General: Death toll down as U.S., Iraq forces take control

RolandTD20Kdrummer

I guess some people don't understand that America is viewed as the bully by pretty much everyone outside the US (and a lot in the US) at this point not someone who is just "trying to help"

Nobody cheers for the bully ever...get over it...get on with it...and get the fuck out. Otherwise fire up the guns and get it over with. Have the balls to obliterate them and claim whatever you are trying to claim.

Having the inlaws live at your house longer (eat all your food and sleep in your bed) isn't going to make you love them more. Especially if they throw shit in your face every day.

duh...

FiveB247x

Most of the world, Europe and the UN were against this invasion to begin with. Now that things are going how we'd like, you expect them to help or somehow be responsible for our doings? Doesn't seem like a legitimate request whatsoever. Also, the notion that these terrorists will follow us back to the US if we leave Iraq is simply assinine. I read the other day that Al Queda is back to its fuctionality as it was pre-9-11 - but I'm sure that's got nothing to do with us taking the bullseye off them and moving it upon Iraq? Even the Taliban is slowly gaining power in Afganistan again. So it's really not legitimate to try and make a case that terror will win or provide some sort of safe haven if leave Iraq. The likelyhood is they'll leave as well and go to another lawless nation to create chaos and work from. The War on Terror is more a slogan/bumpersticker than an actual policy or set of them.

Secondly, we don't have to go over the course that brought us to war, but it is important to note that what we have done (whether right or wrong) is engage and push forth a situation and climate in a nation where sects, religons and people are on the brink of civil war and totally disassembling the nation as we now know it (breaking into 3 separate areas). We have help make the bed in Iraq - many of the issues where their before, some are newer or more aggressively in growth (terrorism in Iraq, sect terror, etc), but the longer we waddle our ways, the worse off we will be and the worse off Iraq will be. As for immediate solutions, our president won't allow the UN to be a part of peace keeping or transitioning over "the face" of control, so who's to blame for that? Once again - US. We refuse to put the necessary amount of troops their to truly control and make the situation proper and safe, yet leave just enough their to give the appearence that we're their and trying - that is a failed notion and truly the reason this situation is getting worse and escalating.

Lastly, the reason we can't win their is, the very leaders saying we need to stay the course and "man up" and "take action" are the same ones creating the failure by not going it 100%. Not enough troops, supplies, manpower, resources, failure to win over the people of Iraq, and the list goes on and on. If you have a test and you want an A, study, prepare and you'll get it. If I only half-study, and go about it hap-hazzardly, you're gonna get a C, or a D... and right now, that's what Iraq is, our D grade. Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.

NCfan wrote:

Not sure I agree that the situation is getting "worse and worse". Iraq is a place that is going to get worse before it gets better, anybody will agree on that. We are not going to wake up one day and magically everybody over there is going to get along. There will be better days, weeks and months than others, but there will always be violence in the country for a long, long time to come - no matter what anybody does.

What I see is a nation, a world that is waiting on the US. Everybody in Iraq, from the militias, to the Islamic radicals, to the ordinary citizens, to the politicians are just waiting to see what the US is going to do. Are we going to stay, or are we going to leave - this more than anything will determine the fate and future of Iraq. And in turn many people's power, wealth and life depend upon this decision. So I don't believe we will see REAL results in Iraq until America decides what we are going to do. As it looks to everyone now, it is just a matter of time before we leave.

In the US, this has been the MAIN political discourse for the past 3 years with respect to Iraq.

A solid majority of the American congress authorized the war, and a solid majority of American's supported the war. When we found out there were no WMD's, all hell broke loose and the Dems and libs saw that as their chance to pounce on a vulnerable oposition. I'm not saying this was the wrong thing to do. I believe in dissent, and I belieive in holding people accountable.

What I don't believe in is stooping to the level where the leaders of the free world are so childish, so calous, so fucking cheap with their words and rhetoric that they have totally forgot to LEAD. None of them are fucking leaders... they are all just pandering, self-centered fucks who want power and legacy. All of them!

So most Americans have been sitting around listening and watching politicians make pure asses of themselves (on both sides, at the highest levels) trying to discredit the other. And Americans are sick of it and we are lost. We are sick of Bush and his missmanagement, we are sick of the Dems taking cheap shots. And we are taking it out on each other...

The mission is noble, and it is worth it. It will save far more lives to see this through now than to leave a fractured state in the world's most important region to fester in abandonment by the West. And take note there I said 'The West", because most of Europe has abondoned this effort.

