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Thanks Hancle.
I agree with Ken Pollack's opinion.

Re: THE WAR IN IRAQ
 

More info about the Ken Pollack book, can be found at:
http://www.cfr.org/publication.html?id=4876

History may record that the decision made to invade Iraq was the best option as suggested in this book, based on historical facts and the intelligence available at the time. Sadly the other recommendations made about how to acheive success, were not adequately planned and implemented.

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Very interesting post Hancle. Thank you.

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The 3 most dangerous nations directly responsible for funding anti US terrorism activities are Pakistan (already has nuclear weapons), Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Fighting terror has nothing to do with Iraq. Saddam Hussein was our man in the middle east. We put him in power and approved of his dirty deeds. He kept Al-qaeda out of Iraq. The people in Iraq hated him and hated our government for putting him in power. We should have eliminated him without the shock and awe of destroying the infrastructure of that country. The neoconservative group which includes Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz had been trying to get every administration back from the Reagan years until now to take over the middle east. This would include permanent military bases. The objective was to control the oil. Every administration until now had the strength to keep this group at bay.

Re: THE WAR IN IRAQ
 

junglejim,
Excellent Post!
I have lost a family member and 3 of my students (so far) to this Iraq invarsion!!!! All young men, some with children. I am so mad at this adminstration!!!!

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WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Pentagon cannot account for nearly 15 billion dollars in payments for goods and services in Iraq, according to an internal audit which members of Congress blasted Friday as a "shocking" accountability failure. Of 8.2 billion dollars in US taxpayer-funded defense contracts reviewed by the defense department's inspector general, the Pentagon could not properly account for more than 7.7 billion dollars. The lack of accountability of the funds, intended for purchases of weapons, vehicles, construction equipment and security services, amounted to a 95 percent failure rate in basic accounting standards, according to the report.

President Ike Eisenhower warned not to let the Military Industrialist Complex take over. We are very close to making the move from a republic to an empire. 70% or more of Americans want this war over yet we aren't moving very fast in that direction. We should be more concerned about how close we are coming to losing democracy here instead of trying to force democracy at gunpoint on someone else.

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Great posts, JungleJim. Keep 'em coming!!

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The Bush administration has long been moving to formalize the frankly colonial relationship between the U.S. and Iraq, and now those efforts are moving swiftly to a conclusion, with U.S. officials predicting an agreement sometime in July.

We initially demanded over 200 military facilities across Iraq, but later whittled it down to a mere 58. We also wanted the right to detain any Iraqis without turning them over to Iraqi authorities, a free hand to conduct military operations, and immunity from prosecution by U.S. soldiers and private contractors – in effect, a continuation of the occupation.

Word is out that the Americans are now in a compromising mood, agreeing that contractors should be subject to Iraqi law and accepting something less than a completely free hand militarily. Yet still there are ominous rumbles of protest, coming not just from the opposition but also from the ruling coalition of Shi'ite parties. Note the words of Jalal al-Din al-Saghir, a leader of the Supreme Islamic Council fraction of the Iraqi parliament,

"We rejected the whole thing from the beginning. In my point of view, it would just be a new occupation with an Iraqi signature. …Maybe the Iraqi government will say: 'Hey, the security situation is better. We don't need any more troops in Iraq. Or we could have a pledge of honor where the American troops leave but come back and protect Iraq if there is any aggression."

Haider al-Abadi, a leader of Prime Minister Maliki's own Da'wa party, declares:

"What the U.S. wants is to take the current status quo and try to regulate it in a new agreement. And what we want is greater respect for Iraqi sovereignty. Signing the agreement would mean that the Iraqi government had given up its sovereignty by its own consent. And that will never happen."

The Post reports a top aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as saying:

"The Americans are making demands that would lead to the colonization of Iraq. If we can't reach a fair agreement, many people think we should say, 'Goodbye, U.S. troops. We don't need you here anymore.' "

What if the liberated Iraq government asks us to leave? Won't it be time to leave?

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I respectfully disagree big-time.

Colonization has never been a US goal - but caution definitely is.

After WWI everybody took from Germany what they wanted and then took off. The result was a signficant build-up and anti-everybody sentiment which brought about WWII.

