Go ahead, judcar, say something intelligent. Because when a conservative says something, I know he is wrong because he is not telling the truth about what he really thinks.
You made a satement in #52 and I asked its significance in #53.*
But you’d rather discuss killing short people.
*I said something and it is true. That statement of mine only applies to Liberals**
You have to admit, you do have a habit of treating hyperbole, satire or irony as if they were uttered with complete seriousness.
It’s a bit annoying really.
oh my mjgreen has earned a rebuke from comment monitor boy. Such a shame, tsk, tsk.
the simple fact is that mjgreen nailed vlad’s technique. If vlad says something nonsensical or offensive and is called on it his response is always a counter punch. Now that’s more than a bit annoying, really.
Even if I accepted that as a logical and true statement, and I don’t, so what?
You expect an answer to that?
Still waiting for something intelligent . . .
Nope. Absolutely didn’t expect you to answer. You made a stupid statement and are now running from it. Exactly what I expected when I asked the question.
Slap yourself in the forehead and go back to discussing killing short people.
although there may be incremental progress toward stability and democracy over time, thereby necessitating our permanent presence there to ensure continued progress.
Anybody talking about a “permanent” or “open-ended” military presence in Iraq is admitting that the war was begun on deceptive grounds. Perhaps the Bush administration never specifically said when the troops would be home, but there was never a hint of a suggestion that we were entering into an indefinite occupation.
I agree that McCain’s notorious remark was not about a “100-year war,” but it was clearly about a “100-year presence” and I doubt if a majority of Americans will support that idea. You can pull out Korea and Germany if you want to, but most Americans know there’s a huge difference, the principal one being that 4,000+ Americans didn’t die in Germany in the five years after May, 1945.
I’ll ask again: Are you saying that victory defined as a stable, democratic Iraq is impossible to obtain?
If victory in Iraq is impossible, then our continued presence there is futile. Is that a fair summary of your position?
Victory means a stable, democratic Iraq, with no violence, and an end to terrorist attacks around the world. Does that work for you? It works for me. I think it would be a wonderful thing.
I also think it would be a wonderful thing if Israelis and Palestinians all held hands and sang “We Are the World,” and if no puppies had to be put to sleep at animal shelters any more. Don’t you? What, you hate puppies?
As a few other posters here have surmised, Vlad, you have not seriosuly answered my question and you know it. Are you going to answer it or not? At least have the honesty to say you won’t answer it instead of spouting some ridiculous garbage like you did.
What is your definition of “victory” in Iraq, Vlad?
You have to admit, you do have a habit of treating hyperbole, satire or irony as if they were uttered with complete seriousness.
It’s a bit annoying really.
oh my mjgreen has earned a rebuke from comment monitor boy. Such a shame, tsk, tsk.
the simple fact is that mjgreen nailed vlad’s technique. If vlad says something nonsensical or offensive and is called on it his response is always a counter punch. Now that’s more than a bit annoying, really.
OK, fine, the jihadists admit defeat, violence is down, political reconciliation is moving forward, oil production is up . . .
When can our troops come home?
Uhm, how about when the freely elected Iraqi government tells us we are no longer needed?
So you admit that your main goal is just to get more Americans killed?
Do you ever wonder why you are roundly and regularly mocked here?
There is a reason you are never taken seriously here. You are simply a one-note provacateur. SOME of your ilk are able to defend their position without the clueless, hateful one-liners. You KosKiddies need to grow up.
.
5 pages later, and vladtard is still pathetically attempting to prove that “the point” is NOT the one on top of his neck. Hell, Harry Reid was willing to cut & run and he was in a much stronger position than vlad’s.
Here vladdy, let me spell it out for you:
A. The Jihadists Admit Defeat in Iraq
B. America IS Winning
C. Hooray For America, and Our Great Military!
Do you realize the more of their side that are dead the more of our side won’t be killed? Or does it not look that way from your side of the gun?
