a historical view on Iraq....read it all

[stoled_400_:(]

read all of this, especially if you are against the war in iraq...
from http://righttruth.typepad.com/right_truth/2006/03/historical_revi.html

Historical Review Of Iraq Situation by Raymond S. Kraft
The following is a must read for every American and free people across the globe. If you do not believe that our way of life is threatened by radical Islam, or even if you do believe, you must read this:

Sixty-three years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe and hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat, and had sunk more than four hundred British ships in their convoys between England and America for food and war materials.
Bushido Japan had overrun most of Asia, beginning in 1928, killing millions of civilians throughout China, and impressing millions more as slave labor.

The US was in an isolationist, pacifist mood, and most Americans and Congress wanted nothing to do with the European war or the Asian war.

Then along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and in outrage Congress unanimously declared war on Japan, and the following day on Germany, which had not attacked us. It was a dicey thing. We had few allies.

France was not an ally. (Not even now. General Patton once said, "I'd rather have a battalion of Germans in front of me, than a battalion of French behind me!") The Vichy government of France aligned with its German occupiers. Germany was not an ally, it was an enemy, and Hitler intended to set up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was not an ally, it was intent on owning and controlling all of Asia. Japan and Germany had long-term ideas of invading Canada and Mexico, and then the United States over the north and south borders, after they had settled control of Asia and Europe.

America's allies then were England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and Russia, and that was about it. There were no other countries of any size or military significance with the will and ability to contribute much or anything to the effort to defeat Hitler's Germany and Japan, and prevent the global dominance of Nazism. And we had to send millions of tons of arms, munitions, and war supplies to Russia, England, and the Canadians, Aussies, Irish, and Scots, because none of them could produce all they needed for themselves.

All of Europe, from Norway to Italy, except Russia in the east, was already under the Nazi heel.

America was not prepared for war. America had stood down most of its military after WWI and throughout the depression, at the outbreak of WWII there were army units training with broomsticks over their shoulders because they didn't have guns, and cars with "tank" painted on the doors because they didn't have tanks. And a big chunk of our navy had just been sunk and damaged at Pearl Harbor.

Britain had already gone bankrupt, saved only by the donation of $600 million in gold bullion in the Bank of England that was the property of Belgium and was given by Belgium to England to carry on the war when Belgium was overrun by Hitler. Actually, Belgium surrendered in one day, because it was unable to oppose the German invasion, and the Germans bombed Brussels into rubble the next day anyway just to prove they could.

Britain had been holding out for two years already in the face of staggering shipping loses and the near-decimation of its air force in the Battle of Britain. They were saved from being overrun by Germany only because Hitler made the mistake of thinking the Brits were a relatively minor threat that could be dealt with later, so he turned his attention to Russia. This when England was on the verge of collapse in the late summer of 1940.

Russia saved America by putting up a desperate fight for two years until the US got geared up to begin hammering away at Germany. Russia lost something like 24 million people in the sieges of Stalingrad and Moscow, 90% of them from cold and starvation, mostly civilians, but also more than a million soldiers. More than a million! Had Russia surrendered then, Hitler would have been able to focus his entire campaign against the Brits, then America, and the Nazis would have won that war.

Had Hitler not made that mistake and instead invaded England in 1940 or 1941, there would have been no England for the US and the Brits to use as a staging ground to prepare an assault on Nazi Europe. England would not have been able to run its North African campaign to help take a little pressure off Russia while America geared up for battle, and today Europe would very probably be run by the Nazis, the Third Reich. Isolated and without any allies (not even the Brits), the US would very probably have had to cede Asia to the Japanese, who were basically Nazis by another name. The world we live in today would be very different and much worse. I say this to illustrate that turning points in history are often dicey things. AND we are at another one.

There is a very dangerous minority in Islam that either has, or wants and may soon have, the ability to deliver small nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons almost anywhere in the world, unless they are prevented from doing so.

France, Germany, and Russia, have been selling them weapons technology as recently as 2002, as have North Korea, Syria, and Pakistan. These weapons were paid for with billions of dollars that Saddam Hussein skimmed from the "Oil For Food" program administered by the impotent UN with the complicity of Koki Annan and his son.

The Jihadis, the militant Muslims, are basically Nazis in Kaffiyahs. They believe that Islam, a radically conservative (definitely not liberal!) form of Wahhabi Islam, should own and control the Middle East first, then Europe, then the world; that all who do not bow to Allah should be killed, enslaved, or subjugated. They want to finish the Holocaust, destroy Israel and purge the world of Jews. This is what they say.

There is also a civil war raging in the Middle East - for the most part not a hot war, but a war of ideas. Islam is having its Inquisition and its Reformation today, but it is not yet known which will win - the Inquisition, or the Reformation.

If the Inquisition wins, then the Wahhabis, the Jihadis, will control the Middle East and the OPEC oil. The US, European, and Asian economies, the techno-industrial economies, will be at the mercy of OPEC - not an OPEC dominated by the well-educated and rational Saudis of today, but an OPEC dominated by the Jihadis.

You want gas in your car? You want heating oil next winter? You want jobs? You want the dollar to be worth anything? You better hope the Jihad, the Muslim Inquisition, loses, and the Islamic Reformation wins.

If the Reformation movement wins, that is, the moderate Muslims who believe that Islam can respect and tolerate other religions and live in peace with the rest of the world, and move out of the 10th century into the 21st, then the troubles in the Middle East will eventually fade away. A moderate and prosperous Middle East will emerge.

We have to help the Reformation win. To do that we have to fight the Inquisition, i.e., the Wahhabi movement, Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist movements. We have to do it somewhere. We cannot do it everywhere at once ,so we have created a focal point for the battle. Now. At the time and place of our choosing, in Iraq. Not in New York, not in London, or Paris, or Berlin. In Iraq, where we did and are doing two very important things.

(1) We deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Saddam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11 or not, it is undisputed that Saddam has been actively supporting the terrorist movement for decades. Saddam is or was a terrorist, a weapon of mass destruction, who is responsible for the deaths of probably more than a million Iraqis and two million Iranians.

(2) We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad guys there. The ones we kill there we won't have to kill here, or somewhere else. We have a good shot at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq, which will be a catalyst for democratic change in the rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a stabilizing American military presence in the Middle East for as long as it is needed.

The Europeans could have done this, but they didn't, and they won't. We now know that rather than opposing the rise of the Jihadist, the French, Germans, and Russians were selling them arms - we have found more than a million tons of weapons and munitions in Iraq. If Iraq was not a threat to anyone, why did Saddam have a million tons of weapons?

And Iraq was paying for much of these French, German, and Russian arms with money skimmed from the UN Oil For Food Program that was supposed to pay for food, medicine, and education for Iraqi children.

World War II, the war with the German and the Japanese Nazis, really began with a "whimper" in 1928. It did not begin with Pearl Harbor. It began with the Japanese invasion of China. It was a war for fourteen years before America joined it. It officially ended in 1945 - a 17 year war - and was followed by another decade of US occupation in Germany and Japan to get those countries reconstructed and running on their own again . .. . a 27 year war.

World War II cost the United States an amount equal to approximately a full year's GDP - adjusted for inflation, equal to about $12 trillion dollars. WWII cost America more than 400,000 killed in action, and nearly 100,000 still missing in action.

[The Iraq war has, so far, cost the US about $180 billion, which is roughly what 9/11 cost New York. It has also cost approximately 2,100 American lives, which is roughly 2/3 of the lives that the Jihadist snuffed on 9/11. What will the next hit cost in dollars and lives if we wait until the Jihads have nuclear weapons?]

But the cost of not fighting and winning WWII would have been unimaginably greater - a world now dominated by German and Japanese Nazism.

Americans have a short attention span, conditioned I suppose by 60 minute TV shows and 2-hour movies in which everything comes out okay. The real world is not like that. It is messy, uncertain, and sometimes bloody and ugly. Always has been, and probably always will be.

If we do this thing in Iraq successfully, it is probable that the Reformation will ultimately prevail. Many Muslims in the Middle East hope it will. We will be there to support it. It has begun in some countries, e. g. Libya, Dubai and Saudi Arabia. If we fail, the Inquisition will probably prevail, and terrorism from Islam will be with us for all the foreseeable future, because the Inquisition, the Jihadist, believe they are called by Allah to kill all the Infidels, and that death in Jihad is glorious.

The bottom line here is that we will have to deal with Islamic terrorism until we defeat it (or are defeated by it), whenever that is. It will not go away on its own. It WILL NOT go away if we ignore it.

If the US can create a reasonably democratic and stable Iraq, then we have an "England" in the Middle East, a platform from which we can work to help modernize and moderate the Middle East. The history of the world is the clash between the forces of relative civility and civilization, and the barbarians clamoring at the gates. The Iraq war is merely another battle in this ancient and never-ending war. Now, for the first time ever, the barbarians are about to get nuclear weapons unless WE prevent them.

The Iraq war is expensive, and uncertain, yes. But the consequences of not fighting and winning it will be horrifically greater. We have four options:

(1) We can defeat the Jihad now, before it gets nuclear weapons.

(2) We can fight the Jihad later, after it gets nuclear weapons (which may be as early as next year, if Iran's progress on nuclear weapons is what Iran claims it is).

(3) We can surrender to the Jihad and accept its dominance in the Middle East, now, in Europe in the next few years or decades, and ultimately in America.

(4) Or we can stand down now, and pick up the fight later when the Jihad is more widespread and better armed, perhaps after the Jihad has dominated France and Germany, which is well underway, and maybe most of the rest of Europe. It will be more dangerous, more expensive, and much bloodier then.

Yes, the Jihadist say that they look forward to an Islamic America. If you oppose this war, I hope you like the idea that your children, or grandchildren, may live in an Islamic America under the Mullahs and the Sharia (Islamic law as dictated by the Qur'an), an America that resembles Iran today.

We can be defeatist peace-activists as anti-war types seem to be, and concede, surrender, to Jihad, or we can do whatever it takes to win this war against it.

The history of the world is the history of civilization clashes - cultural clashes. All wars are about ideas. Ideas about what society and civilization should be like. The most determined always win.

Those who are willing to be the most ruthless win. The pacifists always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them.

In the 20th century, it was Western democracy vs. communism, and before that Western democracy vs. Nazism, and before that Western democracy vs. German Imperialism. Western democracy won, three times, but it wasn't cheap, fun, nice, easy, or quick. Indeed, the wars against German imperialism (WWI), Nazi imperialism (WWII), and communist imperialism (the 40-year Cold War that included the Vietnam War, itself a major battle in a larger war) covered almost the entire century.

The first major war of the 21st Century is the war between Western Judeo/Christian Civilization and Wahhabi Islam. It may last a few more years, or most of this century. It will last until the Wahhabi branch of Islam fades away, or gives up its ambitions for regional and global dominance through Jihad, or until Western Civilization gives in to the Jihad.

[stoled_400_:(]

Senator John Kerry, almost daily, makes three scary claims:

(1) We went to Iraq without enough troops. Actually, we went with the troops the US military wanted. We went with the troop levels General Tommy Franks asked for. We deposed Saddam in 30 days with light casualties, much lighter than we expected.

