Iraq - A War That Can Be Won

[red states rule]

If libs are consistent, they will pubicly support the NY Times article and start supporting the troops and the war in Iraq

Don;t hold you breath however



Turning Point?
An op-ed and a war.

An NRO Symposium

The New York Times ran a piece Monday by two non-“neoconservatives” — Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack — arguing that the war in Iraq can be won. Is this indicative of some kind of mood change afoot? Could we really win this war? Could the rhetoric in Washington really change? National Review Online asked a group of experts.


Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
What are we to make of the fact that two of the Democratic party’s most knowledgeable critics of President Bush’s campaign to stabilize and democratize post-Saddam Iraq, Michael O’Hanlon and Robert Pollack, have publicly rejected the defeatists and called for a sustained U.S. effort there into 2008? The short answer is that they have the wit to recognize mistaken claims that all is lost in Iraq when they hear them — and the courage to say so.

This assessment is remarkable, of course, not only for the fact that its authors are breaking ranks with nearly all of the rest of the Democrats’ foreign-policy establishment. It is also noteworthy for being the latest and, arguably, most objective indicator that the situation on the ground in Iraq is, indeed, changing for the better.

As such, the O’Hanlon-Pollack report makes plain one other truth: Those who persist in denying that General David Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy is having the desired, salutary effect and who insist that our defeat is inevitable are promoting a self-fulfilling prophesy. They are so determined to score domestic political points by unilaterally ending the conflict in Iraq that they are prepared to surrender the country to al Qaeda and various Shiite militias and their respective Saudi, Iranian and Syrian enablers.

Public-opinion polling and anecdotal evidence suggests that Americans are beginning to appreciate the true nature — and potentially enormous costs — of the surrender in Iraq being advocated by many Democrats and a few Republicans. The O’Hanlon-Pollack op-ed may reflect that reality as much as shape it. Either way, its authors deserve our thanks.

— Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy.


Victor Davis Hanson
What is interesting about the essay is that both scholars were early supporters of the war to remove Saddam Hussein, then constant critics of the acknowledged mistakes of the occupation, and now somewhat confident that Gen. Petraeus can still salvage a victory. In two regards, they reflect somewhat the vast majority of the American people who approved the war, slowly soured on the peace — but now have yet to be won over again by the surge to renew their erstwhile support.

We are witnessing two phenomena. First, after four years of misery the Iraqis themselves are tiring of war, have grasped what al Qaeda et al. do when in local control, realize the U.S. wants to leave only after establishing a constitutional state, not steal its oil, sense that the United States may well win — and are slowly making adjustments to hedge their bets.

In a wider sense, the war is as most wars: an evolution from blunders to wisdom, the side that makes the fewest and learns from them the most eventually winning. Al Qaeda and the insurgents in 2004-6 developed the means, both tactical and strategic, to thwart the reconstruction, but we, not they, have since learned the more and evolved.

As in the Civil War, WWI, and WWII, the present American military — which has committed far less mistakes than past American forces — has shifted tactics, redefined strategy, and found the right field commanders. We forget that the U.S. Army and Marines, far from being broken, now have the most experienced and wizened officers in the world. Like Summer 1864, Summer 1918, and in the Pacific 1944-5, the key is the support of a weary public for an ever improving military that must nevertheless endure a final storm before breaking the enemy.

The irony is that should President Bush endure the hysteria and furor and prove able to give the gifted Gen. Petraeus the necessary time — and I think he will — his presidency could still turn out to be Trumanesque, once we digest the changes in Europe, the progress on North Korea, the end of both the Taliban and Saddam, and the prevention of another 9/11 attack. How odd that all the insider advice to triangulate — big spending, new programs, uninspired appointments, liberal immigration reform — have nearly wrecked the administration, and what were once considered its liabilities — foreign policy, the war on terror and Iraq — may still save it.

— Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author, most recently, of A War Like No Other. How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.


for the complete article

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YWQ5NDkwMDNiMzZhODNlNjdhN2JiM2EyMjQ1N2ZmMWQ=

[Black Lance]

What is the opinion of these two far-left commentators based on?

[gabosaurus]

RSS will grow a spine and develop a brain before the Iraq war becomes winnable. In other words -- never.

[LiberalNation]

It can be won but it's not wortrth the time, money, and lives to do it. We don't have 20 more years to be stuck in Iraq.

[red states rule]

What is the opinion of these two far-left commentators based on?

Their trips to Iraq, and what they saw

Here is the original op-ed. Remember these two guys are libs and this ran in the NY TIMES


By MICHAEL E. O’HANLON and KENNETH M. POLLACK
Published: July 30, 2007
Washington


VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.

Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.

Everywhere, Army and Marine units were focused on securing the Iraqi population, working with Iraqi security units, creating new political and economic arrangements at the local level and providing basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people. Yet in each place, operations had been appropriately tailored to the specific needs of the community. As a result, civilian fatality rates are down roughly a third since the surge began — though they remain very high, underscoring how much more still needs to be done.

In Ramadi, for example, we talked with an outstanding Marine captain whose company was living in harmony in a complex with a (largely Sunni) Iraqi police company and a (largely Shiite) Iraqi Army unit. He and his men had built an Arab-style living room, where he met with the local Sunni sheiks — all formerly allies of Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups — who were now competing to secure his friendship.

In Baghdad’s Ghazaliya neighborhood, which has seen some of the worst sectarian combat, we walked a street slowly coming back to life with stores and shoppers. The Sunni residents were unhappy with the nearby police checkpoint, where Shiite officers reportedly abused them, but they seemed genuinely happy with the American soldiers and a mostly Kurdish Iraqi Army company patrolling the street. The local Sunni militia even had agreed to confine itself to its compound once the Americans and Iraqi units arrived.

We traveled to the northern cities of Tal Afar and Mosul. This is an ethnically rich area, with large numbers of Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens. American troop levels in both cities now number only in the hundreds because the Iraqis have stepped up to the plate. Reliable police officers man the checkpoints in the cities, while Iraqi Army troops cover the countryside. A local mayor told us his greatest fear was an overly rapid American departure from Iraq. All across the country, the dependability of Iraqi security forces over the long term remains a major question mark.

But for now, things look much better than before. American advisers told us that many of the corrupt and sectarian Iraqi commanders who once infested the force have been removed. The American high command assesses that more than three-quarters of the Iraqi Army battalion commanders in Baghdad are now reliable partners (at least for as long as American forces remain in Iraq).

In addition, far more Iraqi units are well integrated in terms of ethnicity and religion. The Iraqi Army’s highly effective Third Infantry Division started out as overwhelmingly Kurdish in 2005. Today, it is 45 percent Shiite, 28 percent Kurdish, and 27 percent Sunni Arab.

for the complete article

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/opinion/30pollack.html

[red states rule]

RSS will grow a spine and develop a brain before the Iraq war becomes winnable. In other words -- never.

Upset some good news was reported - and from the Dems beloved NY Times

Many conservatoves have been saying for years, any good news from Iraq is bad news for the left

Not only you, but now an elected Dem Congressmen are proving it to be a fact

[red states rule]

RSS will grow a spine and develop a brain before the Iraq war becomes winnable. In other words -- never.

I love it when the facts go against the moonbat left (which is often)

Is the Surge Working?
July 31, 2007 11:53 AM ET | Barone , Michael | Permanent Link


Yes, comes the answer from Brookings Institution scholars Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, in yesterday's New York Times. They write, after an eight-day trip to Iraq, with careful qualifications and with some stinging criticism of the Bush administration (perhaps to reassure readers that it really is the Times they're reading). Here is one key passage:

We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration's miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily "victory" but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

Their conclusion:

How much longer should American troops keep fighting and dying to build a new Iraq while Iraqi leaders fail to do their part? And how much longer can we wear down our forces in this mission? These haunting questions underscore the reality that the surge cannot go on forever. But there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008.

O'Hanlon specializes in military affairs; Pollack is an expert on Iraq and Iran. Both are Democrats; Pollack served on the national security adviser's staff in the Clinton administration. Both are first-class scholars whom I have long respected, though they differ from me in significant respects on foreign policy. For other comments on their article, see this symposium in National Review Online.

Their argument is one many Democrats in Congress don't want to hear. Literally. This is the transcript of the response of freshman Rep. Nancy Boyda of Kansas at a House Armed Services Committee hearing last Friday to the optimistic testimony of Gen. Jack Keane, one of the original advocates of the surge:

And I just will make some statements more for the record based on what I heard from—mainly from General Keane. As many of us—there was only so much that you could take until we in fact had to leave the room for a while. So I think I am back and maybe can articulate some things—after so much of the frustration of having to listen to what we listened to.

But let me first just say that the description of Iraq as in some way or another that it's a place that I might take the family for a vacation—things are going so well—those kinds of comments will in fact show up in the media and further divide this country instead of saying, here's the reality of the problem. And people, we have to come together and deal with the reality of this issue.

Read that last sentence again. "And people, we have to come together and deal with the reality of this issue." The reality, that is, of how she sees it. Which is, apparently, that Iraq is a totally lost cause. She can't bear to hear anyone say anything otherwise.

But one thing students of the history of war know is that things can change in war. And apparently they've been changing in Iraq, at least in the opinions of Michael O'Hanlon, Kenneth Pollack, and Gen. Jack Keane. Democrats like Boyda would like to preserve in amber the state of public opinion that prevailed during the 2006 election and for the first half of this year that we have been defeated in Iraq. The more cynical among them want to make political gain from that; the less cynical want to end a conflict that is taking American lives as fast as they can.

But there is evidence—just a little evidence so far—that opinion may be changing. The New York Times and CBS took a poll and found that support for going to war in Iraq had risen to 42 percent from 35 percent from May to July. The percentage of those thinking it was the wrong decision fell to 54 percent from 61 percent. This was a statistically significant difference and indicated a very different political balance. Not many politicians want to get on the wrong side of a 35-61 split. But many politicians are willing to take the risk of getting on the wrong side of a 42-54 split. The former means that opinion is running negative in just about every state and district. The latter means that opinion is running about 50-50 in states and districts somewhat more Republican than average. Which is many, many states and districts.

Using the 2004 election results as a gauge of what states and districts are more Republican than average (though not of current opinion today, which is different from what it was in November 2004), you find that very many are: George W. Bush carried the 50 states by a 31-19 margin and carried the 435 congressional districts by a 255-180 margin.

The Times and CBS News didn't believe the 42-54 result, for the good reason that the poll didn't show movement on opinion on Iraq and for (I suspect) the bad reason that they couldn't imagine there could be any rise in the percentage favoring the policies of Bushchimphitler. So they took another poll—an unusual step, because it costs money to take polls, and news organizations, particularly those with declining audiences like the Times and CBS, have limited budgets. Presumably they expected to get a different result. But they got pretty much the same numbers.

Interesting. We'll be able to see if there are similar shifts in other polls. Maybe there will be; maybe there won't. The nightmare scenario for Democrats is that increasing numbers of Americans will see progress in Iraq and will not want to accept defeat when they could have victory. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, according to the Washington Post's Dan Balz and Chris Cillizza, is already having such a nightmare. He said that a positive report by Gen. David Petraeus in September will be "a real big problem for us":

Clyburn noted that Petraeus carries significant weight among the 47 members of the Blue Dog caucus in the House, a group of moderate to conservative Democrats. Without their support, he said, Democratic leaders would find it virtually impossible to pass legislation setting a timetable for withdrawal.

The "us" in question is of course the House Democratic leadership. A political party gets itself in a bad position when military success for the nation is a "real big problem for us." Voters generally want their politicians to root for the nation, not against it. We're still a good distance from this nightmare scenario for congressional Democrats, and we may never get there. But it seems that Jim Clyburn, a highly competent politician and from everything I've seen a really nice man, is worried about it.

Finally, read this interview by radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt of John F. Burns, the New York Times's chief correspondent in Iraq. Burns is a superb reporter, probably one of the best war reporters of all time, and his analysis is absolutely fascinating. And if you haven't already, take a look at the reader-supported reporting of Michael Yon and Michael Totten.

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/barone/2007/7/31/is-the-surge-working.html

[red states rule]

Even Al Gore was for the war in Iraq - before he was against it


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JE48XHKG64

[red states rule]

Why the surge might not be stopped

By: Jim VandeHei
Aug 1, 2007 06:10 AM EST


Sens. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) and Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) grabbed all the headlines last month when they called for change in Iraq war strategy. But conversations reveal that many more Republicans privately fear the war is lost -- both politically and on the ground.

