Hey ive got an idea! How about you stop hyjacking all of my topics with dozens of posts about minor spelling mistakes? It kills any hope for discussion. IVY LEAUGE LIBS should stopt WHINING about MINOR ISSUES.

Layla 27 wrote:Hey ive got an idea! How about you stop hyjacking all of my topics with dozens of posts about minor spelling mistakes? It kills any hope for discussion. IVY LEAUGE LIBS should stopt WHINING about MINOR ISSUES.

I assume you are addressing me but I don't recall making "dozens of posts about minor spelling mistakes."  Although I must point out you made 4 spelling mistakes or typos in three sentences.  I think if people want to be taken seriously they should take the time to make their cases with complete sentences and proper spelling.  

I don't recall hijacking any of your posts.  Would you please provide some examples?  And I am anything but an "Ivy League Lib."

paleocon wrote:

Layla 27 wrote:Hey ive got an idea! How about you stop hyjacking all of my topics with dozens of posts about minor spelling mistakes? It kills any hope for discussion. IVY LEAUGE LIBS should stopt WHINING about MINOR ISSUES.

I assume you are addressing me but I don't recall making "dozens of posts about minor spelling mistakes."  Although I must point out you made 4 spelling mistakes or typos in three sentences.  I think if people want to be taken seriously they should take the time to make their cases with complete sentences and proper spelling.  

I don't recall hijacking any of your posts.  Would you please provide some examples?  And I am anything but an "Ivy League Lib."

When you make OFF TOPIC POSTS, people STOP POSTING in the TOPIC. OFF TOPIC POSTS ARE AGAINST THE RULES.

Layla 27 wrote:

paleocon wrote:
I assume you are addressing me but I don't recall making "dozens of posts about minor spelling mistakes."  Although I must point out you made 4 spelling mistakes or typos in three sentences.  I think if people want to be taken seriously they should take the time to make their cases with complete sentences and proper spelling.  

I don't recall hijacking any of your posts.  Would you please provide some examples?  And I am anything but an "Ivy League Lib."

When you make OFF TOPIC POSTS, people STOP POSTING in the TOPIC. OFF TOPIC POSTS ARE AGAINST THE RULES.

I don't want to belabor the point but I made one post discussing your frequent use of ALL CAPS.  This hardly qualifies as DOZENS OF POSTS.  I am not sure my pointing out typos, grammatical errors and use of difficult to decipher, non-standard English qualifies as "OFF TOPIC POSTS" but you are free to refer this issue to the moderators.  BTW, when you are checking on the rules look up the ones related to ad hominem attacks too.  

I am not trying to hijack your posts or pick a fight with you.  But, it is hard to take your posts seriously when you present ideas in the fashion of a pre-teen IMing his or her pre-teen buddy list.  As Rush has said many times, "words mean things."

Ronnie Raygun wrote:

Layla 27 wrote:

THEY HATE OUR BRAVE TROOPS

You really think this is true? I think a lot of people don't like sending young men and women off to die for something they don't think is worth our brave troops lives. I don't like the war. I don't want to see any of ours troops die though. I also don't believe we can just pull out. It's not realistic.

The United States does not, and never has, sent young men off to DIE for ANYTHING ... EVER.  We send them to KILL, or otherwise subdue, our enemies.  It is the nature of war that this cannot be done without casualties.  

Our troops are never sent anywhere to fight and die.  They are sent to fight and risk death.  Many brave Americans VOLUNTARILY assume that risk because they believe that the defense of our nation is worth that risk.

If you don't want any of our troops to die (or risk dying), there are only two possible alternatives:
1) Nothing, under ANY circumstances, is worth the risk to life and limb of our soldiers, OR
2) This particular battle is not worth the risk to life and limb of our soldiers

Assuming that you are not insane, your motivation is alternative #2.

I should point out that YOUR belief that this particular battle is not worth the risk is NOT SHARED by the troops who have VOLUNTEERED to defend this country in this particular battle.  They believe that THEIR risk is worth taking.  

May I suggest that you not substitute your beliefs for theirs.

It is not logically consistent to say that one does not support an action, yet supports those individuals actively engaged in taking that action.  If confused, see my post under a prior thread:

http://www.rushlimbaughforum.com/supporting-the-troops-t1009.html

Eyas wrote:

Ronnie Raygun wrote:

Layla 27 wrote:

THEY HATE OUR BRAVE TROOPS

You really think this is true? I think a lot of people don't like sending young men and women off to die for something they don't think is worth our brave troops lives. I don't like the war. I don't want to see any of ours troops die though. I also don't believe we can just pull out. It's not realistic.

The United States does not, and never has, sent young men off to DIE for ANYTHING ... EVER.  We send them to KILL, or otherwise subdue, our enemies.  It is the nature of war that this cannot be done without casualties.  

