Sounds good to me! I could use a vacation! And, I enjoy sailing.... maybe one of these days I will take you up on the offer. :) How about a little scuba as well :)

Hey Bernie,

A quote from our mutual friend. Do you still say that you agree with him?

The President vetoed our troops and the American people. His stubborn commitment to a failed strategy in Iraq is incomprehensible. He committed our great military to a failed strategy in violation of basic principles of war. His failure to mobilize the nation to defeat world wide Islamic extremism is tragic. We deserve more from our commander-in-chief and his administration.
--Maj. Gen. John Batiste, USA, Ret.

Note the part where he mentions the violation of the basic principles of war - something I have said from day 1.


Mike, fighting does not have to be done with just bombs, bullets, and bayonets. There are many more avenues we should be exploring to combat extremeists. I personally think that many of those avenues will be a lot more productive than what we are doing now. Even the definition of jihad is not limited to use of weapons. Jihad can mean a lot of different things - and not all of them are bad. I agree that it will probably take a couple of generations or more to eliminate Islamic radicals, but there has to be some changes in thinking by a number of people in order to get it done.

Ron,
How do you define being in the middle? I am not registered as either Dem or GOP. There are times that I think one or the other party is more correct about a certain issue.

Steve

OK, I am waiting for the list...

Well, there is always negotiating, but everybody has to be willing to give something. In this case I don't see anyone willing to negotiate. They want us gone completely, and we are not willing to give up meddling in their affairs. If they didn't have oil, we would leave them to themselves. If their only resource were camel turds we wouldn't give them the time of day.

I've been posting that list on this forum ever since we invaded Iraq.

Steve

You mean, dialog with the terrorists? Do lunch? Discuss our differences? That might work.

Mike

You don't sound like you are in the middle, you sound like a lefty, big time! You sort of sound like Jane Fonda during the Vietnam War - I wonder if you are also in the protester crowd.

A little about Jane - do you see yourself?

"Jane Fonda wasn’t pro-American. She wasn’t neutral. She was anti-American. That makes her an enemy. She sat in a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun emplacement while the war was going on and allowed herself to be photographed BY THE NORTH VIETNAMESE for propaganda purposes. Was that in your “research”?

The fact that she took advantage of the privileges bestowed upon her, being born in a “capitalist” country, to an elite family, hardly insulates her from being considered a “communist.” Regardless, her actions were the very definition of “traitor.”

All war protestors are not “communists” or “enemies.” But enough ARE."

Also, we aren’t causing nor have we caused a civil war in Iraq. The arab world did that themselves and our politicans and media perpetuate it all. Our politicians don’t care about Americans, that’s something I’m becoming more sure of daily. They don’t really care about this country or our way of life.

The US can’t surrender. Ever. I know people exist, in middle America mostly, who won’t take this lying down. I’m counting on them. Unfortunately, the east coast and west coast fell years ago. The media doesn’t care at all (they will when their amendment rights are eventually infringed upon).

I respectfully suggest you research middle eastern/arab history with a special emphasis on Islam. And of course all the cultural info. It will open your eyes immensely.

If we don’t win this, Iraq will be taken over by Iran and Syria. They’re hoping we give up.

:confused:

CDC,

Where did you come up with this quote?

Ron,
How do you define being in the middle? I am not registered as either Dem or GOP. There are times that I think one or the other party is more correct about a certain issue.

EDITED: I misread the post and thought that the remarks below my name were supposed to be a post that I made, but on more examination I believe them to be another of Steve's statements.

Ron :(

Right, Ron - I was just wondering how you define being in the middle.

Steve

Steve,

I honestly don't think I can define being in the middle as to me that would mean taking no stance on anything. I am neither radical left nor right and I change my views if someone can show me that I am wrong. I vote for whomever I think is best, or the past several elections whomever I think is the least bad. And I do back some things that I don't agree with, but feel that we need more intelligent planning before just dumping everything.

