Nixon was elected, in large part (and running against a far better man, Hubert Humphrey), because he said he would end the war. He had a "plan." By the time he cynically got around to "ending" it, we had suffered more American casualties than had occurred the entire time before his election. I was an adult back then, and protested that war. That this same mad justification can be trotted out again, decades later and in a war with less justification than Vietnam, a Cold War conflict, turns my stomach. And that doesn't even bring into discussion the huge civilian casualties that occurred from Nixon extending the Vietnam war for political reasons, and the huge casualties being suffered by the citizens of Iraq. I swear... some of you are blind, deaf, and dumb. Free your mind. D&D. Impeach The Idiot Dunce and His Joker.
More good news, and this just from today. My, how it is working! I went ahead and bolded the good parts that show why we just need more time... (Not a particularly good week to be from Texas.) Here in OR, this was the lead story in my local paper yesterday...
Hilarious. Patton didn't give Rommel a bunch of US tanks through mismanagement and incompetence... and Patton was the last guy you would suspect of saying something to please his political masters. And Churchill was the leader of a country... not a General in the field. It is telling that the defenders of this war not only bring up Churchill again, but they bring him up in reference to a general who supposedly reports to the new (now old) Churchill sitting in the Oval Office. Pathetic. Yes, basso, we know the people calling themselves Al-q are bad and do horrible things. It is good that the Iraqis are making life difficult for the indisicrimnate. It's still not in the national interest for us to stay.
Damn, rimster... did basso really post that?? Delusional. D&D. Impeach the Living Embodiment of the Peter Principal. And His Disciple.
He posted an article with that quote in it. I don't want people to think those are his words, but they are apparently his thoughts.
You are a gentleman and a scholar. Correction noted. (he's still delusional!) D&D. Impeach Bush and His Gardener.
Yeah, it's so clear you are thinking critically. We get it, you are against the military and think it's hopeless and want out no matter what. Great. We've heard you. Luckily, it appears that the rest of the country will take pause and consider.
On the basis of what information are you making this determination? Or are you just projecting your own opinion on the rest of the country? The polls that I have seen seem to indicate that you could not be more wrong. Perhaps the fact that you make wild incorrect assumptions in this instance should be applied to informing and reevaluating the rest of the strange assumptions that support your other opinions?
I can think critically enough to separate the administration's actions and the soldiers doing the dying. It is hopeless in the sense that there are no good or even decent alternatives. Every option sucks. I think the least sucky is for us to leave in as orderly a fashion as possible. The current policy of doing the same thing over and over again while hoping that the outcome is different speaks for itself... it's insane. I'm not against the military. Every generation of my family has fought for this country from the Revolution to both sides of the Civil War to Vietnam (I have an uncle who still has nightmares) and Iraq I, which caused the death of my cousin in a training accident before the invasion. Get off your high horse and don't tell me I'm against the military. You might as well tell me I'm against my family and my country. However, I am most definitely against the misuse of the military and this folly ranks at the top of our history in that regard. And your hero, who we're all waiting to hear from, contributed to that by handing out willy-nilly and not keeping track of guns, ammo, and armor that are now being used against our soldiers. Finally, the rest of the country is forced to take a pause not because they want to, but because of the administration and the enablers in the Republican Party.
You are just like basso. You don't hesitate to make a slanderous statement like that to rimrocker, knowing it is absolute bull****. Against the military? What utter crap. Still hopping from one position to another, NewYorker. For you, at least today (who knows which position you'll have tomorrow, or next week), if you can make statements such as these, you're joined at the hip with basso and other ardent Bush Defenders. Not because we disagree about the war, but because you have stooped to their level of discourse. Don't get a sore back. Stooping can take a toll. D&D. Impeach Goofus and His Troll.
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070806/OPINION/70804013/1049 I don't know, I really think liberals are really is a sticky spot if things are indeed turning around in Iraq. Sure, their first reaction will be to try to convince the country that this is not the case, that any kind of turnaround is just a propanganda ploy (and this is the story we're seeing). eventually though, if this gains momentum and continues, what will they do? Their whole platform has been capitalizing on anti-war sentiment. If that shifts, the liberals are in trouble.