This has created a widespread perception that President Bush will be forced to shift plans and begin bringing U.S. troops home in early 2008 after a military progress report is delivered to Congress next month. And that might happen.

Yet there are very good reasons to believe the prevailing conventional wisdom on Iraq might turn out to be wrong once again.

The reasons are simple: the power of the presidency, the anguished feelings of many congressional Republicans and math. In short, Bush is in no mood to yield.

House and Senate Republicans still don't appear prepared to force him to. And a loyal group of GOP senators are prepared to back a Bush veto if Democrats ever succeed in limiting or ending the U.S. mission in Iraq.

"At the end of the day, all of this hand-wringing needs to be understood (in the context) of how Congress works: There will always be 33 of us, as long as there is not a complete meltdown, to support a military strategy that is aggressive and is not based on needs of the next election," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Congress has essentially hit pause on the war debate until next month, when Army Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, delivers a detailed summary of progress -- or lack thereof. Almost all the Republican members have said they will withhold judgment until they review the Petraeus report.

"Where everyone is at this juncture, it seems to me, is (waiting) to hear back in September about … where the generals believe we are in terms of conditions on the ground militarily, and at that point make determinations about what is necessary in our national security interest," said Ed Gillespie, a top Bush adviser.

In other words, Bush will not adjust the strategy if Petraeus says it is working. And there are growing indications Petraeus will report significant military progress tempered by continued political problems in Iraq, according to Republicans in close contact with Bush.

The clearest sign of Bush's September plan is that the White House has launched a new preemptive campaign to convince lawmakers the surge plan is working.

Significantly, GOP leaders are helping. This started with Bush pulling in GOP lawmakers and then leading conservative columnists last month to argue the war is going better than perceived -- and to spread the word he has no plans to retreat.

It worked: Conservative outlets from the National Review to the Weekly Standard have stepped up their defense of administration policy in Iraq.

Rep. Adam Putnam (R-Fla.), a top House GOP leader, said much more significant was an op-ed in Monday's New York Times by two Brookings Institution scholars, Michael E. O'Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack. The two Iraq experts contended that the surge is starting to work.

The White House blasted the op-ed to its allies within minutes of its publication -- and the National Review directed its readers to the piece shortly after.

Putnam said the op-ed was more significant than recent GOP defections on Iraq. "It has shifted momentum going into August recess," he said. "It transforms the debate from purely political calculations of how many votes to prevent a defunding of the war … into an intellectual discussion about whether the surge is working."

House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) showed Tuesday morning how Republicans are still rallying to Bush's side. "Analysts and commanders on the ground report surge successes," read an alert the Boehner operation sent to reporters.

Guess who they cited? U.S. commanders -- and what he called the "liberal" Brookings Institution (O'Hanlon and Pollack).

A few hours later, Senate GOP leaders did the same: "Good news in Iraq is bad news for Democrats in Congress." Their releases cited the Brookings duo, too.

Republicans also pounced on South Carolina Democratic Rep. James Clyburn's statement to The Washington Post that an upbeat report by Petraeus would divide Democrats.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0707/5193.html

[red states rule]

It can be won but it's not wortrth the time, money, and lives to do it. We don't have 20 more years to be stuck in Iraq.

GRAY LADY HEDGES
By RAPLH PETERS


August 1, 2007 -- SOMETIMES where a thing is said is bigger news than what was said. That happened on Monday, when The New York Times ran a guest op-ed detailing the progress in Iraq.
Long before the fall of Baghdad, The New York Times was as dogmatically pessimistic about the Bush administration's efforts as it was gushingly supportive of Joseph Stalin in the 1930s. It even promoted the least-qualified op-ed writer in North America as its point man for its attacks on our military: Frank Rich, whose experience was with ballet slippers, not combat boots.

Rich must feel like a dying swan just now.

What did the column in Monday's Times say? Exactly what readers of this paper have been hearing for months: Gen. Dave Petraeus has made a remarkable difference; al Qaeda's in trouble in Iraq; the performance of the Iraqi military is improving, and security gains are making a significant difference in the daily lives of Iraqis.

The column's authors had just returned from Iraq, where they traveled widely. Michael O'Hanlon of The Brookings Institution and Ken Pollack of Brookings' Saban Center aren't typical Washington think-tank drones parroting party lines. They're men of great integrity and veteran analysts. In the past, Pollack was sharply critical of the Rumsfeld-era mess in Iraq, while O'Hanlon wrote widely about policy shortcomings.

Their bottom-line message to America? Don't quit yet: The surge has shown sufficient success to merit its continuation into 2008.

The authors noted Iraq's enduring problems, not least sectarianism in the police establishment. But both men admitted that they had been surprised by the pace of progress. They described strolling the streets of Ramadi without body armor, where just months ago our Marines were fighting block by block.

The Times deserves credit for running the column, which contradicts the paper's editorial line of the past five years. Cynically, one might suspect the Gray Lady of hedging her bets as the turnaround in Iraq becomes impossible to dismiss (by anyone except the blustering Rich, who might usefully spend a few weeks in Iraq himself).

But the important thing is that the Times took one small step backward toward the days when its claim to be "the newspaper of record" didn't seem downright preposterous. The editors probably argued over the O'Hanlon/Pollack piece (which can still be read at realclearpolitics.com), but, in the end, they did the right thing and published it.

This matters. Because left-wing America-haters may disparage The Post and every other paper in the country, but they cling to the Times more avidly than Linus clutches his security blanket.

Even more important, the fact that the Times accepted the new reality in Iraq - at least to the extent of running a single op-ed about it - makes it more probable that the "last to know" and the "don't want to know" anti-war hucksters on Capitol Hill might start to feel the shift in the wind's direction.

Iraq looks more hopeful than it has since mid-2003. Recent polls show that the American electorate's support of the war has been increasing. And, as Monday's column noted, troop morale has soared as soldiers and Marines see street-level results.

But the potentially fatal problem remains the cowardice and selfishness of politicians in both parties who care far more about retaining their offices in the 2008 elections (or gaining higher ones) than they do about Iraq, our troops or our national security.

If the situation in Iraq continues to improve, let's not forget which pols bailed out - and not just the Reid-Pelosi-Murtha Democrats, but the Republicans who ran for the trees at the first drop of rain.

As O'Hanlon and Pollack made clear, success in Iraq is far from guaranteed. And if their column has one fault, it's shared by many of us who've written on the subject: Placing too much weight on Gen. Petraeus's shoulders. He's worked miracles. But we can't expect uninterrupted miracles. There will be setbacks, too.

Yet, as The Post has noted for months, we've now got effective military leadership from top to bottom in Iraq; Ambassador Ryan Crocker is performing superbly in Baghdad; former enemies have decided they like us a lot better than al Qaeda; the Iraqi people don't want us to leave, and we're making tangible progress - not just against Iraq's enemies, but against our enemies.

Monday's Times column sidestepped talk of outright victory, but victory in Iraq isn't only possible - if we don't quit - but can be defined on three clear terms:

* Al Qaeda down.

* Iran out.

* Sectarian violence controlled.

The great dream of an ideal Arab democracy may be dead - murdered by the Iraqis themselves, with Saudi, Syrian and Iranian help - but an American strategic advantage in the post-Saddam Middle East looks unexpectedly plausible.

Even The Times felt compelled to whisper the news.

http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/seven/08012007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/gray_lady_hedges_opedcolumnists_raplh_peters.htm

[actsnoblemartin]

I thought he put it in a lock box :lol:


Even Al Gore was for the war in Iraq - before he was against it


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JE48XHKG64

[red states rule]

I thought he put it in a lock box :lol:

I thought Hillary but Bill's di** in the lock box and kept the key

[actsnoblemartin]

:finger3:

[red states rule]

:finger3:

So are both Bill and Hillary

[red states rule]

Beating the Heat
By Rick Moran


As our young men and women spend the next month sweating in the 130 degree heat of a Baghdad summer, risking their lives to build a better future for the Iraqi people, the elected representatives of the people of Iraq - men who will have a hand in running that future our military is trying to build for them - have decided to beat the heat and take the month off.

It is totally, completely, incomprehensible.


Their excuse? They've got nothing to do:

Lawmakers said the government had yet to present them with any of the laws. The parliament had earlier signaled its intention to go into recess in August after cutting short its summer break that normally starts in July.

"We do not have anything to discuss in the parliament, no laws or constitutional amendments, nothing from the government. Differences between the political factions have delayed the laws," Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman told Reuters.

The parliament is due to reconvene on September 4, just two weeks before the top U.S. general in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and Washington's envoy to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, are due to report to Congress on the success of U.S. President George W. Bush's new Iraq strategy and make recommendations.
Just a second here. Hold the phone. They claim they've got nothing to do? How about ironing out some of those "differences between the political factions" that have paralyzed the government these many months. They all know the issues involved; reconciliation, the oil revenue sharing plan, a federalism arrangement for power sharing, local elections, and allowing former Baathist party members to get jobs in government. While they're at it, they might think of reforming the civil service to deal with rampant corruption, hold some hearings on where those billions in reconstruction money is actually going, and tell Mookie al-Sadr to take a hike.

But hey! They've got nothing to do so let them flee the capitol for those sandy beaches in Dubai. I hear the Gulf water is fine this time of year - if you don't mind the film of oil that covers the surface. Maybe that's why beach volleyball is so popular although the images of women in burkini's prancing around on the beach would be enough to drive me back to Baghdad.

Actually, I think we should make those weasels meet outdoors in the same 130 degree heat our boys are enduring. We could strap 100 pounds of gear on them for the whole month and tell them they don't get to go inside until they come to an agreement on at least some of the political benchmarks set by the Administration and Congress. Just to make it interesting, we could lob a few mortars over their heads once and a while to give them the same feeling our guys are experiencing every time they go out on patrol.

All sorts of images come to mind to describe the utter contempt I feel for these bozos. Nero fiddling while Rome burned is particularly apt although history tells us that Nero didn't fiddle and that Rome actually needed a good fire to clear out the disease-infested slums where the fire began. Things just got a little out of hand, that's all.

No need to start a fire in Iraq. The conflagration that currently engulfs that bloody country has been burning for 4 years and shows little sign of abating. And there's still plenty of hatred on all sides of the sectarian divide to feed the flames of violence and death for the foreseeable future. That the Iraqi government has chosen this time of all times to abandon their posts and refuse to continue trying to settle their differences shows a lack of respect for the United States and its president who has expended every ounce of political capital - and some he didn't have - to keep the American commitment from faltering.

And what of our military? We have stretched the ability of our army to deal with conflicts to the absolute limit. Don't believe me? Ask the incoming Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:
He said he was committed to "resetting, reconstituting and revitalizing our armed forces," acknowledging, "There is strain. We are stretched." Although recruitment and retention generally remain good and "morale is still high," he said, "I worry about the toll this pace of operations is taking on [service members and their families], our equipment and on our ability to respond to other crises and contingencies.


"The U.S. military remains the strongest in all the world, but it is not unbreakable," Mullen said. "Force reset in all its forms cannot wait until the war in Iraq is over."

Mullen also had this bit of cheery news about our friends in the Iraqi parliament:

Levin expressed skepticism that Iraqi political leaders can take the necessary steps toward reconciliation, saying they "remain frozen by their history." He described the Iraqi parliament as "at a standstill," with nearly every session since November forced to adjourn because too few legislators showed up.

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) voiced similar doubts about the ability of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government to meet its commitments.


"So the surge is moving forward successfully," he said. "But the Maliki government is sliding backwards and is failing in the partnership that was established as the predicate, the foundation, for the surge concept."
It's not all the PM's fault. Maliki got the lawmakers to stick around in July, foiling the Council's plan for two months of lying in the hammock and snoozing the nation's future away. But for the rest, one can't help get the feeling that the Prime Minister is just not up to the challenge of enticing the factions to come together and do what is necessary to begin the process of putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. In the end, he appears to me to be an empty suit, tugged this way and that by various Shia factions and totally incapable of standing up to those who thirst for the blood of Sunnis or seek revenge for Saddam's atrocities.

When General Petreaus delivers his report in September, Congress will have to weigh both the successes and failures of the surge as well as the prospect for any progress from the Iraqi government.

