[omarizgreat]

since it seems we haven't had a good debate in this forum since the pres. one got deleted.


in my opinion we should not be there, i'm not saying we can leave now but the facts still remain. iraq posed no threat to our national security. and on the argument that we are liberating the world i feel that as a people if you did not want to stand up and fight for your own freedom then then you don't deserve it.
no one sent there whole army to help our revolution. if we're enforcing freedom around the world then what about china, saudi arabia, and pretty much the whole of south america. the truth is we like dictatorships, with out them other people would want to live just like us. which sounds great till you start to think about the ramifications. there is what 250-300 million people in america today, there is 6.5-7.0 billion people living on this planet. could you imagine if every one of them owned a car or burned as much coal for electricty, burned natural gas for heat. we have 15 percent of the population using 85 percent of the worlds natural resources (most non renewable). in truth if all these other people were to rise up and demand better living conditions it would destroy our way of life. i'm not saying i agree with this it's just an observation i've noticed by reading alot of news.

 

[its miller time]

I'll be the first to touch this post. I believe we should have taken care of Iraq during the Gulf War. But we didnt, so little Georgie decided to clean up his daddy's mistake. I believe we should have worked harder to form a coalition and monitor Saddam and Iraq, however, invading it was a mistake. I know we should be proactive instead of reactive (see 9-11), but I believe we invaded the country for Bush's own personal and political gains. I do believe our troops should remain in Iraq to finish what we started. God Bless them all.

 

[novi tony]

SIMPLE: Stop wasting time and money and leave. Now. The sooner the better.

 

[omarizgreat]

i don't think we can just up and leave, wish we could but i think it would create more problems than it would solve. imo we have to make a quick and decisive battles. i will catch alot of slack for this one but we need to stop looking at the casualties figures. yes i know our troops are dying by the hundreds but if you don't have a plan of action it just drags on eg vietnam (not to disrespect nam vets this war is nothing like nam "yet"). in ww2 we lost thousands in a matter of days. we just need a plan no bs either, get in get it done and go home with small reserves left for primary protection ( 2000 ground troops on the coast with an aircraft carrier or two). anyway we need the troops to take on iran i've heard recently on the news their harboring terrorists, they have weapons of mass destuction, and are an imminent threat, where have i heard this before?

 

[PaintGuru]

Should we have gone in the first place, no.

Should we leave now, no.

 

[omarizgreat]

have to agree with ya paint
but what to do now hmm.

 

[Mike]

I also am of teh opinion that we have no right to be in Iraq on the assumptions that were made to justify this invasion and occupation. I do however feel that now that we are there we cannot leave. The nation seems to be more unstable now than when we arrived. plus there are strategic advantages to holding on to Iraq:

1. Location location location people! Iraq is centrally located in the middle east and provides a nice staging area for forces once we have colonized it. The waters of teh persian gulf and euphrates river are under our control. We have access to southern asia as well as a gate way to eurpoe and can bottle neck nations between Iraq and teh Mediterranean sea. It is foolish to go anywhere once we have control.

2. The Oil is an obvious reason to stay put. At teh current rate of energy consumption the US will exhaust all domestic supplies in the nest 15 years or so but Iraq has a reserve of over 500 years worth of oil. So Jed Clampant eat your heart out we are moving to Iraq not beverly hills.

We are not going anywhere now folks!

 

[omarizgreat]

wow can't seem to find anyone that thinks we should be there that could make this debate a little weak what with us all agreeing and all. if we can't find anyone on the opposing side i just might have to do a little flip flopping, just to make it more interesting.

 

[Mike]

I gave you two very good reasons to be there although I do not agree with a war predicated on lies. I think it will be hard to find people who agree with the war especially when the people we are trying to "liberate" (I prefer colonize really) are turning over foreign aid worker to terrorist. The Iraqi police are even involved from what I am reading on Al-Jazeera lately.

It boils down to strategic posisition for a new war (the so called global war on terror) and oil. We all agree that Iraq was not a national secuity threat. I have brought up the fact that we continue to look the other way with India and Pakistan as well as China and North Korea. Iran is activly developing nuclear material and we are right there but do nothing. We wanted our own piece of that oil pie so we took out the weakest link.

 

[slapshot]

OK suckered into another political question. Did you guys ever think of the macro reasons. How about the fact that we were already there, getting our planes shot at every day for 10 years. Let's not forget Saddam invaded one of our few true friends in the area. Then agreed to a end the war but never followed through. Nor did we hold them accountable. We did what all others have done which is appease them and hope they go away.

Better yet Iraq borders all the problems. With our army in Iraq we draw the terrorists to Iraq and not to our country. They are now fighting our soldiers not our civilians. No loss of life is good but we have lost 1000 of our soldiers and 120 billion dollars in 3 years of fighting....we lost 3000 civilians and 200 billion dollars in 5 hours on 9/11.

