Jamo,
I'll give you that one, and I would hazzard a guess that if the left were running things the score would be about zero. Problems is - the score with the right running things is in negative numbers. Put some real numbers on the board or let someone else play.

Steve

BTW, Jamo, you never did answer my question about Iraq. What is the job there? I'm curious as to what you think it is.

Steve

Actually, I found my answer to be quite profound, specific and logical...a masterful piece of work if forced to admit it.

How do you propose to insure the safety of this place we call America if we pull out?

Ok, my apologies - you did answer. For some reason it never showed up in my email box of new messages. CdCs response after was the next thing I got.

Anyway, how do you propose we stabilise the country when we are a major source of the instability?

I refer to the intel reports saying that the majority of insurgents are Iraqis who either want their country back, or are seeking revenge on the US for killing an innocent family member.

That said, an immediate pullout would also be a disaster, but only in the short term.

Steve

A "short term disaster" can be used to describe Hiroshima...

Jamo, Steve,

I am watching this thread...ya'll keep it civil or its vaca time.

Mike

At last this thread turned back to a debate instead of bullying, and name calling. It was beginning to turn into schoolyard tactics.

Mike

Not sure what you mean?

Andrew

Dan

Well stated. I agree to a point. There is no easy solution. But if you take the Vietnam example, how is Vietnam doing now. Has the withdrawl lead to the spread of communism in the region. Are the Vietnamese people better off or worse off. How would things have been different if the communists had been defeated.

Andrew

Sorta agree with the nuke-em idea, sorta, kinda...

It's time for the region to come out from under Mommy's (USA) skirts.
Everyone mollifies the Saudi's, who are the big beneficiaries of all this 'support'.

Time to take over the oil fields. Send the Saudi's back to camel ranching, and cut off OBL's funding. Just make sure the Saudi's, and Oman and all the other tiny, but highly profitable fiefdoms down there know it was all due to Osama. Time for the fat princes to lose some weight and send all their Indonesia servants back home. The party is over. Pouring sand into the sea to build ugly houses on is the last straw. There is no shortage of beach front property down there, just a shortage of 'shortage'. They need to go back to their nomadic lives and leave the oil to people who actually need it.

Is that left enough?

On the one hand you state chaos would ensue, then on the other (if it were up to you), you would want the troops to leave.

Mike

First, I think that YOU are the one ignoring the "average Iraqi's place". That place included murder, kidnapping, torture, confiscation of private property, denial of basic civil rights by the Baathists before Hussein's deposal. It now includes murder, kidnapping, torture, confiscation of private property and denial of basic civil rights by al-Qaeda and Sunni terrorists and death squads. Of the "26,000 civilian deaths" of the past year, how many were due to Muslim terrorists versus how many were due to coalition action? Even the rabidly anti-American BBC lists the number as “hundreds” out of your estimate of 26,000 and reluctantly admits that most of those were killed trying to run coalition-manned checkpoints. A few were killed in collateral damage from coalition attacks; this is certainly regrettable but is unfortunately a part of warfare, especially when the enemy hides in hospitals, schools and mosques. The rest were killed by the terrorists. They were killed because the Muslim fanatics are being supplied with arms and replacements by the network of terrorist organizations around the world. I think the "average" Iraqi citizen is delighted to have us there. It's the murdering scumbags that you and rest of the Pelosi-Reid-Obama-Kennedy surrender crowd seem to support who want us out.

Second, if you think for a New York second that the Muslim fanatics are "satisfied" with the damage caused to date, you're smoking some really expensive stuff.

Third, there has been essentially no "increase security at the borders", which is why the conservatives are livid about the lack of enforcement and are attempting to get something done about it. It's the politicians pandering to the Mexican lobby (Democrats and Republicans alike) who are stopping any meaningful border security improvement. Incidentally, there is just as much concern about the ones coming in over the Canadian border as the ones coming in from the south.

Lastly, as has been said before on numerous occasions, the time for questioning the overall policy of attacking the terrorists is past. The appropriate time for that was BEFORE all of the Democrats (except Senator B. Hussein Obama, of course) signed on to the war effort by voting to support the President’s use of force. Now that we're into it, that discussion is not only moot but provides aid to the enemy in time of war. That's the definition of treason and THAT'S why conservatives believe that it "automatically equates with an attack on the brave men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan." The whole concept of support-the-troops-but-oppose-the-war is a crock of crap. You can't support the troops while proposing to hand the enemy the means to defeat those same troops. Telling the terrorists that we're pulling out in X-months will just make them hunker down and wait and in the end emboldens them to continue and increase their mayhem. When they come out after the coalition departs, the blood-bath will make the present situation look like kindergarden. Remember Pol Pot and the Killing Fields? 1.7 million deaths (20% of Cambodia's population) killed in 4 years when the US pulled out of Southeast Asia? I can't say for certain, but I doubt those 1.7 million folks would agree that things turned out the same regardless of who won the war. Does it have to happen here before you folks learn? Gees Louise, wake up and smell the coffee.

