Originally Posted by
crimzy
Ozmar, I actually wish you had been involved in these discussions before... good reading. I find it interesting that you don't really seem to disagree with many of my assertions regarding other terrorist nations, cronyism, Bush's claim that Iraq had nukes, failures in Afghanistan, etc. etc. etc. But we do disagree on the conclusions we have drawn from what has transpired thus far. While I would probably enjoy taking your arguments on point by point, I simply don't have the time. Truly, time will tell who's right in this argument. But when we eventually pull out of Iraq and it is no more democratic or peaceful than when we arrived, I will come back and tell you that I told you so. When the next plane/trane/bus is attacked, I will let you know that we didn't solve the problem. But then again, you, Darth, Journey and the rest will probably just claim that it is the media's fault for their portrayal of the events, or that it is the public's fault for pressuring us to leave the situation too early. One thing that I know for sure is that, regardless of the excuse that you all will utter to justify this failure of a war, the situation will not achieve the intended goals. The only thing I don't know is how many young Americans will have to lose their lives before this is realized.
Crimzy,
Thanks. I would have been here earlier, but I was in another forum. Something about
evolution ...
I don't want to paint a picture that I think that everything is awesome and good, because I don't. I certainly recognize mistakes we've made and challenges that we still face. But I don't think things are nearly as bad (and especially not as malevolent) as many on the anti-war side of the question seem to believe. And I try to understand the big picture, the nature of our enemy, and to keep our current struggle in a historical context. I think I've managed to do that. I've learned a lot since 9/11, as I suspect many of us have, and that's ultimately a good development for our country.
Time will tell who is right, and I hope for all our sakes that you, and others like you, who believe that we are doomed to failure, nevertheless hope for our victory. We should all be on the same side in this conflict. We obviously disagree about how best to pursue victory, but I hope we all agree that America is worth defending and that victory is worth pursuing.
If we pull out and it is a disaster, I will be very disappointed, and I hope that, if it does happen, the disaster is mitigated somehow and that we will somehow learn from it. But more than that, I hope we do not give up hope and that we stick to our commitments and that we ultimately prevail. If we do, then I think we will have learned from the previous disaster of Vietnam, which left America greatly weakened and millions of good Vietnamese people dead or homeless. I don't want to see anything like that happen in Iraq.
If that does happen, I will fault the American public for losing faith (and will share my burden of that guilt), but even more so, I will blame our political leadership, who will, I suspect, be most responsible for losing hope. In order to avoid such a tragedy, I think it is vitally important that we elect strong, courageous leaders and that we communicate with our representatives to let them know that we want them to stand firm by our Iraqi allies and to see this war through to victory.
Unlike you, I am not certain about the outcome of this struggle. You are certain that we will fail. I am hopeful that we will succeed. But I fear that success and failure are both possible outcomes. If we stick to it, we may yet win (and I believe and hope that we will). But if we lose hope and give up, then your vision of failure will certainly be the outcome.
Ozmar the Hopeful
