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After 911..the entire world rallied around the U.S. to support it in the wake of this murderous atrocity.Even Muslims spoke out against it. But in three and half years,Bush has turned the sympathy and goodwill that was doled out to America from the world into hatred and total mistrust.

Based on my statments above I would like to point out 5 things:

#1. Iraq was a phony war from the outset.Spurious connections were made between Iraq and al-Qaeda, with rumsfelds helping hadn in the pot, thank you..And **Brand New** charges about the so-called weapons of mass destruction were invented to justify a war THAT WAS ALLREADY PLANNED WELLL IN ADVANCE. Chew on that for a moment if you will.

#2.Bush propelled this war forward, over the protests of world opinion , as well as a goodly share of Americans who protested it. We found little to no backing in the U.N Security council for it. Only 3 out of the 15 or 16 nations voted for it. One of them WAS Spain.But no more. Go figure.

#3. The U.S. conceived and idea that the reason for this war, minus the missing WMD's and minus a clear tie in with al-Qaeda, was to free a people that were oppressed, slaughtered, beaten and humiliated and terrorized by its leader(Remember, we put him into power)
BUT
The world view has become and has been that we are not liberators, but rather and occupying force for the military-industrial complex(U.S. corporations, Pentagon, etc.) By liberating Iraq's people from Saddam, we in essence have taken a yolk off their backs.And in place of this yolk we have put on a HARNESS made of lead, in the form of Halliburton, occupation by military forces,lack of electricity, clean water,killing and of course...
Abu Ghraib
#4. The horrible atrocities at Abu Ghraib have taken Bushs war and brought it into the light for a clearer picture. It it NOT an aberration, as the Red Cross is do dutifully trying to report admist censorship to do so. It is, rather a SYMBOL. This is what we do in war. And because of it, we bear the SHAME and GUILT that comes with such actions. To not understand the damage that this has done to our "reputation" worldwide, and our institutions, let alone to not understand the depth at which this unjust war has permeated the mindsand hearts of not only the Iraq citzens, but the whole arab world, ...is to bury ones head in the sand, as an ostrich.
We supposedly CAME there to free people from a dictator. and we have instead shown the entire world the real purpose for this war, through our actions, through our unwillingess to leave, through Bush ears which failed to hear or rspond to the voices world wide which told him that this was wrong and a bad idea.

#5. Abu Ghraib IS an atrocity. I have seen many reports of FUTURe photos/videos that will be released showing what has transpired there. The government is actually holding them back, after reviewing them. Problem with the first set of photos is that they WERENT held back. A P.R. ightmare. The rest of them, in my opinion, will be filtered. So as to minimize inflammattory responses. Worldwide.

Fact:Bush will NOT remove troops from IRAQ.Our military personnel can end up staying 2,4 or even 8 years there, sucking up countless dollars from our allready stretched treasuries. And nothing will change.

Fact:Nixon did the same thing in Vietnam. He stayed there four more years between 1969 and 1973 and the end result was 20,000 more dead American G.I.'s,plus 2 MILLION dead Cambodians and roughyl a million dead Vietnamese. And Vietnam still ended up being as it would have anyway.

Bottem line: The goal of the Bush policy in IRAQ is NOT achievable. The war is the easy part. We have the strongest military in the world. But you dont create DEMOCRATS by turning guns on the citzens and shoting them...or interning them in camps, or jails...like Abu Ghraib.

but then it really wasnt about creating a democratic state in the first place, was it?

Sickened,

Fred Albury

#1. Iraq was a phony war from the outset.Spurious connections were made between Iraq and al-Qaeda, with rumsfelds helping hadn in the pot, thank you..And **Brand New** charges about the so-called weapons of mass destruction were invented to justify a war THAT WAS ALLREADY PLANNED WELLL IN ADVANCE. Chew on that for a moment if you will.

"THAT WAS ALLREADY PLANNED WELLL IN ADVANCE" can you give us the date/s it was planed?

