How many more body bags?

It would be folly to cut and run. We must have an orderly withdrawal as the new Iraqi government is elected and the Iraqis take over the defense functions. How ever many body bags there are during that time frame will be the number.

 

Amen, Brother KenH -- Preach it!

I note the US Military death toll for 2½-years
in Iraq is equal to the death toll in the
American abortion mills for TEN HOURS.

 

Craig,
I surely respect your opinion, but this time I feel you wrong. That is of course if you are implying we should leave because soldiers are dying. If you are not implying that I apologize. I thank God everyday for our armed forces, but opposing a war in the basis of soldier deaths alone is fool hearted. Unless you would take an across the board ban on war, which would be nearly impossible due to World culture. Take a look at civilian and soldier deaths in WWI, II, etc. WWII had 19 million soldier deaths and 49 million civilian deaths. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWII Was it worth it? How do you quantify human life vs war? It is nearly impossible. It would also seem that if modern news coverage was around in the 30's and 40's, the human resolve would have been much lower. Only time will tell if the war was worth it. Let me just say again, God Bless our Soldiers and thank you very much.

 

if modern news coverage was around in the 30's and 40's ...

...we would have lost the war.

 

In Viet Nam, we had 60,000 of them before we let the communists have the place and slaughter the south.

 

This may just be the point. Wouldn't it have been better, since the North did eventually take over the South, to have had the U.S. withdraw earlier? At least then there would have been less soldiers dying.

Why not withdraw our troops now and save lives. It is pretty obvious that there will be civil war in Iraq when we leave, weather it is now or later.

 

This may just be the point. Wouldn't it have been better, since the North did eventually take over the South, to have had the U.S. withdraw earlier? At least then there would have been less soldiers dying.

Why not withdraw our troops now and save lives. It is pretty obvious that there will be civil war in Iraq when we leave, weather it is now or later. </font>[/QUOTE]A myopic view. Our troops staying there for the forseeable future will prevent many lives being lost. Yes we'll lose some soldiers, but if we pulled out, it would embolden the terrorists into massive slaughter campaigns at home and further attacks in America.

 

We compromised in Korea and in Viet Nam for no good reason. If we compromise in the Middle East, no one would ever help us again. That would be 3 strikes in 50 years. We would be out. The Arab League could strike without fear because the world would know that we would spend neither blood nor money for victory.

As General Douglas MacArthur said of Korea, "There is no substitute for victory."

We see that now as we are faced with a nuclear-armed North Korea.

 

3000 US soldiers died on D-Day alone. Obscure Civil War battles that few remember had more casualties than 2.5 years in Iraq. Korea had about 50,000 US deaths in 3 years... to achieve a stalemate requiring US troops to guard a hostile border to this very day. In WWI, the US lost 116,500 people in just over 1.5 years.

BTW, the Germans didn't attack us either time.

The Koreans didn't attack nor even threaten us.

The question isn't if there have been too many bodybags but if the US still has the resolve to be a great, world leading nation. The funny thing about American history is that the "peace" movement has directly caused war by emboldening our enemies and/or resulted in war being more severe by resisting the desire to stop a threat before it grows.

It wasn't the war hawks that caused the gross destruction and death of WWII. It was the passive, "peace-mongering", appeasers. Hitler could have been stopped as soon as rearmament begin... but people not unlike those who condemn our actions against Saddam, got their way and let him continue. Saddam was just as mad as Hitler. It is a good thing we didn't let him go also.

 

This may just be the point. Wouldn't it have been better, since the North did eventually take over the South, to have had the U.S. withdraw earlier? At least then there would have been less soldiers dying.

Why not withdraw our troops now and save lives. It is pretty obvious that there will be civil war in Iraq when we leave, weather it is now or later. </font>[/QUOTE]You want us to assume that we are going to fail as a justification for doing the wrong thing?... that seems to be the liberal mindset, granted.

As CMG mentioned, we now face nukes in N Korea because we were afraid of broadening the war in Korea. The same kind of reasoning is behind this fear of alienating Arabs and Muslims by our actions in Iraq.

Success silences critics... and is our only option in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the broader war on terrorists. That's why libs and Dems are so determined to refuse to recognize any progress, success, or legitimizing of Iraq. The minute the liberal media and libs in general admit that we are rebuilding the infrastructure, establishing the most "liberal" government in the region except for Israel, and destroying terrorists in their own back yard... they will lose credibility to criticize and spew negative propaganda.

 

It is funny how some people want to pull out, while most military personnel want to stay and finish the job.

 

This mis management of Iraq before and after will
be the subject of hundreds of books but some important questions are being raised because voices and questions are being raised across a
broad spectrum but one you are starting to hear
from parents is.

1.Either do it right or get out(which is very
legitimate).

2.Should American soldiers be dying for an Islamic
state or a fig leaf paper stating civil rights but
the reality on the ground is sharia is thriving.

3.Quit! the deception and speak the truth..especially about costs,training,lives and armor.

4.Should American soldiers referee a civil war and
with a big bulls eye on their backs?

