Lucien LaCroix

Left leaning individual [sic]? Yeah, whatever.

It is unfortunate that so many of my so-called fellow conservatives have married themselves to the notion that fighting wars is the truest demonstration of conservatism--and then accuse anyone questioning such 'wisdom' of liberalism.

That would make ME laugh were it not so pathetic. I would add that in non-military topical discussions that I have found many of these same people to be woefully inadequate in articulating--or even understanding--a conservative position. It's the same on posting boards all over...kill some bad guys, wave the flag, and you're a conservative. It would appear that's the only qualification nowadays.

Anywho...

Saddam's support of and connection to terrorist groups pales in comparison with other countries in the region. Syria, Iran, Libya, Morrocco, and Yemen are far more involved in such affairs. And a couple of those countries have had no qualms about trying to build or acquire WMDs. Add into that the torture and murder of their citizens. So why aren't our tanks rolling down their city streets?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I have no problem will us going in and taking out Saddam--for our original goal of disarming him (and hopefully killing him). The man was a menace. He started two wars without provocation (with Iran, then Kuwait), and even if he didn't have WMDs he most certainly would have eventually built or tried to acquire them somehow.

But that's where our involvement should have stopped--removing Saddam and his Baathist cronies. I'm will to bet that there is more of a terrorist problem in Iraq now than there was before Saddam's ouster. Why? Because not having found any WMD stockpiles, we've chosen to stay there and turn this conflict into a "war of liberation" to save political face. And now every hate-filled Muslim in the Middle East gets to blow up and shoot American soldiers. Terrorist groups are filling their ranks and have become galvanized in their efforts.

The unceasing quest for legitimizing the current mission of this conflict, even in the face of overwhelming flaws in the logic surrounding our motivation and goals, simply boggles the mind.

A stable, free Iraq is a pipe dream. The Iraqis don't have it within themselves to fight and die to defend such a thing.

And we won't be there forever.

__________________
"If I see further than other men, it is because I stand upon the shoulders of giants."

dalem

As in Afghanistan was a poor country with essentially no infrastructure crushed by decades of civil war, war against the Sovs, then war against the Taliban, and Iraq was a relatively well-off country with lots of infrastructure crushed by decades of Hussein's tyranny, his war with Iran, his depredations under the UN sanctions, and our invasion. So I think that, yes, those events put Afghanistan and Iraq into comparable states of chaos as Japan and Germany with respect to post-old-regime crises and future prospects for freedom.

-dale

Jonathan Locke

If you are talking individually then i agree with you

__________________
Remember, the enemy gate is down- Andrew ¨Ender¨ Wiggin

troung

"Saddam's support of and connection to terrorist groups pales in comparison with other countries in the region. Syria, Iran, Libya, Morrocco, and Yemen are far more involved in such affairs. And a couple of those countries have had no qualms about trying to build or acquire WMDs. Add into that the torture and murder of their citizens. So why aren't our tanks rolling down their city streets?"

Add in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to the terrorist exporting list and put them on the damn top

And if one were to ask top government people these days the MKO would not even be a terrorist group...

"I'm will to bet that there is more of a terrorist problem in Iraq now than there was before Saddam's ouster. Why?"

And no one with a brain would take that bet.

"A stable, free Iraq is a pipe dream. The Iraqis don't have it within themselves to fight and die to defend such a thing."

It's too early to say that or the reverse.

Bluesman

You don't keep up with current events, then, I take it? Shooting from the hip on the Iraqis' desire and willingness to die for their freedom, instead of finding out just how outright HEROIC some of their men have been, and what kind of casualties they're taking - and ENDURING, too, without going to pieces...I'm not sure you really want to be on record posting something that completely out of touch with reality.

THIS is exactly what ANYbody will fight and die for. They didn't fight well for Saddam, because they was no dam' reason to. But did you happen to see The People going down the streets with their purple fingers in the air (which, they had been promised, was a death sentence, should they be caught by the terrorists)? They were willing to die on January 30; what do you perceive as a change in their attitudes since then?

It ain't stable yet, but it's getting there, and we stand at about 75% right now, a mere two years after the war. It ain't perfectly free yet, either, but there's a been an almighty move in the right direction for The People, and if you can't tell, there's really no use discussing this with you any further.

It's no pipe dream, friend. It's happening right in front of you. You really should try to stay up on these things before commenting on 'em.

