When Nancy Pelosi was interviewed by Fox News today she made this comment about the war in Iraq:
The point is this isn’t a war to win. It’s a situation to be solved.
Children arguing about whose piece of cake is bigger is a situation to be solved. We’re talking about terrorists who want to kill us, including Hamas which just announced today that American interests should be attacked. Nancy Pelosi’s comments confirm for me, and I’m sure for many other Americans, that she and the rest of the Democratic leadership don’t have the slightest understanding of the terrorist threat we face. It’s reflective of the “law enforcement” mentality that so many Democrats, including Bill Clinton, have regarding terrorism. What they fail to accept is that the terrorists declared war on us years ago, and they aren’t going away until they win the war.
The rest of the world wants us to get out of Iraq and to stop conducting the war on terrorism, which is why they are cheering the Democrats’ win. They really want to get back to the life they had before 9/11 and they think that our being in Iraq and Afghanistan causes too much upheaval in the world. But the chaos that has gripped the world is not because of us; it’s because of the terrorists themselves.
I’m sure a lot of Americans want us to get back to the business of living without the fear of terrorism, as well. Not having been attacked in over five years causes us to want to turn our attention from the terrorists who live and breathe our destruction to other less scary things like social security and health care. Who doesn’t want that feeling of everything is right in the world again? I know I want that, too. However, pretending the threat does not exist any longer does not make it so. And this is how Nancy Pelosi’s comment that Iraq isn’t a war to win but a situation to be solved is a dangerous one. It helps Americans become more comfortable with forgetting about terrorism. It’s a way of getting people to think, “maybe President Bush is wrong; maybe there really isn’t a threat anymore.”
I’m very sorry to say this, but we simply cannot forget about terrorists or terrorism.
Chris … you do realize, don’t you, that the NYT article was written with a different purpose in mind than to prove that Saddam had a nuclear program?
Unintended consequences, and all that, you know. Even more amusing than their revelation is their frantic back-peddling with all those supposed “requests for clarification” … they stepped right in it, and are desperately trying to get themselves backed out of it.
Nice try though. C for effort
Don’t cry LissaKay – you drank the conservo-blooger Kool-aid. They made you do it – I know…
There’s also this, it the very same article you quoted but failed to read thoroughly:
Oh LissaKay – you must be so embarrassed. But tell me one thing LissaKay before you spout your vile spew in anger of being made the fool — you aren’t of legal voting age, are you? Tell me, please, that you didn’t vote yesterday?
If you were 12 or 13 years old I can understand how you just wanted to believe, so you believed (it would also explain your childish behavior here) – but if you’re of adult age you must just be a moron and I personally think there should be a limit against letting morons vote.
chris wrote:
I also think it says a lot about the crowd here that you can all get so incensed over how the Democrats don’t care about the war on terror, etc. etc., but blithely ignore Scrapiron’s comments here. I’ve read enough of his comments to know he’s batshit crazy, but are you really going to sit silently while he says the US deserves a dozen terrorist attacks, and if he learned about an attack he would not tell anyone? And all because his side lost a midterm election. I have no problem telling him that he’s a flaming asshole.
well, i saw that too chris, but i usually try to ignore insane bullshit like that. people who speak like that, well, i don’t think they really need to be countered since they kind of prove their case just by saying asinine shit like that.
but then, maybe it’s good to say something every once in a while so they don’t start thinking it’s ok.
nothing like wishing death upon your fellow americans just because the midterm elections didnt go your way. cool it people, we’re all americans. christ.
do not become the enemy that you so loudly profess to be against. good advice.
There you go again “pucker puss” (lee lee). How many time do I have to tell you to just type DITTO?
robert–what differance does it make what you type as its just a bunch of gobblely goop anyway.
Okay… Lee… Lets test reading comprehension one more time.
Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq had abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war.
Ok got it?
Lemme quote it again.
“written in the 1990s and in (What year did they say? Oh yeah) 2002(which incidentally, happens to be AFTER the Gulf War)…”
So lemme fisk it for you one more time.
Among the dozens of documents in English
The language you seem to have difficulty comprehending.
were Iraqi reports written in the 1990s and in 2002
You know, they collected a bunch of evidence throughout the years, starting in the early 1990s, and up through 2002
for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq had abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war.