We learned a valuable lesson - don't cut and run, but stsay there until all reconstruction - political and economic - takes place. After that, stay if asked.

That also has worked well in Korea and everywhere else we followed that rule.

We don't colonize. The Panama Canal turnover is one example. I was on Okinawa when it reverted from US control back to Japanese rule (05/15/1972). We stay until we have the assurances that the reasons we went in have been resolved.

Iraq is no diffferent. The alternative is our grandchildren and great-grandchildren having to finish the job that today's generation left half-done.

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If, as just about every expert agrees, Bush-style reconstruction has failed dismally in Iraq, thanks to thievery, knavery, and sheer incompetence, and is now essentially ending, it has been a raging success in Iraq's "Little America." For the first time, we have actual descriptions of a couple of the "super-bases" built in Iraq. Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post paid a visit to Balad Air Base, the largest American base in the country, 68 kilometers north of Baghdad and "smack in the middle of the most hostile part of Iraq." In a piece titled "Biggest Base in Iraq Has Small-Town Feel," Ricks paints a striking portrait: The base is sizeable enough to have its own "neighborhoods" including "KBR-land" (in honor of the Halliburton subsidiary that has done most of the base-construction work in Iraq); "CJSOTF" ("home to a special operations unit," the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force, surrounded by "especially high walls," and so secretive that even the base Army public affairs chief has never been inside); and a junkyard for bombed out Army Humvees. There is as well a Subway, a Pizza Hut, a Popeye's, "an ersatz Starbucks," a 24-hour Burger King, two post exchanges where TVs, iPods, and the like can be purchased, four mess halls, a hospital, a strictly enforced on-base speed limit of 10 MPH, a huge airstrip, 250 aircraft (helicopters and predator drones included), air-traffic pile-ups of a sort you would see over Chicago's O'Hare airport, and "a miniature golf course, which mimics a battlefield with its baby sandbags, little Jersey barriers, strands of concertina wire and, down at the end of the course, what appears to be a tiny detainee cage." Ricks reports that the 20,000 troops stationed at Balad live in "air-conditioned containers" that will, in the future -- and yes, for those building these bases, there still is a future -- be wired "to bring the troops Internet, cable television and overseas telephone access." He points out as well that, of the troops at Balad, "only several hundred have jobs that take them off base. Most Americans posted here never interact with an Iraqi."
Recently, Oliver Poole, a British reporter, visited another of the American "super-bases," the still-under-construction al-Asad Airbase ("Football and pizza point to US staying for long haul"). He observes, of "the biggest Marine camp in western Anbar province," that "this stretch of desert increasingly resembles a slice of U.S. suburbia." In addition to the requisite Subway and pizza outlets, there is a football field, a Hertz rent-a-car office, a swimming pool, and a movie theater showing the latest flicks. Al-Asad is so large -- such bases may cover 15 to 20 square miles -- that it has two bus routes and, if not traffic lights, at least red stop signs at all intersections. There are at least four such "super-bases" in Iraq, none of which have anything to do with "withdrawal" from that country. Quite the contrary, these bases are being constructed as little American islands of eternal order in an anarchic sea. Whatever top administration officials and military commanders say -- and they always deny that we seek "permanent" bases in Iraq -- facts on the ground speak with another voice entirely. These bases practically scream "permanency." Quite literally multibillions of dollars have gone into them. In a prestigious engineering magazine in late 2003, Lt. Col. David Holt, the Army engineer "tasked with facilities development" in Iraq, was already speaking proudly of several billion dollars being sunk into base construction ("the numbers are staggering"). Since then, the base building has been massive and ongoing.
Sounds like colonization to me. This is not the old military this is a corporate fueled war machine. This is what Ike Eisenhower warned us about. Let's hope and pray we can stop this beast.

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Just out of curiosity, where do you come up with this BS? Most of it sounds like 2004 or 2005 Democrat talking points interpreted by the Daily Kos. There is virtually no relationship to reality in anything you have posted about Iraq in particular or politics in general.

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If you read the post, you would have seen the Washington Post reference. Quit listening to Fox noise and have someone read the article to you.

