Leonard Pitts has a column in today’s Eagle strongly criticizing President Bush for the invasion of Iraq and for claiming, as he did last year, that “We are staying on the offensive — striking terrorists abroad — so we do not have to face them here at home.”
Pitts writes: “So maybe it’s time we called a halt to this absurd game of claiming the war President Bush chose to fight in Iraq was ever about terrorism. Or that it has done anything to protect us from another Sept. 11-type attack on our soil.”
What do you think? Is the war in Iraq helping or hurting the war on terrorism?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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22 Comments
I am pretty sure the “war on terror” will not be one that we will kill our way out of. The military is simply ineffective in fighting insurgencies – they were not trained nor equipped to be policemen. Insurgencies are defeated politically.
Dana Priest of the Washington Post proposed an analogy that winning the war on terrorism might look something like our defeat of communism. Over time, it became apparent that our way of governing, econonmies, life styles, etc. were superior and we essentially defeated the ideology of communism.
Similarly, we need to win the hearts and minds of the middle eastern cultures at large. We do not put enough effort into this latter endeavor at this time.
Tricia T, Zionist supporters, such as yourself. act as though the Palestinians did not have villages, homes, farms and land when the Zionists invaded, but rather they “just peacefully moved into Palestine.”
The falsified documents forged by Zionists do not offer any proof, and it’s insulting for you to offer them. Below is a list of UN resolutions condemning Zionist actions.
http://www.uscrusade.com/forum/config.pl/noframes/read/1372
http://www.middleeastnews.com/unresolutionslist.html
Common sense dictates that the Zionists had to kill the Palestinians in order to take their land, farms and homes which Israel now occupies along the 418 Palestinian Villages Zionist’s bulldozed, but as your suggesting just somehow miraculously disappeared.
The “facts on the ground” contradict everything you’re saying and old maps indicate those villages were right where “Israel” now stands. The Palestinians didn’t leave voluntarily. They were murdered and driven-off their land.
The massacre at Deir Yassin is a matter of history. Israeli accounts of that event are a complete fabrication.
Israel created “terrorism” by murdering Arabs and they should be dying in Iraq, which is their war to begin with. America has no business in Iraq and should leave immediately.
The Israelis invaded Lebanon with over 100, 000 troops and if they can do that, then they need to pick-up the slack as we leave. 15,000 American soldiers dead or wounded to date is too much carnage for American families to suffer for somebody else’s war.
It’s helping America!
As Charles Krauthammer put it over the weekend….For these extremists, the fact that we exist antagonizes these people, the fact that we woke up this morning antagonizes these people. The idea that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan antagonizes these people even further is ridiculous.
How exactly is this war helping America, Joe? It’s costing a fortune, there is no end in sight, and it’s smashed any credibility we had with the rest of the world, because we invaded a country that was no threat to us based on lies and bad intellengence. We’re in one hell of a mess because of Bush and his cronies. I’m glad you’re so optimistic about everything, you must be really young and not remember much about the lessons we should have learned from the past. Ed’s right, from the beginning this has been Isreal’s war and they should be fighting it, not us. If it wasn’t for the oil issue, we wouldn’t be involved.
I think our current president’s policies are highlighting the wisdom of the two preceding presidents. Having said that, I also think it is quite possible that we would have had to forceably remove Sadam at some point – later, he may have been more difficult if he had had the chance to reconstitute his weaponry.
GHW Bush avoided removing Sadam because of the anticipated problems that would result with a Sadamless Iraq – he looks pretty insightful at this time, doesn’t he? I only wish GW Bush would have consulted with his earthly father on this issue.
Inspections/sanctions worked in terms of keeping WMDs away from Sadam. Granted there was corruption and Sadam manipulated the system. But his teeth were effectively pulled in terms of being a danger to near or far neighbors; at a much CHEAPER cost to the US of A.
Iraqis, like all people, are not especially fond of invaders. There is a saying in Iraq: “My brother and I against my cousin; my cousin and I against the world.” I think our continued presence in Iraq lends support by the average citizen to the insurgency — something we obviously don’t want. If we leave there now when it is so unstable, Iraq will collapse into civil war. Maybe not a classic Catch-22, but getting closer all the time.
I support our goals of training their military, helping them form a government, and us getting out of there as soon as possible. I would favor the current Bush administration providing concrete goals about getting out of Iraq.
Bush’s reasoning is stupid. Every time we kill one, that makes them more determined to bring the war to us.
Why wouldn’t it?
They’ve already come as far as Britian, and at the rate we’re killing them now, they”ll be here before you know it.
And that is something our economy can not handle.
The ice is starting to crack……..Leaked secret memo says coalition forces will be cut to 66,000
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0711/dailyUpdate.html
The “war on terrorism” is self-perpetuating. Don’t feed it anymore.
I wonder…
If we pull out today would the same people who attack Bush for staying be attacking him for leaving it a mess?
You’re probably right, Nathan. We’d attack him for leaving it a mess, because we shouldn’t have been there in the first place, and now we’ve destroyed a country, left it to rot away and singlehandedly created a new breeding ground for Anti-american terrorists. But other than pulling out, what’s the alternative? More fighting, more insurgents, more soldier and civilian deaths. It’s sort of lose-lose, isn’t it?
You anti-everything Bush does people seem to think there is no plan.
