Don Vito Corleone
Elite
- Feb 10, 2000
- 30,029
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I always apposed this war since I truly believed Saddam just liked to talk the talk but never walk the walk. He was just a bully that liked to talk about how tough he was and what he had but would never do anything. I'm speaking to relationship against America. How could he prove that he didn't have WMD when he didn't have any WMD? Since in that part of the country if you don't act tough and strong they rise up and you lose your power and Saddam only cared about power.
To even begin to say that not supporting the War in Iraq is not supporting are troops is lunacy. People like you rather have the clusterf!ck that is happening now than fix anything and truly re-evaluate the situation. Bush misled the country on the Iraq war and even now how the war in Iraq is going. Here's an example, Alawi himself said Samarra was one of the secure places in Iraq and then what came out yesterday? Major military operations occuring in Samarra. And Bush spoke about mixed messages?
The troops have absolutely no choice in what they do or how they do it and they HAVE to do it regardless. That's why we have the best troops in the entire world. They follow orders. People have absolutely no problem with the troops, they have gone above and beyond the call of duty, but they do have a problem with the people that made the decision to go to Iraq and the war itself. Being against the War in Iraq has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TROOPS. They are doing what they are told, they have no say! I don't blame them for what they have to do in order to defend themselves over there. I do blame the people that decided to put them over there in the first place for false reasons.
Yet another substanceless post from Don Vito. You can continue your temper tantrum while we discuss real issues concerning our great nation Don. No on second thought stop posting
if we followed element's logic, any president could start a war that would take place during the election, and we'd have no choice but to re-elect him!
Yes. And Cheney, and Rice, and Powell, and Rumsfeld et. al.
Where were you when this evidence was presented?
You have evidence they lied and didn't try to impeach them like Clinton? You must like them a lot then.
CallMeJoe
Diamond Member
- Jul 30, 2004
- 6,938
- 5
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One can support the troops without supporting the president. Recognizing that the troops were sent in for the wrong reasons at the wrong time is not to fail to support the troops. If we feel the president took the wrong action, it is our duty to say so. Silence in the face of wasted lives is the sin.
As for what is wrong in Iraq, where do we start? Too few troops for the job; No exit strategy beyond wishful thinking; A 'democratic leadership' appointed by the council appointed by the State Department and CIA, with minimal credibility with the Iraqis; Halliburton and Kellogg Brown Root profiting from rebuilding jobs that should be done by the Iraqis themselves; large segments of the country in 'no-go' zones run by the terrorists we have drawn into the country......how many more examples do you need? The only thing the Bush administration has gotten right is that Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, and needed to be held in check. Of course, he was no immediate threat to us with his third rate army (left over from Gulf War 1 with no opportunity to rebuild or modernize) and no WMDs
Now that we have destroyed what government Iraq had, we owe it to the Iraqis to finish the job (see Colin Powell and his 'Pottery Barn' analogy). We need, however, a major change of strategy to accomplish that. Bush & Company cannot admit they have made any mistakes in their actions, and so see no need to change anything they are doing, no matter how badly things are going for them. Kerry is no great statesman, but at least he would be willing to try something different.
Finally, one of my favorite quotations on the necessity of dissent, from the last truly great Republican president:
"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."
Theodore Roosevelt
Its "hard work" trying to impeach a corrupt president--especially when his party is running both ends of the scam...
umbrella39
Lifer
- Jun 11, 2004
- 13,816
- 1,126
- 126
Do let us know when you get deployed and I'll bake you some more for the long trip.
Don Vito Corleone
Elite
- Feb 10, 2000
- 30,029
- 67
- 91
Okay, here are my thoughts. FYI, I am one of the troops (I'm an active-duty AF member, and have forward-deployed to a classified location in the middle east in support of OEF).
Operation Iraqi Freedom is the worst-thought-out major military action in American history. Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator, but posed no meaningful threat to the United States. It was foolhardy and vainglorious to undertake an offensive, unprovoked war against Iraq.
Part of supporting the troops means it's important not to blithely let them get killed for no reason directly related to our national security. Indeed, supporting the troops means we MUST question the war, and whether their lives are being lost in vain. Apparently you think the war is worthwhile - I don't. Each of us is entitled to his opinion. Neither opinion will hurt the troops, or their morale, and it's in no way contradictory to support them, but not the war itself.
umbrella39
Lifer
- Jun 11, 2004
- 13,816
- 1,126
- 126
Very well put. I would like the Bush supporters to key in on this sentence:
it's important not to blithely let them get killed for no reason directly related to our national security
Anyone who continues to support this ill concieved war with its mounting death toll should really take a long hard look in the mirror and ask yourself why you so blindly support the reasons we are there and the person who sent our friends and loved ones off who have died. Enough Americans died in 9/11 and now in the name of 9/11. We have simply added to that death toll. We can add 1000 more names to the list of people who died for no good reason on 9/11. The ends have not justified the means. Wrong place, wrong time.
i think, at least, we learned one thing as a country from the vietnam war: it is possible to hate the war and not the soldiers.
