The killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi did make Americans more optimistic about Iraq, a new CNN poll revealed, but it looks as if it will take a lot more positive news from Iraq to turn the tide of public opinion: 55 percent of Americans still believe the war was a mistake, unchanged from April. Here are some more of the findings, as reported by CNN:
– 43 percent of respondents said the war is going either very or moderately well, up from 38 percent in a March poll.
– 54 percent said they still believe the war is going either very badly or moderately badly, down from 60 percent in March.
– Of those surveyed, 18 percent said they want U.S. forces brought home now, and 29 percent said they want to see them out of Iraq within a year.
Posted by Melissa Cooley
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77 Comments
I’m optimistic. Go USA!
Support our troops! :)
Support our troops! Bring ‘em home!
Support our troops, finish the job! Bring them home!
Support our troops! Nuke Fiji!
I’m realistic. Remember the euphoria and pronouncements after Saddam was captured. Earlier after the statue was pulled down.
Every single insurgent has been killed multiple times. There are over a quarter million in the ARI. When do we turn the fighting over to the ARI and bring our troops home? Soon? In geologic terms?
Here’s Steve Gilliard, kicking ass.
********************************
There is one simple fact which the Iranians know, the Iraqis know, and the Americans won’t admit until it will be way too late.
This is a war without sacrifice. No one wants to die in Iraq, send their kids to Iraq, and as long as the US is in Iraq, hostages to Iranian fortune, no one is going to do either. We live in a country run by cowards.
The lot of them, Cheney, Bush, Rove, their aides. Not one has ever risked anything for another person. They have never made a sacrifice. They have demanded from others sacrifices they would never dare ask of their own children.
Liberal bashing is an act by cowards who love to sit on the sidelines and do or say nothing. They’re good at calling names, but cry when you challenge them. When you ask why they don’t enlist, being a pussy is never the answer they use, but it’s the one they mean. Conservatives talk big, but do shit. So how many showed up to Yearly Kos to kick ass? Were they afraid of running into recruiters?
Now you have the objectively pro-child murder defenders. Every excuse in the book for what they chortled when Zarqawi was killed for.
I mean, I don’t give a shit about the Bush defenders, the daddy love me and save me people. Bush is a failed daddy who can’t protect anyone.
And then you read the fucking papers looking for a Bush bounce because he went to Iraq like a sneak thief. They didn’t stop killing people there, did they? Bush had to helo into the Green Zone and not drive the world’s most dangerous road. And that bastard doesn’t even greet the grunts, just the REMF’s with the clean uniforms and three squares a day and you’re not supposed to notice the difference.
Things are so fucked up, that Rove cutting a deal is of more interest to the Wilsons and their civil suit than anything happened today. Things are much worse than that. What is the day when we hear that the former CIA director shared a hooker with some Russian? Or that the US Marines actually executed children. Or the Taliban overrun some Canadians or Brits? We’ve got a jackpot coming and it’s getting worse every day. And the daddy save me crowd cheers Rove’s snitching like it was a victory.
Shit, that’s no fucking victory, that’s a holding action at best.
We have far more serious problems than Karl Rove and his taunts on patriotism. Let him fucking try it, because the Iranians will ensure chaos to protect themselves. You can’t bomb Iran if the Iraqi shia and sunni are ethnic cleansing Baghdad. The war isn’t getting better, isn’t turning around because there is nothing to turn it around. The government is a collection of militia factions. There is no national unity. There is nothing to say to an Iraqi soldier that makes sense. Dying for corrupt militia leaders is less than inspiring.
When Iraqis say terrorists, no one ever asks them who they mean. I get the feeling they don’t mean the resistance. Some mean Sunnis, some mean Shia, some mean us.
What is amazing, to this day, is that the US military still largely operates in the dark about the resistance and it’s reach is incredible. Bush snuck into Baghdad because he would have been in danger if he hadn’t. Three years into the war. It would be as if the Luftwaffe was still trying to burn London in 1943. They can execute the guy who delivers french fries to a restaurant in the Green Zone, they can make the World Cup a dangerous activity to watch. This is improvment?
