I don't like how the Iraq war is being handled.
Published Thu, Feb 15 2007 9:57 AM
Technorati Tags: War on Terror, Liberals, Democrats, Media, Iraq
I'm sick of how the media and our political class are handling the Iraq war. I'm tired of the celebration of the body counts. I'm tired of the constant focus on how bad things are, when the streets in a few American cities are apparently even more dangerous than most of Iraq.
I'm tired of the lack of interest in the successes we've had in Iraq. Washington Senator Patty Murray was tagged with the name "Osama Mama" for a reason. She said all sorts of glowing things about Osama bin Laden's humanitarianism and philanthropy. She talked about the the hospitals, schools, and roads he allegedly built, saying "we haven't done that".
And yet that's exactly what we have been doing in Iraq. Americans have been in Iraq repairing the infrastructure almost since the war began. Yes, the left has been saying that we broke it so we have to fix it, but we didn't break it all. A lot of the problem was due to Saddam's neglect of his people's needs while he padded his bank accounts, and those of a few of his friends in France, Germany, Russia and New York with money from the Oil for Food program.
I'm tired of the endless comparisons made by the political right of what the Democrats are saying and what our enemy is saying. Not because the comparisons don't need to be made, but because they do need to be made. When our enemy seems to be parroting the talking points of the the Democrats, or is it the other way around, it seems pretty clear what side the Democrats are on.
I'm tired of all of the "We support the troops, but not their mission" crap that flows out of the mouths of our elected representatives and the "peace" crowd here at home. The "non-binding" waste of time that the House of Representatives has been going through is exactly that sort of nonsense. It starts with a statement that they support the troops and continues with a statement that they don't support sending enough of them to get the job done.
I'm past tired of the endless, ludicrous comparisons of the war in Iraq to the Vietnam war from people who had their coming of age and their glory days during the Vietnam war. We lost that war because of them, and now they're actively trying to sap the American people's will to win this one. Let's not forget it was liberal Democrats that got us into that war.
I don't like the way the media props up people like Cindy Sheehan who did a one-eighty on how she saw her first meeting with the president when she found she could get fame and notoriety by claiming he rebuffed her. That's not what she said at first. But she became a media darling, while the media pointedly ignores other parents who have lost their children fighting the war -- because those parents support what we're doing.
I don't care for the way the media overlooks the foot-in-mouth antics of "celebrity" politicians like Barak Obama when they say that the 3000+ lives given by American soldiers to bring freedom and prosperity to the people of Iraq were "wasted." Barak Obama wouldn't even be a "celebrity" if it weren't for the fawning leftists in the media.
Let's face it. If Al Gore had been elected President in 2000, Osama bin Laden's thugs would have still attacked us on September 11, 2001. The left might think otherwise, but there's ample evidence. Just look at all of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. and on U.S. interests during the Clinton presidency.
If Al Gore had been president then, there's ample reason to believe that America still would have gone to Afghanistan to root out al Qaeda. There's plenty of room for doubt, but until George W. Bush was elected president, nearly all of the "doves" in the Democratic party were hawks. We would probably have even gone after Iraq.
If that had happened, do you honestly believe that the Democrats would be advocating a cut-and-run strategy like they are today? If that had happened, would Patty Murray have ended up praising the humanitarian efforts of a terrorist butcher? If that had happened, would the war on terror be endlessly compared to the war in Vietnam?
I don't think so.
And that's why I'm tired of the way the left has been handling the war in Iraq. They don't offer solutions, only criticisms. They don't support our efforts, they support our enemies.
Once upon a time that was called treason.
Trackposted to Pirate's Cove, Faultline USA, High Desert Wanderer, basil's blog, Conservative Thoughts, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
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Karen responded with:
 | Really good post. I couldn't agree more with your thoughts here. |
bernie responded with:
 | I think you are wrong, as the French have proven in the past, capitulation to the enemy is not treason, it's just cowardice. After all, doing so saved Paris from complete destruction. Oh I forgot, Hitler still wanted Paris burnt to the ground.
|
Sheila responded with: Huh?
 | Which American city is more dangerous than Baghdad? I haven't been hearing anything about that in the news.
Distorting intelligence to bring the country into a pointless war is treason.
|
Perri Nelson responded with:
 | Sheila, how about New Orleans, Washington DC, Detroit, or Los Angeles. Each of them had a higher per-capita murder rate than the casualty rate in Bagdad.
As for "distorting intelligence", the Democrats must have been doing it for years before George W. Bush came into office, since they were saying many of the same things that he did, as far back as 1998.
|
Perri Nelson responded with:
| Sheila, for your benefit and the benefit of others, here's the definition of treason as it's found in the U.S. Constitution.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War
against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and
Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the
Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in
open Court.
As for not seeing information in the news about the dangers of living in U.S. Cities as compared to serving in Iraq, that was part of the point of the post.
|
Sheila responded with:
| So please fill me in on the details of these dangerous US cities. It's an outrage that information of suicide bombings, kidnapping and ethnic cleansing in our country is being kept out of the news. You really should tell Fox News about this at least.
