Who decided the war was over?

Funny comment, in a sad way. Richard Reeves, one of the more intelligent liberal columnists, wrote a column a few months ago about how occupation breeds contempt, both of the occupiee for the occupier, and vice versa. You proved that nicely.

 

I know better than this of course, just frustrated with recent events.

 

The war ends when our last solder is home!!

 

Brilliant.

Am i the only one on this forum that sees that America's involvment is vital to the safety of the world? What if they were isolationists like the rest?

 

America is forever being critizied for being isolationist and unilateral. In reality, the US is merely working in a way to serve her own best intrests, and is the only country to be able to do so without needing to get everyone elses permission first.

I beleive that the US is acting very responsibly in excercising its power.

 

no this war isnt over by a long shot, and if recent events are any indication, the US will be suffering some heavier casualties over the next while. while the bush admin has no clear plan to solve the problem. one thing that i think about is the number of wounded. the term "wounded" makes you think of a broken arm, some cuts etc. but the reality is when they say 15 wounded, and people at home are breathing a sigh of relief. they are really badly wounded, like lost limbs, burnt all over, paralyzed etc. shit that isnt just "wounded", not to me anyway. the US has managed to piss off more people in iraq than they did before, what a great plan bush had...

 

The only people who are pissed off in Iraq are those who were connected to the previous ruling party. The rank and file Iraqi no longer has to fear government torture chambers and the like. That small but vocal minority will be pacified, eventually, by whatever force it takes to do it.

As for casualties, we've conquered a nation and held control of it for a year. All while taking fewer casualties than we did in the first hour of the Normandy invasion. That's a pretty stellar track record in my view.

 

america's fighting of al queda is world safety, america's war on iraq is not

 

Too bad a group of nations didn't kick Hitlers ass in 33 or 34. Think of the difference in the world if all meglomaniacs had been eliminated at the earliest sign of genocide, mass torture, etc.

RB

 

Yeah, toppling teapot dictators and attempting to bring some stability to the Middle East is in no one's best interests....

 

really...that's why the place is up for grabs....

bob has a point, invaiding afganistan disrupted al-qaeda.

iraq under saddam was a stable government as MarkB pointed out.

 

My point was not how this war compares to Vietnam, or what the absolute number of casualties is. Rather, I find the relative number of casualties during and after the war troubling to say the least. Hence my contention that whoever decided it was over did so unilaterally and based on criteria that completely elude me.

 

that's a pretty bold statement. I have become accustomed to more rigorous work from you. How would you go about backing this up?

 

You call this shit stability? civil war about to erupt and that's stable? and what other mideast countries are supporting us? the ones that did in the past we bought their "loyalty ' with arms.

We've created an enitre generation of children in the middle east that associate the US with bombs, bloodshed, and death. and 90 percent of the world thinks we're bloodthirsty, arrogant bullies.

 

Good. Up until last year they thought the US was a big, fat, dumb, toothless tame bear that could be abused without consequences. The new perception is a huge improvement.

 

Excuse the naivity, but does anyone else think its a shame that people in those countries will live and die their entire lives thinking the worst of us, and we will live our entire lives thinking only the worst of them.

I thought the age of increased communications would show the best of people to each other - but instead it seems only to have scared peoples into beleiveing the worst of each other, and feeling threatened.

I think the global communication age has brought different cultures together in the worst of ways. They only hate us because they can see us. And because they can see us, they feel threatened into becoming more like them. The more the traditionalists in their ranks want to kill us.

Its all just a little sad and unfortunate consequence of technology.

 

I'm gonna hate myself for this in the mornin', butt,

 

I'll definately agree with that... we're getting our ass kicked in trade but we can kill pretty good... and what's it gotten us?

 

i agree, so much for "stability" 12 more marines gone today, the iraqi's the gov't thought would be on their side aren't, and the situation is going to hell real fast. the gov't said they will stay the course so these men wont die in vain. YEAH thats right get more men killed to help justify the ones who have already died, meanwhile the situation gets worse not better.
if they get out now, they will have a whole country pissed at them, which will turn to more infighting and surely breed more terrorists. the other option, stay and possibly have the same consequences. one hell of a situation bush has gotten the country in.