The talk of permanent bases is a joke. No, they’re serious, but so was Long Bihn and Cam Rahn Bay. I can’t imagine a fundamentalist Iraqi government accepting US troops.
The current PM is an Arab Kerensky. He doesn’t really control much and he’s with the same agenda. At some point, the people with power will want to exercise it. People talk about voting like it’s a religion, but who runs Basra? Militias. Militas growing sick of the Brits.
Not that it matters to the keyboard cowards, watching this all happen and attacking strawmen.They want to be big men without ever risking so much as a meal.
Ben! As soon as we can bring our troops home from Japan and South Korea.
Permanent base!
Joe
Japan and South Korea are being protected from people like Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush/Rice/ and the neoconservatives who are bankrupting this country and spitting on its values.
Japan and South Korea need protection from Bushco Inc.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
There goes that “Joe Williams is an idiot who talks out of his ass” bell, again.
There were no INSURGENCIES in Japan and South Korea.
I pose a question from history: An insurgency had its base over-run and all in that base killed. Did that end the insurgency or did it serve as a rallying cry for the continuation of that insurgency?
A hint: March 6, 1836
Disaster. Horror. Bush’s Iraq.
http://www.peacetakescourage.com/whatwillyoudo.html
Ben Huie,
That would be the mud builing down in Texas that Ozzy Osbourne peed on.
What is, “the Alamo?”
All the money spent and death on both sides, and now I hear that we’ll be in there easily past 2010. I wonder 20 yrs from now if we’ll look back and think it was all worth it.Seems as though we’ve just created a lot more enemies with this invasion, and they’re not exactly the kind that forgive and forget.
Actually Damoon. How far back does this actually go? Should we have let the Soviets take over Afghanistan? I think that is where our mistake was. Back when Reagan starting giving arms to militant islamics during the 80’s.
Joe – there were some who questioned the wisdom of arming the Mujahadeen and then leaving Afghanistan in chaos under the rule of those “Freedom Fighters”. We were called America-hating Commies.
CF- Beware the dreaded bell! That cracks me up.
Joe Williams makes a good point about Reagan’s funding of the muhadjadeen that was the incubator for Taliban / Al Qaeda.
I haven’t a clue why he thinks the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a bad thing for American strategic interests, or what on earth he could mean that America could have done rather than ‘let the Soviets take over Afghanistan’. Is he saying we should have gone to war over Afghanistan?
Bush is talking up Iraq right now in his press conference. What a miserable, lying, cowardly, low, fascist fuck.
Fuck him. Skull fuck him.
He should just go into the Oval Office, shut the door, eat a bullet, and save the world.
Lying ass, shit-eating pig-fucker. His word is shit.
Wait! He’s taking questions!
Bush’s answers are so bizarre and disconnected it’s difficult to find particular things to pick out. The whiskey is taking its toll. Guess that’s what he has to do to deal with a Xanaxed-out Laura.
“Roger! Roger, Roger.”
Seriously. He just called on a reporter named Roger, and then affirmed his choice by saying ‘Roger,’ to Roger.
It’s like combining a robot with a spoiled third-grader who thinks he’s really smart. I also love how he belittles anyone who asks him a question.
CF,
You can actually watch him without becoming physically ill? Wow. I am impressed. Just the sound of his voice has me scrambling for the off button.
RD,
I know. Usually I can’t bear it. I lasted twenty minutes and that was enough. But one does occasionally have to get the Rove spin straight from the horse’s ass.
Well, you’ve got to give him credit, he’s trying to talk while Rove feeds him his lines through the earpiece.
It’s not easy to pull that off.
Not the whiskey CF – the nose candy. Shrubbie is getting more brain-dead by the day.
Ah yes,
Here we have a thread about the poll numbers getting a little better with the good news this past week and what is the response?
Swearing, cursing, name calling…
“name calling”? – like Hildabeast that was repeated so many times yesterday. You BushBots like to dish it out but cry foul when it is returned.
