Posted on 03/31/2007 9:58:35 PM PDT by jdm
Edited on 04/01/2007 10:19:50 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
How about the Know Nothings quit mindlessly regurgitating the nonsense screamed at them 3 hours a day by never been anything Talk Radio Hosts and try actually learning something about Iraq finally?
Why Iraq
One of the really infuriating things in modern politics is the level of disinformation, misinformation, demagoguery and out right lying going on about the mission in Iraq. Democrats have spent the last 3+ years lying about Iraq out of a political calculation. The assumption is that the natural isolationist mindset of the average American voter, linked to the inherent Anti Americanism (what is misnamed the "Anti War movement") of the more feverish Democrat activists (especially those running the US's National "News" media) would restore them to national political dominance. The truth is the Democrat Party Leadership has simply lacked the courage to speak truth to whiners. The truth is that even if Al Gore won the 2000 election and 09-11 still happened we would be doing the EXACT same things in Iraq we are doing now.
Based on the political situation in the region left over from the 1991 Gulf War plus the domestic political consensus built up in BOTH parties since 1991 as well as fundamental military strategic laws, there was NO viable strategic choice for the US but to take out Iraq after finishing the initial operations in Afghanistan.
To start with Saddam's Iraq was our most immediate threat. We could NOT commit significant military forces to another battle with Saddam hovering undefeated on our flank nor could we leave significant forces watching Saddam. The political containment of Iraq was breaking down. That what Oil for Food was all about. Oil for Food was an attempt by Iraq to break out of it's diplomatic isolation and slip the shackles the UN Sanctions put on it's military. There there was the US Strategic position to consider.
The War on Islamic Fascism is different sort of war. in facing this Asymmetrical threat, we have a hidden foe, spread out across a geographically diverse area, with covert sources of supply. Since we cannot go everywhere they hide out, in fact often cannot even locate them until the engage us, we need to draw them out of hiding into a kill zone.
Iraq is that kill zone. That is the true brilliance of the Iraq strategy. We draw the terrorists out of their world wide hiding places onto a battlefield they have to fight on for political reasons (The "Holy" soil of the Arabian peninsula) where they have to pit their weakest ability (Conventional Military combat power) against our greatest strength (ability to call down unbelievable amounts of firepower) where they will primarily have to fight other forces (the Iraqi Security forces) in a battlefield that is mostly neutral in terms of guerrilla warfare. (Iraqi-mostly open terrain as opposed to guerrilla friendly areas like the mountains of Afghanistan or the jungles of SE Asia).
Did any of the critics of liberating Iraq ever look at a map? Iraq, for which we had the political, legal and moral justifications to attack, is the strategic high ground of the Middle East. A Geographic barrier that severs ground communication between Iran and Syria apart as well as providing another front of attack in either state or into Saudi Arabia if needed.
There were other reasons to do Iraq but here is the strategic military reason we are in Iraq. We have taken, an maintain the initiative from the Terrorists. They are playing OUR game on ground of OUR choosing.
Problem is Counter Insurgency is SLOW and painful. Often a case of 3 steps forward, two steps back. One has to wonder if the American people have either the emotional maturity, nor the intellect" to understand. It's so much easier to spew made for TV slogans like "No Blood for Oil" or "We support the Troops, bring them home" or dumbest of all "We are creating terrorists" then to actually THINK.
Westerners in general, and the US citizens in particular seem to have trouble grasping the fundamental fact of this foe. These Islamic Fascists have NO desire to co-exist with them. The extremists see all this PC posturing by the Hysteric Left as a sign that we are weak. Since they want us dead, weakness encourages them. There is simply no way to coexist with people who completely believe their "god" will reward them for killing us.
So we can covert to Islam, die or kill them. Iraq is about killing enough of them to make the rest of the Jihadists realize we are serious. They same way killing enough Germans, Italians and Japanese eliminated the ideologies of Nazism, Fascism and Bushido.
