The Iraq War

[bradleybadly]

The surge is working in my opinion. It's one of the reasons why the press isn't talking about it as much because they refuse to report anything positive. The only things that keep us from totally winning the war on terror are bitchers and whiners. Vote on how you think things are going and if we are specifically winning on the Iraqi front.

[AndyDufresne]

**Eats a banana, scratches his head** Between all the political caucus/primary news, I've heard a fair share of reports on the Iraq War. You must be watching the wrong news channel(s)!:)


--Andy

[kingprawn]

Don't you mean the war about oil. You can't beat terrorists with conventional military tactics. For every one you kill there are a hundred to take their place. We tried for 30 years against the IRA. They eventually disarmed through dialogue and concessions by both parties not military force. So in short you are not winning the war on terror but you have siezed a third of the worlds oil and are in a pretty good position to sieze another third should you feel the need to.

[zebraman]

Don't you mean the war about oil. You can't beat terrorists with conventional military tactics. For every one you kill there are a hundred to take their place. We tried for 30 years against the IRA. They eventually disarmed through dialogue and concessions by both parties not military force. So in short you are not winning the war on terror but you have siezed a third of the worlds oil and are in a pretty good position to sieze another third should you feel the need to.

I never knew that. Could you provide me with the information about the IRA on that? I'm not even sure who the leader of the IRA is or was.

[kingprawn]

I think you eat a third of all the worlds food aswell. What is it with thirds?

[Strife]

I fully support Bush's War of Terror.

[kingprawn]

Martin Mcguiness and Gerry Adams Leaders of the IRA (allegedly), now both respected politicians.

[bradleybadly]

Don't you mean the war about oil. You can't beat terrorists with conventional military tactics. For every one you kill there are a hundred to take their place.

this is what I'm talking about

[Guiscard]

The surge is working in my opinion. It's one of the reasons why the press isn't talking about it as much because they refuse to report anything positive. The only things that keep us from totally winning the war on terror are bitchers and whiners. Vote on how you think things are going and if we are specifically winning on the Iraqi front.

Don't you mean the war about oil. You can't beat terrorists with conventional military tactics. For every one you kill there are a hundred to take their place.

this is what I'm talking about

Hmm...

[soundout9]

as long as we got rambo were doing good

[silvanricky]

as long as we got rambo were doing good

I think they are actually making another movie with him. He should be able to get away from the bad guys using his walker or cane in this one.

[unriggable]

The surge is working in my opinion. It's one of the reasons why the press isn't talking about it as much because they refuse to report anything positive. The only things that keep us from totally winning the war on terror are bitchers and whiners. Vote on how you think things are going and if we are specifically winning on the Iraqi front.

Because guantanamo is fair, right?

[unriggable]

Don't you mean the war about oil. You can't beat terrorists with conventional military tactics. For every one you kill there are a hundred to take their place.

this is what I'm talking about

Oh come on. If you get invaded and your father gets killed, you and everybody who knows your fathers would hate the invaders more. We aren't whining we're stating the obvious.

[Blastshot]

The surge is working in my opinion. It's one of the reasons why the press isn't talking about it as much because they refuse to report anything positive. The only things that keep us from totally winning the war on terror are bitchers and whiners. Vote on how you think things are going and if we are specifically winning on the Iraqi front.

Don't you mean the war about oil. You can't beat terrorists with conventional military tactics. For every one you kill there are a hundred to take their place.

this is what I'm talking about

Hmm...

So you are telling me that if there were 100 terrorists and i killed five, there would be 600 terrorists...

cloning?

[unriggable]

The surge is working in my opinion. It's one of the reasons why the press isn't talking about it as much because they refuse to report anything positive. The only things that keep us from totally winning the war on terror are bitchers and whiners. Vote on how you think things are going and if we are specifically winning on the Iraqi front.

Don't you mean the war about oil. You can't beat terrorists with conventional military tactics. For every one you kill there are a hundred to take their place.

this is what I'm talking about

Hmm...

So you are telling me that if there were 100 terrorists and i killed five, there would be 600 terrorists...

cloning?

Well there literally seems to be an infinite supply.

[kingprawn]

there is an infinite supply and i don't agree with the term terrorist either.

[brianm]

The surge is working in my opinion. It's one of the reasons why the press isn't talking about it as much because they refuse to report anything positive. The only things that keep us from totally winning the war on terror are bitchers and whiners. Vote on how you think things are going and if we are specifically winning on the Iraqi front.