Waaaa, they dont agree with me mom….waaaaaaaa
Maybe it is bone dig time for YOUR civility comments nathan?
Nope. I think I will let him dig the hole a little deeper before I post his name calling. Keep that shovel handy nathan, I got the goods here ready to go, for both you and your dad. I love a good bone dig.
I knew all that talk about civility and the evil left would give me LOTS of ammunition to post, once again, the utter hypocricy of the righties.
Oh but he doesnt curse so that makes whatever jackass remarks he spouts ok? Yeah. I see how this goes. Maybe the more civil left can handle you? Heheh. Saw that the last few days too.
Ben,
I am not crying foul. I think it is sad that the best you liberal wackjobs can muster up when you hear good news in Iraq is swearing and name calling.
It is sad when you have to be upset about good news in Iraq to support your cause.
Nathan
This isn’t about how much someone likes the circus, people are being killed and maimed by something America has set in motion for all the wrong reasons.
We’re not judges in a beauty contest. This is about entire families suffering both here and in Iraq.
This is about reality and it’s not very pretty.
Maybe, as Hemingway said about warring in the closing line of “The Sun Also Rises,” …”At least it’s pretty to think so.”
This is tragic.
Nathan – I have not significantly resorted to such name-calling. I am simply being a bit more realistic. I have seen to many pronouncements about the light at the end of the tunnel.
I did follow your father’s example in one post above.
I HOPE this is as significant as you claim. I had hoped that before and been disappointed.
“If Guantanamo burns down then the liberals will be back to attacking our domestic prison system for not giving the prisoners all the movie channles on the Dish Network instead of the basic family pack.”
No curse words, but very insulting. I guess nathan proves the point that ANYTHING, no matter how big a lie, how big an insult, how self righteous the statement…
…it can be said without cursing and sound just as mean.
So much for civility, mr. hildebeast. I am getting the bone dig ready to post. You wont like seeing your own civilized words reposted I bet. I promised I was bookmarking for a later date.
Wanna just apologize now, or wait for the hypocricy show?
Apologize for what KFG?
You have shown your complete ineptitude for understanding what the word hypocrite means anyhow. So having you call me one means little to me.
Should be: “Isn’t it pretty to think so.”
It’s sad when Rightie BushBot wackjobs like Nathan have to grasp at straws to try to deny that their little adventure is going poorly.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! – oops
Saddam captured, the insurgency will collapse – oops!
Now al-Zarkawi – we’ll see how this one works out. I hope the brainless BushBot wackjobs are right – but I’m not raising my expectations just yet. I still remember being told this whole thing would be over in “months not years”
KFG,
Nathan will simply qualify every statement he’s made. Of course he “meant” it in another way. ;)
Frankly, I’ve grown weary of all of this. I’m heartsick at the direction our great country has taken. It’s gone on for a lot longer than I realized, but I was young (once upon a time) and couldn’t–wouldn’t–believe it was being done. Looking back, it’s clear now.
I look at my 3 little grandkids and wonder what their world will be like. My kids are aware of what’s happening, but, like me, are unable to do anything except speak out. But we’re shouted down and called names, and after a while, even that seems like a waste of time and energy.
Gee Ben, you flatter me with the name calling.
CF comes back with his usual foul mouth and everyone on the left seems to jump right on board.
The Mission Accomplished to which you refer, was indeed accomplished.
It would have been nice if the insurgency had indeed collapsed with the capture of Saddam. It is indeed sad that you flaunt that to somehow support you.
The “liberal wack jobs” should stop calling people names.Good one, Nathan.Is that like it’s bad when I “pick and choose” from the Bible to make a point, but it’s good when you do it?
Just returning the favor Nathan.
Dammon,
You got me. I was weak.
I try very hard to not use the name calling. I make mistakes. I apologize.
I try to keep my interactions here civil, but alas it is hard to do sometimes.
I don’t use it as an excuse to give up all forms of civility and just go nuts, now do I? At least I try.
