Whats wrong with this picture....

cheddar

brettw22 wrote:

An accurate comparison would be a police force trying to mandate peace/acceptance/way of life to somewhere like.......Gang Central, USA. I don't care how much daylight is left.......I'm sure the hell not going to be riding into Compton anytime in the forseeable future.

The murder capital of the US used to be this local town called East Palo Alto (right next to Stanford University). Drugs, gang activity, you name it used to go on there. Nobody I knew wanted to go anywhere near it. Then the city teamed up with the wealthier law enforcement of the neighboring cities (median house prices in Palo Alto go for over $1 million) for a massive crackdown on the gangs and drugs. Now I sometimes go there to shop at the huge IKEA store, BestBuy, or Home Depot staffed by young people who would have been in gangs before. How many ways do I need to show it? Everything changes, communities, people, you just have to show a commitment to them.

cheddar

brettw22 wrote:

I don't have a personal frame of reference, but I think the middle east is a much more bleak living environment than that of Japan. Even with them being capatalist, militant, communist, etc........

I taught English in Japan for a few years after college. An older teacher I knew there would always tell me stories of how horrible life was after the war. We fire bombed their cities afterall. Not much left when you make houses out of wood and paper. My teacher friend collected weeds from the side of the road to prevent her family from starving.

You have to remember there were no smart bombs that would go in and destroy a target and maybe knock down a few houses as well. Hundreds of sorties and tons of bombs were needed to take out a single factory with almost all of the bombs missing their targets and slamming into other parts of the city. Nothing in the Iraq war comes even close to the devastation we rained down on Japan and Germany at the close of the war.

PolkThug

Demiurge wrote:

Which has what to do with whether or not we should be there? What was the point of saying it? What does it add to the discussion?

1. I said I understand HTrookie's point.
2. You said "defend it".
3. I explained it.
4. Then, you pulled out your Jump to Conclusions Mat and made some bad assumptions about what you think that I think, along with insults.
5. HTrookie replied to me "Thanks... that's all I said and meant"

I have said NOTHING about whether we should pull our troops out. We probably agree on a lot of things but you made some incorrect assumptions about me and took the conversation in a different direction.

BIZILL

i hate sour muslims. there.

BIZILL

...sorry, that's all i have to say anymore. i think most people have lost comprehension of what it must take to root out bad leadership, poisonous and perverted civilizations and what not. not saying that our country should be a 'guide to how the world should live' or anything. but i think we're doing right. but i feel we are losing our way with all the political correctness. it's blatantly obvious to perceive, save for most liberals. but until we can let go of our own chains of bondage in the way we fight a war, then it will take longer and longer to win this battle. i have tree-huggin'-**** friends that just don't get it. they are the poison that undermine our way of life and the avenues in which we travelled to get here. they spread their rhetoric to those who cannot think for theirselves. my job is to argue my beliefs in an attempt to help them reach their own conclusion. hopefully they do not become weaklings.

i think we can all agree with the intention of this thread's creator. to see the problem with this picture. other countries get in an uproar over the pics of our boys and girls makeing obscene poses with the prisoners. sure, it was definately wrong. it showed that we can still be immature. but compare that to what the average insurgent has in store for our boys and girls. what happened with those pics was a joke in comparison. it is far negated by their acts. can anyone think for even a minute that the insurgents feel bad about what they do/did? hell-fugg no. what do you think would happen if we laid down our arms and tried to just trek our way outta there by foot? we'd get shot in the back. if we were attacked on our soil and had them give up in the same fashion, would we do the same to them? a handful of angry persons would, but generally, we'd just detain them till we figure out what to do.

these insurgents HATE us and most anyone not muslim. if only GOD could create special spectacles that allowed us to see the good-hearted muslims vs. the bad. then we could just do away with those particular folk. but it doesn't work that way. and until the good-natured muslim believers stand up to the evils that take place, i say fugg 'em all.

i hate violence unless it's in the movies. we don't want to kill everyone the way those insurgents do. we americans all pray for a peaceful outcome, and that right soon!

aaharvel

well I don't know about you guys but I need a drink. :cool:

BIZILL

good idea. i'll put back a few as well. but do trust, ya'll don't wanna see me back on the club polk until tomorrow. i get dumb, yet funny.

