Comments on: Iraq War Progress Report: A Matter of Time

By: Alan

Alan — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 12:57:35 +0000

> We accomplished our short-term objective, regime
> change, in three weeks and at a cost of fewer
> than 200 American dead.

We accomplished regime REMOVAL in three weeks. The old regime has yet to be replaced by a functioning new gov't.

By: LJD

LJD — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 12:55:27 +0000

Yeah, we should have stayed out of their business, because if we really wanted them tortured and/or dead, Saddam was already doing a pretty good job.

...and we all know no one is better at killing arabs and muslims than other arabs and muslims. So why stop at 30,000 dead because "the infidels invaded a country". We could just pull out and see of they can go for 100,000 or more.

American idol, indeed...

By: G A Phillips

G A Phillips — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 05:35:29 +0000

Charles, you are trying to hard to reach these Pokemon players, They have traded all there good cards away, but yet they continue to show up for their beatings, And what in the great blue donkey flamer hell do any of you Libs know About morality, and where did you get the stats that 99.8% of us whatever, From? Put the donkey poll down M.J., I think that there is a law against that, and oh let me think, we go over there and free up a crap load of Muslims and now we have chaotic security situation, hm mm, Dude, every god blessed place in this whole Monkey loving world that Muslims live in, we have chaotic security situation! wake up and smell the flowers while you still have heads to sleep on, and smell with.

By: ken

ken — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 03:57:26 +0000

Never mind the innocents in Iraq who are killed, hey Americans are the only ones that count.

If this it the moral position of our country

This is exactly the position, immoral as it may be, of conservatives.

It is not however the position of most Americans, who are basically good people.

That is a distinction worth keeping in mind.

By: anjin-san

anjin-san — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 03:37:53 +0000

I guess the moral position of the "tip of the spear" folks is that it is ok for us to turn an entire nation with millions of citizens, 99.8% of them who just want to live their lives, into a giant killing field, because it might, just might, make it safer for folks like Charles to sit on the couch and watch American Idol.

Never mind the innocents in Iraq who are killed, hey Americans are the only ones that count.

If this it the moral position of our country...

By: Yhoi

Yhoi — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 03:24:03 +0000

We accomplished our short-term objective, regime change, in three weeks and at a cost of fewer than 200 American dead.

We accomplished our second objective, which was to lay the ground for and hold democratic elections.

We've also accomplished creating a chaotic security situation which has resulted in at least 30,000 innocent civilians being killed.

By: charles austin

charles austin — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 02:58:55 +0000

So Cheney and Wolfowitz were "wrong" too. Such an overpoweringly clever retort, but, hey, wait a minute, I don't remember arguing that it mattered if Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz had been right (or wrong) all along. I'd go further into leadership being about accomplishing goals and so on, but what's the point? It has been said that in Vietnam we declared victory and went home. That so many people still want to declare defeat and go home in Iraq is strange and absurd.

By: ron

ron — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 02:06:40 +0000

reading his articles on a iraq buckley should not be called a war proponent.

By: Anderson

Anderson — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 01:36:57 +0000

I remain incredulous that anyone expected the liberation of Iraq to go smoothly

Like Richard Cheney? or Paul Wolfowitz? or ...?

By: charles austin

charles austin — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 01:16:45 +0000

I remain incredulous that anyone expected the liberation of Iraq to go smoothly or that anyone is ready to throw up their hands in disgust and abandon the Iraqis because we haven't reached Nirvana yet. The biggest difference I can see in the liberation of Iraq from almost all previous wars is that it is the protestors that are now fighting the last war instead of the military, which has moved on rather dramatically to a new set of meta-tactics to address a new kind of war and a new kind of enemy.

In most repects, Iraq is still at the tip of the spear of the GWOT. And if the GWOT isn't going to be over for the forseeable future, why should we expect the difficulties in Iraq to be over so soon? By any non-utopian measure, what has been done, and what is being done, in Iraq is nothing short of incredible and those who have done it,and are doing it, deserve our respect and admiration. Of course it remains quite difficult and there are tragedies on an almost daily basis. But if there is one aphorism that fits this best, it is still that the perfect remains the enemy of the good. Any criticism predicated on perfection is profoundly ahistorical and unserious.

By: Anderson

Anderson — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 00:51:16 +0000

Jack, you do so much to make people loathe Republicans. Is Howard Dean paying you?

Contra Ken, while I concede that invading a country in order to democratize it is a high-risk endeavor ... and one that wasn't necessary for U.S. security in the case of Iraq ... it *could* have been done with competence, and might've had a shot at working.

Remember the *days* of looting after we took Baghdad, & Rumsfeld's shrugging it off? That was when I realized that we had entrusted our policy to fools--not just alarmists, but pure fools.

It went downhill from there, of course. Now, 3 years in, we are FINALLY doing things, like "not running over Iraqis who get in our way in traffic," that should've been done from day one.

Too little too late I fear. I would really like things to turn out well in Iraq, but it seems that if it happens, it will be despite our postwar endeavors as much as because of them.

By: Jack Ehrlich

Jack Ehrlich — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 23:21:23 +0000

Ken, you are not only not right, you have never been right. Why is it idiots like you insist we have done the wrong thing, when real evidence, not that presented by the anti-Bush MSM, suggests that the world is a better place, post Saddam. Is it because you are so anti republican that you are also anti american? At what point, do you cowards fight? Must you let a monster become full grown before you are willing to do anything about it? If Bush said Democrats should not jump off cliffs, would you be the first in line to jump because you so oppose Bush that much? I hope so.

By: ken

ken — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 23:06:27 +0000

The ultimate goal, though, was much more than that: a thriving secular Iraq that would be a catalyst for an Arab Middle East hostile to terrorists.

In your dreams perhaps.

James, a question: what ever made you think that you could invade and destroy a country and then sit back to be rewarded with a 'a thriving secular Iraq that would be a catalyst for an Arab Middle East hostile to terrorist?

I don't think for a moment you thought that up yourself. I think you let Bushco do your thinking for you and they planting this ridiculous proposition in your mind and being a loyaly conservative your accepted it on faith.

Am I right?