Why Are We In Iraq ?

[IIC]

That kind of segues into my next point...

If someone who doesn't speak my language came into my neighborhood and started blowing up my streets, schools and killing my neighbors, it wouldn't take long for me to want to start killing that person.

So.....first of all...who are we fighting in Iraq? And if we don't know this, are we doing exactly what I cited above?

I never worried about Iraq before....now I have to watch it on the news every day because we are over there making potholes in their countryside. Is it just a game of "whack a mole"? Kill one and create another one? Doesn't make sense to me.

Doesn't make much sense to me either...Reminds me of watching the Vietnam war on TV every night all thru JHS and HS

[New-born baby]

Does anyone ever wonder why on September 11th that 100 planes weren't hijacked? I mean it seemed like a very diabolical plan and that the only way to ever make it work would have been that one time.

If there are so many terrorists, how come they only took 4 planes? I'm not trying to minimize what happened, it just seems like if there were really a million terrorists, it probably would have been pretty easy to have hijacked 100 planes.

The other thing I also thought about was..remember how terrified everyone was when that idiot sniper was running loose in the Washington DC area for a month? I would think that would be something a terrorist could do fairly easily to wreak terror...yet that never happened either.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want bad things to happen to anyone, but it seems to me that if terrorists were so numerous and crawling around like cockroaches, it would be pretty easy for them to do evil things to people all the time.

They didn't hijack 100 planes at once for several reasons:
1. They first had to have 100 pilots to train to fly big jetliners. That was done right here in the USA. 100 pilot trainees would have attracted too much attention.
2. Suicidal manics--they've got plenty of them. But suicidal manics that speak English and can pass a background check, and have a reasonably legitimate reason for entering this country--that shrinks the field quite a bit.

If you want to see a few thousand suicidal terrorists in one place, just watch a video of a Hamas march in Israel. And don't forget there is a terrorist attack every single day in Israel. Don't forget that the Islamic terrorists are blowing up trains, subways and shopping malls in England, France, Spain and other countries, too. They haven't been sitting idly by doing nothing. But those targets are softer, and they don't have an army in their homelands who can easily and quickly take revenge.

You really ought to read a translation of a Osama bin Laden speech sometime.

[ParkTwain]

al-Qaida should be a target of the CIA and Special Forces. Totally asymmetric warfare. They are an organized crime operation. That's it. Invading Afghanistan and Iraq because of al-Qaida was always a laugher. Invading Iraq was about oil and Israel. That's it. Now we're stuck there spending $2B per week. Good for Halliburton, bad for America.

Read the EIA page re: Iraq. There used to be a whole lot more info on this page. It used to mention that only 25% of the country has been seismically surveyed. That Iraq has fewer oil wells than the state of Texas. The oil industry sees lots of green fields in Iraq. Low cost of extraction, too.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Iraq/Background.html

The oil industry is good at creating missions for the U.S. Dept of Defense.

[mrmarket]

They didn't hijack 100 planes at once for several reasons:
1. They first had to have 100 pilots to train to fly big jetliners. That was done right here in the USA. 100 pilot trainees would have attracted too much attention.
2. Suicidal manics--they've got plenty of them. But suicidal manics that speak English and can pass a background check, and have a reasonably legitimate reason for entering this country--that shrinks the field quite a bit.

If you want to see a few thousand suicidal terrorists in one place, just watch a video of a Hamas march in Israel. And don't forget there is a terrorist attack every single day in Israel. Don't forget that the Islamic terrorists are blowing up trains, subways and shopping malls in England, France, Spain and other countries, too. They haven't been sitting idly by doing nothing. But those targets are softer, and they don't have an army in their homelands who can easily and quickly take revenge.

You really ought to read a translation of a Osama bin Laden speech sometime.

NBB....You're right.

But why attack a country with an enormous mobilization effort, huge collateral damage and enormous cost in dollars and American lives, when you can quietly infiltrate, cherry pick and exterminate these bad guys one by one?

It seems to be you do a mass invasion when there is a uniformed enemy standing and waiting to fight you back. What we are doing in Iraq just isn't appropriate for the task at hand.

Now if 100's of planes were hijacked on 9/11, I would have been convinced that there were millions of people to worry about. In my mind, there are a few thugs out there who need to be selectively poisoned and exterminated. You don't tear down a house to kill a mouse.

[New-born baby]

NBB....You're right.

But why attack a country with an enormous mobilization effort, huge collateral damage and enormous cost in dollars and American lives, when you can quietly infiltrate, cherry pick and exterminate these bad guys one by one?

It seems to be you do a mass invasion when there is a uniformed enemy standing and waiting to fight you back. What we are doing in Iraq just isn't appropriate for the task at hand.