Mike

I'm wondering if it's time to relpace one chaos with another.

Andrew

You see Andy, its that kind of flippant (;) ) remark that belies an understanding of the consequences. There are consequences for going in to Iraq, and there would have been consequences if we had not (IMHO). But, we will never know them, and there is no point in discussing it, unless, of course, we pull out. The left will then say it is because we went in. When a war becomes politicized, its too late to discuss it anymore. Everybody has taken a side, and as a result, our effort is effectively maimed.

Mike

Chopper

I can't see a grieving mother/wife being consoled by the knowledge that her loved one was collateral damage. Dead is dead, loss is loss. It's human to look around for a reason and something to blame. Guess who is getting the blame? Bottom line is with current policies things are getting worse.

26,000 is the estimated number of non-combatant civilians killed "this year". Justifiable collateral damage?

Apparently your definition of treason trumps your first amendment rights? If we follow your game plan and "winning" is the only endpoint, please define the criteria for winning for me.

Suggesting that the genocide in Cambodia would not have happened if the US had "won" in Vietnam is ridiculous. Pol Pot's vision was the conversion back to an agrarian society. Those killed were the "intellectuals" that threatened that vision. Suggesting that US presence would somehow "scare" him into not committing those atrocities is questionable. If it were the case then Kosovo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Darfur would not have happened.

Please note I make no reference to left, right or center. This is not an issue of politics it is one of humanism.

BTW I'm sipping my Tim Horton's as I type.

Cheers

Andrew

Mike

You are right about consequences. I wasn't trying to be flippant. Its the consequences that are scaring everyone. To leave means a great deal of suffering and death for the people left there. Some people also insist that it will result in a resurgence of terrorist activity against the West meaning deaths and suffering here too. It's a "no win" situation.

The issue beyond Iraq is that of radical Islam. But that is not an enemy that will be defeated with conventional military force. It must be fought with cunning and persistence at home and abroad.

If this were 500 years ago, the solution would be to annihilate entire populations. Cut off the limb to save the person. Is this a conceivable choice today?

Andrew

Terry - I've highlighted the key sentence. I'm not here to debate as it's not the place to change hearts or minds. So, you are correct - don't even attempt to debate me as you are wrong.

Apples and Oranges.

This isn't directed at any one poster, just the "left" as noted within the original article post.


This country is suffocated with these lunatics. A great number of people in this country have an insatiable appetite to be the most provocative person in the room, wherever they go. Fashionable politics mixed with crude arrogance. I'm sick to death of it.

Defying conventional wisdom out of sheer spite and nothing else. They ooze contempt. They challenge even the most time-tested absolute truths of life just to kill the boredom of being themselves.

Their inability to grasp real, lethal threats to this nation and our own obligation to defend ourselves can only make me conclude that we're dealing with nihilists. Their innocence about war and self-defense is completely insincere. They're living for nothing and they intend to take us down with them. They're inviting chaos in the form of an enemy who's worst has yet to be seen.

I maybe mistaken but except for that one guy caught trying to get into the US to blow up something on New Years Eve several years ago, there has never been an incident of terrorists entering the US from Canada. Even the one that was caught had crossed back and forth across the Canada / US border several times before being nabbed and I believe that he had flown in and out of LAX with no problem.

I am not saying that there are no terrorists in Canada planning on doing as much damage as they can. I am saying that reports about Canada being a prime entry to the US for terrorists has never been proven. Canada and the US are both democracies and both countries have to deal with problems like individual rights and freedom to move around which make tracking and arresting terrorists quite difficult. Anti terrorists officiers in Canada and the US work in close cooperation with each other.

Closing the Canada / US border would be an economic and financial disaster for both countries. We just happen to be the biggest 2 way trading partners in the world with well over $1B of trade every day. By the way, Canada also happens to be the number 1 supplier of oil to the US.

Getting back to the original topic, people that are too far to the left or too far to the right make little or no attempt to listen to the opinions of others. They tend to think that they are always right and everyone that doesn't agree with them, is wrong.

Wayne

I see we are back to the bullying, and name calling.

**) This country is suffocated with these lunatics. A great number of people in this country have an insatiable appetite to be the most provocative person in the room, wherever they go. Fashionable politics mixed with crude arrogance. I'm sick to death of it.

Defying conventional wisdom out of sheer spite and nothing else. They ooze contempt. They challenge even the most time-tested absolute truths of life just to kill the boredom of being themselves.**)