Ace, I understand where you're coming from, but I just can't buy into most of your response.
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Originally Posted by aceventura3
Some of us, including the Bush administration, still believe we can win, that we can accomplish our original goals.
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So the WMD are going to magically appear someday? Even if I temporarily conceed that they did exist and were spirited away to Syria, they're never going to materialize. That was the majority of the arguement for our invasion in the first place. Our goals then shifted to making Iraq "safe for democracy", etc. but I don't see how anyone can consider us closer to those goals now.
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Originally Posted by aceventura3
Sadaam is dead. Sadaam's regime no longer exists.
The connection with 9/11 is Islamic extremist are at war with us. The war front is currently in Iraq. If we leave Iraq, the war won't end. If Islamic extremist obtain and hold Iraq they will expand their offensive. I don't know what would be next, but you can believe the war will continue.
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I don't think that I was clear enough with my description of the email, but there was a definite tone linking Iraq to Al Qaida. However, I think that what I highlighted in your statement is the gist of my arguement - the war won't end. I think it's important to note that the war won't end if we stay either. The big problem is that there's no real way to quantify sucess in this conflict. The only positives are lack of negatives. Given that there are lots of negatives, it appears (whether it's true or not) that we're losing.
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Originally Posted by aceventura3
I think you nailed it. Some think this is some kind of a "feel good war", "a war of choice", " a war of US emperialism", etc, etc. This is a war to defend our freedom and the freedom of billions of people in the world, it is not about "national psyche" but far too many people see it in those terms or in terms of "feelings".
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I can't accept this statement in any fashion. If this were a war about defending our freedoms, we would have done better to focus on real threats to our freedom, such as the Chinese who seized an American military plane operating in internation airspace months before the Iraq war. Or we could have faced off against the North Koreans who I think I can easily catagorize as the loudest saber rattler in the world. If it were about getting the terrorists, why didn't we go after the head of the snake in the Saudi and Egyptian citizens that finance Al Qaida et al? Make no bones about it, the Bush administration chose to prosecute this war in the face of diplomacy. We chose the time and place for it and followed through on our threats.