I wonder if Americans will still be optimistic after ten years of fighting and tens of thousands of deaths. Will we still see the light at the end of the tunnel?
They’re into the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and barely blinked an eye.
Look at the bright side. We’re back in Afghanistan, the real War on Terror – not the War to Line the Pockets of Dubya’s Campaign Contributors.
It is tragic. No question about it. Tragic that the American electorate went brain-dead – twice – and elected an elitist mob to destroy the nation.
The American electorate, in total, is stupid. There is no other conclusion. But they do catch on eventually.
Paybacks can be a bitch.
Jed – in 1965 I and others were optimistic about VietNam. We had already killed each and every one of the VC more than once and were well on our way to building up the million-man ARVN. Today each and every one of the Iraqi insurgents has been killed more than once and we have well over 200,000 ARI troops in place.
Deja vu all over again.
Ben,
Do you understand that it was the armies of North Vietnam that overran the South Vietnamese military after signing a peace treaty?
Thats not Deja Vu.
Nathan – I understand that the million-man ARVN folded like a cheap tent. Also that the opening sentence of the SOUTH VietNamese constitution stated “VietNam is One Country”.
If S VN had been a viable state after our decades of blood it would have defeated the North. They had vastly superior armaments and aircraft. What they did not have was a will to fight for the Saigon government.
Ben
Yet another US “puppet” government. People can smell those “Puppet” governments like a week old dead fish.
Ben
Come to think about it, what is Washington starting to smell like?
“Puppets for the New American Century?”
{ PNAC }
Actually Ed, it probably sucks so much you can’t smell anything, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
That light at the end of the tunnel is often a train.
Ben,
Where do you get your history from? Perhaps the same place you get your information on the Red Cross?
First you try to spread your deceit about the comparison to Iraq and now you change gears and admit it was indeed the North who invaded.
You change your story everytime I seem to come here with the truth.
Now you are pushing the will to fight line?
Are you a subscriber to the Dich Van programs flyers? It must be where you are getting your information from.
The Paris Peace accords were held in place by the threat of force from the US. When that threat was taken away the North launched an attack on the South.
The North happened to still have troops in many of the key areas of the northers parts of the South from their first failed invasion.
Due to a bunch of political pressure and their refusal to ever admit they actually had troops in the south they stayed.
The South made some strategic blunders in thier defense, but it didn’t have much to do with their lack of a will to fight.
Go back to reading your North Vietnamese propaganda Ben. It doesn’t fly here.
Dich Van? Never heard of him. I got my VN history from people who were there. As for your BULLSHIT “Go back to reading your North Vietnamese propaganda” I never have read anything from them. The irrefutable fact is that the much-vaunted million-man ARVN folded.
Go back to reading your PNAC propaganda – it serves you well.
Is the glass half-empty or half-full?
In this case, the glass is only about one-third full, and I wouldn’t drink it either.
Isn’t it funny that things are going so good in Iraq that GW wouldn’t even take the road in from the airport.
They had to chopper him into the Green Zone.
Check those “turning points” of the war–
Invasion of Baghdad, “Mission Accomplished”
Capture of Saddam Hussein
First elections held
Constitution drafted
Musical chair Prime Ministers
Abu Musab Al Zarqawi killed
If this were WW2, we would be celebrating VE Day by now.
Here’s something you won’t see from the “liberal media.”
Iraq Debate
On Thursday, the House of Representatives will hold a debate on the Iraq war. Media reports say Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) “hopes to match the serious, dignified tone of deliberation that preceded the Gulf war, in 1991.”
ThinkProgress has obtained a “Confidential Messaging Memo” from Boehner instructing his caucus to conduct a very different kind of deliberation. Here’s a quick summary:
1. Exploit 9/11. The two page memo mentions 9/11 seven times. It describes debating Iraq in the context of 9/11 as “imperative.”
2. Attack opponents ad hominem. The memo describes those who opposes President Bush’s policies in Iraq as “sheepish,” “weak,” and “prone to waver endlessly.”
3. Create a false choice. The memo says the decision is between supporting President Bush’s policies and hoping terrorist threats will “fade away on their own.”
