Presidential address on Irag

[plywoody]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

My only question is when is this president going to reinstate the draft? We are going to need a ton of troops, as well as a ton of money, to support the inept foregin policy.<br /><br />Frankly, this is turning out much worse than I thought it would, and I was not too optimistic to begin with re Iraq. I am glad to see he is making an attempt to involve the UN in this, as I see that as the only hope in what appears to me to be an unwinnable operation.<br /><br />It is hard to understand how "Old Europe" is going to be thrilled with sending their troops and their money into this quagmire that they warned about getting into in the first place, but time will tell.<br /><br />But when all of the countries in the MidEast have a vested interest in seeing any sort of "democratic" Iraq fail, or democracy in any form in any country over there, for that matter, and none of them have any interest in supporting developing oil production that will serve to drive down their own prices and revenues, along with all of the various religious sects that hate each other, but are united in their hatred of anything American, it is hard to imagine a possibility of a good outcome to this.<br /><br />I really hope I am wrong, but I don't think I am.<br /><br />In order to maintain any semblance of order over there, it is going to take a ton of troops, and a ton of money. Hello, draft.<br /><br />And Good Morning, Vietnam.

 

[JB]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

GWB reminds me a lot of TR. No *****footing, no "yabuts". Tells it like he sees it.<br /><br />Some chance that will get him defeated next year by some mealy-mouthed, please everybody all the time, plastic saint. Reason: no instant gratification.<br /><br />Our biggest threat in the war against terror, including Iraq, is that the media will convert the public, again, into candy-butt wimps who haven't the staying power to see it through.<br /><br />Thanks for editing your post, Sloopster. I take back what I said.

 

[wvit100]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

Exactly how does Iraq fit into this "War on Terror" agian? So far I haven't seen any evidence that Iraq was supporting any terrorism against the US.

 

[JB]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

You see what you want to see and hear what you want to hear, WVitt.<br /><br />If what is happening now in Iraq isn't terrorism I don't know what is.

 

[NOSLEEP]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

Good speech, No fluff.<br />He is committed to finish the job, Just like he<br />said he was 2 years ago.<br />Plywood you still have your blinders on.<br />You'd think you'd get tired of trying to see <br />through the fog.

 

[TexSkeeter150]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

I really hope I am wrong, but I don't think I am.

You could have fooled me.<br />PW, could you please support at least "something" you say with facts? Where do you see a quagmire? How bout this PW, why don't you tell us what you would have done if you, God forbid, were the president? I mean, sitting around and doing nothing has already been tried. 9/11 happened while we were not at war and our enemies still attacked us unprovoked. Iraq has never complied with your so called UN mandates and we were the only country willing to hold them accountable. The war with Iraq is just and will be won. Whether you see it or not this is all part of the war on terror. We are taking it to them instead of them to us. It won't be pretty, easy or quick, but is the right thing to do. The US was founded and made by great people who never knew the word impossible or give up and took the best interest of our country as the priority. You have to remember, we did not start this war, but we should finish it. Cowering behind your statements on this forum should never be the policy of the USA. Talk is cheap and easy to do, but like all you leftist libs, you don't have any answers just preditions of what is going to happen. So I will ask again. How would you deal with terror? How would you deal with Iraq? I would love to actualy hear solutions in stead of only finding problems.

 

[ob]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

Ditto TexSkeeter.I'll tell you what the liberals are doing for the war on terror.They've all been transfered to the Cal.DMV to hand out drivers licenses to what they even have the juevos to describe as "illegal aliens."So while the country is supposed to be securing its borders to prevent any future forseeable terror someone has decided that it is in our best interest to hand out giveaways to "illegals" and allow them to vote.<br /><br />Does the word illegal still mean what it used to or am I just not changing with the times?

 

[wvit100]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

JB, so you justify our invading Iraq by what is happening now. If things were reversed and someone had invaded our country, how would you fight them? Would you stand out in the street and fight them toe to toe? You wouldn't last long since they have tanks, helicopters, laser quided bombs, etc. You would probably resort to sitting off bombs, sniping, etc.