Do you honestly think that we just have guys sitting on the corner with big bullseyes painted on their backs while the Pentagon and Administration are out playing golf?
We are training their military and helping them rebuild their infrastructure and administer their new government and when they can do it with out causing a huge power vacuum in the middle east inviting more disaster we will leave.
Do you know how long we were in Germany and Japan after WWII?
I suppose you think we should have just pulled out of there too?
That’s it, Ed. When the facts all line up against you, you just claim they’re all forgeries. Are the Arabs and Arab newspapers that corroborate the Israeli facts also forgeries?
UN resolutions against Israel are one of the scandals of our time. There are almost 60 Muslim countries in the UN. They regularly manufacture victim status for themselves and con the UN’s hate-America crowd into adding their votes to their one-sided slaps at Israel.
As for Israel’s territory, the League of Nations put the administration of Palestine under a British Mandate in 1922. The British set aside the portion of Palestine east of the Jordan River for the country of Jordan, Most importantly, Article 2 of the British Mandate also included direction from the League of Nations to “secure the establishment of the Jewish national home”…. That Jewish national home was established by a partition plan for western Palestine that was finally approved in 1947 by UN Resolution 181.
Naturally, knowing that a Jewish nation in Palestine was the official policy of the League of Nations, the Zionist movement grew rapidly as many Jews immigrated to Palestine and bought land. Interestingly, the immigrant jews created the first viable economy in the region since the Romans kicked their ancestors out about 70AD. This brought many job-seeking Arabs into Palestine.
Israel was formed by Jews who were tired of being persecuted and slaughtered in Europe, the USSR, and muslim countries. Partly because of the horror of Nazi and Communist exterminations, and partly because it gave them an opportunity to confiscate the property of departing Jews, people in Europe and Russia supported the idea of a Jewish state.
With broad support, the UN gave the Jews part of western Palestine in 1947, and the Israelis took them up on the offer in 1948. The surrounding Arab countries immediately attacked Israel and were beaten badly. As with all wars, the victor (Israel) took some land in order to improve its security position. Jordan and Egypt took some, too. Nobody complained about them, though.
National boudaries are almost always redrawn after a war. Disputed lands always go to the victor. All this handwringing over the poor Arabs in Palestine who lost their land to so-called “Israeli aggression” is a bunch of drivel. Only fools buy the Arab scam of self-victimization. The Arabs attacked Israel and lost. Israel gets to state the terms of surrender. But here we are, almost 60 years later, and the Arabs are still whining.
Altogether, surrounding Arab countries (with USSR weapons) have attacked Israel three times (1948, 1967, and 1973). Each time, Israel beat them soundly and realigned its borders in an effort to provide buffer zones that would deny Arabs places to continue terrorizing and attacking Israel. Israel has every right to those lands, not only because they are helpful for Israeli security, but also because the Arabs forfeited them by their continual aggression.
It is essentially impossible to find an agreeable solution to the issues because Arabs will not be satisfied until there is no Israel. Complete domination is, after all, a basic Muslim religious tenet.
Instead of negotiating in good faith, Arabs continually dredge up propaganda to support their self-styled “victim” status. Their long lists of imagined grievances go all the way back to the Muslims’ brutal conquest of the area in the 8th century. There’s no end to it.
Nevertheless, one gets an unmistakeable sense that Israel is in the right from the quality of information published on each side of the issue. You can find many Israeli commentaries that are even-handed, well-documented, and thorough; but Arab arguments tend to be one-sided rants with nothing but bile to support them – much like Ed’s writing.
Ed, like I said when I showed you the facts in my last post, my efforts won’t persuade you in the least. You are too certain of things to admit that you have been hoodwinked by kitman and taqiyya propaganda. You’re lost to reason. I’m not going to bother with you any more.
What a relief!
Tricia, You like UN resolution 181 but the rest are a UN plot Against Israel?
http://www.uscrusade.com/forum/config.pl/noframes/read/1372
http://www.middleeastnews.com/unresolutionslist.html
“Do you know how long we were in Germany and Japan after WWII?”
Germany declared war on us. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Saudis blew up our Twin Towers.Iraq was not an imminent threat to us. No WMDs, nothing. So you can’t really compare WW2 with Dubya’s pet project.
“Do you honestly think that we just have guys sitting on the corner with big bullseyes painted on their backs while the Pentagon and Administration are out playing golf?”
Our president said, and I quote, “Watch this drive.”
I for one don’t think there was a plan, at least a viable one, past cleaning up the flowers the Iraqis were going to greet us with. And I think now, it’s all about damage control. I have no doubt that Bush would like nothing better than to get out of Iraq. He just can’t figure out a way to do it without looking like an utter idiot. I’ll be interested to see how history judges George W.
I don’t think we can leave Iraq without ensuring that the country is able to protect itself – this is stipulated by the Geneva Conventions.
Steven, it’s not that I disagree with what you’re saying, but I’ll bet we do exactly that. I don’t think we can fix what we broke.
America has such a short attention span, there is no way our people will support another decade of this crazy war. Before we know it, Iraq will fall into civil war and then some religious fanatic will be in charge.
Tricia, These are UN resolutions where the entire world stood together to fight Israeli aggression, not just Arab countries. THE WHOLE WORLD:
{ With the exception of the United States. }
U.S. Vetoes of UN Resolutions Critical of Israel (1972-2002)