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While you at it, have someone read this to you;
We needed to know the truth about Iraq. The truth could have spared that country from rack and ruin, saved thousands of American lives and the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and freed hundreds of billions of dollars for investment in the American economy and infrastructure. But as Knight-Ridder reporters told us at the time (one of the few organizations that systematically and independently set out to challenge the claims of this Administration, by the way), as my colleagues reported in our documentary on PBS “Buying the War,” as Scott McClellan has now confessed, and as the Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed just this week, this Administration — with the complicity of the dominant media - conducted a political propaganda campaign, using erroneous and misleading intelligence to deceive Americans into supporting an unprovoked attack on another country, leading to a war that instead of being “quick and bloodless” as predicted, continues to this day. (At least we now know that a neo-conservative is an arsonist who sets the house on fire and six years later boasts that no one can put it out.) So the press as a whole remains in denial about its complicity in passing on the government’s unverified claims as facts, while “blocking out any other narrative,” as Danny Schechter wrote this week. That’s the great danger. It’s not simply that the dominant media see the world as the powerful see it; they don’t allow alternative and competing narratives to emerge that would enable us to measure the claims of the official view of reality. We need to know we’re in trouble. Napoleon reportedly told his secretary to let him sleep during the night if the news from the front was good, but if the news was bad, he wanted to be awakened immediately so that he could act. Then I draw a line to the statistics that show real wages lagging behind prices, the compensation of corporate barons soaring to heights unequaled anywhere among other industrialized democracies, the greatest income inequality since the Roaring 20s, the relentless cheeseparing of federal funds devoted to public schools, to retraining workers whose jobs have been exported and to programs of health care, all of which snatch away the ladder by which Americans of scant means but willing hands and hearts could work and save their way up to middle-class security. Edward R. Murrow told his generation of journalists: “No one can eliminate prejudices-just recognize them.” Here is my bias: Extremes of wealth and poverty cannot be reconciled with a truly just society. Capitalism will breed great inequality that is destructive unless tempered by an intuition for equality which is the heart of democracy. When the state becomes the guardian of power and privilege to the neglect of justice for the people who have neither power nor privilege, you can no longer claim to have a representative government. It’s going the other way now. But you will search the dominant media largely in vain for journalism that tells the truth about the fading of the American Dream. As conglomerates swallow up newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, and broadcast outlets, news organizations are folded into entertainment divisions. The “news hole” in the print media shrinks to make room for ads, celebrities, nonsense, and propaganda, and the news we need to know slips from sight. It’s up to you to tell the truth about what’s happening to this country we love. It’s up to you to tell the truth about the struggle of ordinary people. It’s up to you to remind us that democracy only works when citizens claim it as their own. It’s up to you to write the story of America that leaves no one out.

And it’s up to you to rekindle the Patriot’s Dream.

Bill Moyers

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Junglejim,
Good post :bigthumbsup:

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If you are going to persist in posting this "stuff", why not just post the link. It would save everyone some space. Evidently you have mastered cut and paste and I congratulate you on that. However you seem to be sadly deficient in the area of original thought, not to mention composition. I realize that whenever you read something, you have an overwhelming desire to share it, and that's okay. But if you cannot resist and have nothing original to add, please stick to the links.

Oh, and for the sake of the other Keith Olbermann fans, :agree: :agree: :agree: :bigthumbsup: :bigthumbsup:

Re: THE WAR IN IRAQ
 

Personally, I like not having to go to a link - it saves me time, as I happen to be on dial-up. Also, if the wording is right there, there is more of a chance that someone will read it rather than pass it by.

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Places that come to mind are: 1) Camp Zama, Japan; 2) Naval Base, Rota, Spain; 3) Camp eagle, Korea; 4) Naval Base, Aviano, Italy; 5) ramstein Air Base, Gemany; 6) Guantanamo Naval Base, Cuba; 7) Hohenfels Training Center, Germany; 8) RAF Mindenhall,UK; Kadena Air Base, Okinawa; 8) Thule Air Base, Greenland and about 700 other locations around the world.

