You vehemently support the war, I do not. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate that you lead by example? More to the point, since that would be a meaningless gesture on either of our parts, it was the Commander in Chief’s responsibility to set the tone of shared sacrifice for the nation. That is what leaders do.

I did not say that there are individual psychopaths in Iraq. That would be stating the obvious. I said something more serious. I said that Iraqi society in dysfunctional, even psychopathic. We ignored that reality going in and are in a state of denial about it now. I thought it was the liberals who had touchy-feely, warm and fuzzy ideas about human nature? Yet you cling to the belief that because everyone wants freedom, something with which I agree, everyone is capable of procuring it for themselves, or as in Iraq, can be lead into it by an occupying power.

Over 50 killed in bombings last week and 49 this week, all in Baghdad. That is peace only in the world of “1984,” where words mean their opposite. In addition to the 2 million refugees, whose plight you blithely dismiss, there are up to 2.77 million internally displaced persons. If Iraq is at peace as Mike baldly states and you imply, why don’t they just go back to their homes?

I don’t advocate withdrawing precipitously and abandoning the Iraqis, but we cannot formulate a coherent policy unless we admit the facts on the ground. I do not trust this Administration to develop such a policy, nor do I trust John McCain to give us anything other than more of the same.

I am not unwilling to bear an extra burden as long as the sacrifice is shared. And I would not complain if my taxes were raised to fund the war. But if I unilaterally make an extra contribution, that would do nothing to create a shared sacrifice.

Lead by example.

How about this: I am opposed to drinking and smoking. Those are my choices. Choices that I feel would benefit everyone.

Suppose I went out and touted my beliefs in regard to those things while chain smoking and chugging a beer or taking shots of hard liquor.

No one would take me seriously and it would be very easy to see the hypocrisy of my position.

If you really truly, down in your heart of hearts, believe that “shared sacrifice” is what is needed then step up and show the rest of us some commitment to the idea that you are pushing.

You are revealing yourself to be a classic example of the Left wing in this country. Constantly sniping and griping about what everyone else is not doing and then repeatedly showing that you not willing to do the very things that you are complaining about.

You point out the disparity of the enemies that we faced in WWII then you turn around and use the length of WWII as an indictment of what is happening in Iraq.

That makes no sense.

After completing post #32 I started thinking about some other things that you wrote David.

It’s striking to me that you state that Saddam Hussein was a monster. You claim knowledge of the Anfal campaign. I can accept those statements at face value.

Then you go on to say

what we have unleashed in Iraq would give Saddam a run for his money.

There’s not a single fact out there anywhere to indicate that anything we have unleashed in Iraq could possibly compare to Saddam’s evil murderous oppression.

You say

Iraq today is a horror show

By saying that you are totally denying the reality of what is going on in Iraq today.

Even the MSM that the Left in this country trusts so much for truth dissemination has caught on to what is happening.

Further you add

There are [torture rooms]. Atrocities are being committed every day in Iraq, not just by jihadis. By Sunnis against Shia, by Shia against Sunnis, and by Shia against Shia. Iraqi society, though full as all societies are with many good and reasonable people, is dysfunctional, even psychopathic.

By your own admission every society is filled with dysfunctional and psychopathic individuals who get sick pleasure from the maltreatment and murder of others. Yet you propose that we just leave them to fend for themselves.

I wonder if what would happen if we pulled out all of the police from DC or Detroit or NY City. There’s mayhem enough in those places with law enforcement in place.

arrogantly projecting that we would be greeted as liberators

There is ample proof that we were indeed greeted as liberators.

You should look that up sometime.

foolishly believing that the innate human desire for freedom would triumph over the effects of centuries of religious hatred and decades of despotism.

You drastically underestimate the will of the Iraqi people specifically, and more generally, human nature.

Now that it has become evident that we won’t run out on them the Iraqis have stepped up the challenges that they face.

Their resilience has proven to be remarkable.

That is a bizarre kind of peace. A country at peace does not have 2 million of its citizens flee to other countries.

First, you omit the fact that the refugees fled during the active combat/bombing portion of the war and in the ensuing unrest.

You also, quite conveniently omit the fact that now that things have calmed down dramatically the refugees are streaming back into the country that they left.

I wonder why you left those parts out.

Finally you say

Over 50 people died in a car bombing in Baghdad, the capital of the country we liberated just last week. This week another car bomb went off killing 10 including, two American servicemen.

You claim to know how bad Saddam was. You claim to have knowledge of Anfal. You claim that things now are worse than they were then. Yet you’re willing to just pack up and leave the Iraqis to their own devices.

Remarkable.

No one has declared that our work in Iraq is finished. No one has declared that the country is perfect. Those are leaps in logic that you are putting forward in order to make a point.