For the former, I have no doubt that there will be encouraging news about the security situation in several parts of the country. As for the latter, while Petreaus may seek to put the best face possible on political developments, the cold hard truth is that the Iraqi Council of Representatives does not reconvene from their fun and games until September 4 - a scant two weeks before the American general must face the Congress and try and convince them that the Iraqis are serious about doing the things they simply must do to heal the gaping wounds in the national polity which fuel the violence that make Iraq such an aching tragedy.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/08/beating_the_heat.html

[actsnoblemartin]

Iraqi lawmakers are as lazy a child with a room to clean.

[red states rule]

Iraqi lawmakers are as lazy a child with a room to clean.

They are going on vacation during the same time - and for the same length of time - as the Dem Congress

What have the Dems accomplished, and is all their work done?

[red states rule]

Do We Have Permission to Win in Iraq?
By David Warren

So far as I can make out -- I am not writing from Iraq, but I do make a splendid effort to follow the plot there -- the Americans are finally doing what they should have been doing all along. They are taking the battle to the Islamist enemy, or rather, enemies, both Shia and Sunni. They are enlisting the help of tribal lords and other local allies against these enemies, de-emphasizing the grand "Marshall Plan" giveaways, and re-emphasizing small, visible, unbureaucratic improvements on that local scale. They have become less timid about inspections and searches, and thus have taken bigger risks of offending people, in the knowledge that providing better security is the only thing that will get them loved. They not only have more men now in theatre, but are using more proportionally up front and fewer in the rear. They are patrolling frontiers more pro-actively, and turning no blind eyes to suspicious incursions. By using different techniques in different districts, they are also breaking the enemy's ability to camouflage.

It is a little known fact -- at least, to the Western media -- that the vast majority of Iraqis cannot possibly want to live under the murderous tyranny of a relatively small number of Islamist psychopaths, of foreign inspiration, and will do everything except master the art of self-government to avoid it. What has changed, over the past few years, would seem to be the popular attitude towards the future, in Iraq. It contains more fear, and is therefore easier to harness towards such specific ends as finding Islamist terrorists and annihilating them.

A remarkable piece was published on the op-ed of the New York Times, on Monday. Remarkable not for its content (it told us what we should already know), but for who wrote it: Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, two non-friends of the Bush administration. Having just returned from Iraq, they said they were struck by a turnaround in morale, that could only be attributed to the recent arrival of Gen. David Petraeus, and the general offensive he was charged to oversee. "The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander; ... they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference." The authors also cited statistical indications that the tide is turning.

Contrast this with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, back in Washington: "This war is lost. There's simply no evidence that the escalation is working."

Sen. Reid has a long history of seeing no evidence where there is plenty of evidence, and plenty of evidence where there is no evidence, but that is beside the point. He represents the core, Democrat "defeatist" constituency. That constituency is not something recently formed. The idea that Iraq is "another Vietnam," and that any American enterprise (that doesn't involve the expansion of the welfare state) must necessarily be "another Vietnam," is, for these people, an article in a creed.

But it is important to remember the history. A previous generation of these Democrats first insisted on shoving their South Vietnamese allies aside, and trying to run the war for them; then of imposing all kinds of restraints on their battlefield commanders which, in aggregate, made victory impossible. And then, when they tired of the war, they abandoned the Vietnamese to their fate, with the additional Congressional touch of cutting off South Vietnam's supply of arms and ammunition. Finally, they just watched as the Communist guerrillas from the jungle were replaced by North Vietnamese regulars in tanks, driving openly down the American-built highways to receive the surrender of Saigon, while the U.S. Seventh Fleet was hovering offshore, with the equipment to "mow them down to marmalade."

It was a rout so ignominious, that it destroyed the credibility of the United States, probably adding ten years to the life of the Soviet Empire. It inspired Communist advances in Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, and elsewhere; and, little appreciated at the time, Islamist advances overtly in Iran, and covertly throughout the Muslim world.

Such Democrats -- not all Democrats, there were "Scoop Jackson Democrats" throughout the Cold War -- often complain that their Republican opponents "question their patriotism," when all they have done is advocate a policy of defeat and humiliation for the United States abroad. All I can add to Dr Johnson's famous remark that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," is the observation that traitors tend to be especially sensitive to the charge of treason.

There are background problems still not adequately confronted. The Iraqi political order is nearly dysfunctional, and there is little that can currently be done, politically or practically, about the sponsors of Islamist subversion in Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

But given the hard geopolitical fact, that cutting and running from Iraq will be a catastrophe for the West, on a scale even bigger than cutting and running from Vietnam, let's just keep fighting until we win.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/permission_to_win_in_iraq.html

[red states rule]

Reuters Avoided Comparing Iraq to Vietnam in Pol Pot Genocide Story--Hmmm...
By Lynn Davidson | August 1, 2007 - 23:02 ET


The media love comparing Iraq to the Vietnam War. So why didn't Reuters relate Iraq to this July 31 story about a joint Cambodian-UN tribunal that charged one of Pol Pot's top henchmen with crimes against humanity related to the deaths of 1.7 million people in that country's “Killing Fields?”

They also like to link America's actions to unpleasant world events. So why not even mention how the US pulling out of Vietnam and Congress halting aid to Vietnam and Cambodia, allowed the rise of Pol Pot's brutal and deadly communist Khmer Rouge regime that killed, tortured and displaced millions? Maybe take it a step further and connect it to what might happen if the US follows the wishes of many Democrats and withdraws from Iraq too soon?

The tribunal charged Duch with the deaths of 1.7 million people after confessing to “committing multiple atrocities during this (sic) time as head of the capital's notorious Tuol Sleng or S-21 interrogation center.” (emphasis mine throughout):

At least 14,000 people deemed to be opponents of Pol Pot's "Year Zero" revolution passed through Tuol Sleng's barbed-wire gates. Fewer than 10 are thought to have lived to tell the tale.

Most victims were tortured and forced to confess to a variety of crimes -- mainly being CIA spies -- before being bludgeoned to death in a field on the outskirts of the city. Women, children and even babies were among those butchered.

In addition to avoiding the obvious link to Iraq, Reuters omitted a few basic details in this article. There was no mention that it was a genocide tribunal; in fact, the word “genocide” wasn't even used. It mentioned that Duch became a born-again Christian, but not that he was a communist in a communist government. Perhaps some of this is because the reporter might not be a native-English speaker.

Reuters addressed a familiar theme, by stating “(m)ost victims were tortured and killed after being forced to confess to being CIA spies.” Without American money to buy influence and bullets, the insurgents took power in Cambodia and millions of people were killed for their real or imagined connection to the US.

Now I see quite a resemblance to modern-day Iraq, but in what must be a record, a member of the media didn't exploit a Vietnam connection to our modern-day “quagmire” in Iraq. There was also no mention that nearly one fourth of the Cambodian population died after our disengagement. I wonder why.


http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lynn-davidson/2007/08/01/reuters-avoided-comparing-iraq-vietnam-pol-pot-genocide-story-hmmm

[red states rule]

The liberal moonbats is in a tizzy over two liberals saying the surge in Iraq is working


When Blogs Attack

Liberal blogs have reacted with special outrage to Monday's New York Times op-ed piece by liberal war critics Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution that said the Iraq war surge is working.

Glenn Greenwald writes on salon.com — "For sheer deceit and propaganda, it is difficult to remember something quite this audacious and transparently false."

Logan Murphy writes on crooksandliars.com that the op-ed "uses cherry picked data to give the false impression that there is real progress being made militarily."

And from Duncan Black at the Eschaton blog — "What's amazing how simple it is, how willing our media - universally - are willing to catapult George Bush's propaganda. I do not believe they are all that stupid, so they are willing accomplices in this disgusting game which perpetuates misery, death, and destruction. If our grand poobahs in the mainstream media want to know why us dirty (expletive) hippie bloggers hate them, this is why."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,291791,00.html

[red states rule]

RSS will grow a spine and develop a brain before the Iraq war becomes winnable. In other words -- never.

Here is what Petreus told Michael Yon via an NRO symposium:


Our assessment at this point is that we have begun to achieve a degree of momentum on the ground in going after AQI sanctuaries and in disrupting the activities of some of the militia extremists; however, AQI continues to try to reignite ethno-sectarian violence and clearly still has the capability to carry out sensational attacks that cause substantial civilian loss of life. And the militia elements certainly continue to pursue sectarian displacement in certain fault-line areas and to cause trouble in some Shia provinces as well. So there’s clearly considerable work to be done by Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces. Beyond that, the spread of Sunni Arab rejection of AQI is very important and is a development on which we are still trying to capitalize beyond Anbar Province, where the effects are already very clear.



Does this sound like a civil war, or does this sound like Al Qaeda is trying to ignite one?

We are war with Al Qaeda, who are desperate.

Libs want to appease and surrender

[actsnoblemartin]

Thank You :), for posting this.



If libs are consistent, they will pubicly support the NY Times article and start supporting the troops and the war in Iraq

Don;t hold you breath however



Turning Point?
An op-ed and a war.

An NRO Symposium

The New York Times ran a piece Monday by two non-“neoconservatives” — Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack — arguing that the war in Iraq can be won. Is this indicative of some kind of mood change afoot? Could we really win this war? Could the rhetoric in Washington really change? National Review Online asked a group of experts.


Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
What are we to make of the fact that two of the Democratic party’s most knowledgeable critics of President Bush’s campaign to stabilize and democratize post-Saddam Iraq, Michael O’Hanlon and Robert Pollack, have publicly rejected the defeatists and called for a sustained U.S. effort there into 2008? The short answer is that they have the wit to recognize mistaken claims that all is lost in Iraq when they hear them — and the courage to say so.

This assessment is remarkable, of course, not only for the fact that its authors are breaking ranks with nearly all of the rest of the Democrats’ foreign-policy establishment. It is also noteworthy for being the latest and, arguably, most objective indicator that the situation on the ground in Iraq is, indeed, changing for the better.

As such, the O’Hanlon-Pollack report makes plain one other truth: Those who persist in denying that General David Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy is having the desired, salutary effect and who insist that our defeat is inevitable are promoting a self-fulfilling prophesy. They are so determined to score domestic political points by unilaterally ending the conflict in Iraq that they are prepared to surrender the country to al Qaeda and various Shiite militias and their respective Saudi, Iranian and Syrian enablers.

Public-opinion polling and anecdotal evidence suggests that Americans are beginning to appreciate the true nature — and potentially enormous costs — of the surrender in Iraq being advocated by many Democrats and a few Republicans. The O’Hanlon-Pollack op-ed may reflect that reality as much as shape it. Either way, its authors deserve our thanks.

— Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy.


Victor Davis Hanson
What is interesting about the essay is that both scholars were early supporters of the war to remove Saddam Hussein, then constant critics of the acknowledged mistakes of the occupation, and now somewhat confident that Gen. Petraeus can still salvage a victory. In two regards, they reflect somewhat the vast majority of the American people who approved the war, slowly soured on the peace — but now have yet to be won over again by the surge to renew their erstwhile support.

We are witnessing two phenomena. First, after four years of misery the Iraqis themselves are tiring of war, have grasped what al Qaeda et al. do when in local control, realize the U.S. wants to leave only after establishing a constitutional state, not steal its oil, sense that the United States may well win — and are slowly making adjustments to hedge their bets.

In a wider sense, the war is as most wars: an evolution from blunders to wisdom, the side that makes the fewest and learns from them the most eventually winning. Al Qaeda and the insurgents in 2004-6 developed the means, both tactical and strategic, to thwart the reconstruction, but we, not they, have since learned the more and evolved.

As in the Civil War, WWI, and WWII, the present American military — which has committed far less mistakes than past American forces — has shifted tactics, redefined strategy, and found the right field commanders. We forget that the U.S. Army and Marines, far from being broken, now have the most experienced and wizened officers in the world. Like Summer 1864, Summer 1918, and in the Pacific 1944-5, the key is the support of a weary public for an ever improving military that must nevertheless endure a final storm before breaking the enemy.

The irony is that should President Bush endure the hysteria and furor and prove able to give the gifted Gen. Petraeus the necessary time — and I think he will — his presidency could still turn out to be Trumanesque, once we digest the changes in Europe, the progress on North Korea, the end of both the Taliban and Saddam, and the prevention of another 9/11 attack. How odd that all the insider advice to triangulate — big spending, new programs, uninspired appointments, liberal immigration reform — have nearly wrecked the administration, and what were once considered its liabilities — foreign policy, the war on terror and Iraq — may still save it.

— Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author, most recently, of A War Like No Other. How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.


for the complete article

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YWQ5NDkwMDNiMzZhODNlNjdhN2JiM2EyMjQ1N2ZmMWQ=

[red states rule]

Thank You :), for posting this.

