Americans have no guts.

Its allready become a have for terrorist operations. The best option would be to bring in the UN and pull the coallition troops out or just pull out totally and let them sort it out themselves(Iraqis), then again the US and Britain started this so they have to finish it having said that they arent doing a good job at it. After all the US and British forces have outstayed their welcome by the looks of things.

[Edited on 14-5-2004 by drunk]

Well, to pull out completely and then let them sort it out is not an option. To many future problems, too much political backlash - it shouldn't and aint gunna happen.

So, you (and I for that matter) would like to see the UN involved. But what is going to change? IMO, it will simply be the nationality of the dead, not the course of the country. What people need to realize is this - no one ever said this was going to be a walk in the park and no one ever said that it would be over quickly. You can't go into a highly armed country, dethrone the leader of the last few decades, put together a rag tag government, and peace out expecting things to be OK. This is going to be a long lasting effort - probably at the very least a few more years. The thing is, this should have been expected. And this is where I believe this post was coming from - a lot of people were backing this war before it happened, but just a year into it a lot of the same people are becoming shaky.

They are becoming shaky alright because they knew they screwed up and things are spirralling way out of control.

Originally posted by dr_strangecraft
The drums were beating when the troops went into Iraq. Every one, even the opponents were so enraptured with American military might.

But America's military might doesn't mean a thing, since the people lack the political will to enforce it. People are shouting for the troops to come home---why? because they've been routed? No: because they have succeeded at a cost of a 1000 of their own, with low civilian casualties.

The troops will return home because Americans now demand it. And the Islamic world will consider it a surrender.

You will see then see terror on an unprecedented scale.

You train people in how to treat you. We are training militants that we have no resolve, that they can win by being more commited that we are.

We are teaching them that we are sickened by our own misdeeds, but not by theirs.

It is a lesson that they are learning very quickly.

You make some very good points here. There was only one sentence that I edited out because I disagreed, and that was more to satisfy the mods and avoid another "Excessive quoting" penalty.

It is ironic that we live in a nation where we have the power to do the job, but allow ourselves to be overruled by those who do not have the willpower to do the job themselves. The same people who would be the very first to point fingers at the administration if we were attacked again, or if gasoline prices go above $5/gallon. "Protect us! Make our lives comfortable! That's what I pay my taxes for! Do something, but make sure to play nicey-nicey".

I've said it before - come June 30th, we should turn the security detail over to the UN. Let Kofi and the French continue to rape the financial future of the Iraqi people. See what a pretty picture that will paint over there.

While the UN is busy rebuilding Iraq, let them buikd a new house over there and get the hell out of NYC.

Give them what they deserve. The are not ready for democracy - they still live in the 16th century. They do not appreciate the sacrifice the US has made on their behalf. The whole lot of them are not worth one more American life or dollar.

Originally posted by drunk
They are becoming shaky alright because they knew they screwed up and things are spirralling way out of control.

Out of control? Hardly. The US has lost around a thousand guys occupying a country of over 20 million for over a year. While I don't want to see 100 of my fellow americans dead, I realize that this is going to happen if you take military action. They are becoming shaky, because like this thread points out, the American public has lost much of the resolve it had before vietnam. Nowadays, if you lose more then 20 soldiers 4 or 5 tanks, an aircraft or two and everything doesnt go perfectly - all while being as nice as you can to those trying to harm you - it is a failure. Thats the problem, not our action.

Yes, things have gotten worse, and I believe that things will get worse still before they get better. But if we were to leave, then a # storm the likes of which we can not imagine would take place. And that would cause everyone to just hate the US more, and blame even more on us.

You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

I notice how Bush Jr told the world that this is a fight for democracy not a fight against Islam (in fact he's changed the goal posts so many times, he doesn't even no what he's fighting for), yet so many of you seem to believe that terrorism won't stop until Islam is stamped out (not just in this thread).

People seem to think that Iraqi's are machette weilding savages, because they televised the horrific execution of Nick Berg.

Like the US don't have capital punishment.
I suppose as long as we don't have to see it and it doesn't affect us directly, we can remain ignorant to these weekly executions.

You are continually fed propaganda by the media and government, and you full well know it, then give out a mass of knee jerk reactions, generalising to absurdity.

Saddam is an immediate threat
He has Weapons of Mass Destruction
You're either with us or against us
Donald Rumsfeld is a great defence secretary
The war in Iraqi is over

All lies, which have been used to manipulate the minds of the masses into backing a futile task.

