I guess not enough people have died in Iraq yet.

The Metropolitian NYC area is large than Iraq. It would not take much more. The problem has been not enough troops, but more so, not enough civilian supprt. Teacher and Cops.

BTW - the rate of deaths in Iraq in its civillian stiffe sould erriely close to what NYC was going through prior to the Guilliani revolution and the melting of 50,000+ guns in less than 4 years.

Ruben

 

Yah Danr! Didn't you know you couldn't find a gun in New York anywhere in the last 4 or 5 years! No body has them now but the police, and they use them on people about to be married.

 

I did not quite get the civilian death remark.655,000 civilians have died there.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html

 

I took it that this was the nember killed with guns. The nember you have also included the ones who were blown up with bombs. You are talking apples and oranges. Or dead and really dead.

 

It's all within our capability because we have all these Arabic speaking Americans sitting around just waiting to be shipped off to Iraq or because there is this enormous untapped reserve of extra troops, cops, and teachers that would rather be over there in the middle of a civil war rather than at home with their families?

And to top it all off, this senerio is only unlikely because of the "Cater" (?????) branch of the Democratic party??
I think several branches of the Democratic party would be opposed to this plan as well as anyone with an iota of common sense that happens to be outside the Democratic party.

Your idea to throw perfectly good Americans into an ill-conceived war plan ineptly executed by incompetent political hacks is just the other side of criminally irresponsible to put it mildly-and I don't mean that in the nice way. No offense, but you might want to have your home's drinking water analysed as soon as possible.

Again, No offense. :headbang: :headbang: :headbang: :headbang:

 

a little PS I threw together a while back that has a bit of relevance here

 

I'm not offended by you because I come to understand that people are very limited in understanding what they refuse to understand. But, none the less, the war in Iraq has essentially kept NY from being executed for 6 years while putting 150,000 American troops on the door step of Iran. I'm good with all that. It has allowed Democracy to be force of change throughout the region from Lebanon to Islamabad and has made every Islamofacist in tthe world very nervous.

If we do what is necessary for nation building in Iraq, and everything will turn out fine and we have no reason to take our troops out unless it is to turn them loose on Iran or Syria. The US Military has clearly shown that it can secure the country and make it safe if it choses to. Its been a political decision not to apear as 'occupiers' and to give the current government of Iraq wide range of governence which has caused this situation to simmer. Simmering might be whats needed, but at no time is the situation such that we can't just lay down the hammer and free that country from the civil striffe it is going through. Our soldiers did it without much trouble for the evelections and cleared out Faluja in just a few days. In a region where a wide majority of the people are under the age of 16, it is really just a matter of getting them into secure schools, where they feel safe and closing down the radicals.

The negligence in this matter has been the half hearted effort to rebuild the country while rightfully opposing the idea of just supporting another dictator in the wake of removing Sadam Hussian.

The alternative is to give the misimpression to Syria, Iran and would be Islamofacists that we will tolerate a Dalfur like situation to erupt in the middile east where a minority of fanatics are the only people who can lay down safety and order while taking the lives of every Jew in the world and the citizens of every Free Western Nation (not to mention believers in Islam who are different than themselves).

This is not going to happen in my lifetime, if I can help it. I don't care how many self-rightous Moen's with misinformation oppose the use of American force in the defense of the repressed and for Democratic change worldwide.

By all means Moen, if there is any doubts, you can do like James Baker and blame the Jews for the whole mess.


Ruben

 

Ah, but YOU see things so clearly and understand things so well and do not suffer from the same limited ability to understand things...how fortunate for you

I knew this administration was either being insincere or was just not aware of what they were getting into when I saw this:

“It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.”

Now I was and am not privy to the information they were privy to at the time and I am sure I am no military tactician but at the time this just seemed outrageous and filled me with the fear that these guys were not being realistic. They were either lying about the task at hand or simply not aware of the situation on the ground there.

I supported the invasion of Afghanistan, not so much Iraq, I felt at the time that it was bad timing and we had not, and still have not, concluded the business against those responsible for the attack on 9/11 and still face a hotbed of unchecked terror in northern pakistan that will requires our full attention. I felt we did not NEED to spread ourselves out into 2 large volatile nations at once.

Dont get me wrong, I am no fan of saddam but in truth we have supported him as we have historically felt it is better him (generally secular) than the Iranian backed Shiites who were, without doubt, just waiting for their chance to take over and I think recent events have shown that once given their chance they have proved no less brutal and totalitarian and if there is going to be brutes, at least let them NOT be extremists.