Like Rush, I am pointing out the news the liberal media will not

So far the libs here have ignored the good nes as well. I wonder why?

[retiredman]

I posted this several months ago on a different board, but would love to see it discussed here:

I think it is instructive to consider how the some on the right frame this debate about the wisdom of our continued involvement in the affairs of the Iraqi people: "Republicans want to “WIN” in Iraq" versus "Democrats want to “accept defeat” in Iraq".

There is, however, a constantly shifting definition of "winning", and, therefore, an equally shifting definition of "being defeated". At its very essence is the idea that our enemies are making some stand in Iraq and we must "win" against them there or they will have "defeated" us. This view of this involvement in Iraq as some sort of time constrained contest is artificial and tends to skew our perspective away from reality. This is not some global sporting event and we are not in the third quarter of a fixed time game. The enemy seeks to outlast us - not on the battlefield in Iraq, but in the timeless worldwide war of ideas and influence. In that war, we "win" when America's social and economic interest is felt in the world and those interests prevail in the world. We certainly need to look at that war with a wider, longer view.... we want to WIN that war of influence and ideas over the next century.

Is it really sensible to choose Iraq as the hill upon which we will die this decade? Can't we admit that we made an error in elevating Iraq into some symbolic preeminence that it does not deserve? Our war is against Islamic extremism... and that war will not be won militarily, but socially, politically, and most importantly, economically. Our war is not against Iraqi insurgents who really want to fight one another in a turf battle for oil and a 1200 year old grudge match over Islamic interpretation and ascendancy. Let them settle their own intramural differences without our continued muddying influence.

Those of us with a military background know full well that, in the major wars that engulfed our planet in the last century, America lost its share of BATTLES...America retreated from individual battlefields when it became clear that continuing to fight on that spot was not helping us win the larger victory.... when it became clear that that was not the hill we should chose to die on.... but America prevailed in those large wars because we did NOT let ourselves become obsessed with winning any one battle at the expense of overall victory.

I am all for fighting and winning the war against Islamic extremism. I know full well that our military will play a role at times in that war, but that ideas and economics will play a greater role. From the very outset, I have been against the action in Iraq, not because I didn't want to fight and win the war against Islamic extremism, but because I did not believe that our planned action in Iraq advanced our cause in that larger war.

Saddam was an asshole.... but he was an unwitting ally of ours in our war against Islamic extremism. The vision of Islamic extremists has no place for secular nation states like Jordan or Syria or Egypt or Saudi Arabia OR IRAQ. Saddam, therefore, had no vested interest in promoting or assisting an ideology that was bent on his own destruction.

Saddam was an asshole, but he did three things very well - three things that we would LOVE for someone to be doing better than we are doing them today:

1. he kept Islamic extremists from gaining bases of operation in Iraq (and don't start about Saddam's support for terrorists - his support was solely for NATIONALIST terror organizations and, as repugnant as they were and are, they are not the same as the Islamic extremists that threaten us).

2. He kept Sunnis and Shi'ites from slaughtering one another en masse in a country that was unique in its mixed population of Shiites and Sunnis at the edge of Arabia and Persia.... and

3. He acted as a foil against Iranian regional hegemony.

We need to admit that we will NEVER be able to do those three things as well as Saddam did them and that we screwed up by removing him from power and forcing ourselves to occupy a large portion of our military, our economy, and our diplomatic energy in trying to keep Iraq from boiling over when we could much more effectively use those assets to our benefit elsewhere in the world.

No one wants DEFEAT in the war on Islamic extremism, but I think we should consider leaving the battlefield we created in Iraq and focusing our efforts on winning the war that we should have been fighting in the first place.

[Sir Evil]

Saddam was an asshole, but he did three things very well - three things that we would LOVE for someone to be doing better than we are doing them today:

1. he kept Islamic extremists from gaining bases of operation in Iraq (and don't start about Saddam's support for terrorists - his support was solely for NATIONALIST terror organizations and, as repugnant as they were and are, they are not the same as the Islamic extremists that threaten us).

2. He kept Sunnis and Shi'ites from slaughtering one another en masse in a country that was unique in its mixed population of Shiites and Sunnis at the edge of Arabia and Persia.... and

3. He acted as a foil against Iranian regional hegemony.

We need to admit that we will NEVER be able to do those three things as well as Saddam did them and that we screwed up by removing him from power and forcing ourselves to occupy a large portion of our military, our economy, and our diplomatic energy in trying to keep Iraq from boiling over when we could much more effectively use those assets to our benefit elsewhere in the world.

No one wants DEFEAT in the war on Islamic extremism, but I think we should consider leaving the battlefield we created in Iraq and focusing our efforts on winning the war that we should have been fighting in the first place.

homo says what?

hegemony? favorite word learned in the last year or what?

The rhetorical oracle back with arguments so lame, and used time after time.

The war we should of been fighting in the first place? that would be? how about the never ending war at the UN to finally face the fact that Iraq would never play along by world policy? Oh thats right diplomacy was working.

What a shit brick!

[JohnDoe]

homo says what?

hegemony? favorite word learned in the last year or what?

The rhetorical oracle back with arguments so lame, and used time after time.

The war we should of been fighting in the first place? that would be? how about the never ending war at the UN to finally face the fact that Iraq would never play along by world policy? Oh thats right diplomacy was working.

What a shit brick!

Sir Evil,

Iraq did not have WMD's therefore the UN Resolution, was actually somewhat kept by Saddam, he did rid himself of such items, which was the ultimate concern of the Un imo.

To attack a country that was not an imminent threat to us was simply wrong...and against American policy until President Bush introduced the Bush Doctrine-Preemptive war....which is just another name for UNJUST WAR imo....and it HAS released a Hornets nest in the region....I think we all, as citizens of this great country, need to rethink and renege this "preemptive war" policy because it is unjust and causes too much harm and death to those that are innocent....with no provocation on their part.

Now this has nothing to do with whether I think we should stay in Iraq and clean up the mess WE MADE, or leave...

And the UN Cease fire agreement was between Iraq and Kuwait, not Iraq and the USA..... we had NO RIGHT whatsoever to invade Iraq....and I don't see any other way around calling this Spade a Spade.

jd

[jimnyc]

Sir Evil,

Iraq did not have WMD's therefore the UN Resolution, was actually somewhat kept by Saddam, he did rid himself of such items, which was the ultimate concern of the Un imo.

To attack a country that was not an imminent threat to us was simply wrong...and against American policy until President Bush introduced the Bush Doctrine-Preemptive war....which is just another name for UNJUST WAR imo....and it HAS released a Hornets nest in the region....I think we all, as citizens of this great country, need to rethink and renege this "preemptive war" policy because it is unjust and causes too much harm and death to those that are innocent....with no provocation on their part.

Now this has nothing to do with whether I think we should stay in Iraq and clean up the mess WE MADE, or leave...

And the UN Cease fire agreement was between Iraq and Kuwait, not Iraq and the USA..... we had NO RIGHT whatsoever to invade Iraq....and I don't see any other way around calling this Spade a Spade.

jd

I believe the portions I have placed in bold are the only factual aspects of your post.

1- Iraq DID have WMD's accounted for by inspectors in 1998, to date there has never been any evidence given of their destruction or there whereabouts - as per UN resolutions.

2- The cease fire may very well have been between Iraq-Kuwait, but the resolutions also stipulated what would happen should they remain in material breach of said resolutions - and these were signed by ALL members of the UN.

3- Saddam remained in breach of resolutions for 12 years prior to his removal. Diplomatic efforts were used longer then they should have been.

The rest is simply your opinion.

[JohnDoe]

I believe the portions I have placed in bold are the only factual aspects of your post.

ahhhh! but that is your opinion!!! ;)

1- Iraq DID have WMD's accounted for by inspectors in 1998, to date there has never been any evidence given of their destruction or there whereabouts - as per UN resolutions.

please, ENOUGH already, they DID NOT HAVE THEM when we invaded their country unjustly.

2- The cease fire may very well have been between Iraq-Kuwait, but the resolutions also stipulated what would happen should they remain in material breach of said resolutions - and these were signed by ALL members of the UN.

make up your mind, does the UN matter, or not Jim? yes or no?

3- Saddam remained in breach of resolutions for 12 years prior to his removal. Diplomatic efforts were used longer then they should have been.

so WHAT? does this give the usa the right to invade and kill THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT people? Preemptive war is UNJUST, there is no way around it and the president's PREEMPTIVE WAR policy is for the dogs....imo, and immediately should be thrown out, burnrd, incinerated because it is wrong.
The rest is simply your opinion.

All of what you said is also your opinion of why you think this war was a Just War, I would HIGHLY suggest you read Just War Theory.....it has alot of good, sensical, and humane consideration to it Jim.

and good afternoon!!!!! :coffee:

jd

[Sir Evil]

Sir Evil,

Iraq did not have WMD's therefore the UN Resolution, was actually somewhat kept by Saddam, he did rid himself of such items, which was the ultimate concern of the Un imo.

To attack a country that was not an imminent threat to us was simply wrong...and against American policy until President Bush introduced the Bush Doctrine-Preemptive war....which is just another name for UNJUST WAR imo....and it HAS released a Hornets nest in the region....I think we all, as citizens of this great country, need to rethink and renege this "preemptive war" policy because it is unjust and causes too much harm and death to those that are innocent....with no provocation on their part.

Now this has nothing to do with whether I think we should stay in Iraq and clean up the mess WE MADE, or leave...

And the UN Cease fire agreement was between Iraq and Kuwait, not Iraq and the USA..... we had NO RIGHT whatsoever to invade Iraq....and I don't see any other way around calling this Spade a Spade.

jd

Ah fuck, another misguided mouth hanging their hat on the whole WMD thing. As I have said to you, and your group of Bush haters so many times before, "Is there any solid evidence that these wmd's never existed?" Oh, I see, Iraq led by Saddam were a peaceful bunch just trying to fit into society like the rest of us right? How about looking at the timeline of problems with Iraq for a change, fuck the 12 years of defiance, these little bastards have been problematic dating way back to damn near the early 60's. I know that means nothing to your kind but seriously, how fucking long does it take to drill through the thick skull that Iraq needed to be dealt with? I know you and the homofrommaine are real back patters elsewhere, but for fucks sake wake up and realize the facts! I know you hate Bush, and thats fine but to suggest that Iraq was unjust because they were not an imminent threat is just a simple way of you shit brick Bush haters to say it was unjust. Now instead of hanging your hat on the words of Bush leading up to the war, to some fact gathering, and do yourself another favor and understand that WIKPEDIA is not a good place to start!

[jimnyc]

please, ENOUGH already, they DID NOT HAVE THEM when we invaded their country unjustly.

Sorry, but this is FACT.


Successive Iraqi declarations on Baghdad's pre-Gulf war WMD programs gradually became more accurate between 1991 and 1998, but only because of sustained pressure from UN sanctions, Coalition military force, and vigorous and robust inspections facilitated by information from cooperative countries. Nevertheless, Iraq never has fully accounted for major gaps and inconsistencies in its declarations and has provided no credible proof that it has completely destroyed its weapons stockpiles and production infrastructure.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm


make up your mind, does the UN matter, or not Jim? yes or no?

I think they are useless myself, but the facts are the facts. And the fact remains that Saddam remained in material breach of said resolutions for over 12 years. Nice deflection BTW!

The war being just or unjust is purely opinion in this matter. But the facts behind the resolutions, Saddam's refusal to comply & the never accounted for WMD's cannot be disputed.

[Sir Evil]

we had NO RIGHT whatsoever to invade Iraq....and I don't see any other way around calling this Spade a Spade.

jd

Ooop's, forgot to add that I see not other way of calling a shit brick, a shit brick! :D

[retiredman]

Sorry, but this is FACT.



http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm



I think they are useless myself, but the facts are the facts. And the fact remains that Saddam remained in material breach of said resolutions for over 12 years. Nice deflection BTW!

The war being just or unjust is purely opinion in this matter. But the facts behind the resolutions, Saddam's refusal to comply & the never accounted for WMD's cannot be disputed.

if a weapon of mass destruction has degraded to the point where it cannot massively destroy anything, why continue to call it a WMD?

And the argument about WMD's does NOT address the overriding point of my post, which is, of course, that whether or not you THOUGHT Iraq was a good idea or not, whether or not there was technically enought justification to invade, the facts as they exist today would suggest that it was not the best most appropriate use of our forces then or now.

