News-Record.com

Ms. Jones:

Some of "Our people" have used God to rationalizing the teaching force and rule though hatred (John Brown Abolitionist stands out, as does Pope Urban ii, the first of several infallibles who sent Christians to retake Jerusalem from the Muslims .. as the People shouted "God wills it".

so watch the self righteousness, please.

There are modern stories of Iraqi on Iraqi battle where tens of tousands of rounds are soent - with few if any wounds on either side. Why? Because the Muslim battlers don't aim - they literally let Allah direct the bullet. Asked why they say "It will be Allahs's Will".

That is a true story to suggest that while President Bush may seek guidance through prayer - fine - he should have listened to his Generals more than Karl Rove and Chicken Hawk Polticians.

If he remains gracious through it all - it's because his own kids - and most if not all he personally knows - are excempt from the line of Duty. That line in the Moore movie where only one Congressman had a kid in the service .. was true.

.. naaa he's into saving his legacy, Babe.

Think about why it was "Stay the Course" until AFTER the elections - then things changed rapidly?

==

No if I were an Insurgent Leader - I'd lay low for a couple years, let things cool down while I restocked, let what ever weak-"coalition"-government get started - then adter America declared victory and left - letting YOU re-elect another limp-wristed chicken hark President .. then I'd call the troops out of hiding and in about 3 weeks I'd have Iraq in the hands of ALLAH - oil and all ...

... as I declared "WE CONCOURED THE STUPID AMERICANS AS ALLAH WILLED"

At this point, America is tired of it, and we let 'em have it.

btw Neo - as a pre-eptive strike to your typical "stupid dem's" post ... folks like Ms. Jones listening to your kind of mindless rhetoric has put us in this pickle jar. The changes now being made are three years too late.

Ultimately - at this point I think I'll unfortuantely be shown right .. they're either gonna back off - and in three years Iraq will be theirs, or they'll just keep slugging it out Iraq will be theirs.

Thank you SO MUCH for your empty head.

cRock-o-...feller, Iraq became "theirs" last November with the election of the 'redeploy' democrats. "They" have already won. Time to bring em home and try our best to anticipate where and when (not if) they will strike next. It's coming, and when it does you and your groupies will lay the blame at Bush's feet, regardless of when it happens because he has made all those enemies, and if he had just passed out friggin water pumps instead of killing the bastards, they would all love us by now and all our military would have to do is dig them wells and plant flowers, right?

Now you can post about 5 more in a row, complete with a dozen npr and wikipedia links to bluster your argument of why the Bush twins are not in Iraq if that turns your crank. Makes little difference to me, but that is a pitiful argument and you know it.

Cue here for Cap'n Planet and the world traveler to insert their nose up your a** and jump on your wagon. This makes no difference to me either.

Ms. Jones's expressed thoughts are typical of those who parrot what they have heard from the pulpit of a Bush-backing "man of God". One of those who assumes to know the position of all our soldiers on this issue because God told them. One of those who are "reality challanged" in several ways.

I have a precious daughter-in-law who listens to and repeats as total truth what her preacher spouts from the pulpit. And he preaches hatred of Muslims and sings the praises of Bush. He uses scare tactics like his hero to try to influence people's emotions.

Seems Ms. Jones is upset that folks challanged her first RC ltte. Pitiful, really.

We can agree to disagree Meow.

The war was lost in 2003 when we went in with a pretend "Coallition Force" - proven by the rapid exit by both the UN and Red Cross - remember that? Where was the concern then?

The war was lost in 2004 when you were whining about the negativity generated by the lame stream media - when they were really just calling it as they saw it.

The war was lost in 2004 when the chosen one, Chalabi, was roundly rejected by "his own people" Where was your check on reality then?

The war was lost in 2005 when the insurgents kept gaining strength and you were boasting about how the we finally had "Leaders with balls" - and that's probably a direct quote, Rambo.

The war was lost in 2005 when we backed off the al-sadyr mosque - at the urging of the newly elected Iraqi Governement that was ... surprise surprise .. in bed with al-sadyr. Where was your concern then?

The war was finally lost in 2006 when the golden dome collapsed due to well placed explosives - and still we heard "stay the course".