The real problem in Iraq is that we are trying to be nice - we are trying to fight a minority of the population that is Jihadi, and trying to avoid killing the large majority that is not. We could flatten Fallujah in minutes with a flight of B52s, or seconds with one nuclear cruise missile - but we don't. We're trying to do brain surgery, not amputate the patient's head. The Jihadis amputate heads.

(2) We went to Iraq with too little planning. This is a specious argument. It supposes that if we had just had the right plan the war would have been easy, cheap, quick and clean.

That is not an option. It is a guerrilla war against a determined enemy and no such war ever has been or ever will be easy, cheap, quick, and clean. This is not TV.

(3) We proved ourselves incapable of governing and providing security. This too is a specious argument. It was never our intention to govern and provide security. It was our intention from the beginning to do just enough to enable the Iraqis to develop a representative government and their own military and police forces to provide their own security, and that is happening.

The US and the Brits and other countries there have trained over 100,000 Iraqi police and military, now, and will have trained more than 200,000 by the end of next year. We are in the process of transitioning operational control for security back to Iraq. It will take time. It will not go with no hitches. This is not TV.

Remember, perspective is everything, and America's schools teach too little history for perspective to be clear, especially in the young American mind. Did you know that some American schools start teaching U.S. history commencing with the Civil War? Many young Americans are not learning about the Pilgrims, Colonial America, the Revolution, the Constitution. They think America started with the freeing of the slaves.

The Cold war lasted from about 1947 until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Forty-two years. Europe spent the first half of the 19th century fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany.

World War II began in 1928, lasted 17 years, plus a ten year occupation, and the US still has troops in Germany and Japan. World War II resulted in the death of more than 50 million people, maybe more than 100 million people, depending on whose estimates you accept.

The US has lost about 2,100 KIA in Iraq. The US took more than 4,000 killed in action on the morning of June 6, 1944, the first day of the Normandy Invasion to rid Europe of Nazi Imperialism. In WWII the US averaged 2,000 KIA a week for four years. Most of the individual battles of WWII lost more Americans than the entire Iraq war has done so far.

Today, in Iraq, the stakes are at least as high . . . a world dominated by representative governments with civil rights, human rights, and personal freedoms . . . or a world dominated by the radical Islamic Wahhabi movement, by the Jihadist under the Mullahs and the Sharia.

I do not understand why the American Left does not grasp this. Don't they know that the Sharia considers women as property, that the whim of the Mullah is the law, that there is absolutely NO freedom of choice? The American left seems to favor human rights, civil rights, liberty and freedom, but evidently not for Iraqis. In America, absolutely, but nowhere else.

The 300,000 Iraqi bodies in mass graves in Iraq are not our problem. The US population is about twelve times that of Iraq, so let's multiply 300,000 by twelve. What would you think if there were 3,600,000 American bodies in mass graves in America because of George Bush? Would you hope for another country to help liberate America?

"Peace Activists" always seem to demonstrate where it's safe - in America. For this privilege, they should thank US veterans. Why don't we see peace activist demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, North Korea, in the places in the world that really need peace activism the most? Why? Just look at what happened to the four peace activists from the Christian Peace Maker Teams recently taken captive by the Muslim "insurgents" near Baghdad.

The Liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc. But if the Jihad wins, wherever the Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc. Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy.

If the Jihad wins, it will be the death of Liberalism.

Sadly, American Liberals just don't get it.



The author, Raymond S. Kraft, is a writer and lawyer living in Northern California.

[MOFO]

So true.

I wish most of the young kids on here that base their opinions on the news, teachers or their parents would read this and actually think about it.

[Pappy]

Im glad someone finally set the record straight without the spin the liberals like to confuse the 60 minute american minds with!

[derekhonda]

Wow that was a great article, lengthy but very eye opening. I have agreed with the war from the start, basing most of my argument on the same reasoning as Kraft. Thanks.

[stoled_400_:(]

Originally posted by MOFO
So true.

I wish most of the young kids on here that base their opinions on the news, teachers or their parents would read this and actually think about it.

that's what i'm hoping....i'm 17 and still don't understand the BS reasoning some people try to use. like the article said, their stance on the situation only helps the enemy.

[Debbie]

Glad you liked the Kraft article. Since I posted that at Right Truth, readers either love it or hate it, nothing in the middle.

This war is called war on terrorism, but it is much more than that and our government needs to realize that. Sometimes it seems the radical wing of the Democratic party hates America by their actions and comments.

September 11 should have been a wake up call to all Americans.

Nice site.

[PolarisRider06]

great article, hopefully all of the kids (and adults for that matter) who are against the war actually read that and truely pay attention to what is said in it and not just say that its all a bunch of BS just because they have never seen anything like it on CNN or on the evening news or a magazine article or any of that crap.

i have supported the war since day one and hate it when people say that we have no bussiness over there. its like saying that we had no bussiness in WWII or no bussiness fighting the british in the revolutionary war for that matter because all the brits ever did was tax us(which they had the right to do because we were THEIR colony), they never killed thousands of people in one day like the islam extremists. if they want to keep living their "free" lives by protesting the war maybe they should stop and think about who got them their freedom and what it took to gain and keep that freedom in the first place.

just my 2 cents

[MOFO]

Originally posted by PolarisRider06
(and adults for that matter)


Good point I left out of my post. I have sent this to everyone at work. The ones who have agreed with the war, enjoyed reading it. The ones who have been against the war had nothing to say, nothing to debate. This is a good sign of a great article. :cool:

[derekhonda]

Originally posted by MOFO
Good point I left out of my post. I have sent this to everyone at work. The ones who have agreed with the war, enjoyed reading it. The ones who have been against the war had nothing to say, nothing to debate. This is a good sign of a great article. :cool:

I was just thinking the same thing. I came in here to see if anyone could rebut the argument the paper makes....nothing.

Makes it awful difficult to stand up when someones already chopped your legs out from under you:devil:

Damn, good article.

[stoled_400_:(]

Originally posted by derekhonda
Makes it awful difficult to stand up when someones already chopped your legs out from under you:devil:
exactly :macho

....cmon, someone on here has to disagree with this article.... go on, try and deny these FACTS. :cool:

[Punk'd]

Great artical.. Very long, but so true.

Its amazing what could have happened in WW2, but didnt.

I cant even think about how it would be like if America was invaded.. Im not sure who would be stupid enough to invade America in the first place, but its crazy to think about the possibilitys of the past.

Again.. Great Artical:)

PS: Id like to see what people against the war have to say about this artical.

[DeerNuts]

I was against this when we went in, I was against it after Bush declared "mission complete" on the USS Abraham Lincoln, I was against it when that 15 year old girl got gang raped by us from "pressure on the soldiers, and I'm against it after reading all that nonsense that was posted.

My dad served in the US Army, my uncle went to Vietnam where he was a gunner in a chopper, my grandfather fought in WWII, I have a bunch of friends that have done tours, even some more that are about to since troop levels will be escalated. So I know of some of the sacrifices made, albeit not by me. I am a registered, on-almost-all-issues conservative Republican. Not a liberal by any extent.

I have utmost respect for all those, including the now over 2500 dead, not to mention the maimed, or the Iraqi citizens, not soldiers, killed or otherwise ruined unnecessarily. I have no respect for the leadership here.

Here's why:
1. Tommy Franks is not omniscient when it comes to troop levels. Neither is Rumsfeld. Certainly not George-I-pulled-all-my-favors-to-dodge-the-Vietnam-war Bush. All were advised they needed more. I think those who served more than once because they had to might agree, maybe not. Who knows. There are not enough there RIGHT NOW to secure the area.

2. Ignorance of proper tactics. This isn't our first rodeo in geurilla warfare. Read the end of Col. David Hackworth's book, Steel My Soldiers Hearts. He expresses regret that armor levels weren't sufficient, there is an apparent lack of a good game plan that will minimize casualities, etc... He goes on. You need to read the rest of the book that tells his experience dealing with spooks in the Delta, and then you can see he has a right to voice his concerns.

3. If there is a plan, what is it? How does anyone know that it was simply to let the government get on their feet and then pull out. Is that what was said? No. Is it to occupy until 2010? Till 2020? Till when? And if they had that very plan, then why wasn't Bush's speech on the Abraham Lincoln the end of major combat operations like he said? Yes, after that insurgents increased the visciousness of their attacks, but it's not like we had no previous idea that they would. They knew some of the signs, if they didnt, then they should have.

4. This is ignorance of larger threats. Iran, N. Korea, Iraq. All labeled the axis of evil in the famed 2002 State of the Union Address as an argument for war. Iraq didn't have their weapons trucked off. And if they did, we covered the fact up, because there is little documented evidence. Apparently noone figured that our occupation would give Iran and N. Korea the chance to use that as leverage to thumb their collective noses at us and ESCALATE their own arsenals, or begin to attempt to.

5. Lack of proven threat from Saddam's regime. Or, fine, agree with he was a threat, then how NOW can we say Iran and N. Korea aren't foes worthy of attack. They are against us, yet we will not attack. Why? Politics, stupid. There's elections coming up, and there always will be. The President amazingly looks weak when dealing with these other, at-the-moment larger threats.

I hope no one holds these views against me, since it singles no one out as unfaithful or unpatriotic. There was no conspiracy here, just ignorance and miscalculations. You cannot say now we are winning; we don't even know what it will look like when we have won. What if the attacks never cease? We just don't know.

Maybe my friend Joe who just got back from his year of service in the Army put it best: We can make a good case for, and a good case against, depending on how we hold our world views. In the end, it's only important that we support the guys over their. I say amen to that, and pray the nation keeps its eyes open, because this isn't the first time a US administration has completely bungled a foreign operation. If they had been accountable in Vietman, maybe we would not have had 58,000 dead, whom we collectively spit on when they came back. I ask this, when it hits that many dead over there, is it still worth it? Is it worth the thousands we have lost so these sand ******s can have a chance at more chaos? And an even more fleeting chance at lasting peace?

[derekhonda]

I can read your argument, but I don't particularily understand what you mean. What was the better option? Sit here and wait for them (them = terrorists) to attack us again....tell me thats not what you are proposing?

There may be flaws with the war....as there have been in every war. But in the end...we are fighting the good fight man, it has to be taken care of.

[DeerNuts]

Originally posted by derekhonda
I can read your argument, but I don't particularily understand what you mean. What was the better option? Sit here and wait for them (them = terrorists) to attack us again....tell me thats not what you are proposing?

There may be flaws with the war....as there have been in every war. But in the end...we are fighting the good fight man, it has to be taken care of.

Derek,
I'm simply trying to point out that it now seems we went in half-assed, and it can certainly be argued that's the case. There isnt a lot of evidence now that suggests we aren't fighting half-assed even now.
I'm also saying that even if there was a threat, the administration did not make a good case that Iraq was more of a threat than Iran, or N. Korea.