Our troops are never sent anywhere to fight and die.  They are sent to fight and risk death.  Many brave Americans VOLUNTARILY assume that risk because they believe that the defense of our nation is worth that risk.

Yes, therefore, logically some of them will die. I think it's a sad fact that sometimes troops are used as cannon fodder. You can't storm the beaches of Normandy without using some human shields. I don't like it, but I think that's the sad truth.

Eyas wrote:If you don't want any of our troops to die (or risk dying), there are only two possible alternatives:
1) Nothing, under ANY circumstances, is worth the risk to life and limb of our soldiers, OR
2) This particular battle is not worth the risk to life and limb of our soldiers

Assuming that you are not insane, your motivation is alternative #2.

I should point out that YOUR belief that this particular battle is not worth the risk is NOT SHARED by the troops who have VOLUNTEERED to defend this country in this particular battle.  They believe that THEIR risk is worth taking.  

May I suggest that you not substitute your beliefs for theirs.

May I suggest the same to you. A majority of soldiers in Iraq did not VOLUNTEER for this war. I'd wager that many of them joined the service for college money, with a willingness to defend THIS country if needed.
A quick google search came up with tons of hits for "us troops against the Iraq war"
Here are a few choice bits "Between October 2002 and September 2005,.... soldiers going AWOL.... who receive "Chapter 11" discharges...for those who go missing overseas and turn themselves in, or are arrested, back home... made an annual average of 1,546 such discharges. Last year the number grew to 1,988, or more than five per day.         In the US, too, groups like Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace are growing.                Nearly 1,600 enlisted soldiers have signed an appeal to the US Congress that reads: "Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price."

Iraq Veterans Against the War

Veterans Against Iraq War

Yeah, I know those are examples of Rush's "Phony Soldiers"...

A shit load of polls showing American's feelings on the war.

Eyas wrote:It is not logically consistent to say that one does not support an action, yet supports those individuals actively engaged in taking that action.  If confused, see my post under a prior thread:

http://www.rushlimbaughforum.com/supporting-the-troops-t1009.html

I totally disagree. You've never had a friend, or someone you love, do something you didn't like or agree with, but still loved them? I know I have. That's closer to the way I see it, except this choice wasn't even made by them.

Eyas wrote:"I support child-rapists ........ I just don't support child rape."

That's just wrong, and not a very good example, because you are either comparing the troops to cho-mos, or war to child rape (which I guess does happen during war).

Here's how I feel about it.
I don't support the occupation because;
1. there were no WMD, and no threat to us
2. there were no terrorist cells, no connection to 9/11
3. I think pre-emptive strikes against sovereign nations are a very bad idea
4. The enemy is not easily identifiable, and many civilians are being killed
5. the stop-loss is a little to close to a draft
6. We are not the police force of the world
7. Those billions we are spending over there would sure come in handy here with this economy
8. Our military should be doing search and destroy missions on terrorists, not occupying another country, driving around serving as targets.
9. I've not heard a clear definition of what "victory" would entail


I support the troops because:
1. They did not start this conflict, and they are not responsible for it
2. I have family and friends who are currently, or have served in Iraq
3. I don't like to see people lose their loved ones
4. I admire their bravery
5. I believe we need a strong military to defend OUR nation

The two thoughts are not mutually exclusive. Just because I don't support the war, does not mean I want us to lose, or I hate the troops.That's ludicrous.  To accuse people of that is just ridiculous. It is my right, and my duty to question what I see as wrongs, done by my government.

I could not possibly disagree more. Some of what I am about to write will sound cold and unfeeling, but reality is not always pleasant.

I start with Rush's Undeniable Truth of Life #6----ours is a world governed by the aggressive use of force.

Soldiers as cannon fodder. Yes. Soldiers are assets to be spent toward achieving an objective, victory. No one like this. Not the soldier, his general or the Commander-in-Chief. But, it is the nature of war.

Most soldiers did not volunteer for this war. Fallacy. Historically, the median age of the military is 21-23. The War On Terror, which includes Iraq, has been going on for 6 1/2 years. Therefore, most of our current military personnel enlisted after 9/11. In doing so, they knew they were signing up to go to war.

No WMD in Iraq and no threat to the U.S. I am so tired of beating this dead horse. Saddam had 14 months to get his WMD out of the country, while the country and the world debated the rightness of invasion. Mobile chemical labs were found in Iraq. Don't try to tell me these were fertilizer labs. I grew up on a farm and have never seen a fertilizer plant on wheels. Documents found in Baghdad show that Saddam had a plan to resume nuclear weapons research. And, terrorist training facilities did exist in Iraq at the time of the invasion. Al Qaeda operatives were living in Iraq at the time of the invasion.