Now all of a sudden it's someone else's fault - Mr. Accountabilty? Screw you.

James,
Again, arguing with a brick wall, expecting a different result has brought you back to square one. If blaming the "liberals" for all the world's ills would bring about world peace, meow would have been in Stockholm last year to accept the Nobel Prize. Such a pity that one person can be so inconsequential in public debate.

Many folks, much of the time, see through "the end justifies the means" Machiavellian excuses. "The means justify the end" which is the gist of Ms Jones's LTE, is no less false. Were Ms Jones reasoning accurate, then mankind has never fought a war that wasn't fully justified on both (all) sides, and it's easy enough to see that this would be a foolish claim.
No amount of bravery, sacrifice, honor, or whatever else soldierly values can justify a war instigated on lies and aggression and fought for uncertain and constantly changing ends. The end, the justification, must be legitimate and just, true and valid, morally, politically, and economically sound, in and of itself. If not, no means can save it, and not even victory will wash away the stains we pick up in its pursuit.
Ms Jones says that Smarmy the Clown is gacious without barbing back at critics, but she has no hesitation in saying that we sabotage, demean, and betray, and truth be told, Smarmy was the first to jump into the blame game by name-calling - questioning the loyalty and patriotism of opponents. If he has done any less of it recently, it is only because he can't compete with his vice presidential puppeteer in this regard. Smarmy has never shown grace or honor, competence or intelligence. If he is a religious person, he and I understand the word differently.
In hoc signo vinces, Dieu et mon droit, Gott mit uns, In God We Trust, and spirit blessed shirts have all proven equally effective at stopping enemy spears and bullets. They all have conferred equally atrocious moral values on those who bore them into battle. Whether patriotism is the first or last resort of a scoundrel, invoking divine favor is bound to worm into the mix somewhere. When the ranks are full, all gods are war gods; when empty, everyone prays for love until they fill again.
The current struggle can't be one of civilizations. Both sides are about as ignorant of what is great in their civilizations as it's possible to be. Muslims gave up on human achievement five centuries ago, and we Americans throw our heritage away to wallow in reality tv, pop artist entertainers, potboiler novelists, and Ann Coulter.
If there is a war to preserve Western Civilization, it needs to be fought right here in the US, starting with our own fundamentalists and political and social reactionaries.
If there is anyone whose efforts we should thank, it's the Europeans who are trying to continue what is great about Western Civilization, and the Asians who have at least preserved most of its trappings.

We went into Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein and neutralize his army and his alleged weapons of mass destruction. Our armed forces won the war in less than a month. They won the war. We lost the peace.

Shortly after we declared "Mission Accomplished", civil insurrection erupted in Iraq. We didn't anticipate that. We also didn't realize what kind of scale that insurrection would take. We didn't realize we were shaking the hornets' nest of an ancient blood war that had nothing to do with the war on terror.

We have removed the fetters from opposing sides in an ancient civil war, and we are right in the middle of it. This civil war truly has nothing to do with the War on Terror, except to incite people to hate us for our intervention. It is a religious conflict that predates the establishment of the nation of Iraq itself by about 1300 years.

Sunnis and Shiites share the same religion. Their debate, for which so many of them are prepared to die and take out as many others as they can in the process, is nearly impossible for Westerners to rationalize, including Elizabeth Jones from Greensboro. Sunnis and Shiites believe in the same God, believe in the same Prophet and believe in the same 4 successors, or "Caliphs" who followed the prophet Mohammed. What Sunnis and Shiites have been fighting over- for centuries- is the line of succession leading from the 4th Caliph.

Shiites believe there was no proper Caliph after the 4th until the arrival of Ayatollah Khomeini in the 1970s. Sunnis believe the line of succession was unbroken until terminated by Western powers with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the final Caliphate, in 1922, and they are particularly aggrieved by the supposedly arrogant terms of The Treaty of Sevres, inposed by the victorious Western allies after World War, which broke up that last Caliphate.

Osama bin Laden, a Sunni, consistently refers to the date of that treaty, 1920, as the basis for his retaliation against the West. Ironically, bin Laden sees Shiites as heretics.