Where the fuck is the UN here? Where the fuck is NATO or the EU? If I remember correctly a few years ago, America was the one keeping Christians from murdering Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo while the Europeans did nothing.

Sometimes you have to man up and take action. If we could send overwhelming man and firepower to the region. If the whole world united behind this we wouldn't be looking at another Lebanon civil war, or Palestine 2.0 - something that we take lives and create oppresion and instability for the next 30 years.

Take action, do it now, fix what we all know is broken.

Abuskedti

NCfan wrote:

Of course, let's not forget that! Most of you anti-war people are the same. It's like whack-a-mole stragety to debate you guys.

No matter what our side says, you can always fall back to we were lied to in the first place. Or even more of a stretch, that Bush stole the election in 2000. You always have something to say...

I love the whole "we weren't supposed to be there anyways" argument - as if that has any bearing on getting us out now. It's sort of like we are starving in the desert with no food, but suddenly I produce an egg and agree that we will cook it sunny-side up, but instead I give it to you srambled - and you get pissed cause i lied to you so you refuse to eat it. And I tell you that I'm sorry, but I scrambled the egg and you should eat it anyways becuase you are starving - but you won't shut up about being lied to long enough to see that what I'm saying makes sense! Or really, you know what I'm saying is true, that you should eat the egg, but you won't do it just to spite the chef cuase you don't like them.

A close analogy would be - We are stranded in the desert. You have the weapons - and kill 7 members of my family, fried them and ate them - then someone fried an egg - and you said give it to that guy over there we plan to kill tomorrow - so he will be healthy enough to eat when we get hungry. The guy says - nah, I'd rather whither away than nourish you

RainDog

Abuskedti wrote:

A close analogy would be - We are stranded in the desert. You have the weapons - and kill 7 members of my family, fried them and ate them - then someone fried an egg - and you said give it to that guy over there we plan to kill tomorrow - so he will be healthy enough to eat when we get hungry. The guy says - nah, I'd rather whither away than nourish you

Nice!!

Byrnzie

NCfan wrote:

Not sure I agree that the situation is getting "worse and worse". Iraq is a place that is going to get worse before it gets better, anybody will agree on that. We are not going to wake up one day and magically everybody over there is going to get along. There will be better days, weeks and months than others, but there will always be violence in the country for a long, long time to come - no matter what anybody does.

What I see is a nation, a world that is waiting on the US. Everybody in Iraq, from the militias, to the Islamic radicals, to the ordinary citizens, to the politicians are just waiting to see what the US is going to do. Are we going to stay, or are we going to leave - this more than anything will determine the fate and future of Iraq. And in turn many people's power, wealth and life depend upon this decision. So I don't believe we will see REAL results in Iraq until America decides what we are going to do. As it looks to everyone now, it is just a matter of time before we leave.


The mission is noble, and it is worth it. It will save far more lives to see this through now than to leave a fractured state in the world's most important region to fester in abandonment by the West. And take note there I said 'The West", because most of Europe has abondoned this effort.

Sometimes you have to man up and take action. If we could send overwhelming man and firepower to the region. If the whole world united behind this we wouldn't be looking at another Lebanon civil war, or Palestine 2.0 - something that we take lives and create oppresion and instability for the next 30 years.

Take action, do it now, fix what we all know is broken.

The Nazis thought this way too in 1941. Some things never change.

Cosmo

NCfan wrote:

I love the whole "we weren't supposed to be there anyways" argument - as if that has any bearing on getting us out now. It's sort of like we are starving in the desert with no food, but suddenly I produce an egg and agree that we will cook it sunny-side up, but instead I give it to you srambled - and you get pissed cause i lied to you so you refuse to eat it. And I tell you that I'm sorry, but I scrambled the egg and you should eat it anyways becuase you are starving - but you won't shut up about being lied to long enough to see that what I'm saying makes sense! Or really, you know what I'm saying is true, that you should eat the egg, but you won't do it just to spite the chef cuase you don't like them.

