Originally posted by Bang Guy
It is the function of the military to protect the United States.
Agreed.
That is what they are doing. Sitting in the middle of Iraq is drawing terrorists from all over the world to our forces in Iraq. When I was in the military I understood that it is far better to fight our enemies outside of our border than inside. [/B]
I didn't know you were in the military! I respect your first hand knowledge. And I thank you for serving our country.
I hope you are right that the terrorists are concentrating in one spot. It sounds too convenient to be true. Of course it is better for us not to be fighting in our backyards. I do have some sympathy, as I am sure you do, for the innocent people of Iraq whose lives have been shattered by this war.
Those that hate us don't need any fuel. They are going to hate and to teach hate until they kill us or we kill them. [/B]
Agreed. How are you going to identify the terrorists we want to kill, the unreasonable ones who sacrifice their children to kill a couple of infidels. (aren't we sacrificing our young adults to fight this war? We are certainly sacrificing a lot of Iraqi people who are no more evil than you or me.)
Isn't it ironic that we got Saddam, but we didn't kill him. In order to get him, we killed a lot of innocent people, but not the evil one. We did get his sons, the ones we know about.
I believe in self defense, but that requires some proof that there is a threat. I understand that reasonable men thought there were WMD, and it is not hard to understand that Hussein is totally evil. I don't think Bush is an evil guy, but he should have demanded to be sure of the evidence before he put our people in harm's way. Given the lack of means of threat, Hussein was just talking lies as usual. But we did not know that at the time we went in...
I agree that those who so vehimently hate us wil never be swayed by reason. Unfortunately, IMO previously reasonable Iraquis are now , as a direct result of our invasion of their country, going to hate us. Also muslims everywhere. How hard will it it be for the other side to teach a reasonable man to hate us once we have destroyed his family? Or his home, or his livelihood? Wars create desperate suffering, and desperate men do desperate things.
You are trying to be reasonable and I understand. [/B]
Thank you. I think you are both reasonable and understanding.
Unfortunately we are talkin about people who will strap explosives to their 14 year old daughter to kill a couple infidels. These are not people we can negotiate with. [/B]
We are also talking about people who feel as strongly about their vision of how life should be, as we do. (I do appreciate that you treasure the 14 year old's life more than her terrorist father does)
That said, I agree with you that some people cannot be reasoned with, and you can't negotiate with terrorists. There are some crazy people in the world who do terrible things. They need to be brought under control. Some would argue the sanctions did that work in the case of Saddam Hussein. Some would argue that they were not enough. There is room for us to differ in this point.
Whether we should have gone there or not, we did invade Iraq and now it is our responsibility to stay there until the country can fend for itself. Every day we will hear about more dead soldiers, more dead Iraqis, and yet there is no way to cleanse the earth of terrorists, any more than we can cleanse the earth of unreasonable people. ANYONE who wants to use serin against us will still be able to. In my opinion, we are not safer than if we had not entered Iraq. We are just poorer, more people hate us, and there are fewer of us still alive.
This has been an interesting discussion. Thanks for elaborating on your position. My dad is the only republican who will talk to me about this, and all he says is that he's for motherhood and against sin.
like a deer in the head lights....