Al Qaeda Discusses Losing Iraq
May 27, 2008: Al Qaeda web sites are making a lot of noise about “why we lost in Iraq.” Western intelligence agencies are fascinated by the statistics being posted in several of these Arab language sites. Not the kind of stuff you read about in the Western media. According to al Qaeda, their collapse in Iraq was steep and catastrophic. According to their stats, in late 2006, al Qaeda was responsible for 60 percent of the terrorist attacks, and nearly all the ones that involved killing a lot of civilians. The rest of the violence was carried out by Iraqi Sunni Arab groups, who were trying in vain to scare the Americans out of the country.
Today, al Qaeda has been shattered, with most of its leadership and foot soldiers dead, captured or moved from Iraq. As a result, al Qaeda attacks have declined more than 90 percent. Worse, most of their Iraqi Sunni Arab allies have turned on them, or simply quit. This “betrayal” is handled carefully on the terrorist web sites, for it is seen as both shameful, and perhaps recoverable.
This defeat was not as sudden as it appeared to be, and some Islamic terrorist web sites have been discussing the problem for several years. The primary cause has been Moslems killed as a side effect of attacks on infidel troops, Iraqi security forces and non-Sunnis. Al Qaeda plays down the impact of this, calling the Moslem victims “involuntary martyrs.” But that’s a minority opinion. Most Moslems, and many other Islamic terrorists, see this as a surefire way to turn the Moslem population against the Islamic radicals. That’s what happened earlier in Algeria, Afghanistan, Egypt and many other places. It’s really got nothing to do with religion. The phenomenon hits non-Islamic terrorists as well (like the Irish IRA and the Basque ETA).
The senior al Qaeda leadership saw the problem, and tried to convince the “Al Qaeda In Iraq” leadership to cool it. That didn’t work. As early as 2004, some Sunni Arabs were turning on al Qaeda because of the “involuntary martyrs” problem. The many dead Shia Arab civilians led to a major terror campaign by the Shia majority. They controlled the government, had the Americans covering their backs, and soon half the Sunni Arab population were refugees.
Meanwhile, the “Al Qaeda In Iraq” leadership was out of control. Most of these guys are really out there, at least in terms of fanaticism and extremism. This led to another fatal error. They declared the establishment of the “Islamic State of Iraq” in late 2006. This was an act of bravado, and touted as the first step in the re-establishment of the caliphate (a global Islamic state, ruled over by God’s representative on earth, the caliph.) The caliphate has been a fiction for over a thousand years. Early on, the Islamic world was split by ethnic and national differences, and the first caliphate fell apart after a few centuries. Various rulers have claimed the title over the centuries, but since 1924, when the Turks gave it up (after four centuries), no one of any stature has taken it up. So when al Qaeda “elected” a nobody as the emir of the “Islamic State of Iraq”, and talked about this being the foundation of the new caliphate, even many pro-al Qaeda Moslems were aghast. When al Qaeda could not, in 2007, exercise any real control over the parts of Iraq they claimed as part of the new Islamic State, it was the last straw. The key supporters, battered by increasingly effective American and Iraqi attacks, dropped their support for al Qaeda, and the terrorist organization got stomped to bits by the “surge offensive” of last year. The final insult was delivered by the former Iraqi Sunni Arab allies, who quickly switched sides, and sometimes even worked with the Americans (more so than the Shia dominated Iraqi security forces) to hunt down and kill al Qaeda operators.
If you can read Arabic, you can easily find these pro-terrorism sites, and see for yourself how al Qaeda is trying to explain its own destruction to its remaining supporters. While it’s common to assume the Information War has been going against the West, this was not the case when you checked with what was going on inside the enemy camp.
A stable, democratic Iraq is very possible, with evidence mounting in that regard every month. A US military presence in Iraq for the forseeable future, providing security support, is not only probable, it’s the responsible thing to do. Where is the mystery and controversy?
“A stable, democratic Iraq, with no violence, and an end to terrorist attacks around the world.” You think that’s “ridiculous garbage”?
Yes, Vlad, it’s ridiculous garbage and you know it is.
Are you off your meds? There’s not a word in there that George W. Bush and Condoleeza Rice would disagree with.
It’s you who is off the meds. Neither Bush nor Rice would ever say, “...with no violence”, or “...and end to terrorist attacks around the world”. They would, however, agree with my statement. Get a grip.