Could anyone say now that Iran and or N. Korea is less of a threat than Iraq? Maybe it's the case that our going to war there produced it. But Iwouldn't go that far, rather I would say there were already conditions present in each of those countries contributing to aggression, and maybe it was then that our presence in Iraq is simply exacerbating the problems that have been brewing over there.

And one question: Does anyone now trust that the administration can effectively deal with the Isreal-Lebanon engagement? And should we even now try to fix anything? Should we broker a deal? Should the UN deal with it? Where is the consensus? The administration now seems to not really give a **** about what's going on. Take the President's (not so private) remarks to Blair as a case in point. This all raises important questions that need to be dealt with, not shrouded in Im-proud-of -the-USA-no-matter-what idealogy.


See, it really is possible to make a case against this without bashing our country! Dissent does not have to equal a lack of patriotism, rather the opposite if you think about what you say.

[stoled_400_:(]

the world is not an utopian society, its not perfect. you can't just leave Iraq, Iran, North Korea, etc. alone and expect them to be good now that we're not giving them attention. Just because we chose to deal with Iraq first doesn't mean anything. If we went into Iran instead, you could make a case that North Korea and Iraq should have been first.

But, what would you have suggested we do instead of going to Iraq, or for that matter, if we had gone to N. Korea or Iran first? Other than going there with more forces? Should we just leave them alone, and like the article says, deal with them later when the losses will be much closer to that of WWII and Vietnam?

I do agree what you said about supporting the troops no matter what your opinion is, however.

[MOFO]

Originally posted by stoled_400_:(
Just because we chose to deal with Iraq first doesn't mean anything. If we went into Iran instead, you could make a case that North Korea and Iraq should have been first.



I do agree what you said about supporting the troops no matter what your opinion is, however.


Well said.

[stoled_400_:(]

i thought so... :D But seriously, what difference does it make? There are many countries that pose the same threats. It's unrealistic to simultaneously solve all the problems at once. It would be great if we could, but the simple fact is that it can't be done that way. And, it's not like George Bush is purposely looking at all of these places and picking what he thinks is the worst choice. He's doing his best with what he has. If you say you will stand behind the Armed Forces 100%, then stand behind your president, because he is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.

[Bulldog67]

Cheers!

USMC Sgt. 85-99

[ak_stick]

Originally posted by stoled_400_:(

I do agree what you said about supporting the troops no matter what your opinion is, however.


That is not possible. You either support the war, or you do not, you can not support me, and not support the mission I am on.

Is it worth the lives of our joes, the lives of my friends and brothers and sisters in arms, MY life should it come to that?

Yes. Yes it is.

We are doing the right thing here. I have seen day in and day out how much of a change and how much better life has become.

Kids playing in streets where once they cowered in fear. Children going to school instead of huddling in fear from opression. People living a life, instead of non stop terror they were forced under Sadam.

The question is not how long will it take to get a gov't set up and running, but are we as a nation willing to stay as long as it takes.

[miller821]

I actually wasn't going to read this cause it was way to long and looked boring, but after reading some replies I decided that I had nothing better to do:p

But I agree with the article and with the war! I'm not going to sit on my but waiting to be overuled/ attacked.

[Pappy]

Originally posted by stoled_400_:(
the world is not an utopian society, its not perfect. you can't just leave Iraq, Iran, North Korea, etc. alone and expect them to be good now that we're not giving them attention. Just because we chose to deal with Iraq first doesn't mean anything. If we went into Iran instead, you could make a case that North Korea and Iraq should have been first.

But, what would you have suggested we do instead of going to Iraq, or for that matter, if we had gone to N. Korea or Iran first? Other than going there with more forces? Should we just leave them alone, and like the article says, deal with them later when the losses will be much closer to that of WWII and Vietnam?


Going into korea would have spurned alot more then most americans would like to admit they would be willing to sacrifice...

Secondly, if you do believe whole heartedly that the mission in Iraq was really to draw in and finish the war on terror, then attacking North Korea would not have helped that goal.

[Heybo]

In response to some of Deernuts opinions.......

1. You're right..... President Bush was advised that he needed more troops to invade Iraq by SOME people. He was also advised by SOME OTHER people that he had enough troops. He made the decision to go with the troop levels he had. When making a decision of any type, you have to make a choice and hope that it's right. I personally believe that he made the right choice and we defeated the Iraqi army in a very short time.

2. As far as a plan to get out of Iraq....... we plan to get out of Iraq when we're through assisting the new government with establishing itself in gaining control of the country. The new government there is still new and weak and needs the help of friends. We shouldn't leave or pull out one second before we have completed our obligations to people of Iraq. If we had a militant situation here in the United States such as they have in Iraq and our allies decided to pull out and leave us to our own fate, we would be pissed, and rightly so.

3. " Does anyone now trust that the administration can effectively deal with the Isreal-Lebanon engagement?" I think they are doing the right thing with this engagement. Should we jump up and down and demand that the Israelis quit attacking Hezbollah after they were attacked first by a terrorist group? Are the Lebanese really innocent victims? In 2000, Lebanon agreed to 1)disarm Hezbollah and 2) to put the Lebanese army on the southern Lebanon border to secure it. So far Lebanon has neither tried to disarm Hezbollah or dispatched it's army to the southern border to secure it. They have not even made a pretense of living up to their agreement.
And that brings up another related subject......Hamas in Palestine. Israel was told if you just give us the Gaza strip we will have peace. They withdrew from Gaza and forcibly removed their own people and then they were still attacked.
I say enough is enough. Let Israel defend itself and we should offer our help to do so. They are our friends and allies.

4. People need to open their eyes and realize that an extremist group of Islamics have declared religious war on everyone that doesn't believe as they do. Christians, Budhists, Jews, atheist, any religion, even other Muslims are the enemy of the extremist and they seek our deaths. The world did not declare war on them..... they declared war on the world.

[Honda TRX250ex]

So why dont we do it? I read the whole think and its mainly common sense but most people in america would be totally against it if we did this. I think bush should do a speach to america about it and really think about this.

[stoled_400_:(]

Originally posted by ak_stick
That is not possible. You either support the war, or you do not, you can not support me, and not support the mission I am on.

i see what you're saying...i was just trying to be nice to deernuts. :)

[ridered11]

that was a great arcticle, and i agree with it 110%


it is true, everyone has their own right to his or her own opinion. but i do think it is a non valid opinion when people are basing their opinions on faulty information or ideas (deernuts). sadly most of these ideas are put into your heads by the american media. untill you have actually experienced iraq first hand or atleast talked to soldiers who have faught, you don't have a real sense of the reality of this conflict, it is nothing like the media portrays it, and it is amazing what these soldiers have to go through ( i live with midshipman, and talk to many marines, and soldiers)

none the less, iraq has changed for the better, wether you believe it or not it has, the people of iraq are begining to experience a government much like our own, and the oportunity of being free. in that alone our troops have not died in vain, and our country has done a great thing


to acomplish the big picture will take time, and sacrifice, no doubght. but i am confident that with our soldiers the goal will be reached


thank you for posting ak_stick

[DeerNuts]

Originally posted by ak_stick
That is not possible. You either support the war, or you do not, you can not support me, and not support the mission I am on.

Is it worth the lives of our joes, the lives of my friends and brothers and sisters in arms, MY life should it come to that?

Yes. Yes it is.

We are doing the right thing here. I have seen day in and day out how much of a change and how much better life has become.

Kids playing in streets where once they cowered in fear. Children going to school instead of huddling in fear from opression. People living a life, instead of non stop terror they were forced under Sadam.

The question is not how long will it take to get a gov't set up and running, but are we as a nation willing to stay as long as it takes.

So then by your reasoning you would have had to (or do) support our engagement in Vietnam. Not the troops, but the actual conflict. Our nation spit on the administration's propaganda and lies, but unfortunately also spit on the soldiers. The media had a role, but a lot of the media were accurate in some of the portrayals they gave. It is agreed, I hope, that the conflict was a joke, that we had no business being there. It was their fight, was it not? Or was it ours in fact, and we then screwed it up disastrously?

I don't think Iraq compares to Vietnam in scale, but it does in regards to the idealogy involved. There is propaganda. There are lies being disseminated. The Commander-in-Chief had no business being on that ship telling the world that the mission was accomplished. Now maybe he meant the mission was to overtake Iraq. Done. Check. But deal with the mess after? Where is the plan? What is it? We don't know. We like to guess; we haven't been told because they that hold the reins don't know.

Worth my life? No. Worth my buddies thumb that lies somewhere in the hot sands, lost to time, to him? He said no. Worth the psychological trauma experienced by my friend Joe? He said no. I agree, and say no.

I agree, there has been positive change. But look to our nation's cities, in the slums, where the poor lie destitute, no schooling, no real life, no real chance. If the freedom of Iraqis is important to our foreign policy, then why isn't there true freedom and help being offered to our nation's own-- why is it not a centerpiece of our domestic policy? Like Iraq, unless you've seen and experienced rot with your own eyes, then you have no business sounding forth on terrible conditions in our own country. Why is the Gulf still torn up? People homeless? Dying? Living in squalor without help, without the concerted effort of a government (of the people?) to help them? These are liberal views, and if they are, then so are the views of our "conservatives" toward foreign policy. Help those in need, but screw our own? What is that? And if we should leave it to the poor to help themselves, then by extension so should we as a nation let other nations help themselves and deal with their own problems. Just something to chew on.

Neo-conservatives, whose idealogy helped drive our administration to war, now disagree with Bush's handling of other, more pressing issues. They say we should attack Iran pre-emptively. Is this a good idea? Can we now? Or, perhaps more accurate, would we now? No to both.

So if you consider some of this, then no, we as a nation are not willing to stay as long as it takes. We'd rather use resources (which at this point are borrowed heavily) to help those here. Why are foreigners more important than our destitute? Where does our responsiblity lie? If to both, then fine. Fight the good fight. But do it on both fronts.

Edit: Note: This argument relies heavily on the premise that Iraq posed little threat to our nation. I know that would be pointed out and used as furthur argument. That, of course, is heavily disagreed upon. And that's fine. But if there were threats, then why did our government have to fabricate evidence (ask Colin Powell) to make the case?

And I'm also glad we can disagree without losing our cool. I like Jefferson's quote best: "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."

[ak_stick]

Originally posted by DeerNuts
So then by your reasoning you would have had to (or do) support our engagement in Vietnam. Not the troops, but the actual conflict. Our nation spit on the administration's propaganda and lies, but unfortunately also spit on the soldiers. The media had a role, but a lot of the media were accurate in some of the portrayals they gave. It is agreed, I hope, that the conflict was a joke, that we had no business being there. It was their fight, was it not? Or was it ours in fact, and we then screwed it up disastrously?

I don't think Iraq compares to Vietnam in scale, but it does in regards to the idealogy involved. There is propaganda. There are lies being disseminated. The Commander-in-Chief had no business being on that ship telling the world that the mission was accomplished. Now maybe he meant the mission was to overtake Iraq. Done. Check. But deal with the mess after? Where is the plan? What is it? We don't know. We like to guess; we haven't been told because they that hold the reins don't know.