You know, Chemical, Biological and NucUlear weapons. Bad Saddam, you can’t have those. And the grand finale of it all?
Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.
This means. They had the knowledge. They had the capabilities to build one. The ONLY thing preventing them from doing so was the economic sanctions that were placed upon them.
Reading comprehension lesson concluded, you may now return to your regularly scheduled broadcasting
Actually, Lee … I recognized the danger and threat of Islamofascism when they made their first attack upon us. Were you even alive then? Do you even know of the event of which I speak?
You have NO reading comprehension, you project all your own short-comings onto others. Please, quote me line and verse where I spewed any vile anger? It all seems to be coming from you, Lee … unless you are speaking of your buddies the terrorists … and then its all excuses and apologies for the vilest creatures to ever walk this earth.
You, Lee, are the one that comes in here behaving like a child. You have been called on it numerous times, by numerous people. You must have some serious disorder that leads you to do this, when it has been pointed out to you what an utter fool you make of yourself. Do you really enjoy being told what a moron you are?
You can’t make any points, only ad hominem attacks. You spout the Dumbocrat talking points over and over. When you don’t have one to fit the topic, you spout one anyway and try to change the topic to suit your current meme.
Your posts are absolutely nothing but idiocy. Try actually learning about something out there, Lee … something from the realm of the real world. Until then, the rest of us will continue to point and laugh.
LissaKay: Don’t waste your time with little LeeLee. He is generally off his meds this late in the evening. He has this bad habit of not reading or responding to anything you might say, link, quote, or anything else.
It doen’t matter what the post was saying or what you were saying. He is going to try and play like the TROLL he is and steal the comment lines.
He is a firm believer in “if you say it enough times louder than the other guy then you win.” Or some such childish logic.
In reality, he is a high school nerd who spends way too much time at a keyboard.
Bottom line – He is A PIECE OF SHIT!
Lee crashes and burns. What a beautiful site.
heralder:
An honest and completely un-loaded question: What would have been the better solution for Iraq than invading?
Going in prepared, if we went in at all. Maybe listening to people like Colin Powell who wanted to work more on the diplomatic front. Maybe listening to other people who had experience in war, people who knew what they were talking about, instead of freaking out and jumping in half-assed like we did. Maybe we should have listened to some of the military men who knew what they were talking about, who knew that taking out Hussein was one thing, and running Iraq was another.
All of this shit was predicted; people in the Pentagon and State Department knew that it was problematic, but Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush didnt listen. They went ahead, and here we are.
Lee is pissed because he heard 5 different reporters today call the new democrat freshman class “conservative democrats.”
It’s still a conservative nation. Deal with it.
Jo … I had some measure of amusement asking various Dems if they were happy about the election outcomes …
“Oh, so your guy won, huh? What are his views in Iraq again? FOR it, eh? Same thing on the WoT? And gay marriage? AGAINST it? Hmmm … What about abortion? Pro-life, I see. How did he vote on the assault weapon ban? Ahh … gotcha. So, he’s a Dem in name only?”
Truly a mandate …
darby wrote:
Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.
The problem here, as has been pointed out already, is that the NYT article is just a LITTLE vague. They were on the verge exactly when? The 1990s? 2002? It isn’t really clear, and it would be nice to have some other evidence at this point, to clarify.
To the best of my knowledge, the article is talking about the weapons program around Gulf War I.
It’s just like the evidence that the guys in charge of finding WMDs on the ground in Iraq had in the beginning of the invasion—it was scant and vague at best. Nothing really definite.
Ryan … please go back and read “Seeing the Unseen” in its totality. Carefully, slowly. It’s a long article, which given the time stamps between my first posting the link for you and your response saying you read it is way too short to have fully read it. Bill writes the truth of the matter … you may call it simplistic because it is written in plain English, rather than convoluted rhetoric, but Bill has this stuff nailed down. Read the rest of his stuff too.
LissaKay:
Your posts are absolutely nothing but idiocy. Try actually learning about something out there, Lee … something from the realm of the real world. Until then, the rest of us will continue to point and laugh.