It is more than just the video of Berg's beheading, its a lot more, it has more to do with the origins, history and present trend of Islamic extremisms. I was just reading the "insider report" and couldn't agree any more by the statements of Larry Abraham. Althou I do not agree 100% with everything he says his main points are worth to consider, althou he should check his spelling more frequently too, it is a good read.

"THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS AND
THE GREAT CALIPHATE
By
Larry Abraham

As we watch and listen to all the Democrat Party candidates running for the nomination of their party, it is tantamount to enduring the Chinese water torture. The blah, blah, blah goes on and nothing of value comes out except the pain of listening to the same nothingness over and over again. I won�t take the time or space to repeat what you have heard so many, mind numbing times over the past months but what you have not heard is crucial.

I must also fault President Bush and the administration spokesmen for not telling the American people what they really need to know about this �war�. If they don�t do that sometime between now and November it may cost them the election.

It Did Not Start on 9/11

The war we are now facing did not begin on September 11, 2001, nor will it end with the peaceful transition to civilian authorities in Iraq, whenever that may be. In fact, Iraq is but a footnote in the bigger context of this encounter, but an important one none the less.

This war is what the Jihadists themselves are calling the � Third Great Jihad� and are doing so within the framework of a time line which reaches back to the very creation of Islam in the Seventh century and their attempts to recreate the dynamics which gave rise to the religion in the first two hundred years of its existence.

No religion in history grew as fast, in its infancy, than did Islam and the reasons for this growth are not hard to explain when you understand what the world was like at the time of Muhammad�s death in 632 AD. The Western Roman Empire was in ruins and the Eastern Empire was based in Constantinople and trying desperately to keep the power of its early grandeur while transitioning to Christianity as a de facto state religion. The costs to the average person were unbearable as he was being required to meet the constantly rising taxes levied from the state along with the tithes coerced by the Church. What Islam offered was the �carrot or the sword�.

If you became a convert, your taxes were immediately eliminated, as was your tithe. If you didn�t, you faced death. The choice was not hard for most to make, unless you were a very devoted martyr in the making. At the beginning, even the theology was not too hard for most to swallow, considering that both Jewry and Christianity were given their due by the Prophet. There is but one God-Allah, and Muhammad is His Prophet, as was Jesus, and the pre-Christian Jewish prophets of the Torah (old testament). Both were called �children of the book�, the book being the Koran, which replaced both the Old and New testaments for Christians and Jews.

With this practical approach to spreading the �word� Islam grew like wild fire, reaching out from the Saudi Arabian Peninsula in all directions. This early growth is what the Muslims call the �first� great Jihad and it met with little resistance until Charles Martel of France, the father of Charlemagne, stopped them in the battle of Tours in France, after they had firmly established the religion on the Iberian peninsula. This first onslaught against the West continued in various forms and at various times until Islam was finally driven out of Spain in 1492 at the battle of Granada.

The �second great jihad� came with the Ottoman Turks. This empire succeeded in bringing about the downfall of Constantinople as a Christian stronghold and an end to Roman hegemony in all of its forms. The Ottoman Empire was Islam�s most successful expansion of territory even though the religion itself had fractured into warring sects and bitter rivalries with each claiming the ultimate truths in �the ways of the Prophet�. By 1683 the Ottomans had suffered a series of defeats on both land and sea and the final and failed attempt to capture Vienna set the stage for the collapse of any further territorial ambitions and Islam shrunk into various sheikhdoms, emir dominated principalities, and roving tribes of nomads. However, by this time a growing anti-western sentiment, blaming its internal failures on anyone but themselves, was taking hold and setting the stage for a new revival know has Wahhabism which came into full bloom under the House of Saud on the Arabian peninsula shortly before the onset of WWI. It is this Wahhabi version of Islam which has infected the religion itself, now finding adherents in almost all branches and sects, especially the Shiites. What this sect calls for is the complete and total rejection of anything and everything which is not based in the original teachings of The Prophet and it finds its most glaring practice in the policies of the Afgani Taliban or the Shiite practices of the late Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. Its Ali Pasha (Field Marshall) is now known as Osama bin Laden, the leader of the �third Jihad�.
.
............edited this part which can be found at link shown below....................................................................

The Leftwing initiative, Political Correctness and Our Will to Win

Within our own country we are witnessing and almost insane application of �political correctness.� As the barbarism of radical Islam grows more apparent in the streets of the Middle East from Gaza to Basra, we see a cultural suicide taking place within our own schools and communities.