Worth my life? No. Worth my buddies thumb that lies somewhere in the hot sands, lost to time, to him? He said no. Worth the psychological trauma experienced by my friend Joe? He said no. I agree, and say no.

I agree, there has been positive change. But look to our nation's cities, in the slums, where the poor lie destitute, no schooling, no real life, no real chance. If the freedom of Iraqis is important to our foreign policy, then why isn't there true freedom and help being offered to our nation's own-- why is it not a centerpiece of our domestic policy? Like Iraq, unless you've seen and experienced rot with your own eyes, then you have no business sounding forth on terrible conditions in our own country. Why is the Gulf still torn up? People homeless? Dying? Living in squalor without help, without the concerted effort of a government (of the people?) to help them? These are liberal views, and if they are, then so are the views of our "conservatives" toward foreign policy. Help those in need, but screw our own? What is that? And if we should leave it to the poor to help themselves, then by extension so should we as a nation let other nations help themselves and deal with their own problems. Just something to chew on.

Neo-conservatives, whose idealogy helped drive our administration to war, now disagree with Bush's handling of other, more pressing issues. They say we should attack Iran pre-emptively. Is this a good idea? Can we now? Or, perhaps more accurate, would we now? No to both.

So if you consider some of this, then no, we as a nation are not willing to stay as long as it takes. We'd rather use resources (which at this point are borrowed heavily) to help those here. Why are foreigners more important than our destitute? Where does our responsiblity lie? If to both, then fine. Fight the good fight. But do it on both fronts.

Edit: Note: This argument relies heavily on the premise that Iraq posed little threat to our nation. I know that would be pointed out and used as furthur argument. That, of course, is heavily disagreed upon. And that's fine. But if there were threats, then why did our government have to fabricate evidence (ask Colin Powell) to make the case?

And I'm also glad we can disagree without losing our cool. I like Jefferson's quote best: "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."

Yes, I mean exactly that, you can not support a soldier, and not his cause.

Fact is the CiC was completely right, the mission was done, to destroy and abolish the leadership and military might of Iraq. And we did it. That mission was over, and we were switching roles.

Fabricate Evidence? My how quickly people forget the drums of mustard gas, Sarin nerve agents and crates of other biological and neve agents that have been found. Fact is WMD's have and were found in Iraq, and that was swept under the rug by liberal media, because its not convinent.

Screw our own? Hardly, our poor have a better crutch than most other countrys working class, its called welfare. True freedom? Last I checked, a poor person has every right the same as I do. Actualy poor people have more rights than I do, so again, that argument is lacking.

[DeerNuts]

Originally posted by ak_stick
Yes, I mean exactly that, you cannot support a soldier, and not his cause.

Fact is the CiC was completely right, the mission was done, to destroy and abolish the leadership and military might of Iraq. And we did it. That mission was over, and we were switching roles.

Fabricate Evidence? My how quickly people forget the drums of mustard gas, Sarin nerve agents and crates of other biological and neve agents that have been found. Fact is WMD's have and were found in Iraq, and that was swept under the rug by liberal media, because its not convinent.

Screw our own? Hardly, our poor have a better crutch than most other countrys working class, its called welfare. True freedom? Last I checked, a poor person has every right the same as I do. Actualy poor people have more rights than I do, so again, that argument is lacking.

Eventually you get to the point where you have to look away from Iraq to prove a point, both in arguments for and against.

1. You can support a soldier and not a cause. Reasons for Vietnam: bad. Support for the soldier? Unconditional. I still am grateful for my late uncle who fought over there needlessly. I give no support to those who mismanaged this so that conditions fester more so than they would have.

2. There is a major difference between removing a threat and nation-building. Particularly a nation building strategy that allows democracy to flourish, not chaos. Bush's attempt to steal the show reeked as much as did Gen. William C. Westmoreland's "We're prevailing" speech to Congress in 1967 (Vietnam).

3. Fabricate evidence. Yes we did. And you can find the same stuff in America, England, Iraq, Iran, N. Korea, India, China, and anywhere else terrorists want to ship it. Do we attack all points of terror unilaterally then? Why only Iraq? Is it simply a starting point?

4. Screw our own? Yes. "Conservatives" in power don't give a rat's *** about our poor (read minorities). If they do, then why did the media know about conditions in the Gulf before the joke Michael Brown did? Why was a former horse trader/ judge the head of the F EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT A?

And also on a tanget, who accounts for Halliburton's and other federal contractor's profiting immensely off the war? They are the only company that can do so one might say. Fine. But that gives them a blank check to sub-contract, receive contracts, etc...? Now recently, the Army did not extend their contract, but allowed it to be bidded on. So they did something, but not before the profit could be made.

Another tanget: our own security funding. How do agriculture states get more homeland security funds than New York or California? Because of powerful Senators/ Vice President.

One more: why has it been documented we have had to scrounge through dumps to get armor over there? One of the people I went to college with told me a story of having to pound sheet metal on their "armored vehicles" If the defense budget is so large, why not more specific funds for necessary equipment.

I know wars are never perfect. There's always miscalculations, etc... But there's a difference between a mistake and just ignorance, lack of a plan, and a false premise that leads men to die for something some of which are not quite sure of.

[ak_stick]

Originally posted by DeerNuts
Eventually you get to the point where you have to look away from Iraq to prove a point, both in arguments for and against.

1. You can support a soldier and not a cause. Reasons for Vietnam: bad. Support for the soldier? Unconditional. I still am grateful for my late uncle who fought over there needlessly. I give no support to those who mismanaged this so that conditions fester more so than they would have.

2. There is a major difference between removing a threat and nation-building. Particularly a nation building strategy that allows democracy to flourish, not chaos. Bush's attempt to steal the show reeked as much as did Gen. William C. Westmoreland's "We're prevailing" speech to Congress in 1967 (Vietnam).

3. Fabricate evidence. Yes we did. And you can find the same stuff in America, England, Iraq, Iran, N. Korea, India, China, and anywhere else terrorists want to ship it. Do we attack all points of terror unilaterally then? Why only Iraq? Is it simply a starting point?

4. Screw our own? Yes. "Conservatives" in power don't give a rat's *** about our poor (read minorities). If they do, then why did the media know about conditions in the Gulf before the joke Michael Brown did? Why was a former horse trader/ judge the head of the F EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT A?

And also on a tanget, who accounts for Halliburton's and other federal contractor's profiting immensely off the war? They are the only company that can do so one might say. Fine. But that gives them a blank check to sub-contract, receive contracts, etc...? Now recently, the Army did not extend their contract, but allowed it to be bidded on. So they did something, but not before the profit could be made.

Another tanget: our own security funding. How do agriculture states get more homeland security funds than New York or California? Because of powerful Senators/ Vice President.

One more: why has it been documented we have had to scrounge through dumps to get armor over there? One of the people I went to college with told me a story of having to pound sheet metal on their "armored vehicles" If the defense budget is so large, why not more specific funds for necessary equipment.

I know wars are never perfect. There's always miscalculations, etc... But there's a difference between a mistake and just ignorance, lack of a plan, and a false premise that leads men to die for something some of which are not quite sure of.



No, you cannont support a soldier and not his cause, I realize not being a soldier, its hard to fathom that. But you cant. To support a soldier, you must support the fact that he's going out to kill the enemy and destroy him, its his job, and his life. You must support his mission to support him. If you beleive what we're doing here is wrong, then you obviously dont support my mission, Hence you dont support me. It is that simple.

Companys always profit from war always have, always will welcome to a free market economy. KBR/ Haliburton are just this war's benifactor.

The scrounging was at the very start of the war, when the army had a grand total of 300 up-armored humvee's because IED's were not a weapon we had encountered like this, and the up armors were for MP units at forward stations, directing traffic, and dealing with POW's, to protect them from artillery fire. Any other scrounging, was purely to mod the armor. Yes, it happened, but over 90% of the humvee's now in Iraq are M114' factory uparmors. the old M1014 hillbilly uparmors were only a stop gap while the factory kit ws retrofitted and issued.

I'd wager those farms who provide food, oil, or other natural resorce to the markets are a fair bit more important than New York, seriously whats in NY or cali that we cant live without? What does NY or Cali give to america other than a bunch of stupid liberals that are currently trying to run this nation into the ground? Yeah, Exactly, thats why those have higher defence budgets, we need the farms, NY and Cali could break off and sink, and the US would probably be better off.

Lack of a plan? We crushed the largest muslim military in the middle east in less time than it took us to route the germans from africa, False premise? again, I dont think so, our goal was to remove a evil dictator from power, for his constant human rights violations, and being in violation of UN resolutions, we did exactly that, and even found what we claimed was in the country.

[ak_stick]

The truely sad fact is that you have no idea what you are realy talking about.

You have never seen Iraq. You haven't seen but a few pictures of the country, and some slanted news broadcasts.

You haven't seen the mass graves of kurds who resisted Saddams rule. You havent seen the dungeons and torture cells used to keep people in line, or the hidden prisons where people went and never returned. You haven't seen the daily life of Iraqi's now, or then, or how its changed. You dont understand the difference we've made, or even what we've done here.

Have you spent time among the population? Ever been to Da Hook, the kurdish city built into a mountin, how about played soccer amongst the locals and children? Have you laid in a bunker while mortars come raining in, praying one doesn't square off your bunker with a direct hit? Have you gone out on tower guard? How much time have you spent sweating in full body armor during the noon sun, or shivering in the night cold? How much blood sweat and tears have you left in the sand?

Thats what I thought. Now go ahead, tell me what you dont know about Iraq, I'll be sure to listen.

However, your quick to jump on the bandwagon, and bash the war because you think its wrong, even when you have nothing at stake. Its easy to sit at home and second guess, but what have you done to improve the world? How many famlies that lived in persection have you saved? How many untold thousands of lives were saved because you stepped up and said enough was enough, even when others turned a blind eye.

[ridered11]

very well put ak_stick


those were some points i was trying to aim it, just couldn't hit them the way you did

[Pappy]

I cant understand how you (Deernuts) can speak of Vietnam in this conversation and not draw paralel lines to the big picture. Vietnam was not a war to save south vietnam, it was another battle on the war on comunism. There are times when the population must be told only part of the story or you run the risk of exposing your stratagy. How would we have faired if we stood up and told the world that under no circumstances would we allow the communists to gain another inch in Vietnam. Russia and China were already supplying the NVA and Viet Cong with supplies, training and weapons. They had their own advisors in country before we did. In fact, it is now known thatRussian pilots were flying air combat missions over Veitnam to allow the Russians to see how well they would fare against the United States pilots. If we would have gone into Vietnam under the outright banner of destroy all communism it could have escallated. Instead, we drained the bank account of the communists, starting in Korea and Vietnam. Once things went high tech, Reagan nailed the coffin shut.

This war on terror did not begin september 11th, it began back in the 1970's, and ramped up begining with the Marine Corps barracks being destroyed in Beirut in 83. For the past 20 years we have basically done ziltch to snuff this movement out. Its the time, and the place, now lets finish the job.

