From The Halls Of Malibu To The Shores Of Kennedy

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FROM THE HALLS OF MALIBU TO THE SHORES OF KENNEDY
September 12, 2007



Democrats claim Gen. David Petraeus' report to Congress on the surge was a put-up job with a pre-ordained conclusion. As if their response wasn't.

Democrats yearn for America to be defeated on the battlefield and oppose any use of the military -- except when they can find individual malcontents in the military willing to denounce the war and call for a humiliating retreat.

It's been the same naysaying from these people since before we even invaded Iraq -- despite the fact that their representatives in Congress voted in favor of that war.

Mark Bowden, author of "Black Hawk Down," warned Americans in the Aug. 30, 2002, Los Angeles Times of 60,000 to 100,000 dead American troops if we invaded Iraq -- comparing an Iraq war to Vietnam and a Russian battle in Chechnya. He said Iraqis would fight the Americans "tenaciously" and raised the prospect of Saddam using weapons of mass destruction against our troops, an attack on Israel "and possibly in the United States."

On Sept. 14, 2002, The New York Times' Frank Rich warned of another al-Qaida attack in the U.S. if we invaded Iraq, noting that since "major al-Qaida attacks are planned well in advance and have historically been separated by intervals of 12 to 24 months, we will find out how much we've been distracted soon enough."

This week makes it six years since a major al-Qaida attack. I guess we weren't distracted. But it looks like al-Qaida has been.

Weeks before the invasion, in March 2003, the Times' Nicholas Kristof warned in a couple of columns that if we invaded Iraq, "the Turks, Kurds, Iraqis and Americans will all end up fighting over the oil fields of Kirkuk or Mosul." He said: "The world has turned its back on the Kurds more times than I can count, and there are signs that we're planning to betray them again." He announced that "the United States is perceived as the world's newest Libya."

The day after we invaded, Kristof cited a Muslim scholar for the proposition that if Iraqis felt defeated, they would embrace Islamic fundamentalism.

We took Baghdad in about 17 days flat with amazingly few casualties. There were no al-Qaida attacks in America, no attacks on Israel, no invasion by Turkey, no attacks on our troops with chemical weapons, no ayatollahs running Iraq. We didn't turn our back on the Kurds. There were certainly not 100,000 dead American troops.

But liberals soon began raising yet more pointless quibbles. For most of 2003, they said the war was a failure because we hadn't captured Saddam Hussein. Then we captured Saddam, and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean complained that "the capture of Saddam has not made America safer." (On the other hand, Howard Dean's failure to be elected president definitely made America safer.)

Next, liberals said the war was a failure because we hadn't captured Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Then we killed al-Zarqawi and a half-dozen of his aides in an air raid. Then they said the war was a failure because ... you get the picture.

The Democrats' current talking point is that "there can be no military solution in Iraq without a political solution." But back when we were imposing a political solution, Democrats' talking point was that there could be no political solution without a military solution.

They said the first Iraqi election, scheduled for January 2005, wouldn't happen because there was no "security."

Noted Middle East peace and security expert Jimmy Carter told NBC's "Today" show in September 2004 that he was confident the elections would not take place. "I personally do not believe they're going to be ready for the election in January ... because there's no security there," he said.

At the first presidential debate in September 2004, Sen. John Kerry used his closing statement to criticize the scheduled Iraqi elections saying: "They can't have an election right now. The president's not getting the job done."

About the same time, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said he doubted there would be elections in January, saying, "You cannot have credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now" -- although he may have been referring here to a possible vote of the U.N. Security Council.

In October 2004, Nicholas Lemann wrote in The New Yorker that "it may not be safe enough there for the scheduled elections to be held in January."

Days before the first election in Iraq in January 2005, The New York Times began an article on the election this way:

"Hejaz Hazim, a computer engineer who could not find a job in computers and now cleans clothes, slammed his iron into a dress shirt the other day and let off a burst of steam about the coming election.
"'This election is bogus,' Mr. Hazim said. 'There is no drinking water in this city. There is no security. Why should I vote?'"

If there's a more artful articulation of the time-honored linkage between drinking water and voting, I have yet to hear it.

And then, as scheduled, in January 2005, millions of citizens in a country that has never had a free election risked their lives to cast ballots in a free democratic election. They've voted twice more since then.

Now our forces are killing lots of al-Qaida jihadists, preventing another terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and giving democracy in Iraq a chance -- and Democrats say we are "losing" this war. I think that's a direct quote from their leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, but it may have been the Osama bin Laden tape released this week. I always get those two confused.

OK, they knew what Petraeus was going to say. But we knew what the Democrats were going to say. If liberals are not traitors, their only fallback argument at this point is that they're really stupid.

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This week makes it six years since a major al-Qaida attack. I guess we weren't distracted. But it looks like al-Qaida has been.

