Post by JimB on Feb 18, 2008 16:00:08 GMT -5
Lumpy, as a liberal, that's your whole mantra: "we can't win in the middle east". But you don't know that.
I would suggest that the burden of proof in war lies with those who promote it rather than those who abhor it. We don't know for a fact that we can't win, but there is lots of history to back up that theory, and we certainly don't know for a fact that we can win there.
It's common knowledge that since the "surge" Iraq has stabilized greatly. We are making headway over there.
Even if one accepts that "common knowledge" (which I don't), the bigger question is how long must the surge be maintained for significant, meaningful, LASTING change to result? Nobody knows, but given the fact that we're talking about a region that's been in turmoil for at least 1,000 years, I'm guessing a long time. Too long. America is not an empire: we shouldn't need to maintain permanent outposts in distant countries to preserve our economic interests.
And the fact that we have a military presence in a region that supports terrorism and has made open threats to the U.S. and our allies can only mean better security for America.
The middle east is no longer this unseen, unforgotten region left to cook up their schemes of terrorism. They have someone watching them now, and that has made a huge difference.
The middle east is no longer this unseen, unforgotten region left to cook up their schemes of terrorism. They have someone watching them now, and that has made a huge difference.
Blazin', I know you are smarter than this. A military presence in a foreign country does not eliminate terrorists, any more than a police force eliminates, say, the drug trade. It drives them underground and forces them to be smarter. Even with a surge, troops can't be everywhere. Sure, individual acts of rebellion are much less likely, and the less intelligent radicals get caught or blown away, but the far more dangerous networks survive and thrive in such an environment. They're like an intelligent virus, and we're speeding up the mutation process.
And the bottomline is, right now, we need oil. We aren't going to be independent of oil for a long time. Deal with it...as you hop on the bus or into your car and go purchanse the products that are shipped to you via petrol burning engines.
Next time you buy gas, think of this: nearly 4,000 American military deaths and 30,000 wounded in return for the dollar or two a gallon you save by keeping the Iraq supply in economic circulation. I'd rather pay a little more. Oil may have been a reason for going over there, but it ain't a good enough reason to keep us there.
Freck (and everyone else), no one is ever going to use airplanes as weapons on U.S. soil again. For that to happen in the first place, several things had to go very right for those guys. Enough fail safes are in place now that it simply can't happen. That has very little to do with leadership - it has to do with measures that would have been taken whoever was in charge.
Future attacks will occur in a similar context - some vulnerable spot we don't know we have. And what we're doing in Iraq is eliminating the ones incapable of coming up with that kind of attack, and strengthening the ones who can. Not to mention misusing resources that could be applied to finding our vulnerable spots here (which increase in number when our fighting forces are overseas).