I spent some time today watching Congress give their opinions on this resolution to "send a message " to President Bush and the U.S. Military, found it to be what I expected. I also spent last night talking in group to some of my fellow students about the Vietnam war, Iraq and Cindy Sheehans upcoming visit to our campus, found it also to be what I expected.
I'll start off by stating the most important thing I didn't hear mentioned by any single member of the leftist speakers hoping to insult our military and President: What will the long term effects be on the thousands of Iraq vets be after telling them, in this completly ceremonial gesture, 'We never ever believed in what you were doing and couldn't care less about the blood you spilled, all that matters is political rheteric and appeasing the liberal media." Somehow I see bond forming in Vietnam and Iraq vets along the lines of soldiers paying the price for politicians cowardice. And that's the only comparison I'll make in the two wars, emotional scarring.
In essence, the lives of those lost were lost in vain. Boy, that's going to feel great explaining
that after coming so close to success and getting closer to a much more peaceful world then we've ever seen, a bunch of cowards in Congress managed to get the world closer to global destruction. Pelosi, just yesterday, let Iran know they were free to develope and use nucleur weapons against Israel and the west. Any person who can't see this coming is dellusional. This is one pathetic human being that definetly caters to the extreme left.
I also seen several newly elected " Combat Veterans " from Iraq speak in favor of this " Slap in the face " to our President and military. I will do my best to find out the record these people that clearly don't represent the vast majority of those that have had " Boots on the ground." I would ask readers to look back at my " REMF's " entry and be prepared to learn the names of Remf's in congress.
I keep hearing the term " Civil war " from these idiots and saying that we should not deploy more troops, Hello ! they are already in place and have started doing there job. We also never hear any member of congress explain that this number of 21,000 is actually only about 2,000 that will actually be "Outside the wire." And the vast majority of the killing and violence takes place in Bagdad, it's not a " Civil war ". The kurds are very much in control up north, my province had zero secatarian violence and many of the bombers we caught had come from Bagdad, or shall I say Syria and Iran. The Iraqi soldiers we worked with were alomost evenly split Sunni/Shiite and NEVER a single problem with relegion.
The news always comes from the liberal media and is never from those living there. If we want the truth we should start reviewing the thousands of military bloggers to get real perspective on the Iraq situation. Of course these should be catagorized by those that actually go outside the wire more than once a month to deliver supplies and take PR pictures, REMFS.
I will say this for the liberals, more troops are not needed. We just need to get more out of what we've got there now, now more duty for styrafoam plate counters at the DFAC. And rotations " Outside the wire " for everyone.
In my class duscussion the vast MAJORITY were not in support of running and were very suprised to hear that none of what the press and Congress is saying happened in my particular province. I also told them of the numerous Iraqis that had lost loved ones and were very willing to fight for there freedom and fellow Iraqis. I also explained to them of the over 14,000 in and around LSA Anaconda only one battalion and some special operations teams ever left the complete security of the base. This is about 400 soldiers. For those that like to use polls and numbers I will let them know that about 80% of the casualties are from the Bagdad area, the very place Syria and Iran send their assasins. And on fourth of all deaths were through accidents, not direct action by insurgents. Yes, they would all still be alive if they never went to Iraq, that's not the point. The point is the media wants everyone to think all were caused by insurgent activities, there not.
I have to wonder if the invasion of Normandy would have been turned into a full retreat ( redployment?) had it been shown live. Thousands died there within hours and Omaha beach took a full day to secure, peace comes at a price and we are trying to move closer to less global conflicts. But as long as tyrants continue to go unchallenged they will continue to murder those that seek freedom. It is most definitly the minority of our population, any country's population for that matter, that are willing to pay the price that the sheltered and ignorant take for granted.
And it is most digusting to see the leftist refer to complete withdrawel as " redplyment " When troops are no longer
in contact that is called either a retreat or demobilization. I did not hear a single leftist offer a single plan or discuss the threat from Syria, Hammas and Iran. These idiots keep trying to say the fight is Afganistan not Iraq. As goes Iraq goes the entire region. The Unted States has been attacked in Kenya, Sudan, Yemen the Philipines and our on soil, long before 9/11.
Terrorist as we all know find countires sympathetic to their idealogy and are in several countries training to come here and kill Americans. Countries that do this have been warned and the best way to scale down terrorist attack is to mean exactly what we say and go after the governmants that export and support terrorism. This shameful dispaly by congress will only encourage terrorist to attack our soldiers and kill more defensless civivlians.
A final note for the lefties. If the American people voted this knew congress to come up with a new plan, what is it? They have done nothing to execute the will of the voters. The troops are already there and the funding continues, show some backbone and do some that will actually be measured with results and not rheteric. This action by the Cowards in Congress will have three immediate effects. 1) demoralization 2) empowerment of terrorist states and extremist and 3)
loss of support by our allies. If the worlds only superpower and best democracy can't fight terrorism who will?.
This is not new to the soldiers who risk everything for the defensless victims of tyrants. A Roman Centurian,Demitiri Arbuitus, said it best in 414 B.C : " We trained hard, and just as we began to form into teams I learned we were to be reorginized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorginzing. And what a wonderful method this can be for creating the illusion of progress, while in effect creating confusion, inefficiency and demorization."
P.S. those polls people come up with are often answered by those that spend more time worried about the next " American idol " or the real father of Anna Nicoles baby then learning the truth about what is happening in Iraq. And they are structured to get desired results favorable to the left. I.E. " is war bad?"
it's a sad state of affairs you speak of, but true none the less. it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that we are truely screwing things up. one day the "good" iraqi's will realize this and turn on us just to get us out of their country. but go deeper...does new world order mean anything?
i hear you, it makes me sick. i served at fob o'ryan and lost a good friend. when did we become the country that quits? Iraq, Somolia, Vietnam. has our country gotten so lazy and cowardly that we just pull out when the going gets tough? I still serve proudly in that national guard (New York 69th Infantry, the fighting Irish)but mark my words...if we pull out of Iraq I will never serve another day in uniform ever again. the 3,000 troops we lost in Iraq werent raised by families who love them to have there lives thrown away. Another thing, I was arguing with a liberal about the war. he dodged the draft in Vietnam and has two sons who never served a day in uniform. he told me "people like me are tired of sending our kids off to be killed in Iraq" people like him DONT SEND there kids to Iraq! they let other people do it!!!!
It's difficult to get behind a president and a war that was started under false pretenses. There is no reason for us to be there. It had nothing to do with 9-11 and, if we would stop threatening and start using diplomacy, we might be able to wage peace. The world does not look upon us favorably. How soon the American people forget or due to total ignorance refuse to remember the horrible deeds America inflicted on both Central and South America. Look at the Iran Contra Affair and look at how America went into Chile and screwed up their democratic government with Pinnochet.