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Post by bernardjenkins on May 4, 2007 13:12:49 GMT -5
When the senator made this proclamation what trouble do you believe he caused? The war in Iraq "is lost" and a US troop surge is failing to bring peace to the country, the leader of the Democratic majority in the US Congress, Harry Reid, said Thursday. "I believe ... that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week," Reid told journalists.
Senator Schumer on Fox said."this war is not lost and Harry Reid knows this" Well that is not what the senator said. Senator Levin said that they would never defund the war. Are they sending a confusing, bewildered message to everyone?
David Broder from the Washington Post hammered Reid for this comment and just recently 50 senators sent a letter to the Washington Post supporting their leader.
Since making that comment has Reid sent a message to our enemy that he is on their side and does he own the number of deaths of American troops since that comment?
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Post by voxpopuli on May 4, 2007 13:17:20 GMT -5
What is your question?
Have you ever heard of coherent grammar? How about proper use of punctuation? Or maybe even the actual quote from Sen. Reid that is nowhere to be found in your post?
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Post by bernardjenkins on May 4, 2007 13:28:34 GMT -5
good point VP I did leave the question out.
tks for bringing it to my attention
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Post by gridbug on May 4, 2007 13:42:22 GMT -5
The message sent to the enemy is that we have freedom of speech and can disagree without blowing each other up.
We can't have that, can we?
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Post by traveler on May 4, 2007 13:57:41 GMT -5
That is very naive, Gridbug.
It sends a very clear message that the Congressional leadership of this country expects and predicts defeat. It says that we, as a country, do not have the courage nor the will to win a war. It sends a message to our troops that the folks back home, contrary to their rhetoric, really do not support their efforts on the ground. It sends a message to our Generals that, despite no military experience, a Senator from Nevada and a House member from San Francisco, want to dictate miltary strategy and tactics. Most importantly, it sends a message to our enemies across the globe that all they have to do now is wait because the U.S. Congressional Leadership is about to win the war for them.
Those are the messages being conveyed.
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Post by bernardjenkins on May 4, 2007 14:15:41 GMT -5
I think that it also sends a long term message as well. The black hawk event sent a message and now this one. The enemy just has to wait us out because America no longer has a backbone for victory. Once troops are sent into harms way, get the media to turn on the military, the Democratic party will follow and defeat will be the next step.
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Post by gridbug on May 4, 2007 14:36:47 GMT -5
Naive is expecting americans to agree on anything ROFL ;D
edited to add
To get this 'message' they would have to watch our news. Do you think there is a chance they would see even one story on which americans would agree unilaterally? For that 'message' to be taken the way you suggest it would have to be taken so far out of context they may as well have made up their own message.
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Post by Gary on May 4, 2007 14:51:29 GMT -5
It sends a very clear message that the Congressional leadership of this country expects and predicts defeat.
That's the GOP party line, hook and sinker. However, I think it is disigenious at best to believe that there has been even a remote chance of "victory" in Iraq for several years.
This is not about "defeat" it's about having the common sense to stop wasting American lives and billions of dollars staying in the middle of a three-sided civil war where all three sides can only agree on one thing - killing us.
Continually couching the debate as one of "defeat" is a great disservice to the American public and I really wish those keep repeating this broken and dishonest mantra would stop.
And what really annoys me is that when a group of politicians want to remove American troops from harm, they are labelled as being "anti-American" and "against the troops."
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Post by traveler on May 4, 2007 15:12:50 GMT -5
It may be annoying but facts are facts. And it is about defeat. Harry Reid has already announced it.
Call it a party line if you want. I call it the truth.
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Post by bernardjenkins on May 4, 2007 15:29:16 GMT -5
we faced this same issue in southeast asia when the politicians got involved and we saw the results. if it is time to bring our men and women home than make the call but do not pussyfoot around. this may be a worn out comment but somethings changed after 9/11 and it would wrong to go back to a 9/10 way of life. even after we bring our brave soldiers home we will still have issues in the mid-east. we have a bunch of folks who want to kill us even after we leave the mid-east and this might be worn out as well but it might be best to deal with them there than here. but deal with them we must.
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Post by daworm on May 4, 2007 16:11:36 GMT -5
First, two sided at best. Last I heard, the Kurds are doing their best not to annoy anyone, Shiite, Sunni or American.