There has been no debate about D.P.'s appointment, which was approved unamimously by the senate. You've brought up missing arms, but that's it. No one has found him of any wrong doing. And he has been in the military for over 30 years and has a stellar track record. Yet you portray him as a Bush crony. There's no connection of him to Bush though prior to Iraq, which is why when you say that he's a Bush crony, I suspect you're playing a politically motivated game. Anyway, I showed a poll where the majority wanted to take pause, and guys have said I'm making wild assumptions. It seems to me that it's actually the other way around, that you guys have assumed that the country has joined the anti-war movement and we are all in favor of getting out ASAP. But that's not the case. This country is a spectrum of people and opinions. And while many do feel this war was a mistake, we aren't going to just spin everything into a defeat platform. I am not a fan by Bush, in fact, if you read any of my posts on him, you'll see that. But the attempts to equate me to a Bush supporter again shows the lengths at which some liberals will go to win an argument.
kinda hard to make the distinction when you sound like a more intelligent version of basso in this thread. remember back when some of us spoke to you about that "taking a stance for a reaction" thing? we said it would cause you to not be taken seriously....seems like folks arent sure what you *really* think because of that.
I am included in having no idea what New Yorker really things, which is why some of the things he says that are obviously not logical with other things he's said makes discussing anything with him difficult. Especially when are trying to have discussions of reason, and it is difficult to find a line of reason between his posts.
i'll undersore the important bits for you rimmy. no doubt, you did not read of this in the times. http://op-for.com/2007/08/alqaeda_on_the_run.html [rquoter]AL-QAEDA ON THE RUN By Richard S. Lowry In March of 2003, Abu Musab al-Zargawi was holed up in his mountain terrorist training camp in Eastern Iraq. He had already been fighting Americans for quite some time. He had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan in 2002 but managed to escape to Baghdad, where he was treated and brought back to health in an Iraqi hospital. Once recuperated, he established a terrorist training camp along the Iranian frontier. He selected a mountain perch that would be easy to defend and would also provide a quick escape route into Iran. His men controlled a 300 square kilometer finger of land that protruded into Iran, just east of the ghost town of Halabja. I have been told, unofficially, that Abu-Musab al-Zargawi was under direct orders from Osama bin-Laden to establish his Iraqi camp to spread the violence of al-Qaeda. I was told this by a former S-2 (intelligence) officer for a brigade that was deployed in Northeastern Iraq. I believe he knows what he is talking about but, unfortunately, I cannot divulge his name as a source. Instead, let me direct you to the work of a well-known author, Robin Moore. Mr. Moore visited Iraq shortly after the invasion in 2003. He then wrote “Hunting Down Saddam,” St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2004. In his book, Moore writes of Operation Viking Hammer, “perhaps the largest Special Operations assault in history.” When the Turkish government baulked, and did not allow American forces to attack Iraq from the north, a large Special Operations effort was initiated in Northern Iraq and Kurdistan. Kurdish pesh merga forces, assisted by American Special Forces teams moved toward, and eventually attacked Zargawi’s hideout, east of As-Sulaymaniyah. The battle is also recounted in Linda Robinson’s, “Masters of Chaos,” PublicAffairs, New York, 2004. Ms Robinson indicates that there was an association between Zargawi’s group, Ansar al-Islam, and al-Qaeda. The battle to neutralize Ansar al-Islam in the Iraqi mountains raged for days and was one of the fiercest fights of the war. Finally, the pesh merga and American Special Forces routed or killed hundreds of Sargawi’s fanatic fighters to find the largest terrorist training camp in the world. You all may think that I am about to go on to claim that this was an al-Qaeda training camp, that al-Qaeda was in Iraq in 2003, and that Saddam was in cahoots with Zargawi (and thus al-Qaeda). Well, I am not. I will leave that research to the reader. What I am going to do is make a prediction. I predict that al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) will beat a retreat to this same finger of land, or a similar border hideout in the same vicinity, in the near future. AQI is on the run in Anbar and Diyala Province. (According to the Multi-National Force-Iraq Public Affairs Office, “Eighteen paramount tribal leaders representing 14 of the major tribes in Diyala Province, Iraq, swore on the Koran and signed