The major bases do look like cities - for good reason. They are! We do not expect our military personnel to have to live out of pup-tents, eat field rations, and spent their days like something out of the Spartan age. They are Americans protecting us, and deserve every creature comfort possible while serving us abroad, whether that "abroad" is at a land-based installation or aboard ship-at (or under)- sea. They serve us, and we support them. I see nothing wrong with bring Americana to them at whatever level can be provided.

Has money been wasted and squandered during the Iraq War. You bet it has - the same as what occurs on a daily basis with the Social Security Administration, every welfare program I have ever seen, government procurement from the small-town to federal level, most of the Pork projects which most communities demand and keep Congresspersons in office, and the insanity known as the National Endowment for the Arts which to me is the greatest funding source that pornography has ever found.

It's an imperfect world. Money is wasted. However, every dime spent on protecting the physical and psychological health of our uniformed military is money well-spent, and most of the time we don't spend enough!

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Saddam signed a 10 year, $40B contract with Russia in August 2002 to develop 49 new oil fields.
When did Cheney start the WMD war drums? Answer: August 2002

Iraq, Exxon, Chevron near deal
Giants in talks for no-bid contracts
By Andrew Kramer | New York Times News Service
June 19, 2008
BAGHDAD—Four Western oil corporations are in the final stages of negotiations on contracts that would return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein consolidated his power.
Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP—the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Co.— along with Chevron and some smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq's Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq's largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and a U.S. diplomat.
The deals are expected to be announced June 30

Greenspan decided to put prudence aside in his new book, The Age of Turbulence, and answer the most neuralgic issue of our times – why the United States invaded Iraq.
Greenspan writes:
"I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."

OIL

Not a threat to us, not for freedom, not for religion, not to fight terrorists, not because of WMD, not to make the world stable

OIL

Re: THE WAR IN IRAQ
 

I think one would have to be pretty naive to think that we didn't get into the war because of oil considerations.

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And the problem with that is ? ? ?

The last time I checked, the Russians (with the French and Chinese chugging close behind) have done their darnedest to be the logistician for almost every despot-regime on Earth. They have been the premier supplier of military goods and services, and almost everything else to the greatest human rights abusers there are.

Elimination of an Iraq/Russia business arrangement to increase the economic muscle of those wonderful "gentlemen" who gassed the Kurds and Iranians (I don't like them, but that's just wrong to do), persecuted the non-Ba'ath Muslims and all other religious denominations, provided training and facilities to Scud the Israelis, and rebuild (a la post-WWI Germany) their war machine to be in a position to destabilize the region AGAIN - That just makes sense.

$40 Billion is not chump-change, and the Hussein clan and their cronies could have done a lot of damage with that much additional money - and you know that "trickle-down economics" was not the philosophy in the prior Iraqi government.

Human rights violations, neighbor-war, genocide, terrorism and general mayhem - more of which to be paid for by a Russian government which showed it cared less about any of those things as long as it got a bargain.

Yep, oil - and the money it was exchanged for - had a lot to with it.

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Facism will come to America draped in a flag, carrying a bible.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children . . . Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

-Dwight D Eisenhower, from "The Chance for Peace" address delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953

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Man lived a long time. Said an awful lot of stuff. Probably said a lot of really dumb things and maybe some pretty smart ones. But likely the vast majority of what he said had minimal import then and little or none now. Case in point.

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Wow, this really hits home doesn't it. How prophetic. Thanks for this post. It's a keeper. :bigthumbsup:

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Don't want to change topic but families of soldiers need prayers and positive thoughts, plus an end to this war.
I have two friends who have daughters who have been riped from their babies and sent to Iraq. They didn't want to go leaving babies.
One has twin boys -age 3. The other has a liile girl -2 and a little boy- 4. The children miss their Mommies and can't understand why mommy doesn't come home.

Please send prayers and positive thoughts to families like these and all the soldiers.

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Just in case anyone wants to take a break and think for a minute, here is somthing to listen to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENGvj...eature=related

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Very interesting. Here is a Canadian journalist who makes money from a multinational publisher while complaining about multinational business and governments other than Canada.