You can read the confidential memo for yourself HERE.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/06/14/boehner-memo /
“The South made some strategic blunders in thier defense, but it didn’t have much to do with their lack of a will to fight.”
Did Hank tell you that, Nathan? Cause he’s the only person on earth that could believe that.
How many weeks was it that the South was over-run after the US pulled troops out . . . was it weeks or HOURS?
Thanks Zeit … now we know where Nathan et.al. get their talking points.
It was about 8 weeks or so–
ONE, count ‘em, ONE division stayed and fought–the rest of them ran like little girls . . .
“General Smith has detailed the consequences of that betrayal, as in March 1975 President Nguyen Van Thieu made the fateful decision to abandon the Central Highlands, and the whole South Vietnamese defense structure began to unravel. But not all of the ARVN collapsed. The 18th ARVN Infantry Division at Xuan Loc, some 40 miles northeast of Saigon, put up a valiant struggle.
From March 17, 1975, to April 5, 1975, the 18th ARVN Division held its ground, virtually destroying the 6th, 7th and 341st NVA divisions in the process. Only when the NVA brought in its 325th Division and also began moving its 10th and 304th divisions into place did the 18th ARVN Division finally give way. But it was too late, and by the last week in April NVA divisions were at the gates of Saigon. It was obvious to all that the end was at hand.”
http://historynet.com/vn/blthebitterend/index1.html
Ben,
Did you actually have something to refute what I said and prove what you did?
My snide comments about where you got yoru information were only a part of my post.
If you ability to reason as a scientist is anything like what I have seen on about every other topic you try to talk about, I am not too sure about your take science anymore either.
I remember our heroic President, greeting our troops on an aircraft carrier declaring: “This is the official end of hostilities in Iraq” ….. the way things have gone since then, we need to get mad at em again!
Zeigeist,
What point are you trying to prove here?
Mine so far was to show how Ben was trying to distort the truth to further his comparison of Iraq to vietnam.
I suppose now that you have entered the discussion I can discuss this with you too.
I am not arguing that the south didn’t loose pretty badly to the North. My comments were in response to Ben saying the South was defeated because of their lack of will to fight. Are you trying to prove that or agree with it, becuase I don’t see anything you posted which supports it.
You say they ran like little girls. That is one way of mischaracterizing what happened.
2 years had passed since the peace accords were signed. Do either of you have any idea of what happened in those 2 years?
The North was being equiped by the soviets and restoring much of their army.
The South was recieving less military aide from America because of Congress and because of the arab-oil embargo and our sending more aide to Israel.
The South was getting weaker while the North was getting stronger.
The North already had a presence in the central highlands from the first time they tried to mount an invasion which failed.
Yes, much of the South Vietnamese army collapsed, because of poor planning, communication, adn their wanting to save their families.
If your point is that the North defeated the south, I am not here to debate that, it is obvious. Look at vietnam today.
so what is your point?
Nathan – I refute your claims about where I get my info because they are LIES. I have never even heard of this “Dich Van” character.
I had family members in VietNam. I had many close friends there. I learned a lot from them, especially about the ARVN. How many of your close friends were there? How many came home in boxes? Without legs? (only to get beaten by the LAPD)
As Zeit noted (from a supporter of the US involvement) “the rest of them ran like little girls . . .”
I fear the quarter-million ARI will do likewise.
As for your BushBot thinking; I will quote Rhett Butler “frankly, I don’t give a damn”
Ben,I think your have a squirrelfart running in your direction; a small and inconsequential one at best.Not to worry, he’ll blow away as ususal.
Ben,
I wonder…
Are you glad that the North won the war?
NO. I wish the war had never happened. I wish the millions had not died. I wish there were not the birth defects resulting from our chemical use – both among VietNamese and Americans. I wish my friends had not died and been maimed. I wish my quadraplagic friend had not been beaten in uniform in his wheelchair by armed thugs and I could not stop it (the thugs were armed).
How about you? Are you happy with all those things?
