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Mark Steyn: U.S. Must Prove Its Staying Power (Iraq Test Of US Seriousness Alert Mark Steyn Classic)
Chicago Sun Times ^ | November 12, 2006 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 11/12/2006 2:42:23 AM PST by goldstategop

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To: beyond the sea

Ok let me clarify how my post related to what you said.

We'll stop being gutless after we stop letting the libs shame us for our desire to find and kill the enemy wherever they are. They are always trying to make us feel bad for that which is why we are pussyfooting around too much.


61 posted on 11/12/2006 4:49:15 AM PST by kuma (Mark Sanford '08 http://www.petitiononline.com/msan2008/petition.html)
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To: goldstategop

"both enhance our national security and help to free a violence-prone region of the world run by murderous despots"

I think it would help immensely if we stopped giving speeches using exactly those kinds of words. They are buzz words and quite boring. When Bush speaks in that language for 1/2 hour there is nothing moving or inspirational about it. It's also better to call terrorists the 'enemy'. Enemy is a better word or we need one even better than that. Islamicfacists was a good one but then Bush back tracked on it cause he let the libs shame us on saying it how it was.

We need to have different types of things we want to accomplish on a consistent basis put into a short list. Then anytime we accomplish one of those (which should be on a weekly basis stuff like rebuilding and killing IslamicFacists) we should trumpet them about! ^_^


62 posted on 11/12/2006 4:57:24 AM PST by kuma (Mark Sanford '08 http://www.petitiononline.com/msan2008/petition.html)
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To: kuma

This is an excellent post.


63 posted on 11/12/2006 5:02:19 AM PST by James Ewell Brown Stuart (Sorry, we don't want to stick around to see if we win; we'd rather vote ourselves off the island.)
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To: beyond the sea
And it will get nothing but worse.

I agree in some instances, but overall it will get better because if the DBM/dems actually try to have investigations for two years and try to void what Bush has put in place to protect America, they're gonners!

This election was a repudiation of moderate, rino repubs and their spineless attitude toward fighting and winning a spiritual war.

64 posted on 11/12/2006 5:08:54 AM PST by sirchtruth (No one has the RIGHT not to be offended...)
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To: goldstategop

bttt


65 posted on 11/12/2006 5:11:00 AM PST by aberaussie (Ignorance has a cost.)
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To: James Ewell Brown Stuart
"I think Rumsfeld insisted on going in the face of what was coming now that the dems had been elected."

- I agree with you. Rumsfeld is too proud to get grillings from the likes of Waxman.
66 posted on 11/12/2006 5:14:18 AM PST by finnigan2
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To: James Ewell Brown Stuart

Ya ya Thanks. I've been on FR way too much lately and I'm learning how to stop making my posts 5 ft long and get out what I want to say more efficiently.

I've been thinking. Another good way to promote the war effort would be to have cameras around when units are coming home. Those things should be a much more public affair. I've seen pictures here on FR of mini parades. I've always enjoyed it and I think the American people would too. It's a shame that Freepers are the only ones getting to see all the good stuff.


67 posted on 11/12/2006 5:15:15 AM PST by kuma (Mark Sanford '08 http://www.petitiononline.com/msan2008/petition.html)
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To: finnigan2

I don't think it has so much to do with pride, as to what purpose would it serve the nation. They were gunning for him and through him the war on terror.


68 posted on 11/12/2006 5:15:45 AM PST by James Ewell Brown Stuart (Sorry, we don't want to stick around to see if we win; we'd rather vote ourselves off the island.)
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To: goldstategop
Over the last 6 years we really tried to stay faithful to President Bush. Problem is, he acted like a Democrat in much of his legislation. When he threw Rumsfeld to the dogs we said enough is enough. I actually sat and cried.

We vote a straight Republican ticket, we are Conservative Republicans. We had such high hopes of another Ronald Reagan in office with a Conservative Republican led Congress. Yea, right.

We held our noses and voted a straight Republican ticket 11/6/06. What a waste.

Steyn is as usual right on the mark.

Maybe Armageddon in closer than we realize.

69 posted on 11/12/2006 5:22:48 AM PST by Dustbunny (The BIBLE - Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth)
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To: leadpenny; beyond the sea
This was a brilliant move and he (Rumsfeld) will be a whipping boy for a while, but only for a short while.

I have to disagree completely with this...

Again from Steyn:

"Whether or not Rumsfeld should have been tossed overboard long ago, he certainly shouldn't have been tossed on Wednesday morning. For one thing, it's a startlingly brazen confirmation of the politicization of the war, and a particularly unworthy one: It's difficult to conceive of any more public diminution of a noble cause than to make its leadership contingent on Lincoln Chafee's Senate seat. The president's firing of Rumsfeld was small and graceless."

The timing of the Rumsfeld exit is disasterous, both politically and globally. Globally, it shows an ineffectual President, who claims he has a plan, but obviously really does not. How many years have we been in Iraq now? If he doesn't know what he is doing at this point, he never will.

