Response to freeper at huffpost
Thu Aug 11, 2005 at 07:21:06 PM PDT
I sometimes find it staggering to see the amount of trolls that have been out of late. I think it is a sign of good things (for our side) to come...we have them rattled. I encountered this young man on
The Huffington Post but, was unable to answer his questions there (my answers were too lengthy so I thought that I would answer them here (and direct him here for his answers).
More below the fold
Bob G wrote the following comment:
Wow. I'm amazed at the hate for Bush. It's amazing.
As someone who believes we did the right thing in liberating the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, I'd like the people who believe that the Bush administration was wrong to enforce the UN sanctions to answer a few questions:
1.Do you want the insurgents to win? Now that we have troops in Iraq and are invested in helping the people establish a pseudo-democracy, is it worth it to you to see our efforts fail because it will make George Bush look bad and add points for the Democratic party in the 2006 and 2008 elections? I know that deep down most every citizen in the United States doesn't want to see our men and women killed and maimed on the battlefield, but do you think your interests to regain power have made you lose sight of the fact that if we leave Iraq now, the 1,900 plus soldiers who have died in this war will have died for nothing and many more thousands of Iraqis will die at the hands of terrorists.
2.Have you thought about the consequences of losing this war? Iraq will continue to be a threat to our country and our enemies will be emboldened. While you believe that it is important for us to be more liked by the Muslim extremists, the fact is that if we lose this war, it will show weakness and these terrorists, while not hating us any less, will see that as an opening for more attacks. Terrorists believe that Americans don't have the stomach for war--that they will leave as soon as things get difficult, like we did in Mogadishu. If we follow the advice of people like you, Ted Kennedy, Michael Moore and MoveOn.org, we will prove them right.
- Is opposing this war effort the hip thing to do? While it used to be that going to war was seen as a seduction to the drama and romance of battle - is it now the Vietnam and 60's peace movement that is being romanticized? No one likes war, but is it now your belief that any military effort that isn't a matter of America's survival - such as a world war -- is unjust or unethical?
- While it is your right to blast our president, focus on the negative and accuse our government and military of torture - and it is not unpatriotic to do so -- do you not recognize the impact some of this rhetoric carries? Do you understand that our enemies use such things as what Senator Durbin said to strengthen their resolve and gain support?
I sincerely would like to get your response to these questions because I don't understand your position and I am starting to truly believe there is a possibility that we will lose this war - not on the ground but in the political arena, in the media and through the erosion of public support. And that really scares me.
Posted by: Bob G. at August 11, 2005 04:00 PM
My answers to Bob's Questions are as follows:
- There is a cold, hard reality that many on your side of the aisle have yet to realize. We have already lost this war! There is no way that we will be able to engender a true democracy in Iraq; the sectarian strife is too great and there is far too much bad blood and history amongst the various factions. What you need to understand is that, Iraq has, for some months now, been in the precursor stages of a civil war and there isn't a damn thing that our troops are going to be able to do to stop it. The fact is that those 1900 brave men and women (30+ of whom were friends of mine) have already died in vain. The administration has changed the reasoning behind the war so many times now that it's hard to keep up but, I'll give it a shot. First, the rhetoric was that Sadam had weapons of mass destruction and if we don't stop him with force now, there will be "mushroom clouds" on the horizon. We all know that this has been proven to be false by numerous sources (including Charles Dulfer, the administration's investigator). Next came, "Sadam aided and abetted Al Qaeda and was, therefore, complicit in the 9/11 attacks." Sadam was a secular dictator whose only real concerns were centralizing and expanding his power (sounds familiar huh?). Osama Bin Laden would never have had anything to do with someone like Sadam who he viewed as a traitor to Islam. This has also been proven to be false through numerous agencies and their respective reports. Finally came, we must instill democracy in the Middle East and end tyranny the world over. If we truly wanted to stamp out the worst of the tyrannical regimes in the Middle East, why did we attack the one country in the region who we had successfully neutered for 10 years? Could it be that they sit on top of the world's 2nd largest oil reserves? I think that's a pretty safe bet. If we really wanted to stamp out tyrannical rule in the middle-east, Saudi Arabia would have been a much better target for our ire...after all, we KNOW that they have supported terrorist groups (including Al Qaeda and others) and 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers came from there. As to tens of thousands of Iraqis dying at the hands of terrorists...this is a reality that we created so, I am almost inclined to agree with you. However, the fact that our occupation of their country is fueling a large amount of the violence, leads me to believe that our leaving will probably save the lives of many more Iraqis than it could possibly cost (and it will save us a great deal more in both blood and money).
