Posted on 01/18/2007 7:50:55 AM PST by jveritas
Stop laughing.
I believe you are inaccurate to claim that Allied Forces killed "millions" (I guess you are saying non-combatants) in our attacks seeking to have the Japanese surrender in WWII.
I also beleive that characterizing the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, a site with many civilians working in a peacetime naval harbor common to the civilian harbor was a purely military target. Civilians did die after all
No, when I use the term "just war" I am speaking of the Just War Doctrine, not war in general or the current war specifically.
I am saying that the fellow I was replying to was asking for a war outside of that doctrine. A war against all adherents of a general religous faith, beyond borders and cultures.
He is advocating that we make war on a religion, long after those who harmed us are gone or surrendered. He does something much like hate-crime legislation, he wants war on their thoughts and beliefs because he feels that so long as there are any beleivers in Islam, they will war upon us with terror.
I don't agree with that position, and I shared that view with him.
GWB's greatest failing is his lack historical understanding. This includes not only how successful wars have always been fought, but also one of Islamic dogma & expansion since 700AD.
Lincoln, Wilson & FDR all knew, at a minimum, that forceful action needed to be taken not only against the enemy, but internal dissidents as well.
GWB is a good guy @ heart, which is why so many of us still stand by him. Ultimately, however, it will be proven that he was the wrong man for the time.
The next phase of this 1,300 year old war will be just a tad more vicious.
"The American Conservative eloquently states an intelligent anti-war message."
The American "Conservative" also endorsed John Kerry for President. How bout you?
This was during the time of the Red Scare, comparable to Islam. Wilson was trying to push his idea of governance onto the rest of the world. We were just coming out of a war. Sorry, but I see a number of parallels.
You might get a kick out of this .....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxi5GbYmAmw
watch for the wink .....
You make excellent points. I fear we cannot identify our enemies for fear of our fifth column (our demoncrats). This makes warfare in defense of civilization difficult if not impossible. We cannot long tolerate an electorate so devoid of logic. We need to lose far more than 3000 to gird up our loins for battle. It is also true that the Islam will refrain from further attacks while trends toward self-destruction as so far advanced. i.e. Pelosi/Reid/Hitlery Why would an Islamist want to reverese that trend???
Good correction on my term. "Infiltrated" is correct, and I do believe it has happened.
Agreed. I have no doubt of it.
I believe he knows quite well what the risks are, but has to operate with a Congress which has not been supportive (even before the election). We have too many Republicans who are afraid they will lose their jobs if they take an unpopular position...and all they have to do is look at what happened to Rick Santorum. Very few have the courage of their convictions that Santorum has.
All of this bluster about "taking the gloves off" also fails to understand that we have had to operate in conjunction with the Brits, led by Tony Blair, who, although standing by us through this war, is not nearly as hawkish as we would like (example...opposing the death penalty for Saddam).
I also think that all of the critics are failing to take into account that the Iraq theater is not operating in a vacuum...we have to consider the opinions of the Saudis (who still have that oil thingy to threaten us with), the Jordanians (who have been very helpful with intelligence and interrogation), the Israelis (who would be the first attacked if the Mideast goes up in flames), the Turks (who are NATO allies), the smaller countries like Dubai, Kuwait, and Qatar(which provide support bases and ports for our military), and of course, the ever-present danger of a nuclear-armed Iran appearing on the stage. PLUS, we have to keep an eye on Syria (who still might be hiding WMD's) and North Korea.
I am amazed that people think these decisions are easy, or that the President is stupid, cowardly, or too PC.
What I am seeing are a lot of people who are either not thinking things through, or are democrat disruptors. No other choice is available.
No, why do you ask?
This is so patently silly, it doesn't even deserve a response.
You said -- "watch for the wink ....."
Sorry, I missed the wink. It must have been the pigs; they were just too interesting. And that gave me an idea. I think we should set up pig farms all along the borders of Iraq and make it the pig shipping center of the world. That should give the terrorist something to squawk about...
Regards,
Star Traveler
I agree with your arguments TOTALLY!! It really IS the most important war since WWII. President Bush must feel just like Winston Churchill did as he watched and warned of the "gathering storm"!! CO
"Terrorism will not be stopped by tighter immigrations laws. The terrorist organizations and regime will devise a way to create terrorists who are already legally here in the United States including US citizens; not just naturalized US citizens but American born citizens. The terrorist attacks in London in July 2005 were carried out by British born citizens. We are fighting a global war on terror and to win it we must go to the heart of the Middle East and fight the terrorists there. That is why Iraq is now the central front of the war on terror. Every terrorist in the world is coming to fight us there including the terrorists supported by Iran and Syria, and once we crush them and defeat them in Iraq, we will change the whole map of the Middle East and create extremely difficult conditions for terrorism to flourish in the Middle East or elsewhere."
All true, except it's not "once", it's "if".
And that is the whole problem.
"Once" isn't going to come to be on our present course.
By writing "once", you didn't have to add a "defeatist" "if not" sentence (to follow on from the "if"), but you need to write that sentence, even if you don't post it.
And then you need to recognize that the needfulness to avoid the "if not" scenario does not change the "if" into a "once". I am sadly confident that, if we continue on our present course, there will be no "Once", and that "if not" scenario will become a "when not".
I don't recall calling George Bush an idiot.
He's a Yale graduate, a Harvard graduate and a jet pilot.
Not an idiot at all.
I do recall saying that his strategy in Iraq is idiotic.
Because it has been and, with the recent change, still is.
A smart guy like Bush needs to use his smarts and stop shying away from doing the nasty, necessary thing. His personal morality has put him in a bash-trap, where a smart guy like he is can't bring himself to order the things which must be done, because they are evil. And so he chooses to continue an idiot's game, without actually BEING an idiot, because he'd rather lose than do all those bad things.
That serves well the state of his soul.
But it screws the pooch for the USA.
You wasted bandwidth by posting that.
"Everyone always jumps on me by pointing out that the People would never accept such a policy. Fine."
The People would too have accepted just such a policy.
They would have accepted World War II levels of censorship and rationing. They would have accepted Manzanar for Muslims, all the World War II precedents, IF the President had asked Congress to take the country to war.
Congress would not have refused, not in mid-September, 2001.
But he didn't, and so America is at peace, formally, legally, economically...but is fighting a couple of half wars, and national unity has fallen apart, prefiguring our defeat. Again.
None of this would be happening were America actually AT WAR.
And were America AT WAR, nobody would be resisting making the Army and Navy and Marine Corps and Air Force and even the Coast Guard all as big as they needed to be to resoundingly win the war, swiftly.
But the President didn't take us to war.
We're doing the police action thing again.
We've lost all of our police actions.
There is precedent there too.
Which SHOULD have been why students of history SHOULD HAVE urged the President to ask for a DoW.
They didn't.
He didn't.
Congress didn't sua sponte.
Now we're screwed.
Pity.
Maybe NEXT TIME we will learn and Declare War.
Don't get me started about daschunds (read your profile). I have a chocolate dapple 1 yr, 7 mo. old girl. Beautiful dogs.
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