Because you are so totally committed to your view of things you cannot possibly admit the amazing level of progress that we, hand in hand with the Iraqis, are making in Iraq.

How many American servicemen died during the Occupation of Germany and Japan?

I am not unwilling to bear an extra burden as long as the sacrifice is shared. And I would not complain if my taxes were raised to fund the war. But if I unilaterally make an extra contribution, that would do nothing to create a shared sacrifice. What part of that reasoning continues to confuse you?

My point was that if there had been a spirit of shared sacrifice, the American people might feel differently about the war. It is the President and his Administration who are hypocritical in defining the Iraq War as the central front in our generational struggle against “Islamofascism”
and then not having the leadership to enlist the shared sacrifice of the American people.

I will try once more and then rest my case.

Pearl Harbor – Dec 1941

VJ (since it’s later than VE day) – Aug 1945

That is less than four years. We have already been in Iraq over five years. I point you again to the difference in enemies in both cases.

My original point remains completely valid:

I am really and truly glad that the defeatist, microwave culture attitudes of the anti-war proponents weren’t prevalent during WWII.

How long did we remain in Germany and Japan after the VE day and VJ day?

I am an opponent of the war and you ask why I don’t do more to support it.

Actually, you are an opponent of the war bemoaning that everyone isn’t bearing a greater sacrifice.

If you want everyone else to do as you suggest you should lead by example.

You remind me a lot of those who are “opposed” to tax cuts but then are quick to take advantage of them.

More fundamentally though, why would I contribute extra to a war I oppose?

Because asking everyone to bear an extra burden when you yourself are demonstrably unwilling to do so is the height of hypocrisy.

I will try once more and then rest my case.

Pearl Harbor – Dec 1941

VJ (since it’s later than VE day) – Aug 1945

That is less than four years. We have already been in Iraq over five years. I point you again to the difference in enemies in both cases. With respect to war weariness, as I pointed out in a previous post, there was shared sacrifice in WWII. I’ve cited the statistics – In terms of combat, over 10 times as many Americans proportionally fought for their country in that war as opposed to Iraq. In WWII Americans back home were paying higher taxes and rationing. They were doing their part. Neither has occurred in the current war. And finally, WWII, as you note, began with an attack on our troops and war-fighting capability at Pearl Harbor. Saddam Hussein, brutal butcher that he was, never attacked the United States.

Mike,

I did not call you a warmonger. I did not mean to suggest you were happy about this war. But what I very definitely did mean to suggest was that you cite the smallest progress in this war and claim VICTORY! You willfully ignore and distort the full import of articles like those you cited in the Economist. You want VICTORY so bad you see it where it is not. That is not cowardly, it is not craven, but it is not objective, nor is it honest.

Saddam Hussein was a monster. And I am very familiar with the Anfal campaign. I have an Iraqi Kurd friend who sought and won political asylum in the United States. But what we have unleashed in Iraq would give Saddam a run for his money. Iraq today is a horror show, not the island of peace and justice you present. There aren’t torture rooms in Iraq now? There are. Atrocities are being committed every day in Iraq, not just by jihadis. By Sunnis against Shia, by Shia against Sunnis, and by Shia against Shia. Iraqi society, though full as all societies are with many good and reasonable people, is dysfunctional, even psychopathic. Saddam Hussein needed 500,000 soldiers and police to keep the lid on Iraq and we ripped it off, arrogantly projecting that we would be greeted as liberators, and foolishly believing that the innate human desire for freedom would triumph over the effects of centuries of religious hatred and decades of despotism. In our hubris we have opened Pandora’s Box and we are now caught in the whirlwind we unleashed. Or more accurately our brave troops and the innocent Iraqis are. We go to bed in safety every night.

We brought peace and justice to Iraq? Do you and I live in alternate universes? Over 50 people died in a car bombing in Baghdad, the capital of the country we liberated just last week. This week another car bomb went off killing 10 including, two American servicemen. That is a bizarre kind of peace. A country at peace does not have 2 million of its citizens flee to other countries.

Craftyone,

I have no interest in playing one-upsmanship in family histories of military service. I served my country for 20 years. No medals warranted, just a fact. [Nor, Skye, do I want a statue erected to me because I mourned our nation’s loss on 9/11. If everyone who did that were to get a statue, there would be statues from sea to shining sea across this country. And I assure you they would not all be statues to conservatives and Republicans.] My service gives me no more and no less right to speak my mind than any other American. Yet Craftyone, because I have the audacity to take a position you disagree with, you make assumptions about me, while knowing next to nothing about me. I don’t really care about your personal opinion of me anymore than you care about my opinion of you. But for the record I did not have everything handed to me. Stop drinking the kool-aid and think for myself? Why do you think I am on this website? If I wanted to drink the liberal kool-aid, I could go on the DailyKos or the Huffington Post, high-five the other liberals and attack anyone who dares to express a conservative opinion on that site. In the same way you just did.

