Stop everyone from trying to call our troops home before mission is done

I am starting to really hate all these commercials that use the body count of our brave soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines that are in harms way over in Iraq to try and force the President to bring them home. Yes it is the largest number we have seen since vietnam, but this is not vietnam. For one the government we are forming will be more stable than the south vietnamese government who had at one time 13 presidents in something like 1 year. On a second note, if we leave iraq without completeing the mission, Al Qaeda will perceive that we do not have the courage to fight the hard fight and win. If you support moveon.org please tell them to never show their commercial saying the names of those that have given the ultimate sacrifice in service of their country to force a political agenda. That does not honor those that have died.

Support Our Troops. Bring Them Home.

What has Iraq, or even an Iraqi ever done for you?

How is that relevant? What has Iraq or even an Iraqi done to you?

I agree and add - support our wounded troops once stateside with REAL health care and full medical treatment with full funding by the DoD!!


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Yes! Never bring home the troops until the mission is accomplished!

oops! OK, time to bring the troops home!

Seconded, and I add...

I'm sick of people who have swallowed the bullshit the government have spoon-fed them trying to tell people who are actually thinking for themselves to shut up. Idiots.

Because you dont' like the unpleasantries of war?

You do realize people die in war, right? And usually people go to war over reasons that weren't a precisely worded lie. This war is going to look ridiculous at all possible angles in the realm of history. It's a low point of American foreign policy.



You're right, it's more greedy, we're less prepared, and it's costing an order of magnitude more.



Democracy has NEVER successfully been implemented by force. NEVER. It ALWAYS collapses back down into either anarchy or a military dictatorship.

Iraq will either be occupied by a foreign power (like Iran), run by the military, or quagmired in anarchy within 10 years of us finally getting out of there.




Al Qaeda can perceive all they want from the confines of the caves we have them holed up in. You can't send the US military against a target that constantly shifts its positions, loyalties, and even leaders at the drop of a hat.

The future battlefield will be with our Special Ops troops going in and rooting them out, not on massive theatres of war.



Remembering their names DOES honor those that have died. You can support the troops, but not the war.

I lost a friend of mine a few weeks ago over there; Private First Class Nicholas Greer. he died senselessly, shot in the neck while sweeping a house looking for popular-supported "insurgents" that don't want us there. He was in Iraq less than two weeks.

He was 22 years old.

He could have served his country better by doing what a democratic country army's SHOULD have been doing: protecting us from our enemies, not fighting ones we created in a grab for oil.

Lemme know when your friends start getting killed by insurgents over there, then we'll chat.

By the by... one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Our American founders? Terrorists by today's standards; they practically invented guerilla warfare when fighting the British, too.

It's all a matter of perspective. If it's just the same to you, I'd rather have the perspective having my friends home, safe from angry Iraqis who don't want us there.

And not just that --I wonder how many of our war-mongering wingnuts will wish to overturn the Bush administration's savaging of healthcare, bancruptcy laws and food-stamp programs that our returning disabled vets will no doubt have need of.

I have a cousin who has served three tours of duty in Iraq. he was pulled back in after being released on medical leave for having a nervous breakdown and attempting suicide during basic training. when he was home the last time we went for a ride to the store and he and I talked in private, and he said, "you know, it feels really weird to go for a ride without getting shot at or blown up." Hes back out there now, doing search and rescue on buildings to save people after our soliders blow them up. The army is out there like a handicapped person doing a block board to keep them busy. build them up, blow them up, build them up, blow them up. Every time I read a letter from him, he sounds like a broken person. Hes over there risking his neck based on lies and political wrangling, and the people there dont really want or need our help.

/me starts whistling "I'm proud to be an american"

I'm willing to give the neo-cons credit for trying something bold while looking at the long view. There's still a chance the Project For A New American Century folks Middle East domino theory will pan out and this will eventually cause change for the better in the region. Personally, I highly doubt it. I think that they're incredibly naive and based this whole plan on an ignorant ethnocentric belief that everyone wants to be just like us if only they had the chance. That's something that really disturbs me about having religious fundamentalists in charge of the country. Anyone who believes that there's only one way and one truth is ill suited for international relations. They have a tendency to become conquerers when people inevitably refuse to drink their kool-aid.