I belive that a thread such as this brings nothing but pointless fighting. But nonetheless, Element seems to be living in an alternate universe. NO ONE WHO IS RESPECTED AS A POLTICIAN HAS EVER PULLED HIS OR HER SUPPORT FOR THE TROOPS, NOR ANY RIGHTOUS AND GOOD HEARTED CITIZEN. If you believe someone has, then please, as you said, show da evidence!
Unfortunately our troops were spat on upon their return then too. All I'm saying is to support the troops, whether you support the war or not is one's own personal opinion. But at this point saying the military isn't doing enough (unsatisfied with 100,000 trained) or quickly enough (want the job done in 6 months) like Kerry and his supporters state. All i'm saying is it takes them however long it takes them and not to leave a job half done because you're unhappy things aren't going smoothly. And that it's not entirely Bush's or the military's fault for that but rather the terrorist insurgency there.
Don Vito Corleone
Elite
- Feb 10, 2000
- 30,029
- 67
- 91
The statistic that 100,000 Iraqis are trained as security forces was misstated by the President - the correct number is 50K.
I don't think anyone is failing to support the troops - the war itself is the question. Even those of us who question the basis for OIF are not, broadly speaking, advocating leaving the Iraqis in the lurch - the question, at this point, is how we can redeploy our troops as quickly as possible, without leaving Iraq worse off than we found it. If we can turn Iraq into a US-friendly democracy, we will clearly have scored a tremendous victory, but history and sociopolitical considerations make this a remote possibility in my view.
You can discount my opinion if you choose (as you have above), but unless you have deployed into harm's way as part of the war on terror, I think your own credibility in this arena is a little limited. I'm quite interested to hear about your own military experience, so please feel free to regale us.
Sure it's possible to hate the war and not the soldiers. But hating the war can harm the soldiers... and I believe some of that might be occuring. In any case, I disagree with DonVito and Umbrella39 that Iraq was terribly thought-out and it doesn't involved our national security.
As an operation, it has been a miraculous success. Of course it has not been perfect, but nothing is. It's remarkable that the U.S. was able to go halfway around the world, in such a short time, and defeat a country so quickly, and occupy it in the manner that it did. Never before in human history has a power been able to use so much force, so far, so quickly, and achieve its goal FOR SO LITTLE COST like the U.S. did in Iraq.
What about national security? I can think of many reasons why we were justified to attack. I pushed for invasion just after Afghanistan, before Bush even brought it up, and although I may have done some things slightly differently I still support the effort 100%. Saddam supported terrorism and had various terrorist ties He had used WMDs before, and threatened to use them again. He had broken over 10 UN security council resolutions over the previous 10 years. He had rountinely shot at coalition forces. He tried to assasinate a U.S. president. He was a murderous dictator who had a hand in killing hundreds of thousands of people. He was a sworn enemy of the U.S. and given his past treachery and miscalculations, there was no way we could deal with this evil nut the same way we did pre-9/11.
It sounds cliche now, but things did change after 9/11... and so did I. Continuing to play the passive diplomatic games with international thugs, an irrelevant UN, and some of our so-called allies would only make the situation get worse. We need to drop the bullsht and hit Islamic extremism head-on, that's just what we're doing in Iraq. Wrong place wrong time? Sounds like Kerry is going to be on the wrong side of history... again.
As an operation, it has been a miraculous success. Of course it has not been perfect, but nothing is. It's remarkable that the U.S. was able to go halfway around the world, in such a short time, and defeat a country so quickly, and occupy it in the manner that it did. Never before in human history has a power been able to use so much force, so far, so quickly, and achieve its goal FOR SO LITTLE COST like the U.S. did in Iraq.
What about national security? I can think of many reasons why we were justified to attack. I pushed for invasion just after Afghanistan, before Bush even brought it up, and although I may have done some things slightly differently I still support the effort 100%. Saddam supported terrorism and had various terrorist ties He had used WMDs before, and threatened to use them again. He had broken over 10 UN security council resolutions over the previous 10 years. He had rountinely shot at coalition forces. He tried to assasinate a U.S. president. He was a murderous dictator who had a hand in killing hundreds of thousands of people. He was a sworn enemy of the U.S. and given his past treachery and miscalculations, there was no way we could deal with this evil nut the same way we did pre-9/11.
It sounds cliche now, but things did change after 9/11... and so did I. Continuing to play the passive diplomatic games with international thugs, an irrelevant UN, and some of our so-called allies would only make the situation get worse. We need to drop the bullsht and hit Islamic extremism head-on, that's just what we're doing in Iraq. Wrong place wrong time? Sounds like Kerry is going to be on the wrong side of history... again.
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