"Crush the Insurgents in Iraq"

Post Editorial By Lewis E. Lehrman and William Kristol

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46730-2004May21.html

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"The central battle in the war on terror is Iraq. Unless we win that battle, we will see America itself, and the world, shift disastrously into neutral in the broader war."
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Comparisons to America's Civil War:

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"As was the case in 1864, the immediate task is therefore the destruction of the armies and militias of the insurgency -- not taking and holding territory, not winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis, not conciliating opponents and critics, not gaining the approval of other nations. All of these can follow after victory over the violent insurrection."
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The authors are among those at the top of the insane leadership of this country and from which the crazy talk springs.

Please help me counter their insanity in a letter to the Post.

That war had leaders on both sides. When General Lee surrendered, his troops followed his lead and surrendered with him.

These situations are so completely different that it is laughable to compare them.

Delusional idiots.

america has attacked a nation that was not an imminent threat to us and had not attacked us. what do you call the innocent lives lost in an action like that?
i call it murder! your kind of thinking has turned this county's actions into something resembling a psycho-pathic serial killer. the very thing we were supposed to be preventing -- your thinking mr crystal is barbaric and a shame on the american landscape -- thanks to you we can now be found in history next to the likes of genghis khan.

said we had to liberate Iraq from Saddam? I think they meant to say we had to liberate Iraq from the Iraqis?

insurrections around Baghdad. The Iraqi security and military forces ... law enforcement plus military ... equals close to 200,000. I think that they should be able to deal with the insurgency themselves.

But they won't have to.

The insurgency is against US, not Iraq. In fact, when they sent Saddam's general into Fallujah, the city stabilized.

Never ever put their asses on the line and never will. Their talk is slick as is slippery snot. They are in it for the money, nothing more.

180

Kristol implies that anyone fighting the US is "against a peaceful transition."

They may actually be against foreign troops breaking down their door in the middle of the night and rounding them up to be tortured.

thanks!

nt

Bush and his ilk are creating more terrorists, isn't that what he wants? :shrug:

Those troops who did what they did only put themselves in mortal danger, their fellow troops in mortal danger, and the US itself in moral danger. Our own troops have seriously damaged US credibility when they did what they did and it makes no damn bit of difference if the prisoner was wrongfully imprisoned or if the prisoner had killed an American. Americans are supposed to be civilized, remember?

Those traitors, of which there are far more than four, need to be locked up as we try to show the world we really are an ethical country (yeah, right - our lack of ethics transcends the military, corporate america is pretty unethical too).

And, yes, they are traitors. They've hurt the US's credibility (starting with raising the US flag in a country we were liberating and not conquering of course) and they've put the lives of ALL their soldiers in danger. I even saw a statue of an Iraqi with a bag over his head, and that pic came out LONG BEFORE the pictures of the abuses came out. So, yeah, they do know and we're boned. Every "freedomer" involved with this, right up to those who claim to take responsibility, need to be removed. It's as simple as that. And Bush needs to resign or be impeached. He is utterly incompetent and shouldn't be in charge of lint.

I do pity the troops innocent of every atrocity that has happened. But the good troops are going to get some indiscriminate bad treatment thanks to the bad troops. Not by me, but it will happen. It's sad, but that's what happens when those running the show allow the atrocities to happen and not appropriately punish the wrongdoers, especially given the severity of the crime. The US is boned.

On edit: Oops, I forgot to censor myself with apropos terminology.

WTF? Our way is the only way? Our way is the right way? That's why we have a prison population the highest in the world? And I guess we don't have thousands of 'missing people?' Ask Amadu and Rodney King some others if police brutality doesn't exist in America. Most Iraqis want America to stay, to win? Sure they do...these are the 'unarmed' Iraqis. Give them a weapon and see whose side they are on.

Iraq has nothing to do with anything else.
If they didn't want to be seen getting their ass kicked,
they should not have invaded and occupied the place with
inadequate forces.
:puke:

cited is that the US had the moral authority to wage war. In this war (never declared) we do not. It is based on lies, innumerable lies that hardly bear repeating. It is simply an imperial war to expand the imperial interests of the BFEE.

PS. You will notice that the authors didn't compare this mess with Vietnam. How very damn convenient.