Second, you can call it a civil war if you want to. You have several thousand radical militant Sunnis and several thousand radical militant Shiites, who instead of fighting each other (like would happen in a true civil war) go around blowing up and kidnapping civilians and dumping their bodies in alleys and canals, lobbing the occasional grenade over the grenade over the green zone wall, and planting bombs on roads. This out of millions of citizens. Think of trying to get the Bloods and Crips out of LA, and you'll have some idea of just how hard it is to get rid of these militants. But Bloods versus Crips doesn't mean LA is in the middle of a civil war any more than Iraq is. Oh, its a nice juicy term to bandy about, bringing up images of thousands upon thousands dead at Antietam or Gettysburg, but civil war is hardly the correct term for it.
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Post by Gary on May 4, 2007 16:39:12 GMT -5
Actually I think civil war is a very appropriate term, as what is at the heart of the violence amongst the several groups is control over more than just territory, but religious dominance. The gangs in LA aren't interested in religion, whereas the combantants in Iraq are very much interested in that as well as territorial control.
Oh, and Traveler, a reply of "facts are facts" when those "facts" have been challenged is not a response. C'mon, you can do better than that. I do not accept what your party is claiming as fact to be so, and presented my reasoning. Where is your reasoning defending your facts? Claiming that they are such simply does not cut it.
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Post by traveler on May 4, 2007 17:11:31 GMT -5
No problem Gary. I just don't accept your reasoning.
The facts I am referring to is the current politicization of the war in Congress and the proclamation of defeat by Sen. Reid. This is not partisan positioning. This is simply reality.
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Post by legaltender on May 4, 2007 18:16:08 GMT -5
Reid isn't responsible for "politicization of the war." Might as well blame Jon Stewart. It is what oppositions are conditioned to do.
Tom DeLay, future House Majority Leader, in 1999:
"You can support the troops and not the President. I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. There is no agenda to bolster our overextended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today."
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Dreamwebber
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Post by Dreamwebber on May 4, 2007 18:59:32 GMT -5
Not to play tit for tat because I don't believe two wrongs make a write but, since you said that.....how do you defend when Tom Delay said in 1999 on the house floor... "I cannot support a failed foreign policy. ? President Clinton has never explained to the American people why he was involving the US military in a civil war in a sovereign nation, other than to say it is for humanitarian reasons, a new military-foreign policy precedent. Was it worth it to stay in Vietnam to save face? What good has been accomplished so far? Absolutely nothing." - Tom DeLay on the House floor in April 1999, when US troops were a month into their three-month mission in Kosovo. In fact, here are a few things the Republicans had to say about the military under Clinton www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1445
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Post by bernardjenkins on May 4, 2007 19:42:50 GMT -5
i think the difference is in this case congress o.k.'d the use of force in Iraq. also some might say that Mr Clinton used the military to wag the dog if you will to draw attention away from his issues.
"Less than a month after the movie was released, President Bill Clinton was embroiled in a sex scandal arising from his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Over the course of 1998 and early 1999, as the scandal dominated American politics, the US engaged in three military options: Operation Desert Fox, a three-day bombing campaign in Iraq that took place as the U.S. House of Representatives debated articles of impeachment against Clinton; Operation Infinite Reach, a pair of missile strikes against suspected terrorist targets in Sudan and Afghanistan just three days after Clinton admitted in a nationally televised address that he had an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky; and Operation Allied Force, a 78-day-long NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia that began just weeks after Clinton was acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial."
so there is some differences.
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Post by legaltender on May 4, 2007 21:01:25 GMT -5
No. The difference is the European Union, U.N. and Nato all ok'd the use of force in Serbia. www.nato.int/kosovo/docu/u990610a.htmAnd the same year, in a speech at the Citadel, then-candidate George W. Bush spoke of orderly exits and declared permanent peacekeeping is not our job: "Sending our military on vague, aimless, and endless deployments is the swift solvent of morale. ... I will work hard to find political solutions that allow an orderly and timely withdrawal from places like Kosovo and Bosnia. We will encourage our allies to take a broader role. We will not be hasty. But we will not be permanent peacekeepers, dividing warring parties. This is not our strength or our calling."
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Post by daworm on May 7, 2007 8:19:15 GMT -5
I don't follow this at all. I can't see how one leads to another here. That there are zealots seeking power, whether it be political or religious or both, I don't deny, but I don't see how what they are doing can be described as a civil war. If left unchecked, what they are doing could lead to a civil war, I suppose, but so far they haven't been left unchecked. Sen. Reid doesn't seem to have a problem leaving them that way, though.
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Post by plasticone on May 7, 2007 23:38:50 GMT -5
Prior to the initiation of the war with Iraq, we had built up so much troop strength in the area to apply pressure on Saddam to comply with the UN Resolutions that when he still declined to do so and the UN refused to escalate the pressure, we were put in a very uncomfortable situation. If we had withdrawn the troops, it would have looked as though Saddam had stared us down and won. So we charged forward without the blessing of all the parties. We won the war in short order, Saddam was toppled and we were in charge.