And your wording refering to service men giving their lives "needlessly" is not something any soldier who takes up arms in harms way for our country will take lightly. You may feel it is needlessly, I do not and so so the vast majority of soldiers I know personally.

And for gods sake, there are more senators sons and daughters in our active military right now then ever before. Our military is a volunteer force, there is no draft. How do you describe todays fighting man as poor minorities, that sir is shameful on your part.

So what if Iraq is the starting point, it damn well is better then where the terrorists started this latest round of attacks, lower manhattan.

[Pappy]

Originally posted by ak_stick



Thats what I thought. Now go ahead, tell me what you dont know about Iraq, I'll be sure to listen.



Nick, a good friend just was released and sent home a month or so ago. He came to see me at work the other day and we spent several hours talking. This is not a young man, he is in his late 50's and also served in Vietnam. When this mission started, he was deployed by a private firm to provide security in Iraq. He was there almost 16 months before he was wounded and spent the next 3 months is rehab.

To the point....

He carried with him a book, littered with pictures from his tour. As I flipped through his book, he would point out childrens faces and say thier names, he would tell short stories about the people in the photo's and the progress he had seen during his tour. About 3/4 of the way into the book, there was no more cheer in his voice. he sat there sobbing as I looked at the very people I had seen earlier. They were almost all dead. These folks were ordinary Iraqi citizens, they worked and went to school. Now, they are dead, killed by a suicide bomber.

He explained that he came to know this group of citizens because they lived in the immediate area they were assigned to protect. The day the bomber took his toll, they were all gathering for another day of thier lives. A loud explosion was heard from a short distance away and the security personell hollared for everyone to find shelter. They listened, jogging into the safety of a nearby make shift bunker. The suicide bomber follwed them in and detonated himself. I saw the pain in his eyes as I looked at the pictures of bodies. Women, children, infants, men....

He went on to tell me how the country was changing, the people are happy to be free and eager to move past the violence being thrust upon them by those that have nothing but war to wage. "There is no political battline" he proclaimed, these people want to kill.

It was an eye opening event for me, knowing he had seen his share of combat in Vietnam. To hear people say things against our country, and especially our military, to me, is doing a great injustice for those that are risking thier lives so that others may have a chance at the freedoms we enjoy.

I geuss if you dont understand it, then you can never full appreciate it. God bless America.

[stoled_400_:(]

"He went on to tell me how the country was changing, the people are happy to be free and eager to move past the violence being thrust upon them by those that have nothing but war to wage. "There is no political battline" he proclaimed, these people want to kill.

It was an eye opening event for me, knowing he had seen his share of combat in Vietnam. To hear people say things against our country, and especially our military, to me, is doing a great injustice for those that are risking thier lives so that others may have a chance at the freedoms we enjoy.

I geuss if you dont understand it, then you can never full appreciate it. God bless America."




wow. amen to the last two sentences. along with the rest of it for that matter... the first half of your post reminded me of what my cousin said when he came home. He said he was surprised at what he saw on the news--he said that the people there were very happy and thankful for the US stepping in. He said that the population being shown on TV, upset with us, was very much the small minority of the population which did not want us there. Overall, he said, like your friend did, that the Iraqi people were pleased with our involvement. That's horribe about what happened to your friend, though, Pappy. Please tell him I wish him the best in his recovery.

[Pappy]

I remember when I was young, my dad and mom along with my dads parents sat down at the kitchen table, as my granmother read letters my dad had sent home from Vietnam. It was weird, because at the time everyone was wanting to forget the war, i reckon it was around 1978 becuase just a few years earlier the war had offically ended in 75. ( I even remember the red and blue on the edge of the envelopes and the musty smell....lol)

Anyway, I remeber 1 letter in particulair that was actually sent to the President of teh United States. It detailed what my father was seeing in country as a 19 year old corporal in a rifle platoon. I can almost hear her voice as it crackled its way through reading his letter. He explained how we had to do more, the people had nothing. No food, no clothes, etc. And he went into depth about some of the things he had seen in Vietnam with regards to the brutality placed on the citizens of the war by the VC and NVA. the letter was answered by then President Johnson.

Nowhere do I remember him complaining in about anything except the high temperature and lack of cold drinks. After the war my father had alot of issues dealing with what he had done over there, and with the general attitude he recieved when he went home. Noone ever called him baby killer or spit on him, but he did explain that he always felt like he had done something wrong and that everyone looked down at him. NO SERVICEMEN should ever feel that way ever again. When I see people bash the mission but say they support the troops it brings back the pain I watched my dad endure. He told me many times how the troops would chuckle when they saw a newspaper from home, or caught a bit of news about the war. "They had no clue" is what he would reply, but never say much more to me about it.

This is not a drummed up war. Although it is being construed as one. We may be the most powerful nation on the planet, but our thinking is always driven by money and greed. The media has failed us once again. I would prefer to see the truth as it happened then the 45 shows on TV that do everything they can to promote what this country does as evil. After 9/11, I dont think anyone did not want to prevent this from happening again at all costs. Too bad that feeling went away by 9/13. Iraq can be turned into a sandbox....if that is where we needed to be to get this finished then so be it. I have no objection with how we got there, I am just glad we are somewhere doing something. I would not like to see my children cut in half at the bus stop. I say take the war where ever it needs to be at this point.

[DeerNuts]

I appreciate reading your responses. Heartfelt to be sure, and rather well-reasoned.

The only problem is that they rely too heavily on first-hand experience and pure emotion.

I won't quote anyone's post, since they are all against my view and all ignored a few of my questions.

So some general stuff: All our major cities serve as infrastructure hubs. You have millions of people packed into a few square miles. Therefore, one bomb= a whole lotta dead. They are financial, legal, and government centers. Trade centers. Well, scratch one in NY anyway. And a farm? A few farmers and some fields. No major loss of life. A loss of resources to be sure. But we stockpile so much anyway and ship even more that a 2-year old could figure out if we lost a big farm or 10, we could divert corn or whatever to Russia or whereever to ourselves. Have fun replacing the Sears Tower or another big chunk of NY. They only produce a bunch of liberals? What about Wall Street? That's a Republican stronghold and a huge source of thier funding. And so if they die, you wouldn't care,apparently, as much as if we lost a corn field.

If Iraq is simply a prelude to a grander show of force and engagements, and it is common knowledge that other countries pose graver threats to our national security, then 1. Why don't we attack now? and 2. Why isn't it the people's right to know what their elected leaders are up to? If there is a plan, tell us.

And one final thing to address Pappy's feeling that I'm saying things against our country: What do I say to the soldier who fought over there and will never support the administration for what they have caused? Does he not have that right? Is it treason? What about my uncle, who drank his life away after Nam to forget what he did, who cursed the administration (NOT THE TROOPS) to his last.

And lastly, yes I do see the big picture. Apparently if you haven't seen the exact same things as ak_stick (who needs to stop the comments about my ignorance, since I'm entitled to a world view that relies on my experiences and knowledge, not other's), then you have your head up your ***. Well mine must be up mine really far because I have yet to see someone point out how we attack Iraq first, and twiddle our thumbs about these other threats? Why aren't we there now?

[Pappy]

Originally posted by DeerNuts
I appreciate reading your responses. Heartfelt to be sure, and rather well-reasoned.

The only problem is that they rely too heavily on first-hand experience and pure emotion.

I won't quote anyone's post, since they are all against my view and all ignored a few of my questions.

So some general stuff: All our major cities serve as infrastructure hubs. You have millions of people packed into a few square miles. Therefore, one bomb= a whole lotta dead. They are financial, legal, and government centers. Trade centers. Well, scratch one in NY anyway. And a farm? A few farmers and some fields. No major loss of life. A loss of resources to be sure. But we stockpile so much anyway and ship even more that a 2-year old could figure out if we lost a big farm or 10, we could divert corn or whatever to Russia or whereever to ourselves. Have fun replacing the Sears Tower or another big chunk of NY. They only produce a bunch of liberals? What about Wall Street? That's a Republican stronghold and a huge source of thier funding. And so if they die, you wouldn't care,apparently, as much as if we lost a corn field.

If Iraq is simply a prelude to a grander show of force and engagements, and it is common knowledge that other countries pose graver threats to our national security, then 1. Why don't we attack now? and 2. Why isn't it the people's right to know what their elected leaders are up to? If there is a plan, tell us.

And one final thing to address Pappy's feeling that I'm saying things against our country: What do I say to the soldier who fought over there and will never support the administration for what they have caused? Does he not have that right? Is it treason? What about my uncle, who drank his life away after Nam to forget what he did, who cursed the administration (NOT THE TROOPS) to his last.

And lastly, yes I do see the big picture. Apparently if you haven't seen the exact same things as ak_stick (who needs to stop the comments about my ignorance, since I'm entitled to a world view that relies on my experiences and knowledge, not other's), then you have your head up your ***. Well mine must be up mine really far because I have yet to see someone point out how we attack Iraq first, and twiddle our thumbs about these other threats? Why aren't we there now?

It is the people rights to know, but you dont rush out and give away your stratagy. No matter what president is sitting in the oval office, the media will pick it apart. Our enemies have already , and on more the 1 occasion, used the media in this country to change their tactics and that costs lives.

First hand knowledge of what is going on is the best intel one can have. Id take the word of a person serving on the ground in an area over a reporter on cnn, or a politician running for reelection.

A large portion of this countries financial infastructure was leveled on 9/11. It had NO impact on this country as far as shutting down the way we do business. They could have carried out this attack in 20 cities, leveled as much damage as they did in NY and we would have hardly skipped a beat. People die in these types of things, we just havent had the luxury of having it done on our soil wether that be a building or a field of corn. ITS OUR SOIL! And why do you think the terrorists targeted the trade center, it had meaning and impact, lives were not the concern. And teh last time I checked, wall street was full of all political venues, not a republican stronghold. Money doesnt take sides.

You ask why we did not attack others, yet fail to offer the gains posed versus the losses to be expected for a set outcome. Fighting a limited engagement on our terms and possibly changing the direction of other nations without the bloodshed that would surely be needed makes sense.

And what do you say to any soldier....start with Thank You.

[Pappy]

And everyone better nut up and get emotional. Our enemy is raisings its children to hate and kill us from birth. They have no concept of winning, no concept of victory on a grand scale. this is a fight about a way of life for us, and an idealogy for them. This is WW3 in its infacy.

[MOFO]

Originally posted by Pappy
This is WW3 in its infacy.


Very true!!!

[ak_stick]

Originally posted by DeerNuts
If Iraq is simply a prelude to a grander show of force and engagements, and it is common knowledge that other countries pose graver threats to our national security, then 1. Why don't we attack now? and 2. Why isn't it the people's right to know what their elected leaders are up to? If there is a plan, tell us.

And one final thing to address Pappy's feeling that I'm saying things against our country: What do I say to the soldier who fought over there and will never support the administration for what they have caused? Does he not have that right? Is it treason? What about my uncle, who drank his life away after Nam to forget what he did, who cursed the administration (NOT THE TROOPS) to his last.