Lastly, I can prove it worked. When Israel started dropping missles on Hesbola's leaders Hesbola came out with the following statement. "We will now target all Americans and Israelies no matter where they live or sleep". 24 hours later a new statement came out....."we misspoke, we have no fight with the Americans. Why? How about our tanks parked on the Syrian boarder. It is Damascus that give protection to Hesbola. I bet it took 5 minutes for that phone call "what the #$%@ are you doing, we do not want to lose power like Saddam." Unfortunately that is what those people respect........power and death. Sad but a fact. Like it or not their lives are 180 degrees out of phase with us. They want to kill us and nothing less. Again, sad but true.

Further there is no doubt that Saddam supported and aided terrorists. These people or some might say animals, are criminals who prey on the unarmed because they are cowards. They are no different then Charles Manson except they have control of countries. A stand has to be made for us and our children. We really are fighting for nothing less.

 

[Sylock]

Ok here we go:
slapshot, you are correct in all you say. Saddam even publicly gave $25K to every family of a suicide bomber that killed someone. That is very open support for terrorism.

Mike, you might want to take a bigger look at the supplies of the U.S. My step-father was the super-attendent of Dart Energy (number 3 in the company). He is from Arkansas and has been in or associated with the oil business since he was around 25 (he retired last year at 64 years of age). He has told me several times growing up that the U.S. has actually hampered the domestic oil business so much that it would take 20 years to be able to produce what we could produce everyday. Also once we vamped up we could be the number one producer of oil extremely easy. There is a lot more oil here in the U.S. then what the media and special interest groups let on.

Did we screw up in Iraq? For sure. No one thought that we would topple Saddam that quickly. Rumsfield (by the way I don't like him at all) thought he'd be able to come up with an occupation strategy while the 'war' was going on. Come to find out we kicked arse. Rumsfield did not listen to his Secretary of the Army, and that was our downfall. Everyone would be singing the praises of the war, even if we would have lost 2500 lives, if we had a stable Iraq right now. But we don't. So with 20/20 hindsight we could have done things much better. Did Saddam pose a problem for the U.S. ... not a doubt in my mind, he would have loved to have the Arab world turn their hatred into love for him by supplying terrorists a way to hit the U.S. hard (nuke or chemical attack).

I agree with everyone else that we can't leave now.

 

[slapshot]

Skylock,

I usually agree with you but I do not agree with your last comments. We could not have prevented the state that we find ourselves in now. In fact it may have been the strategy all along. One of the unspoken goals of this war was to take the fight off of our streets and on to the streets of the terrorists protectors. The biggest weakness we have in the war is also our strength....we have a heart.

The radical muslims are throwing everything they have at us in Iraq. If we win in Iraq they will lose everywhere and they know this. In their mind we must lose. The interests that we are now fighting are mostly outside interests, there to cause trouble and fight for the radical arm of the muslim religion. Which by the way, will except only our death, nothing else. They can not except many aspects of our life, including the fact that you, a women, is even having this conversation. We of course can not agree with you having a hood over your head and not speaking. There is no in between with these people. They are willing to cut off a living humans head with a dull knife, something very few us could even imagine doing in our worst nighmare. Heck most of us reading this have trouble in killing one of our fish when it is suffering. We have no common ground.

Lets take a look at where we really are. We could have won this a long time ago if we took the traditional method of control but at a great cost to the civilians and the military. The path we have chosen will take a lot longer and may not work, but it is the only path we could take. We do not have the stomach to go the historical route. Look at the end of the war in Germany and Japan.....heck look at the end of any pre 1990 war. Get the actual body counts of the civilians. Thousand upon thousand. We are trying to win their hearts in the past we won their fear. Maybe a quick killing of thousands would have been the better route but it seems like this path is worth the effort. We lost more men, property and civilians in most single battles then we have lost in this whole war. The down side is the people are more afraid of the terrorists then of us so they are cooperating with them.

My biggest problem with Kerry and the Democrates is they ignore this and are giving hope and strength to the terrorists, all to win an election. It will get worse now as the terrorists think he has a chance and they know the stakes for them are huge. The Democrates also know this. If Bush wins AND this strategy wins, their control of the people and their way of life that they have built over decades of appeasement by us and others is doomed.

 

[Sylock]

"We could not have prevented the state that we find ourselves in now. In fact it may have been the strategy all along. "

That's a very interesting theory. I'd love to explore it more, let me think about it for a while.

"They can not except many aspects of our life, including the fact that you, a women, is even having this conversation."

Now granted you might have switched from directing the conversation at me (since you addressed your post with 'Skylock', meaning Sylock), however, I'm intrigued as to why you think I'm a woman? Not that there is anything wrong with being a woman, heck I'd love it if the world was populated with me and a bunch of women. However, I am a man so I'm a little curious to what in my posts have made you think I'm a woman.

 

[slapshot]

Whoops sorry, I thought I read that in a prevous post. Ok so you can't shave. The point is still the same. WE (men and women) have no idea how different they (radical muslims) want the world to behave. They still believe in "stoning" people to death for minor crimes.

