http://www.crusade-media.com/news54.html

truflo,
You are right to note that a war can’t be won without public support. I’m trying to show my perspective circa 2003; to me, the invasion made sense without the WMD justification and I saw the WMD intel being used as a legalistic justification to get UN approval. In hindsight I see that many Democratic voters saw the WMD issue as the central one, as a way that the administration “sold” them on the war, and so now they think that was a duplicitous sell.

Many Democratic leaders, IMO, weren’t sure whether or not to believe the WMD intel but they weren’t willing to take the political risk of saying so. Their calculation may have gone something like this: “If I vote against the war authorization and then an attack occurs as a result, then I’ll be responsible for that. If I vote for the war and WMD are found, I’ll be on the right side of history for having voted for the war. If I vote for the war and it doesn’t go well or WMD are not found, then I’ll be able to say that I only voted for it based on intel being ginned up.”

Knowing what I know now about how a lot of VOTERS saw the situation, I’d agree with you that Bush shouldn’t have taken us to war with a tenuous hold on public support. But I resent the way that the public has been played by both parties, the GOP led by Bush and the Dems led by those Congressmen who led their constituents to support the war but only if things went well or had a particular outcome. Hindsight is 20:20 in regard to the WMD issue but everyone was voting based on what was known at the time.

That’s why I was trying to be clear that as long as our mission was against them specifically and not against “pacifying” (i.e. taking on the warlords) the whole country then I think we could have been successful, or at least had a shot. If the nightmare scenario happened and we got bogged down then the question is how we would respond to it. Bin Laden was counting on us to inflict massive casualties and rally muslims to his cause. The problem is that the Taliban is so extreme that there wasn’t much empathy with them outside of Pakistan and some of Saudi Arabia…and our invasion was seen as justified.

IMO worst case scenario would be that we would lose lots of troops and have to pull out, but have a lot less animosity (amongst the masses) than we had by invading Iraq. (OK real worst case is we would get Pakistan to help us and it’d bring down Musharraf and open up a terrible scenario but that’s more of an argument against having a GWOT in the first place rather than attacking a specific place).

The Iraqi’s could only be brought to stop their killing by a brutal dictator, Saddam Hussein. All through Iraq’s history is brutality, violence and death. Members of the Shia killing Sunni, or Sunni killing Shia.

It’s hard for us Westerners to believe that a people who rather choose violence and death over freedom and democracy. We don’t belong there. Let them kill each other.

I’m so tired of hearing all the Bush bashing and anti-war rhetoric in the media. The fact is, these people just don’t get it – 9/11 is just a distant memory to them. They don’t realize that the world of Islamic fascism is dedicated to destroying America. To put it simply: they want us dead. To put it more simply: they can do it. It appears to me that the Democrats feel that if we play nice, everything will go away. We are now, as a nation, in more danger than in the darkest days of the Cold War against the Soviet Union.
Are we going to wait until a nuclear bomb goes off on Wall Street before we respond to this threat? Will it take several dirty bombs to be detonated in Los Angeles, Detroit, Washington and New York before we realize the power of this enemy? I applaud the courage of President Bush in taking the fight to the enemy. These terrorists have the power to destroy our way of life.

Do you remember how our county was paralyzed after 9/11? Imagine an attack 10 times that. If you don’t think it could happen, just keep sipping your latte and worrying about global warming.
What does it take to awaken the general public to the threat America faces from a fanatical enemy dedicated to destroying us? Apparently many learned nothing from the attacks on our embassies, the USS Cole, the World Trade Center and the murder of 3,000 citizens on 9/11. They’ve obviously forgotten the massive disruption of our economy.
The anti-Bush media hype and the incessant anti-war rhetoric, so reminiscent of the juvenile Vietnam War protests, serve only to undermine our military and embolden Iran, the linchpin in our war on terror. Iran is fueling the bloody Iraq insurgency and developing its nuclear program, but the protesters don’t seem to mind.

The recent Washington protesters, besotted with ego-driven self-righteousness and including the treasonous “Hanoi Jane,” publicly praise other nations and condemn our own. They risk our safety to further their left-wing agenda.