I am happy that my co-workers can now travel back home to visit their relatives. I am happy that that war-torn land is healing. How about you?
Personally Ben,
I wish that when the North invaded people like Pol Pot hadn’t come to power killing millions of his own people.
I wish that the North didn’t assassinate all the thousands upon thousands of public officials, teachers, and civil servents when they took over.
I wish that when the North invaded they didn’t cause one of the biggest refugee problems which resulted in many thousands of people loosing everything including their lives.
I am sorry about the one or two people you know who were hurt personally or the “alleged” people effected by chemical warfare…
However, it pales in comparison to the utter gross loss of human life caused and brought about by our leaving the South out to dry to an invasion by the North.
I suppose it is a bit easier for that “war-torn” land to heal when any and all opposistion was systematically killed and silenced by an oppresive and ruthless government.
The funny thing is that I have many friends who are from Vietnam or family came here from vietnam.
I don’t think I have met but one person who supported the oppresive government there.
I had a friend in the Marines who had to lie about his service here because when he wnet back to visit family his life would be in jeapordy if the government found out about his military service here.
It is pretty nice “healing” for all those seeking to be anything but budhist when they are locked up and killed.
My roommates father cam from Vietnam.
Lord help you when you get into a discussion with him about Vietnam.
I would love to see you sit and talk with him Ben.
You are not the only one who knows people.
Pol Pot came to power because the CIA overthrew Prince Sihanouk. It was the VietNamese who eventually toppled him.
As for all the other things you refer to such atrocities were carried out by both sides. Remember My Lai? Oh yea, that doesn’t count in BushBotLand.
And the “alleged” effects of 2,3,7,8-TCDD have been extremely well documented. Oh yea, that doesn’t count either – it was studied by scientists. Like with tobacco, there is “controversy”
Ben,
Is that the only thing you have? My Lai?
One retarded event on our side hardly compares to the countless atrocities committed by the North.
What other atrocites is it that we did which involved the assasination of thousands of people based purley on their political affliation?
did we kill not only the teachers, government officials, civil servents and their famailes too? Like the North did when they invade?
All your coments so far point to you being glad the North won Ben.
So far all you do is attack our actions and what we do.
Whose side were you on Ben?
Everytime you talk it is always Americas fault ben.
I bet you enjoy it everytime you hear of an American soldier getting killed don’t you?
You get some sick satisfaction about it.
Sounds like a medication problem to me!
Again, I do not have tale recordings of what was told to me by veterans who were there. However, they have no reason to lie to me about their experiences. Face it Nathan, your vaunted ARVN cut and ran. They were a joke. My friends died and were maimed in vain. You get some kind of sick satisfaction from supporting their deaths.
As for “I bet you enjoy it everytime you hear of an American soldier getting killed don’t you?
You get some sick satisfaction about it.” you are even more full of shit than I had thought. Shove it up your BushBot ass!
The Terrorism Index
By FOREIGN POLICY & The Center For American Progress
July/August 2006
Is the United States winning the war on terror? Not according to more than 100 of America’s top foreign-policy hands. They see a national security apparatus in disrepair and a government that is failing to protect the public from the next attack.
http://web0.foreignpolicy.com/issue_julyaug_2006/TI-index/index.html
Despite today’s highly politicized national security environment, the index results show striking consensus across political party lines. A bipartisan majority (84 percent) of the index’s experts say the United States is not winning the war on terror. Eighty-six percent of the index’s experts see a world today that is growing more dangerous for Americans. Overall, they agree that the U.S. government is falling short in its homeland security efforts. More than 8 in 10 expect an attack on the scale of 9/11 within a decade. These dark conclusions appear to stem from the experts’ belief that the U.S. national security apparatus is in serious disrepair. “Foreign-policy experts have never been in so much agreement about an administration’s performance abroad,” says Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and an index participant. “The reason is that it’s clear to nearly all that Bush and his team have had a totally unrealistic view of what they can accomplish with military force and threats of force.”
