Posted on 10/09/2007 12:55:29 PM PDT by america4vr
Fast forward nearly twenty years to witness the very worst scenario imaginable, the Neoncons, of which I myself enthusiastically supported and having held in the highest esteem, have naively so, come up against a way of life, a primitive society mired in a belief system that allows no compromise, no accommodation, no enlightenment, one that is straight out of the Twilight Zone, one frozen in time, now, forever and always.
Perhaps it is 20/20 hindsight that I am now mind-boggled by the impossibility for what the NeoCons dared to undertake because I too believed, I too wanted to believe in what the NeoCons had hope to accomplish, a brazen vision to remake the region in America's image and which that today finds us on the eve of Operation Mullah Mayhem in preparation for war against Iran, which should have been their first target, really.
But these people we face are different than any adversary heretofore. The reality is that when dealing in/with the physical world, of worldy possessions,where even the bitterest of spouses, business partners, adversaries, enemies off and on the battlefield can, do reach accommodation, compromise because it replaces one aspect for another.
But with these people, a compromise, an accommodation of the sort the NeoCons, the US hopes to attain can never come to fruition because it's one thing to compromise with the physical, it's another to have these people seek an accommodation with their God, and even more so with their very own immortality.
Vultures circling a corpse?.................
For casualty levels that, no matter how personally painful each one is, are militarily insignificant casualties, we have broken our foes ability to control the initiative. They are force to respond to, and losing badly to, our strategic moves.
Rather then arrogantly continuing to squeal the same ignorant nonsense and lies and perhaps the Dincons might finally admit they have been all wrong abut Iraq from the start.
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 to live as slaves.”
Winston Churchill
Very well thought out post. Good analysis.
Count the number of times he splutters the code word “NeoCons.” ;)
Piss on Newsweek. Yet another liberal rag I don’t waste money on.
They're just positioning themselves to hijack another government.
Almost as often as he splutters Israel. Ironically all the R candidates, Paul excepted, being equally pro-Israel.
I agree. This article is such a librally biased piece of bunk that one can hardly believe a damn word in it.
This weekend was the anniversary of the battle of Lepanto. Right now, it is simply our turn to contain the Islam as the men of the Christian West have had to do since the 8th C.
It is not "radical islam," or "islamo-fascism" we fight. That is a judgement modern people make based on the fact that a majority of the world's Muslims are not directly in the fight. The majority never were.
A pillar of Islam, Jihad never was and never will be a peaceful concept. There is only peace between us when the Muslims feel they are weaker than we are, and therefore must dissemble and lie, that is, pretend to dialogue with us, while they build up their strength for the next phase of jihad.
These fundamentals of Islam are simply too hard for modern people to understand.
From my liberal dictionary:
Neocons = Joooos
I wonder why they never say what they mean?
“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 to live as slaves.”
Winston Churchill
“Live Free or Die”
The problem is that the American media is telling the world over and over again that we are not serious. They are telling the terrorists that they are winning. They are telling them that they are standing up to the world's most powerful military force and slowly bleeding the life out of it.
The Democrats, the left, and the media are giving the terrorists the encouragement they need to carry on and handing them the propaganda they need to recruit more terrorists. Our media is doing far more to create more terrorists than the actual war in Iraq.
The war in Iraq has been a success, but it would have been far more successful if the Democrats and the media were not traitorously undermining our efforts there.
Many current members may not perceive how far the Republican Party has moved into lockstep with those old ex democrat liberal warmongers known as neo conservatives.
Posts like this
Weapons of Mass Deception
by Dave Pascoe
were posted here as standard conservative fare...at one time
(note the date of the post)
You may say 911 changed everything but that is not true. The attack on the World Trade Center by Saudi nationals on Clinton's watch was just as ambitious as 911 but conservatives warned against Clinton using that attack to grab more power for the Fed while undermining our Bill of Rights. Republicans in fact stopped Clinton's version of the Patriot Act from becoming law citing concern for government intrusion in the rights of all Americans as the reason. The Act which passed under the Bush Administration was simply a modified version of the Clinton Act...but with a more patriotic name.
