stop in the first place.
Once the battle is engaged, any patriotic American, even if they were anti-war as Lindberg was, should support the effort to the death. Anything short of that is not acceptable.
Criticism of the commander-in-chief about war issues is very detrimental to the effort. Even if the criticism is correct, it's necessary for the country to put on a united front to the enemy, and to inspire the confidence in our soldiers that risking their life in battle is for a just cause.
I hear you saying that our foreign policy is beyond criticism, because we're at war -- especially in the area of the war itself. This war, the way it's being fought, could go on for centuries. We had a free press during WWII. We had freedom to debate during the Cold War. We must keep that freedom alive today, especially if the war is to be dragged out for generations the way our current leadership admits.
Much of that was not due to the strategic bombing. Rather they were the result of the taking of those cities by the allied armies. This was especially true in the East, which included Berlin.
Although the Brits did bomb cities indiscriminately, the USAAF used precision bombing, such as it was, to hit only targets of military importance, but that did include factories and infrastructure, so those strikes also killed lots of civilians.
OTOH, Curis LeMay firebombed Japanese cities, with the intention of killing all the workers and their families, who lived in those paper cities. He killed more in a single night of firebombing Tokyo than were killed at either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. But he didn't limit himself to a single night of bombing Tokyo.
The Japanese were very determined to fight to the last child. They were preparing to send out families to fight with sticks before the surrender, after the atomic bombings.
With a laser or GPS guided bomb, we sure can. It's our way of making war. They use IEDs we use PGMs.
That said, I can't understand why Mukki al Sadar is still wasting air.
They have become, and have been since the 60s, the Party of Treason.
My former CO, USAFR intelligence detachment, called them that, back in the 1980s. He and his family had been calling them that since the Kennedy administration.
You wouldn't happen to know what the occasion for that photo was would you? And/or what the heck was really going on.
We've lost about 1% the men as we did in WWII’s European theater.
What is the point here?
If WWII went on another year or two then we should have just QUIT?
Or if the Iraq war was over in LESS time than WWII it would ONLY THEN have been a noble endeavor?
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