MacLeod

I want to have Ann Coulter's baby.

brettw22

Give me a break..........I don't think Liberals have a problem with helping that country.......the have a problem being there under the premise we were led to believe we were. Recognize the difference.

aaharvel

MacLeod wrote:

I want to have Ann Coulter's baby.

i want to thump her adams apple

ohskigod

she's a little bony for my taste, but after a beer or two hell, I'd throw it in her a.....................goooooood night everybody

cheddar

brettw22 wrote:

Give me a break..........I don't think Liberals have a problem with helping that country.......the have a problem being there under the premise we were led to believe we were. Recognize the difference.

Can't believe people still have a problem with what we had to tell the woosie UN before we invaded. Saddam so needed to be taken out as a future safe haven and supporter for radical islamists fleeing afganistan. Could care less what PC lip service we had to give the idiots at the UN. Their own WMD monitoring program and sanctions were being thrown back in their face and circumvented and they were ready to make us the bad guy for wanting to take this thug out...

limashaynut

I have no problem with a person who questions if the cost we are paying in treasure, and the blood of our brave military in Iraq is worth it, that is a fair question. That is a point that you can have a reasonable and thoughtful debate about. What I can not abide (it sickens me in fact), are those who question our motives and honor in the conduct of this war. We ARE in fact there for a noble purpose, and on the whole (like 99.8%), the actions of our troops are BEYOND reproach. The same can not be said of the Islamic fundamentalist, and sadly, a far too great percentage of the religion as a whole.

Let us not forget that not only have crimes such as 9/11 been commited, but there is the daily horror show that comes out of Iraq, as well as other places in the name of Islam. It is not just our troops that are the victim of these chicken **** tactics, but in Iraq, Muslims themselves are paying the greatest toll in bloodshed. Radical Sunnis are killing Shiites, and calling them infadels the same as they are our troops. Some of these butchers are stoping buses and pulling off 40 or 50 people, seperating them by their 'branch' of Islam, and slautering them on the spot. Just in the past day, there was a group of several dozen factory workers that were hijacked, one can only guess as to what their fate will be. These radicals will blow up people standing in line in the local market, attack mosques, and behead civilians in their area of control. We are not fighting people who simply hate us, but rather people who simply HATE!

I found the website of the International Answer group, this is a group that organizes and coordinates many of the anti-war protest in this country. They had story after story on their website accusing America of war crimes, and conducting and illegal war. To read their website, America would make Hitler shudder in disgust, but yet there was NO mention at all of ANY atrocity committed by radical muslims.

I called the the phone number for their Washington D.C. office and asked to speak to someone who could help me locate some information on their website. After being transfered to another person, I told them who I was and the reason for my call. I told the "gentleman" that I had read with great interest the many stories they had posted about American war crimes in Iraq, and since they seemed to be VERY concerned about torture, and other war crimes, I was suprised to not see any mention of the two U.S. soldiers who were just murdered. I said that here were two brave Americans, who were captured, tortured, executed, mutilated, and then left booby trapped to try and kill as many others as was possible. I asked him when I could expect to see a story about this, and the vast number of other atrocities committed on a daily basis by the radical Islamist...you could have heard a pin drop. After a long pause, he claimed that they were not a news organization, and their focus was to point out the illegal and racist war that was being waged by the United States. I asked him did he really believe that the policy of the U.S. military was to kill innocent civilians, and he said yes. I then asked him if the U.S. was able to bring some level of peace to Iraq, if in fact the people of this country would not be better off than under Sadam, given his track record of killing hundreds of thousands of his own people through the most brutal means that can be imagined. He said, no, becasue the U.S. will have by then accomplished its goal of killing all of the people of Iraq. This is the type of stupidity that is out there.

I told him something before I hung up, that I would like to pass along here as well...

Never in the history of mankind has a country had such a record of sacrificing so much, for so many others, yet asked for so little in return.

