When War Theories Collide

*sigh*

It isn't just sticking it out that wins a war. It's a whole multitude of factors. What a horrible analysis. It's like saying we could invade any country we want and change it for the better if we just hang around long enough.

The largest obstacle in the case of Iraq is that we have taken over a Muslim territory and there are many other Muslim nations who will endlessly fincance it's return to the fold.

In order to achieve any kind of stable self governing Iraq, we will be forced to create an Islamic counterpart to Israel. That means more tons of money, planes, tanks, real military training at our bases etc. etc. Apart from that I guarentee the government will topple months after we pull out.

On top of all that, either outcome still has no relationship to our own national security.

 

Right, the Democrats want a compromise just as they got in Korea and Viet Nam.

I think that the Democrats are the weak link in this chain. They are very likely to use their media power as well as the educational system and the government bureaucracy--their iron triangle as Reagan called it in reference to Viet Nam--to force a stalemate in Iraq and call a halt to additional efforts to contain terrorism in the Arab League.

The off-year elections in 2006 could see the Democrats use the peace stragety to capitulate to the forces of Islamic terror in order for them to regain power in the Congress. Right now I think the rank and file Democrat is undecided about supporting the military until victory is won. The Leftist Democrats are stating that Bush lied and that the war is making us unpopular in western Europe, etc. They clearly are trying to get the rank and file Democrats to follow their lead and head left.

The left, saying that the outcome has no relationship to our securtiy, shows a willingness to risk our security in order to gain political power. It reminds me of JFK's false campaign in 1960 of a missile gap, which he repudiated after election, just as he repudiated his promise of air support to the Cubans after they already were attacking.

 

What is the basis of your guarantee? </font>[/QUOTE]The current stream of Islamic extremists. Without invading every middle eastern country we'll never make a dent in their numbers.

This war should have taught you that much.

 

CMG, I don't know to what extent you feel the media or public opinion affects the war in Iraq, but I think we need to all agree on one thing:

A guy who is willing to blow himself up in order to kill a few dozen people doesn't give a crap about the American media or what Americans think.His willingness stems from fanatical devotion to his lunatic religion. These crazed Muslims believe in a unified Islamic effort to rid the west from their land (and eventually the earth).

I've said it before and I'll say it again. This is not the kind of war we are prepared to fight. No matter how you slice it, victory is a slim to none chance.

 

So Travelsong, do you honestly believe if we pull out of the region they will not export their terrorism to the USA?

Do you really think we would be better off fighting terrorism on your street and mine?

 

That is exactly where you are wrong, Travelsong. There is a new study out of homicide bombers by Robert Pape, "associate professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where he teaches international politics and is the director of the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism." His book is entitled Dying to Win and it is a study of homicide bombers since 1980.

By the way, we fought against oriental kamikazes before, principally at the Battle of Okinawa around Easter of 1945. The media must get a grip and refuse to glorify the military tactics of these homicide bombers. In the case of the Iraq war, they are dependent upon American media to publish their works worldwide and put political pressure on the military for the withdrawal that you advocate. The proof of this is that no one uses homicide bombers against a dictatorship or totalitarian state. As long as you think the way you do, the Arabs know that they have a chance to reach you via the liberal American media, knowing that you do not want to stay until victory but want to retreat into the luxury of America, like the Constitution Party wants also.

Here are some conclusions from the new book published by Random House:

FACT: Suicide terrorism is not primarily a product of Islamic fundamentalism.

FACT: The world’s leading practitioners of suicide terrorism are the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka–a secular, Marxist-Leninist group drawn from Hindu families.

FACT: Ninety-five percent of suicide terrorist attacks occur as part of coherent campaigns organized by large militant organizations with significant public support.

FACT: Every suicide terrorist campaign has had a clear goal that is secular and political: to compel a modern democracy to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland.

FACT: Al-Qaeda fits the above pattern. Although Saudi Arabia is not under American military occupation per se, one major objective of al-Qaeda is the expulsion of U.S. troops from the Persian Gulf region, and as a result there have been repeated attacks by terrorists loyal to Osama bin Laden against American troops in Saudi Arabia and the region as a whole.

FACT: Despite their rhetoric, democracies–including the United States–have routinely made concessions to suicide terrorists. Suicide terrorism is on the rise because terrorists have learned that it’s effective.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400063175/ref=pd_sxp_f/102-1531208-9928131

Here is another statement by the author:

Over the past two years, I have compiled a database of every suicide bombing and attack around the globe from 1980 through 2003 - 315 in all. This includes every episode in which at least one terrorist killed himself or herself while trying to kill others, but excludes attacks authorized by a national government (like those by North Korean agents against South Korea). The data show that there is far less of a connection between suicide terrorism and religious fundamentalism than most people think.

The leading instigator of suicide attacks is the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a Marxist-Leninist group whose members are from Hindu families but who are adamantly opposed to religion. This group committed 76 of the 315 incidents, more than Hamas (54) or Islamic Jihad (27). Even among Muslims, secular groups like the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Al Aksa Martyr Brigades account for more than a third of suicide attacks.

What nearly all suicide terrorist attacks actually have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland. Religion is often used as a tool by terrorist organizations in recruiting and in seeking aid from abroad, but is rarely the root cause.

 

You can say you have Muslim radicals involved
in the fight but you are totally ignoring
pure Iraqi nationalists and Baathist make up
the majority of the insurgency, people who are
secular also make up the insurgency so it just
does not wash to brand them all Islamic Fascists.
That is the bush talking points to deceive again
and take the pressure of his own incompetence.