Regardless of weather or not the 'Troup surge' is working we will eventually win. There is a much larger picture here...

I think it sidesteps the responsibility of every American who was all in favor of going to war (which is more than 80%) to blame it all on any one person (even George W. Bush). Bush was doing what he thought was right at the time, and he took his case for war before the Congress and the American public. To come along after the fact and say "hey, this was a mistake, and where are the WMD's" is a cop out and a total disregard of the facts that lead up to the war in Iraq and the support for the war at the time.

We HAVE found WMDs, and the evidence that Saddam was planning to reconstitute his WMD manufacturing capacity at some point in the future, and in Bush's speeches prior to the war he clearly stated that Iraq was a GATHERING threat, and that he thought action was necessary NOW to prevent Iraq from becoming a much bigger threat in the future. After the attacks of 9/11, people seemed to understand that sitting back and waiting for our enemies to get strong is a BAD idea, now 6 years later with no new attacks we seem to have some strange version of mass alzheimers. Especially the despictable politicians like John Edwards who go around saying 'what terrorists?', like there never have been, and are not terrorists who would LOVE to turn New York, Chicago, LA, or any of our other cities into a radioactive pile of smoking rubble.

It's time to GROW UP and accept that the reason the insurgency contines to exist is not because we can't find and kill the insurgents, but because as a country we lack moral courage to stand up when things are not going well and say 'We are going to WIN against these evil people, no matter what cost'. If we had anything resembling a unified front the insurgents MIGHT just be a bit hesitant to continue to fight what would appear to them to be a losing cause, but instead we piss and moan about Bush and Cheney like we never heard of Iraq before THEY pushed us into 'the war'. Well, we had troops dying over there BEFORE the invasion, it was called enforcement of the no-fly-zones and we had troops stationed for 10 years in Kuwait because we left the Iraq situation for 'another day' for 8 long years under the Clinton administration rather than insist upon enforcing the 18 UN mandates to have Iraq disclose it's WMD's (or provide proof they had dismantled them).

The war goes on because many of the Americans who oppose the war today do not do so because their core beliefs were that the war is wrong. If they REALLY believed that then there would not have been more than 80% of Americans supporting going to war in the first place. MOST of the Americans who oppose the war today do so because they either fail to accept their own responsibility to support a victory in Iraq (if you are going to support going, you have to support winning) OR they are just flat out cowards.

It is easy to blame everything on Bush, and clearly, the man has made mistakes in the prosecution of the war. Get over it, even Roosevelt made mistakes in the prosecution of World War 2, that is the nature of war, mistakes WILL be made, and lives WILL be lost. However, if you were one of the flag waving throng that cheered the troops going to Iraq to put an end to Saddam's defiance of 18 UN mandates and the possibility of him using WMDs in the middle east to destabalize the region, then SHAME ON YOU if you don't have the guts and the moral fortitude to support a victory in Iraq. A victory in Iraq would not be a Bush victory, it would be an American victory, and ultimately, a victory for the whole human race.

And that's worth fighting for.

'War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.'-John Stuart Mill

[Carebian Knight]

^^ Amen

[brianm]

Sorry about the rant, but the way the press seems to spin the news the way that 'sells' papers really rubs me the wrong way.

It's not a victory if we leave Iraq a radioactive sheet of glass. A victory would be to leave a democracy in place where once there were rape rooms, torture chambers (REAL torture chambers, not the 'harsh interregation' that passes for torture in the American media), mass graves, and the use of WMD's against political dissidents.

I get SO sick of hearing one group of people pissing and moaning about 'Darfur' and how we need to be doing something there, but they won't support the effort that has ended MUCH bigger mass murders and human rights abuses in Iraq. Iraq is a war that we will lose or win by choice, and it will be OUR choice that decides it, not the choice of our enemies. Putting more soldiers into Iraq has reduced both the number of our soldiers being killed and the number of Iraqis who are dying each month, you'd think that with results like that the way forward would be clear, yet the Democrats still talk about time tables to bring troops home, not ways that we could support bringing the war to a successful conclusion. The two are NOT the same thing, having all our troops home would not necessarily mean we won, because all of Germany's troops came home after WW2, that doesn't mean they won the war.