We are smack dab in the middle of an age-old conflict whose only resemblance to the war on terror comes in the form of dead American and Arab bodies. Yes, al-Qaida is in Iraq. They are there because we are there. If we leave Iraq, they will follow us. They will have no choice but to leave Iraq, because Iraqis don't like foreigners and Iraqis will not live in al-Qaidistan. Support for al-Qaida in Iraq will dry up when we leave.

Where will they go? Mostly likely, Afghanistan. Afghanistan is where the war on terror is being fought. It's not being fought in Iraq.

The Taliban are in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden is most likely in neighboring Pakistan, assuming he's still alive. The men who flew into the World Trade Center in 2001 were all from Saudi Arabia.

"Iraqis who bow to Allah" had nothing to do with September 11th.

A few quibbles about the 1918 - 1922 period aside - don't forget Kamal Attaturk, very good letter, Pragmatist. IMHO, you're pretty much on the spot in analysis and conclusions.

Prag,

Very intelligent, well thought-out post. What is your solution for dealing with Iraq now?

Do you think we keep troops in Afghanistan?

If God looks down upon Bush favorably, then I definitely don't want to serve that unjust, war-mongering deity.

Bush is responsible for this war.

Hey guys...what do you think about the video proof that wtc tower 7 i believe? was reported collapsed over 20 minutes before it actually happened?

what do you think about the wtc towers collapsing. 1st time in history steel towers have collapsed from fire.

hmmmm.....

Brian, your question isn't too clear, but this has been gone over and over again. The burning jet fuel and contents did reach a temperature high enough to weaken (didn't have to melt) the corner and interior steel support members. The floors of the WTC were concrete, and subsequent lower floors were not stressed to support the additional weight of an upper floor (let alone several) falling down. Once one floor collapsed, the whole thing had nowhere to go but down, as the weight kept accumulating.
The sad thing is that no one seems to have realized this possibility beforehand, so people were told by some authorities/bosses to stay in place. The only hope for the people above the impact points were the helo pads, and the fires made using those incredibly dangerous.
The survivors owe a lot to the brave firemen and public safety people who went in to help them out, regardless of their knowledge of what might happen.
The positive thing that I'll always remember about the WTC is the grass and weeds that grew in the small patches of dust and grit on the very top. Life grows wherever it has a chance, we just need to make more chances.

I do think we should stay in Afghanistan, at least in the near future. Hamid Karzai is more a man of the people of that region. I say, "region", because in the Middle East, here's the pecking order on people's allegiance:

Religion first
Tribe/Race/Region second
Nation last

I also think the issue in Iraq has more to do with the mortal fear of a Shiite alliance with Iran than "losing the war on terror". President Bush knows the war on terror can't be won solely in Iraq. You can kill some al-Qaida, but al-Qaida is in countries we're not even engaging and they're having a free rein while we exhaust ourselves on Iraq.

Even if you stabilized Iraq, you'd have to continue to police it, plus you'd then have to focus on Islamic fundamentalism in other hot spots, from Pakistan to Somalia to Chechnya to Bali. Iraq is not the end all, be all of the war on terror. What the President is concerned about is pulling out of Iraq and leaving it to a Shiite government takeover, even a secular one.

From that point of view, I can see why we stay in Iraq. We are afraid of the future formation of a Shiite Muslim alliance between Iraq and their ancient rivals, Iran. The two countries could dominate the Middle East, pinch the Persian Gulf to a trickle and continually threaten Israel and the West. If Ahmadinejad gets the bomb, we would have to deal with the daily threat of a global holocaust and we would have to battle Middle Eastern fear and Islamic sensibilities to retain the strategic assets and markets we need from the region. We'd go a-begging to Arab states, out of their fear of their own people and retaliation from Iran and Iraq.

We don't know how to get out of this, yet. We have propped up a government we know will fall the moment we leave. But, the problem is, ANY government we prop up will fall the moment we leave. So we're in a holding pattern, known as the "war in Iraq".

In this administration's thinking, the status quo is better than the certainty of Iraq's evolving into a majority Shiite oligarchy and linking arms with the radical Shiite government in Iran. That would be an unholy alliance in every sense of the word. But the current administration is disingenuine when they say we must remain in Iraq to 'win the war on terror'.

But I think the proper course to peace is a gradual pullback from Iraq with an improved strength in Afghanistan. A one-front war on terror with the continued threat of reinvasion from a force already established in the region would serve our purposes better than being in the middle of a civil war and pretending we are fighting a war on terror we cannot win in that country alone.

And that's not being disloyal to our armed forces. They won the war. We are now asking them to win a peace they cannot win in Iraq, and that is being disloyal to them.

*****

Remaining in Afghanistan would serve two purposes: continuing the real war on terror and maintaining a steady US military presence in the area, not solely dependent on bases in Saudi, Kuwait or Turkey. But, it would be a long-term, ugly battle with the only clear-cut path to victory dependent entirely on Karzai and the Northern Alliance. And we'd be constantly at odds with the only proven, powerful source of hard currency in their nation: opium production.

thoughful posts, Prag.

Every time I hear someone from Iraq speak - no matter what - they blame "The Americans" for EVERYTHING. Figuratively - and perhaps literally - we can't win.

I've not heard that so much in Afgan' - possibly because it is more truely splintered an warlorded - the regional tribe thing you mentioned.

"kurdistan". thats all.

you're right, little beanie .. the Kurds have it together - of course that makes Turkey nervous - but still a model for the middle east .. and that's no sarcasm.

Liz,

It is not the opponents of the war who are sabotaging the brave efforts of our troops. Nor is it the opponents of the war who are causing our heroes to die in vain. Rather, it is the people who started this war based on lies, who have never served their country in combat, and who have never made the heroic sacrifices made by the young men fighting this war. They have sent our soldiers needlessly into harms way, destroying men and families by the thousands. As you recommend, we should listen to the people in the war zones, not the generals, but the soldiers doing the fighting. Many, more each day, question why we are there and what we are accomplishing.

What exactly are your expectations for coming home victorious? What in your mind constitutes victory? Do you think we will leave a democracy? Do you think there will be an end to the killing? Apparently, you have no interest in saving the Iraqi “soil and people.” After all, in your words “Iraq bows to Allah, teaching force, hatred, suicide – wanting to rule us and the world.” Why would you want US soldiers to fight and die for such people? This is definitely not about saving “our country’s soil and people.” In fact, this war has seriously distracted from our efforts toward fighting terrorists threats against the US.

You say George Bush is a Christian. This should be judged by his actions, not his self-righteous proclamations. As for his graciousness and lack of self-indulgence, again his actions speak for themselves. If George Bush is your idea of a man of faith, God save us from Christians.

"It is not the opponents of the war who are sabotaging the brave efforts of our troops. Nor is it the opponents of the war who are causing our heroes to die in vain. Rather, it is the people who started this war based on lies, who have never served their country in combat, and who have never made the heroic sacrifices made by the young men fighting this war."

How true, how true. Great points made, LastVOR. Please keep posting here.

"Rather, it is the people who started this war based on lies, who have never served their country in combat, and who have never made the heroic sacrifices made by the young men fighting this war."

Ah yes, the old chickenhawk argument.

I'm amazed that any of the Usual Suspects actually still use that overworked, unsupported slimeball argument.

But then again, our very own Usual Suspects right here are a predictable breed, indeed.

If you don't believe it, just read the responses.

They never change.

overworked, maybe - but definitely supportable

C'mon James. You know it was Clinton, the liberal media, and the environmentalists.

" President Bush is a man of faith — a Christian. He seeks guidance through prayer, also seeking prayer from clergy and their guidance"

Yes, President Bush's war in Iraq IS a "faith based initiative".

Prag for President!

Seriously, Your last few comments on Iraq were very succinct and better than anything I've heard out of the administration or democrats in YEARS.

Face it Nit, ANYTHING you hear is better than what is heard from the administration. ANYTHING.

STAY THE COURSE, STAY THE COURSE, STAY THE COURSE, STAY THE COURSE, STAY THE COURSE, STAY THE COURSE, STAY THE COURSE....E-L-E-C-T-I-O-N....

....CHANGE THE COURSE, CHANGE THE COURSE, CHANGE THE COURSE.....

Wake me when Bush/Cheney leave office....zzzzzzz