Put a tourniquet on it, Deckard. By the US invading Iraq, it shows the rest of the world we will not hesitate to whip on some schmucks who need it done. The US has been known only to enter war upon provocation which gives the likes of Al Qaeda the premise to have the first strike. If the US gathers her information and does the preemptive strike, then who can plot against us? This will then turn the question "what will stop politicians from making up reasons for war?" One thing everyone is neglecting is that since the Gulf War ended, Iraq has been shooting at our planes in the no fly zone. That in itself is a provocation of war. Fortunate enough for Mr. Hussein, we had a bleeder in the executive office who didn't believe in military action, but instead believed we did not need a strong military and decided to downgrade. The removal of Saddam Hussein was something that should've been done years ago, especially after the failed attempt on George H. W. Bush's life. Iraq has long been a potential terrorist financer. Saddam Hussein held a grudge against the US. This war has not been in vain. No fundamentalist, jihadist, fanatic or terrorist in general is going to attack the US again as long as a conservative president is in office. President Bush is the best thing to happen to this country since President Reagan.
Maybe not... here's Paul Krugman... _____________ Snares and Delusions By PAUL KRUGMAN n his Saturday radio address, George Bush described Iraqi insurgents as a "small faction." Meanwhile, people actually on the scene described a rebellion with widespread support. Isn't it amazing? A year after the occupation of Iraq began, Mr. Bush and his inner circle seem more divorced from reality than ever. Events should have cured the Bush team of its illusions. After all, before the invasion Tim Russert asked Dick Cheney about the possibility that we would be seen as conquerors, not liberators, and would be faced with "a long, costly and bloody battle." Mr. Cheney replied, "Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators." Uh-huh. But Bush officials seem to have learned nothing. Consider, for example, the continuing favor shown to Ahmad Chalabi. Last year the neocons tried to install Mr. Chalabi in power, even ferrying his private army into Iraq just behind our advancing troops. It turned out that he had no popular support, and by now it's obvious that suspicions that we're trying to put Mr. Chalabi on the throne are fueling Iraqi distrust. According to Arnaud de Borchgrave of U.P.I., however, administration officials gave him control of Saddam's secret files — a fine tool for blackmail — and are letting him influence the allocation of reconstruction contracts, a major source of kickbacks. And we keep repeating the same mistakes. The story behind last week's uprising by followers of Moktada al-Sadr bears a striking resemblance to the story of the wave of looting a year ago, after Baghdad fell. In both cases, officials were unprepared for an obvious risk. According to The Washington Post: "One U.S. official said there was not even a fully developed backup plan for military action in case Sadr opted to react violently. The official noted that when the decision [to close Sadr's newspaper] was made, there were very few U.S. troops in Sadr's strongholds south of Baghdad." If we're lucky, the Sadrist uprising will eventually fade out, just as the postwar looting did; but the occupation's dwindling credibility has taken another huge blow. Meanwhile, Mr. Bush, who once challenged his own father to go mano a mano, is still addicted to tough talk, and still personalizes everything. Again and again, administration officials have insisted that some particular evildoer is causing all our problems. Last July they confidently predicted an end to the insurgency after Saddam's sons were killed. In December, they predicted an end to the insurgency after capturing Saddam himself. Six weeks ago — was it only six weeks? — Al Qaeda was orchestrating the insurgency, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was the root of all evil. The obvious point that we're facing widespread religious and nationalist resentment in Iraq, which is exploited but not caused by the bad guy du jour, never seems to sink in. The situation in Falluja seems to have been greatly exacerbated by tough-guy posturing and wishful thinking. According to The Jerusalem Post, after the murder and mutilation of American contractors, Mr. Bush told officials that "I want heads to roll." Didn't someone warn him of the likely consequences of attempting to carry out a manhunt in a hostile, densely populated urban area? And now we have a new villain. Yesterday Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez declared that "the mission of the U.S. forces is to kill or capture Moktada al-Sadr." If and when they do, we'll hear once again that we've turned the corner. Does anyone believe it? When will we learn that we're not going to end the mess in Iraq by getting bad guys? There are always new bad guys to take their place. And let's can the rhetoric about staying the course. In fact, we desperately need a change in course. The best we can realistically hope for now is to turn power over to relatively moderate Iraqis with a real base of popular support. Yes, that mainly means Islamic clerics. The architects of the war will complain bitterly, and claim that we could have achieved far more. But they've been wrong about everything so far — and if we keep following their advice, Iraq really will turn into another Vietnam.