 

[jimchere]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

Anyone else think this? 10 thoughts:<br />1. You are attacked and the frontline is now your homeland.<br />2. You respond by retaliating at the central home of the organization that attacked you (Afghanistan) and root them out. While there, you find their (AQ) documents demonstrating a will and forward strategy of further attacking you homeland, to include WMD.<br />3. You ask yourself a question: Where would they get the WMD to apply their documented future strategy? Take a look around. Intel says probably Iraq.<br />4. You go to the UN, and ask that they help you to enforce resolutions in place for more than a decade to help ensure the potential WMD supply will not fall into the hands of the organization that intends to use them in your cities at home.<br />5. You realize that the UN, due to the crooked membership (ever REALLY look at the UN composition?) could give a rat's a** if you are attacked again or even more devastatingly. Some members of the UN actually hope it happens.<br />6. You further realize that by liberating Iraq, you not only remove the potential source of WMD for AQ, but also may get the enemy to fall right into your hands. THe likes of AQ detest any type of democracy or human rights, particularly in their own backyard. If you start a humane society right in their own backyard, they will come fight to try and stop it.<br />7. Voila! You just moved the war front from NYC back to the Middle East. You also have the enemy on the move, and now they have learned they cannot coordinate and communicate by any means other than slow human/camel courier as everything electronic is intercepted. Now you have an upper hand. Not to mention, people in Iraq are actually coming to your side and you are repleneshing the human intelligence that you let atrophy years earlier. He who can disseminate accurate information to the warfighters the fastest wins....proven since Sun Tzu (and written by him as well).<br />8. Other nations in the area with no regard for human rights and freedom start getting concerned. The US sets itself to leave Saudi Arabia. <br />9. The benefits of a free society begin to spread amongst the people in the region.<br />10. You take it from there. This is not Vietnam. The enemy is not an organized, standing army in its homeland jungles with a large populace (and other nations in which you are engaged in a cold war) supporting it which you are using a half-a**ed means to counter (politically so...the grunts did their job). Your enemy is a (now) homeless organization attempting to set up in a land where you have begun to win the favorable support of the populace against them. They are filtering in, with a badly dishevelled command and control structure. They will either die (as many wish to) or join the crowd. Either way, their numbers and time are limited.

 

[lakeman1999]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

If things were reversed and someone had invaded our country, how would you fight them? Would you stand out in the street and fight them toe to toe?

wvit100, you sound like that idiot talk show host(Iforget his name), that calls our boys cowards, and the terrorist heros.

 

[JGREGORY]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

Very good post Jim. I couldn't have said it better myself.<br /><br />Would like to add one more point though. With Iraq in US hands It gives us a closer base of operations for the S**T that is happening in Afghanistan and easier line of communication and supply We almost do not need Pakistan anymore.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

About half the country thought that going into Iraq was a bad idea. About half the country will vote against Bush in 2004.<br /><br />Bush wasted a key opportunity to go after the real threat, and went after a third rate dictator based on dubious "intelligence".<br /><br />What kind of boat would Bush have?<br />He would have a garbage scow, being towed through some murky waters by a tramp steamer.

 

[NOSLEEP]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

kilgore, Ive read your posts in the past, you<br />didn't appear to be challenged then. WHY NOW!

 

[TexSkeeter150]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

JB, so you justify our invading Iraq by what is happening now. If things were reversed and someone had invaded our country, how would you fight them? Would you stand out in the street and fight them toe to toe? You wouldn't last long since they have tanks, helicopters, laser quided bombs, etc. You would probably resort to sitting off bombs, sniping, etc.

So....you are mad because we don't fight fair?????? <br />wvit100, Lets reverse it again...How would you feel if your whole family was tortured, raped and killed because you choosed to disagree with Saddam? How would you feel if you lost your whole family only because they just happened to be in the World Trade Center that day on vacation? How would you feel if your family was killed in the next terroist attack because we chose not to fight because we were too strong? I for one am not willing to put my family or my country in that situation.

 