I’m also reminded of one of the lessons Winston Churchill sought to teach us. It’s one that some have yet to learn:

Here is a line of milestones to disaster. Here is a catalogue of surrenders, at first when all was easy and later when things were harder, to the ever-growing German power. But now at last was the end of British and French submission. Here was decision at last, taken at the worst possible moment and on the least satisfactory ground, which must surely lead to the slaughter of tens of millions of people. Here was the righteous cause deliberately and with a refinement of inverted artistry committed to mortal battle after its assets and advantages had been so improvidently squandered. Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.
–Winston Churchill

God forbid we ever see a day when that worst case scenario is inflicted on the United States.

They have no idea of what it’s like to live in fear every day of their lives. When you and your family, are at the whimsical mercy of an intolerant madman, freedom is more important than food. Those people needed our help and I’m so glad we answered their call. Nobody else in this world gave a rats a**. The Gimme Generation is all over the world not just here.

Mr Noble, just so you know, I’m a vet, my husband is a 20 yr vet, my husband and brothers were in Vietnam, our daughter was in during the Gulf War, my dad was a tail gunner during WWII, an uncle was a paratrooper in WWII and was killed on his first jump into the Phillippines. That’s just a few of my family that love this country and were proud to put on the uniform.

I hope that qualifies me to have an opinion on this war, not that I care what you think. Speaking of rhetoric Mr. Noble, why don’t you put down the demonic (Sorry, democratic) talking points, quit drinking the kool-aid and start THINKING for yourself! (sorry didn’t mean to offend your eyes by shouting) I see a lot of your kind of patriotic Americans in my town, don’t think very highly of them either.

RIGHT ON TO YOU TOO Chihuahua!! (By the way my shouting to you is in the way of a cheer!)

I speak of growing weary of the war and you cite World War II and Normandy. I note that it was a year from 1944 to VE day.

Dave,

Do you think that the American people had not developed war weariness in the space between Pearl Harbor and Normandy?

Do you really think so?

Come on.

My point was this:

We can’t do it.

It’s too tough.

It’s taking too long.

We’re never gonna win.

Let’s quit.

We’ve done enough for them.

On and on and on…..

Defeatocrats.

I sure am glad you people weren’t around when we were storming the beaches of Normandy or fighting on Okinawa, or burying the dead from the Battle of the Bulge.

Can you even begin to imagine how the media would have howled over the bloodshed and troop losses that we suffered just at Normandy?

I stand by my original point:

I am really and truly glad that the defeatist, microwave culture attitudes of the anti-war proponents weren’t prevalent during WWII.

What an appalling thing to say!

There is no sensible, decent person I know that wants war.

I could remind you that there are worse things than war.

Let’s start with the quote by John Stuart Mill:

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
John Stuart Mill

Then, place that in the context of the horror that Saddam inflicted on his own people. A horror that was removed thanks to President Bush and the U.S. military:

A man and his child found dead after attempting to flee the poison gas Saddam unleashed on the Kurds.

An Iraqi woman searches the mass graves of Hila for the bodies of her children.

Have you heard the story of the man in Saddam’s prison who had to watch as Saddam’s guards raped his very pregnant wife? When she did not begin a miscarriage, they slit open her stomach and he was forced to watch as the unborn and his wife bled to death.

The U.S. military has brought peace with justice to Iraq. And I will “cheerlead” that just as loudly as I will denounce your indifference to the suffering of the Iraqi people.

Your weasel words are ringing ever more hollow.

I speak of growing weary of the war and you cite World War II and Normandy. I note that it was a year from 1944 to VE day. At that time we were fighting the most efficient war machine in the history of man, short of our own. Help me understand how you made a good analogy. You’re making conclusory statements again – “Its a good analogy because I say its a good analogy.”

See if this sounds different: The war in Iraq was won by the time President Bush stood under a sign that read “Mission Accomplished.” Yet five plus years later, we are still there pouring our treasure and the blood of our servicemen and women onto the sands of Iraq, fighting a band of criminals, religous fanatics, jihadis, and warlords, in what is actually the occupation phase of the original war.

And its not the fault of our troops. We gave them a job not fit for them. They are heroes, not miracle workers. We are asking them to prop up a corrupt regime riven with religious and ethnic divisions and build a democratic nation out of an ethnically and religiously heterogeneous population, with no history of constitutional government. We are asking them to fight an urban counterinsurgency against an enemy that as Skye rightfully points out (with a different intent) will stop at nothing, including murdering civilians, suicide bombing, and the use of human shields.
That’s a damn lousy thing to do to our young men and women.