And were conservatives "supporting our troops" when we critiqued Clinton for his "nation building"-"exporting of democracy" wars? I do know this. Neo conservatism can no longer hide it's ambitions behind the slur of anti Semite to anyone who points out where this movement originated, which is the Democratic Party.
Neo cons such as yourself have disseminated your propaganda well...but it is now transparant to most Americans that these people are nuts. The neocons have lost all credibility. Any candidate who hitches his wagon to that movement will lose.
Are RINO’s the same as NEOCON’s?
Dire myopia clothed in purple prose. I wouldn't be so bold as to proclaim to know the destiny of Iraq. You, on the other hand, have apparently been blessed with the prophetic vision to declare that the mission in Iraq is fait accompli--a failure of misguided Neocon optimism in the innate desire of all men to be free.
The glaring argument against your thesis is that everyday in Iraq (not to mention Afghanistan) there are untold thousands of members of that so called "primitive society" who are fighting and dying alongside our troops to build and secure a representative democracy. Pity that they are unaware that their sacrifice is in vain. If only they would listen to the enlightened and accommodating who sit in comfy chairs in free Western societies and pronounce them and their kind unworthy of achieving democracy.
Contrary to your gloomy assertions, the die has not been cast regarding the mission in Iraq, nor regarding the idea that the ultimate foreign policy answer to Islamist radicalism is fighting to bring democratic freedom to all men, including Muslims.
Caw! Caw!
There is at least a modicum of difference between a Bill Clinton rather aimlessly sprinkling cruise missiles around The Sudan and Afghanistan, or "Wagging the Dog" in Kosovo to mis-direct the nation's attention away from his dalliance with Ms. Monica, and mounting a serious war effort.
How can one compare Clinton's malfeasance in Somalia, his three bungled chances to arrest Osama bin Ladin when he was offered his head on a silver platter by the Sudanese, or his non-performance after the Cole was bombed, with Bush's operations?
There is quite a difference in giving a Clinton emergency war powers and giving them to Bush, no matter how maladroit and ill-spoken he is. No normal thinking man, Democrat or Republican would do that, as the votes to deny Clinton "The Powers" would show.
I am not one to defend the "Neo-Cons" against all comers. Of course, they are newly "baptized" Republican converts and have not yet entirely shed their formerly left-wing ways on social issues. Big deal.
They understand one thing: that this is a fight for the survival of the Christian West, of which Israel is a part. Yes, a lot of them aren't Christians or even particularly religious, but they understand that in this particular World War we hang together with Israel, or the Muslims will hang us separately.
I am sorry if this is all too apocalyptic for you, but I would advise you to study the 14-century struggle between us here in Christendom against them over there in Islam. I, as a member of the same team I hope, also wish you would stop talking the sort of bosh that the Copperheads used against Lincoln. If you truly feel that your civil rights are in danger, sue somebody. There's plenty of help around for that.
Let's talk about it after we win this particular round in the epic struggle that has continued for centuries. The early rounds spared our yet-to-be created country, but it's our turn now. Like it, or lump it.
Since we do not live in the City of God, the foreign policy ideas :a those that protect our national security, those that are determined to preserve the free enterprise system, those that seemingly want to do preventive military things-even attacking first; all these are named neoconservative. Seems like the above is just common sense in a world where Islamofascism with nukes would destroy both us, Israel, Western Europe in an eye blink if they acquired A weapons. And right now, national security is my major concern. Without it, my values, my church, my way of life, capitalism, democracy all crumble in the ashes of a mad-evil ideology named Islamofascism. Rudy may have it right and so might Norman. As far as I can see, Fred, Mitt, Mike, and even John would also defend the USA with every weapon possible: military, economics, political et al.
With all due respect, MN Johnnie’s analysis is not propaganda...it’s absolutely on the money. The only thing I would add is the strategic objective of reconstituting Iraq with democratic principles to reduce the incentive for terrorism.
The problem isn’t strategy. It’s implementation. The Left and its media supporters are making it hard to maintain popular support for the Iraqi war. The Right and its political leadership are not good at making a persuasive case for it.
We need a leader who can build and hold public support for a sound strategy.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.