Re: Why?

WOTH wrote:
"Islander" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:no-dnc1sSOkXAwvbnZ2dnUVZ_ompnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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Jean Smith wrote:
In article <sTnli.7$Ny5.6@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"George Z. Bush" <georgezbush@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Roger wrote:
WOTH wrote:
"Alan Lichtenstein" <arl@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Alan Lichtenstein" <arl@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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WOTH wrote:



"Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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People tell me that we should withdraw from Iraq, because the
American people want us to withdraw from Iraq. Aren't these the same
people who cannot tell us who the Vice President is, or who the
Speaker of the House is, and cannot answer basic questions about our
government?
The reason we should withdraw from Iraq is because the Democrats are
tired of being the only losers in the United States because they
surrendered Viet Nam. They believe that by making the Republicans
withdraw from Iraq, the Democrats won't have to carry the burden of
being losers by themselves. Conversely, the Republicans know that if
they can hold out the Democrats just might win the next election and
then they will have to either suffer a second surrender and add an oak
leaf cluster to their loser label, or they can piss off all their
supporters by staying in Iraq and see how that works out.


Actually, IIRC, it was Nixon, a Republican who withdrew from Vietnam.
And still trying to shift blame for your party's mistakes, are we?
Which party is my party?
The one your posts usually support the policies of. And it isn't the
Democrats.


Hasn't worked before, doesn't work now and won't work in the future.
The falling popularity polls of your fearless leader indicate that, as
do the abandoning ship of the remaining elected Republicans.

Wake up and smell the coffee. All that's left to satisfy by remaining
in Iraq is to allow rightards, like you to continue to thump their
chest with false ego building pride.
Oh I don't have an ego.
I can see that you don't. As evidenced by your sentence following this.

I am a Vietnam loser and I just don't want those

kids of today to have to live with what I've had to live with.
Obviously your ego leaves room to enhance its self-esteem when you're so
willing to make assertions as above.

Let the

military fight the fucking war.
They're fighting it and not doing a very good job. Because, genius, THEY
CAN'T. No military has the ability to occupy a hostile population
indefinitely. And a hostile population engaged in a civil war is just
adding icing on the cake. Yet you say let the military fight the (
expletive deleted ) war. Well where do you think the military is going
to get those'kids' which it uses as cannon fodder?
I think they are going to get them from people brave enough to volunteer
(we are an all volunteer military the last time I looked) to fight for
freedom, whether it be theirs or some other oppressed people.
Then think again, genius, because if you bothered to take note,
enlistment's in all branches of the service are DOWN. The Army, in
particular has stated that it is NOT going to meet its quotas. It's one
thing to be brave, like all the young men who lined up to enlist on
December 8th, yet its quite another to be stupid, when the circumstances
are completely different. Yes, these people are going to fight for
freedom, but they're NOT going to fight to support an unnecessary war of
aggression which the country was lied to in order to enter. that's smart.
What you propose is stupid, and the only benefit it gives anyone is to
support the chest-thumping neurosis, particular to shallow-ego types, like
yourself, a circumstance you admitted to.

But then again, you

seem to think that it's all worth it so you can thump your chest in order
to build up your shallow ego.

You really don't give a damn how many people die for your ego, do you?

Keep the wimps like you and the politicians

whose asses you seem to want to kiss out of it. If the military people
want to give up, trust me, they will let you know.
They have. comments from retired military personnel have indicated the
futility of the present strategy.

Bull***! Total unadulterated bull***. Go to your local legion hall or
VFW hall or DAV post and tell those "retired" military this war is
futile. What is futile is the idiot politicians trying to win political
points by using military troops as political footballs. You will NEVER
break the spirit of the American military. They laugh at wimps like you.
They are not afraid to die for what they believe in. What they are afraid
of is that people like you will breed.
Bull*** is the typical response one gets when a rightard is confronted by
facts to which he can't reply. You spoke of the military. Well, genius,
a military has leaders, and you don't find those in American Legion Halls.
You find them in corporate and consulting jobs, in which their leadership
and expertise is best utilized. And those leaders are telling you that
the war is futile.

The people of whom you speak are limited thinkers who substitute
chest-thumping for objective thinking. Nothing more. They, as do you,
lack intelligence, using emotion as a crutch. Wars are fought by cannon
fodder, such as those you describe. The strategy and tactics which WIN
wars are made by the leadership which is saying something completely
opposite to you.

Now, have a nice day, because I'm not going to change your mind, because
you aren't going to even consider anything that tells you that your
beliefs are wrong. And I gave up chasing windmills long ago.

I think you gave up a lot of things long ago.


The people of whom Alan speaks are ex-military anti-war types
hired by the leftwing media to spread their propaganda.
I don't know of any flag ranked officers, active or retired, who are or were anti-war types hired by the leftwing media to spread their propaganda. They are almost without exception professionals who are not idealogues, but rather pragmatists and hard hearted realists. General Anthony Zinni (USMC, ret) and General Eric Shinseki (USA, ret) are both from that mold.