#2.Bush propelled this war forward, over the protests of world opinion , as well as a goodly share of Americans who protested it. We found little to no backing in the U.N Security council for it. Only 3 out of the 15 or 16 nations voted for it. One of them WAS Spain.But no more. Go figure.

Funny, i clearly remember all nations on the security council signing resolution 1441. The only thing is we are pretty much the only nation that followed through on UN laws, hipocrisy by other nations IMO.

#3. The U.S. conceived and idea that the reason for this war, minus the missing WMD's and minus a clear tie in with al-Qaeda, was to free a people that were oppressed, slaughtered, beaten and humiliated and terrorized by its leader(Remember, we put him into power)
BUT
The world view has become and has been that we are not liberators, but rather and occupying force for the military-industrial complex(U.S. corporations, Pentagon, etc.) By liberating Iraq's people from Saddam, we in essence have taken a yolk off their backs.And in place of this yolk we have put on a HARNESS made of lead, in the form of Halliburton, occupation by military forces,lack of electricity, clean water,killing and of course...
Abu Ghraib

Yes, we took a yolk and turned it into a lead harness (good metaphor by the way). We are SOOOOOO evil, i mean our troops sacrifice their lives becuase they dont fire back (they are ORDERED not to fire back), having many contractors rebuild Iraq with american money, Iraq was an occupied land to begin with (army, Iraq secret police, etc) and our troops are a hell of a lot nicer than Saddams were, i doubt the places without electricity had much electricity to begin with and most of it is fixed by the help of CONTRACTORS (halliburton), clean water? i don't remember any trooops poisoning the water with chemical weapons like saddam did, killing? they are killing US (and we can't fire back because we CARE about inocent civilians). Oh yes and the "horrors" of Abu Ghraib, the most disturbing allegations of US forces sounds like Saddams idea of "warming someone up". Did you ever hear about Saddams poison rooms? He had rooms with a bunch of pipes in the ceiling, the pipes had holes in them and a stream of chemicals was flowed through the pipes driving the prisoner insane from the Drip, Drip, Drip and killing them from the chemicals.
#4. The horrible atrocities at Abu Ghraib have taken Bushs war and brought it into the light for a clearer picture. It it NOT an aberration, as the Red Cross is do dutifully trying to report admist censorship to do so. It is, rather a SYMBOL. This is what we do in war. And because of it, we bear the SHAME and GUILT that comes with such actions. To not understand the damage that this has done to our "reputation" worldwide, and our institutions, let alone to not understand the depth at which this unjust war has permeated the mindsand hearts of not only the Iraq citzens, but the whole arab world, ...is to bury ones head in the sand, as an ostrich.
We supposedly CAME there to free people from a dictator. and we have instead shown the entire world the real purpose for this war, through our actions, through our unwillingess to leave, through Bush ears which failed to hear or rspond to the voices world wide which told him that this was wrong and a bad idea.

Bushes (AND kerry's) refusal to leave is a GOOD thing. Seeing as how the moment troops start to evac. they will come under much heavier attacks. then after we do leave there will be a Sunni v. Shiite civil war which will kill THOUSANDS more than the US would ever kill. Yes the voices of a UNANIMOUS vote by the UN security council to impose 1441. The countries who signed it KNEW that if Iraq refused to cooperate/was found with banned weapons (WHICH IT WAS) then there would be a war against it, the countries that signed 1441 and did not/have not joined the coalition are hipocrites which is FAR more shameful than the allegations against the US.
#5. Abu Ghraib IS an atrocity. I have seen many reports of FUTURe photos/videos that will be released showing what has transpired there. The government is actually holding them back, after reviewing them. Problem with the first set of photos is that they WERENT held back. A P.R. ightmare. The rest of them, in my opinion, will be filtered. So as to minimize inflammattory responses. Worldwide.

It is funny how so many people complain about Abu Ghraib and the atrocities being commited there are the ones that never mention rapes, murders, assaults, etc in the US. As far as i am concerned we should try to get rid of crime in the states before we should have a serious (and $$$ wasting) investigation of a prison halfway across the world.