My concern is that if we don't attack an ENEMY in Iraq, why even be there? He's not a "respected religious leader," but a tinhorn Mafia-like thug. War is a very simple thing. You kill more of the enemy than they kill of you. You kill the enemy's desire to continue to resist and with the exception of a few pockets of resistance hyped up by a media desperate to see us fail there and replace the president. And on this whole thing of whether or not it was right to go into Iraq, it is a little late to discuss that. d******d, brain-dead politicians like Ted Kennedy are actively providing aid and comfort to the enemy by showing us as divided and weak. We need to finish the job, wax the insurgents and hand over power to a new govt. It took ten years to build new govts. in Germany and Japan and yet idiots in this country think it can be done in the breadth of a thirty-minute TV episode. My concern is with people like you that would cut and run and the drop of a hat because of a few casualities. It sucks that our troops are getting wasted by these cowards who want to run Iraq, but that's war. At least they are not dying for nothing like in Somalia and Vietnam, but if we run like cowards, that is exactly what will happen. We will win this war just as we are winning the war on terror. But we can't always run away after a bloody nose.
No, he said that he wants the occupation to end as soon as possible and wanted to begin to negotiate with the US regarding his concerns. We spurned his efforts at diplomacy and he felt that his only option to get our attention was to "flex his muscle." Seems like diplomacy is always the last option for this administration.
It doesn't erase concerns about seeming to be a coward or like a kid running away with a bloody nose, the level at which Bama deals with the issue of Sadr, but here is what an expert on Iraq, and Sadr has to say. ************* Shiite Leaders Negotiate with Muqtada The London daily ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports that attempts to mediate between radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr and the US are continuing in Najaf, even as there were further clashes on Monday between armed Shiite groups and Polish and Bulgarian troops in the other holy city, Karbala. The gunbattles came despite a ceasefire declared over the weekend in honor of the holy day of Arba'in. It says that the mediators deny that any possibility of Muqtada going into exile in Iran has been broached. Likewise, they say, they have not brought up any dissolution of the Army of the Mahdi, Muqtada's militia. Rather, they focused on reaching an understanding that the militia would obey the law and respect the institutions of the state, and would surrender its weapons to the Coalition forces. In return, the prosecution of Muqtada in connection with the murder of Abdul Majid al-Khoei on April 10, 2003, would be turned over to Iraqi courts only once sovereignty was regained by Iraq on June 30. Adnan al-Asadi, the number two man in the al-Da`wa Party (a longstanding Shiite group), has participated in the attempt at mediation. He said, "We have not arrived so far at a complete agreement. We expect that the Coalition will agree to a plan to resolve the issue through negotiations either today [Monday] or tomorrow [Tuesday]." He said he expected a positive response, and that the Americans had concurred with the dispatch of mediators in this case. Al-Asadi said that he continues to stipulate that the US must approve the agreement announced by Najaf police chief Ali al-Yasiri, whereby Muqtada's Army of the Mahdi has relinquished three police stations back into the hands of the police. The agreement said that US forces must remain outside the city of Najaf, because of its sanctity. Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) spokesman Dan Senor denied knowledge of any such agreement. Al-Asadi revealed that the agreement required Muqtada to order his militia to be law-abiding, in the course of his Friday prayers sermon. A campaign has been launched with the al-Khoei family, which is extremly bitter toward Muqtada, to convince them to give up their demand that he be prosecuted immediately, and to let the process start rather in a few months, when Iraq is again an independent country [at least de jure]. Muhsin al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq said that SCIRI and other groups were involved in the mediation effort. Al-Hakim said from Tehran, where he was visiting, "So far, five sessions have been held with a team appointed by [SCIRI leader] Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Discussions took place with al-Sadr's officials." He added, "We hope to arrive at an agreement in the near future." He declined to