Troop boost. If this doesn't work...

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Dec 19 2006, 05:20 AM) [snapback]364082[/snapback]</div>

HUH???? We didn't find any WMDs. Former (and well respected) weapons inspectors like Scott Ritter even told us we wouldn't. How does not having any working WMD program constitute "behavior deserving of a beat down." We had, after all, just starved them back into third world status with sanctions for 10 years.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Dec 19 2006, 05:20 AM) [snapback]364082[/snapback]</div>

The people did rise up against Saddam. In 1991. We didn't support them even though we had an army sitting there. They got slaughtered. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_uprisings_in_Iraq
>>The government of Saddam Hussein responded to the uprisings with crushing force. According to Human Rights Watch:

In their attempts to retake cities, and after consolidating control, loyalist forces killed thousands of unarmed civilians by firing indiscriminately into residential areas; executing young people on the streets, in homes and in hospitals; rounding up suspects, especially young men, during house-to-house searches, and arresting them without charge or shooting them en masse; and using helicopters to attack unarmed civilians as they fled the cities.

Some civilians were tied to tanks and used as human shields. In Karbala, some of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines were destroyed. Others were used as centers for murder, torture and rape. In Najaf, residential areas were bombed, and hospital staff and patients were murdered. The homes of suspected rebels were destroyed while the suspects were executed in the streets.

More than 2 million Kurds fled into the snowy peaks between Iran and Turkey. Children died from typhoid, dehydration and dysentery. Some refugees were blown up by land mines. At one point in 1991, an estimated 2,000 Kurds were dying every day. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees called the exodus the largest in its 40–year history.<<

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Dec 19 2006, 01:20 AM) [snapback]364082[/snapback]</div>

Of all the vile sentiments it is possible for a human being to express, this blaming of the victims is by far one of the most morally repugnant. And to express it with such flip unconcern: "... but hey..." with no more thought behind it than a remark about the weather. Wow.

Mr. Wildkow, leaving aside the preposterous supposition that "tolerating the regime" is something easily overcome, many thousands of the victims who "tolerated the regime" were less than 5 years old. Perhaps you may want to rethink a moral stance that justifies the wanton slaughter of children.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

This thread is about "the surge", being proposed (and, I suspect, already decided upon, but watch out if Congress reconvenes before it gets off the ground).

Does anyone here doubt that the various insurgents will successfully ramp up their attacks to humiliate any increased troop levels in Baghdad?

And when we must finally back off after the Surge fails to secure Baghdad and the country, how will those (including newly-elected incoming Democrats) who supported it explain our troops' increased slaughter to those parents who will know that their daughters and sons were truly unnecessarily sacrificed in the name only of "buying a little time"?

Newsweek reports this week that the "unofficial desertion rate" in the Iraqi army/police gets upward of 30% when they are given assignments they don't want. Who thinks "more training" ("embedded" or otherwise) will overcome that?: raise your hands.

I say let 'em slug it out while we gradually draw down and retreat to defensible enclaves, only appearing for strategic forays.

Troops need to be reassigned to Afghanistan, or we'll surely lose that one, too.

 

One of the problems with war is you kill lots of innocent people in order to "punish" leaders who those people had no part in installing, and who those people do not support.

How many times must it be repeated that Saddam Hussein's worst outrages were performed with the full knowledge and support of the U.S. and with U.S. materials???

One of the reasons we stayed in Vietnam as long as we did was the agonizing thought that if we pulled out, all those who had died would have died in vain. And everyone who has lost a son or a daughter to the senseless carnage is outraged at the suggestion of pulling out. "Then what did my child die for?" But the consequence of this is that a five-year war turns into a ten-year war, and instead of 100,000 dead American kids you end up with 200,000 dead American kids, and we still lose the war.

So which is more important to you: Denying the fact that a lot of Americans have died for the lost cause of a war we never should have entered, or preserving the lives of an equal number of Americans who will die needlessly if we insist on remaining stubbornly in a war we've already lost?

There's a joke about a general who says to his troops: "Men, many of you will die today. But it's a price I'm willing to pay." The shrub, and many of his supporters, are willing to sacrifice tens of thousands more American lives, and hundreds of thousands more Iraqi lives, in the hopeless effort to deny that those already dead have died in vain.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Dec 19 2006, 11:35 AM) [snapback]364251[/snapback]</div>

But it was alright with you to leave that regime in place so that they could have unfettered ability to commit more genocide? I think more repugnent and vile than to try and install a democratic form of government after 10+ years of failure. Read my sig line and if you don't understand ask someone for help.