Fact:Bush will NOT remove troops from IRAQ.Our military personnel can end up staying 2,4 or even 8 years there, sucking up countless dollars from our allready stretched treasuries. And nothing will change.

Fact: KERRY will NOT remove roops from IRAQ.Our military personnel can end up staying 2,4 or even 8 years there, sucking up countless dollars from our allready stretched treasuries. And nothing will change.
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THAT WAS ALLREADY PLANNED WELLL IN ADVANCE" can you give us the date/s it was planed?

I think he is talking about the bill that President Clinton pushed through congress, to enact a regime change in Iraq. This bill was passed by congress under the Clinton administration in 1998.

as well as a goodly share of Americans who protested it

Yep, who cares about 90% that were in favor of it back then! It's the 6-8% that were against it that count! This is democracy in action in Fred's little world!

I can't wait to see what happens in two more months. Bush has been true to his word since he became president. I think he will order a retreat sometime this year.

Fact, Fred is psychic since he can factually predict the future this way. That is how he became a millionaire, playing the stock market, etc. (He wasn't really playing though, since he knew what would happen, for a fact, in advance!)
Wish I could predict the future that way so I didn't have to work for a living!-LOL

Poor Fred. If only I wasn't an atheist, I could pray for you!

Rodney

I would like to point out something else. When we (the CIA) were in Afgahnistan training Bin LAden and Al Quida to fight the Russians, we told him to use religion. We brought this strategy to him, and it worked. Tribal differences gave way to one umbrella group capable of fighting back the much larger, much better equipped Russian army.

Bush learned the lesson of religion to rally support too. He has used it too well in this country. And his crusade in Iraq demonstrates the confidence he has in his strategy.

Also, by claiming to be guided by his god, and by allowing military brass to preach to American soldiers about the heathen Arabs, he is contributing to the environment that precipitated the prisoner torture.

Actually I will be very surprised if we leave Iraq by next year. The same dynamics that kept us stuck in Viet Nam Are allready there...

A unstable government that is U.S. supported that will need to be supported for as long as our government thinks they can get it to work.

A growing threat from guerilla forces that will keep the country unstable.

We have lost in the eyes of the world and at home the sense of moral justification that prompted this war.

Sounds a lot like Viet nam and you don't have to be a Psychic to see it.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

We have lost in the eyes of the world and at home the sense of moral justification that prompted this war.

Yes, it does. The terrorist are winning a propaganda war, and we are clearly winning the military war, just like in Vietnam. In Vietnam, we won every battle, they were about to fold, but the American public's resolve vs. the Vietnamese resolve lost it for us. And the liberal media is facilitating this once again.

Does anyone doubt this?

How much time does the broadcast news spend on the prisoner abuse scandal? How much time do they spend on the beheading? How many pictures will the media show of anything that makes America look bad? Why won't they cover anything positive about what Americans are doing in this war, like building schools? Why won't they show pictures of anything that makes the enemy look bad? Did you see all the pictures of the prisoners being abused? I did! Have you seen the pictures of the mass graves, the burned, mutilated bodies hung from bridges, the beheading, on broadcast news, how about cable news? Nope? I didn't either! What a coincidence! Think this could be more liberal bias shaping the publics view of the world? Nah!

Why are the Arabs and the Americans infuriated by the prisoner scandal? Why aren't the Arabs and the Americans nearly as infuriated by a viscous murder of a civilian that was in Iraq to help the Iraqis? Shouldn't we be more outraged by the murder of a civilian, that was there to help them, than we are about some killers in a prison who were humiliated? Why does the much paler prisoner scandal get most of the press time? Liberal bias again? Nah!

When we aren't willing to kill the enemy to save ourselves, and our enemy is willing to die for their cause, we will lose.

Some of us are far too soft.

Ever noticed that they want to kill us, because of who we are? and that we want to kill them, because of what they do and the threat they pose? We don't indiscriminatly kill Arabs, but the fundamentalists are happy to kill any of us, whether we are even their enemy (the military) or not! Wake up people! These are bad guys, and loosing is not an option.

