I am starting to think going to Iraq was a mistake

MMI | 4/30/04 | MDP

[Check_Your_Premises]

As an avid supporter of the President's Iraq policies, the last few days have been difficult for me. The number of casualties seemed to reach a "critical mass" for me. I found myself simply not caring to sacrifice anymore of our brave soldiers for Iraqi independence and democracy. Screw 'em.

I was not sure why I began to feel this way. As I said I am an avid supporter of the plan to bring an oasis of freedom and liberty to the 12th century toilet that is the middle east. It seemed to me that if we are to end terrorism we have to destroy the sources, which are the failed states and ideology of that region.

Why not? We have succeeded at such things in the past. We transformed post war Germany and Japan into thriving and peaceful democracies. Unfortunately, we have also failed at such things in the past. Of course, I am speaking of the war that Teddy Kennedy's brother got us into.

The one problem I had with liberating Iraq from Saddam's clutches is that we were removing one of the most important steps to the forming of a successful democracy. The successful overthrow of tyranny is a process that produces the type of leaders that are required to bring the successful transition from tyranny to liberal democracy. By liberating Iraq, for the Iraqis we were not allowing their "Founding Fathers" to become. It is of course worth noting that such leaders may never have been produced.

It seems to me now that the war in Iraq suffers from the same fatal flaw as the war in Vietnam. I may be speculating here, but it seems we simply cared more than the South Vietnamese, that their nation remain free. No American should be expected to die defending the home of another not willing to do the same. In the same sense we seem to care more about the freedom of the Iraqi people than they do themselves. This is why I don't really care anymore. If they truly cared or understood their fate, they would be dying ten to our one. And in that case I think the American people would support them steadfastly. God knows I would.

So what was different about our success stories, Japan and Germany. Well we basically bombed the entire nation back into the stone age. I think their civilians were probably so glad that we weren't going to execute our own "final solution" to the "Japanese and German question", that they were willing to do whatever we said. It is also worth noting that in annhilating their armies we effectively removed any person who would be opposed to our efforts. As George Will put it recently, they "knew they were defeated".

So the question is if:
1) we care more about the freedom of the Iraqi people than they do (something we could only have known in hindsight), and
2)we are not willing to wage total war until all opposition is removed,

than how can we possibly win there?

Well I think you see where I am getting at. General Sherman would probably agree with me. However since we do not have the will to fight this way, it is clear that we cannot win until that fact changes. What could bring such a change of will about? Unfortunately, I think we are victims of our own success in preventing further terrorist attacks. Until every man, woman, child, and leftist acutely feels that they are in grave danger of death at the hands of these murderers, America will not be ready to do what she must to win this war.

Until we are ready, maybe we should hold off on any further "imperialist" adventures in the world's excretory regions.

Semper Fidelis

MDP

[Captain Kirk]

You did indeed need to poll more closely. The support is for immediate withdrawal and the support for attacks has dramatically increased. Please note that that the poll understates Arab anti-U.S. feelins because Kurds are included in the respondants.

[Patriot Hooligan]

Come on! Look at the bigger picture, in other words the hidden truth. This is not about winning in Iraq or for Democracy in Iraq. This is about winning over here. It will take more than a one year war to send the message that we will not tolerate terrorists killing AMERICAN CITIZENS on the soil of THE UNITED STATES of AMERICA.

If we do not do this now, then we will be doing it here at a later date. OUR STREETS would become the battlefield. I wish that the anti-war people and those on the fence could only understand that their brothers and sisters are going half-way around the world and putting their lifes on the line for all of us and our AMERICA's future.

"GOD HAVE MERCY ON MY ENEMIES, BECAUSE I WON"T." GENERAL GEORGE S. PATTON

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

It's easy to not go wobbly if you don't realize the sacrifice being made.

[iconoclast]

People said all the same things before we went into Afghanistan .

I happen to be one of the thousands (millions?) who totally supported our efforts in Afghanistan but who watched in disbelief when we veered off into Iraq and away from the WOT.

[.cnI redruM]

I very, nearly, almost believe you but not quite. Kerry2004 thanks you for the sound bite.

[summer]

I knew it was a mistake from Day One - but few listen to ol' Pardek.

Senator Pardek, I don't think it was a mistake - look at the WMD's that were voluntarily turned over to the US by Libya, after Libya's leader woke up and took a look around him. That was a huge victory, IMO, yet it is conveniently overlooked by many who constantly criticize GW.

But, having said that, I do believe there is a point people become "war weary." I don't like war at all, so I was at that point before the war even started. However, I do support what I believe is our nation's effort to create a democracy in Iraq, because such a change could eventually alter the landscape throughout that region, for the better, in my view. So, right now, I support the war -- though if you ask me the same question in 2008, I don't know how I'll answer. I hope to see a much more finite outcome by then, even though I realize we may continue to be fighting a war on terror for a long time.

[RinaseaofDs]

I don't agree.

My grandmother used to say, "Mary wasn't a saint, and she wasn't a person, and she never died . . ."

You and I don't know what any Catholic would say, but I do know the policy.

And actually, I don't know if God does or does not mind if we pray to St. Stephen in order to speak with God.

The only way to the Father is through the Son. You talk about me putting words in people's mouth's, you just tried putting word's in God's mouth.

My grandmother was part of a society within the Church that was very Marion. The average person would find it difficult to tell the difference between reverence and worship. 4th part of the Godhead? I don't know what they'd tell you.