Wildkow



<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MegansPrius @ Dec 19 2006, 07:01 AM) [snapback]364127[/snapback]</div>

We did find WMD's and the Senate Subcommittee also found that Iraqi intent was to enhance its WMD program after getting the sanctions lifted. BTW those were UN and Coalition sanctions. Nice try blaming it all on us as if our only intent was to starve and destroy the Iraqi people overthere. <_<



Wildkow



<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Dec 19 2006, 04:10 PM) [snapback]364370[/snapback]</div>

According to Herr Goebbels if you repeat a lie enough times people start to believe it.



Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Dec 19 2006, 11:35 AM) [snapback]364251[/snapback]</div>

Never suggested that it was easy to overcome a despotic regime, those are just your words trying to cast my post in as bad a light as possible. But nation after nation paid the price and sacrificed much to live in freedom. Many people have laid down their lives resisting policies and voicing dissent against their countries policies. Seems to me the Iraqi’s could do the same. Indeed many have done so and not behind the safety of a keyboard. If they choose not to then they will most likely suffer the consequences.



The wanton slaughter of children you mention was not done by this country. <_< If you read MegansPrius's post you will see that is exactly what Saddam's regime did. If you are not willing to put an end to a regime by supporting the efforts of others to overthrow such despots then you sir are the one that is vile and repugnant. In addition if you are suggesting that the US Military did the same please don’t fail to stand up for what you believe and mention it the next time you see one of our heroic uniformed military personal. Because it’s real easy to take the actions of a few and cast a net to include all in the same class but to do that from behind a keyboard is a much different matter than face to face or was that statement just a Troll?



Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Dec 19 2006, 08:59 PM) [snapback]364380[/snapback]</div>

I wasn't blaming anyone. I was stating the situation. And don't take my word on the WMDs, but don't take that of Fox News either. Try the CIA. All we found was dust from stuff destroyed in 1991. You can read if for yourself:

https://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/addenda.pdf

>>ISG assesses that Iraq and Coalition Forces will
continue to discover small numbers of degraded
chemical weapons, which the former Regime mislaid
or improperly destroyed prior to 1991.

However, ISG believes that any remaining chemical
munitions in Iraq do not pose a militarily significant
threat to Coalition Forces because the agent and
munitions are degraded and there are not enough
extant weapons to cause mass casualties.<<

And regarding your claim that we didn't support Iraq when it was up to nasty things, ie
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Dec 19 2006, 08:59 PM) [snapback]364380[/snapback]</div>

While that quote could well apply to how we got into this war (Saddam linked to 9/11, has WMD, mushroom cloud), it does not apply to our support for his regime in the past. The historical record differs with you. The Kurds were gassed using helicopters we sold to Iraq ("Big Help from U.S.; Technology was Sold with Approval -- and encouragement -- from the Commerce Department but Often over Defense Officials' Objections," The Los Angeles Times, 13 February 1991.)

And some in the Senate tried to punish Saddam after he gassed the kurds, but that effort was halted:
In 1988, Saddam Hussein launched extensive chemical weapons attacks on the Kurds, killing tens of thousands. Senator Kennedy strongly supported sanctions on Iraq in order to stop these ongoing crimes, but was opposed by the Reagan administration. National security adviser Colin Powell coordinated the opposition to Senate-passed sanctions legislation in 1988, while Defense Secretary Dick Cheney was part of the first President Bush's national security team that opposed efforts to revive the sanctions bill in 1989 and 1990.
Thus, at the very time Hussein was gassing his own people, the current vice president and Bush's first secretary of state -- as well as President Bush's father -- favored taking no action at all. In October 1988, Senator Kennedy brought the Senate to a halt in a valiant, but ultimately unsuccessful, effort to win final enactment of the aptly named Prevention of Genocide Act.
from http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...opposed_saddam/

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Dec 16 2006, 06:09 AM) [snapback]363068[/snapback]</div>

Huh? You don't install democracy like a set of mudflaps on a Prius. And don't forget that the colonists were terrorists, shooting at the ranks of the redcoats

And your comment about Iraq "getting the beat down they deserved" (I'm paraphrasing) so reeks of judgement that even your Christ is probably rolling over in his grave (or am I mixing my metaphors?)

Phlueeeeeze, you're either joking or hellbent on impugning your own credibility.

Merry Christmas (and a happy new military)!!
God Bless the U.S.A.(F.)