Re: talking points. This blog is awash in conservative talking points. From Barack Obama is a Muslim, black separatist, Marxist radical who can’t speak coherently without a teleprompter to empty and facile “Lefty talking point” and “Defeatocrat” rhetoric. I can listen to Sean and Rush and then wait to see it show up on this blog. Obama, the “September 10th” candidate? Recycled Bush 04′ and Rove “06.

Let’s drop the rhetoric that substitutes for thoughtful commentary. Instead let’s have an intelligent discussion. Or not.

Bad analogy to World War II once again.

Actually, a perfectly good analogy. Perhaps you chose to reject it because I struck too close to your nerve endings.

This is the first modern American war where there has been no increase in the income tax to pay for the war.

Great. Another Lefty talking point.

What are you doing, going down a list now?

Since you chose to wade in, let me ask you a question. Since you feel that income tax revenues should be higher, how much extra did you send in when you filed your 1040 this year?

Did you send in an extra $100, $1000, maybe even $5000? Did you even send in one extra dollar?

You ask who wants to enlist their children and you lament that income taxes have not been increased so tell us how much extra you paid in so that we can see if your money is indeed where your mouth is.

Of course I am sure everyone here will be perfectly happy to just take you at your word on the matter.

First, I am not a pacifist. I am a twenty-year veteran, who wholeheartedly supports our troops. I have made that point before on this site. Although I have no combat experience, I have the utmost respect for those who do. That includes John McCain, Duncan Hunter, Chuck Hagel, John Kerry, Max Cleland, Jim Webb and everyone on this site who is a combat veteran. I make no distinctions of idealogy or party on that count.

My son-in-law did two tours in Iraq and is now home safe and sound. I wish the same for your loved one, Missy. I have a ex-Marine buddy at work, all three of whose sons are in the Marines, one in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, and one in officers’ school. I asked him how they were the other day and with respect to the son in officer’s school, he said maybe things will have quieted down by the time the gets out of officers’ school.

I relate that last story to say this – I hope and pray things quiet down soon, but I doubt it. You all seem to be comfortable with a long horizon for this war. I am not. Mike, “just might be allies” are not allies. “U.S. backed Iraqi troops” are not Iraqis able to defend themselves. Please reread those Economist articles you posted. I read them and the closing paragraphs are so much less sanguine then you make them out to be. Aye Chi, we hit Normandy on June 1944, a year later the war was over. Bad analogy to World War II once again. On another post I will be glad to discuss how Iraq is far more like Vietnam.

We have a long, long way to go. Secretary Rumsfeld, whom John McCain called “possibly the worst Defense Secretary in history,” screwed this up royally and American men and women and Iraqi civilians have paid for his arrogance with their blood.

With respect to the “chickenhawk” theme. Yes, I percieve you, Mike, as a cheerleader for the war. Unfortunately, war is not a spectator sport. Just because you are not a combat veteran does not mean you have no right to an opinion on the war. But there is a real problem here that goes beyond what I might think of Mike. In World War II 12% of the eligble population was under arms. Today it is less than 1%. The average American is making no sacrifice for this war beyond putting a Support the Troops sticker next to a Jets sticker on the back of their car. This is the first modern American war where there has been no increase in the income tax to pay for the war. We are paying for it with our national credit card. I saw a photograph of graffiti on a wall in Ramadi. It read “America is not a war, the Marines are at war. America is at the mall.”
I guess some lib pacifist must have written that. I think not. I believe that perception does more to hurt the morale of our troops than honest critiques of the war from people who care about them.

A final comment on the “chickenhawk” (BTW, your term not mine) issue:
“When you’ve never experienced war,” said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., another decorated Vietnam vet, “it’s a little easier to be more cavalier about committing troops and not understanding the consequences of war.”

Now in closing as to tone. Mata, I knew all caps means your shouting. That’s precisely my point.
Mike, you shout too much, when you’re not saying things like “Poor(Fill in the blank)” or “Sad” or Tut-tut” There is an old rule about debate. When the facts are for you, pound the facts. When the logic is for you, pound the logic. When neither is for you, pound the table. You’re a habitual table-pounder, Mike. As for me hitting on aesthetics rather than argument, Skye. If you’ll notice right below my comment about Mike’s use of caps, I address Mike’s disingenous morphing of “U.S. backed Iraqi troops” into Iraqis standing up and defending themselves.

As far as being flippant. I am not flippant. I am dead serious about this war. If you want to see flippancy I recommend Tom W.’s post in which he makes a joke about “contributing” your children to the war. I doubt someone who had a son or daughter die in Iraq would find that amusing. Finally, re: using the term “children” for our troops. I get the point, but I have five children whose ages range from 26 to 36. They are and will always be my children. Further if this war continues to drag on, those who are now undisputably children will be going off to fight it or the next war in Iran.

“Bomb, bomb, Iran.” With all due respect to a genuine war hero, that’s flippant.