reveal the demands being made by the two sides. He denied reports that Muqtada was seeking exile in Iran. The NYT reports that the son of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Ridha, and Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sa`id al-Hakim, have also been involved in negotiations with Muqtada. Cole: I think it most unlikely that the terms of the negotiations reported above will be acceptable to the United states. Coalition spokesmen continued to talk about capturing or killing Muqtada. The tough talk may be intended to put pressure on him to surrender, but if so it is a miscalculation. Muqtada is a millenarian who thinks the world is about to end, and for the foreigners to discuss killing him might well drive him to seek the advent of the apocalypse through a call for more violence. Meanwhile, 3,000 US troops are massing around Najaf and US military commanders are talking about invading the city and capturing or killing Muqtada al-Sadr. The problem with this approach is that the Sadrists are a widespread social movement whose history goes back over a decade, and killing Muqtada will not end the movement. There are lots of potential successors to Muqtada. The chief characteristic of the Sadrists is their cheekiness. They were cheeky to Saddam, and they will be cheeky to Gen. Abizaid. They are desperately poor ghetto dwellers, they don't like The Man, and they think they have nothing to lose in taking Him on. If the US military thinks this is a military problem with a military solution, they are just clueless. Someone on a discussion list said that Iraq is not Vietnam because this time the generals are in charge, and they know what they are doing. The US officers in Iraq are bright, dedicated persons, but they don't know squat about Iraq (even Abizaid, a Lebanese Christian, is hardly an Iraq expert), and it also isn't at all clear that they are setting the agenda. Going after Muqtada, for instance, almost certainly was the idea of the civilian politicians in the CPA and the Department of Defense. Once the mission was defined, the military wants to carry it out militarily. If they go into Najaf, there will be hell to pay (see below). link
Your support for this statement is what, exactly? The claims of an administration that has already shown a penchant for exaggerating and manipulating "intelligence" to suit their own gains? Very easy, as our leadership has shown. We have angered everyone in Iraq except the Kurds so far. The Sunnis are pi$$ed because we ousted Saddam. The Shiites (60% of Iraqis) are now angry because we spurned and are hunting one of their clerics. If we pi$$ anyone else off, we are going to be in seriously deep $hit. BTW, if it was so easy, I would think that the administration would have come up with a much better plan of action. These people are all tactics and no strategy. No, it is not. That is why we have elections, so that when presidents f*** up like this one has, we can replace them with someone who will do a better job. No, it is d******d, brain dead politicians like Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Cheney who are throwing gasoline on the fire instead of trying to make real strides to heal the wounds in Iraq. They are the ones that are creating the bin Ladens of the future through their massive mistakes. I also believe that we need to build and hand power over to a new government, we just differ on the methods. If we continue to pick fights with everyone who wants a place in the power structure of post-occupation Iraq, we will not make any progress and the government we install will either fail or will be antagonistic toward the US. I haven't heard a single poster call for the troops to be pulled. YOU are the only one making the claim that "the left," wants to pull out prematurely. Again, we just differ on the best way to build a new Iraq. What really sucks is that our troops are getting wasted because the administration simply refuses to use diplomacy for any reason. They seem to believe that might makes right (as I know you do), but that belief is wrongheaded, dangerous, and more damaging to America than liberals could ever dream of being. Again, YOU (and other neo-cons interested in obfuscating the truth) are the only ones promoting the fallacy that liberals want to pull troops out now. Liberals want to approach the action in Iraq differently, but I have not heard a single liberal call for troops to be pulled now. From the perspective of an independant, I know that we are in Iraq for the long haul, but I do not believe that GWB and his crew are the right ones to lead us in rebuilding Iraq. They have done far too much damage to this country and even more damage to Iraq and it is time for their removal.