———————————–
Foreign Policy, that famously lefty rag, prolly just hates America. ;)
Looks like I hit a nerve… A little too close to home Ben?
Why else would you constantly throw around how America blew up a civilian airliner every chance you get?
Why else would you compare My Lai to the countless millions killed by the North as if it was equal?
You sit here and talk about all your friends who were there and in the next sentence talk about all the atrocites that America is quilty of…
Who are you accusing of these things Ben? Not your friends are you?
Or was it just all the other guys over there that did the horrible things you think they did?
Do you think that 90% plus of the Vietnamese community here are liars Ben?
Whose flag do you think most of them fly in their parades and homes? The North’s or the South’s?
You have not said much about the continued oppression in your so called “healing” nation yet either.
Where did I bring up the civilian airliner nathan? I had numerous ‘chances’ above and did not do so. You did.
Yes, nathan, it touches a nerve. I lost too many friends to that stupidity and see it happening all over again.
Obviously the VietNamese community here are the ones who were on our side. However, they are a minority.
I dated a girl in college who was a VietNamese refugee. She had fled from religious persecution in Saigon. She didn’t fly either flag, and for very good reasons having fled Saigon persecution in the 60s.
Who am I accusing? The same people my veteran friends did.
As for the continued oppression, people I know who fly back and forth describe as authoritarian, not totalitarian. It is more free than under the BushBot House of Saud.
“”I bet you enjoy it everytime you hear of an Iraqi civilian getting killed don’t you?
You get some sick satisfaction about it.”
Now that some of the radical leftists aren’t posting as much, the God-Squad is going for the centrists.
Figures.
The fact is Nathan, as soon as the US stopped air support, South Vietnam collapsed like a wet washrag.
The same thing happened in China in 1949.
Why? Because the reds are so tough and the whites are so weak?
No, it was because the communists WERE the nationalists in the sense that they were the ones fighting foreign occupation and domination.
The corrupt gov’t of Chiang Kai-Shek only cared about lining its own pockets. Same with South Vietnam. That’s capitalism for you. And the fact is that the top dogs–like Chiang–all bailed out and lived off the foreign aid they stole.
The communists actually formed a viable rebellion against foreign power. Mao was the only guy with the guts to fight the Japs in China. Ditto for Ho Chi Minh against the Japs and the French.
The question is, why did we ever support the French against the Vietnamese nationalists in the first place. They weren’t even communist until the so-called “free world” backed their European colonial masters.
What were they supposed to do?
As for your Vietnamese friends who are all hopping mad about the loss of their country . . . well, gee, why didn’t they do what the communists did?
Start a rebel government engaging in insurgency against the dictatorship.
Nah, they’d rather bail and live the good life over here.
Okay, they made their choice.
Now they should quit their bitching.
BTW, anybody with a brain in Iraq is doing exactly what the South Vietnamese “leaders” did, they’re socking money away in foreign bank accounts, money intended to rebuild Iraq, so that when America leaves and everything goes to utter hell, they can bail and live in a nice big-city hotel for the rest of their lives.
Given how much money the Bush administration has sent over in duffel bags and briefcases never to be accounted for, looks like those plans are right on schedule.
Ben-You’re being sucked into a dark hole; he needs Midol, and I doubt if you need any of this nonsense, IMHO.
Good point, Zeitgeist at 9:38PM.
I recall seeing something lately saying that Iraqi visa and passport apps are through the roof. If I recall correctly, the demographic slicing of the data showed that nearly all the increase in apps was due to applications by middle class Iraqis.
Not the rich, and obviously not the poor. I doubt the poor were ever allowed to dip a hand or twenty into one of GW Bush’s famously generous duffle bags filled with US taxpayer dollars. The poor are always left behind.
I guess we’ll find out soon if middle class Iraqis want the passports for trips to Egyptian resorts or, just as in South Vietnam, to escape the lot of the poor (i.e., just in case): being stuck in the middle of the Mahdi army vs. Saddam’s Republican Guard and its cowboy al-Qaida “special forces unit.”
Ben! Ben! Ben! Ben!