[jimnyc]

if a weapon of mass destruction has degraded to the point where it cannot massively destroy anything, why continue to call it a WMD?

Deadly VX, mustard gas, anthrax, botulinum, aflatoxin & clostridium. You don't think these unaccounted for weapons can do massive devastation? I would love to hear reports from the chemical experts as to how much damage could still have been done with a bomb dropped on a populated area with any of these chemicals, even if they were "up" to 10 years old. I say up to, because the inspectors accounted for them in 1998 and claimed much was made/acquired after the gulf war.


And the argument about WMD's does NOT address the overriding point of my post, which is, of course, that whether or not you THOUGHT Iraq was a good idea or not, whether or not there was technically enought justification to invade, the facts as they exist today would suggest that it was not the best most appropriate use of our forces then or now.

I thought it was a good idea and had more than enough justification, whether the stuff they were proven to have has been found or not.

[Sir Evil]

whether or not there was technically enought justification to invade

:laugh2::laugh2::laugh2::laugh2::laugh2::laugh2:

[April15]

I posted this several months ago on a different board, but would love to see it discussed here:

I think it is instructive to consider how the some on the right frame this debate about the wisdom of our continued involvement in the affairs of the Iraqi people: "Republicans want to “WIN” in Iraq" versus "Democrats want to “accept defeat” in Iraq".

There is, however, a constantly shifting definition of "winning", and, therefore, an equally shifting definition of "being defeated". At its very essence is the idea that our enemies are making some stand in Iraq and we must "win" against them there or they will have "defeated" us. This view of this involvement in Iraq as some sort of time constrained contest is artificial and tends to skew our perspective away from reality. This is not some global sporting event and we are not in the third quarter of a fixed time game. The enemy seeks to outlast us - not on the battlefield in Iraq, but in the timeless worldwide war of ideas and influence. In that war, we "win" when America's social and economic interest is felt in the world and those interests prevail in the world. We certainly need to look at that war with a wider, longer view.... we want to WIN that war of influence and ideas over the next century.

Is it really sensible to choose Iraq as the hill upon which we will die this decade? Can't we admit that we made an error in elevating Iraq into some symbolic preeminence that it does not deserve? Our war is against Islamic extremism... and that war will not be won militarily, but socially, politically, and most importantly, economically. Our war is not against Iraqi insurgents who really want to fight one another in a turf battle for oil and a 1200 year old grudge match over Islamic interpretation and ascendancy. Let them settle their own intramural differences without our continued muddying influence.

Those of us with a military background know full well that, in the major wars that engulfed our planet in the last century, America lost its share of BATTLES...America retreated from individual battlefields when it became clear that continuing to fight on that spot was not helping us win the larger victory.... when it became clear that that was not the hill we should chose to die on.... but America prevailed in those large wars because we did NOT let ourselves become obsessed with winning any one battle at the expense of overall victory.

I am all for fighting and winning the war against Islamic extremism. I know full well that our military will play a role at times in that war, but that ideas and economics will play a greater role. From the very outset, I have been against the action in Iraq, not because I didn't want to fight and win the war against Islamic extremism, but because I did not believe that our planned action in Iraq advanced our cause in that larger war.

Saddam was an asshole.... but he was an unwitting ally of ours in our war against Islamic extremism. The vision of Islamic extremists has no place for secular nation states like Jordan or Syria or Egypt or Saudi Arabia OR IRAQ. Saddam, therefore, had no vested interest in promoting or assisting an ideology that was bent on his own destruction.

Saddam was an asshole, but he did three things very well - three things that we would LOVE for someone to be doing better than we are doing them today:

1. he kept Islamic extremists from gaining bases of operation in Iraq (and don't start about Saddam's support for terrorists - his support was solely for NATIONALIST terror organizations and, as repugnant as they were and are, they are not the same as the Islamic extremists that threaten us).

2. He kept Sunnis and Shi'ites from slaughtering one another en masse in a country that was unique in its mixed population of Shiites and Sunnis at the edge of Arabia and Persia.... and

3. He acted as a foil against Iranian regional hegemony.

We need to admit that we will NEVER be able to do those three things as well as Saddam did them and that we screwed up by removing him from power and forcing ourselves to occupy a large portion of our military, our economy, and our diplomatic energy in trying to keep Iraq from boiling over when we could much more effectively use those assets to our benefit elsewhere in the world.

No one wants DEFEAT in the war on Islamic extremism, but I think we should consider leaving the battlefield we created in Iraq and focusing our efforts on winning the war that we should have been fighting in the first place.

I would love for us to leave but we broke the thing and it would be foolish to not fix it before we leave. Now if Saddam was alive we could just re install him and say adue, but we killed our best exit plan.

[JohnDoe]

Deadly VX, mustard gas, anthrax, botulinum, aflatoxin & clostridium. You don't think these unaccounted for weapons can do massive devastation? I would love to hear reports from the chemical experts as to how much damage could still have been done with a bomb dropped on a populated area with any of these chemicals, even if they were "up" to 10 years old. I say up to, because the inspectors accounted for them in 1998 and claimed much was made/acquired after the gulf war.

you mean inspections could NOT account for them, right? IF you believed that these DANGEROUS to us in the usa chemical weapons existed, then why didn't you support the unfettered access by the newly put in weapons inspectors that we chose to finnish looking before putting our forces in there and in harms way?

and any chemical WMD was NOT a threat to us EVEN if they hadn't lost their punch! the only WMD america was told that was a threat to us was a nuclear wmd in the form of the smoking gun, ending in a mushroom cloud....REMEMBER....this IS what we were told by the administration!!!



I thought it was a good idea and had more than enough justification, whether the stuff they were proven to have has been found or not.

this sentiment should be reconsidered!!! we had no justification to kill thousands upon thousands of INNOCENT people that were not in any way, a threat to the USA.

that stand is immoral, unethical, and unjust war....and against humanity jim!

jd

[Sir Evil]

this sentiment should be reconsidered!!! we had no justification to kill thousands upon thousands of INNOCENT people that were not in any way, a threat to the USA.

that stand is immoral, unethical, and unjust war....and against humanity jim!

jd

Wow, a suitable time to use immoral, unethical, and unjust. The killing of thousands by Saddam himself fit your need for these words by any chance?

Cut the shit with that stuff, war is unfortunate, people will die, thats just facts of life. Hearts and minds is a pile of shit, war rarely works that way so there is never going to be a good way of looking at war if you have to use you choice of words above.

[jimnyc]

you mean inspections could NOT account for them, right?

Inspections in 1998 DID ACCOUNT FOR THEM, but they were amongst the missing when inspections restarted again in 2001. The demands were for them to either produce the missing ACCOUNTED FOR IN 1998 weapons, or prove their destruction - Iraq chose to ignore these demands altogether.


IF you believed that these DANGEROUS to us in the usa chemical weapons existed, then why didn't you support the unfettered access by the newly put in weapons inspectors that we chose to finnish looking before putting our forces in there and in harms way?

I did support them being given the access, and they specifically asked Iraq to comply - and they didn't!


and any chemical WMD was NOT a threat to us EVEN if they hadn't lost their punch! the only WMD america was told that was a threat to us was a nuclear wmd in the form of the smoking gun, ending in a mushroom cloud....REMEMBER....this IS what we were told by the administration!!!

Then maybe you need to have read or listened to less rhetorical information. It was stated many times within the UN by the inspectors, and by reports by top US officials that these chemicals remained unaccounted for and was another reason Iraq remained in material breach of the resolutions.

I'm not entertaining your last paragraph as I simply disagree and there's no point debating opinions. Your stance won't change no matter what proof I provide. I as well stand by my assertion that it was necessary for us to ensure these weapons weren't used, and they didn't have the ability to continue their work on other WMD's. Saddam chose to play a cat and mouse game for 12 years instead of cooperating and we ultimately had no choice.

[Sir Evil]

I'm not entertaining your last paragraph as I simply disagree and there's no point debating opinions.

Why entertain any of it, it's just a pile of kangaroo dung anyway.

[JohnDoe]

Inspections in 1998 DID ACCOUNT FOR THEM, but they were amongst the missing when inspections restarted again in 2001. The demands were for them to either produce the missing ACCOUNTED FOR IN 1998 weapons, or prove their destruction - Iraq chose to ignore these demands altogether.



I did support them being given the access, and they specifically asked Iraq to comply - and they didn't!



Then maybe you need to have read or listened to less rhetorical information. It was stated many times within the UN by the inspectors, and by reports by top US officials that these chemicals remained unaccounted for and was another reason Iraq remained in material breach of the resolutions.

I'm not entertaining your last paragraph as I simply disagree and there's no point debating opinions. Your stance won't change no matter what proof I provide. I as well stand by my assertion that it was necessary for us to ensure these weapons weren't used, and they didn't have the ability to continue their work on other WMD's. Saddam chose to play a cat and mouse game for 12 years instead of cooperating and we ultimately had no choice.WE ARE NOT THE WORLD'S POLICEMEN! PERIOD!

Jim we had NEW weapons inspectors put in to Iraq right previous to us attacking them and STARTING this war....

These inspectors BEGGED for more time, and these inspectors HAD free access to Iraq....but we pulled them out because no matter what the inspectors found or did not find, we were going to go to war in Iraq, that was decided VERY EARLY ON in the Bush administration from what EVERYONE in the administration that has quit, has come forward to say....NOT ONE SAYS OTHERWISE. Are you denying that new inspectors were put in and that new inspectors had found nothing in the 6 months there and that these new inspectors felt they needed more time before the invaision of us to confirm that they were all gone or destroyed?

/Do you really believe that it was JUST to go in to a sovereign country and start a war that would kill thousands and thousands of innocent people based on something that was an UNKNOWN?

That is the definition of an UNJUST war Jim.


We had PLENTY OF CHOICES, because saddam was not an imminent threat to us Jim. We chose DEATH over human life is what we did...yes chose. That is immoral.

IF we had gone in and stopped Saddam from the genocide that he committed AT THE TIME HE WAS COMMITTING IT, it would have been a just war, but WE DID NOTHING to help these people that were brutally killed by saddam....NOTHING JIM, NOTHING AT ALL 10 years earlier and beyond. That was also immoral.

jd

[Sir Evil]

We had PLENTY OF CHOICES, because saddam was not an imminent threat to us Jim. We chose DEATH over human life is what we did...yes chose. That is immoral.

IF we had gone in and stopped Saddam from the genocide that he committed AT THE TIME HE WAS COMMITTING IT, it would have been a just war, but WE DID NOTHING to help these people that were brutally killed by saddam....NOTHING JIM, NOTHING AT ALL 10 years earlier and beyond. That was also immoral.

jd

And the same results would have likely been. Yep "NOTHING AT ALL 10 years earlier and beyond" your diplomacy was working wonders as the timeline goes well past 10 years. Now choose death to your argument because it's soley based on your hatred for Bush.

[jimnyc]

Saddam had resolutions - he remained in breach of them.

Iraq continually shot at our planes in the no-fly zones.

Iraq had chemical weapons accounted for in 1998, and after 2001 refused to answer to their whereabouts or account for their destruction.

Iraq refused to end the repression of its civilian population, as stipulated in the resolutions.

Iraq refused to return Kuwaiti nationals detained and wrongfully seized property, as per the resolutions.

That's just off the top of my head, and already enough justification to go in and remove the Saddam led regime.

[Sir Evil]

WE ARE NOT THE WORLD'S POLICEMEN! PERIOD!



Yeah we kind of are in a way. when problems arise elswhere in the world who is mostly called upon for help? Are military forces are loved then, are'nt they?

[retiredman]

"Inspections in 1998 DID ACCOUNT FOR THEM, but they were amongst the missing when inspections restarted again in 2001. The demands were for them to either produce the missing ACCOUNTED FOR IN 1998 weapons, or prove their destruction - Iraq chose to ignore these demands altogether."

I need a link to something that indicate that inspections were restarted again in 2001. I'll wait

"I did support them being given the access, and they specifically asked Iraq to comply - and they didn't!"
Bush told them to get out of town long before they had finished so that he could get on with his invasion that had been a foregone conclusion since the time that PNAC suggested it.