__________________
"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

Bluesman

What a brilliant piece of foreign policy THAT would be: take two of the most important allies in the GWoT, and make 'em into enemies.

Genius; these guys are like a pair of Bismarcks, ain't they?

As to why we aren't invading every country that doesn't have Magna Carta or call themselves "Switzerland", that's purty easy, if I borrow a quote:
"We invaded Afghanistan and Iraq not so we could invade everywhere else; we invaded those two so we wouldn't HAVE to invade ANYwhere else."

See: The Bush Doctrine. See also: THE LAST TWO DAM' WEEKS' WORTH OF HEADLINES.

Hell, fellas, even the clueless New York Times is starting to catch on. Try to keep up, okay?

Confed999

Currently? We're fighting terrorists there.
Yes I can. Tyrants were defeated, governments set up, and terrorists/remaing forces fought. It's exactly the same stuff, and has been for as long as extermination has been unpopular. Do some reading on the post WW2 situation, you'll be enlightened, and I'll bet horrified by what went on in the decade following.
That was the mistake we made in Afghanistan the first time, just leaving them to it. We would certainly just have to go back to Iraq in a few years. This way there is at the least a chance.
They fight and die as we speak.

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

Anon

"The Iraqis don't have it within themselves to fight and die to defend such a thing."

Racial superiority must be very difficult to live with eh?

Confed999

I didn't say that, but I sure wanted to. Thanks Snipe.

Lucien LaCroix

I can assure that I am staying abreast of the situation. I have several friends from my career in the military who are still on active duty. I've spoken with a number of them who have been deployed to Iraq. While still loyal to the mission, virtually all of them expressed reservations to me about whether or not Iraq will ever be free. While some of the Iraqis were friendly to them, they felt that most were indifferent to the cause and simply wanted the fighting to stop. They just wanted to go on with their lives...nothing more. That does not bode well for the country.

Add into that the grave concern some of expressed over the reliability of Iraqi security forces. They have been target of many attacks and many of them joined only because they were unemployed and needed to feed their families. They're not doing it out of some unbridled lust for freedom. And, finally, a couple of them expressed the belief that the security forces had been infiltrated by the insurgents. Personally, I thinks it's a certainty that they have. Background checks are paper-thin, at best.

And the people making these judgments aren't a bunch of disgruntled PFCs and one-stripers who only enlisted for the college money. All are mid-level and senior NCOs, with the exception of one.

As an aside, I would also mention that I was deployed to the region twice myself. So this is not some vacuum that I am speaking from.

Lucien LaCroix

Yep. And every day we stay there, more of them become terrorists--joining the cause for whatever reasons, people who might not have ever become terrorists were we not continuing to present them with a target in their own backyards. Certainly there are foreign fighters among them. Both Iran and Syria knowingly allow their borders to be used as conduits for terror attacks in Iraq. So why aren't we rolling into their countries? I wouldn't have a problem with that. If you and others are so insistent that our soldiers stay there and die in defense of the ideal of fighting terrorism, then why not actually try to make a difference? Iraq's neighbors are just as drenched in terrorism, just as vicious as Saddam, and make no bones about wanting WMDs.

And they are going to do everything they can to destabilize Iraq.


So you're saying we can't leave it to them? Just when exactly is a point of trust reached?

Freedom has become the conservative version of welfare. The liberal version believes in giving money to people to make them 'better,' the conservative version believes in giving freedom to pepole to make them 'better.' Both sound noble on the surface, but both ideas are fundamentally flawed.

Some things have to be earned. It's a social evolutionary process that can take a very long time to get from Point A to Point B. Yes, it can be speeded up in some instances, but only under very controllable circumstances. There are simply too many external and internal forces in conflict with our plan for it to have any reasonable chance at long-term success.

Is there any real difference in withdrawing now and having to go back in five years versus staying there five years and having to go back in ten?

I can promise you one thing, we will not go back into Iraq if the government collapses and Iraq becomes an Islamic fundamentalist state. That's just not going to happen. And if their freedom isn't so important as to liberate them from Islamic tyrants, then why are we doing it now? And why aren't we going into other countries in the region--countries lead by men as vicious as Saddam. Talk all you want to about democracy, the only leader who gives up power in that region of the world is someone who either dies while in 'office' or is overthrown (usually by someone just as bad).