Sorry, but when a non-US citizen insults American leaders, eschews American policy, and uses literary sleight-of-hand to negatively depict the US - all the while collecting royalties in the process - that person's credibility is tainted by their own mercenary tactics. Those holier-than-thou always seem to preach their "gospel" all the way to the bank, with a happy bunch of agents, publicists and fans following.

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All people in the uniform of this country are in my daily prayers.

As far as your friends' daughters, it would appear they knew when they decided to be in the Armed Forces that taking the pay means going where the job takes you - even if it means family separation. Fathers have had to undergo this experience since the Revolutionary War, and nowadays Mothers find themselves - as women want equal status in the Armed Forces - in the same situation that Fathers experience.

The solution for anyone who does not want to be deployed is a simple one - don't join in the first place, or don't re-enlist if enlisted, or resign your commission if commissioned.

Military service is like any job, in that if you don't want to do the job at the required job site, don't take the job or quit at first opportunity. You take the money, you do the job. Been there, done that, got a few t-shirts (some with holes).

Re: THE WAR IN IRAQ
 

Hey junglejim, I wish this was a war for oil, then maybe we could back the tankers up and start bringing the oil home. The sad thing for me is people like you seem to be everywhere even in tv. You quote Bill Moyers for credibility?. I was disappointed like Lindsaycollier when I first got on this site and expected to find the "luckiest generation" who at our age thank their lucky stars that they were lucky enough to be an American. But the Bush bashers are everywhere I guess.
Happy62, I would rather have the fed through away the $720 mil on my security than fund any new school or especially any new teachers or free lunches. If people want health insurance they should buy it for themselves, if they want a house let them go to work for it. If we don't have the money for national security what do we have it for?.
When I grew up we used to be a team, "TEAM AMERICA" Look at football, baseball, basketball, hockey etc, they win because they are a team working together. If a quarterback throws an interception or a goalie lets the winning goal pass, the team rallies around them for support and encouragement , the don't start calling names and second guessing them. Whether you like Bush or not he's OUR president and deserves our respect and support, even if your a democrat. I for one don't want the feds in every aspect of my business. I just want national security so I can make my own way.
Remember we are loosing our rights daily to the nanny government, we came within one vote this week of the Supreme Court overturning the 2nd Amendment. That would make junglejim happy. And P.S. stevez thank god for people like you.

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No offense, but I am not going to read the entire thread. Republican or Democrat, Pro-War or Anti-War, all aside, this Iraq tacit was (and is) nothing short of complete stupidity, and anyone with enough sense to read both sides should have known this. One study recently showed that the more conservative a person was, the less likely they were to read or listen to the views opposed to him or her, and in this situation, that mistake cost over 4,000 American lives. When this war started, I immediately predicated everything that has, would happen (this was back in February of 2003, a month before the invasion). The reason is because I had just finished Che's book on Guerrilla Warfare. A conventional army can conquer a government, but if your goal is to stop people from hating the US, and you attack a country to do so, you will not be successful as long as one person over there is still alive. You cannot make a people love you (or at not want to kill you) with a gun or a bomb on their daddy (brother, sister, husband, wife, son, daughter, etc. and the latest poll puts Iraqi deaths as a result of the war above 1 million). And you will not beat them when they can fight you in their homeland with their small groups of friends and family. When politicians say we will win, I sit there perplexed trying to determine what they are talking about. What would a win even look like?

I am not posting here to argue, but instead to educate. You will not agree (I assume) with the tactics or the politics, but if you want to argue anything about Iraq, I suggest you know what they are doing to beat us, because if we continue this war like we are, they will win. There is no way they could ever possibly lose. Here is their tactical manual. When you are done with it, you will see this as I do (a promise). In March when the democrats and republicans came together to start this thing, I wanted to mail each one of them this book. 4,000 troops later, I wish I would have.

http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/slatta/...nts/che.htm#11

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:agree:

Just go back and read the mcelheny posts! :bigthumbsup:

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Great post, jeckyl. Unfortunately, the people I'd like most to read it probably won't.

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Just curious..... and what WMDs are you referring too???

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There are a few points here, and yes, they can be distributed to both sides of the isle. The first one is one Clinton and the Rest is on the Republicrats of today. The end is insight about what the war was REALLY about....