 

[blon1360]

I'm not going to comment on the discussion either way. This story has been circulating around through email and the net, although its probably ficticious, it's still an interesting point of view, so I thought I'd post it:


The other day, my nine year old son wanted to know why we were at war. My husband looked at our son and then looked at me. My husband and I were in the Army during the Gulf War and we would be honored to serve and defend our Country again today. I knew that my husband would give him a good explanation.

My husband thought for a few minutes and then told my son to go stand in our front living room window. He said "Son, stand there and tell me what you see?" "I see trees and cars and our neighbor's houses." he replied. "OK, now I want you to pretend that our house and our yard is the United States of America and you are President Bush." Our son giggled and said "OK." "Now son, I want you to look out the window and pretend that every house and yard on this block is a different country" my husband said.

"OK Dad, I'm pretending."

"Now I want you to stand there and look out the window and pretend you see Saddam come out of his house with his wife, he has her by the hair and is hitting her. You see her bleeding and crying. He hits her in the face, he throws her on the ground, then he starts to kick her to death. Their children run out and are afraid to stop him, they are screaming and crying, they are watching this but do nothing because they are kids and they are afraid of their father. You see all of this son.... what do you do?"

"Dad?"

"What do you do son?"

"I'd call the police, Dad."

"OK. Pretend that the police are the United Nations and they take your call, listen to what you know and saw but they refuse to help. What do you do then son?"

"Dad.......... but the police are supposed to help!" My son starts to whine.

"They don't want to son, because they say that it is not their place or your place to get involved and that you should stay out of it," my husband says

"But Dad...he killed her!!" my son exclaims.

"I know he did...but the police tell you to stay out of it. Now I want you to look out that window and pretend you see our neighbor who you're pretending is Saddam turn around and do the same thing to his children."

"Daddy...he kills them?"

"Yes son, he does. What do you do?"

"Well, if the police don't want to help, I will go and ask my next door neighbor to help me stop him." our son says.

"Son, our next door neighbor sees what is happening and refuses to get involved as well. He refuses to open the door and help you stop him," my husband says.

"But Dad, I NEED help!!! I can't stop him by myself!!"

"WHAT DO YOU DO SON?" Our son starts to cry.

"OK, no one wants to help you, the man across the street saw you ask for help and saw that no one would help you stop him. He stands taller and puffs out his chest. Guess what he does next son?"

"What Daddy?"

"He walks across the street to the old ladies house and breaks down her door and drags her out, steals all her stuff and sets her house on fire and then...he kills her. He turns around and sees you standing in he window and laughs at you. WHAT DO YOU DO?"

"Daddy..."

"WHAT DO YOU DO?"

Our son is crying and he looks down and he whispers, "I'd close the blinds, Daddy."

My husband looks at our son with tears in his eyes and asks him..."Why?"

"Because Daddy.....the police are supposed to help people who needs them...and they won't help.... You always say that neighbors are supposed to HELP neighbors, but they won't help either...they won't help me stop him...I'm afraid....I can't do it by myself Daddy.....I can't look out my window and just watch him do all these terrible things and...and.....do nothing...so....I'm just going to close the blinds.... so I can't see what he's doing........and I'm going to pretend that it is not happening."

I start to cry.

My husband looks at our nine year old son standing in the window, looking pitiful and ashamed at his answers to my husbands questions and he says..."Son"

"Yes, Daddy."

"Open the blinds because that man.... he's at your front door..."WHAT DO YOU DO?"

My son looks at his father, anger and defiance in his eyes. He balls up his tiny fists and looks his father square in the eyes, without hesitation he says: "I DEFEND MY FAMILY DAD!! I'M NOT GONNA LET HIM HURT MOMMY OR MY SISTER, DAD!!! I'M GONNA FIGHT HIM, DAD, I'M GONNA FIGHT HIM!!!!!"

I see a tear roll down my husband's cheek and he grabs our son to his chest and hugs him tight, and says... "It's too late to fight him, he's too strong and he's already at YOUR front door son.....you should have stopped him BEFORE he killed his wife, and his children and the old lady across the way. You have to do what's right, even if you have to do it alone, before it's too late." my husband whispers.

THAT scenario I just gave you is WHY we are at war with Iraq. When good men stand by and let evil happen son, THAT is the greatest EVIL of all. Our President is doing what is right. We, as a free nation, must understand that this war is a war of humanity. WE must remove evil men from power so that we can continue to live in a free world where we are not afraid to look out our window so that my nine year old son won't grow up in a world where he feels that if he just "closes" that blinds the atrocities in the world won't affect him. "YOU MUST NEVER BE AFRAID TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT! EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO DO IT ALONE!" BE PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN! BE PROUD OF OUR TROOPS!! SUPPORT THEM!!! SUPPORT AMERICA!! SO THAT IN THE FUTURE OUR CHILDREN WILL NEVER HAVE TO CLOSE THEIR BLINDS..."