Wow. Well, since you are such a political genius, and someone who is so enlightened, why not be the bigger person, quit the name calling, and share your vast knowledge with the world?
What’s the use in getting into shouting matches? If you feel that you truly have a good understanding of these issues, and good points to make, my not argue them as well as you can in hopes of changing some minds?
One more LissaKay:
Look, why don’t you just argue your own points instead of sending me off to this dude’s web site?
His short post about blood for oil was a little to simple. I didnt come anywhere near saying that we went there to steal oil. I DID write that we went there for “economic and strategic reasons,” which is a little more complex, and admittedly vague.
But you reduced my argument down to something that it wasnt, and then tried to send me to that guy to disprove it. Weak. Why not just argue points on your own…you can always use quotes from your little buddy if you want.
But dont make me go read the site of your political science hero instead of addressing me here directly.
And by the way, I will check out the site and read through it; I have no problem with that. In the meantime, try restating the ideas that you think prove whatever point you’re trying to make, ON YOUR OWN.
LissaKay, you’re so right. Just got through reading about some of the freshman class of dems and their views sound like they’re straight out of the platform of the Christian Coalition. LOL.
Even when we lose, we win. : )
Excuse the fuck out of me, Ryan. I was hoping to turn you on to a guy that writes a lot of stuff that some of your previous posts seem to agree with, the war for oil point excepted. I thought you would enjoy it. Instead you launch a nasty attack on me. Just never mind, OK?
And as for quoting others, well, never mind that either, I am not going into that now … it’s frankly none of your fucking business
ryan,
Thanks for your answer.
Diplomatic front? 12 years of sanctions, the oil for food scandal at the UN (who also issued numerous resoltuions over that period regarding Iraq), 2 billion dollar palaces, and starving children. That was our diplomatic front. It lasted for twelve gueling years in which the Iraqis withered and died while Saddam lived rich.
What exactly can you bring to the negotiating table at this point for Saddam to consider diplomatically? The answer is nothing, so it became an ulimatum, like the first war, come clean or we’ll attack. He didn’t disappoint.
War experience. John Murtha has war experience and he wants to fight a war in Iraq by redeploying thousands of miles away to Okinowa. Military experience varies both in quality and usefulness depending on who you get it from.
Nancy Pelosi has no war experience, yet she echo’s your comment on preparedness. Her version of it, however, is overwhelming force. Send in as many men as you can find. Think civilian casualties are bad now? Inflate the troop amounts by 200% and see what occurs.
Bagdhad filled to the brim with U.S. troops is what terrorists like to refer to as a “target-rich environment.” No matter where you set a bomb off you’ll hit a soldier.
You cannot combat an insurgency with overwhelming numbers. You don’t cut out a brain tumor with a sledgehammer.
As far as freaking out and jumping in half-assed.
Explain to me how assembling 100,000 U.S. troops, accompanied by a coalition of 40 countries, and 60,000 Kurds, marching on Bagdhad and other key cities and in only 21 days taking over the country with minimal casualties….is half-assed.
OK, that’s for the first half of your first paragraph.
Naturally they are two different aspects of the operation. The U.S. has the most efficient, mobile and technologically advanced military in the world. We did what we did best in the first 21 days, aided by our allies (almost none of which are still there.)
Listening to someone who says “taking out Hussein is one thing, and running Iraq is another” is all well and good. You can only prepare so much for an insurgency, the rest is house to house fighting, special operations and intelligence gathering. Meanwhile, there have been elections, three of them. There is now a government, a police force and an army.
Things are not good though, not yet. You don’t make such massive changes in a lazy, bloodless, and quick manner.
We could have done things differently with better results, we could have avoided tactical and strategic mistakes, yes. Welcome to the human race, when we’re perfect we won’t need to plan these things better because there will be no reason to plan them. Don’t hold your breath on that one though.
Problematic? That’s the understatement of the year.
Listen, Ryan, when you discover how to conduct foreign policy and/or wars without problems arising, talk to government, they’d love to hire you.
All of this shit was predicted; people in the Pentagon and State Department knew that it was problematic, but Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush didnt listen. They went ahead, and here we are.
Cuz we all know that wars are usually NEVER problematic.