Iraq wants to be run by Iraq and any squabbles they have can be dealt with by them. We are
throwing the treasure of youthful blood and
perhaps a trillion dollars into the wind...we
need to draw down bring the troops home with
honor...we will have a 3,000 manned Baghdad
embassy there to prop up the government and
probably have a base or two if the American people
deem it necessary.

We took our eye off the ball with the real terrorist and invaded Iraq and even in Afghanistan
we may need a troop boost which I would support.

FACT: Every suicide terrorist campaign has had a clear goal that is secular and political: to compel a modern democracy to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland.

I agree with this cmg


Someone said what would prevent the terrorist
coming to the USA...well! what is preventing
them now! Surely not our border where they
just picked up some Iraqis although not terrorists.

That logic just does not wash at all if they
wanted to hit us here it looks like they could
from our southern border...I think you have
a coalition of Iraqi nationalists,baathists,muslim
zealots, and minority of outside foreign fighters
that may be growing but is still a minority.

Not a bunch of guys saying "Gee Akmad I sure wish
we could get into the united states to blow up
a mall, but we can't so lets blow up a convoy"
come on!

Al Qaeda wants to get in here but the common Iraqi
national..come on!

 

"That would only be true if the vast majority of Americans become weak-kneed toward the Islamofascists. That ain't gonna happen."

That's true Ken. That ain't gonna happen, as long as the PTB have the power to manipulate public opinion with fear. They did it to get us to go along with the invasion, surely they can do it to get us to approve staying there.

"Can you prove that the majority is not composed of foreigners and Baathists?"

Don't know if this proves anything, but it's from a mainstream source.

By PATRICK QUINN and KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writers
Fri Jul 1, 7:26 AM ET



BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. and Iraqi officials have long believed that foreign fighters infiltrating Iraq through its porous borders with Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia are behind most suicide missions, and the recent wave of bloody strikes has confirmed that thinking.

Authorities have found little evidence that Iraqis have been behind the near-daily stream of suicide attacks over the past six months, U.S. and Iraqi intelligence officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity

Also in article

"I still think 80 percent of the insurgency, the day to day activity, is Iraqi — the roadside bombings, mortars, direct weapons fire, rifle fire, automatic weapons fire," said Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East expert with the Congressional Research Service, which advises U.S. lawmakers.

But he added: "The foreign fighters attract the headlines with the suicide bombings, no question."


SOURCE

 

That would only be true if the vast majority of Americans become weak-kneed toward the Islamofascists. That ain't gonna happen. </font>[/QUOTE]Ken, I hope you are right, but I worry about the next President and his dedication to this fight, in light of the leftist propaganda machines power to persuade.

 

Right on target! We need to keep pushing for doing the right thing!

 

"The Leftist Democrats are stating that Bush lied and that the war is making us unpopular in western Europe, etc. They clearly are trying to get the rank and file Democrats to follow their lead and head left."

What is it that you would prefer the Bush administrations use of untruths and manipulation of fear be called? Why, just the other night I even witnessed a Republican conservative as much as admit Bush lied and manipulated our fears to remove Saddam by invasion but for good reason of course.

"Right on target! We need to keep pushing for doing the right thing!"

I couldn't agree more, and the right thing is for Americans to demand those we put in power to be honest with us.

 

I'm glad President Bush, and his administration, have been honest with us and I'm also glad we put him in that office to lead our nation through these difficult times.

Patrick

 

"I'm glad President Bush, and his administration, have been honest with us and I'm also glad we put him in that office to lead our nation through these difficult times."

He says while pushing aside that mountain of evidence to the contrary.

I know Patrick, if it doesn't support the Bush administrations rhetoric it isn't relevent to the discussion.

 

It's the trash talk generated by the anti-war crowd that I discard onto the mountain of garbage where it belongs.

Patrick

 

We will be anyway. We are delaying the inevitable by drawing the jihadists to Iraq. But there are terrorists living among us here in the homeland because of our lax immigration policies and porous borders.

But for the meantime, the attention is focused on Iraq and the terrorists seem far away.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/07/02/international/i103147D39.DTL

 

The only people who lied have been the Arabs and other Islamists who said that they would trade petro-chemical products for money with no problems.

We have had years of them attacking us. Actually, even President Jefferson had his fill of Arabs in the Tripolitan War, which the marines remember in the Marine Hymn:

"From the halls of Montezuma To the shores of Tripoli' ,

We fight our countrys battles In the air', on land, and sea."

Islamists are on the march to conquer the world. They are not willing to compromise because built into their religion is a basic abuse of human rights, Poncho, that denies religious freedom and demands that infidels either convert or die. Also, built into Islam is a denial of basic human rights to women and other minorities. For example, they demand the death penalty for sodomy. Why we would have to execute half of downtown Indianapolis if we were Islamic. San Francisco would be a ghost town under Islam. Boston would be a village under Islam.

So we have to clear out the weapons and make sure that our European friends can get the gas that they need and then we can go home. Iraq might become like Turkey with a secular state. I think that Iraq has always been ruled by oriental despotism so it would be a first if any Arab could restrain himself and build a civilized country.

I wouldn't advise anyone to live in the Arab League or any other Islamic country.

There were no lies. There was Nine Eleven and there was a gutted intelligence system that did not predict Nine Eleven and was in error worldwide on Iraq, which even Clinton has been at pains to say that he thought had WMDs. That is called the fog of war. Once there we have encountered all of Islamic terrorist forces and so it turned out to be a good location as we have put pressure on Iran and Syria.

The real lesson here is that the Democrats under Church should never have gutted our intelligence capability because it turned out that we had had the only real ability on the planet. The Left cannot win except by lies and that will destroy the country even as it puts the left in power. Does the left think that conservatives will support their lying government as the attacks continue? It is up to the rank and file Democrats to decide if they want victory or permanent defeat.