What makes America great is NOT the fact that we can do this, it is the fact that we are WILLING to do this. The world seems to love to use us as their punching bag, but when the chips are down, war has broken out, natural disaster has struck, or people are starving, who do they turn to, and who steps up to the plate? Where is the U.N., where is the European Union, it seems that only the U.S. is willing to lead the charge, and with the few that will follow our lead, try and do some good for others.

I am proud of my country, proud of our troops, and thank God that I am blessed to live in this country. For those that hate, your day will come, count on it.

cheddar

ohskigod wrote:

she's a little bony for my taste, but after a beer or two hell, I'd throw it in her a.....................goooooood night everybody

lol...may wanna gag her too. That voice can get kind of annoying...:D

cheddar

Limashaynut,

I'm with you. Just a small correction. It's the Sunni insurgents who are trying to incite a civil war with the Shiites. Shiites in the south, along with Kurds in the north are usually allied with the US. Saddam was a Sunni. The Shiites make up the majority of the new security forces who are fighting alongside our troops. Iran (a Shia theocracy) is scared as hell that we will set up a successful moderate Shiite dominated democracy in Iraq.

limashaynut

Cheddar,

Thank you so much for pointing that out, it is one of those things I do know, but it is late, and my fingers where not quite on the same page with my brain! As soon as I read your post I knew what I had done. lol I am going back to edit my post.

limashaynut

BIZILL

other countries get in an uproar over the pics of our boys and girls makeing obscene poses with the prisoners. sure, it was definately wrong. it showed that we can still be immature. but compare that to what the average insurgent has in store for our boys and girls. what happened with those pics was a joke in comparison. it is far negated by their acts. can anyone think for even a minute that the insurgents feel bad about what they do/did?

AMEN!

Here is a good example of that from Ann Coulter, it is just how I feel...

On an American motto for Iran:

* "I think our motto should be, post-9-11, 'raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.'" - At CPAC Conference, 10 February, 2006

In response to a plea not to use the term "ragheads" from an audience member:

* "You know, ok. I made a few jokes--and they killed 3000 Americans. Fair trade" At CPAC Conference, Q&A, 10 February, 2006

BTW, whatever Ann Coulter may or may not lack in physical beauty, she more than makes up with one hell of a sexy brain! I got to love her.

aaharvel

That's what's wrong with this picture. :rolleyes:

tryrrthg

Funny Picture.

polkatese

If we are so divided on the subject of Iraq (literally, 50/50 on public sentiments), whose fault is that? regardless of what's the right thing to do, I am afraid the damaged has been done, I feel for the front line folks that have to really endure the ultimate consequences.

cheddar

polkatese wrote:

If we are so divided on the subject of Iraq (literally, 50/50 on public sentiments), whose fault is that?

Knee jerk liberals who accuse our troops of every wrong doing. "Yes, but..." press that puts a negative spin on every success including the death of Zaqawi.

Our troops have a <1% chance of dying each year in Iraq. Daily, that chance drops to a rediculously small number. Yet from the negative spin in the media and from Reid, Pelosi, Kerry, and Murtha, you'd think our troops dreaded every foot patrol and the insurgents were around every corner.

The US is nowhere near 50/50 on whether we should cut and run. That's why 40 dems even crossed lines and voted for the very pro republican troop support statement in the house recently. American resolve is there, even if we don't like to see any of our soldiers killed.

cheddar

tryrrthg wrote:

Funny Picture.

Nothin wrong with that picture...:D

polkatese

and that's exactly my point, the blame game continue on both sides, while the troops look upon each others for support, on the field, because that's where it really matters. It reminds me of the real faces of the men of the 1st Cavalry Division who fought and died in the Ia Drang Valley, Vietnam, as depicted in the film "We Were Soldiers..."

wait, we've been here before?

aaharvel

cheddar wrote:

Knee jerk liberals who accuse our troops of every wrong doing.

wrong. The VAST majority of us "knee jerk liberals" are simply holding our leaders to task for an invasion that was poorly planned and poorly anticipated when it comes to the actual insurgency. You can throw some "knee jerk conservatives" in that mix as well. Lots of them actually.