Ron :)

CDC, we gave Iraq to Iran the minute we invaded Iraq. If we are to install democracy in Iraq - guess what - they will end up leaning towards Iran just because of the religion of the majority. The only way to prevent that is to stay there, and that will piss off the locals as long as we do. That means constant fighting to prevent that true majority from assertiing their power. To me - that is the perfect definition of a no-win situation.

The situation we had with Hussein running the country was actually a better thing for us in the long term than what we created. We went from the frying pan into the fire. I've said before that Bush was the best president to get Hussein to allow in weapons inspectors, because Hussein knew that Bush had no qualms about invading.

As for what I am - I'm probably best described as a classical liberal. So was Thomas Jefferson. Go look it up.

Steve

The situation we had with Hussein running the country was actually a better thing for us in the long term than what we created.

Yup, and Hitler would've kept them damn Jews in line too.

Come on, he needed to be gone. Old news.

We need to finish the job.

Jamo,
So what is the job?

Steve

Continue stabilizing the country, insure the government can stand on its own two feet on a democratic basis which respects the cultural and geopolitical nature of the region, and suck every last phuking drop of oil we can out from under the basturds.

After it's empty, phukem...

Oh, I don't need to look anything up, I could tell that you are a liberal from miles away - and Steve - you are no Thomas Jefferson!

Here's a little something - awesome analysis really, posted on the web by someone - not sure who, but one smart person. Read and learn, Steve - tell your demobulb friends to stop lying. By the way, have you already converted to Islam?

"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 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 scenario 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 U.S. 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 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 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

You know! Talk to them.. do lunch. Have some tea & dialog.

Mike

This article by Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch gives a pretty concise summary of the Muslim religion and explains why they will never sit down and do lunch with us. They are committed to subjugating us or eliminating us; those are the only two options as they see it.

http://jihadwatch.org/islam101/

They also can't be trusted to comply with any agreement they make with us, as they don't consider promises made to or agreements made with infidels (non-Muslims) to be valid. If you don't believe this, just look at the 60-year history of the "Palestinian problem" and you will see that they can't be trusted.

We will fight them in the Middle East or we will fight them in the midwest. Appeasement doesn't work; ask the Spaniards. Assimilation doesn't work; ask the French. Fighting them is the only thing that works. Black Jack Pershing had the solution. That is our only choice at this point. Hopefully, after they pop off a nuke in Chicago or Los Angeles, the appeasement cowards will wake up and understand that Churchill and Pershing (and Bush) are right and the gutless surrender-monkeys are wrong.

It does not matter why or for what philosophical reason, anyone agitating to reduce the will of their own citizens to fight in a war for their own survival is a traitor.

Enemy sympathizers are traitors. Agitpropers are traitors. Idiots that allow themselves to become moral equivalent’s are cowards, idiots and traitors.
A betrayer is a betrayer. It matters exactly zero as to why they betray.
If you bother to look into it at all, even a little, you will also find that the commie scum, the anarchist scum, the knee jerk anti-Americanist scum etc etc have already largely merged into one big nasty poli-philoly of degenerate scumishness.

All equally betrayal oriented. And all equally deserving of the same applied violence currently administered to jihadi who happen to be stupid enough to be holding a weapon when an American soldier is sighting in on him.

All who are attacking us are enemy.
All who support those attacking us are enemy.
All who make excuses for those attacking us are enemy.
All who make excuses for those who make the excuses are enemy.

It is a testament to the degree to which the gramscians and chomskylanders have been able to work their nasty cultural rot that such basic social physics is no longer understood by so many.

The lines are being drawn. There’s a fight fixing to brew up. The place of least survivability will be in the no-man’s-land between the firing lines.

God Bless America!

CDC

You are scary......

Andrew

I would just like to calmly state that YOU are the idiot. And a coward to boot. Come out of your hidey hole and join us in London at the end of June. Please introduce yourself.