Politically it screws his party and destroys his effectiveness as a leader. If Rumsfeld's job is hinged on a Dem victory, then he should have left late Spring 06, allowing Bush's party to put a new face on the war and diffuse the strongest arguements of the Left - a need for 'change'.

Bush ends up looking like a stuck-in-the-mud indecisive leader, a rigid man unable to think, react and adjust to the changing circumstances and stakes of the war - which is exactly what his opponents painted him as. It gives an appearance of confirming what they were saying all along. There is even the possibility it is even true.

This move is demorallizing those that invested so much in his ability to prosecute the war. I think it is one of the worst choices the President and administration has ever made.

70 posted on 11/12/2006 5:29:08 AM PST by Jalapeno
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To: beyond the sea

I agree with every word of your post, except one. Surely the "late" in your tagline should be "early"?


71 posted on 11/12/2006 5:34:15 AM PST by Tenniel (For those who govern, the first thing required is indifference to newspapers. -- L.A. Thiers)
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To: goldstategop

Bump for later.


72 posted on 11/12/2006 5:36:17 AM PST by gridlock (My Prognosticator Unit is busted, and stuck on "ROSY". Predictions may be unreliable.)
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To: beyond the sea

Perhaps Rumsfeld had had more than enough. Spending the next two years being held hostage before various demonrat controlled committees ws not what he signed on for.


73 posted on 11/12/2006 5:38:06 AM PST by OldFriend (Run and Hide, Tax and Spend for the next two years. Everyone happy?)
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To: Jalapeno

You make good points. I was just thinking in terms of politics. His (I believe his) decision to leave while the votes were being counted gives him at least some news cycle cover.


74 posted on 11/12/2006 5:39:45 AM PST by leadpenny
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To: James Ewell Brown Stuart

"Where you and I disagree is whether the President has gotten across why the Bush doctrine is important."

He has done a good enough job explaining it to you and me. However, in the face of a hostile media and a soft culture, he has not done a good ENOUGH job. The elections are proof of that. Too few people understood the consequences of dem control. I respect the president and I will keep doing what I can. However, it is hard to be optimistic.


75 posted on 11/12/2006 5:39:57 AM PST by outofstyle
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To: James Ewell Brown Stuart
Clearly the MSM has made it seem as tho Baghdad represents the entire country of Iraq. Any disturbance in that city makes it easy to ignore the tremendous progress elsewhere.

I didn't need the President to articulate what we are doing in Iraq. I was here on 9/11, even tho the media would prefer us to forget that date.

Couple the MSM with our own pastime of Bush bashing, and we have a climate of discontent that resulted in a tantrum. Just my opinion.

If indeed it was the so called independents who voted D, we were unable to bring them to the republican side this time. In my experience, people registering I are usually dems in disguise.

76 posted on 11/12/2006 5:44:07 AM PST by OldFriend (Run and Hide, Tax and Spend for the next two years. Everyone happy?)
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To: beyond the sea
It says that we are a country of adolescents who demand instant gratification. Don't want to work hard for results but want everything handed to them on a silver platter.

Be assured my heart is VERY troubled.

77 posted on 11/12/2006 5:47:54 AM PST by OldFriend (Run and Hide, Tax and Spend for the next two years. Everyone happy?)
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To: goldstategop

"fainthearted tentative policing operation" . . well, that's the picture the lamestream media painted so perfectly of Iraq at any rate . . there was more to it than that, but PEA SEA and the 20-second sound byte rules in America today.

I'm sure Nancy and Company won't disappoint Al Qaeda in Iraq or anywhere else; although, the most current suicide bomber in Baghdad would indicate they aren't moving fast enough to suit AQ leaders. Nance better get a move on or one of them (AQ) just might show up on her doorstep for a bit of "brotherly" love. CHANGE . . the mantra "buzzword" of the Democrat party this election . . but, it's just the same old donkey wearing an Armani pantsuit sans that horrible, gauche American flag pin.


78 posted on 11/12/2006 5:48:21 AM PST by Twinkie (Have you hugged a veteran today?)
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To: outofstyle
I think it is easy to say However, in the face of a hostile media and a soft culture, he has not done a good ENOUGH job. This elections does not prove your thesis. All I have to do go back to 2002 and 2004 and say that he was just as outspoken then as he was now. He didn't change the message. Your answer is an easy out, an easy blame.

There were many, many reasons why the elections turned out the way they did. There are historical reasons (they can't be discounted), there are political reasons, and there are cultural reasons.

We are doing a lot of scape goating on these threads. Blaming everyone and everybody we can think of - most of the time unjustly.

79 posted on 11/12/2006 5:48:54 AM PST by James Ewell Brown Stuart (Sorry, we don't want to stick around to see if we win; we'd rather vote ourselves off the island.)
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To: goldstategop

The America hating left and their cohorts in the MSM had a victory in Viet Nam and wanted to replicate that loss to make sure that America is denigrated the world over.


80 posted on 11/12/2006 5:49:25 AM PST by OldFriend (Run and Hide, Tax and Spend for the next two years. Everyone happy?)
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