And, I would have to add Bush is partly to blame. Only lately has he come out and TALKED to the people and he needed to do that long ago. Rumsfeld just doesn’t cut it, nor Cheney. I trust Bush, but it’s been hard at times. The MSM overpowers him and he needs to get a grip…I think he finally is.

Left by dianne on December 14th, 2005 at 2:01 pm

Interestingly, if one goes back to the start of the Iraq war, these same people and a majority of the liberals were spewing anti-military rhetoric. It wasn’t until a few on the ‘right’ started questioning their patriotism that the ‘left’ then changed their mantra to, “ we support our troops but we do not support the war that the troops are engaged in”. That in itself is rather disingenuous as, how in the world can you claim to support a military but not what that military does, regardless of where they do it?

Left by Claudia on December 14th, 2005 at 2:09 pm

Interestingly, if one goes back to the start of the Iraq war, these same people and a majority of the liberals were spewing anti-military rhetoric

Claudia- that’s a lie.

In any case, support for policies that do not result in the needless death of American soldiers can fairly be called ’supporting the troops.’

From the beginning opponents of this invasion held to the facts that Saddam Hussein did not pose a threat to the United States and could be contained in a way that would not result in the death of thousands of Americans, tens of thousands of Iraqis, the cost of billions of dollars, the spread of terrorism, and the growth of Iranian and al Qaeda influence.

(Incidentally, containment is a strategy that worked pretty well against a threat much more serious than a third tier Mid East power.)

Left by Preston on December 14th, 2005 at 2:34 pm

Robbie points to a Marine’s Op-Ed who wants to know ‘why is there such a dramatic divergence between American public opinion and the upbeat assessment of the men and women doing the fighting?’ We know the streets, the people and the insurgents far better than

Left by The Horrors of an Easily Distracted Mind on December 15th, 2005 at 1:34 am

Are you speaking of the containment of Saddam where his forces shot at our military over-flights? Saddam violated his own terms of surrender. Not to mention ignoring and violating all trade sanctions, technology sanctions and weapons sanctions. While we pretended he was ‘contained’ the rest of the world engaged in an orgy of unconstrained technology transfers, arm sales, and illicit economic deals which made everyone rich but the Iraq people.

At Saddam’s direction, Iraqi forces routinely attempted to kill American service-members engaged in legal reconnaissance over-flights of Iraq during the course of a seven year period. Saddam was correctly confident that President Clinton’s administration would not do a damn thing about it. The only thinking people on the planet who believe “ sanctions’ and ‘ containment” were viable strategies are idiots like yourself (as well as certain liberal pundits).

By the way, although “Containment” was a the public face of U.S. policy vis-à-vis the USSR, most intelligent people realize that what we actually practiced was not “containment” but a much more pragmatic three-fold strategy. Threat of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was one leg of our 45+ year Mexican Standoff with the Soviets. Proxy Alliance Warfare by both sides (NATO, Cuba, Columbia, Chad, Malaysia, Vietnam, El Salvador, Congo, Afghanistan, ‘73 Middle East Conflict, etc.) was the overt second leg of our Cold War strategy stool (whenever useful to one side or the other). The final support was Grand Economic Warfare (as executed with finality by Ronald Reagan). This last supporting leg did the Evil Empire in for good. We stacked the chips so high that the Russians folded. Containment was, is, and will always be a bad joke in the face of determined adversaries (like Saddam Hussein).

What liberal UN types forget is that most of the world is run by extremely ruthless people who claw their way to the top by (quite literally) committing homicide. These rulers have immense egos, proven capacity for personal and societal violence, and a canny sense of judgment with regards to risk and consequences. They operate out of a sense of personal interest and aggrandizement. They view diplomatic signaling and posturing as weaknesses to be exploited. They understand threats but are willing to play high-stakes poker to ascertain the lethal intent and will of their adversaries. The Neville Chamberlains of the world can never compete on equal footing with the Adolph Hitlers. The Kofi Anans of the world are just the usual opportunistic riff-raff masquerading behind high-sounding political smoke.