Kerry doesn't... _________________ A Strategy for Iraq By John F. Kerry Tuesday, April 13, 2004; Page A19 To be successful in Iraq, and in any war for that matter, our use of force must be tied to a political objective more complete than the ouster of a regime. To date, that has not happened in Iraq. It is time it did. In the past week the situation in Iraq has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. While we may have differed on how we went to war, Americans of all political persuasions are united in our determination to succeed. The extremists attacking our forces should know they will not succeed in dividing America, or in sapping American resolve, or in forcing the premature withdrawal of U.S. troops. Our country is committed to help the Iraqis build a stable, peaceful and pluralistic society. No matter who is elected president in November, we will persevere in that mission. But to maximize our chances for success, and to minimize the risk of failure, we must make full use of the assets we have. If our military commanders request more troops, we should deploy them. Progress is not possible in Iraq if people lack the security to go about the business of daily life. Yet the military alone cannot win the peace in Iraq. We need a political strategy that will work. Over the past year the Bush administration has advanced several plans for a transition to democratic rule in Iraq. Each of those plans, after proving to be unworkable, was abandoned. The administration has set a date (June 30) for returning authority to an Iraqi entity to run the country, but there is no agreement with the Iraqis on how it will be constituted to make it representative enough to have popular legitimacy. Because of the way the White House has run the war, we are left with the United States bearing most of the costs and risks associated with every aspect of the Iraqi transition. We have lost lives, time, momentum and credibility. And we are seeing increasing numbers of Iraqis lashing out at the United States to express their frustration over what the Bush administration has and hasn't done. In recent weeks the administration -- in effect acknowledging the failure of its own efforts -- has turned to U.N. representative Lakhdar Brahimi to develop a formula for an interim Iraqi government that each of the major Iraqi factions can accept. It is vital that Brahimi accomplish this mission, but the odds are long, because tensions have been allowed to build and distrust among the various Iraqi groups runs deep. The United States can bolster Brahimi's limited leverage by saying in advance that we will support any plan he proposes that gains the support of Iraqi leaders. Moving forward, the administration must make the United Nations a full partner responsible for developing Iraq's transition to a new constitution and government. We also need to renew our effort to attract international support in the form of boots on the ground to create a climate of security in Iraq. We need more troops and more people who can train Iraqi troops and assist Iraqi police. We should urge NATO to create a new out-of-area operation for Iraq under the lead of a U.S. commander. This would help us obtain more troops from major powers. The events of the past week will make foreign governments extremely reluctant to put their citizens at risk. That is why international acceptance of responsibility for stabilizing Iraq must be matched by international authority for managing the remainder of the Iraqi transition. The United Nations, not the United States, should be the primary civilian partner in working with Iraqi leaders to hold elections, restore government services, rebuild the economy, and re-create a sense of hope and optimism among the Iraqi people. The primary responsibility for security must remain with the U.S. military, preferably helped by NATO until we have an Iraqi security force fully prepared to take responsibility. Finally, we must level with our citizens. Increasingly, the American people are confused about our goals in Iraq, particularly why we are going it almost alone. The president must rally the country around a clear and credible goal. The challenges are significant and the costs are high. But the stakes are too great to lose the support of the American people. This morning, as we sit down to read newspapers in the comfort of our homes or offices, we have an obligation to think of our fighting men and women in Iraq who awake each morning to a shooting gallery in which it is exceedingly difficult to distinguish friend from foe, and the death of every innocent creates more enemies. We owe it to our soldiers and Marines to use absolutely every tool we can muster to help them succeed in their mission without exposing them to unnecessary risk. That is not a partisan proposal. It is a matter of national honor and trust.