The Islamic fundamentalists have sworn to convert us “infidels” or destroy us. To withdraw our troops now is to fight later, but at a much greater cost in lives and money. Those who divide our country by opposing the president today will regret it tomorrow.
What does it take to awaken the general public to the threat America faces from a fanatical enemy dedicated to destroying us? Apparently many learned nothing from the attacks on our embassies, the USS Cole, the World Trade Center and the murder of 3,000 citizens on 9/11. They’ve obviously forgotten the massive disruption of our economy.
The anti-Bush media hype and the incessant anti-war rhetoric, so reminiscent of the juvenile Vietnam War protests, serve only to undermine our military and embolden Iran, the linchpin in our war on terror. Iran is fueling the bloody Iraq insurgency and developing its nuclear program, but the protesters don’t seem to mind.

The recent Washington protesters, besotted with ego-driven self-righteousness and including the treasonous “Hanoi Jane,” publicly praise other nations and condemn our own. They risk our safety to further their left-wing agenda.

The Islamic fundamentalists have sworn to convert us “infidels” or destroy us. To withdraw our troops now is to fight later, but at a much greater cost in lives and money. Those who divide our country by opposing the president today will regret it tomorrow.

To retreat and surrender to the radical Muslim fundamentalist terrorists would be a great glorious victory to them over the ‘Great Satan” and would tell them they can attack us anywhere in the world without fear, because America lacks the guts, fortitute and willpower to stay and defeat them.

All because the liberal Democrats and their politica agenda far outweighs the terrible ramifiactions a American military defeat in the Middle East.

War sometimes is a necessary evil. There never was
a bad peace or a good war. I’m proud of my service
and I view liberals as ingrates to all our our brave military men and women.

Hey liberal Democrats try blaming the radical Muslim terrorists for starting this war. They started it many years ago when they took our American hostages in Iran in 1979, and with many terrorists attacks after that which were unanswered.

We just can’t say we quit and go home. They will come to our soil and hit us again.

I’m so glad that there are brave America’s that can defend our great country like I did years ago.

Trying to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East is a noble thing. Sure, there will be terrorists who don’t want to see freedom and democracy in thre Middle East and want to live their ways of the past ie. 9th century.

If we don’t finish up in Iraq, we will be back there once again to try and clean up and even greater mess and there will be a much greater America death toll then for sure.

To retreat and surrender to these radical fundamentalist Muslim would give them great pride and the base and financial assets of Iraq in which to wage war against America and its allies all over the world.

For the best trainied and equipped military in the entire world to be defeated by IED’s and car bombs is an insane propisition.

We need and we will have the Iraqi people and military stand up and defeat their oppressors. To lose will be a travesty and one we will forever regret.

They’ll get Bin laden one day. My bet is that they know what area he is in and is contained. Have him suffer greatly in a cold filthy cave rather than have 3 hots and a cot in a nice US jail with dozens of liberal lawyers defending him and doctors to heal that filthy monster.

He isn’t calling the shots as the Iranians are responsible for many US casualties.

My last comment was glib, which I admitted, and you are right to slap me down, but I really feel you are missing a vital piece of the jigsaw here, and it starts with this simple statement:

You cannot win a war the people won’t support.

When George Bush delivered his ultimatum to the Taliban- hand over Bin Laden, destroy his networks, or we will invade your country, not just the people of America supported him, but the vast majority of right thinking people all over the world supported him.

Had he delivered the same ultimatum to Pakistan once it was known Bin Laden had fled there I am certain Musharraf could have handed him over and dismantled what was left of his network without losing power. More than that, it would have been the correct thing to do, no one anywhere could have questioned the rightness of such a declaration.

By changing tack and invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, by cooking the evidence and lying about contacts between Al Qaeda and Iraq, Bush didn’t just make a bad strategic decision, he divided his country, lost the support, vital support, of the world and is now in grave danger of losing the war on terror.

I am not simply trying to reaffirm my own position, I am attempting to describe, with a clear head, the nightmare we have, not the one you imagine we might have had.

True, but again those are errors of implementation, not proving that the concept was wrong or that it couldn’t have been done correctly with greater chance of success.

I’m pointing out the dangers in having to lie and fearmonger when making the case for war. I have other reasons for opposing the invasion, but I’m doing my best to be a pragmatic imperialist

Those are just two examples off the top of my head, but I think they illustrate the larger danger of not having everyone on the same page as far as objectives and planning.