However, when the Iraqis did not formally surrender and lay down their arms, but rather melted back into the population, we were in for some serious trouble.
Not being able to distinguish friend from foe, our troops were left fully exposed to snipers firing from the cover of civilian populations. As the success of these sniper attacks continued to increase, the frequency and boldness of the attacks increased. They also learned that if they attacked their own citizens, they could frighten them into remaining silent when questioned about the identity of the snipers and bombers.
This situation has continued to grow, nurtured by the inability to recruit the general population to assist in identifying and thereby eliminating the snipers and bombers.
I don't believe there is any short term solution to resolve the situation. Long term, we may be able to eventually identify and eliminate the individuals responsible for these daily mass killings, but then again, it may be just a matter of the one who has the strongest will to succeed will succeed.
Given the current mood in America, it certainly appears we are not the ones with the strongest will to succeed.
So perhaps it is now time to Surrender With Dignity. To lay down our arms and admit we have been beaten. Maybe then the world will not view us a such a super power and we will not be the constant target of their anger and violence.
True, it may take several years for their anger toward us to subside, and they may attack us again a few times during that period, but if we are resilient and do not counter attack, their anger toward us will eventually subside and we will be at peace.
We should not put our military in harms way. They did not enlist in our armed services to die, they enlisted in our armed services to show their support for our country. They enlisted in our armed services to learn new skills that could be utilized in a more productive civilian life. They enlisted so that they could earn a college degree. We should not expect them to risk everything to achieve the few benefits provided by a military enlistment.
We don't expect our firefighters to go rushing into a burning building, do we? Then we shouldn't expect our military personnel to charge forward into the face of the enemy.
Let not our motto be "United We Stand!", but rather let our motto be "United We Surrender!"
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Post by daworm on May 8, 2007 7:29:23 GMT -5
Please, please tell me that was sarcasm...
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BlackFox
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Post by BlackFox on May 8, 2007 7:47:57 GMT -5
We won. Back in 2003 we won the war. Now we are in an impossible situation. We are trying to hold back at least 2 ethnic groups from killing each other and us. They hate us, and they don't want us there. The rest of the Middle East hates us because we are there. Why are we there? Israel and oil. Simple as that. GWB says that if we leave there will be chaos. Well, it's going to happen sooner or later anyway. They'll wait 100 years if they have to. Why should we bankrupt our nation delaying the inevitable? I went to Sgt. Weirs funeral in Cleveland, and it broke my heart when I thought of the real reasons why he died, and the severe incompetence of our "leaders" who were to cowardly to serve themselves when their country called. In this former Marines opinion, they should be in jail. If we want to win the war on terror, we should do it by gathering intelligence on a Cold War scale. Hot war will never do it, but it will damn sure make Military Industrial Complex companies like Halliburtan a hell of a lot of money.
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Post by traveler on May 8, 2007 8:12:38 GMT -5
So, Blackfox, as a former Marine, are you advocating surrender and agreeing with plasticone's post. Is it time to tuck tail and run? Is that what you are saying....as a former marine?
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BlackFox
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Post by BlackFox on May 8, 2007 8:43:52 GMT -5
So, Blackfox, as a former Marine, are you advocating surrender and agreeing with plasticone's post. Is it time to tuck tail and run? Is that what you are saying....as a former marine? Surrender what? The war was over 3 years ago, and we won. All we are doing now is standing on street corners waiting for someone to shoot at us so we can shoot back. What is the mission? What is the objective? Democracy? That's not going to happen and it's not the militarys job. Reconciliation? Again, not going to happen and not the militarys job. Tell me what the objective is, from a military standpoint. Our military is not setup for guerilla warfare. We can't go on the offensive. We can just increase our presence. For the enemy, that's known as a "target rich enviroment". There is nothing left over there for the military to do. So yes, I think we should leave, but it's not surrender. They don't have a mission anymore. Carl von Clausewitz spoke of two kinds of courage: first, bravery in the face of mortal danger; second, the willingness to accept personal responsibility for command decisions. The former is expected of the troops. The latter must be demanded of high-level commanders, including the president.
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Post by traveler on May 8, 2007 10:00:49 GMT -5
So, you are advocating complete withdrawal of our troops in Iraq? Just walk away? Things aren't going the way we like it so lets just take our ball and go home?
Right or wrong we toppled a corrupt government by force, under international law it is our responsibility to stay until there is some semblance of stablity. What do you think the military did after September of 1945? What was our military mission then? None, at al. The mission was to rebuild Europe and Japan. Should we have just packed our bags then and gone home? Should we abandon the 38th parallel and pull all of our troops out of S. Korea?