Our children are being taught from the Koran, our professors are preaching intifadah in their class rooms, and Muslim �call to prayer� loud speakers are blaring out from city halls. The more precarious our very existence becomes, the more our liberal brethren embrace their enemies. It is a Stockholm Syndrome which can only lead to the recruitment of young Muslims who will be willing to duplicate in the West what their co-religionists are doing in the streets of Israel and the market places of Baghdad. The liberal P.C. crowd say nothing about the silence of the Muslim religious leadership as it relates to the carnage of innocents but couldn�t speak out fast enough against the inspiration supplied to tens of millions of Christians by Mel Gibson�s The Passion of the Christ. They were put off by the movie�s �violence� and its alleged �fostering of anti-Semitism�. Movies must represent their �reality� as the real thing moves them not at all. Among liberal Jews in America, hatred of George W. Bush is only surpassed by their contempt for Ariel Sharon�Let them explain it, I am at a total loss to do so. Maybe they just miss seeing Bill Clinton smooching Yassir Arafat in the White House Rose Garden.

The �Reverend� Jesse Jackson is now calling the U.S. �guilty of crimes against humanity� as he sets out to mobilize the non-Islamic Left. None of the Democrat leadership says a word in opposition to Jackson�s treason or Hillary�s attacks on the President and U.S. policy in an Arabic newspaper, while in London. You can bet that al Jezeera didn�t miss a beat in their reporting of both events."

Excerpts taken from.
www.insiderreport.net...

Originally posted by drunk
jrod "Kicking Saddam out was a great thing we did"
Oh really, Iraq isnt a peacful country its worse than when Saddam was in power.

Of course it�s worse now I wouldn�t dare to make a noise when saddam ruled the country�

The reason i feel that iraq has fallen into choas is the fact that US/British troops are hardly getting any help from other nations.
The UN should be doing a lot more and i feel that more troops should be sent, but from other nations. America/Britian have put so much on the line for Iraq and we've got # all back.



[Edited on 14-5-2004 by infinite]

No, we are not clammering for the return of the troops before the end of the mission. I would like to see them returned so that the administration could end it my way.

Those dogs over there understand and appreciate one thing, and that is power. Fine, show them the might of the little atom. Then see if Syria and Iran and Saudi Arabia can break there necks cooperating with us!

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
\Those dogs over there understand and appreciate one thing, and that is power. Fine, show them the might of the little atom.

...and I'd all but garauntee the very next mushroom clouds seen will be in downtown NYC...

All it takes is a few nutters with connections and money...and they certainly have that. Small scale nukes, detonated right outside the local Starbucks.

Go nuclear on them and don't expect gasps of surprise when some major US cities all of a sudden require SPF 2,000,000,000 Sunblock.

Originally posted by alien


...and I'd all but garauntee the very next mushroom clouds seen will be in downtown NYC...

All it takes is a few nutters with connections and money...and they certainly have that. Small scale nukes, detonated right outside the local Starbucks.

Go nuclear on them and don't expect gasps of surprise when some major US cities all of a sudden require SPF 2,000,000,000 Sunblock.

Well, the thing is that they are hinting on doing this nomatter what, and working on it right now, the mention in jihadi sites of a blackwind that will be all over the US, and the devastation they want to cause on U.S cities, plus the last statements on using dirty bombs and being 90% closer to their goal to achieve worse attacks on U.S soil.

What do you think they meant by all of that?
Simply, Islamic extremists are already planning on using some sort of dirty bomb/s, and if they could even nuclear devices on U.S soil.

Originally posted by Muaddib

Kayem, then what are we to do, open our arms and let the Islamic extremists kill us and destroy western civilization as they want until islam rules the world?

Not an option imo.

I told you, I don't know. But whatever we are to do has to be better then THIS all out barbarism.

This is what will happen, in my opinion: if US and "coalition" troops were to pull out on June 30 and leave the iraqi government in power, it would quickly be taken over and overrun by one of the neighboring countries. Because as of now, the iraqi government doesn't have a clue what it's doing, and has no power to enforce its cluelessness. The population of iraq has spent many decades under the iron hand of a dictator. The softer rule of a democratic government will be taken as a sign of weakness by the population, and so will foster little respect.