Anyway, I don't think that this point, which is obviously debatable, takes away from the guys analysis.

More to the point, he footnoted it profusely, so if you disagree with his take, you can take your own.

[atlaw]

"There's no spinning, although with your logic it's not wonder your head is spinning."

My logic? First you say the war was "sold" on the basis of Iraqi freedom (with a little WMD thrown in for good measure) because the threat to national security was too harsh for most of the public to handle.

Then you say the war was "sold" on the basis of a threat to national security -- the very thing you previously said was too harsh for most of the public to handle.

And now you say "[i]t's really quite brilliant: if somehow there was no AQ, we had the WMDs, and if there were no WMDs, there was AQ," and, I suppose, if there's no AQ and no WMD, there's always "liberty for the Iraqis" which you now call "a PART of the equation."

Just what "equation" are we talking about here? The "sales pitch" equation? Seems to me there's a whole lot of "selling" going on. Indeed, the sales pitch today is "now that we're in this mess we have to see it through or we'll lose face," which is true enough, but which doesn't negate the liberal "nation building" nonsense that started the war.

Forgive me if I see all sales pitch and no substance. And forgive me if I still believe that "nation building" is the fool's errand that President Bush said it was when he was campaigning for the presidency.

[LS]

It ain't "nation building." It's "reconstruction," and we did it once in North Carolina, remember?

[Joe Hadenuf]

No American should be expected to die defending the home of another not willing to do the same.

I could not have said this any better. Excellent!

Being humane at the cost of more American lives is not acceptable

[7thson]

This is what bothers me. It may be hindsight, but should we have allowed media there? Should we have allowed Al Jezerra? How come the guys we pay to think of these things did not think of creating a media agency to report on what we are doing? I know that the leftists control the media, but there seems to be no concern with attempting to counter these reports. I am also of the firm belief that President Bush has people in various agencies - specifically DOD and State - that go out of their way to undermine his orders and will.

[atlaw]

"It ain't "nation building." It's "reconstruction," and we did it once in North Carolina, remember?"

Oh, I see. Iraq seceded from the United States, we forcibly repatriated it, and now we're re-constructing it. I guess that makes Haliburton a modern day carpet-bagger. As Ali "Bubbah" Al Aqbar, the longtime U.S. senator from Iraq, once said, "hogwash".

[LS]

Call it what you want. I call it victory. We did the same thing in Japan. Totally removed the old government, put in a totally diffent one (including a Constitution that permitted women to vote--a novelty). We wouldn't have had to fight WW II if we had done a little "reconstruction" of Germany after WW I and taken it seriously.

[RinaseaofDs]

Here's the point. The doctor's analysis of Islam is consistent with the following:

(From another thread on FR today concerning the relative press silence of the Palestinian murder of a pregnant woman and four kids ages 2 through 11)

Islamofascist; Radical Islam is an insane death cult, and "moderate" Islam is its Trojan Horse in the West.

Deroy Murdock writes for NRO: "After being released from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, former Afghan detainee Faiz Mohammed complained to the Washington Post : "The Americans treated me well, but they were not Muslims, so I didn't like them." The West should be so lucky as to confront nothing more than Mr. Mohammed's level of disdain. It gets worse.

Asked what he would say to the loved ones of the 197 people killed in last month's Bali nightclub bombings, Abu Bakar Bashir, leader of Indonesia's radical Jemaah Islamiyah, replied: "My message to the families is, please convert to Islam as soon as possible." Amrozi, a mononymous suspect in the blasts, said the carnage "delighted" him. He also pointed to Western reporters covering his November 13 appearance with police. Amrozi said: "Those are the sorts of people I wanted to kill."

Al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf terrorists kidnapped six Jehovah's Witnesses in Jolo, Philippines on August 20. The next day, the decapitated heads of two of the male abductees were found. One victim also had his tongue severed. Military officials say that a note attached to one head said, "Those who do not believe in Allah will suffer the same fate."

Beyond hatred of non-Muslims, such murderers also embrace a pathological appetite for self-destruction. As al Qaeda's Mualana Inyadullah put it in the London Daily Telegraph last year: "The Americans love Pepsi-cola, we love death."

" We are more than determined to die here," Movsar Barayev, told Mark Franchetti of London's Sunday Times . "Our dream is to become shakhidi , martyrs of Allah." Barayev led the Chechen terrorists who seized a Moscow theater earlier this fall. He was killed when Russian authorities ended the assault October 26.

And look for a while at the words of Dr. Adel Sadeq, chairman of the Arab Psychiatrists Association and chief of the Psychiatry Department Cairo's Ein Shams University. In an April 24 interview on Iqraa TV, a Saudi/Egyptian satellite channel, he spoke of suicide bombing as the height of mental health

" When the martyr dies a martyr's death, he attains the height of bliss," Dr. Sadeq explained. "As a professional psychiatrist, I say that the height of bliss comes with the end of the countdown: ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. And then, you press the button to blow yourself up. When the martyr reaches 'one,' and then 'boom,' he explodes, and senses himself flying, because he knows for certain that he is not dead," He continued, in a translation by the , Middle East Media Research Institute : "It is a transition to another, more beautiful world, because he knows very well that within seconds he will see the light of the Creator. He will be at the closest possible point to Allah."

Re-read Dawson's analysis and tell me if this is inconsistent with what you are seeing here.