True, but again those are errors of implementation, not proving that the concept was wrong or that it couldn’t have been done correctly with greater chance of success.

truflo said:
February 19, 2007 at 11:28 am
Actually, truflo, I’d argue that what OBL and Zawahiri wanted was to bog us down in Afghanistan

Well, if at first you don’t succeed….

truflo,
You’re trying so hard to reaffirm your own opinion that you aren’t paying attention to mine. What if I’m right? What if committing more military effort to Afghanistan would have led us into a nightmare scenario there? What if we put 100K+ troops in and took heavy casualties, but without success? What if it turned out as I suspect (and I think Marlowe agrees) that ultimately we wouldn’t have been any more successful there unless we had invaded Pakistan, which would NOT have gone well.

You may not agree, but please don’t be so quick to dismiss this. Of course OBL and Zawahiri have attempted to turn Iraq to their advantage, and obviously they’ve had some success. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have done it because the alternative of continuing to go after them in Afghanistan may have been as bad or worse for the US.

Actually, truflo, I’d argue that what OBL and Zawahiri wanted was to bog us down in Afghanistan

Well, if at first you don’t succeed….

Come to think of it, this is a bit of a twofer for Bin Laden, one failed state and the other failing.

I really don’t mean to be glib, the situation is just too tragic and appalling for the Iraqis and I apologise.

The focus on WMDs had other effects. We didn’t cleanup weapons caches that were all over Iraq, because we were afraid of bioweapons. Those caches helped fuel the early insurgency.

Those are just two examples off the top of my head, but I think they illustrate the larger danger of not having everyone on the same page as far as objectives and planning.

More importantly, the lust for WMDs and terrorist ties had a big effect on our military.

I don’t follow your point here… can you elaborate?

More importantly, the lust for WMDs and terrorist ties had a big effect on our military.

In other words, invading Iraq was exactly what are enemies wanted us to do.

Actually, truflo, I’d argue that what OBL and Zawahiri wanted was to bog us down in Afghanistan (there are direct quotes from them to back that up), and I believe that what many people here are suggested would have done just that. I think we wisely estimated the degree to which we could ‘win’ there (toppling the Taliban and creating conditions for an elected govt to emerge) and then we stopped thinking of it as a military battle from that point on. However, I do think we underestimated the ongoing need for peacekeeping troops and robust reconstruction efforts.

Maybe if the looming humanitarian disaster was given as a reason for toppling Saddam, then maybe we wouldn’t be where we are today.

It was, Chris, but most people only heard what they wanted to hear. The WMD issue was played up because of the decision to get (at least tacit) UN approval for the invasion. There was no other way to “sell” the war under international war, so that issue was heavily touted in regard to the UN- but domestically there were also plenty of speeches where the administration talked about other reasons for the invasion.

I now see that the planning was incredibly inadequate to accomplish all but the first goal, but that doesn’t mean the idea itself was flawed. It’s not stupid to lure the enemy from one region where we couldn’t defeat them to one where we (theoretically) could.

Even if that had been the idea , it was flawed, terribly. And for two reasons:

1. The enemy is not a standing army. It is a loose affiliation made up of extremists who believe all Muslim governments and people living outside strict, Shari’ah law must either conform or be destroyed.

2. To destroy those Muslim countries and peoples who refused to conform, radicalization of Muslims on a mass scale was needed. One such way to achieve this, as Bin Laden has stated, was to try and involve the United States in a mid east war.

In other words, invading Iraq was exactly what are enemies wanted us to do. What they didn’t want was a smart America using the intelligence agencies and apparatus of our friends and allies combined with strategic alliances with Arab countries who felt threatened themselves by the rise in Bin Laden’s popularity, to hunt down and destroy all its networks.

And, yes, of course it would have been hard work involving setbacks and defeats along the way, but it also would have been the right work with the right result. Unfortunately, instead of smart people we got dumb, dumber and a war in Iraq.

I also think that the only reasonable policy prescriptions have come from (a very few) Democrats (and old-style Republicans that are no longer listened to by those in power). The Iraq War is actually a pretty good case of liberalism gone awry in my opinion. Sure there are migating factors about why it was invaded that only conservatives cared about, but the whole idea we could go in there and they’d sing kumbayah and realize their inner humanity is a pretty PC concept.

Mikkel,
Your statement about liberalism gone awry is apt and of course is backed up by the fact that the Neocons were in fact, once liberals. I guess I (mistakenly) believed that they had taken some of the good ideas of liberalism and married them to ideas that are more realistic. And, I found it appealing that the new foreign policy might move away from some of the traditional Republican, realpolitik Cold War strategies that frankly are not much more moral than is the policy of preemptive war. If we were doing harm through the invasion of Iraq, I saw that as balanced against the harm that was resulting from our containment strategies that were typical of past US foreign policy.