Rodney

"These are bad guys and losing is not an option..."

Yep...That's Nam allright. I heard that siren call before.

Wining battles is a good thing but what counts is who won the war. Thankyou for making my point.

As to not showing the bad guys....It was all over the News Here!

The burned beaten and hanged bodies....I don't know about "Liberal" California but here we see it all with just a slight fuzzienes to block some of the worst from view. they did not show the actual beheading (for the sake of good taste but ABC News described the action in detail.

As to the victim. He was not being attacked in his home land. He went there for one reason and that was to get a high paying job. While still a horrible atrocity, there is a difference when someone deliberatly puts themselves in harms way, if only to earn a living. He did not go there to "help the Iraqis".

That they want to kill us for who we are I have said from the begining. Which is one of the reasons I felt we didn't need to go there (besides the mysterious WMD's that still have not been found...but endless excuses keep getting made about).

I was the first to post on the four men tht got burned and abused. And as oft said...I am No Liberal.

But I feel we are on the same path we took over 30 years ago and the atrocites on both sides of that war pale before what is happening now.

You know there was an old (Aesop) fable about a man and his dog.

...The dog saw a rabbit and took off after it. The rabbit ran with great speed and soon the defeated dog limped back to his master.

"Lazy Dog! You let that rabbit get away!" the master said.

The dog replied. "I was running for my food. The rabbit was running for his life."...

We have the room to retreat-The Iraqis don't. That is motivation.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

>>"I was running for my food. The rabbit was running for his life."...

Never heard that before, good post man!!

"These are bad guys and losing is not an option..."

As to not showing the bad guys....It was all over the News Here!

The guys we are fighting are not a county, like nam was. We are not fighting Iraq, we are fighting terrorism, and the fight against terrorism brought us to Iraq. The Iraqi military surrendered about a year ago. If we were just fighting Iraq, we won long ago!

In Vietnam, we were not fighting an enemy that had no boarders, we were not fighting an enemy that had cells within the U.S. and many other countries. We were not fighting an enemy that had attacked, on numerous occasions, the U.S. (like the U.S.S. Cole, various embassies, 9/11, Spain, Israel, Philippines, etc.)

As for loosing in Vietnam, I think you are proving my point, not yours! We did win the fighting! We did win every battle, just like in Iraq! It is those that argued against the point "we must not back down, we must win" that lost it for us. And the war was almost over! All those lost lives accomplished nothing because of this attitude! Imagine what the world would be like today if we had won. North Vietnamese wouldn't have to be fed by the rest of the world, due to their govts. spending only on the military. They wouldn't be a nuclear threat to us or Japan, etc. There was no reason for us to loose that war, other than these people's weakness, and there is no reason for us to loose this one either. But we will if the public has that kind of attitude. And now you are arguing you want us to do the same thing again, make the same mistake? And in a war where we have lost very few soldiers. (relative to any other war) (though I think this war is just and Vietnam probably was not)

As for the news, not here. Pictures will be shown of anything that shows the U.S. in a bad light, but pictures that show the enemy in a bad light, are not shown and explained away as "we can't show them because they are too graphic." This argument never applies when we are shown in a bad light, then nothing is too graphic. To this day, they won't show people jumping from the buildings on 9/11. That clearly isn't as graphic as the prisoner photos.

Remember the thread on nudity vs. violence and how in the U.S. nudity is banned but violence isn't? Well, why are the nude pictures (edited, blurred out) all over the news, but the violence isn't? Seems like a total change in argument in censorship all of the sudden, and a typical liberal double standard. Used to be, protect the children from nudity, now, all of the sudden, that has changed to protect all of us from graphic violence. When this war is over, or when the press/public tires of it, I am sure it will suddenly go back to "protect us from nudity" once again-

This war on terrorism should have been fought long ago, when terrorism wasn't as commonplace or nearly as large of a threat. This war was inevitable. And I say, better to loose the lives we do today, than loose 100 or 1,000 fold tomorrow. Better to fight conventionally today, than with nukes tomorrow. The timing, of when this war occurs, just depends on how many attacks the world endures before it is fed up.