"Then maybe you need to have read or listened to less rhetorical information. It was stated many times within the UN by the inspectors, and by reports by top US officials that these chemicals remained unaccounted for and was another reason Iraq remained in material breach of the resolutions."

and Hans Blix and his inspectors HAD been - begrudgingly - granted access once again due to the strong arm tactics of the Bush administration (which I totally supported). He was on the ground... doing his job.... and Bush told him to leave long before he was completed because Dubya just couldn't wait any longer to put the PNAC plan into action...and, God forbid, we HAD waited until BLix was done inspecting and reported what we now know to be the facts: Saddam no longer had any viable WMD's..then we would NOT have had the overriding justification to put that PNAC plan into action after all. Bush HAD to do it when he did, or he would lose the main rationale for doing it at all.

[jimnyc]

I need a link to something that indicate that inspections were restarted again in 2001. I'll wait

My bad, they actually restarted in 2002. Doesn't change the fact that weapons were accounted for in 1998 and were never accounted for again though.


Bush told them to get out of town long before they had finished so that he could get on with his invasion that had been a foregone conclusion since the time that PNAC suggested it.

They remained in material breach for 12 years. They had ample time to come within the guidelines set forth of them. Saddam's games were to no longer be tolerated. It wouldn't have been the first time he agreed to cooperate and did the exact opposite.


and Hans Blix and his inspectors HAD been - begrudgingly - granted access once again due to the strong arm tactics of the Bush administration (which I totally supported). He was on the ground... doing his job.... and Bush told him to leave long before he was completed because Dubya just couldn't wait any longer to put the PNAC plan into action...and, God forbid, we HAD waited until BLix was done inspecting and reported what we now know to be the facts: Saddam no longer had any viable WMD's..then we would NOT have had the overriding justification to put that PNAC plan into action after all. Bush HAD to do it when he did, or he would lose the main rationale for doing it at all.

Even the leaders of the inspectors stated they remained in breach, and that previously accounted for chemical weapons were missing and Iraq refused to account for them. And long before he completed? I believe 12 years would have been plenty of time had Iraq cooperated all along.

[JohnDoe]

And the same results would have likely been. Yep "NOTHING AT ALL 10 years earlier and beyond" your diplomacy was working wonders as the timeline goes well past 10 years. Now choose death to your argument because it's soley based on your hatred for Bush.

Sir Evil

Let me make this very clear...

I do not and never have, hated President Bush... and you inserting it in to this discussion so to try to diminish my argument is quite.... apparent! :slap:

Yes it goes past the 10 years before we came to the so called rescue, 10 years on the shiites and nearly a couple of decades on the Kurdish genocide...BEFORE Gulf War 1.

Stopping ANY GENOCIDE FROM HAPPENING or continuing to happen, is a JUST CAUSE and if done by battle a Just war, IF the genocide ends and IF you make their lives BETTER THAN it was before the genocide....those are the rules of Just War and we did not in any way shape or form, follow the rules of engagement imo and I truely don't believe there is anything you or Jim could show me that I have not already read, or not already disputed in one form or another or not already whatever'd with it, because I have not and do not take this war lightly.

IMHO we took our eye off the ball and LET Bin Laden and his followers grow, grow and grow! Why, because Allah was with THEM....and why? Because Bin Laden was not caught by us, so God MUST BE on Bin Laden's and Alqaeda's side.... even for the 911 attack, allah was on their side....

THIS IS HOW THEY THINK imo.

we blew it, big time, with NOT nailing Bin Ladeni, and catching him quickly, immediately after the 9/11 attack my humble opinion...

And this probably happened because we got sidetracted in to a war, that DID NOT HAVE TO take place, because there was no imminent threat from Iraq against the USA, IT WAS a War of choice,,, and timing.... and a war of choice is not a just war and never can be.

http://aolsearch.aol.com/aol/search?encquery=a7236f56f4bd774eca7c27a2b628b18f&invocationType=keyword_rollover&ie=UTF-8

Now, this does not mean in any way, that I don't take in to great consideration where we are now, in Iraq and the dire circumstances that are present.... present with or without our forces there....and what it could mean to us....but this is not what we are discussing here, we are discussing whether Iraq was such a wise move and the way it was handled and pushed on to us, again, imo.

jd

[retiredman]

Let me just ask you a simple question:

with North Korea actually having a viable nuclear program...with Iran actually having a viable nuclear program...with AQ still on the loose in the hillsides between Afghanistan and Pakistan....with all those real and present threats to America's security in the post 9/11 world, do you really really honestly think that spending five years, a half a trillion dollars and 31K dead and wounded Americans deposing Saddam Hussein - who was as much of an enemy of islamic extremism as we were - was really the most appropriate way to spend those assets?

Your wife has set the kitchen ablaze with a stove fire....Hell's Angels are trying to beat down your front door to get at your daughter...and you have termites. Bush's answer to that? Time to call Terminex!

[Sir Evil]

IMHO we took our eye off the ball and LET Bin Laden and his followers grow, grow and grow! Why, because Allah was with THEM....and why?

Umm......WHAT?



Because Bin Laden was not caught by us, so God MUST BE on Bin Laden's and Alqaeda's side.... even for the 911 attack, allah was on their side....


Ok make you mind up, is it god or allah?




THIS IS HOW THEY THINK imo.

we blew it, big time, with NOT nailing Bin Ladeni, and catching him quickly, immediately after the 9/11 attack my humble opinion...

Catching Bin Laden would of been nice, would much of changed as far as terrorism? no! Would it please the simple minded into think that a simgle capture proves that we are defeating terrorism worldwide? Probably so.




And this probably happened because we got sidetracted in to a war, that DID NOT HAVE TO take place, because there was no imminent threat from Iraq against the USA, IT WAS a War of choice,,, and timing.... and a war of choice is not a just war and never can be.

http://aolsearch.aol.com/aol/search?encquery=a7236f56f4bd774eca7c27a2b628b18f&invocationType=keyword_rollover&ie=UTF-8

Now, this does not mean in any way, that I don't take in to great consideration where we are now, in Iraq and the dire circumstances that are present.... present with or without our forces there....and what it could mean to us....but this is not what we are discussing here, we are discussing whether Iraq was such a wise move and the way it was handled and pushed on to us, again, imo.

jd


Ok, its not a just war, you said it so it must be so. By god I think these 3 year old reasons have finally won me over. :D

[Sir Evil]

Let me just ask you a simple question:

with North Korea actually having a viable nuclear program...with Iran actually having a viable nuclear program...with AQ still on the loose in the hillsides between Afghanistan and Pakistan....with all those real and present threats to America's security in the post 9/11 world, do you really really honestly think that spending five years, a half a trillion dollars and 31K dead and wounded Americans deposing Saddam Hussein - who was as much of an enemy of islamic extremism as we were - was really the most appropriate way to spend those assets?

Your wife has set the kitchen ablaze with a stove fire....Hell's Angels are trying to beat down your front door to get at your daughter...and you have termites. Bush's answer to that? Time to call Terminex!

Utter brilliance however you forgot to throw in the whole hegemony thing for the desired effect...

[Dilloduck]

[QUOTE=manfrommaine;129458]Let me just ask you a simple question:

do you really really honestly think that spending five years, a half a trillion dollars and 31K dead and wounded Americans deposing Saddam Hussein - who was as much of an enemy of islamic extremism as we were - was really the most appropriate way to spend those assets?
QUOTE]

It's hard to tell--impossible in fact.

[JohnDoe]

Your wife has set the kitchen ablaze with a stove fire....Hell's Angels are trying to beat down your front door to get at your daughter...and you have termites. Bush's answer to that? Time to call Terminex!

yes, utter brilliance!!!

this is how it was imo, too!!!

jd

[Sir Evil]

yes, utter brilliance!!!

this is how it was imo, too!!!

jd

Thats shocking.....:lame2:

[JohnDoe]

Thats shocking.....:lame2:



:wink2:

[Gaffer]

Sir Evil

Let me make this very clear...

I do not and never have, hated President Bush... and you inserting it in to this discussion so to try to diminish my argument is quite.... apparent! :slap:

Yes it goes past the 10 years before we came to the so called rescue, 10 years on the shiites and nearly a couple of decades on the Kurdish genocide...BEFORE Gulf War 1.

Stopping ANY GENOCIDE FROM HAPPENING or continuing to happen, is a JUST CAUSE and if done by battle a Just war, IF the genocide ends and IF you make their lives BETTER THAN it was before the genocide....those are the rules of Just War and we did not in any way shape or form, follow the rules of engagement imo and I truely don't believe there is anything you or Jim could show me that I have not already read, or not already disputed in one form or another or not already whatever'd with it, because I have not and do not take this war lightly.

IMHO we took our eye off the ball and LET Bin Laden and his followers grow, grow and grow! Why, because Allah was with THEM....and why? Because Bin Laden was not caught by us, so God MUST BE on Bin Laden's and Alqaeda's side.... even for the 911 attack, allah was on their side....

THIS IS HOW THEY THINK imo.

we blew it, big time, with NOT nailing Bin Ladeni, and catching him quickly, immediately after the 9/11 attack my humble opinion...

And this probably happened because we got sidetracted in to a war, that DID NOT HAVE TO take place, because there was no imminent threat from Iraq against the USA, IT WAS a War of choice,,, and timing.... and a war of choice is not a just war and never can be.

http://aolsearch.aol.com/aol/search?encquery=a7236f56f4bd774eca7c27a2b628b18f&invocationType=keyword_rollover&ie=UTF-8

Now, this does not mean in any way, that I don't take in to great consideration where we are now, in Iraq and the dire circumstances that are present.... present with or without our forces there....and what it could mean to us....but this is not what we are discussing here, we are discussing whether Iraq was such a wise move and the way it was handled and pushed on to us, again, imo.

jd

bin laden slipped into pakistan in 2002. he was gone long before we ever went into iraq. The operations against AQ are still ongoing and have been since 911. There are operations going all over the world. Nothing has changed or been redirected. iraq is now a part of the over all war. The war with saddam was over long ago. There is a war now to prevent iran and AQ from getting control of iraq. That's what we are doing there now.

we can put 2 million troops in afghanistan and still not get bin laden, because he's NOT there. We will have to go into pakistan to get him. which means an invasion of another country with a ruler that is friendly to us and not a threat. If you think it was bad to go after saddam who all you liberals claim was not a threat, how do you justify invading pakistan? would that be a "just war"?

We are dealing with people that want to use WMD's of every type, including nukes. The best way to handle it is pre-emptiive actions to prevent them from using the weapons they have. Waiting for them to use the weapons and then retaliate is suicide.

[jimnyc]

Stopping ANY GENOCIDE FROM HAPPENING or continuing to happen, is a JUST CAUSE and if done by battle a Just war, IF the genocide ends and IF you make their lives BETTER THAN it was before the genocide....those are the rules of Just War and we did not in any way shape or form, follow the rules of engagement imo and I truely don't believe there is anything you or Jim could show me that I have not already read, or not already disputed in one form or another or not already whatever'd with it, because I have not and do not take this war lightly.

First off, "Just war" has nothing to do with reality and law, it's simply a theory. But since you seem to keep referring to it:


When is a war just by the criteria of just war theory?

Just cause
The reason for going to war needs to be just and can therefore be recapturing things taken or punishing people who have done wrong. A contemporary view of just cause was expressed in 1993 when the US Catholic Conference said: "Force may be used only to correct a grave, public evil, i.e., aggression or massive violation of the basic human rights of whole populations."

Legitimate Authority
Only duly constituted public authorities may use deadly force or wage war

Right intention
Force may be used only in a truly just cause and solely for that purpose—correcting a suffered wrong is considered a right intention, while material gain or maintaining economies is not.

Last resort
Force may be used only after all peaceful and viable alternatives have been seriously tried and exhausted.
And this probably happened because we got sidetracted in to a war, that DID NOT HAVE TO take place, because there was no imminent threat from Iraq against the USA, IT WAS a War of choice,,, and timing.... and a war of choice is not a just war and never can be.Trying to toss in the 'ol "imminent threat" to the USA crap? How about we actually look at what Bush said when he spoke to the nation and used the word "imminent":


Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html

[jimnyc]

BTW, JD, I didn't respond to your portion about Bin Laden and Afghanistan because it his absolutely nothing to do with Iraq, why we went into Iraq & Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

[Psychoblues]

A "Just" War has everything to do with reality and law, jimnyc. And adding to the argument that the "ol imminent threat" is just crap is dishonest at best, my friend.