[kingprawn]

When did they find evidence of WMD. A few tins of blister agent (which were probably supplied by the west anyway) is hardly a nuclear warhead and he couldn't sling it much further than Israel which, incidentally, is the perfect distance. Regarding your observations on Gulf War One, in which I took part. The mandate set out as per United Nations Agreement was to liberate Kuwait which the Allied Forces duly did. An invasion of Iraq at that time would have made a travesty of western democratic decision making processes and policy. Furthermore, I find your figure of 80% american citizens in favour of an invasion to be alarming in the extreme. It says one thing to me, a war mongering populous. However, I don't accept that figure and feel it is government propaganda in order to bolster support for the illegal invasion. Had the invasion of Kuwait occured before the demise of the Warsaw pact I doubt that America would have been so keen to fight a Middle Eastern war that could very likely have sparked a full blown conflict between NATO and the Soviets.

[kingprawn]

Half of Germanys troops went to Siberian labour camps.

[brianm]

I don't have a problem with people criticizing Bush for the job he's doing, but the whole country needs to take ownership of what we are doing in Iraq and think of that war in terms of what we NEED to do over there to prevent it from being a cesspit that our children or their children from having to deal with 20 years from now. Had we taken care of North Korea back when militarily it would have been feasable to do so, we would not have the threat of North Korean nukes (and the very real possibility they would sell one to a terrorist) to deal with today. We would not have to keep tens of thousands of troops in South Korea since the 1950's, and the whole area would be much better off (possibly even preventing the Vietnam conflict, which was another screw up of America not finishing its business).

Bush may not be the best man for the job, but when the country and Congress start to refer to the war in Iraq as "Bush's war", clearly they are not taking ownership of a war they were all RAH RAH to jump into (and I don't buy into the 'Bush Lied' bullcrap, for one thing, Bush is a TERRIBLE communicator, and I just don't see him talking anyone including his dog into doing something they don't really want to do) then Iraq IS DOOMED to be a repeat of Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, and numerous other failures of American will. Iran would have a proxy Hezzbollah type organization set up in Iraq within minutes if the last American troops moving out, and would be in full control of the government within weeks. THAT'S the reality of the quagmire, and if you don't want to leave a quagmire behind, you must first drain the swamp.

[jay_a2j]

The war on terror is make believe. The US needed a reason to go to war for a number of reasons. There is no terrorist threat.

[brianm]

The war on terror is make believe. The US needed a reason to go to war for a number of reasons. There is no terrorist threat.

There is a VERY STRONG case that Iraq is related to world terrorism. If we are just after the people that causes 9/11, well, we got em on 9/11 as to my knowledge all of the hijackers died in the crashes.

I think that the war on international terror extends beyond the people directly involved in 9/11, and if September 11, 2001 has taught us ANYTHING it is that if we let these radicals (islamic, facist, or otherwise) alone, they will NOT leave us alone in return. The following are all attacks on the USA, either here or our interests abroad, all by islamic facist groups, and if we'd just got the ones involved in each attack, it would NOT have prevented the next attack.

1979
Nov. 4, Tehran, Iran: Iranian radical students seized the U.S. embassy, taking 66 hostages. 14 were later released. The remaining 52 were freed after 444 days on the day of President Reagan's inauguration.

1982–1991
Lebanon: Thirty US and other Western hostages kidnapped in Lebanon by Hezbollah. Some were killed, some died in captivity, and some were eventually released. Terry Anderson was held for 2,454 days.

1983
April 18, Beirut, Lebanon: U.S. embassy destroyed in suicide car-bomb attack; 63 dead, including 17 Americans. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Oct. 23, Beirut, Lebanon: Shiite suicide bombers exploded truck near U.S. military barracks at Beirut airport, killing 241 marines. Minutes later a second bomb killed 58 French paratroopers in their barracks in West Beirut.

Dec. 12, Kuwait City, Kuwait: Shiite truck bombers attacked the U.S. embassy and other targets, killing 5 and injuring 80.

1984
Sept. 20, east Beirut, Lebanon: truck bomb exploded outside the U.S. embassy annex, killing 24, including 2 U.S. military.

Dec. 3, Beirut, Lebanon: Kuwait Airways Flight 221, from Kuwait to Pakistan, hijacked and diverted to Tehran. 2 Americans killed.

1985
April 12, Madrid, Spain: Bombing at restaurant frequented by U.S. soldiers, killed 18 Spaniards and injured 82.

June 14, Beirut, Lebanon: TWA Flight 847 en route from Athens to Rome hijacked to Beirut by Hezbollah terrorists and held for 17 days. A U.S. Navy diver executed.

Oct. 7, Mediterranean Sea: gunmen attack Italian cruise ship, Achille Lauro. One U.S. tourist killed. Hijacking linked to Libya. (by the way, the tourist was a disabled veteran confined to a wheelchair, by any measure he deserved better).