- As I mentioned above, we have already lost the war. You say that Iraq will continue to be a threat to our country. I would submit to you (as a recent veteran who deployed in support of both Operations Northern and Southern Watch) that, Sadam wasn't a threat to us or any of his neighbors. The only reason that Iraq is a threat to security now is because we brought an unjustified war to their doorstep. You keep preaching about not wanting the terrorists to gain any ground. I would submit to you, however, that we have given them everything they wanted and then some through our callous and unnecessary invasion of Iraq. Their recruiting has risen steadily over the past 2 years and will continue to do so. In addition, Iraq presents them with a real-time, hands-on training environment so they don't need camps in Afghanistan or Sudan anymore. Rest assured, we have created FAR more terrorists than we have killed or captured as a direct result of our actions in Iraq. Do you honestly think that by staying involved in an unfruitful meat-grinder and serving up our men and women for slaughter is going to change their opinion of us? Fundamentalist Islam has always, and WILL always view us as "the Great Satan"...nothing is going to change that, least of all our letting them maim and kill our soldiers at truly alarming rates.
- You ask if any war that is not a matter of America's survival is unjust. The short answer is, NO of course not! This war is not unjust simply because our survival was not at stake (although the Bush administration would have had us believe otherwise). The war in Iraq is unjust because it was completely unnecessary not to mention that we had MUCH bigger fish to fry in Afghanistan; for instance, finding the guy who DID attack us and kill 3000 of our citizens. Now, what was his name again? I seem to have forgotten. That doesn't even begin to address the huge gaps between reality and what the administration was (and is) telling the American people (they are LIARS and war profiteers and any defense of such actions is reprehensible in my book).
- The simple fact of the matter is that you need to stop listening to the Republican talking points (stop listening to the media in general...it's all propaganda). Sen. Durbin's statement had NO, I repeat NO, affect on anything happening in Iraq or anywhere else in the world. What these deplorable individuals (terrorists) are pissed off about is NOT the words of a few American politicians. What they are pissed off about is years and years of American foreign policy that goes against their belief structure (that doesn't make their opinion or, in particular, their methodology correct by any means but, it does illustrate the inanity of your question here.)
These poor deluded fools who think that we can actually "win" the war in Iraq (or that that is a goal for our administration) blows my mind sometimes. Obviously, none of them has ever been to the greater middle east and I would submit that the grand majority of them has never seen any kind of combat. If Bob is an abberation to either of those statements, then he has my apologies (my answers to his questions still stand though). The fact of the matter is that we were never meant to win the war in Iraq. The administration and their cronies are making far too much money off the war in its current state of carnage and destruction. Even if we do, somehow, establish a viable democracy in Iraq (which I happen to believe is a pipe dream not worth chasing any longer), the first thing the Iraqi government is going to ask us to do is get the hell out of their country. Why don't we beat them to the punch. All the spin in the world can't change reality. Iraq is headed for a civil war and there isn't a damn thing we can do to stop it. All we can do is get our people the hell out of there before the shit really starts to hit the fan (and believe me, we haven't seen anything yet...it's early in the game) is get our men and women out of their so we don't have to witness a repeat to helicopters lifting off from our embassy in a foreign nation because we were too stupid to realize our own hubris and weakness.
Permalink | 14 comments