a peace agreement unifying the tribes in the battle against terrorism…on August 2nd.”). General Rick Lynch is running the enemy to ground, south of Baghdad. The Multi-National Division-North has made great strides in killing or capturing most all of the senior al-Qaeda leadership in Mosul. Soon, al-Qaeda’s only safe haven will be along the Iranian border. Soon, al-Qaeda will resort to the same tactics as they are using in Afghanistan. The surge is working. Harry Reid – we are not losing in Iraq. General Petraeus’ forces are doing everything they can to keep al-Qaeda off the Iraqi population and, they won’t let up until they are all dead, in custody, or dug in to their last mountain hideout. We are far from victory in Iraq, but we are approaching a tipping point. Richard S. Lowry is the author of “Marines in the Garden of Eden.” Visit www.marinesinthegardenofeden.com to read more. [/rquoter]
Perhaps you didn't look at the polls that I linked to, which was the exact same poll your editorial talks about? When an editorial author isn't cherrypicking results, or trying to attack the messenger the picture is different. For instance the editorial says: [rquoter] As the Times' Janet Elder wrote a week ago, the increased support for the decision to go to war was "counterintuitive" and because it "could not be easily explained, the paper went back and did another poll on the very same subject." [/rquoter] This implys that the NY Times didn't like the results of the poll so they decided to redo it to get more favorable results - exept the NY Times has been conducting weekly polls about Iraq since before the invasion. But I guess that little fact gets in the way of good spin? But if you want the unbiased results straight from the horse's mouth, here they are. They paint a different story than the editorial's author tries to spin: [rquoter] Question 12: From what you have seen or heard about the situtation in Iraq, what should the United States do NOW - should the US increase the number of troops in Iraq, keep the same number of US troops in Iraq as there are now, decrase the number of troops in Iraq or remove all its troops from Iraq? Increase - 12% Keep same - 15% Decrease - 30% Remove all - 36% Question 17: As you may know, the US has sent 20,000 additional troops to Iraq. From what you have heard or read, would you say the increase is making the situation in Iraq better, making it worse, or is having no impact on the situation in Iraq so far? Better - 19% Worse - 20% No Impact - 53% Question 19 Right now, is the U.S. involvement in Iraq creating more terrorists who are planning to attack the U.S.; or eliminating terrorists who were planning to attack the U.S.; or is the U.S. involvement in Iraq not affecting the number of terrorists planning to attack the U.S.? Creating - 44% Eliminating - 18% Not Effecting - 27% [/rquoter] And if you go to the Rasmussen poll the author talks about, you will see that she has distorted it and cherry picked as well. For instance, the Rasmussen poll indicates that 55% of Americans want troops out of Iraq by 2008. And her question about "Washington should wait until September before making major changes in Iraq" which she says was 51% yes, was actually never asked. What was asked was whether the troop surge was working. The results were 25% yes, and 26% too early to tell, which can add up, I guess, to 51%. But who cares about being accurate when you are making a point? I guess if you choose to read the right editorials which only cherry pick or fabricate palatable facts, you can make a great case that 93% Americans want to have high colonics forcably administered within the next 6 months. Of course, that doesn't make it true and if you look directly at the totality of the facts, rather than listening to someone who is picking and inventing facts in order to convince you of their political viewpoint, you can usually see this.
Wow, that is a shocker. In conservative-town Al Qaeda is always on the run. "on the run" July 2007 http://www.saneworks.us/Al-Qaeda-on-the-run-in-Iraq-newsblog-1846.htm "on the run" Feb 2007 http://michellemalkin.com/2007/02/08/al-qaeda-on-the-run/ "on the run" January 2007 http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/01/al_qaeda_flees_baghdad.php October 2006 GWB: "Al Qaeda is on the run" http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061025.html "on the run" April 2006 http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htlead/articles/20060430.aspx Even never-nervous out of service Pervez has seen running al qaeda! "on the run" 2004 http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/pakistan/2004/pakistan-040816-irna02.htm "on the run" August 2002 http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/13915/ "on the run" - Rummy March 2002 http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0203/11/se.05.html With all the running they do, I bet they are in great cardio-vascular shape!