First off, "Just war" has nothing to do with reality and law, it's simply a theory. But since you seem to keep referring to it:

Trying to toss in the 'ol "imminent threat" to the USA crap? How about we actually look at what Bush said when he spoke to the nation and used the word "imminent":

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html

The truth is that America had every right and obligation to defend against the atrocities committed on 9-11. The other awful truth is that Iraq had NOTHING WHATSOVER to do with it.

The peoples of America have a right to know the truth about why they are sacrificing their children and treasures and the peoples of Iraq have a right to defend the lands, treasures and themselves against any foreign invaders or provacateurs and actual participants of murder and otherwise fratricide taking place within their own society.

It's really not complicated, jimnyc, but somehow I think you are very confused on this issue.

[jimnyc]

A "Just" War has everything to do with reality and law, jimnyc. And adding to the argument that the "ol imminent threat" is just crap is dishonest at best, my friend.

Please show me cited law regarding the "Just law theory".

And it's a FACT that GWB never stated Iraq was an imminent threat to the USA. I believe Fleischer might have said something to that effect AFTER the invasion.


The truth is that America had every right and obligation to defend against the atrocities committed on 9-11. The other awful truth is that Iraq had NOTHING WHATSOVER to do with it.


And that's fine, but nobody is saying Iraq had anything to do with 9/11.


The peoples of America have a right to know the truth about why they are sacrificing their children and treasures and the peoples of Iraq have a right to defend the lands, treasures and themselves against any foreign invaders or provacateurs and actual participants of murder and otherwise fratricide taking place within their own society.

The truth is right there for anyone willing to take the time to read it.


It's really not complicated, jimnyc, but somehow I think you are very confused on this issue.

Not in the slightest bit! :)

[Psychoblues]

I have no idea what you are trying to question in your now "Just law theory?" I never asked any question of it or anything like that. My preponderance was purely consideration of "Just" WAR.



Please show me cited law regarding the "Just law theory".

And it's a FACT that GWB never stated Iraq was an imminent threat to the USA. I believe Fleischer might have said something to that effect AFTER the invasion.
And that's fine, but nobody is saying Iraq had anything to do with 9/11.
The truth is right there for anyone willing to take the time to read it.
Not in the slightest bit! :)

If you are attempting to intimate that gwb and his minions never associated Iraq with 9-11 you are far more ill informed than I ever imagined.

You got your opinion, buddy, and I have mine. I warned you prior to the war not to include the WAR ON IRAQ forum with the WAR ON TERROR forum. You did it anyway. Now, like the shrub and his minions, you have to live with it.

Simply speaking, there is NO credible explanation for it.

[retiredman]

There is a war now to prevent iran and AQ from getting control of iraq. That's what we are doing there now.

we can put 2 million troops in afghanistan and still not get bin laden, because he's NOT there. We will have to go into pakistan to get him. which means an invasion of another country with a ruler that is friendly to us and not a threat. If you think it was bad to go after saddam who all you liberals claim was not a threat, how do you justify invading pakistan? would that be a "just war"?



point one: AQ will NEVER get control of Iraq. The overwhelming shiite majority would NEVER stand for it. And Iran may very well gain enormous influence of Iraq - but that is to be expected when you oust a sunni dictator who had kept that shiite majority completely subjugated. We wouldn't HAVE this problem if we hadn't fucked up and invaded Iraq - which had NO connection to our enemies - instead of keeping our eye on the ball and keeping Al Qaeda as our target.

Point two:

Sending a mobile airborne fighting force into the remote hills of western Pakistan to destroy foreigners using those hills as a hideout might be an "invasion" in the technical sense of the word, but it will cause NONE of the national resistance that our full blown aerial assault of the major population centers of Iraq followed by a full blown invasion with armor and air cav and infantry followed by a full blown occupation of the entire country.

Sending a mobile airborne force to do that mission in Pakistan is absolutely NO different than what Bush did in Afghanistan when he went after AQ and OBL in the first place - except, of course, that we ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan and we wouldn't do anything to oust Musharref. I was totally supportive of that effort and the overwhelming majority of Americans across the political spectrum were as well.

[retiredman]

Utter brilliance however you forgot to throw in the whole hegemony thing for the desired effect...

silly question: do you intend to ever add anyting of substance to this debate or are you content to yap yap yap like some tiny dog whose sole purpose is to annoy - and take up bandwidth?


And if you don't think that Iran has regional aspirations, if you don't think that those aspirations have been improved and heightened by our invasion of Iraq, if you don't think that Iran's stock in the islamic world has not gone up enormously in the wake of our invasion, then you really haven't been following the news.... but, I guess, little yappy dogs don't really follow the news much, do they?

[Psychoblues]

Do you have any idea as to the ignorance of the individual/s you are talking to, mm? I'm not talking about stupidity, mm. Many of these folk are very educated. Their selective facts and historical gerrymandereing are what compel me to less than total respect.




point one: AQ will NEVER get control of Iraq. The overwhelming shiite majority would NEVER stand for it. And Iran may very well gain enormous influence of Iraq - but that is to be expected when you oust a sunni dictator who had kept that shiite majority completely subjugated. We wouldn't HAVE this problem if we hadn't fucked up and invaded Iraq - which had NO connection to our enemies - instead of keeping our eye on the ball and keeping Al Qaeda as our target.

Point two:

Sending a mobile airborne fighting force into the remote hills of western Pakistan to destroy foreigners using those hills as a hideout might be an "invasion" in the technical sense of the word, but it will cause NONE of the national resistance that our full blown aerial assault of the major population centers of Iraq followed by a full blown invasion with armor and air cav and infantry followed by a full blown occupation of the entire country.

Sending a mobile airborne force to do that mission in Pakistan is absolutely NO different than what Bush did in Afghanistan when he went after AQ and OBL in the first place - except, of course, that we ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan and we wouldn't do anything to oust Musharref. I was totally supportive of that effort and the overwhelming majority of Americans across the political spectrum were as well.

I salute you for your fortitude. I'm losing mine.

[Dilloduck]

Do you have any idea as to the ignorance of the individual/s you are talking to, mm? I'm not talking about stupidity, mm. Many of these folk are very educated. Their selective facts and historical gerrymandereing are what compel me to less than total respect.





I salute you for your fortitude. I'm losing mine.

Oh bummer

[Sir Evil]

silly question: do you intend to ever add anyting of substance to this debate or are you content to yap yap yap like some tiny dog whose sole purpose is to annoy - and take up bandwidth?


Yes that is a silly question as you should know by now that I won't give you the time of day in real debating as you are a spineless little worm that will get an attitude when the debating gets to tough. Anyone who refers to a female as a syphilitic c**t when they are beat in debate truly are amongst the scum of society. We have been through this before so I would suggest you put me on your ignore list or live with my silly little comments.



And if you don't think that Iran has regional aspirations, if you don't think that those aspirations have been improved and heightened by our invasion of Iraq, if you don't think that Iran's stock in the islamic world has not gone up enormously in the wake of our invasion, then you really haven't been following the news.... but, I guess, little yappy dogs don't really follow the news much, do they?

Unlike the little homofrommaine I don't sit, and watch the news like its the only thing on television, I don't see polls & statisitcs as the final outcome of something, and above all I don't use or rely on negative outdated arguments to make a point. You use the same shit that has been said three years ago, you beat the dead horse because you have nothing! Now, had we attacked Iran first, you would be the first of the worm parade to be crying about other places that we should of been, you simply throw out the crap you find because of your disliking, hatred or whatever you shitbricks call it because you just can't stand Bush, and the side of the fence that he resides on.....:fu:

[retiredman]

"Yes that is a silly question as you should know by now that I won't give you the time of day in real debating as you are a spineless little worm that will get an attitude when the debating gets to tough. Anyone who refers to a female as a syphilitic c**t when they are beat in debate truly are amongst the scum of society. We have been through this before so I would suggest you put me on your ignore list or live with my silly little comments."

one wonders why you don't just put ME on ignore. Or is putting people on ignore something that yappy little dogs are incapable of doing?

"Unlike manfrommaine I don't sit, and watch the news like its the only thing on television, I don't see polls & statisitcs as the final outcome of something, and above all I don't use or rely on negative outdated arguments to make a point. You use the same shit that has been said three years ago, you beat the dead horse because you have nothing! Now, had we attacked Iran first, you would be the first of the worm parade to be crying about other places that we should of been, you simply throw out the crap you find because of your disliking, hatred or whatever you shitbricks call it because you just can't stand Bush, and the side of the fence that he resides on."

Note first that I edited out your petty little insult. :lame2:

If we had attacked Iran first, I would have definitely been as opposed to that move as I was to attacking Iraq. Our most pressing concern is the elimination and neutralization of the wahabbist islamic extremists that attacked US. They aren't in Iran anymore than they were in Iraq. I would see such an attack as an equally stupid loss of focus... and I would have that opinion regardless of the political party of the CinC stupid enough to do it.

[Sir Evil]

one wonders why you don't just put ME on ignore. Or is putting people on ignore something that yappy little dogs are incapable of doing?


No need to, I left your little sandbox of sniveling, back patting bitches along time ago as I said I would, Like it or not you are in my playhouse now even though I only post once in awhile it will be my pleasure to be the annoying dick that I am. When you have a meltdown because you are at a losing end of a debate again I'll be there for another silly comment, and yeah that sucks because you can't run to the admin with your bullshit stories like you are very capable of.

So yeah, you wont be alone in not liking me or my way of posting but that has no effect on me. I tend to have a little longer leash then most on this forum. :D

:fu:

[retiredman]

No need to, I left your little sandbox of sniveling, back patting bitches along time ago as I said I would, Like it or not you are in my playhouse now even though I only post once in awhile it will be my pleasure to be the annoying dick that I am. When you have a meltdown because you are at a losing end of a debate again I'll be there for another silly comment, and yeah that sucks because you can't run to the admin with your bullshit stories like you are very capable of.

So yeah, you wont be alone in not liking me or my way of posting but that has no effect on me. I tend to have a little longer leash then most on this forum.


"your" playhouse? whatever. And if being an annoying dick and not contributing anything of substance is, in fact, your forte, I will once again lower my expectations for you significantly. However, you will always hold some level of value to me as a humorous diversion, if - apparently - nothing else.

And I can't imagine what having a meltdown because I am on the losing end of a debate with you would be like. And given your irrelevant yappy little dog persona on here, I doubt I will have the opportunity anytime in the future.:laugh2:

the "longer leash" line was a killer!!!:lol:

yap yap

[Sir Evil]

"your" playhouse? whatever. And if being an annoying dick and not contributing anything of substance is, in fact, your forte, I will once again lower my expectations for you significantly. However, you will always hold some level of value to me as a humorous diversion, if - apparently - nothing else.

And I can't imagine what having a meltdown because I am on the losing end of a debate with you would be like. And given your irrelevant yappy little dog persona on here, I doubt I will have the opportunity anytime in the future.:laugh2:

the "longer leash" line was a killer!!!:lol:

yap yap

Humour can be annoying as well but unfortunately you lack it. On the other hand I'm sure JD enjoys it or any of the others from your little click that may be here that I am unaware of.

[retiredman]

Sir Evil.... trust me. You really aren't annoying at all. I kind of enjoy the obsessive attention you seem to pay to my posts....it's kinda like having a pet.:lol:

[Sir Evil]

Sir Evil.... trust me. You really aren't annoying at all. I kind of enjoy the obsessive attention you seem to pay to my posts....it's kinda like having a pet.:lol:

lol, I'm glad you enjoy it. Admittedly I do tend to obsess a bit when it comes to worms like yourself, I try to do my best to expose that side that shows the person you really are but I see you have done pretty good on your own already.
Face it mainecoon, your armchair statisitcs, and rhetorical posting ways does'nt quite go over as well when not amongst your own little world, sooner or later that meltdown will happen, and as I heard you have already had one.

[retiredman]

lol, I'm glad you enjoy it. Admittedly I do tend to obsess a bit when it comes to worms like yourself, I try to do my best to expose that side that shows the person you really are but I see you have done pretty good on your own already.
Face it mainecoon, your armchair statisitcs, and rhetorical posting ways does'nt quite go over as well when not amongst your own little world, sooner or later that meltdown will happen, and as I heard you have already had one.

yap yap yap

my own little yappy dog!

awesome. :laugh2:

armchair statistics? rhetorical postings? I am clueless as to what you mean. Perhaps you have me confused with someone else?



Oh...and by the way...you probably should be aware that what you are trying to do is one thing...what you are actually doing - exposing yourself as an obsessive and irrelevant yappy dog - is another thing altogether.