You are correct sir! While not completely gone, I'll be out of pocket for the next two weeks. Carry on the good fight folks.
Show me one post, chump, where I ever said that. I've said the complete opposite several times, but you obviously weren't paying attention. As soon as we get rid of the other idiot this January, along with his idiot crew, then maybe, just maybe, the new administration can figure out how to handle this mess in an intelligent fashion. The Bush Administration has clearly shown that they haven't got a clue. Any loud pop you hear from Washington would be Bush and his idiot friends pulling their heads out of their ***'s. I don't expect to hear that sound while he is in office. All we're hearing is the giant sucking sound of the blood and treasure of this country going down a hole in the ground that could have been left alone for attention another day.
Well, I didn't say you said, but I know that Kerry and his ilk would run away in a heartbeat. More intelligent? I don't think for a minute the war has been mismanaged as badly as you portray it to have been. If anything, I think it has been quite successful bar a couple of renegade hornets' nest. But a Kerry regime would spell certain defeat in the war on terror because it would not be fought!
DID YOU EVEN BOTHER TO READ KERRY'S ARTICLE?!? You are obviously incapable of processing the simplest material if you cannot see that Kerry would fight the war on terror. I personally believe that he will do more to keep Americans safe than GWB has done. I believe that Kerry will put Americans first and party second when it comes to the safety of the American people. I understand that you have philosophical differences with the Democratic party. Personally, so do I. You have to admit, though, that Kerry could not do TOO much from the far left as President as he will still have a GOP House, though the Senate could go either way. I would rather have a divided legislative and executive to minimize the impact of the far left and far right. The damage that is being done to this country domestically is easily as important the war on terror right now. We need to get the deficit down so that we do not end up paying $250 billion per year in interest payments. That anchor will cause us to have to have a significant tax hike within the next 15 years so that we can continue to make the note. Bush has not done that and will not if he is elected. He will use it as a blank check to give as much money as possible to the coffers of his constituents (aka the people who funded his campaign) and to continue to pander for votes for Cheney (on life support) in 2008. I don't like thinking about voting for a Democrat, it goes against everything I thought I believed for a decade. I simply cannot allow someone who is the antithesis of everything I believe in as a fiscal conservative to continue to write checks that my son will have to break his back to cash in the future.
Kerry, regardless of what he says (he never has had a concrete position on any issue of substance) is an internationalist pansy who will cower in the face of Islamoradicals. He seeks to subordinate our defense to the whims of the anti-American UN. You call that better leadership? We've seen what Democratic weak-kneed, idealist appeasers like Carter and Clinton have done to our foreign policy. Carter, through his lack of support for our ally the Shah, gave us a mortal enemy in Iran. Did I also mention he let the military lapse into a morass of budget strangulation and morale issues? Did I also mention he gave away the Panama Canal? Clinton either shot his wad with some cruise missiles strikes or just ignored it (like after the Khobar Towers or the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole). I know the libs in this country are trying to paint Clinton as some kind of anti-terrorist fighter, but he did nothing for EIGHT years. Our enemies were emboldened by his moral cowardice and lack of leadership. Can we even afford another four years of do-nothingness in the White House in the War on Terror? I may agree with you that Bush and the GOP Congress are no more for limited govt than the Democrats, but I'd be willing to bet that a Kerry regime would be even worse in that regard. So when it comes to domestic issues, it is the lesser of two big govt. evils and I'll take Bush on that one. But my main issue is the war on terror, something Kerry would treat as a LE problem (saw what that got us under Clinton, a few arrests, some talk and nothing of substance, just like his presidency or even his life). Bush has done a splendid job leading our war on terror and taking the war to the terrorists. I think you are infected with the same Bush-hating virus that has infected much of the left wing of the BBS. link