Ok you say how the reasons for the war were a lie right? How come it wasn't just the United States saying that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction. This Includes the British, The United Nations, The Russians, The Clinton Administration, The Senate Intelligence Commitee of which John Kerry was on. All of these saw Intelligence data that would give someone the conclusion of a WMD program in Iraq.

As For Al Qaeda following different leaders at the drop of the hat. That is not the norm for them. They will follow their leaders and the orders that come from them. The foreign fighters are also unpopular in the Domestic Insurgency in Iraq. The Al Qaeda forces want to create a religious state in Iraq that will spread through out the Region. The Ultimate goal is to Destroy Israel and have the entire Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Syria, Jordan, and Israel as one large State that is similar to the brutal Taliban Regime that was in power in Afghanistan.

As for your loss of a friend, I do sympathize with you. I am currently in the service and watch the names that come back. I have been lucky to not see friends names, but my friends have not gotten out as lucky for they have seen friends in their units fall. I also have worked along side those coming back from Iraq. Those that I have talked with want this mission to be completed honorably, not in cowardice because public opinion says we should leave.

If this was a push for oil, we could just as easily taken over Iran for this, especially when we already are in a Country bordering them and there would possibly be numerous nations that would support us with Iran and regime change, and Iran has vast deposits of Oil as well.

As for incentives from Iraq for soldiers as far as pay is concerned, yes the medical care needs to be improved but the soldiers going over get large pay increases and they are tax exempt as well. The Congress has passed and has also increased the life insurance policy for soldiers to 400,000 in the unfortunate event that they do lose their life.

I have to say, I agree that we should not leave Iraq before our job is done. Before the war in Iraq I screamed that this was a mistake, I tried to point out to everyone who would listen that their "reasons" for war were trumped up and unsubstatiated. I abhor the torture, the linining of the pockets of corporations and the loss of life on both sides.

However, the US (we for me) created this mess and they have a moral obligation to set things as square as possible before we leave. To destroy a country in this way and then just turn our backs and walk away would add insult to injury. Citing the potential "reverse dominio" effect is dubious at best, perhaps avoiding a backlash for kicking a country to the ground an leaving them to bleed to death is a better reason.

The vast majority of the insurgents are not foreign fighters, and not al-qaeda. They are locals. The claim that most of them are foreign is pure spin and an insult to our collective intelligence. That belief is exactly what I meant by the Bush administrations ethnocentric idiocy. Since everyone was supposed to be kissing our feet and throwing flowers at us then all these people trying to kill us must have come from someplace else! We are occupiers in their land and they are fighting to drive us out, just as we would if the roles were reversed.

Stop to put our soldiers in boxes.

Exactly. I have a good friend who is Afghan and who was one of the "freedom fighters" fighting the war against the Soviet Union. He is a US citizen now, but has explained to me the feeling of being occupied, and how those people in Iraq are fighting to get us out.

I don't see any possible positive outcomes for this conflict. We should never have gone in there in the first place. Now we're screwed no matter what we do.

Not trying to stir anything up, but what about:
The USA
France
Germany
Japan
Italy

Wasn't force involved in bringing democracy to all these nations, in one form or another?

not implemented by force. you miscontext. there is a marked difference between fighting for the right to have democratic representation, and forcing a system of government on a populace.

Stop to sell troopses in boxes!

scroll up. Lippmann --I beat ya.

So, the German, Japanese, and Italian people implemented their democracies on their own at the end of WWII?

I might be wrong, but I believe the federal food stamp appropirations have not been cut, primarily due to the storms that have so devistated the Gulf Region...

yes! at least thats what my government funded education tells me.

They killed my friends, who were occupying their country. So what now? Kill the Iraqi back or bring my remaining friends home

But what did they do for me, that my friends had to go there? To help them somehow?