That statement is incorrect. Al Qaida has been in a long war with the US Army since we invaded Iraq. I would say that that would be a pretty major Al Qaida attack, considering that they have been fighting the best Army in the world for years now, and still have not been defeated. Haven't more soldiers been killed by Al Qaida now than were killed at the World Trade Center on 9-11?

Al qaida fanatics don't mind dying for their cause, so maybe they think things are going pretty good for them too in Iraq.
 
unregistered said:
That statement is incorrect. Al Qaida has been in a long war with the US Army since we invaded Iraq. I would say that that would be a pretty major Al Qaida attack, considering that they have been fighting the best Army in the world for years now, and still have not been defeated. Haven't more soldiers been killed by Al Qaida now than were killed at the World Trade Center on 9-11?

Al qaida fanatics don't mind dying for their cause, so maybe they think things are going pretty good for them too in Iraq.

:rolleyes::rolleyes:That comment is spinning so fast it's making me dizzy!!!:D:D


:rolleyes:
 
Not trying to spin. I think we are doing the right thing by fighting them. I think its incorrect for the author of the article to try to portray Al qaida as defeated. If they were defeated, we would not have over 3000 dead soldiers, with more dying weekly.

I think the war with the US has certainly stretched al qaida resources thin, and that might be why we have seen no major attacks here, but they certainly remain active in Iraq.

I don't think now is the time for us to slack up and pull troops out of Iraq. According Petreaus we are starting to see improvement. Why pull out at the first sign of improvement?
 
This week makes it six years since a major al-Qaida attack. I guess we weren't distracted. But it looks like al-Qaida has been.

That statement makes it sound to me like al Qaida has been severely set back, and unable to launch any attacks in the US for that last six years. Maybe you interpret it differently.
 
unregistered said:
That statement makes it sound to me like al Qaida has been severely set back, and unable to launch any attacks in the US for that last six years. Maybe you interpret it differently.

Do you know of an attack in the US in the past six years??? I take that statement as meaning that al qaida has been preoccupied with running from our troops for the past six years.
 
What Unregistered is saying is we are fighting them THERE instead of here.

That was the point after all, to take the fight to THEM rather then waiting for more here.

Seems America IS safer......
 
Do you know of an attack in the US in the past six years??? I take that statement as meaning that al qaida has been preoccupied with running from our troops for the past six years.
Do you know of any attacks they've attempted? This situation is a bit more complex than Homer buying Lisa's anti-tiger rock.
 
That effect is called the "peril of prevention'. IOW if you succeed in preventing an event you create the argument that it wouldn't have happened anyway and you prevented nothing. If you FAIL to prevent it you are subject to the argument that you should have known something would happen.

How frequent were attacks on US soil (including Embassies) prior to 9/11 and how frequent afterward. There in lies whether there was prevention.
 
Yes but let's not fall into the trap of forgetting that correlation does not necessarily imply causation. You assume that their intended goal is to kill people as opposed to waste half a trillion dollars that could be better spend on improving our own country as opposed to throwing us into an even greater economic cluster****.

The simple fact is that no one can prove that we have prevented more attacks by these actions. It's certainly possible but still unproven. It requires a bit more thought into it than simply "how many before, how many now?" That so grossly oversimplifies the issue that it's well into the realm of counter-productivity.

It seems folks are ignoring the reasons why those attacks happened in the first place. But I guess it's just easier to pretend that they hate freedom. Easier to kill someone when you convince yourself you've done nothing to instigate the fight.
 
They did it because they have grievances with the US and every other nation that doesn't agree with them. They believe that if you don't agree with them you are fair game. They lack the ability to form any influence via civilized means so they resort to violence.

Sound about right?
 
They did it because they have grievances with the US
Yes but you're forgetting WHY. Why do they have grievances with the US? Because we don't believe in the same god? No. Because we have freedom? No. Because we have capitalism? No. Because we have SUVs and football and apple pies and guns? No.

and every other nation that doesn't agree with them. They believe that if you don't agree with them you are fair game. They lack the ability to form any influence via civilized means so they resort to violence.

Sound about right?
That's not it either. It's not just that they disagree with us but that they disagree with us telling them how to live. We don't want them telling us how to live. I don't want to live like them. But they don't want to live like us. So when we put our noses into their business we cannot wash our hands of the things that contributed to the problem in the first place.

We also lose the argument that other nations have no business telling us how we should treat our own people.
 
Redworm said:
It's not just that they disagree with us but that they disagree with us telling them how to live.

Do you REALLY think they give a rats butt how we think they outa live.
Better question--- Do you REALLY believe that is the reason they attacked us on 9/11?:rolleyes:
 
Redworm, I don't think you are right. In the last video tape, Bin Laden was clear as to why he was at war with us, and what it would take for the war to end. Plain and simple he said we had to convert to Islam for the war to end.

If we left the mid east, never returned, and never messed with any of them ever again, Al qaida would continue to attack us until we convert to Islam. Bin Laden said it himself.
 
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