What you are advocating is complete surrender. I guess we need to change the marine corp motto to "Semper Fi, Do or...we will run back home".
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Dreamwebber
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Post by Dreamwebber on May 8, 2007 10:47:03 GMT -5
I see blackfox's last point in that he/she feels that our mission should have only been to take Saddam out of power...and I see traveler's point that in past history once a country or group of countries goes to war, afterwards we help to rebuild.
I don't think you can compare it to what we did after WWII or any "country" we've been to war with because it was not just the US vs Germany or the US vs Japan. We don't have the UN trucks pulling it with materials to rebuild a nation for Iraq....we're pretty much doing it by ourselves with US tax dollars. This war is different too in the fact that we weren't going to war with a country but, just taking out Saddam Hussein.
I agree with blackfox for the most part on that.
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BlackFox
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Post by BlackFox on May 8, 2007 10:53:16 GMT -5
Yea, let's just stay there forever. Let's bankrupt our country building another America hating theocracy over there. There are no good solutions anymore, because we never should have been over there in the first place. Afghanistan, yes. Iraq, no.
Now, difficult decisions have to be made. The Iraqi Parliament is about to adjourn for a 2 month recess. They aren't even trying to resolve any of the issues that are causing all the strife. Why should they? They are nice and safe in the Green Zone, protected by us. Pressure needs to be applied. Everyone involved over there is in a state of flux. Nothing is being accomplished. Meanwhile, our soldiers are dying.
In my opinion, there are only two options. Fight or leave. 1. So far, the only thing GWB has asked the American people to sacrifice in this war is our civil liberties. If we are going to make any difference over there, then reinstate the draft and put 500,000 soldiers in theater. Only then can you lock the place down and get some stability. As soon as the Iraqi government says "We've got it", we get the hell out. 2. Redeploy to the perimeter and let the inevitable happen. After they get done with each other, and if they want us to, we can help them rebuild.
Traveler, you probably have never served in the military. Or if you have, it was probably in the Army, because Army guys always talk shit about Marines. I don't speak for the USMC, so I ask you to direct your criticism toward me, and leave the Marine Corps out of it.
Unless you troll me back in, this is my last comment in this exchange. Lets see how it all turns out.
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Post by daworm on May 8, 2007 11:08:58 GMT -5
While I won't say you are calling for cowardice, you are calling for a complete withdrawal. IIRC, we lost a couple of hundred guys in the initial invasion, and all of the rest have been during occupation. You are basically saying that all of those lives were lost for nothing.
I don't believe that, and I believe that the goals presently set in Iraq are worthy ones. How we are going about accomplishing them, I have issues with, but the goals are good. Just up and leaving now is basically saying those goals are not good, and they weren't worth dying for.
Surely you could come up with a better way of accomplishing the goal, without throwing everything away?
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Post by traveler on May 8, 2007 11:13:40 GMT -5
Well, I agree that I should not have brought the Marine Corps into it as I have many friends and acquaintances who serve, some who are or have been in Iraq very recently. I have great respect for the Corps and those those that serve. And I know they, the ones I have spoken with, do not in any way share your thoughts on the issue, nor does the Marine Corps in general.
Regarding costs of the Iraq war effort, the United States has not begun to shift to a true war economy and it is not dragging our economy down. Matter of fact our economy is very healthy right now so that is a straw man's argument. But, perhaps this is part of the problem. Our military is at war. Our country is not. But what is worse is the fact that while our military is at war, Congressional leadership is trying cut their legs out from under them.
Instituting a draft is not the answer. The military is meeting its recruitment numbers last I saw.
I agree that there are only two options. 1) Commitment to victory (military and political) defined as some level of stability in Iraq without specific timelines and 2) Surrender and abdication of any and all responsibility in the Middle East.
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Post by traveler on May 8, 2007 11:41:15 GMT -5
It wasn't too many years ago, and I remember it well, when two other warring religious groups were destroying a country. Some argued in the eighties that peace could never be achieved...some of the exact same arguments we now hear about Iraq. Now look at what is happening in Northern Ireland. I post this because it is too easy to lay blame to make political points and/or view problems as they currently exist in Iraq rather than how they could exist and try to argue that things cannot change. They can. It takes resolve. It takes commitment. www.comcast.net/news/index.jsp?cat=GENERAL&fn=/2007/05/08/657376.html&cvqh=itn_nirelandFor the record, Ireland now enjoys one of the fastest growing economies in the world.
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Post by gridbug on May 8, 2007 11:51:51 GMT -5
You mean the Ireland talking of seceeding from the UK?
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