[QUOTE]Originally posted by Legal Bill

 

When I was in Myrtle Beach a few weeks ago I was sitting in front of my place drinking a beer (go figure) and a young man came jogging by. He stopped to chat with me. Told me he was on leave from Iraq. I thanked him for the sacrifice and asked him a bunch of questions. His replies? A waste of time and lives. Iraqi's just don't get it. They can't even relate to freedom. You need to be "ready" for freedom. They are not. They can't function. He said it's a mess. A pit. A shithole. This guy has been there so I have no reason to doubt him. We just don't know how to do this shit. Bush & Co. think because we have the biggest bicep, we can do what the "F" we want. Situations like this require generations to fix and bombs ain't the right way IMHO. I'm still amazed that a sitting president who had HUGE approval ratings after 9/11 is actually going to lose the election.

 

Interesting.

I have many friends in the Corps. that paint a different picture. They tell me that the a-holes that we've been watching on TV the last few days desecrating the dead are a tiny minority of a minority. According to them (and they're all over Iraq, not in one area), the majority of the Iraqi people are warm, happy, and grateful. While they're apprehensive about their future, they are thankful that Saddam is gone and hopeful that we won't pull out until some form of real government is established.

I wonder how much of what we see on the news is what the news wants us to see.

How many newspapers would sell if the news was good? Not anywhere near as many as when it's bad, I suspect.

Just a thought.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Da Hapa

 

Carmen. your my Ohio bud and fearless leader....but I have to go with de hap on this one.
The predicament is, it's the Sunni faction that is causing the problems now. What happens when and if we reach the the solution with this faction, surely the shiites will want revenge for 20+ years of sunni domination, where does it end?

I'm convinced that 70% of the Iraqi population are elated that the US is there, and Saddam is gone.

I'm also sure that most Iraqi people are warm, loving folks.... it's the 30% factor that can cause a whole lot of bad voodooo, and seem to get the attention of the American press.

Fact...Iraq is 70% shiite...30% sunni roughly

Fact...Saddam is sunni

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by bluerooster
Carmen. your my Ohio bud and fearless leader....but I have to go with de hap on this one.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ralper
For a long time many of us have been discussing American foreign policy with regards to our wars in both Iraq and Afganistan.

 

Pete Seeger's "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" and John Lennon's "Imagine" are among the most beautiful peace songs ever written. Seeing them in this thread brought back some very fine memories. "The Universal Soldier", recorded by both Donovan Leach and Buffy St. Marie, is also worthy of a reading in this thread.

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER

He is five foot two,
and he's six feet four,
he fights with missiles and with spears,
he is all of thirty-one,
and he's only a seventeen,
's been a soldier for thousands years.

He's a Catholic, a Hindy,
an atheist, A Chein,
A Buddhist, a Baptist and a Jew,
and he knows, he shouldn't kill,
and he knows, he always will,
kill for me, my friend, and I will kill for you.

And he's fighting for Canada,
he's fighting for France,
he's fighting for the USA
and he's fighting for the Russians,
and he's fighting for Japan,
and he thinks we put an end to war this way.

And he's fighting for democracy,
he's fighting for the Reds,
he says it's for the peace of all,
he's the one who must decide,
who's to live and who's to die,
and he never sees the writing on the wall.

And without him, how would Hitler
kill the people at Dachau,
without him Cesar would have stood alone,
he's the one, who gives his body
as a weapon of the war,
and without him all this killing can't go on.

He's the universal soldier,
and he really is to blame,
his orders came from far away, no more,
they came from here and there,
and you and me and brothers,
can't you see,
this is not the way we put an end to war.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Rick Hesel

 

You don't. It will take 30 or maybe 50 years to get out of those places. The US still has troops in Germany and Japan. Expect the same.

What bugs me is the insistence by the government that the US is at war with terrorism. it's not. Terrorism is a way of life, get used to it. As long as there are people who are willing to sacrifice their lives and/or the lives of others in an effort to make their point known then there will be what we call terrorism. The genie is out of the bottle. Israel and other places have had to deal with it for decades. I guess you could say we have been lucky to not be involved for as long as we have.

You can't protect yourself from a handful of nut-jobs with an army. Armies aren't designed for that. What you need are commandos to hunt down and kill the extremists where they live and a government and population willing to stomach the idea of murdering people and breaking international laws.

If the idea of secret police bothers you then your choice is to live in liberty and accept the potential for harm that a democracy permits.

IMHO of course