However, if US troops were to stay in iraq past June 30 to continue to run the country until a true government could be set up, the extremist leaders would start screaming that the US never intended to leave and now is taking over thier country. Attacks on US and other foreign personel would increase, and the general population might become more involved with revolt. These increased attacks would drive the US out of Iraq, and the country would fall into anarchy and quickly be subjugated by one of its neighbors. Either way, iraq gets taken over and the US pulls out leaving the job half finished.

I beleive drunk made the statement that if we pulled out the situation would quickly resolve itself. This may be, but not in the way I think he meant. True, the competing factions in iraq would make a grab for power, but sqabbling between them would, again, give one of iraq's neighbors time to mobilize and invade.

And IF the US made the descision to stay in iraq and keep the power after June 30, and somehow managed to put down the attacks, there would be several years of foreign involvment while a truely democratic government was set up and the public was educated to the point that they could participate meaningfully in such a government. Most likely several painful and violence-filled years.

So if you were an Iraqi, which would you rather have? The US pulling out immediately and being taken over by, say, Iran? Or for the US and other foreign "infidels" to occupy your country for several years, possibly a decade, while a form of government that you didn't really understand was put in place? Myself, I would go for being taken over.

Personally, I think the US should never have gone into Iraq in the first place. The invasion was poorly and hastily thought out with no long-term goals in mind. Such an action was one of crass imperialism and with only one hidden goal in mind: oil. Saddam Hussein was becoming a threat to the Mid East and its supply of oil to the US. So we took him out. But its really hard to excite a population about invading someone who might threaten our oil supply. But WMDs are a topic that can automatically condem any dictator who is "guilty" of having them in the US's population's mind. So our administration "creatively" accused him of developing such weapons.

Such is the case with Israel as well. The world felt sorry for the Jews after world war II so we gave them a corner in the most volatile area on the planet, surrounded by people who hate them and said, "Go have fun!" And now they are dependent (physcologically) on the US and other "westernized" nations for support. Creating a country there was a bad idea. The mid east didn't even have anything to do with the holocaust anyway. They chould have gotten a piece of Germany.

Originally posted by alien

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
\Those dogs over there understand and appreciate one thing, and that is power. Fine, show them the might of the little atom.

...and I'd all but garauntee the very next mushroom clouds seen will be in downtown NYC...

All it takes is a few nutters with connections and money...and they certainly have that. Small scale nukes, detonated right outside the local Starbucks.

Go nuclear on them and don't expect gasps of surprise when some major US cities all of a sudden require SPF 2,000,000,000 Sunblock.

Really? And you think they'll hold back until then? With that logic, we wouldn't have lost the WTC complex and thousands of people, not to mention 4 planes, or the Cole, or the embassies, etc. As a matter of fact, figuring things that way, we'd all be content little lambs and there'd be no War on Terror insuring that there'll be no Social Security and a few other things. Oh, I forgot about the reporter in Afghanistan who was beheaded. Remember him? I don't recall us lobbing the first noggin' off.

NMS, Hussein was a Cold War relic and a lunatic with terrorist ties and chem/bio weapons. The weapons are owned by someone else now, and Hussein is no longer a threat, but we'd better not leave Iraq in a weakened state. That'll bite us square in the arse. Stability while weeding out the enemy is a good thing.

By the way, we gave the Jews no more than we gave the Arabs, as the Jews had as much right in the region as the Arabs did.

Americans DO have guts. And I can prove it with my 12-gauge shotgun....

A lot of you seem to think there is some HUGE terrorist threat coming out of the Middle East when we found out that Iraq was no such threat. You make it as if every single person in Iraq is a terrorist. I'm here to tell you that is nowhere near the truth. Thousands of these people got SLAUGHTERED for no reason.

Does the U.S. have the guts to continue killing people for no reason? I surely hope they don't. Its #ing sickening.

Originally posted by heelstone
A lot of you seem to think there is some HUGE terrorist threat coming out of the Middle East when we found out that Iraq was no such threat. You make it as if every single person in Iraq is a terrorist. I'm here to tell you that is nowhere near the truth. Thousands of these people got SLAUGHTERED for no reason.

Does the U.S. have the guts to continue killing people for no reason? I surely hope they don't. Its #ing sickening.

Americans remind me of the proverbial elephant who is deathly afraid of the mouse

Originally posted by nemesis9
Americans remind me of the proverbial elephant who is deathly afraid of the mouse

Your reply to my post makes zero sense in the context of what I typed. You're just spouting off a line because you cannot in any logical way defend the continued actions of the United States military in Iraq.