Most of the families of our dead love this country and are proud that they raised Americans who are proud enough to defend it. I don't need to write anything to them. I am proud of them, and I admire them for raising such honorable children.
You said, It's real easy to bring statistics into a debate to look like your arguement is justified but statistics can be used to justify ANYTHING if you use the right ones and twist it the right way
That is EXACTLY my point. You couldn't have proved me correct any better! You brought in the statistics of the number of casualties without considering any perspective to give those statistics meaning. That is exactly how statistics are used to NOT represent the actual situation. (By not putting them into perspective) That is what I was arguing against, your use of them in the first place, and why I was trying to give it some perspective so it meant something! You were guilty of using statistics this way, you tried to justify it, and now you are condemning it like I did originally!
Bush is not my hero. My hero would put troops on the boarder of Mexico and Canada to help this situation. (One of my favorite quotes I heard on the radio, "If we can use our military to guard the border between north and south Vietnam, then we can use them to secure our own boarders.) Bush is simply the MUCH better choice that is available to us. I would have considered Lieberman next election, but certainly not Kerry! (I liked Reagan too, and I suspect that Bush will be sucessful in this war on terror, and be seen in the same light many years from now. (Just like Reagan and his cold war with the Russians)).
It's funny to hear all the analogies about stirring up a hornets nest, or throwing gasoline on a fire to describe this war. Anyone who has ever had to deal with a hornets nest or a fire knows that it is best to attack it as quickly as possible, before it gets any larger, and thus more dangerous. Waiting is the worse thing you can do, and I think taking action like Bush did was right on target.
If the war against Iraq had really been over at that time I bet you would be praising the same speech...As a victory speech!
No, I would not. I also wouldn't change Bush's recorded words to give that speech a different meaning! He clearly said "major combat has ended"---and that doesn't indicate victory in any way, and it never would. If he used words in that speech that declared victory, and the war was over, then I would!
But to drive the point home. When Victory was declared over Germany in WW2 we knew it meant we still had to defeat Japan...Same here. If we had won in Iraq...we all knew that didn't end the war on terror.
This analogy of yours is way off. Bush never declared victory in Iraq for several reasons. Just one being that all those that were captured would have to be released, and they would then be a threat again once they were free. "major combat" being over simply means that most of the fighting there is over. How many bombings from planes are occurring now? How many cruise missiles? It is basically a few skirmishes on the ground now.--thus "major combat is over". Your analogy would only be accurate if victory was declared over terrorists in Iraq (Germany), and we still had terrorists in other parts of the world to fight(Japan). This simply isn't the case. (Or, it could be similar if you compared a single large(major combat) battle being lost by Germany, and then someone declaring victory over that single battle, but the "regular" combat with Germany still goes on, as does WWII.)
Yes I am SELFISH, because I think American lives are too important to waste on a war that was designed to make billions for big business under the disguise of benevelant rebuilders of Iraq.
More liberal nonsense, first it's oil (that we won't even take as payment for our efforts), now it's to help business? Checked Halliburton lately? They had huge losses last year. They made nothing! (all the while, emotional liberals claimed they are profiteering) What businesses are making billions? I'd like to look up their stock prices and more importantly, profits and divideds over the past 10 years to see if there is any truth to this. The military contractors that make the weapons that protect our troops?--that's fine with me if they make a few bucks to make products that save our soldiers lives. Are you feeling conflicted here? Corporations make money and save lives? Now what will you do? Condemn them for making money? Or, salute them for saving American lives?
You keep bringing up Afghanistan to justify Iraq. Too separate issues..
No, I don't. I brought up the examples of Afghanistan (and Germany) for a totally different reason. I brought up Afghanistan to show how foolish the argument you made about "You cannot permanently win a war in a land where the people never accept defeat " was. Our dealing with Afghanistan didn't repeat what the Soviets went through. So history doesn't repeat itself in many occasions! Just because they didn't accept defeat to the soviets, didn't mean that they wouldn't accept defeat to us. There is no way to determine accurately, until after a war is well under way or over, if that enemy is willing to accept defeat. Using that logic, you could never justify an attack on anyone, or defend yourself, because you couldn't know if those people would accept defeat. You would be destined to be a victim everytime.
Iraq is about money, big business and Bush proving he could do what his daddy didn't.
More liberal nonsense. Bush Sr. could have easily done this. He didn't even try because there was only one objective at that time, to get Iraq out of Kuwait. Once that was accomplished, the mission was over. How could anyone but a far left liberal represent something as false as that? I think you need to go reread your history of the gulf war! That is what the UN agreed on, and that is exactly what was done. Iraq is about a war on terror, period. Iraq paid terrorists, and that made them a convenient target, along with them violating the peace treaty they agreed to, all the UN resolutions over the past 12 years, (and what I believe to be the main catalyst--another part of the peace treaty violated) attacking our planes on a daily basis.
I comprehend what is going on. But since you so easily dispose of American lives on a cold balance sheet...I really question yours.....I guess that makes me selfish.
Yes, it does, in my eyes. I don't really care about the lives of the bathist, Saddamites, and such, but I do care about the lives of all the innocent men, women and children that were being killed and or tortured on a daily basis by Saddam's regime. And I don't think saving the lives of 100 innocents at the cost of one American is unreasonable. Just because they were born in another country doesn't make their lives worthless. (though, considering the 500,000 found in mass graves, the true ratio would be more like 1,000 to 1) Thing about a balance sheet is, you have to look at both sides. What would the difference be if we did nothing, or if we did something. What could be a better way to change minds, than to show the terrorists that we aren't so bad, and start them questioning their beliefs about suicide bombings, than by seeing us drastically improve an arab country and then leave?
Rodney