OMG. You just embarrassed the hell out of yourself dude.
Got anymore incredibly stupid insights??? LOLOLOL….
LissaKay:
WHOA. So you were trying to be nice and refer me to someone who’s writing you like? Ok, well, that was nice of you then. But that wasn’t what it seemed like you were doing, at all.
So if indeed you were meaning to be cool, then I apologize. It seemed to me that you had another agenda, and I must have misread you.
Shit happens.
I still don’t exactly agree with the way that you respond to others on here sometimes. You seem to be pretty smart, so I don’t really like it when someone like you takes on the old “point and laugh” tactic. I know people are often annoying, but we gotta try to keep this whole thing somewhat civil and useful.
By the way, I have read through more of old Bill’s site, and I tend to agree with some of his points. Not all of them, mind you, but I think that he has some good points in there. Not only that, but I think he has a sense of humor too. Imagine that!
To sum up: Apologies for the misunderstanding, be nice to others, and Bill isnt half bad for a conservative.
I really like Bill’s writing as well, Ryan.
He makes some excellent points and presents them in an elegant and persuasive manner.
I would, however, like to find the liberal version of Bill Whittle, because it’d be interesting to see the other side of those same points argued equally as well.
heralder.
haha. your welcome for the response. i took the bait, like an idiot, but what the hell. its the million dollar question with no fucking right answer…
diplomacy. ah hell, i wasnt thinking about diplomacy with hussein. no point in that. we could either buy the guy off or go to war with him, not many other choices there. i guess we got tired of buying him off in about ’89.
i was thinking that diplomacy would mean that we worked harder trying to get others behind us as much as possible, so that we didnt take all the damn blame/heat. etc. but i know what your response is to that.
good point about military experience and murtha. some people are idiots, no matter what they’ve seen.
pelosi’s idea: well, i guess we could go in like that, but as you say it would have been even more bloody and brutal. i guess i tended to agree with some of the people who wrote about smaller scale special ops and cia types of warfare…low profile, hidden, more specific military actions instead of the full-on invasion/ground war. could it have worked better? maybe. it was working well in afghanistan, but thats a pretty different case.
and you can lambaste me all you want, im just talking here. i dont pretend to know everything. when i do, i’ll call you and tell you. hehe.
Welcome to the human race, when we’re perfect we won’t need to plan these things better because there will be no reason to plan them. Don’t hold your breath on that one though.
haha. ya, no shit on that one.
well, indeed that was an understatement. but there were people warning that there were MAJOR problems with the way that we were going in there, and rummy, bush, etc. didnt listen. of course they knew it wasnt going to be a cakewalk, but then they didnt always listen to people who knew what they were talking about in terms of handling post-saddam iraq. bush’s pop knew it would be a clusterfuck, and thats why he didnt do it in ’91. why jump into something like that, when there’s such a high risk of the shit hitting the fan???
LissaKay wrote:
“it’s frankly none of your fucking business”
Sorta like others abortions and gay marriages.
Glass houses indeed.
I’ve seen more mature exchanges over who ate all the Halloween candy.
Ryan,
I hope you don’t feel like that was a bait, it certainly wasn’t. I am glad you answered, and my response wasn’t a prefect rebuttal. I didn’t ask the question because I was aiming to shoot at the next person who answered it. I’m honestly curious for a response, contrary to mine that I can agree with, or come to terms with, or learn something from. After all, why should you and I type endless paragraphs if neither of us is willing to consider what the other says.
On that note, I can definitely say that I agree with you that we should have garnered more support going in. We did have support, but things would have gone better if we had more.
Regardless, of how much we had, it would not deflect the blame from us when things went wrong however. After all, Hamas just declared war on the U.S. and our interests worldwide because of an Israeli misfire.
I also happen to agree more than a little about more troop numbers, despite the statement I made, which was simplistic and one-sided. More troops would help, but too many would hurt (like the many Pelosi was talking about, which I referred to). We need to strike a balance….unfortuately, that parameters of that balance are a mystery.
I’m not going to lambast you for providing a civil argument. You made your points and took the time to address other people and there’s nothing wrong with that. No one here knows everything, but damnit I wish they did, because I’d be asking them questions every minute of every day.