George Z.
Washington D.C., November 4, 2006 - In late April 1999, the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), led by Marine General Anthony Zinni (ret.), conducted a series of war games known as Desert Crossing in order to assess potential outcomes of an invasion of Iraq aimed at unseating Saddam Hussein. The documents posted here today covered the initial pre-war game planning phase from April-May 1999 through the detailed after-action reporting of June and July 1999.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB207/index.htm

Good reference. Goes into not only the conclusions of the war game, but also the efforts that Zinni undertook when it became apparent that Rumsfeld was determined to proceed on the cheap.
This just confirms what I've been trying to tell you folks all along. LET THE MILITARY FIGHT THE WAR!!! KEEP THE CIVILIANS OUT OF IT!!! KEEP THE BACK BITERS, ARM CHAIR GENERALS AND PSEUDO POLITICIANS OUT OF IT. Tell the Generals to go win the war. There's only one way you win a war. YOU ANNIHILATE YOUR ENEMY! Innocent lives will be lost. Mistakes will be made. But ultimately you win the war. Then you fix the damage. This war has probably cost us about a trillion bucks because politicians, wimps and do-gooders have been allowed to get in the way. If we would have warned the Iraqi people that in 60 days we would remove Iraq from the face of the earth and then did exactly that on the 61st day, the war would be over, we would have saved about 900 Billion dollars and the innocent lives that would have been lost would have only themselves to blame because they did not heed the warning. And, what's more, the rest of the world would see that America is once again a power not to be toyed with.

As it is now, we are being made to sit and watch while Al Quaida slaughters people in Darfur, Columbia and a number of other countries simply because we have people in this country that are bound and determined to see that Bin Laden's statement "The Americans are not capable of fighting a long war" comes true. Well, I've believed that statement ever since Vietnam. That's why I say, make it a very short war. ANNIHILATE your enemies and get it over with. I would cite Japan as an example of how successful that maneuver is.


Wrong once again. Did you read the citation? The conclusion of Desert Crossing was pessimistic.

For example:

The report forewarned that regime change may cause regional instability by opening the doors to "rival forces bidding for power" which, in turn, could cause societal "fragmentation along religious and/or ethnic lines" and antagonize "aggressive neighbors." Further, the report illuminated worries that secure borders and a restoration of civil order may not be enough to stabilize Iraq if the replacement government were perceived as weak, subservient to outside powers, or out of touch with other regional governments. An exit strategy, the report said, would also be complicated by differing visions for a post-Saddam Iraq among those involved in the conflict.

The Desert Crossing report was similarly pessimistic when discussing the nature of a new Iraqi government. If the U.S. were to establish a transitional government, it would likely encounter difficulty, some groups discussed, from a "period of widespread bloodshed in which various factions seek to eliminate their enemies." The report stressed that the creation of a democratic government in Iraq was not feasible, but a new pluralistic Iraqi government which included nationalist leaders might be possible, suggesting that nationalist leaders were a stabilizing force.

Now, if your point is that that Bush administration should have listened to the military and NOT invaded Iraq, then I agree.

My point is that if we would have ANNIHILATED our enemy at the very beginning, it would be over now. Once more, I cite Japan as a perfect example. I don't care whether or not Iraq gets a democratic government. All I care about is that every SOB over there that advocated the destruction of America be removed from the face of the earth. After that, what's left to care about. They can have whatever government they feel grown-up enough to sustain.If it's a democracy fine. But, and I doubt you know this, but there is not one democracy on this earth that came about without a war.


While I opposed the war from the beginning, we did ANNIHILATE Saddam's army at the very beginning. Adding additional forces at that phase would not have been necessary. The military did what they do best.

But, when it came time for dealing with the aftermath, the Bush administration screwed up big time. To have expected the military to solve the problem of the aftermath of the invasion would have been to expect the military to do someone else's job. It has been the same story ever since.

There is an old saying that, "When the only tool that you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail that needs pounding." The Bush administration, their neocon supporters, and people like you see the military as the only solution to our international problems. There are many other options open to us, but the Bush administration has proved itself to be totally incompetent at applying any of them.

As to the history of democracies, it is a right wing myth that democracies can only come about through warfare. Here is a list of current democracies. How many of them came about through war? Some of them did, but definitely not all.

Current democracies include Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Botswana, Bulgaria, Canada, Cape Verde, Chile, Costa Rica, Cyprus (Greek), Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominica, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Guyana, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kiribati, Korea (South), Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malawi, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Micronesia, Monaco, Mongolia, Namibia, Nauru, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Palau, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Russia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Vanuatu, and Western Samoa.

Even the great Soviet Union fell, not as a result of a revolution, but because it failed economically. Russia today, might not be our ideal, but it is a democracy and it came about without war.

Do a little research instead of spouting the party line. Take the above list and identify the war of independence that resulted in their democracy. You might be surprised.
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