Now I feel we have given this nation over to Iran, or at least that is the course they are headed down and many Shiite leaders make no effort to hide that once we leave, there will be a river of blood and an ayatollah at the helm.

I DO feel for people who are oppressed but I also do feel that it is not the US responsibility to give lives and to go broke enforcing American brand of freedom throughout the world.

I prefer what Bush Senior did when it came to Iraq...They prove to be a real threat, spank them back all the way to Baghdad and leave. Protect our allies but do not invade and embroil ourselves this way, do not make grand gestures of freedom with our tax dollars and lives and then open ourselves to the question as to why we are so for freedom but we support the repressive Saudi regime...It is not hypocritical to simply protect our allies, it is hypocritical to pick and choose who we mark for 'freedom' and then support other regimes that are hardly bastions of freedom and it quite frankly opens ourselves up to question regarding ulterior motives. Pakistan developed nukes thus breaking international law and they are a hot bed of extremists and we do little, pakistan being ruled by a military dictator who took control of the nation by a coup, saddam had a rudimentary beginnings of a system at best not even close to achieving nukes but we rush in and invade. It just doesnt seem consistant.

All the same, I support or men and women who have gone there to fight and I have a nephew there right now, disagreeing with the whys does not warrant an attack on those who serve and go where they are sent.

These are just my opinions and obviously not universal truths, I cannot claim to have the clearest of visions and as I am just a member of the unwashed masses my vision might not be as clear as some

 

First off Mr. Brooklyn, I'm glad that you are not offended by any of my comments/opinions/observations. I don't mean to offend anyone and yet sometimes I do. I just really find it difficult to believe some of the opinions that I read and that people honestly have looked at some situation or another and come to that conclusion. It's a bit like two people witnessing a crime and recounting their version of events with completely different stories. It just goes to show you that people walk about life with many preconceived ideas of the world. Anyway...

I think the fallacy that we are now safer because we invaded Iraq has been disspelled in several posts already. Unfortunately, it's going to probably take another inevidable terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 to convince some people that we aren't any safer today than we were on 9/11 and probably much less safe. But it does make some people feel good to think that we are sticking it to those lousy Jihadists anyway but that is just a false sense of security that we are being sold by this administration. Believe it if you wish and go to bed at night feeling better if that is what you want.

I believe that we are no safer today and probably less so than in 2001 but rather than react with a state of constant fear or sticking my head in the sand, I prefer to question what it is I am being told and then scrutinize the messengers before buying someone else's point of view. This administration has proved again and again that they will twist the message for political purposes, alter the reality of a known situation with double-speak, and suppress anything that doesn't fit their version of events. How could anyone with at least one eye open trust anything they say?

Sure it will! Because nation building has worked so well for us in the past. Our track record speaks for itself. How can we go wrong?

I must have missed this. When did the military accomplish this? The last Gulf War? Vietnam? Korea?

Sure, shoot more people and open up a few more schools- problem solved

Most rebuilding efforts had to be stopped due to lack of security. I doubt those that died trying would have characterized their efforts as "half-hearted" but I suppose we could write a letter to their next of kin and tell them that their deceased loved ones should have tried harder. :desk:

My guess is that Syria and Iran already have their own reasons for hating Jews around the world. My only concern is getting this country involved in the Jewish/Arab never-ending fight. I couldn't care less about either group and don't wish to see young American soldiers die for two groups of fantics that only know revenge and hatred of the other. For two groups that claim so often to being doing God's will, it sure sounds like their God is one blood thirsty SOB.

We are not the world's police nor are we up to the task if we wanted to be. We proved that by electing the world's biggest idiot-TWICE! You take the stand you need to take with all your special brand of "non-misinformation". We are a less democratic society today than we were at the change of the millenium but you want to spread democracy to parts of the world that have no concept of it. We have lost more standing in the world and are less respected than at any other time in our nation's history but you want to spread democracy to other parts of the world. We have acted unilaterally without listening to the opinions of most of our closest allies and you want to spread democracy without their help. We have flouted international laws on torture, abductions, secret prisons, and detainment and treatment of prisoners and you still want us to spread democracy around the world. Are we really liberating the oppressed or are we liberating their resources and oppressing them along the way?

You keep speaking as if you are a currently pursecuted Jew. You seem to be hypersensitive about the subject anyway. I don't really know much about NY Jews myself. Really just what I've heard from my local Jewish friends here in the midwest. They seem to be glad to be living here in the midwest and we're glad to have them as friends and neighbors. :hug:

 

I second this entirely. :thumb: