On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 20:34:54 GMT, "Jim," wrote:

Dave Hall wrote:
On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 07:45:32 -0500, DSK wrote:


*This* is not a war. We invaded a country that did nothing towards us
that warranted it, we "defeated" its crappy armed forces in short order,
and we continue to occupy that country, taking hits and passing them out.

What *this* is a b.s. excuse for a war, perpetrated on a pack of lies.

Dave Hall wrote:

You are entitled to your opinion, as wrong as it seems to be.


What's wrong with the above statements? Minus the invective (which you
certainly indulge in yourself) it is 100% accurate.

We invaded Iraq.

What were the reasons? WMDs? Fallacious from the git-go. Involvement
with the Sept 11th attack? Cooperation with Al-Queda? Equally
fallacious. The UN resolutions about disarming? Iraq offered proof that
they *had* disarmed, which turned out to be correct, but rejected by the
Bush Administration with *no* attempt at diplomacy... nor was there any
serious attempt at getting UN backing to "enforce" this resolution.

Them's the facts.

per the neo-con textbook


No, they're not. The fact that WMD were not YET found does not mean
that they were never there.

We know they were there because we sold them to them.

Along with the former Soviets and along with stuff they made
themselves. All that does is prove the point that Iraq DID have them.
The question then becomes, where did ALL of them go? We only accounted
for SOME of them after the Gulf war.


the fact that
they were deteriorated beyond use is immaterial (I'm talking Chemical
weapons)

No one ever said that Iraq was directly
involved in 9/11. But they do have contacts with terrorists.

And there's a picture of Chaney shaking hands with Saddam -- so
following your logic, WE had contact with terrorists also

Deflection tactic. We had diplomatic contact. They had collaborative
contact with terrorist groups including Al-Qaeda. Saddam offered aid
to those who killed Israelis in the name of Palestine. He was a proven
supporter of terrorism.

THAT is a fact.



The fact
that Iraq disregarded UN resolutions (which they signed to end the
Gulf war) put them in default, and subjected them to a resolution of
that war.

In which case the UN should be fighting the war.

Are you naive or just being a typical liberal? The U.N. has no
military. We are the strong arm of the U.N.


Diplomacy ended when Saddam threw the weapons inspectors out in 1998.

Umm -- The inspectors were back. The US advised them to leave prior to
the bombing.

Yes, but for 4 years Saddam had time to scatter his weapons among the
winds. It's no coincidence that the inspectors were invited back (to
find nothing).

We defeated Iraq's armed forces, deposed it's gov't, and are still
occupying the country. There was a *lot* of advice given the Bushies
about what the aftermath of the invasion would be like, all of it
ignored, all of it depressingly accurate... in fact Rumsfeld was even
disengenuous enough to insist (self-contradictorily in the way
ubiquitous among Bushies) that the advice was wrong and he never got it
anyway... and that our Commander-In-Chief insisted almost 2 years and
1200 deaths ago that 'major combat operations are over"...

Them's the facts.

Per the neo-con textbook


Those are distortions. At the core is factual information. The
conclusions based on them are disingenuous.

No one said that this war would be easy or short.

"We will be greeted with cheers and flowers" Rummy said he had plenty
of troops. The "election" was delayed a year to try to settle things down.

So you'd label the plan a failure or a "lie" because of unforseen
circumstances which delayed (but it still happened and with a turnout
greater than anticipated) the election? Many Iraqis did "cheer" when
we got there. You didn't see much of it though because the
predominately liberally biased media is only interested in
broadcasting the bad news.

Read some correspondence from actual soldiers who were there and saw
these things first hand. I know a few of them, and the stories they
tell are in sharp contract with the doom and gloom that the Dan
Rathers of the world report with a barely contained smile and a
twinkle



The fact that it's
still going on is not an indication of failure. We spent more time
rebuilding Germany and Japan after WWII.

Rebuilding is about as far away from fighting insurgents as I can imagine.

You have to start somewhere. Rebuilding IS going on. Insurgents are
only in small pockets of the country. But since violence is all the
news media reports on, you'd think the whole country was under siege.

Quite a few "brave" Iraqis defied the insurgents to vote in the recent
election. If it was as bad as our news media has conditioned us to
believe, do you think the turnout would have been as great, or that
there would have been more violence at the polling places?

Our actions have had a positive impact. More and more middle eastern
nations are talking about democracy. Elections were held in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. In Iran, there is a
growing secular democratic movement. Libya dissolved their nuke
program, Pakistan nearly caught OBL.

Things are looking better. But you leftist doom and gloomers are
calling these efforts a failure simply because they didn't happen in
the same time table as they do in a Rambo or Swartzenegger movie.

Look back in history at our most recent wars. We spent more time in
all of them and lost more lives in single battles than what we've lost
in all of Iraq so far. As far as wars go, this is hardly a "Quagmire".
It is showing all the signs of positive growth. Just because there are
a bunch of thorns on the shaft is no reason to throw away the rose.


Those are the facts.

Dave