Dec. 18, Rome, Italy, and Vienna, Austria: airports in Rome and Vienna were bombed, killing 20 people, 5 of whom were Americans. Bombing linked to Libya.

1986
April 2, Athens, Greece:A bomb exploded aboard TWA flight 840 en route from Rome to Athens, killing 4 Americans and injuring 9.

April 5, West Berlin, Germany: Libyans bombed a disco frequented by U.S. servicemen, killing 2 and injuring hundreds.

1988
Dec. 21, Lockerbie, Scotland: N.Y.-bound Pan-Am Boeing 747 exploded in flight from a terrorist bomb and crashed into Scottish village, killing all 259 aboard and 11 on the ground. Passengers included 35 Syracuse University students and many U.S. military personnel. Libya formally admitted responsibility 15 years later (Aug. 2003) and offered $2.7 billion compensation to victims' families.

1993
Feb. 26, New York City: bomb exploded in basement garage of World Trade Center, killing 6 and injuring at least 1,040 others. In 1995, militant Islamist Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 9 others were convicted of conspiracy charges, and in 1998, Ramzi Yousef, believed to have been the mastermind, was convicted of the bombing. Al-Qaeda involvement is suspected.

1995
Nov. 13, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: car bomb exploded at U.S. military headquarters, killing 5 U.S. military servicemen.

1996
June 25, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia: truck bomb exploded outside Khobar Towers military complex, killing 19 American servicemen and injuring hundreds of others. 13 Saudis and a Lebanese, all alleged members of Islamic militant group Hezbollah, were indicted on charges relating to the attack in June 2001

1998
Aug. 7, Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: truck bombs exploded almost simultaneously near 2 U.S. embassies, killing 224 (213 in Kenya and 11 in Tanzania) and injuring about 4,500. 4 men connected with al-Qaeda 2 of whom had received training at al-Qaeda camps inside Afghanistan, were convicted of the killings in May 2001 and later sentenced to life in prison. A federal grand jury had indicted 22 men in connection with the attacks, including Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, who remained at large.

2000
Oct. 12, Aden, Yemen: U.S. Navy destroyer USS Cole heavily damaged when a small boat loaded with explosives blew up alongside it. 17 sailors killed. Linked to Osama bin Laden, or members of al-Qaeda terrorist network.
2001

Sept. 11, New York City, Arlington, Va., and Shanksville, Pa.: hijackers crashed 2 commercial jets into twin towers of World Trade Center; 2 more hijacked jets were crashed into the Pentagon and a field in rural Pa. Total dead and missing numbered 2,9921: 2,749 in New York City, 184 at the Pentagon, 40 in Pa., and 19 hijackers. Islamic al-Qaeda terrorist group blamed.

SO, with that in mind, if we are going to make any sort of difference against a decentralized enemy that shares ideology more than actual personel and resources, is it not prudent to burn out the infection (or terroristism if you will) wherever we find it, rather than just the one that hurt us most recently?

And while I think many people have commented about Bush stating that today Iraq is THE central front of the war on terror, it's interesting to note that on their websites and in propaganda broadcast via Al-Jazeera Al-Qaeda is also claiming that Iraq is the central front of the war against the US, and good old Ben Ladin just announced in his tape earlier this year that he was quite disappointed with the Democrats in Congress that they have not gotten the USA out of Iraq, embraced Islam, and abandoned democracy.

That's the people we are fighting against, regardless of whether they were involved in 9/11 or not.

Considering Bin Laden had an office in Baghdad, and was in negotiations to conduct Al-Qaeda training in Iraq, I don't think that 'hatred' is quite the word to describe his relationship with Hussein. Hussein may not have had any knowledge or participation in 9/11, but he DID have communication and cooperation with Al-Qaeda prior to 9/11. He was also paying 30,000 US dollars to the families of suicide bombers if their death caused either an American or Jew to die. Hussein was not a benevolent despot.

He was an active terrorist and I find it hard to believe that ANYONE with two brain cells to rub together can think that there were no terrorists in Iraq prior to 9/11 when we had terrorist in FLORIDA for goodness sakes. There were Al-Qaeda inspired or directly funded terrorists all over the world, in the US, Germany, France, England, the Palestinian territories, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, but you think that alone of the nations of the world Iraq was somehow free of them?

That stretches the limits of credibility (or common sense for that matter).

[kingprawn]

Bloody hell you are the copy and paste king.