As for the Democrats saying the same things back in 1998, please point me to a quote of a Democrat talking about "mushroom clouds over American cities". That kind of scare mongering is what got American citizens to go along with this war back in 2003. Bush, Cheney and company manipulated the information, ignored any intelligence that countered what they wanted to hear.
At every opportunity they had they implied that Saddam was involved in the 9/11 disaster. He had nothing to do with it, unlike our Saudi allies that Bush/Cheney still stand behind. There is no democracy in Saudi Arabia but we're not liberating them. Meanwhile, the Saudis bankroll Sunni insurgents in Iraq with weapons to bring down our helicopters.
You know damn well we wouldn't be fighting in Iraq if a Democrat was in office in 2003. We would have gone to Afganistan but Iraq is a complete side issue. Then again, a Democrat would not have ignored the intelligence briefing in August 2001 titled 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the US'.
|
Perri Nelson responded with:
| Sheila, I did not say that these cities had suicide bombers. Nor did I say that they had ethnic cleansings. Kidnapping is an all-American crime though. Haven't you seen the "Amber Alerts"? The violent crime rates in the cities I mentioned are matters of public record and they have been on the news.
According to Rep. Stephen King (R. Iowa), "the violent death rate in Iraq is 25.71 per 100,000." "How about the violent death rates in American cities? New Orleans
before Hurricane Katrina was 53.1," violent death rate per 100,000.
"FBI statistics for 2004-05 have Washington" DC's violent death rate at
45.9 per 100,000; Baltimore at 37.7 per 100,000, and Atlanta at 34.9
per 100,000. The figure again from Iraq, 25.71 per 100,000, and that
includes the war."
Quotes from Democrats? How about this one...
"(Saddam) will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and
some day, some way, I am certain he will use that arsenal again, as he
has 10 times since 1983" – National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Feb 18, 1998
Or this one...
"There’s no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat… Yes, he has
chemical and biological weapons. He’s had those for a long time. But
the United States right now is on a very much different defensive
posture than we were before September 11th of 2001… He is, as far as we
know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn’t have
nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think
our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would
we." — Wesley Clark on September 26, 2002
At NO point did the administration claim that Iraq was involved in the September 11th attack on the United States. You've been listenting to the leftist claims of being lied into the war a bit too much, to the point that you're swallowing lies from the left. In fact, the administration plainly said, and Vice President Cheney was widely quoted even in the New York Times as saying that Iraq did not have anything to do with that attack.
As for whether a Democrat would have taken us into war in Iraq, consider this quote...
"I share the administration’s goals in dealing with Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction." – Dick Gephardt in September of 2002
Or this one...
"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein’s regime is a serious danger,
that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass
destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed." – Ted Kennedy, Sept 27, 2002
Or this one...
"Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf
and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his
access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq’s search for weapons of
mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we
should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
– Al Gore, 2002
The plain fact is that what the media and the Democrats are saying today is obviously politically motivated and not based upon the best interests of the nation or the world.
I can't help it if you are willing to totally disregard the facts to support your view that we were lied into the war or that the intelligence was manipulated.
|
Sheila responded with:
| There is no city in the US where car bombs blow up every day.
Bush and Cheney constantly implied that Iraq was involved in 9/11. A majority of ill-informed Americans believed it until well into the war. Cheney was quoted once saying Iraq wasn't involved but went around the country saying just the opposite. Bush has said both on different occasions.
So why are we there if Bush and Cheney never equated the war with 9/11?
I saw the State of the Union where Bush said Saddam was pursuing yellow cake in Africa. I didn't vote for Bush but I couldn't imagine he would be lying about something as important as that. But he was. And the CIA had told him that story was bogus. But Cheney and his minions insisted on getting that into the speech. They fed stories to the New York Times based on an informant nicknamed 'Curveball'. They were taking information from any scurrilous source and pushing it as long as it built a case for war with Iraq. Cheney, Wolfowitz and Kristol and the neocon crew wanted that war for a long time. Some notion about restructuring the middle east.
As for the quotes from the Dems you list, do you honestly think that any of them would have started this war? I think they were stampeded by Bush/Cheney's constant harping on what a danger Saddam was. There was a lot of fear in the air, terrorism-wise and politically. Any one who said a word out of line was accused of all kinds of anti-American-ness.
Anyway, I'll end this dialog here. If you believe the war in Iraq is good for the nation or the world there's nothing to talk about. You are totally disregarding the facts to support your view.
|
Perri Nelson responded with:
| No, there is no city in the U.S. where car bombs blow up every day. But car bombs have blown up in U.S. Cities. A massive car bomb was used in an attempt to bring down the World Trade Center on Bill Clinton's watch. Another (truck) bomb was used to bring down the federal building in Oklahoma city.
This is beside the point though. You cannot refute the violent death statistics, so you don't even try. Instead you try to sidetrack the issue by bringing up something that I NEVER asserted in my original posting, or in my subsequent responses to your comments.
