Posted on 08/19/2005 9:31:26 AM PDT by oldtimer2
I TIPPED
August 19th, 2005
Today, I tipped.
Today I’ve reached my personal tipping point regarding America’s efforts in Iraq. We must either dramatically increase the size and aggressiveness of our presence in Iraq, or. . . get the hell out. I say this not as one who has ever opposed the very notion of going into Saddam’s personal, nationwide torture pit. No, I’ve always thought we had no choice but to rid the world of him. But in decapitating the Iraqi regime and executing the vile progeny of its leader, Uday and Qusay, we have unleashed forces even more evil and find ourselves fighting a snake with a thousand heads. Why did this happen? Was it inevitable? Was our noble effort doomed from the start? Well, yes and no.
Not doomed in the sense that it was a mission impossible – if one properly defines the mission. Thinking that we could be midwife to the birthing of a constitutional democracy in a matter of only thirty months or so was probably a bit of a stretch. Underlying that plan was a not-so-hidden assumption that the three main ethnic and religious groups that comprise the Iraqi population – the Shia, the Sunni and the Kurds – would somehow be willing to set their differences and mistrusts aside while forging a new nationalistic union from dissimilar metals. How to alloy those who’ve never been allies does seem an intractable dilemma.
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."
Ronald Reagan
Amen
I guess we should only get into wars that are easy, and have a preordained, scripted outcome. Sometimes, hard work is exactly that.
GREAT Reagan quote. After reading article like this one, it's a good reminder to those who are losing their resolve. Welcome to Free Republic.
I think the guy overstates his case.
It would be peachy keen if we could have walked in, stomped the bad guys and left in a week. But not only is that not practical, it might not even be the best possible outcome.
While it is certainly becoming painful to listen to the anti-war crowd, its possible that our strategy is to do EXACTLY what we are doing.
Drawing in the enemy.
When we stop getting bad guys coming across the border in an effort to undermine our presense, THEN it will be time to leave. Until then, we are killing and capturing a whole lot of bad guys and the Iraqi people are supporting u.
Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds are sitting at a table drafting a constitution. Who would believe this would be the case?
Its much better than the media and the left is making it out.
While it might sound cliche, we really should "stay the course".
Nope.
But once we get into a war, we need to kick butt and WIN - not play political pattycake.
bump
The misconception here is that the object of the war was, and is, to build a democracy in Iraq. The war wasn't called the war on TERROR for nothing. One of the objects of that war is to eliminate regimes, such as Saddam's, that aid the terrorists. We've done that. Long-term, we want a government in Iraq that won't sponsor anti-US terrorism. A democratic Iraq would be a means to that end, but it isn't an end unto itself. America may have to settle for an authoritarian Iraq, so long as that new Iraq doesn't aid the terrorists.
'Only fight the easy wars' was a Clinton-era policy.
By name: NBC, CNN, CBS, ABC, Michael Moore, Sean Penn, MoveOn.org, Howard Dean, Helen Thomas, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, etc.
This sounds like someone who has bought the media and the leftist line that losing soldiers is equivalent to losing the war. It's exactly what they want him to believe.
Was it your intent to invite the Keyboard Kommandos over for a whine-fest? Because that's how this thread will turn out....
And make sure we have every weapon and every armament needed.
And we should just bomb from 15,000 feet when we can. But if we do send ground troops, we should run as soon as we get any casualties.
And we should encourage people to rise up against their oppressors - and then leave them to twist in the wind.
And we should succumb to bad reporting about wars that turn military victories into propaganda defeats. And embrace anti-American positions that we're evil incarnate.
Yeah, if we do all that, there will be peace in our time.
We're being told we're playing political patty cake, which may or may not be the case.
Another victim of the Rat propaganda machine, aka the MSM. Patience is a virtue that is in short supply these days. The fact is that there is a plan in place, that has been proceeding since the war over Saddam's military was won, that will lead to a complete US withdrawal from Iraq.
Perhaps it is a bit much to ask for people to keep in mind a plan that requires several years to complete, while being fed a steady diet of negative news about the progress of the plan. That would explain why the MSM was so amazed at the recent Iraqi elections, even though they had been planned for a couple years.
The Iraqi constitution will soon be ratified, further Iraqi elections will soon take place, and the Iraqi police force and military will continue to become more effective until the coalition forces are no longer needed.
No doubt when the US forces leave Iraq, the anti-American types will attribute it to their efforts. Sigh...
I agree.
As long as the terrorists aren't permitted to disrupt the flow of global oil, any stable regime would likely be acceptable to the administration. Bush's foreign policy has gone to great lengths to avoid any ideological preference for one form of government over another. Chinese Prove Marx Right: Deracinated US Business Elite Lobbies for Chinese Interests
Here's the counter argument: The proper place to increase the size and aggressiveness of our force is in Iran, not in Iraq.
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