Well, I agree that a lot of them are dying. I'm not so sure about the fighting part. Maybe if enough of them die, they'll finally rise up and create a truly peaceful and just society. I wouldn't count on it happening anytime soon. As I said in another post, if they want a such a society, then they need to have their own George Washingtons...not ours.

Lucien LaCroix

Normally, I would ignore such a cowardly remark, but I'm going to make an exception in the possible hope that you will learn something.

I was not speaking in racial terms, but basing my comment upon a cultural mindset. In the collective histories of the Middle East, there is no precedent for freedom--certainly nothing like what the word embodies to us. The culture of oppression in the region is the result of the long-standing tradition that the most powerful rule by force (and attain that power likewise). It is a political intolerance that is now, in many countries, being reinforced by an intolerant religious message. Denial of basic rights, particularly to women, is being enforced not only by the government but by the 'church' as well. And the church is being supplemented by a seemingly endless supply of supporters. It is fact that more graduate degrees in Islamic Studies are given out in the Middle East each year than degrees in engineering and medicine COMBINED. And those religion students spend a lot of time in mosques listening to flaming mullahs incite them to violence and intolerance.

They may very well stand up and attain freedom, but I don't see happening for at least 50 years. Oil gave Arabs access to the modern ages, but they haven't grown socially in proportion to any economic growth. Oil has allowed them to buy things and build things, but it also forced them to take a shortcut on the social evolutionary path they weren't ready for. They're still fighting their version of The Crusades.

It will take a lot of very brave people to change their societies--because they will have to stand against both church and state--and that multi-headed entity is a helluva lot more powerful than Saddam ever was.

troung

"Yep. And every day we stay there, more of them become terrorists--joining the cause for whatever reasons, people who might not have ever become terrorists were we not continuing to present them with a target in their own backyards."

Gotta agree there all Iraq has done is create more wanna be "Mujahideen" who want to kill Americans...

"Certainly there are foreign fighters among them. Both Iran and Syria knowingly allow their borders to be used as conduits for terror attacks in Iraq. So why aren't we rolling into their countries? I wouldn't have a problem with that. If you and others are so insistent that our soldiers stay there and die in defense of the ideal of fighting terrorism, then why not actually try to make a difference? Iraq's neighbors are just as drenched in terrorism, just as vicious as Saddam, and make no bones about wanting WMDs."

Well they don't back AQ terrorists and lets be honest why would either Syria or Iran back Sunni terrorists to take charge of Iraq? The Shiites are the biggest group, will win most of the power in fair elections and be more favorable to Syria (run by Alwaites) and Iran (Shiite) then Sunni terrorists. The Shiite Sunni divide plays big in Iran and they almost view themselves as the protector of Shiites (check what happened in Afghanistan during the 1990s) and Syria with it's secular government run by Alwaties and Christians has a history of fighting Sunni extermsism in their own borders (Hama for example).

Irans "friends", who they funneled in money to, pretty much swept the free elections. Blaming Iran and Syria for the problems is a nice way to lay blame elsewhere.

And about the Iranian "WMDs" all that we have "proven" is that they have a nuclear energy program, not a crime under the NPT (article 4 I think states that) and it is not as if they are denying having a program. The IAEA pretty much cleared them of planning to make a bomb and hell Russia is planning to supply fuel.

And we have jumped into bed with the MKO, the terrorist group Iraq backed...

"That was the mistake we made in Afghanistan the first time, just leaving them to it."

The mistake we made in Afghanistan to first time was not having a policy of our own... we took Pakistan's policy and ran with it for over 20 years...

As funny as it sounds Iran is now 2 for 2 in the WOT. They have a friendly border with Afghanistan (look what warlords and who funded them control the border with Iran) and now one with Iraq (the new PM did say he wanted good relations with Iran and he lived there before the invasion for many years)...

dalem

Oh please, that's a common feeling in any prolonged conflict. Go back in time to 1778 and ask the average American Colonial what they wanted. I'm sure that 90% would say the same thing.

-dale

troung

"Oh please, that's a common feeling in any prolonged conflict. Go back in time to 1778 and ask the average American Colonial what they wanted. I'm sure that 90% would say the same thing."

And many people in Indochina felt about the same in 1975 before the Communists walked in...

People can flip that over and over again...