[Ralph 123]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

Wow, some great posts and thoughts!<br /><br />Trout - I disagree with you 1000% but that really was a good one <br /><br />You know what I have such a hard time understanding? Why does everybody assume Iraq is a mess? By my way of thinking things aren't too bad:<br /><br />1) The oil fields were secured<br />2) The dams weren't blown<br />3) The bloodbath of street-to-street fighting never happened<br />4) The Turks never moved South<br />5) No WMDs were used against or troops<br />6) 40 something of the top 52 targets have been killed or arrested.<br />7) Saddam's phyco sons are dead<br />8) The humanitarian crisis (starvation, etc) was prevented<br />9) We have not lost many men in the scheme of things<br />10) 50,000 something Iraqis are under arms helping to maintain control<br />11) All the barbarian terrorist scums are coming to us on foreign soil to be killed<br /><br />Etc. So where is the big crisis?<br /><br />If even a small minority of Iraqis were against us we would be losing 100 a week. The country is full of weapons. They are in every nook and cranny (and every school house). So where's the crisis?<br /><br />I'll tell you were it is, it's in the minds of the people who have been dead wrong since day one. They will sell out their own country to protect their own fragile egos having been so wrong about so many things.<br /><br />Reagrdless of whether you agreed we should be there or not, we are there now and for our own safety and security we must win. We must make Iraq a safe ans prosperous nation for her people. If you can't understand that and can't get behind that I have to question your sanity or your loyalty.

 

[Ralph 123]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

You have to be either very ignorant or very disingenuous to compare Iraq and Vietnam along any measure. The only thing they remotely have in common is they are both wars the US fought.<br /><br />So come on, post why the are comprable. I'd like nothing better to blow holes the size of the one at the WTC on 911 in them. <br /><br />If there is one thing that makes my blood boil it is people who use the specter of Vietnam to undermine our duty to win this war. So please, make my day and post your rationale. Show your true colors. Make my day

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

Well, as an American I have the right to dissent., and I don't like what I am seeing. <br /> <br />I totally supported our action in Afghanistan. I lost a very close family friend on 9/11. He just joined the FDNY, All he was trying to do was help people. He was against the first gulf war (which I did support)<br /><br />I am in total favor of routing out extremist groups such as Hamas, Hezobollah etc. We had world opinion and support on our side.<br /><br />Iraq never posed a threat to the United States any more than any other Middle eastern country. There are more dangerous elements in "friendly" counties such as Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Yemen than iraq ever possessed, and they are armed with our technology .<br /><br />At the time of our action against Iraq, there were only minor links to al quida and Iraq. We probably had more Al-quida operatives within our own borders that there were in Iraq. Our actions in Iraq have essentially created a small haven for Al-quida to operate.<br /><br />You guys can go on believing that George Bush is the greatest thing since apple pie. But the GWB I just see is merely a mouthpiece for dated, paranoid, 1950's foreign policy that created most of world's problems.<br /><br />To paraphrase Ronald Reagan: Are we better off know than we were 4 years ago? (unless you owned stock in Halliburton, the answer is probably no)<br /><br />Wesley Clark 2004

 

[Ralph 123]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

Ya right trout. Clark made a fool of himself on CNN. He was dead wrong about everything he commented on. You want that incompetent fool to be President? Heck even Clinton fired him!<br /><br />You know, I can't help but think you would habe found fault where ever we went next. If you can't see the reasons and logic so be it. The majority of your fellow citizens and congress disagrees with you. Remember, congress gave the president the approval to prosecute this war. We are there now and we must win. Anything that undermines that undermines our security and credibiliy. It simply serves to emobolden our enemies and increase the chances that there will be more attacks on our soil and therefore, more dead Americans.

 

[wvit100]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

lakeman, so your one of those "your either with us or against us" kind of guys. I didn't say I was against our troops and I didn't say I was for the terrorists. It is simpletons like you who give conservatives a bad name. I believe our troops go where they are told to and do what they are told to do. I think it is up to our leaders to make sure that when the troops are are put in harms way that it is justified.<br /><br />I think a great president would work to eliminate the root causes of terrorism, using more than military action. Why are there terrorists in the first place? The starving, uneducated populaces of countries like Pakistan make for perfect terrorist breeding grounds, as people are taught to hate our country and use violence against innocent targets.<br /><br />President Bush has done nothing. Where is the effort to do more than simply kill and capture the terrorists that exist now? Terrorism is a hydra: kill one terrorist and two sprout up in his place. To end terrorism involves a fundamental shift in the way we do business in this world. It would take a concerted effort to spread democracy and prosperity, something Bush has shown no willingness to do.

 

[Ralph 123]

Re: Presidential address on Irag

wvit100 - how do your propose to fix the problems of poverty and education in a soverign nation like Pakistan? Do you want to invade them and force change? Buy them off with cash? Just how do you propose to get at the root as you see it? Kill all the Jews and hand over Israel to the Arabs cause that's what it would take my friend. That is one of the key root causes.