Do you know what was actually sanctioned? During Gulf War I, we blew up the water treatment plants. A good portion of the sanctions were geared at making sure they could not get the parts or the tools to fix those (which they never were able to do). Another good portion of the sanctions were children's medication that prevented or cured water born illness (like diarrhea) The result was a collective punishment on the people for allowing a dictator to rule over them with US paid for weapons (Thanks Rummy). The entire time the Clintons were in office an average of 3,000 Iraqis died a month (most of them under the age of 5). Trust me, those sanctions were well enforced, but it was not to prevent them from making WMDs.

I would also like t0 point out another fact that will make you happy with your logic. We have not had ANY RACE RIOTS since the 1960s. Apparently Welfare is working. Therefore, we should build a giant monument for Johnson and solidify welfare into the constitution as a guaranteed right for all poor people.

As for why we have not been attacked... Terrorists are not the type of organization that is geared at taking us over. They need us to engage them out of a sense of fear. They need us to play into the roles they have determined for us. There is no way they will conquer us, so they need to make us bleed (economically and metaphorically) until our dollar drops and we slowly lose all moral. Of course they have not attacked us here, our current administration is delivering the terrorist message of fear FOR them, and we are already wasting our resources abroad. Another attack would not do anything more than we are doing. Going to Iraq and Afghanistan was what they wanted 'us' to do, and if you read that link I gave you, you will know why. For us, we have to destroy them to win that battle, while they merely have to stay alive to win it. It is not about killing every solder to them, it is about the cost associated with the solder being there, and the harm of a nation to send him home permanently wounded.

As for why the war... It is not a big secret or conspiracy. They (they being the economic conservatives that follow Freedmen like G.W. Bush and Rummy to name two) are trying to create the perfect economic structure in the world, a place they believe that the rest of the world will look to and want to emulate. The started with Shock and Awe to put the people into a condition where they would not be concerned with the changes they were about to face (first called the Bremer Laws). I will not explain the whole thing, but here is a 6 minute film about a book that explains it all. The film gives a short intro into the reasoning. Once I finished the book, I looked at what they were saying and I got angry at myself for trying to create reasons when they were right in front of me the entire time. Matter in fact, look at New Orleans and it is the same story. There was a reason that FEMA did not respond, they didn't want to. Instead they were able to close down over 80% of the public schools, replace them with privately run charter schools, eliminate the majority of need for public assistance (flush clean the areas where those people live), and open up real estate in once poor areas for condos and resorts. Now crime is down, public assistance is down, and capitalism is making a strong comeback. They just needed a little shock in the system. Katrina did in a matter of days to New Orleans what conservatives could not do in decades. It is disaster capitalism, and they are really good at it.

http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/short-film

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Perfect reply to the obviously distorted logic.....

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I did read it all (as you could see above there is too many areas I had to respond to) :)

It looks like I will have some friends here...

The nice thing is that sometimes they will listen.

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Dr. Guevara as an authority on guerilla warfare is like quoting Bill Clinton on the managing of interns.

Guevara: the Argentine physician famed for his love of torture, the hero-to-be who got run out of Africa for fouling up Cuban activities there, who rode the coattails of others and screwed up every venture he managed to touch, and after being run out of most of South America gets himself killed by the Bolivians. He plagerized Sun Tzu and folk now think he's a prophet. Had the Bolivians not killed him he would have been just another Castro puppet destined for re-education in a Cuban forest for delusions of grandeur. Instead he got his sorry butt killed and the Commies decided that he would make a great martyr for the cause.

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Steve,

I was not supporting him in this post or saying that he was the first one to do anything. I simply said that his manual outlines modern insurgencies and is the exact methods that are practiced today. Now, I will be the first to admit that I have not read all of Sun Tzu's book "The Art of War" (maybe I will now), but what I have read, this is a manual for battle that has to do with leading an army, which is totally not what they are about. Sun Tzu says that one needs to defend positions until they can advance, while territory is not the aim of the modern foes. They want to hit us and run. Their goal is to be a constant pain in our side for as long as we are willing to be there. We should know, we used this same method against the Sandinista in Nicaragua when we paid the Contras to attack the churches, electrical plants, hospitals, etc. We trained Bin Laden and Co. to do the same thing in Afghanistan against the Soviets.