[Sir Evil]

yap yap yap

my own little yappy dog!

awesome. :laugh2:

armchair statistics? rhetorical postings? I am clueless as to what you mean. Perhaps you have me confused with someone else?



Oh...and by the way...you probably should be aware that what you are trying to do is one thing...what you are actually doing - exposing yourself as an obsessive and irrelevant yappy dog - is another thing altogether.

lol, are you really under the impression that I would care what ones opinion of me here would be? Your sadly mistaken fruity ass! I'm not liked too well here amongst my own as I have already said I have been banned a few times, thats irrelevant to me. Hell I only came around once I saw that your sorry ass was hanging around.

Really, you know it's only so long before you slip up and refer to another decent female member as a "syphilitic C**T", and sow all your real side.

[retiredman]

lol, are you really under the impression that I would care what ones opinion of me here would be? Your sadly mistaken fruity ass! I'm not liked too well here amongst my own as I have already said I have been banned a few times, thats irrelevant to me. Hell I only came around once I saw that your sorry ass was hanging around.

Really, you know it's only so long before you slip up and refer to another decent female member as a "syphilitic C**T", and sow all your real side.

I am sure you don't care...I only tried to point out to you that what you are trying to do and what you actually are doing are two different things. I realize you don't care about the consequences of what you are actually doing...I just wanted you to know that you were NOT doing what you were TRYING to do.

And I really don't know what you are talking about with regard to that asterisked word.

[Sir Evil]

I am sure you don't care...I only tried to point out to you that what you are trying to do and what you actually are doing are two different things. I realize you don't care about the consequences of what you are actually doing...I just wanted you to know that you were NOT doing what you were TRYING to do.

And I really don't know what you are talking about with regard to that asterisked word.


lol, forgot about that meltdown have ya? Hmm, I think that was when you were exposed on one of your stats that you ever so nicely totalled to look like something it was not, when that was pointed out you nice referred to that posts as well, what you seem to of forgotten.

So I'm not accomplishing what I am trying to do? what might that be? I dunno, seems you continue to reply so I feel a bit accomplished.

[retiredman]

like I said before, it is kinda cool having a pet...even a yappy one like you!:lol:

[Sir Evil]

like I said before, it is kinda cool having a pet...even a yappy one like you!:lol:

:laugh2:

Enjoy it because sooner or later your pet is going to shit on your floor, and laugh while it happens. :D

[retiredman]

:laugh2:

Enjoy it because sooner or later your pet is going to shit on your floor, and laugh while it happens. :D

I have two dogs right now.... and every once in a while, if we are late coming home, they shit on the floor.... if I think it is excusable, I just clean it up...no biggie...but if I think it is inexcusable, I take a rolled up newspaper and spank them.

stand by.:lol:

[Sir Evil]

I have two dogs right now.... and every once in a while, if we are late coming home, they shit on the floor.... if I think it is excusable, I just clean it up...no biggie...but if I think it is inexcusable, I take a rolled up newspaper and spank them.

stand by.:lol:


Beating on a animal is something I have no doubt that you do often, but we both know perfectly well that you would'nt be capable of much more than that.

:lame2:

[retiredman]

Beating on a animal is something I have no doubt that you do often, but we both know perfectly well that you would'nt be capable of much more than that.

:lame2:

spanking an animal with a rolled up newspaper is hardly a beating.

and what you know perfectly well is without any factual justification.

in other words, you don't know shit.

but you ARE a cute little obsessive yappy little dog.

go fetch

[Sir Evil]

spanking an animal with a rolled up newspaper is hardly a beating.

and what you know perfectly well is without any factual justification.

in other words, you don't know shit.

but you ARE a cute little obsessive yappy little dog.

go fetch

I know you are spineless, it's also been suggested in your own playground that you are a child molester. As far as factual we both know that you just like to stir those up who you don't agree with, and then you have one of your meltdowns spewing garbage, and insults. You know you are just a little sissy bitch who feels well in control behind the keyboard..

[retiredman]

I know you are spineless, it's also been suggested in your own playground that you are a child molester. As far as factual we both know that you just like to stir those up who you don't agree with, and then you have one of your meltdowns spewing garbage, and insults. You know you are just a little sissy bitch who feels well in control behind the keyboard..

like I said, what you think we both know is really something that is unknowable. YOu have no idea.

and I think it is especially classy of you to defame me because others have done so in the past.

I seem to recall some posts on that previous playground where someone claimed that you were caught having sex with barnyard animals.... is that correct?

[Sir Evil]

like I said, what you think we both know is really something that is unknowable. YOu have no idea.

and I think it is especially classy of you to defame me because others have done so in the past.

I seem to recall some posts on that previous playground where someone claimed that you were caught having sex with barnyard animals.... is that correct?

I dunno, is your momma considered a barnyard animal? :laugh2:

Unkowable? negative, you know that I know that you are a spineless worm.

[retiredman]

I dunno, is your momma considered a barnyard animal? :laugh2:

Unkowable? negative, you know that I know that you are a spineless worm.


uh oh.... bringing family members into the discussion... should not have done that, eh?

and I know that you think I am a spineless worm. and I know that I am not.

kinda like I know that you fuck pigs.

[Sir Evil]

uh oh.... bringing family members into the discussion... should not have done that, eh?

and I know that you think I am a spineless worm. and I know that I am not.

Well that much at least has been established, and unfortuantely I don't ever see there being a way of changing that.



kinda like I know that you fuck pigs.

I kind of answered this one already. :D

[retiredman]

Well that much at least has been established, and unfortuantely I don't ever see there being a way of changing that.



I kind of answered this one already. :D

yeah...I can see that calling 84 year old widows in wheelchairs "pigs" after they, perhaps, are the only human ass you could ever get your hands on without paying for it, is really quite your style.

[retiredman]

you must make crack whores puke

[Sir Evil]

yeah...I can see that calling 84 year old widows in wheelchairs "pigs" after they, perhaps, are the only human ass you could ever get your hands on without paying for it, is really quite your style.

:laugh:

Now now homo, just relax as the smilie was present in my reply unlike the way you refer to female postsers as a syphilitic C**T, afterall it was the very argument that made my decision to leave your little playground of back patters.

[retiredman]

I see....claiming to have fucked my 84 year old mother and calling her a pig is perfectly acceptable as long as a :laugh2: is thrown in.

I see.

[retiredman]

and you know what...I went back to several of the boards where we have met in the past and searched for your syphilitic c**t comment...and I cannot find it anywhere. figment?

[Sir Evil]

and you know what...I went back to several of the boards where we have met in the past and searched for your syphilitic c**t comment...and I cannot find it anywhere. figment?

Ya think so? Hmm, it was something about the way you added the dead soliders & wounded soldiers into one categor in one of your statistical wonder posts, the said poster corrected your misleading way of posting those numbers, and you of course had a meltdown. Short memory due to that lack of spine? More ironic is that the said person happens to belong to this forum as well.

[retiredman]

Ya think so? Hmm, it was something about the way you added the dead soliders & wounded soldiers into one categor in one of your statistical wonder posts, the said poster corrected your misleading way of posting those numbers, and you of course had a meltdown. Short memory due to that lack of spine? More ironic is that the said person happens to belong to this forum as well.

oh calling casualties casualties is misleading?

cas·u·al·ty [kazh-oo-uhl-tee]
–noun, plural -ties.
1. Military. a. a member of the armed forces lost to service through death, wounds, sickness, capture, or because his or her whereabouts or condition cannot be determined.
b. casualties, loss in numerical strength through any cause, as death, wounds, sickness, capture, or desertion.


I guess using words bigger than three letters and less common than those appearing in My Weekly Reader is "misleading" to morons.

[Sir Evil]

oh calling casualties casualties is misleading?

cas·u·al·ty [kazh-oo-uhl-tee]
–noun, plural -ties.
1. Military. a. a member of the armed forces lost to service through death, wounds, sickness, capture, or because his or her whereabouts or condition cannot be determined.
b. casualties, loss in numerical strength through any cause, as death, wounds, sickness, capture, or desertion.


I guess using words bigger than three letters and less common than those appearing in My Weekly Reader is "misleading" to morons.

Yeah I kind of figured you would sidestep your devious words, and go to the stats again. No surprise there that you are even to spinerless to own up to your own vile ways but quick to bring up your trite ways. what a shitbrick!

[retiredman]

using the word casualty to refer to dead and wounded is not misleading. it is the english language. you really should study it sometime.

So if I say that we have suffered 31.5K CASUALTIES in Iraq.... that is only "misleading" to the kind of folks who can't balance their fucking checkbook.

Oh.. and I found the c**t reference.... and you should know that runyon and I patched up our differences a year ago.....

saying that I rejoice at the deaths of americans is just about as offensive to me as someone claiming to have fucked my mother.

[Sir Evil]

using the word casualty to refer to dead and wounded is not misleading. it is the english language. you really should study it sometime.

So if I say that we have suffered 31.5K CASUALTIES in Iraq.... that is only "misleading" to the kind of folks who can't balance their fucking checkbook.

Oh.. and I found the c**t reference.... and you should know that runyon and I patched up our differences a year ago.....

saying that I rejoice at the deaths of americans is just about as offensive to me as someone claiming to have fucked my mother.

:laugh:

Oh you patched that situation all up did ya? Oh geez, that makes you less spineless right? not! Reality is you said what you said when you had a meltdown, apologizing was big of you, being bigger would of been not sating it at all but it's your way of debating.

Seriously the momma thing was a low blow even in the joking context, but I never claimed I did as I never would because you are one goofy looking little sap so I'm guessing it came from somewhere.

[retiredman]

:laugh:


Seriously the momma thing was a low blow even in the joking context.

if you were less of a spineless worm, you wouldn't have brought her into the conversation in the first place. I will never let you forget it.

[Sir Evil]

if you were less of a spineless worm, you wouldn't have brought her into the conversation in the first place. I will never let you forget it.

:lol:

You do that little fella! Remind me as often as you would like as I will take pleasure in that very thought. Funny how those things tend to get under ones skin, guess it sucks to know what you do to others does'nt feels so good when done to you eh coon?

[retiredman]

:lol:

You do that little fella! Remind me as often as you would like as I will take pleasure in that very thought. Funny how those things tend to get under ones skin, guess it sucks to know what you do to others does'nt feels so good when done to you eh coon?

people in glass houses should not throw stones.

you want to bury the year old comment to runyon from another board that SHE and I long ago have talked over and patched up, and I will bury the fact that YOU called my mother a pig and claimed to have fucked her?

Or do you want to keep calling ME a spineless worm?

your call, asshole.

make it quick.

[Sir Evil]

people in glass houses should not throw stones.

you want to bury the year old comment to runyon from another board that SHE and I long ago have talked over and patched up, and I will bury the fact that YOU called my mother a pig and claimed to have fucked her?

Or do you want to keep calling ME a spineless worm?

your call, asshole.

make it quick.

offer gone....not quick enough


:laugh2:

Oh yes sir general statmeister!

Do you really think it matters to me that you patced it up with the said person? You slappy little bastard, I agreed to leave that place because of your little bitch ways, I said I would, and I did! Now you are going to lay out a guidline for me, and demand I quickly answer you? :laugh2:

:fu:

[Psychoblues]

I repeat, mm. I salute you for your fortitude. You have my utmost admiration. At some point, however, you must chalk up the idiots for what they really are and let them relish in their own self imposed ignorance.

[Sir Evil]

I repeat, mm. I salute you for your fortitude. You have my utmost admiration. At some point, however, you must chalk up the idiots for what they really are and let them relish in their own self imposed ignorance.

What was it I was just saying about your convoluted ways Psycho, oh now I see why the ban is imposed on you frequently. This is of a whole different discussion that has nothing for you to be sticking your nose in.

[Gaffer]

What was it I was just saying about your convoluted ways Psycho, oh now I see why the ban is imposed on you frequently. This is of a whole different discussion that has nothing for you to be sticking your nose in.

Love the avatar. Choked on my pop as I saw it as I was taking a drink.

[Sir Evil]

Love the avatar. Choked on my pop as I saw it as I was taking a drink.

:laugh2:

Pee Wee on his big adventure!

[Yurt]

I still have yet to see anyone prove the police action in Iraq cannot be won. The war is over. Go look up german and japan history.

[retiredman]

I still have yet to see anyone prove the police action in Iraq cannot be won. The war is over. Go look up german and japan history.


I do not see anything in german or japanese history where two major population segments have been at each other's throats for a millenium.