Americans need to understand how Bin Laden and his ilk view us. In the Arab world the USA is considered a big wimp. We have run away so many times. Lebanon, the Kurds, the Iraqis in 1991, the Iranians, Somalia, Clinton all thru the 1990s etc etc etc. The Jihadists think we will run again. In fact they are counting on it. That way they can run around screaming "We beat the American just like the Russians, come join us in Jihad" and recruit the next round of "holy warriors". Iraq is also a show place where we show the Muslim world that there are a lines they cannot cross. On 9-11-01 they crossed that line and we can, and will, destroy them for it -
If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than
The real war is now Iran.
Why?
Who would have to help enforce such a partition (which would divide Baghdad)? Us, of course. How? With an iron fist, of course (to be successful).
I have never understood how people can fantasize that forced-partition would be somehow better than the status quo rather than, at best, slightly worse. With partition not only would we be fighting insurgency(ies), we'd be defending 3 borders from incursion. From both sides!
How is that better?
On the other hand the war in Iraq is about the Bush family obsession with the Stargate. (not so seriously).
They are breeding terrorists faster than we are killing them. Easy math. They need a serious attrition lesson.
As usual another great article. But the gloves aren't off completely.
Why would you call people of any religion a radical because they practice the religion as written. I would think you would call them fundamentalists.
I wonder if Charles refers to missionary Christians as radical Christians? - Tom
I thought that this is what the article would be about. If we can defeat the domestic enemies of the nation, the rest of the world will be quite manageable.
Excellent post.
If he was not up to the challenge of leadership he would have caved long time to the defeatists, traitors and knee jerk reactionaries and left Iraq long time ago in defeat. The man is still leading us and does not give a damn about popular opinions or attacks from traitors. President Bush is a REAL LEADER.
Maybe instead of constantly sniping the President in the back some of the Always Whining might finally get off their petulant butts and start HELPING him?
We are very fortunate that we have President Bush as our leader in this very critical time in history.
Go away troll.
See the fifth paragraph from the bottom in post #61 above. Short of nuclear weapons on cities with millions of women and children incinerated, we have what we have and it is working, albeit ever so slowly.
The problem is that when they just lay down their weapons and go out for a break the amount of effort to root them out doubles when they pick up and start again.
Here is a subtle truth which democrats cannot grasp and the media would not want the public to see: amongst the neighborhoods where the Islamic murderers are hiding and from which they launch their murderous assaults on fellow Iraqi there are mothers and fathers growing increasingly sick of the slaughter imposed upon them by these demonservants who claim privilege from allah for the blood baths which slaughter innocent children in Iraq ... and these sane mothers and fathers eventually grow so weary of the evil surrounding them that they tell someone where the demons' holes are, and then we kill these vermin and rid the neighborhood of the allah-spawned vampires.
Indeed, very fortunate.
>>>[partitioning] is the simplistic answer spewed forth by various idiot "Realists" Do Nothing Neo-Isolationists whose dogma of "Never do anything in the Middle East and maybe the problem will go away?" bought us 09-11-01.
While the US is pinned down in the Iraqi cities killing imported Muslim fighters in Iraq by the one's and two's, Iran grows stronger and more threatening.
There's no conflict with partitioning Iraq and the US keeping permanent remote bases in each of the newly-formed countries. Why send our troops in to the cities to walk a beat and get sniped when they are designed to be soldiers killing massed enemies?
If you don't like partitioning then find a dictator to your liking to keep the pressure on a multi-ethnic country. This is a tried and true approach. But please don't turn our soldiers into policemen.
Your strategy of being a policeman keeping order in an urban mixed ethnic soup is using up valuable political capital that a President needs to mount future military operations.
And if you look at what the wonderful Confederate government did during the Civil War, you'll find that it was 100 times worse than the Union in abusing civil rights, in heavier taxation, in more private property confiscation, in more government industry---in short, in every area of human liberty. The Confederacy would have led us to ALL these ills you list here, except 100 years earlier, with one exception: since there was no supreme court in the Confed., the legislature and executive would have been without restraint.
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