WOW! Just when I thought the Bush administration couldn't get any lower...
- Thread starter pinelandpaddler
- Start date
They're fighting us because we're in their country. Do you really think that we'd be welcomed as liberators? Saddam was the only thing holding that country back from civil war.
Here are the two reasons why Islamic facists hate America:
1. American troops left in Saudia Arabia after the Gulf War. Saudi Arabia is pretty much the holiest place in Islam. Most Muslims see it as an affront to have foreign troops stationed there. (Now, my opinion is that Saudi Arabia wanted those troops there, and that the problem really should be taken up with them.)
2. Our steadfast support of Israel. This is one thing that I don't get. Why do we give so much support (militarily) to Israel? It's not like the USA gets anything out of it. How do you think the Muslim world feels when so many Palestinians are holed up in refugee camps and killed by weapons financed largely by American money?
I get the feeling that people who are opposed to another person's argument don't even read the statement they're supposed to be responding to sometimes, so I'd like to try and bring this thing together.
King, yes, thank you for pointing out that Islamic terrorism exists. No one denied that it did, and no one denied that it was a threat. Democrat or Republican, no one on this forum denies that terrorism needs to be stopped, we just have different ways of going about it. The Bush Administration's "Bull in a China shop" approach just isn't working. It has had an interesting effect though. When is it going to become evident that we are NOT GETTING ANYWHERE IN IRAQ??? We all want the war won, we want it won soon, and some of us can admit to ourselves that the Bush Administration isn't capable of it.
Bush and Cheney's style of top down brow beating leadership just isn't effective. When some CIA analyst at the bottom says "Well these are the facts I've collected and it is what it is," someone a great deal of pay grades higher says "That's not what we were hoping for so keeping looking at it until it looks like what we want it to." It's kind of like one of those psychological experiments where there are two lines drawn on a chalkboard that are clearly different lengths. The teacher and all the students (except one) are in on the experiment and all agree that the two lines are the same. They keep doing this until the one student who is unaware that he's being duped is pressured into agreeing in order to conform.
Let's face it, this country is ready for a change and that is going to show on November 8th, plain and simple. The Democrats whose hands are clean with regards to this war are going to take back the House and the Senate, and things will slowly start to change. Hopefully Rumsfeld will see the writing on the wall and resign and we'll get a real grunt in there who knows how to prosecute a war. In two years we'll have a new President who'll have a smart cabinet that he'll actually listen to, and we'll win this thing and pull out of it on top.
When I say pull out I don't mean stick our heads in the sand either. Is anyone here familiar with Delta Force, the Navy SEALS, and the SAS? These are the guys who need to be fighting terrorism, not entire divisions of infantry. I want to see terrorists being killed in their own beds while they're asleep by assassin teams, not while they're driving a truck bomb into a checkpoint loaded with U.S. soldiers. From September 12th, 2001 we could have been taking Al quaeda apart piece by piece the a surgeon excises a malignant tumor from a cancer patient. Instead, Bush just decided to shoot the cancer patient to kill the cancer.
King, yes, thank you for pointing out that Islamic terrorism exists. No one denied that it did, and no one denied that it was a threat. Democrat or Republican, no one on this forum denies that terrorism needs to be stopped, we just have different ways of going about it. The Bush Administration's "Bull in a China shop" approach just isn't working. It has had an interesting effect though. When is it going to become evident that we are NOT GETTING ANYWHERE IN IRAQ??? We all want the war won, we want it won soon, and some of us can admit to ourselves that the Bush Administration isn't capable of it.
Bush and Cheney's style of top down brow beating leadership just isn't effective. When some CIA analyst at the bottom says "Well these are the facts I've collected and it is what it is," someone a great deal of pay grades higher says "That's not what we were hoping for so keeping looking at it until it looks like what we want it to." It's kind of like one of those psychological experiments where there are two lines drawn on a chalkboard that are clearly different lengths. The teacher and all the students (except one) are in on the experiment and all agree that the two lines are the same. They keep doing this until the one student who is unaware that he's being duped is pressured into agreeing in order to conform.
Let's face it, this country is ready for a change and that is going to show on November 8th, plain and simple. The Democrats whose hands are clean with regards to this war are going to take back the House and the Senate, and things will slowly start to change. Hopefully Rumsfeld will see the writing on the wall and resign and we'll get a real grunt in there who knows how to prosecute a war. In two years we'll have a new President who'll have a smart cabinet that he'll actually listen to, and we'll win this thing and pull out of it on top.
When I say pull out I don't mean stick our heads in the sand either. Is anyone here familiar with Delta Force, the Navy SEALS, and the SAS? These are the guys who need to be fighting terrorism, not entire divisions of infantry. I want to see terrorists being killed in their own beds while they're asleep by assassin teams, not while they're driving a truck bomb into a checkpoint loaded with U.S. soldiers. From September 12th, 2001 we could have been taking Al quaeda apart piece by piece the a surgeon excises a malignant tumor from a cancer patient. Instead, Bush just decided to shoot the cancer patient to kill the cancer.
Badfish wrote:
Same here.
Knock on wood.
Nery nicely put. You've got a good head on yer' shoulders, Badfish.
Same here.
Knock on wood.
Nery nicely put. You've got a good head on yer' shoulders, Badfish.
Nobody from this country can win that war.
There is no way that we can win the hearts & minds of the Iraqi's. There is just too much festering hate. Hate for Americans, hate for Shi'ites, hate for Sunni's. The only way that Iraq will become stable is for someone to come in and lay the law down. And that means pretty much setting up an oppressive regime. Nobody in America is going to back that.
Now, if the USA had any sort of equity in the hearts and minds of the Iraqi's, it would go a long way to build new infrastructure, get people working again, and provide something for these people to live for. But in the current cloud of violence, and the current situation of foreign fighters coming in to cause trouble, it won't happen.
Look at Dubai. There is a country in which the majority of the population is free, and well off. It's essentially California in the Middle East. You never hear of any Dubai terrorists. Why? Because they have better things to do than blow themselves up. That's what Iraq needs to become.
Will it happen in my lifetime? Probably not.
Ben, what you say is sad......but true.
This country needs a radical change in policy towards Iraq and that region in general.
This country needs a radical change in policy towards Iraq and that region in general.
I saw an interesting explanation the other day on why economics could go a long way on helping Iraq stabilize. What the US essentially did was pour OUR money into large US corporations to create rebuilding contracts in IRAQ. A lot of the money was stolen or used badly; very badly.
Instead, one economist suggested (essentially) that we create manual jobs rebuilding the infrastructure; dig ditches, make crop fields, simple houses, etc. Pay the workers well at the end of each day, but only if they work hard. Result: They go buy thier family food and start to get a sense of worth. And most of all, if someone asks them to come learn to make a bomb, they say.."Naw, I'm too tired. I'm staying home and watching TV. I gotta get up in the morning".
HA!
This thread has strayed too far from the original post. If someone wants to discuss why a strategy of pulling our troops will win the war or why Israel is not an important ally, they should start another thread. It's fine to enter the arena of ideas but it helps tremendously to be armed with facts and not hysteria. Just trying to help with the new political forum. And yes I'm aware that politics is after all 90% opinion. And I am not a lapdog for GWB. In fact I am so conservative I make him look like a new dealer.