As far as the story of Che, I really must say you are off the mark on that one, but that is okay, because that was not the intention of this comment. With that said, if you read his book, you can map out the entire Iraqi resistance and see where, how, and with whom they will hit us. That is why when we rolled in, they dropped their uniforms and walked away. That was not the way the Iraqi people would successfully defend themselves from our aggression and occupation. They made a very purposeful decision to use opportunity instead of being forced on a battle field. This is what that book says they should do. And you can tell that it will last as long as we are there in the way we are. I would like to point one thing out (just for the record) while we can always defeat governments, we have yet to take over one single group of poor people since that book was published. We have lost every one of those battles (and yes, Rome proved that you can win those battles).

You want to know how we can beat the people over there that want to attack us again, and for that matter, this entire so called War against Terror. Rent the movie Munich (2005) or look at Mossad. So long as we fight like Al Quaeda is another nation, we don't have a chance to win this thing. We (and I think I already posted this) need to transform our entire military, put 100,000 teams of six on the ground world wide with the best training and technology we have, and help them track down every member of Al Qaeda and simply kill them. No major battles, just simple hits.

One thing we all need to consider as we discuss this, and try to influnce each other. We are talking about this here in the comforts of our homes, and emailing political representatives, and getting ready to vote on an election. Our friends (I can say that for real) are over there and risking their lives. Our #1 concern (regardless of your politics) should be not to waste lives, and to do what ever is the most effective. Where I think Iraq is foolish to begin with, it is not because there aren't people out there who want to cut my head off, they are there, it is simply that they are not in Iraq. Of course, some of them in Iraq hate us too (between Clinton and Bush we have caused the deaths of well over 1 million people there, many of them being innocent children), but the leaders of the organization who really are trying to kill us are not on the battle fields, and we will not find them like this. I think we all should agree that these people should be the #1 target. You kill all of them, the war is over, plain and simple. This is not a people's movement like the Iraqi resistance to US occupation has become, Al Quaeda is a fundamentalist organization with a heirarchy and clear leadership. We need to cut the head off that snake.

Re: THE WAR IN IRAQ
 

Wow Barb, that's an absolutely beautiful and heart breaking video. Thanks for sharing it. chels :#1:

Re: THE WAR IN IRAQ
 

Thanks Barb, for sharing. A picture is worth a thousand, and more, words. Regardless of our politics, or what side of this war we fall on. Lets never forget those young men and women who are placing their lives on the block for us. Bring them home from Iraq, but do it in a manner, that insures their safety. Once home provide the appropriate support they will need. Never forget our troops.

I also agree with jeckyl. We can't win this war with conventional wisdom. It should be treated for what it is. A bunch of murderer's that needs to be stopped. It's a police issue, and could be handled by a highly trained group of Delta Force like units sent on covert operations around the world. Never forget 9/11.

Re: THE WAR IN IRAQ
 

We can agree to disagree. At one time (long ago and far away) he was an annoyance to me, and I have no respect for him or his memory.

The War on Terror - which is not limited to just al-Qa'ida, but A-Q is a major target - is a multi-faceted, multi-approach effort involving a lot more than DoD and its entities. That being said, the tools and tactics are many, and not just what the Fourth Estate publicizes.

On this we both wholeheartedly agree.

Killing them all only makes them martyrs for the next generation, as whatever their actions they will be truncated to only display whatever “the cause” wants to exploit. The saying “one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter” holds true, whether that person be Che Guevara, Patrick Henry, Menachem Begin, Emiliano Zapata, Simon Bolivar, or any al-Qa'ida member.

The systemic reasons for disenfranchisement, separation and exploitation must be eliminated within a society; otherwise all that happens is an interruption of the cycle of violence for a finite period of time. Until those systemic reasons are addressed – which normally cannot occur until eviction of the persecutors and stabilization of the environment and economy – lasting peace is a myth, and the cycle of violence spins around before you know it. In the long term, it is better to do this right than do it fast, or our great-grandchildren will be inheriting another problem of probably greater consequence because we were hasty.