Report: 2 Female Italian Foreign Aid Workers Sold to Al-Zarqawi, Moved from Baghdad to Fallujah

"How so? I am told repeatedly that we are losing this fight just like you say."

I didn't really say we were losing this war. I said we were proceeding in the wrong fashion. The Bush Administration handled things admirably until after the collapse of organized resistance. Then we seemed to have lost our direction.

In my opinion, you have to deal with people on their own level, within their cultural millieu. We can't expect people who think like these tribal Arabs do, with a mentality locked in the 6th Century to respond positively to the same kind of incentives that work with modern westerners, as much as we'd like to believe it.

I believe they rubbed our faces in the dirt when they killed those four American civilians in Fallujah and displayed their mutliated bodies and we did relatively nothing to retaliate.

This sent a message. The message wasn't "The Americans are merciful just people who will not retaliate against an entire city for the actions of only several thousand fanatics" The message was "The Americans are only good at fighting at a distance with massive modern equipment. They don't have a sense of honor. See how they fail to avenge their comrades. They are weak. We can defeat them by doing this again and again."

" I am told that Bush is screwing it up just like you say."

Persoanlly I think Bush is relying too much on Colin Powell and the U.S. State Department instead of military people.

Here on this very internet discussion group, right after the Fallujah murders, news articles were posted which indicated that the American military forces were preparing to do just what I have suggested: level Fallujah and make anb example of what happens to people who cross us. Then the same articles indicated they pulled back when unnamed officials from Washington appeared. I can only assume they were creatures of the U.S. State Department - an agency rife with bleeding heart liberals who should have been purged by Powell when he took over. They were not.

"He doesn't know what he is doing like you say. Every negative story is thrown in my face "I told you so" just like you do. "We can't win."

I think you are confusing criticism with condemnation. Bush is infinitely better than Kerry. If what we are seeing now in Iraq is any indication of what would happen as a result of our failure to properly respond to Fallujah, you can well imagine what would happen all over the world if we pull out of Iraq. And Kerry would do just that.

Also, I believe our invasion of Iraq was a great strategic move by Bush. He took out a brutal dictator who was creating weapons of mass destruction (and I'm one of those people who believes they DO exist - either now buried somewhere in Iraq, or spirited out of the country to Syria, Iran or even Lybia where they may have been "surrendered" to us by Khadaffi). Also, he set the groundwork for creating a pro-western enclave in the middle of two other trouble makers - Syria and Iran. Furthermore, Iran - a most serious threat - now has American military forces on BOTH sides of it and, if and when Bush is re-elected, I sincerely hope and pray he will destroy the Ayatollahs one way or the other before those lunatics use nuclear bombs on us or the west.

"Well we CAN win and we ARE winning no matter what the RATmedia and its followers say."

We can win and we MUST win. This is NOT Viet Nam - and we could have won that one too. When we pulled out of Viet Nam there was no danger Ho Chi Minh would invade California. But the agents and collaborators of the same people slitting American throats and taking hostages in Iraq are right here aorund us now as we communicate.

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