But no, cutting and running would be a terrible mistake, and that's what Murtha and Kerry don't get. More than likely they're just pandering to what they think the majority is for either future political runs or book sales, but they better think again. The vast majority believe that cutting and running would be no good, as do I. Better to finish the job now that we've committed in the first place.

or am I being too knee jerkish..:rolleyes:

cheddar

aaharvel wrote:

wrong. The VAST majority of us "knee jerk liberals" are simply holding our leaders to task for an invasion that was poorly planned and poorly anticipated when it comes to the actual insurgency.

I don't think that criticizing our leaders for not anticipating the current insurgency is a knee jerk reaction. I consider Murtha's statement that our troops were cold blooded killers before any official investigation was completed a horrible act against our troops. It was definitely knee jerk and does nothing but fan the flames of cut and run.

cheddar

polkatese wrote:

and that's exactly my point, the blame game continue on both sides, while the troops look upon each others for support, on the field, because that's where it really matters. It reminds me of the real faces of the men of the 1st Cavalry Division who fought and died in the Ia Drang Valley, Vietnam, as depicted in the film "We Were Soldiers..."

wait, we've been here before?

If this were Vietnam we'd be talking 25,000 US soldiers killed, not 2500. But you've been hooked in pretty good by Murtha and co. to think it's a disaster on the same proportions as that war. Thanks for proving my point.

aaharvel

cheddar wrote:

I don't think that criticizing our leaders for not anticipating the current insurgency is a knee jerk reaction. I consider Murtha's statement that our troops were cold blooded killers before any official investigation was completed a horrible act against our troops. It was definitely knee jerk and does nothing but fan the flames of cut and run.

Knee Jerk by Murtha? Sure. But so was "Mission Accomplished" which many here seem to conviently forget, all for a stupid photo-op. I respect Murtha for his service to his country then and to a lesser extent now.

(edit) regarding Vietnam you're right Cheddar. This is no Vietnam. If anyone can tell me that after visiting the Memorial then they're lost in the shuffle.

cheddar

aaharvel wrote:

Knee Jerk by Murtha? Sure. But so was "Mission Accomplished" which many here seem to conviently forget, all for a stupid photo-op. I respect Murtha for his service to his country then and to a lesser extent now.

I happen to believe that the troops accomplished a great mission in the elimination of Iraq's standing army. They deserved every compliment even if you think it only as a photo-op. That's the way it's been spun. Bush let it happen so I'm not really defending him. If it were me, I would have gone ballistic on anyone who would try and take away the great accomplishment of the troops by saying they didn't accomplish their mission. Iraq's entire army, neutralized with minimal casualties, and faster than any army has accomplished it throughout history. Our troops deserved every honor they received for accomplishing that.

Demiurge

Major combat operations in Iraq. We dismantled Iraq's government in 3 weeks. We haven't really been fighting Iraqi's for the last 3 years, but some forget that.

In any event. There used to be a time in this country, oh -- when Bill Clinton was President, where the U.S. Citizens supported the United States Military when they went into a conflict. The liberals have put themselves in the miserable position of benefiting from America's failures, and more sickening the failures of our military.

I supported Bill Clinton when he lobbed bombs into Iraq, when he went into Kosovo, and lets not forget Somolia.

Things are going very well in Iraq if you have any sense of perspective.

aaharvel

cheddar wrote:

I happen to believe that the troops accomplished a great mission in the elimination of Iraq's standing army. They deserved every compliment even if you think it only as a photo-op. That's the way it's been spun. Bush let it happen so I'm not really defending him. If it were me, I would have gone ballistic on anyone who would try and take away the great accomplishment of the troops by saying they didn't accomplish their mission. Iraq's entire army, neutralized with minimal casualties, and faster than any army has accomplished it throughout history. Our troops deserved every honor they received for accomplishing that.

a photo-op for Bush in that flight outfit, not the troops who were there doing their duty and supporting their Commander In Chief.

Like you said: Bush let it happen, you can't defend him. That was my entire point. Stop with the word-games.