Left by Claudia on December 15th, 2005 at 6:16 am

Containment was, is, and will always be a bad joke in the face of determined adversaries (like Saddam Hussein).

Are you kidding? Our ‘determined adversary’ collapsed in two weeks. He had no ‘WMD’ even in the broad sense- especially not in the important category of nuclear weapons. Your three point strategy seems to suggest there was not a parallel process underway in the Middle East. If I may, we also were engaged in a similar strategy: 1. Prevention of aggressive action against his neighbors. 2. Military retaliation for aggressive acts 3. Economic sanctions to encourage civilized behavior. These methods were clearly not perfect but the number of deaths by genocide was much less from 1991-2002 than during the period when he was a US ally.

You hope to paint opponents of the invasion as ‘peaceniks’ and unwilling to confront evil. This is not true. In fact, it were these opponents who were the more calculating looking at the costs of this war. The ‘neo-cons’ are as starry eyed and naive as any college freshman in their confidence that a military invasion will bring peace to the MIDDLE-f’in-EAST

Yes, if there had been no threat of death of thousands of Americans, tens of thousands of Iraqis, the cost of billions of dollars, the spread of terrorism, and the growth of Iranian and al Qaeda influence I would be happy to send a dirtbag like Saddam to the history books. But this isn’t a game of Risk.

Left by Preston on December 15th, 2005 at 8:27 am

One word - Ahmadinejad.

Imagine if Saddam were still in power collaborating with him.
We sit here in our cozy homes actually believing we are immune from harm and that we can contain these madmen and their followers.

Either the Middle East is stabilized starting with Iraq, or there will be consequences the whole world will pay beyond imagination.

Our President and the boots on the ground are saving the lives of us all, including the cowardly Europeans and the rest of the spineless pack.

We all better pray for success.

Left by dianne on December 15th, 2005 at 10:47 am

Do you think the US is a better or worse position to mobilize the world to isolate Iran? I’m going to say worse.

But the idea that theocratic Shia Iran and secular, Sunni Iraq were going to unite to attack the US seems a bit fantastic. If anything that union seems much more likely with pro-Iranian factions in charge in Iraq. It is sadly ironic that our man in Iraq may have been either an Iranian dupe or a spy: Did Iran Use Chalabi to Lure U.S. into Iraq?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,122301,00.html

As for the current situation there I agree that we need to do what it takes to establish a stable- hopefully democratic- Iraq. This will involve withdrawing US troops- the question is merely when.

Left by Preston on December 15th, 2005 at 11:01 am

Things are a little different in the U.N. Germany has a new leader, Chirac has lost all respect and hopefully corruption in the U.N. won’t color U.N. decisionmaking when it comes to dealing with Iran. I don’t dare print what I’d do, but suffice it to say it appears the majority of the Iranian people aren’t too thrilled with their leader. It remains to be seen what Bush will do, but rest assured he’s not the same Bush who plead our case to the U.N. on Iraq.

Left by dianne on December 15th, 2005 at 1:56 pm

rest assured he’s not the same Bush who plead our case to the U.N. on Iraq.

What do you mean?

Left by Preston on December 15th, 2005 at 2:27 pm

I don’t believe Bush will take the lead on Iran. Given the lack of support he got from most other countries on Iraq, he’ll force the Europeans and Asians to take the lead and I think he’ll position it as a regional issue as opposed to a single country issue, which it is. In other words, he’ll bargain for their support on Iraq peacekeeping, border security, and rebuilding of Iraq in exchange for U.S. support of whatever the U.N. comes up with to isolate Iran or whatever. I think he has learned how the game is played.

Left by dianne on December 15th, 2005 at 11:25 pm

Too bad it took 5 years…

Left by Preston on December 16th, 2005 at 10:15 am