I believe you are misinterpreting, deliberately, comments made by both President Bush and Vice President Cheney. They never said that Iraq was involved in 9/11. They did say that Iraq was involved in supporting world-wide terrorism. There was ample evidence that this was the case. From the fact that Iraq harbored known terrorists, to the fact that Saddam paid pensions to the families of suicide bombers in Israel, to the fact that there was a terrorist training camp at Salmon-pac in Northern Iraq.
We are in Iraq, because both parties voted overwhelmingly to authorize the use of force to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and to permanently destroy his WMD capabilities, and to enforce over a dozen U.N. resolutions that Saddam was in violation of. Nowhere in the authorization to use force did congress mention any tie between 9/11 and Iraq.
You are also mis-characterising what was said in the State of the Union address. President Bush did not say that Iraq was seeking yellow-cake. What he did say was that British Intelligence services had learned that he was seeking uranium. This wasn't a lie. The British government confirmed that they President Bush's statement was in fact the truth. They had indeed learned that.
The CIA did not tell him that the story was bogus as you assert. Instead Joseph Wilson went to Niger and spent a few days hobnobbing with people he knew. When he came back, his report to Congress actually re-inforced the idea that Saddam had been seeking to obtain uranium. A few days later, he publicly mischaracterised his own report to the press. Joseph Wilson has since been thoroughly discredited and the Washington Post has even admitted that it was a shame that anyone was deceived by him.
To answer your question about the quotes and the Democrats that made them. Yes, I honestly believe that many of them would have taken us to war with Iraq. In 1998, long before George W. Bush became president, the Clinton administration had plans for a war to bring about regime change in Iraq. Please note the dates of the following quotes and explain to me how these people were stampeded by Bush/Cheney's constant harping on what a danger Saddam was...
“[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the
U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if
appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond
effectively to the threat posed by Iraq’s refusal to end its weapons of
mass destruction programs.”—From a
letter signed by Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Milulski,
Tom Daschle, & John Kerry among others on October 9, 1998 “Saddam’s goal … is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while
retaining and enhancing Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. We
cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed.”—Madeline Albright, 1998
“The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of
threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction,
ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond
today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be
emboldened tomorrow.”—Bill Clinton in 1998
“Iraq is not the only nation in the world to possess weapons of mass
destruction, but it is the only nation with a leader who has used them
against his own people.”—Tom Daschle in 1998
“As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware
that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue
of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in
the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a
threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the
weapons inspection process.”—Nancy Pelosi, December 16, 1998
I don't believe that any war is a good thing for the world. But I do believe that in certain cases, and the Iraq war is one of them, that war is the lesser of the evils that we have to face.
In any case, I return once again to the point of my post regarding the Democrats and the media. I'm sick of the way they are using the Iraq war as a political football. Both the major media as represented by the New York Times and the Washington Post and the Democratic party were all for tough action, sanctions, and even the use of military force against Saddam Hussein and Iraq, as far back as 1998. As long as they were in power, they could be seen to be doing something about the problem. Once a Republican actually did something about it, they did an about face.
It's plain to see that they are interested in victory in Iraq only if it brings them a political advantage at home. If it brings Republicans a political advantage, they are against it. All of the talk about "supporting the troops" but not the mission or the latest resolution from the House that says they "support the troops" but not providing them with reinforcements to finish the job is nothing more than a carefully worded way of saying that they want us to leave Iraq before the job is done.
Analyze it carefully and you can see that they want the U.S. to be defeated in Iraq. The urgency behind it all can be attributed to their need to see the defeat on a Republican's watch.
The fact that they've said one thing in the past when they were in power and another now that they are not should be ample evidence that it's all politically motivated. It takes no distortion of the facts to support this view, simply a listing of them.
I've enjoyed our conversation. If you wish to end the dialog, that's fine, but you've failed to convince me that either the media or the Democrats have our best interests in mind.
|
Charles responded with: Violent death rate
 | I'll reserve comment on the rest of the post, but I have to point out that the quote from the Iowa Rep of a death rate of 25 per 100,000 in Iraq is grossly innacurate. In fact, according to the Iraqi government and the coalition authorities, it's too dangerous to keep statistics. No one is doing it. Only one study has been done, a cluster based sampling, and a number of problem have been raised with the methodology of that study.
If you are suggesting that the death rate for our own troops in Iraq is 25 per 100000, that seems more in line (although it doesn't account for the severity of the casualties).
Personally, I think the dems who advocate withdrawal are wrong, but I also believe that the President and the republicans aren't going far enough. Read the professional journals of the U.S. military and the counterinsurgency experts and their recommendations of 1 soldier per 40 population, minimum, in order to win an insurgency war. That means activating the draft and sending 700,000 (minimum) troops to Iraq. I'm not a fan of escalation of the war, but if that's what it takes to bring security so the Iraqis can rebuild, and if that's what it takes to bring this thing to a successful close, we need to swallow our pride and do it. |