Ryan,
I forgot to answer this:
Many might have asked the same question when we decided to fight the Colonial British to gain our independence. It’s a necessary question to ask, and the action depends on the answer.
In this case, apparently we thought we could do well for everyone involved…you don’t launch a war unless you believe in what you’re doing. Whether or not it truly was worth it remains to be seen. Let’s hope for the best.
Jo:
It was an understatement, yep. I should rot in the eternal pit of rhetorical hell for that one…
heralder:
well, online those kinds of questions can OFTEN be bait, you know? so im glad that you’re willing to listen to what im saying, very cool.
ya, im always looking to see what all sides are saying…for the same reasons as you pretty much. trying to understand the different sides, maybe even learn something.
support: damn, i still wish we could have pulled that off. i knew that if things went bad we’d just get hammered by it all. not sure how we coulda done it, but damn it would have been good to have gone in there with a massive backing. true, the blame may not have been deflected totally, but it sure would have been softened, i think. i mean, thing were definitely different in the first gulf war compared to this one. we had some serious backing then.
About risk: it does matter that we believe in what we’re doing. the colonies had to ask that question, and it wasnt an easy one to answer. there were defintely people who wavered, and who were against fighting the brits. but overall, americans decided it was worth the huge risk to be free of colonial control.
i guess i was never really behind the mission to iraq. i didnt think they were telling us what the real reasons were at all. i would have preferred it if someone had the balls to say “we gotta go in there to secure the region, to set up a stronghold next to iran, so that we have some control over there in the future…because we think we’re going to need it.” plus, i didnt see how we could go over there and do anything without looking like big bad america and taking a huge beating by getting stuck there. we basically walked into the middle of a very old three way blood feud. great.
finally, i never thought that we could just go in there and install some kind of democracy. that kind of thing has to come from within, from the will of a mass of people. its not really something that can be implanted.
hell, what do i know?
There is no use arguing about things that cannot be changed, and the number one thing that cannot be changed is the situation in the past. The current War on Terror and the War in Iraq are what they are. Talking about “we should have done” doesn’t change anything and is completely useless.
The question is: “What now?”
Rep. Pelosi is sending a signal:
1. If we pretend it’s not a war, then we didn’t loose.
2. Winning isn’t the goal.
3. If we quit, that’s a solution.
Now, I think that the “Peace with Honor” SOLUTION is totally wrong, and the idea that we aren’t at war is really dumb. But both of the newly-elected Representatives from New Hampshire campaigned on “changing direction” in Iraq (and pretty much nothing else). Getting out of Iraq is the highest priority in my state. It would appear that the future Speaker of the House is quite serious about this.
k: your three points are a good assessment of what is being said in so many words. Words have meaning and sometimes people don’t realize that their words expose something deeper than they might think they’re conveying.
LissaKay: I was unaware that Bill had written a new essay! Thanks for that link. I always await, with great anticipation, his next essay and I’m never dissappointed.
Now let me get back to finishing it.
This quote from ‘Stretch’ Pelosi is a picture perfect illustration of the Democrats’ fundamental unseriousness in regards to the Islamoterrorism threat. America is going to rue the day that these clowns were ever put in charge.
Ryan:
The philosophical response:
The cost of one alternative has no meaning without the context of the cost of the other alternatives. Since history never reveals its alternatives, we’ll never know for certain the cost of the other alternatives.
The current topic response:
After 9/11 the Administration decided that the status quo in the Middle East was proving to be more of a direct danger to the U.S. than had previously been thought. I believe the goal was to setup bases on either side of Iran. If the countries surrounding Iran could be brought into the modern era and rebuilt as successful democracies, the Iranian mullah’s government will likely collapse through internal pressure. The neighboring regimes would feel similar pressure.
So the next logical question is why do we care if Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. are successful, free societies ? There’s a truism that the most dangerous man is one who was nothing to lose. The other side is that having something that you value to lose acts as a moderating force. If the people of the region have a free society and stable, growing economy the attraction of the Islamic fanatics is greatly diminished.
I heard that comment by Pelosi yesterday, and the first thought I had was, “she really doesn’t get it at all . . .”