5.Why do we allow Shias with American blood on their hands go free and in fact join the political
process?

7.Why is the Syrian and Iranian border porous?
not to mention Jordon,Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

8.Who will rescue the Christian minority in Iraq
from oppression and persecution?

9. Why did people get run off who spoke truth
to power about Iraq but then reward people of
failure with Congressional Medal of Freedoms?

10. 25,000 Mercenaries in Iraq raking in money
and soldiers doing the hard tasks?

11. 7% of our soldiers over there not Americans
but other nationals.

12. Where are the right wing sons and daughter who
speak of "stay the course" why are they not joining up.

13. Why is the coalition of the willing bailing out?

Iraq cost could reach in total a trillion dollars
unless the American people weigh in and demand
quality for their investment in blood and treasure.


9 of 10 Americans believe their should be protests
for and against the war and questions should be
addressed instead of cheap soundbites that just get people killed.

and Bush did hype quick resoluiton and gave
the big impression it would be easy..but now
look at the spin and they are backing away from
that..more deception and spin from and administration that has abysmally mis managed this
and now are breaking out more and more bandaids or
100 holes in the dyke and they only have 10 fingers.

Mark my words if bush/rove/cheney/rumsfeld ask for
another 80 billion these questions will be asked
perhaps not by special interests or congress but
by those 9 in 10 of the American population wanting answers ..that is their right.

So its not funny at all their are legitimate
questions...Americans are very trusting and forgiving but they do not like bad performance
from a President and his policies.The only
saving grace is that the soldier is preforming
above and beyond as they carry out orders it is
not their fault the policy is bad.


We mention body bags and compare other wars but
no one mentions the wounded and maimed this insurgency is about building a car bomb in an
hours time packed with 1000lbs of explosives and
blowing people to smithereens ..technology has
prevented deaths but instead we have a lot of
missing limbs..so it is not so much body bags
it is the living wounded and maimed as well.

but back to my salient point I think the
American people are saying this and from the
middle.


1.Either do it right or get out(which is very
legitimate).

If we decide to do it right and put more troops
in ..the American people may support that
if it means a secure Iraq,Non-Islamic state,freedoms for Christians,womens rights,etc..etc.

 

Like I said, I wonder why the majority of the military from top to bottom is behind the war?

As for your complaint about Christian freedoms; any other time you would be complaining about "religious" freedom, it just happens the majority is Muslim.

Finally, where do you come up with this 25,000 mercenaries making tons of money while American soldiers don't? Are you talking about the insurgents?

I won't get into the technology issue.

 

I don't remember Bush ever saying it was going to be easy or quick. I don't remember him even implying that it would be easy or quick. Seems he'd have to say it somewhere along the way to actually "hype" it , wouldn't he?

 

Another blatant &lt;edited - LE error&gt; by A-PAL. Or perhaps he'll suprise us all with a source. I remember him saying, from the beginning, that this would be a long fight.

[ August 29, 2005, 07:19 PM: Message edited by: LadyEagle ]

 

The government does not know how much it spends on private security contractors in total, the GAO said. But it is more than expected. "Contractor officials acknowledge that the cost of private security services and security-related equipment, such as armored vehicles, has exceeded what they originally envisioned," the GAO said.

The Pentagon estimates there are 60 private security firms with as many as 25,000 employees in Iraq. Some elite personnel make $33,000 a month. But there are no industry standards, and soldiers are not taught in advance how to interact with the armed contractors, according to the GAO.

 

Deaths of scores of mercenaries not reported

Occupiers Spend Millions on Private Army of Security Men

MOUNTAIN VIEWS: MERCENARIES MOUNT IRAQ OFFENSIVE

Bush administration officials and their hawkish supporters now say they never promised an easy war -- but the record shows otherwise.

 

No Bush quotes ? Oh well.

Cheney says....(from that link)
"My guess is even significant elements of the Republican Guard are likely as well to want to avoid conflict with the U.S. forces and are likely to step aside."

Hardly a promise of a quick war.

Rumsfeld said...
"And the people in Iraq need to know that: that it will not be long before they will be liberated."

They were liberated very soon after the invasion.

Richard meyers said...
"What you'd like to do is have it be a short, short conflict. The best way to do that is have such a shock on the system, the Iraqi regime would have to assume early on the end is inevitable."

The Iraqi regime has been eliminated, for quite some time, now.

Richard Perle...
"Saddam is much weaker than we think he is. He's weaker militarily. We know he's got about a third of what he had in 1991."

"But it's a house of cards. He rules by fear because he knows there is no underlying support. Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder. "

And it did.

All the quotes deal with Sadaam. He's been gone for a while. What we are doing is helping the Iraqi people deal with the insurgency, and the people fighting our forces are an extremely small percentage of the total population.

We won the war against Sadaam a long time ago.

 

Still looking for more quotes Bro Curtis. That's what I've found so far. Might take a minute or two.

Saddam is gone and good riddance. I do seem to remember reading somewhere that Iraqi oil revenue would pay for the reconstruction. Still looking for all that also. Busy day eh?