The left wants us to pull out of Iraq and effectively leave it to either al Qaeda or Iran -
- in the 1st instance as a terrorist state to replace Afghanistan after a period of mass genocide estimated to involve the death of upwards of 2 million
- in the 2nd instance to have total control of the world’s biggest oil reserves and have a base from which to take control of most of the rest of Middle Eastern reserves; eliminate Israel; foment global jihad against the West
One can certainly argue about whether we were wise to invade Iraq — reasonable people can disagree on this — but given where we are today, abandoning the effort at this stage doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. particularly when Gen. Patreus believes that we can contain the violence.
“I also agree with the left about the Patriot act and warrantless wiretaps.”
I know of no “warrantless wiretaps” — the only ones that existed were for international calls to known terrorists (which I saw nothing wrong with at all) and these were voluntarily stopped by Bush
The Patriot Act made me more than a little nervous when first enacted, but I’ve yet to see a single negative consequence to the American public and the Government folks responsible for fighting terrorism say that its provisions are responsible for preventing numerous terrorist incidents in America. Lots of folks wax eloquent with generalities about the patriot Act, but I’ve never seen a reasoned objection based on either its provisions or its actual effect.
Certainly, I understand at some level not trusting Government. That said, individuals cannot, in any meaningful way, fight terrorism — only Government can do that. We have to either provide them the tools or accept living a life of constant terrorist attacks like the Israeli’s do. I’ve spent a lot of time in Israel and prefer the approach that gives Government the tools that they need.
Bottom line, I don’t accept that the Left is “right” about these issues either. In fact, I don’t think that most of them think that they’re right either — they’re just against anything that Bush supports or anything that contributes to defense of America. They view America in the same way the jihadists view America — as the Great Satan (of course, as atheists, they use different terminology)
If we got out of Iraq now, the Suuni’s and Shiites would start fighting for control. And since the Shiites outnumber the Suunis, that means they would start winning. So Suunis from Saudi Arabia and Syria would be pulled in. This would in turn pull in Shiites from Iran. Rather than US soldiers killing Muslims, we have Muslims killing Muslims. That is an ideal solution. Ideally the whole Middle East would be pulled into a giant war.