AAA.....Excellent post!
Here's some (?) of my two cents:
Our best option is to get out NOW!! Iraq is no longer
an "emminent threat" to the U.S. As dougcs alluded to eariler, we are in a quagmire. All the horses#%t "policy" and horses#%t rhetoric coming from the Bush administration reminds me exactly of the Johnson/Nixon Vietnam horses#%t.
BUT, if we are staying, we have to use OVERWHELMING force. A people can be made to fall if enough cruelty is inflicted. We've proven this in times past. No, it's not pretty, but it's impossible to go door to door and try to figure out who is good and who is bad and who's on "our side" and who ain't and who's a threat and who ain't, etc., etc., etc.,etc. This is a war, supposedly. (I know the liberals here are going to be in an uproar.) In a war men die, women die, children die. But, when this happens on a grand scale, wars are settled.
When enough damage (physical or otherwise) is inflicted, the other side stops resisting. This is simply "Life 101" I'm talking about here. It works on the playground, in the neighborhood, on the football field, in business, in law enforcement and in war. If we are going to do what Bush keeps saying he wants to do, then we must proceed FORCEFULLY and not give a DAMN what the world thinks! Otherwise, it's a lost cause from this point on and we should have already been home!
*closing my eyes and rubbing the stress from my temples* ...
Dude..... listen.....
" A people can be made to fall if enough cruelty is inflicted."
This is true. Only, it would be our USA that would fall - and that in the world's sight
monetarily (read sanctions/embargoes).
___
"When enough damage (physical or otherwise) is inflicted, the other side stops resisting."
NOT so in this case. Think of it as having 30,000 acres of land. On the land is
dense 5 foot high DRY shrubbery. The "when enough damage is inflicted" scenario is like pouring 100 gallons of gas onto the land then igniting it with a match and saying, "This will solve everything."
The land is the Middle East. The dry shrubbery is the hearts of Allah worshippers who reside there.
Hello?
Unless you are suggesting that the "overwhelming force" is dropping several nuclear/atom bombs on Iraq.
If you are, you can settle it in your mind - it ain't gunna happen. All the USA would do then is dig their own graves. Remember, we got 25 million PEOPLE in Iraq. Over
1,000,000,000,000 PEOPLE on this planet are Allah worshippers.
It worked in Japan. Japan flew their guys over here (Pearl Harbor). Iraq did NOT fly Iraqi soldiers over here.
And making the Twin Towers/9-11 connection arguement is a little... thin to warrant the slaughter of perhaps millions of faithful Allah worshipping beloved "brethren" in Iraq.
Those factors combined would... not be good for the USA, trust me on this one.
gsr (for the record, I am NOT an "Allah worshipper" so pls don't bomb ME - *rolling eyes*)
After all, they're usually completely wrong, too, but they sure know how to stir up a lot of doo doo!!