And lastly, yes I do see the big picture. Apparently if you haven't seen the exact same things as ak_stick (who needs to stop the comments about my ignorance, since I'm entitled to a world view that relies on my experiences and knowledge, not other's), then you have your head up your ***. Well mine must be up mine really far because I have yet to see someone point out how we attack Iraq first, and twiddle our thumbs about these other threats? Why aren't we there now?


You dont take down the gang by going straight for the leader, you take down the peons before you move on the kingpin. Thats exactly what we're doing.

What do you say to a soldier who doesn't agree with his war? Thats up to you. Personaly, any soldier is welcome his oppinion, but war is our job, and if you dont agree with it, I have to ask why your a soldier. No matter the justification, a war is no more or less terrible than another, same horror, different date.

I never said your not entitled your oppinion, I just said you dont know what your talking about. That your going to sit there and preach about how Iraq is wrong, and how we should fix our country first, when isolationism nearly destroyed this country once. Or complain that we've attacked Iraq and now sit idle, with other threats is just silly. We cannont fight a war with every enemy at once. When Iraq is finished, by the american people nutting up and letting soldiers be soldiers and do our jobs, or if the media and democrats get thier way and we leave without finishing our job, we will turn our sights on the next targets in line. Or possibly Iran and Syria will get stupid and we'll take the industy size case of smack down to them here in the near future.


And Pappy, point of fact, this is WW IV, III was the cold war.

[rtm1216]

Originally posted by ak_stick


Fabricate Evidence? My how quickly people forget the drums of mustard gas, Sarin nerve agents and crates of other biological and neve agents that have been found. Fact is WMD's have and were found in Iraq, and that was swept under the rug by liberal media, because its not convinent.



You're not claiming these are the WMD's found are you?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13480264/

I think the war on terror is being run the wrong way. We, as a nation are constantly being told to be afraid. We are changing OUR way of life by giving up essential liberties for a little so called security. All the while our borders are virtual sivs and our ports, chemical and nuclear facilities are severely under protected / monitored. We were absolutely correct in going into Afghanistan. Iraq, I'm not so sure. We are conducting nation building and this is just poor policy. By attacking Iraq pre-emptively we have set a very dangerous precedent. Iran and N. Korea are beefing up their defenses because our CIC named them along with Iraq as an axis of evil. Big surprise..... they are now defending themselves against a US invasion.

Also, this is not a liberal vs. conservative, democrat vs. republican debate. In my opinion anytime someone labels a discussion either way it immediately invalidates their arguement since you are no longer discussing facts, but rather attacking the messenger. Both sides of the debate use this tactic and it is the sole reason this country is as divided as it is. It is our duty as citizens of this country to question EVERYTHING our government does no matter what party is currently in office. When the media reports on what our gov't is doing they are only carrying out there duties per the 1st ammendment of the constitution.

Here are a couple quotes to think about:

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else." ( Theodore Roosevelt, on May 7, 1918)



"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind . . . And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar." - W. Shakespeare

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." James Madison

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security" - Benjamin Franklin

[ridered11]

that article you posted is easily the most retarded article i have ever read

i'm not even going to elaborate, i'd be waisting my time


that is a prime example of the b.s the media is putting out there

[PolarisRider06]

i am 100% with pappy and ak_stick on this one.

now to deernuts....

if the president went out and told the country exactly what the plan was we would all know...... along with every single person who is linked to some sort of terrorist society or the governments for other countries. ok now your argument is going to be that we have a list of all people who are a terrorist threat. NO WE DONT there are spys and people linked who pass on information and no matter how good any countries government or government agencies are it is not possible to figure out exactly everyone who is in the country who is a threat. and remember our media that would be showing "the plan" to the country would also probably be showing it to every european country and it would be covered by european media groups and posted on the internet by media companies (CNN, MSNBC, ect) and that is open for everyone in the world to view including the islam extremists and other terrorists in other countries. ok now they have the plan so they change their plan and are smart enough to just keep their mouths shut, such as bush has done so far, so that the enemy (the rest of the non extremist world) will not find out. its just the fact that they dont have media that will sit and pick apart the current plan and leak parts of it to the enemy in the first place. so as of right now i will say they have a better set up for waging war against ANY other organization in the world because of the fact that if you are somehow linked to them you keep your mouth shut and you support them no matter what, and the people linked to their organizations can live normal lives without the outside world ever figuring out who they really are.

now on the argument of farm states getting more protection than the big cities thats for good reason. you say so what if a couple of corn fields are destroyed we can import it. well guess what. it wouldn't be just a few cornfields. if they were going to be attacked it would be on a large level and if you destroy the breadbasket you destroy the country. other countries will not all of the sudden jump to help us by sending grain, they have their own citizens to provide for first. and if you destroyed the oil fields then gas would go up, way up, in price. sure we can tap into the oil reserves in the south but those can only last so long (which isn't long at all) before they run out, and then i bet you would be complaining about how high the gas prices are and how rediculous it is.

so bombing one big city with one big bomb would cause a lot of dead quick. yes we all know that. destroy our countries crops = kill a bunch of people slowly and probably all of the farmers and the small towns that are built on agriculture quickly due to whatever was used to destroy the crops. you cant say that agricultural states get money because of powerful senators and the vice president. they get it because all of the senators from major agricultural and resource producing states outnumber those of states who are based mainly on large cities. and even with that the states who are based on large cities all realize that without the agricultural states that they couldn't exist. the big cities are based on economy and people who know what goes on with the economy, they know that if we all of the sudden have no natural resources of our own that would destroy our economy because we would then be importing way more than exporting and that would destroy our economy and cause major inflation the prices of everything that has anything to do with stuff that is produced from any of our agricultural states.

you ask why we dont know about the plans and say that it is our rights to know what our elected officials are up to. my question to you is whats more important, that you know what the president is up to at every waking moment of his life and know exactly what the plan for iraq is so that more soldiers end up dead, missing or wounded so that you have more stuff to come on here and complain about how bad this is being done and how many people are being killed and then at that time how stupid the president is for releasing information like that just because thats what your great media sources (including all of your books that you read that you keep asking if we have read or not) said when it was your great media that released the information in the first place because of the pressure the great media put on the president to release the information due to the influence the media had on the country as a whole in the first place, or would you rather not know what the plan for iraq is so that you can just keep complaining about how we dont know whats going on over there and be able to live your life without fearing that at any minute you could be killed because your president was stupid enough to release info about the plans for war to the media and now instead of living in the greatest country on earth where you can say anythign you want you live in a country where we constantly live in fear that we we are going to loose large amounts of soldiers all at once due to the enemy knowing the plans and that if we are defeated over there the enemy will soon be coming over here and they wont be as nice as our soldiers who dont try and kill non militant civilians they WILL KILL ANYONE WHO IS NOT ONE OF THEM including you. (you did say, directly or indirectly, we DONT know what going on over there because the president wont release info to the media, i on the other hand DO have an IDEA whats going on over there because i have talked to people who have been there and heard the real story. another reason we DONT know what going on over there is because the media doesn't like to show the entire story which in this case is the good side of the story)


and to rtm1216

yes that would be part of the WMD but the thing is if there are degraded barrels that our great media who everyone can see is against the war at all costs and does everything possible to try and persuade the american people ro go against the war is reporting on there is probably useable WMD's too. also the fact that they have some "degrading" WMD's means that they have either the technology to produce or the ability to obtain WMD's. the idea that their barrels of nerve gas and other biological warfare agents are degrading doesn't mean they cant still be used, all it means is that one might just happen to break open and hurt someone who is handling them or happens to be near them.

[rtm1216]

Originally posted by PolarisRider06


and to rtm1216

yes that would be part of the WMD but the thing is if there are degraded barrels that our great media who everyone can see is against the war at all costs and does everything possible to try and persuade the american people ro go against the war is reporting on there is probably useable WMD's too. also the fact that they have some "degrading" WMD's means that they have either the technology to produce or the ability to obtain WMD's. the idea that their barrels of nerve gas and other biological warfare agents are degrading doesn't mean they cant still be used, all it means is that one might just happen to break open and hurt someone who is handling them or happens to be near them.

So, when the Defence Department AND the President say these were not the weapons we went to war for and that they made a mistake in stating exactly what Saddam had they are mistaken? I guess both the Dulfer and Kay reports stating that Saddam had no WMD's were also wrong. The left over canisters are from before the 1st Gulf War, they are the weapons we, the US, sold to Saddam to use on the Iranians. Trust me, if any significant WMD's were found the DOD, CIA and White House would be shouting it out ad nauseum. They have some serious egg on their faces due to not finding what they stated were there prior to the invasion and would love to find something, anything. Please look talk facts. 'Probably' is not a good arguement, nor is it a reason to go to war.

[MOFO]

Originally posted by rtm1216
So, when the Defence Department AND the President say these were not the weapons we went to war for and that they made a mistake in stating exactly what Saddam had they are mistaken? I guess both the Dulfer and Kay reports stating that Saddam had no WMD's were also wrong. The left over canisters are from before the 1st Gulf War, they are the weapons we, the US, sold to Saddam to use on the Iranians. Trust me, if any significant WMD's were found the DOD, CIA and White House would be shouting it out ad nauseum. They have some serious egg on their faces due to not finding what they stated were there prior to the invasion and would love to find something, anything. Please look talk facts. 'Probably' is not a good arguement, nor is it a reason to go to war.


Funny... if he had nothing to hide, why did he not let anyone in to do inspections before the war??? I think we and the UN gave him plenty of time to move stuff around.

Believe what you want... as the original post in this thread shows... this war is more than just about WMD's... this has been stated several times by our gov't. This is a War on Terrorism. Not just a war with Iraq. Iraq is just part of this war.

I guess if we never went to war and Saddam launch a nuke somewhere, you would be all over this administration for NOT doing anything.

When your the "other" party, the other side is damned either way in your eyes.

[rtm1216]

Originally posted by MOFO
Funny... if he had nothing to hide, why did he not let anyone in to do inspections before the war??? I think we and the UN gave him plenty of time to move stuff around.

Believe what you want... as the original post in this thread shows... this war is more than just about WMD's... this has been stated several times by our gov't. This is a War on Terrorism. Not just a war with Iraq. Iraq is just part of this war.

I guess if we never went to war and Saddam launch a nuke somewhere, you would be all over this administration for NOT doing anything.

When your the "other" party, the other side is damned either way in your eyes.

Learn your history. Inspectors were in Iraq prior to the invasion. They did not find anything. Bush didn't believe their info and pulled them out just before invading.

Saddam did not have any nukes or the capability to get them. He had to act like he was still powerful in order to prevent Iran from pushing him around and to keep himself in power. Also, Hussein really wasn't very intelligent. He was bluffing, we believed him and are now paying the price. Also, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or Al Queda so that can;t used as an arguement for invading them either.

Islamic extremists want nothing to go with taking over the world or the US as that ridiculous article states. Their main beef with us is our backing of Israel and in the case of Al Queda, our military presence in Saudi Arabia. They also do not agree with western culture and don't want it's influence on what they consider holy land. The Middle East is f'd up bad. It has been for years. These cultural and religious wars date back centuries and are nothing new. Marching through that area like a bull in a china shop is not the way to get (force) these people to be tolerant of our way of life. We had a great oppurtunity post 9/11 when even countries like Iran were holding vigiles for us. Instead of embracing their offers for aid and attempting to rebuild our realtionships w/ these countries we shunned them thus escalating their dislike and distrust of us. Not all Muslims are extremists and they shouldn't all be lumped into the same category. Same as fundemental christians and regular christians. We are talking about concentrated groups of people that we could wipe out by cutting off their funding and using special forces on isolated missions to eliminate them. By invading whole countries and occupying them we are just creating more enemies.

[ak_stick]

Originally posted by rtm1216
So, when the Defence Department AND the President say these were not the weapons we went to war for and that they made a mistake in stating exactly what Saddam had they are mistaken? I guess both the Dulfer and Kay reports stating that Saddam had no WMD's were also wrong. The left over canisters are from before the 1st Gulf War, they are the weapons we, the US, sold to Saddam to use on the Iranians. Trust me, if any significant WMD's were found the DOD, CIA and White House would be shouting it out ad nauseum. They have some serious egg on their faces due to not finding what they stated were there prior to the invasion and would love to find something, anything. Please look talk facts. 'Probably' is not a good arguement, nor is it a reason to go to war.

Oh BS, we know they were there, hell we know they went into Syria and Iran, we have pictures of truck convoys into and out of the country, top Iraqi officals stating they flew plane loads of weapons out of the country in the last few days before the war, and crates of old weapons.

Now people pipe up, oh but those are old, and degraded, so? I still have to get all my MOPP gear on for degraded stuff, and it'll kill you just as fast, so how is it not a WMD? You know I find it funny, my command bunker for all of our ACFT in FOB Q-west was a bunker built underground in an old hard shell bunker, was used as an ammo storage point, so acft could re-arm while they were inside, protected. On the door of this bunker was one of the Nato listed biological, and chemical weapons signs. Now why would that be there if he never had any?

The bunker that I use on this new fob has a tripple redundant, air filtration system, and has 4 hermeticaly sealing doors, and water purifing systems. Again, why would he have these if he didn't have WMDs?

Or the dozens of SCUD D's with warheads stripped of thier payload palates. Odd, every other weapon we've found had payloads intact. And the D just happens to be the most used in a chemical role. And then there was the fact that we kept setting off the chem detectors when we blew those scud bodys up. Odd....

Yes inspectors were in the country, and they were not allowed into many areas, and when they were, they were closely guarded, and escorted, after the area had been "doctored" as several reports put it.

He didn't have any nukes, but he damn sure was working on getting them. Remember Israel blowing that breeder class nuclear reactor all to hell?


Dont want western influence in the holy land? You mean they want to take over the world. Islam is not a religon of peace, it is a religion of war. Claim what you want, they have never had peace in this region, in all of thier history. Your talk about elimintaing and cutting off these groups with SF just shows your ignorance about them, this is a way of life for these animals. There is no peaceful co-existing with them. There is no accord between sheep and wolves. You kill or are killed. The best way to end the problem in this land would be to give Israel the go ahead to take the holy war they so badly want to these idiots in a big way.

[rtm1216]

Originally posted by ak_stick
Oh BS, we know they were there, hell we know they went into Syria and Iran, we have pictures of truck convoys into and out of the country, top Iraqi officals stating they flew plane loads of weapons out of the country in the last few days before the war, and crates of old weapons.

Now people pipe up, oh but those are old, and degraded, so? I still have to get all my MOPP gear on for degraded stuff, and it'll kill you just as fast, so how is it not a WMD? You know I find it funny, my command bunker for all of our ACFT in FOB Q-west was a bunker built underground in an old hard shell bunker, was used as an ammo storage point, so acft could re-arm while they were inside, protected. On the door of this bunker was one of the Nato listed biological, and chemical weapons signs. Now why would that be there if he never had any?

The bunker that I use on this new fob has a tripple redundant, air filtration system, and has 4 hermeticaly sealing doors, and water purifing systems. Again, why would he have these if he didn't have WMDs?

Or the dozens of SCUD D's with warheads stripped of thier payload palates. Odd, every other weapon we've found had payloads intact. And the D just happens to be the most used in a chemical role. And then there was the fact that we kept setting off the chem detectors when we blew those scud bodys up. Odd....

Yes inspectors were in the country, and they were not allowed into many areas, and when they were, they were closely guarded, and escorted, after the area had been "doctored" as several reports put it.

He didn't have any nukes, but he damn sure was working on getting them. Remember Israel blowing that breeder class nuclear reactor all to hell?


Dont want western influence in the holy land? You mean they want to take over the world. Islam is not a religon of peace, it is a religion of war. Claim what you want, they have never had peace in this region, in all of thier history. Your talk about elimintaing and cutting off these groups with SF just shows your ignorance about them, this is a way of life for these animals. There is no peaceful co-existing with them. There is no accord between sheep and wolves. You kill or are killed. The best way to end the problem in this land would be to give Israel the go ahead to take the holy war they so badly want to these idiots in a big way.

Believe what you will. I'll stick to the hard facts. Of course they HAD the weapons, we gave them to Iraq during the 80's. I'm not saying the degraded weapons aren't completely useless, but they ARE NOT THE WEAPONS WE WERE LOOKING FOR AND POSED NO THREAT TO US OR OUR ALLIES!!!!!! THE DEFENSE DEPT HAS CONFIRMED THIS. Yes, the same Defense Dept that gives you your orders. Are they wrong, are they misleading the American people?

Hussein did not move any weapons into Iran. The two countries are enemies. One of the reasons Saddam had to exxagerate his weapons claims was to convince Iran he was still able to defend himself. If they were moved to Syria, why did we not intercept them en route if that was indeed our main reason for invading? If we KNOW where they are why does the DOD and White House both now agree that they were wrong in their assessments? Are they once again wrong or just misleading the American people? Oh yeah, Israel bombed that reactor in the 80's. That doesn't even apply to this discussion. Saddam may have wanted nukes, but did not possess the means to get them. Wanting and having are two completely different things. If we used that arguement we would be bombing many other countries for merely wanting what they can't have.

I understand you are now deployed there from what I've read I thank you for your service and hope you come home safe. This is not a black and white conflict and having a debate and questioning our gov't is not a bad thing. It's what we should be doing as citizens. We are suppose to have transparency in government and have every right to demand that from this and any future administrations.

All Muslims are not animals. I agree the fundamentalist are and need to be dealt with. They do not represent the majority of them. Have you read the Koran? If you have you would know that Islam is a peaceful religion not too far removes from christianity and judaism. The fundamentalists are interpretting it differently then it's intended purpose. Kind of like the Christian group protesting military funerals due to their hatred of homosexuals based on their warped understanding of the bible. Or Pat Roberts with his delusional rantings based on how he perceives the writings on the bible. I know dozens of muslim families and they are some of the kindest people I have ever met and are ashamed to be assoc'd in any way to any fundamentalist group who claims to be acting on behalf of their religion.

[ak_stick]

Originally posted by rtm1216
Believe what you will. I'll stick to the hard facts. Of course they HAD the weapons, we gave them to Iraq during the 80's. I'm not saying the degraded weapons aren't completely useless, but they ARE NOT THE WEAPONS WE WERE LOOKING FOR AND POSED NO THREAT TO US OR OUR ALLIES!!!!!! THE DEFENSE DEPT HAS CONFIRMED THIS. Yes, the same Defense Dept that gives you your orders. Are they wrong, are they misleading the American people?

Hussein did not move any weapons into Iran. The two countries are enemies. One of the reasons Saddam had to exxagerate his weapons claims was to convince Iran he was still able to defend himself. If they were moved to Syria, why did we not intercept them en route if that was indeed our main reason for invading? If we KNOW where they are why does the DOD and White House both now agree that they were wrong in their assessments? Are they once again wrong or just misleading the American people? Oh yeah, Israel bombed that reactor in the 80's. That doesn't even apply to this discussion. Saddam may have wanted nukes, but did not possess the means to get them. Wanting and having are two completely different things. If we used that arguement we would be bombing many other countries for merely wanting what they can't have.

I understand you are now deployed there from what I've read I thank you for your service and hope you come home safe. This is not a black and white conflict and having a debate and questioning our gov't is not a bad thing. It's what we should be doing as citizens. We are suppose to have transparency in government and have every right to demand that from this and any future administrations.

All Muslims are not animals. I agree the fundamentalist are and need to be dealt with. They do not represent the majority of them. Have you read the Koran? If you have you would know that Islam is a peaceful religion not too far removes from christianity and judaism. The fundamentalists are interpretting it differently then it's intended purpose. Kind of like the Christian group protesting military funerals due to their hatred of homosexuals based on their warped understanding of the bible. Or Pat Roberts with his delusional rantings based on how he perceives the writings on the bible. I know dozens of muslim families and they are some of the kindest people I have ever met and are ashamed to be assoc'd in any way to any fundamentalist group who claims to be acting on behalf of their religion.

Realy, because we've had several high level iraqi's come out and say that they did transfer weapons to both syria and iran right before the outbreak of the war... again, you've over looked the fact that like I said, the weapons we're looking for were infact here, thats why all the Scud D's are lacking weapons palates in the payload platforms. Just because you dont find drugs in a crack house, doesn't mean taking it down isn't a good thing. We know the weapons were here. And we know the weapons left, hell we even have pictures of convoys of trucks heading into syria and iran right before the start of hostilites.

And yes, muslims are animals. There are exceptions, but by and large, the majority of them are animals. The muslims you see in America are vastly different from the ones I interact with on a daily basis, I know your not going to agree, but unless you've been to the middle east, and dealt on large with them, its somthing you dont realy understand. I know many muslims at home, hell I even serve with a few. But they are as different as a black from africa and a black from scottland. Religion of peace? Hardly, the Koran quotes directly to kill a infidel in the path to glory. Kinda like the old Bible, except the muslim religion never developed out of the stone age, and out of the old ways. The bible did, hence the turn around from our warring ways in the new testiment. Never happens in Koran. Small majority? Hardly, and worse, the large majority of them are in power, hell thats all of Iran, hardly a small percentage of them. And the christians that show up picketing the funerals? they can be shot right along side the rest of them.

[rtm1216]

Originally posted by ak_stick

And yes, muslims are animals. There are exceptions, but by and large, the majority of them are animals. The muslims you see in America are vastly different from the ones I interact with on a daily basis, I know your not going to agree, but unless you've been to the middle east, and dealt on large with them, its somthing you dont realy understand. I know many muslims at home, hell I even serve with a few. But they are as different as a black from africa and a black from scottland. Religion of peace? Hardly, the Koran quotes directly to kill a infidel in the path to glory. Kinda like the old Bible, except the muslim religion never developed out of the stone age, and out of the old ways. The bible did, hence the turn around from our warring ways in the new testiment. Never happens in Koran. Small majority? Hardly, and worse, the large majority of them are in power, hell thats all of Iran, hardly a small percentage of them. And the christians that show up picketing the funerals? they can be shot right along side the rest of them.

You sir are one of the most ignorant people I have ever had the displeasure of discussing anything with? What is your level of education? Have you studied the history of the region in depth? Try picking up a book, or several, you may actually learn something about the actual. You still haven't acknowledged the DOD's official stance on the WMD's they thought were there. Are they and the president lying to or misleading the american people they represent? If you really have this evidence please produce it, it will put an end to a lot of the bickering about the conflict in Iraq (technically, it's not a war since Congress never declared it one). If this is such common knowledge why isn't anyone in government talking about it? As I stated before, they would love nothing more than to account for these weapons to justify our actions and their claims.

Also, your description of Muslims are not very far from Hitler's description of the jews. I enjoyed our debate up to this point, but I won't continue anymore based solely on this. I refuse to lower myself to that level. Congratulations, you now sound like the radical muslims you profess to hate so much. Since you don't agree w/ their lifestyle or beliefs and should therefore be wiped out? Kinda how they (they being the radical muslims / terrorists in the minority in the region) feel about infidels. Good luck and come home safe.

[Pappy]

Originally posted by ak_stick

And the christians that show up picketing the funerals? they can be shot right along side the rest of them.

I understand what you were saying, and I couldnt agree more. Ofcourse I am not a Harvard graduate, nor do i have a Masters in political science....I do however know that when something stinks like a pig, sounds like a pig, and looks like a pig.......its pretty much a pig no matter what genus it developed from.


The liberals have beaten us to death with issues that for me mean nothing. I would have prefered to see the middle east leveled after 9/11. They did not need to give me an excuse as to why or who, just a report when it was over.

[ak_stick]

ignorant, hah, yeah, you come to iraq, I've spent a year among these people. I've learned more in a year than you could know reading a book. You meet real muslims, not the cultured first world ones, the real, third world, kill thier daughters for not wearing veils, stone wives to death for arguing, strap bombs on kids and push them into the street infront of convoy muslims, untill then, you can babble all you want, you honestly DO NOT know what your talking about. You have never met or been in a muslim country have you? You've never seen the way muslims live have you?

again, we've come full circle, again I'll say it You DO NOT know what the hell your talking about.

Tell me, how much first hand info, not from books, or from news reports do you have sir? How much time have you spent among true arab and muslim culture? Not the fancy first world culture, the poor as dirt, latently bisexual, mostly illiterate, war stricken third world culture?

Seriously, a day does not go by that these animals do not kill each other in droves. I understand I've offended your tender sensabilitys, because you obviously know everything there is to know because you read a book once, and saw some news reports.

I have lived with these people every single FREAKING DAY for a year. I have lived and breathed Arab culture, and how to and not to offend them, I deal with Kurds day in and out. DO NOT tell me I'm ignorant unless you have some damn good facts to back your agument up.

The truth is, the majority of them, are not friendly to America, they may not be overtly hostile, but they're not our friends either. They shelter these insurgent freedom fighters because they're arabs and we're the great satan. They've been taught this for thier entire lives. They cant read the Koran, so they only have the teachings they've been read to quote. We're not fighting a small group of radicals, we are fighting a way of life, a very culture. And it is not a peacefull culture. If it was, you wouldn't see them blowing themselves up all over the place. Yes, there are ALWAYS radicals in every group, but these are not radicals, they're not extremists, its viewed as a normal freaking thing.

But yes, please come tell me how I'm wrong and I dont know what I'm talking about.

[stoled_400_:(]

oh wow, rtm1216 is making my stomach churn.... learn your history.....please. i've learned it enough...i don't need another example of ww2, aka this situation if we let it become ww3 (or 4, according to ak_stick :) ). people can complain all they want, but in the end, i have a question for ya. instead of pointing the finger and constantly b i t c h ing about things............





















WHAT WOULD YOU DO INSTEAD THAT WOULD MAKE EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT AND CREATE A UTOPIAN SOCIETY FOR EVERYONE IN THE WORLD TO LIVE IN?

until you can answer that question, you need to support, not complain about, hinder, slow down, and hurt our efforts in doing the best with what we've got.

[stoled_400_:(]

another question. rtm, do you support the troops? yes or no answer please.

[ak_stick]

after all his cultured history lessons, he'd probably elect to take the same action as france.

And look how well they're doing.

[stoled_400_:(]

LOL. wouldn't surprise me

[Pappy]

Originally posted by rtm1216


Also, your description of Muslims are not very far from Hitler's description of the jews.

I dont remember anywhere in my schooling years reading about the Jews doing the type of things normal everday Muslims do. Maybe I missed the part where the little Jew boy was sent to the local eatery with a few pounds of C-4 strapped to himself to kill innocent people. That might have changed my mind on my perception of Jews.

I also do not recall any Jewish traditions that result in a young woman being beaten to death because she did not want to wear a veil that covers here face. I mean thats a far cry from Hanakah wouldnt you say:confused:

The Jews were persecuted by a madman named Adolph Hitler, the Jews are still being targeted today, by a Muslim majority. Maybe the Muslims have more in common with Hitler then ak stick:chinese:

[stoled_400_:(]

Originally posted by rtm1216
You sir are one of the most ignorant people I have ever had the displeasure of discussing anything with?


to answer your question, no he is not. you talking to a mirror- now that is an ignorant, displeasurable discussion. :eek:

[stoled_400_:(]

or better yet, you and deernuts chatting.

[Pappy]

Originally posted by rtm1216

Since you don't agree w/ their lifestyle or beliefs and should therefore be wiped out?

Do you agree that a man should legally be able to murder his wife or daughter because she refuses to wear a viel...or wants an education...

And if you reply with..."It is based on thier religious beliefs" you my friend are a self professed "educated" numbskull.

[PolarisRider06]

i get a kick out of how rtm speaks of what he has read and what has been on the news and then calls the guy with the direct interaction with the culture (ak_stick) ignorant.

i also get a kick out of the fact that he believes everything that he reads in books and everything he hears on the news from our great media in the US that if you ask me is just like rtm, completely against our gov't. it doesn't matter what the gov't does the media CAN and WILL go against it from what i've seen in my short 18 year lifespan. they're called critics for a reason, they criticize stuff, normally the gov't, and normally bad criticism. if they showed what the REAL world was like and what really goes on in the world we would have less people like rtm who think they know how it is just because they seen it on the news.

i'm not going to say i seen it first hand because i haven't. but i will say i've talked to some people who have and heard the stories from family members who are connected to military personel. i take in what i hear from first hand accounts such as those from ak_stick and try and remember them.


i will agree with Pappy
"you my friend are a self professed "educated" numbskull." that goes to both rtm and deernuts. your like the common engineer, if its not in a book its not possible, then there are the smart engineers who stopped and looked at things in the real world how they really work in real conditions and combined it with the books ideas to find out how things really do work. you two are not in any way like the smart engineers you are like the book engineers.

what i'm trying to say is dont believe the media just because its the media. the american public is so easy to manipulate because of the fact that the public as a whole has such a short attention span on things that if you can get it out there on national media for 2 or 3 days everone thinks it must be a big deal so everyone believes it and goes with it.


If we KNOW where they are why does the DOD and White House both now agree that they were wrong in their assessments? Are they once again wrong or just misleading the American people?

ever think that maybe yes they are misleading the american people by saying they were wrong in their assessments to keep the american people from overreacting to the situation. if you all of the sudden told the american people that iraq had weapons of mass destruction and misiles loaded with nukes or biological warheads and they were ready to be launced at all major european cities and possibly even some american cities people would go nuts. things would then probably end up in total chaos in the US and the american view to all muslims would probably end up like that of the american view of all asians during WWII. then all of the american muslims would be getting persecuted and that would cause an uprising of other countries about our tactics and piss off countries that may be our allies but they dont like whats going on in our country so they dont want to help us anymore, plus it would piss of midle eastern muslims because people of their religion are being wrongly persecuted and they would go to even more extremes to try and kill any and every white person possible.


dont forget what it took to gain that freedom and what it takes for us to protect that freedom before you decide to criticize how our gov't is handling things and what our govt is doing to protect us, be it that they are taking out a small threat somewhere in africa on a top secret mission that the american people and the families of any soldier killed will never know about, a large scale battle or war such as that in iraq, or something as little as hiding the truth about what was really found during searches and raids on enemy bunkers to keep the public from overreacting and in turn to protect our troops who are protecting our country.



pretty much what i'm saying is that RTM and Deernuts better end up very rich in life and live in a big house in a "perfect" neighborhood or they are going to be greatly dissapointed in life and what the real world really is like.... oh yeah and dont forget that you will need about 15 tivo boxes so that you can record newscasts from all of the channels while your at your white collar desk job so that you can come home and watch them and find every little detail to pick apart about what our gov't is doing wrong and how nice all of the people in the middle east really are before you pick up your newspapers to find every little misconception that the media wants to put into the head of every booksmart "educated" person in the country who never has had to work for anything in their life and finds that everything should come easy because we live in a "free" country

[Pappy]

Those with differing views are welcome to thier opinions, it doesnt make them bad people. Just keep that in mind when replying, I entertain all sides of an issue up to a certain point.

[Pappy]

Here is some allah fearing muslims at work

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/074270.php

[Pappy]

From JordanTimes.com:
A 26-year-old Jordan Valley woman was hacked to death by her mother and sister after delivering a baby out of wedlock, an official told The Jordan Times Saturday.

The criminal prosecutor on Saturday charged the 69-year-old mother and her daughter with premeditated murder, the official said.

The victim reportedly received multiple axe wounds to different parts of her body while she slept, the official added.

"The victim, who has been divorced for seven years, became pregnant and delivered a baby boy on the day of the murder," the source said, adding that her enraged mother decided to "kill her to cleanse the family honour."

"The mother and daughter waited until the victim went to sleep, took an axe and hacked her repeatedly until they made sure she was dead," the source said.

The two then headed to the nearest police station in the Jordan Valley claiming to have killed her "to protect their honour," the source added.
The woman's honor killing is the ninth in Jordan this year. Therefore, I project that between now and December 31, at least six more Jordanian women will die in honor killings.

[Pappy]

http://www.takeheed.net/MUSLIMHYPOCRISYAND.htm

if you dont like our president or our country...then leave!

all these muslims that come here complain that Bush is bad blah blah blah...go back to where you came from! why did you come in the first place!

i hate people that defend these "people" who blow up innocent people everyday in car bombings etc


if you dont think we should have gone to war, thats complete nonsense...they hit 2 towes, the pentagon and attempted another, yet you want us to sit here and let things blow over? theres no negotiating with someone like saddam hussein and his people and we cant leave now that we're there...

dam i hate people like that, sorry for my bad spelling and grammar, im really tired

peace and love ya'll :bandit:

http://www.abcme.com/imagesredone/peaceflagrnd.jpg

[Pappy]

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40840