Now if 100's of planes were hijacked on 9/11, I would have been convinced that there were millions of people to worry about. In my mind, there are a few thugs out there who need to be selectively poisoned and exterminated. You don't tear down a house to kill a mouse.

Let's suppose you are correct: how do we do it? We had only 1 operative on the ground in Iraq. We have fought Gulf War I, and placed economic and military restrictions on the country. We have a hostile dictator who modeled his regime after Hitler's Germany. Are we able to sneak in there and get them?

[mrmarket]

Let's suppose you are correct: how do we do it? We had only 1 operative on the ground in Iraq. We have fought Gulf War I, and placed economic and military restrictions on the country. We have a hostile dictator who modeled his regime after Hitler's Germany. Are we able to sneak in there and get them?

We didn't need to...the economic sanctions would have worked. We would have starved out the country and they would have overthrown Saddam, he would have been killed, and Iraq would have gone into civil war and Iraq would have been split up into 3 factions.

Take a look now..the same thing is happening, except this time we'll end up spending a trillion dollars and lose 5,000 Americans.

True Halliburton's stock price went up and Cheney is grinning, which probably would not have happened in the first scenario.

[lemonjello]

You got that right. Since WWII it's all been about Israel and Oil. Oh, and Saddam allegedly made "hit attempt" on Daddy Bush which enraged Little King George.

American citizens are so brainwashed by the MSM at this point it's only possible to have a cogent discussion with a few.

Maybe it's just easier to not think and be a Faux News zombie.

Fun videos to watch -

Bush Oil

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_R_4JwEPyE

Israel Lobby

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2894821400057137878

al-Qaida should be a target of the CIA and Special Forces. Totally asymmetric warfare. They are an organized crime operation. That's it. Invading Afghanistan and Iraq because of al-Qaida was always a laugher. Iraq was about oil and Israel. That's it. Now we're stuck there spending $2B per week. Good for Halliburton, bad for America.

Read the EIA page re: Iraq. There used to be a whole lot more info on this page. It used to mention that only 25% of the country has been seismically surveyed. That Iraq has fewer oil wells than the state of Texas. The oil industry sees lots of green fields in Iraq. Low cost of extraction, too.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Iraq/Background.html

The oil industry is good at creating missions for the U.S. Dept of Defense.

[ParkTwain]

Does anyone ever wonder why on September 11th that 100 planes weren't hijacked? I mean it seemed like a very diabolical plan and that the only way to ever make it work would have been that one time.

If there are so many terrorists, how come they only took 4 planes? I'm not trying to minimize what happened, it just seems like if there were really a million terrorists, it probably would have been pretty easy to have hijacked 100 planes.

Don't you remember that some of guys in the terrorists' cell had spent time in Las Vegas? I think a good number of them used their Bin Laden Memorial Pilot Training Scholarship money to stay. You can live real cheap out in the desert down toward Searchlight and Laughlin. Looks just like back home (Saudi Arabia and Iraq), too!

[mrmarket]

Don't you remember that some of guys in the terrorists' cell had spent time in Las Vegas? I think a good number of them used their Bin Laden Memorial Pilot Training Scholarship money to stay. You can live real cheap out in the desert down toward Searchlight and Laughlin. Looks just like back home (Saudi Arabia and Iraq), too!

They also spent time at Olympic Garden and Sapphire as I recall.

[riverbabe]

Collateral Damage

I am going to bring up a point here that can only come from a woman's perspective. So many men (fewer women) are being killed in Iraq/Afghanistan. So many men (many fewer women) were killed in Vietnam. So many men (almost no women) were killed in WWII and, earlier in WWI.

Think about that. So many men gone that will never be mates for the women back home. Do any of you remember how many aunts you had who never got married? Do any of you realize the prospects of finding a good man for those of us women of the ages of these lost men? We are alone because all those good men were killed or maimed in all those wars. Wars like these mess up the gender balance. The women left behind and alone suffer also. It is a hidden collateral damage that no one ever talks about and few recognize. Riverbabe

[billyjoe]

And many of those returning have physical or mental wounds that effect their families in disastrous ways.

-------------billyjoe

[MEA_1956]

Thank God

When ever I read about this topic, it makes me thankful that both my children made it home safe and are both enjoying life in the USA. Marlin

And many of those returning have physical or mental wounds that effect their families in disastrous ways.

-------------billyjoe

[riverbabe]

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/opinion/21warner.html?th&emc=th

Guest Columnist
A Crack in Team Bush

By JUDITH WARNER
Published: July 21, 2007
It was a shock to see Defense Secretary Robert Gates battling tears Wednesday evening as he spoke about Maj. Douglas Zembiec, a Marine and father of a 1-year-old daughter, who was killed in May after requesting a second tour of duty in Iraq. Shocking and yet somehow profoundly validating and cathartic.

