<p>Sad but true…and women’s rights will be eroded, the government is looking more and more fundamental, and we are no further ahead than we were three years ago…</p>
<p>and changing the name to the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremists is actually quite funny…its the never ending war…</p>
<p>How do you win? Especially if you don’t want to…too much money is being made…</p>
<p>People need to reread 1984 by Orwell. The government wanted to be at war at all times, it gave an excuse for all kinds of abuses, restrictions, and the enemy didn’t really matter, as long as we had one.</p>
<p>From the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) to the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremists (GSAVE) …Bush doesn’t like it and I think we’re going back to GWOT. Any other suggestions?
How about the Global Drive to Attack Muslim Nations…GDAMN. </p>
<p>And when did we start giving wars clever brand names? Did Lincoln’s pr team agonize over the name for the Civil WAr? I know in Virginia they still call it the War Against Northern Agression.</p>
<p>Point being that there wasn’t a single Iraqi among 'em? (Actually, that’s not fair - there were Iraqis and Iraqi-Americans who DIED in the World Trade Center, and Twin Towers attacks.)</p>
<p>The middle east can’t be viewed as individual countries unfortunately. The radical Muslim faction does not honor borders and the various political entities are providing them shelter.</p>
<p>How quickly people forget that the World Trade Center, the pentagon…have nothing to do with why we attacked Irag beyond Bush seeing his chance.</p>
<p>Rumsfeld now states that we should be prepared for increased War losses over the next few months…What happenned to cheering crowds welcoming the American liberators? </p>
<p>No WMDs, over 1800 dead, thousands more wounded. “Bring it on,” should have been, “Bring them home!”</p>
<p>The WTC and Pentagon have EVERYTHING to do with why we attacked Iraq. 9/11 taught us (at least those of us who are not politically blinded) that we are in a new world of asymmetric warfare, one completely different than any that we have ever experienced and one that, if left unchallenged, could result in attacks that make 9/11 shrink to insignificance in terms of casualties.</p>
<p>And the war in Iraq is teaching us that a massive attack on a sovereign nation that poses no threat to us is not a useful way to defend against “asymmetric warfare”. The destroying of infrastructure and killing of civilians (even if only as “collateral damage”) has done nothing to reduce terroristic attacks in our world.</p>
<p>I’m curious. What was Iraq going to attack us with? Which weapons were they going to use that we needed to go over there and takeover the country? Where did they get these weapons?</p>
<p>“And the war in Iraq is teaching us that a massive attack on a sovereign nation that poses no threat to us is not a useful way to defend against “asymmetric warfare”. The destroying of infrastructure and killing of civilians (even if only as “collateral damage”) has done nothing to reduce terroristic attacks in our world.”</p>
<p>It was NOT collateral damage - attacks on military installations and on Saddam Hussein’s headquarters themselves were studiously avoided - probably in the hope that the military would respond to the death of civilians by overthrowing Hussein himself.</p>
<p>Nobody said that it would provide quick relief to war against radical Islam. We have been told since day one that this is going to be a long slog and that even after we eventually pull out of Iraq and even if it is a stable democracy at that point, the war will not be over. That is the unfortunate reality.</p>
<p>What we will have accomplished if we are allowed to succesfully complete this mission is: </p>
<p>1) eliminate a state producer of chemical and especially biological and nuclear weapons. The later two have been generally acknowledged to be weapons that can only be provided by a state sponsor of terrorism. We have learned post-war that the creation of these weapons was indeed in Saddam’s plans once the sanctions were lifted.</p>
<p>2) We will have set the seeds for democracy in the Arab world. This is the long term strategic perspective of dealing with a root cause of terrorism or at least will create a more conducive environment from which to wage the war against radical Islam. It is easy to pooh-pooh this view, but those who do should at least have the courage to suggest alternatives.</p>
<p>It seems to me we were minding our own business when the first three attacks occurred and it seems to me that there have been no attacks on American soil since we took the offensive. I can’t believe that anyone seriously thinks that we can simply ignor the threat and it will disappear. No, I don’t think we should attack the entire region, but I do think you under estimate the value of the lesson in terms of a deterent. Whether any Arab nation becomes a democracy is irrelavent as long as they stay home and don’t bring the hatred they preach to other countries. We ignorred Soviet Russia while they took over eastern Europe. Sadam attempted the same thing, starting with Kuwait.</p>
<p>We were attacked by whom? I get that so mixed up!!</p>
<p>And who was the threat from? I get that mixed up too!!</p>
<p>Did we not give Sadam weapons…i think we did…</p>
<p>And what would you have done with the Soviet Union…who DID have the Bomb…we maintained a very delicate diplomatic balance, the Cold War, for years. If we had just invaded the USSR, I think we would have all been obliterated.</p>
<p>As for state producers of weapons, we need to clean up our own back yard. Depleted Uranium bullets come to mind. </p>
<p>And again, didn’t we give Sadam some of that stuff?</p>
<p>We didn’t give him nucs, the French did. The Israelis handled that one for us. Hilter never set foot in North America and didn’t have any weapons that could attack here, should we have stayed home? You can’t ignor the rest of the world. We couldn’t in the 40’s and we certainly can’t today. And yes, we did stand up the the Soviets. Have you forgotten those 11 days in October, 1962. When you ignor a threat, it ends up on your doorstep. We should have stopped them much sooner IMHO.</p>
<p>Fundingfather, our first mission was to eliminate a state producer of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons? They didn’t have the weapons so why did we have to go to war? Because they were making plans to make them after sanctions were lifted? We now go to war because a country has plans that may never be developed and that we don’t know about before the war starts?</p>
<p>What are we going to do if a democracy in Iraq leads to a radical Islamic state? A partnership with Iran?</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone has suggested ignoring the threat posed by terrorism. Some of us just question the helpfulness of the current approach. </p>
<p>By the way, I put “collateral damage” in quotes because I don’t know how to do a sarcasm smiley. I’m with you Mini --the killing of civilians has ben no accident.</p>