Spot on red. The only part I disagree is "probably a democrat". The same people that put Bush in for a second term will also have the last say in this election.
Right on Red. History has soon that ALL great empires fall at one time or another and we're no exception. Scary stuff.
Damn, I thought it was because of the Pleasure Domes. I have been patiently waiting for that custom to reinvent itself...
My biggest complain is that some people still think Iraq had something to do with 9/11. Had we committed the same amount of troops and resources to Afghanistan that we did to Iraq, chances are we catch OBL and we're alot better off then we are now. Invading Iraq was unnecessary. People say that even though no WMDs were found, we still did the people of Iraq a favor by ridding them of an evil tyrant. Maybe so, go that was an after thought. Look at all of the evil tyrants will still support. Not only that, look at Iraq as a whole. Do you think those people have a better quality of life now or then? Hussein would never have allowed Al Qaeda in had he still been in power. We opened the door for them. Lastly, and my favorite, are the people who say 'Better to be fighting them over there then on our soil'. This may be the most laughable statement of all time. If you're one of those who think terrorists have given up on attacking the US mainland because they're too occupied in Iraq, you're either extremely naive or uninformed. It may be taking them a little longer to train, plan, and execute an attack because of some of the security measures in place since 9/11, but rest assured, they are planning. And if you believe the experts, it's only a matter of WHEN, not IF another 9/11 happens again. Anyway, we're all just rehashing things that have been discussed countless times before. Nothing new to read here. Move along. Move along..
For the 100th time, post 9/11 Americans were in no mood to put up with Middle Eastern despots. Saddam picked a bad time and place to pull his shenanigans. We were in Afghanistan as well. I agree that the Iraqi thing has turned into a sh!tpot but I get sick of hearing people bitch about it when they were all in favor of it at the time.
How can it not be clear at this point? Al Qaida is only there because we are there. This isn't bin Ladin's Al Qaida terrorists, they run free in Pakistan. This is a ragtag bunch of guerillas affiliated with Al Qaida in name only and operating under their own leaders. They can't get to us here, they don't have the resources and surprise was lost on 9/11. Most of Al Qaida are foreigners and the Sunni chiefs have already turned against them because their brand of islam is too strict. The Shia leaders will turn against them when we are gone, since Al Qaida is overwhelmingly Sunni and Iraq is most Shia. We are the common enemy and they tolerate each other. When we leave they will just have to fight out this civil war and see who comes out on top. Al Qaida will be the first to lose, then the Sunni's will lose, and leave only the Kurds, who have cooperated with us and whom we will continue to support with arms and money, but they will do their own fighting, backed by US airpower. The Shia ayatollahs will rule and some dictator will be in charge. They have to settle their own civil war, it ain't our fight. SF thinks we had to go in because Saddam had WMD's. Well, Saddam is dead and the WMD's don't exist. So we're done. No democrats or republicans signed on for this endless occcupation of a hostile population eating up American treasure and lives with no apparent exit plan even yet. Nobody knows what constitutes "victory". Let them kill each other and establish whatever state they want to. THEN . . . we can hold them accountable for their actions as a nation. If they don't behave, we can flatten them with airpower like we did before and like we do with any hostile country. We can make them behave just like Iran behaves. Oh, they squawk loud like all third-world dictators, but they've lost the only war they ever fought and are not eager to repeat Saddams mistake. It takes a special kind of incompetence for a petty dictator to maneuver himself into a shooting war with the United States of America. Unfortunately, it is a similar level of incompetence for the leader of the worlds only Superpower to get into a knife fight in the grass with less than 10,000 guerillas hiding in a population of hostile, stupid, ungrateful and unworthy Iraqi ragheads who have nothing we need. They got nothing but AK's, C-4, and RPG's and they can do what they are doing indefinitely. They can't win and we can't lose, yet no progress happens. We don't want to annex Iraq. One wins a temporary occupation by leaving, it has always been this way. If they wanted to cooperate like the Japanese and Germans, then we could stay long enough to turn them into political and economic successes so that they can be ungrateful allies. If they refuse to cooperate, have no courage to take charge of their own destiny, kill our soldiers, waste our money . . . then fugg 'em and adios, Abdul! We need to fight smarter wars than this. Our military deserves no less. The citizens demand no less.