Choking, pausing, visibly suffering and clearly fighting off an onslaught of unwelcome emotion as he addressed the Marine Corps Association’s annual dinner, Gates seemed, for a moment, to tap into national sentiment in a way that the Bush team has never before done.

Sure, they tapped into our anger, fear and hatred in the days and months after 9/11. Sure, their swagger stoked our desires for vengeance and soothed some of the terror that took up residence in our guts in the weeks following the attacks.

But here was something new: an acknowledgment, however unbidden, of the complex range of negative emotions — sadness and frustration and, yes, I think, guilt — that’s now weighing upon the nation’s soul after four disastrous years in Iraq.

We’d never seen anything like it in the “Henny Penny” brush-offs of Gates’s predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld. We probably never will discern any inkling of it in Condoleezza Rice’s robotic equanimity. President Bush is known to meet privately with wounded soldiers and families of the fallen and is said, at those times, to become emotional, but little of that softness seeps into his often cocky — and defensive — public demeanor.

It’s hard to imagine much sympathy emanating from a man who admits to no soul-searching on Iraq, who vacationed through the panic and devastation of Hurricane Katrina and who recently shrugged off the issue of health care reform with the line, “I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.”

Rice, I read in the recent biography, “Twice as Good,” is so incapable of empathy that, in her late teens, and after years of assiduous and ambitious practice, she was forced to give up her dreams of becoming a concert pianist because her teacher felt she didn’t have the “interest or inclination” to “make someone else’s thoughts and emotions [her] own.”

We’ve all seen by now where such emotional sterility, coupled with a ferocious attachment to ideology, leads. And I think, as a nation — as Gates just did so publicly — we’re starting to show cracks from the strain.

I kept waiting yesterday for signs that, after his almost tearful performance, Gates would be labeled a “nut” or a “wimp” or some kind of national disgrace.

They didn’t come.

Instead, on a discussion board at Military.com, an online organization for active members of the military and veterans, I found Gates referred to as “a man of honor and integrity” by a former Marine Corps officer, who admitted that he himself, hearing Zembiec’s story, had broken down and cried, for the first time, before his 9- and 11-year-old children.

“He is obviously a man who tries his best to serve his country as best he possibly can, and he isn’t afraid to show his emotions,” wrote another poster.

Another wrote of being moved to tears nightly by the evening news: “I ache when I think of America’s sons and daughters being killed in a distant land. I am so relieved that Robert Gates is the decent, caring man he is proving to be.”

I pictured Vice President Dick Cheney miming, “Gag me,” and Rumsfeld swaying with the motions of playing an imaginary violin. And I thought: how wonderful it is that someone, on high, has had the strength to own the pain that’s been caused by our disastrous course in Iraq.

One has to wonder, of course, what public opinion would have been if the first cabinet official to lose it — just a bit — had been not the stoic bureaucrat Gates but instead our female secretary of state. Had it been Rice up on that podium, and were she constitutionally capable of that degree of non-Bush-centered feeling, would she have been denounced? Would she have been belittled, punished politically, dismissed as too irrational and emotional — too girly — to deal with the ugly realities of war?

We’ll never know, because she — like all powerful women in politics — will never let us find out. They can’t afford to. Not unless much more of official Washington decides it’s man enough to truly feel our nation’s inner disarray.

Judith Warner is the author of “Perfect Madness” and a contributing columnist for TimesSelect. She is a guest Op-Ed columnist.

[IIC]

I am going to bring up a point here that can only come from a woman's perspective. So many men (fewer women) are being killed in Iraq/Afghanistan. So many men (many fewer women) were killed in Vietnam. So many men (almost no women) were killed in WWII and, earlier in WWI.

Think about that. So many men gone that will never be mates for the women back home. Do any of you remember how many aunts you had who never got married? Do any of you realize the prospects of finding a good man for those of us women of the ages of these lost men? We are alone because all those good men were killed or maimed in all those wars. Wars like these mess up the gender balance. The women left behind and alone suffer also. It is a hidden collateral damage that no one ever talks about and few recognize. Riverbabe

River...I can empathize with what you are saying...It is a total waste of life IMO what happened in Vietnam and what is happening in the Middle East.

If a woman's boyfriend or husband never comes back alive I see what you are saying...And of course that is cruel.

But I never remember an Aunt not having a husband and I don't know of any woman in the USA today that cannot find a decent husband.

However bad War and Killing is...I sincerely doubt that the gender balance is all out of whack...At this point anyway.

I may sound harsh and I may sound like a Hawk...But I'm really not...I'm simply responding to your point that good men are not available...I disagree with that

[scifos]

There's a guy that's already got all these issues covered and he's running for President.


Judge Napolitano on Ron Paul - watch the series

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8QwTKKSvR8

www.ronpaul2008.com

Check the issues

http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/

Ron Paul is the man. Then again, I've voted libertarian as much as possible.