Once again... I want to know your opinion. I love to hear all the diverse opinions here.

we started this mess, might as well finish it.

Anchor the system, place a self-sustaining military, and get the heck out of Dodge!

I think that there definately has been progress made in Iraq that the American Media has not shared with us as a public. Yes there are casualities but we are making progress and we have an obligation to stay. I recieved an email about the war in Iraq so I will share it now:

The following appeared in the Durham, NC local paper as a letter to
the editor. Please forward to all on your list as this will put
things in perspective:

Liberals claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war.
They complain about his prosecution of it. One liberal recently
claimed Bush was the worst president in U.S. history. Let's clear
up one point: We didn't start the war on terror. Try to remember,
it was started by terrorists BEFORE 9/11. Let's look at the "worst"
president and mismanagement claims.



FDR led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us: Japan did.
From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per
year.

Truman finished that war and started one in Korea, North Korea
never attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an
average of 18,333 per year.
John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us.

Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire. >From 1965-1975,
58,000 lives were >lost, an average of 5,800 per year.

In the two years since terrorists attacked us, the US Military has
liberated
two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear
inspectors in Lybia, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot,
and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.
We lost 600 soldiers, an average of 300 a year. Bush did all this abroad while not allowing another terrorist attack at home.

The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking,
but...

It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the
Branch Davidian compound. That was a 51 day operation.

We've been looking for evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq for
less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm
billing
records(White Water Scandel).
It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to
destroy
the Medina Republican Guard than it took Teddy Kennedy to call the
police
after his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick.

It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in
Florida!!!!

Nice statistics.... but i dont think you can group Iraq with countries that were in the middle of invasions/assault on our allies.

All we went in to Iraq with, was the information the Bush gave us. Now that is apparently suspect. (who didnt see that coming)

I protested the invasion of Iraq, but if we leave now the situation will be alot worse. We have to finish what we started.

Maybe we can use this as an example of why "Pre-emptive attacks" are not the right thing to do. (ala Wolfowitz and Rumsfield)

my .02

I have never like Rumsfeld. He is a ver y agressive person. I think he should step down from office and let a not-so-paranoid person take charge.

My $.02:

I wasn't in support of this war, i'm not in support of this war, but we have created this mess and it is our duty to stay there until the country is back on its feet and has a stable government. Leaving it now would be an even dumber move than invading it in the first place.

Oh, and on the WWII thing, the country of Germany was attacking our allies and systematically killing off an entire race of people in concentration camps.......far, far different than Iraq.

I'm not too confident in my Korean War history so i won't go there....

Vietnam was started by Congress passing the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which was passed by the dilberate misleading of congress over an event near the Vietnam coast where a US ship was supposedly "attacked for no reason". What they didn't tell everyone is that the ship was inside the waters of Vietnam, we had been running commando operations in the area, and the attack proably never even took place. There was not a clear sighting of the enemy by anyone on the secne.

I don't think Egg was saying we were wrong to go to war in the other cases, he was making a point saying that we went to war then over someone not attacking us directly. In this case, we were directly attacked. The statistics were to show that point.

In my own opinion: While I may not be directly for the war, it was something that needed to be done. I respect Bush for doing what he said he was going to.

ok let's clear some things up

we declared war on japan, and since germany was allied with japan, germany declared war on us, so that is why we fought them.... along with some other obvious reasons...

korea and vietnam were both started due to one simple idea.... THE DOMINO EFFECT..... which is when one country falls to communism, more and more will fall, causing the destruction of democracy....

iraq is also based under a similar idea, if one country attacks us through terrorism and gets away with it.... more will....

those death statistics are quite flawed since u can't compare trench warfare with tomahawk missiles with minimal ground troop support....

and let me be quite clear on this fact: I SUPPORT THE WAR!!

i feel sorry for the families that have suffered losses of sons, daughters, brothers, etc... but every soldier that was over there knew why they were there and they believe in it....

i am a realist, which is why i know that we NEED war and during those wars, people will die.....

the reason why we NEED war is because people will still insist on fucking with us because their god told them to, which is absolutely fucking pathetic...

i criticize the christian crusades and i now criticize holy wars..... the whole idea is asenine.....


But back to the topic, we started it and we damn sure better finish it or risk pissing off even more people and giving those soldiers a feeling of accomplishment

Wow, do half of you even read what you write? This whole conversation swings from one side of the demographic to the other, and then flies into the bounds of lunacy. As for Lukecp's comment about Hitler being different from Sadam, he is a huge fan of genocide. And BigPoppa, their God is the same as most of us, its just a different inturrpretation. Im not saying that any of you are wrong in your beliefs, just for the most part uneducated.

snuffle-- i'm well aware of the beliefs of islam as well as the similarities between christian and muslim beliefs...

which is why this pisses me off so much...

ok i retract my previous statement.... it's not their god that tells them to kill, it's the people who say that "their god told them to kill"........

better??

anybody who carries out murder in the name of god is a fucking clownshoe....

I see, so we went to war with all these nations, who haven't attacked us. So when a group of people, instead of a nation attatck us, we should go apeshit, make up lies, then cast our monstrous wang compensator across the globe?
And it doesn't surprise me that it took forever for the votes in Florida to be counted... look who won by a convenient Supreme Court ruling.

I will say what I always say to John Bono, and that is : You are an idiot!

hold the phone there mr. propaganda.

Iraq directly attacked us? When did that happen? I must have missed the report.

There lies(pun intnded) the problem. Bush convinced us that Iraq had some sort of relationship with Al Quada. This is not true. Bin Laden hates sadam, and vice versa.

As it was reported in january, Bush had plans to go into Iraq the minute he came into office.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/ ... 2330.shtml

hmmf

Why do you say that? Everything he said is correct.