...
WHOA!!! How did I miss this one???
...
Worst analogy of the year front runner.
...
Here's a better analogy that is closer along the lines of what happened and how we got where we are:
You and i are in a car and you say we need to go this way. I argue that I think we should stay on our current course to get to where we're trying to get to. You insist on your way and claim that it is a direction we need to go and that you know exactly how to get there from here... because you have already been this way (which is a lie). This is despite the warnings we heard from the gas station attendant, the coffee shop waitress, the truck driver at the roadside store and most of the people we talked to.
We go your way and the road disappears into sand and I keep on telling you that we need to change direction and get back on that road we were on but you keep on lyig to me about how this is the way we must go and insist that you know this direction well.
We continue your way and get into deeper and deeper sand... I keep harping on you and you keep lying to me as we sink up to our tires... then our windows... then our roof.
You finally say, yeah... we need to change direction. I pimp slap you for being a douchebag. Guess what? You deserve it.
Now, you ask me... how do I get us out of YOUR mess. I don't know... maybe we should begin to dig ourselves out, make it back to the surface and try to get back on the road we were on.
And don't give me any more of your lying bullshit anymore because your credibility is non-existant.
...
That's a closer analogy.

Byrnzie

NCfan wrote:

Where the fuck is the UN here?

The U.N? You mean that international organization that the U.S lied to and then abandoned in 2003?

NCfan wrote:

If I remember correctly a few years ago, America was the one keeping Christians from murdering Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo while the Europeans did nothing.

Tell that to the people who were held under siege in Sarejevo for 4 years whilst the West - including America - did nothing. Also tell it to the family's of all the men massacred at Screbrenica and Tusla whilst the U.N soldiers were ordered by these same governments to do nothing. Don't pretend that because the west was finally forced into acting by public demand after one more atrocity in a Sarejevo market in 1995 - thereby giving NATO a chance to flex some muscle - that we can in retrospect be regarded as saviours of those people. We failed them, as we failed Rwanda. And when I say 'we', this includes the U.S.

Dirtie_Frank

Byrnzie wrote:

The Nazis thought this way too in 1941. Some things never change.

SO you are comparing our actions to the Nazis? Let's see oh yeah we imprissoned millions of muslims and placed them in ovens and acid baths and stabed them. Comparing the US to the nazis is idiotic.

Cosmo

Dirtie_Frank wrote:

SO you are comparing our actions to the Nazis? Let's see oh yeah we imprissoned millions of muslims and placed them in ovens and acid baths and stabed them. Comparing the US to the nazis is idiotic.

...
I think you missed the point.
The Nazis also thought their cause was noble and that the whole of Europe and the rest of the world would be better off if everyone followed their world view.

Abookamongstthemany

Dirtie_Frank wrote:

SO you are comparing our actions to the Nazis? Let's see oh yeah we imprissoned millions of muslims and placed them in ovens and acid baths and stabed them. Comparing the US to the nazis is idiotic.

Killing, torturing and maiming is killing, torturing and maiming. One side is no more justified than the other. When people realize this maybe this shit will stop.

Byrnzie

Dirtie_Frank wrote:

SO you are comparing our actions to the Nazis? Let's see oh yeah we imprissoned millions of muslims and placed them in ovens and acid baths and stabed them. Comparing the US to the nazis is idiotic.

There are countless comparisons between the actions and rhetoric of the current sleazy criminals in the White house right now and the nazis. Just because Abu ghraib e.t.c can't be compared to Auschwitz, doesn't change that fact.

Vedderlution_Baby

NCfan wrote:

Of course, let's not forget that! Most of you anti-war people are the same. It's like whack-a-mole stragety to debate you guys.

No matter what our side says, you can always fall back to we were lied to in the first place. Or even more of a stretch, that Bush stole the election in 2000. You always have something to say...

I love the whole "we weren't supposed to be there anyways" argument - as if that has any bearing on getting us out now. It's sort of like we are starving in the desert with no food, but suddenly I produce an egg and agree that we will cook it sunny-side up, but instead I give it to you srambled - and you get pissed cause i lied to you so you refuse to eat it. And I tell you that I'm sorry, but I scrambled the egg and you should eat it anyways becuase you are starving - but you won't shut up about being lied to long enough to see that what I'm saying makes sense! Or really, you know what I'm saying is true, that you should eat the egg, but you won't do it just to spite the chef cuase you don't like them.

You're right. fuck it. let's all forget the reasoning why we're fucking there in the first place. You know why we keep bringing that up? Because its one thing people who keep supporting this fucking thing cant dodge around with some kind of stupid ass argument. everyone fucking knows we were lied too. some of us are still quite pissed that it happened. we cant just block that out like you. we dont want it to happen fucking again.