Then lets agree on this: you don’t think leaving the battlefield to the enemy is surrender and I do. I also contend that our military fighting there will see it as surrender and that the enemy (Baathists, terrorists, whatever else), there and worldwide, will see it as surrender.

Wilbur, I’m not sure I’ve seen anybody mainstream say Dems and Reps are equally responsible. I will concede Bush is msotly repsonsible. I do note that he had Democratic support when the war was ‘popular’, and that those supportive Dems have left the ship now that its unpopular. I would charge both parties with going to war too frivolously. War is war. Gonna do it, then do it all out or don’t do it. Soldiers lives are worth more than that. So is national honor.

(And actually I believe most Democrats voted aginst the war.)

Okay then, stop saying that if we leave, terrorists will attack us here. That is also speculation.

all the arguments about creating more terrorists is merely speculation.

Ditto.

And I’m still waiting for you to answer when will we know when the job is done?

Every time the right says “OK, what’s your plan, then?” it just confirms to me that they don’t have a fucking clue themselves.

Do I reign supreme yet again??

Only in your head, big guy.

Duros
Danger is the nosy next-door neighbor of Security.

1. Use of the term “surrender” here is inaccurate and inflammatory. By its use you reveal yourself as arguing in bad faith.

2. The enemy may well be emboldened by lots of things, but neither I nor Gates can prove which policy under discussion will “embolden” them more. My question is what sort of difference this “emboldening” is supposed to make. Are you under the impression that currently our enemy suffers from a deficit of boldness?

3. Corollary to 2: saying that such-and-such an act will “embolden” the enemy is not a military statement, it is a political statement designed to demonize your political opposition.

4. When Gates, or anybody, makes the argument that ‘you have to agree with the president, no matter how wrong he is, otherwise you’ll make us look weak/embolden the enemy/embarrass us’ all it says to me is that he has no rational justification for whatever he’s arguing for.

5. Corollary to 4: the fact that Joe Lie-berman is one of the ones making this argument is further proof that he needs to be invited to join the GOP immediately, even if it means losing control of the senate.

6. Most congressional democrats voted to support Bush’s plans for war in 2002, in part from the very fear that you express: that not presenting a unified front would “embolden” our enemies. Later, republicans used that vote against the democrats to paint them as equally responsible for the mess that ensued. If the democrats heed the call this time to avoid “emboldening” the enemy, will the republicans refrain from trying to blame them when this big surge fails too?

Do I reign supreme yet again??

When have you “reigned supreme”? Mostly what I see is you getting your ass handed to you in thread after thread.

“Fuggabush went to war over oil and revenge.”

Ok lets assume you are right. Where is the oil?

If it was revenge, I guess you mean against saddam right?

Why doens’t bush just pack up and go now, saddam is dead….revenge taken right? Lots of national polls say Bush would be much better off just packing it in…revenge taken, might as well come home right?

You kids have overactive imaginations, and under-active common sense…

We are already there, so the argument re the wisdom of being there is a little dated.

And lets face it, all the arguments about creating more terrorists is merely speculation. Nobody knows how many have been created – if any. Who did the count? You want it to be true, so you state it as fact.

I notice no one really argued gates’ point – which is the enmy is emboldened by surrender, non-support talk. So since we are there, we have pretty much acknowledged surrender will make the Ts stronger, right? You just have your unverified straw man that by being there (we are already there – anyway – so thats done) we are creating more Ts.

Anybody with the intellect to challenge Gates. Or me on this? Do I reign supreme yet again??

Cool (OW leftist poster certified) Iron Dugger

You need to go back to school you retard. Fuggabush went to war over oil and revenge.

Stop justifying all wars using
old Grandpa Simpson style WWII analogies. They are old and crusty much like yourself.

We lost 3000 men in the first twenty minutes on Iwo Jima in WWII.

I know nightfox doesn’t care much about the brown people inhabiting Iraq, but remember a couple of guys name Hussein? You should google child torture hussein, or maybe industrial shredder hussein just for giggles as to what was going on while we were enforcing the “no-fly zones” and UN diplomats (and French and German and Russian) were getting rich on Iraqi graft.

Not counting the anthrax terrorists (if you’ve forgotten them, don’t worry – so has the government)?

How many have there been in Canada? Sweden? For that matter…France?

Maybe “not pissing the world off” is a strategy worth looking into as much as “clusterfucking an at-best-tangentially-related country” in the War on Terror.

Don’t you get it? Our continued presence and violent actions also motivates them. They recruit more and the big bucks pour in.
So, if we leave they are emboldened.
And if we stay, they are emboldened.
Thanks, George. Thanks a lot.

’nuff said
——————————–
Short sided thinking at its greatest. Fuck attacks how about US dead you SOB. Try 3000+ How many would have died if we would have simply kept the no fly zones? Zero.

“’nuff said ” what is that some kind of redneck english?

Retards like you kill people.

None?

’nuff said

Bush injected Al Qaeda into Iraq. But even so, the majority of the instability is from civil war.

Get a clue please, or let the adults sort this out while trying to save the lives of the troops Bush continues to sacrifice to save his own sorry white ass.

The ‘enemy’ is emboldened when ‘the enemies’ older brother, sister, father, mother comes home dead for no reason.

we are creating enemies faster than we can kill them, and turning corners fast enough to roll this ship of state.

and you don;t like it. c’est la vie. take to the streets.

but don’t compound being wrong with being obstinate – consider you may just be wrong.

what would you do in ‘the enemies’ shoes? eat shit? or pick up a rifle?

Most of them can be shown other options, the few ‘dead-enders’ are mostly harmless without the mob.

It should be easy to put yourself in those shoes. Let us show you the way forward.

Lets put it this way. If you must surrender, don’t play politics with it. Don’t give count;ess interviews to fawning Big Media *ssholes.
DO your dirty work and have enough respect for the troops to quit teh self serving advertising.