A hero once said, "I am not a hero, I am just a regular person, who was so fed up, that I decided to take action because I didn't care anymore about my own personal safety."

Everyone seems to agree that another terrorist attack in the U.S. is inevitable. What people don't seem to understand is, that eventually, the public will get fed up with these attacks, and then a war will happen.--It's just a question of when, and how many will have to die, before we finally get fed up. I was fed up on 9/11!

Rodney

Acctualy you are wrong Rodney. The Viet Cong knew no borders. They frequently struck out of Cambodia and other surrounding countries. Also they had China's aid.

That they (the Vietnamese)did not attack the USA is irrelevant to this dicussion. We are discussing trhe battle field and that for the mommment is Iraq.

Congress and public opinion had equal share in our lossin Nam. Congress screwed the troops and the people (who were not weak just capable of seeing thru the government's lies)got fed up with the hawks in the government who kept saying "We are winning...just send more troops" Sounds familiar to me.

I have stated before that guerillas suceed because of the psychologial battle often decides the war.

I can appreciate the getting fed up. I argue that we need to be wiser in picking our battles or we will bleed our resources and accomplish nothing.
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

Acctualy you are wrong Rodney. The Viet Cong knew no borders. They frequently struck out of Cambodia and other surrounding countries. Also they had China's aid.

Congress and public opinion had equal share in our lossin Nam.

Just because the Viet Cong came in from other areas, doesn't mean they are like Islamic terrorist. They came in from other areas for tactical reasons--flanking, etc, it's not the same. The Viet Cong weren't attacking others, in Indonesia or Spain for example, like the Islamic terrorists have. And yes, they had China on their side. Another reason this isn't like Vietnam--Iraq has no super power backing. Just because the Viet cong weren't all within one, exact same boarder, doesn't mean they were without boarders.

And, yes, it is relevant that the Vietnamese did not attack the US. If they had done so again and again like the Islamic extremists, not only would it have been a just war, but I hope our resolve would have been better. It also would have meant that a war with them was inevitable, so it would have to be fought sooner or later, which I do not think was true of Vietnam.

And yes, congress is to blame too. But don't you think that has a lot to do with the public opinion putting pressure on them, and public opinion being changed by the media? I do, and I see it happening again.

If nothing else, whatever happens, I hope this may make people like Osama think twice before hitting us again, due to how hard we hit back this time.

Rodney

Sometimes my friend you are like the blind men who each found a part of the elephant and thought they knew what the whole animal was. By that I mean that you become so involved in the minute' that you fail to grasp the big picture.

No one says Iraq and Viet Nam are EXACTLY alike. There are always differences...and picking out the minor ones does not change the Big Picture.

By the way, the Vietnamese were influencing other countries by supporting pro communist groups in the surrounding country side so they were like the terrorists in that respect. That was one of the "Justifications" Our government used for fighting Nam. (Remember the Domino Theory?)

And NO...Congess screwed up Nam because they would not let our troops do their job. They had rules about when you could or could not fire on the enemy. They had our men fighting for the same small pieces of land over and over. There were even limits on how far they could pursue the Cong.

The people became aware of this stupidity and veterans like Kerry, who saw what was going on came back and protested the war.
It became obvious that we could not win the way our government handled the war.

For Viet nam the Mei Lai massacre was the US atrocity that sharply changed public opinion about the war in Nam.

The prisoner abuse in Iraq could well have the same effect.

See part of the problem with terrorists is because they are multi national, it makes it hard to justify a war with a country because terrorists were living in the mountains or covertly opperating inside a country.

We have Americans in this country who are terrorists and we are unable to stop them from blowing up buidings in our own land. Yet you condemn other countries because they have secret organisations that their government may or may not know about that are not under control.

We fought Sadam the first time because he attacked Kuait (not us). That is when we became their enemy. It was our sanctions that kept up the animosity. Sadam did not attack us (terrorists that had no specific country did).

That we probably would have eventually fought Sadam again was likey. but it was not justified at this time.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."