No Iraqi connection to 9/11. Reread the previous paragraph. Additionally, post 9/11, any terrorist, anywhere in the world is a threat to this nation. To wait for a particular group to commit an overt act is ludicrous.

A preemptive strike against a sovereign nation is a bad idea. Wow! I'm going to paraphrase a metaphor put forth by Zsell Miller (D), GA. "I was replacing the back porch on our home a while back. Our grandchildren were over to our house for the day and playing in the back yard while I worked. When I tore out a section of the porch, I saw a nest of rattlesnakes. I got a hoe and chopped their heads off. Now these snakes hadn't bitten anyone, but I wasn't going to give them a chance to, my grandchildren were playing nearby. Some might call this a preemptive strike. I call it common sense."

The enemy is not easily identified and civilians are being killed. And, the point is? The terrorist blends into the local populace so he can operate more easily. He is in effect using the civilians as human shields. This, of course, is to deter counter-terror operations against him. Well, it isn't working. Civilians die in war. It is an unfortunate fact of life that will not change. American civilians have already died in New York, Arlington and Shanksville. Be thankful the present battlefront is in Baghdad and Kabul.

Stop-loss is too much like a draft. Hardly. When a person enlists in the military they enlist for 8 years. A portion of the enlistment is active duty and the rest is inactive Individual Ready Reserve. IRR may be recalled to active duty, without notice, at the discretion of the Commander-in-Chief. This is clearly stated in the enlistment contract. When my stepson enlisted in the Navy, 2003, I told him, before you sign on the dotted line understand that once you do your ass belongs to Uncle Sam. He signed. It was one of the proudest moments of my life.

The U.S. is not the world's police force. This statement I agree with wholeheartedly. That said, the War On Terror is not a police action. It is an aggressive offensive against the thugs who have, and will again if given the chance, kill our people.

The billions being spent on the war could help the bad economy. Wrong answer. Government cannot fix economic problems. The free market will correct itself, it always does. Government intervention is artificial and will only add to the duration of the correction. (See Rush's recent analysis of the Great Depression.) Government can help by cutting taxes, reducing red tape regulation and approving the utilization of domestic resources.

We should not occupy Iraq, rather search and destroy the enemy. Search and destroy has been tried. When the troops move on to the next mission, the enemy survivors emerge from the rubble and start over. Occupation is necessary to drive the enemy from his haven and force him to fight on our terms, not his. You don't win by following the other team's playbook. BTW, this strategy is being proven in Iraq right now. In case you haven't heard, the Surge is working.

Define victory. Destroy the enemy's ability and/or will to fight. This is how the United States has won wars throughout its history. Specific to the War On Terror, this means not only defeating Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, et al, but also the individuals, entities and states that arm, finance, harbor and support them.

This is going to be a long, brutal war. The price of victory is high. But, the cost of surrender is even higher.

Bedbug,

Thanks for saving me from having to respond to all of Raygun's post.

One additional thing that I would like to address

Raygun,
     you wrote:

Ronnie Raygun wrote:

Eyas wrote:
"I support child-rapists ........ I just don't support child rape."

That's just wrong, and not a very good example, because you are either comparing the troops to cho-mos, or war to child rape (which I guess does happen during war).

I am not comparing either thing (clearly, you ignored the rest of my post).  

An unjust war is a crime.  YOU, therefore, are suggesting that our battle in Iraq is criminal.  In YOUR words:

Ronnie Raygun wrote:It is my right, and my duty to question what I see as wrongs, done by my government.

Because of the bloodshed inherent in war; IF it is criminal, THEN it MUST BE a vile and atrocious crime.  Those presently engaged in carrying out this battle are our U.S. Troops.  Thus, YOU are suggesting that our troops are vile and atrocious criminals (whether you will admit it or not).  


If you can explain to me how armed robbery is a crime, but armed robbers are not criminals, I will cede your point.

paleocon wrote:I support the war in Iraq although I believe that it has been mismanaged in several key ways.  However, I do accept that some reasonable people may not support the war.  

That said, communist, hard left democrats like Clinton and Obama and Edwards and Kerry, et al  hate the military, hate America and hate the troops.  Communist, hard left democrats are not reasonable people by any definition of the word.  They lack the capacity for reason and when challenged immediately resort to ad hominem attacks.  Their lack of support of the war is based on a deep-seated hatred of America and the principles upon which this great nation is founded.

what are you saying "mismanaged?" are you saying that John Abazaid and Tommy Franks are Incompetent?

They are great people who are did their job. BUSH failed to recognize the insurgency and trusted RUMSFELD who had little military experience, ahead of the Generals who did. DO not blam OUR GENERALS for the MISTAKES of RINO POLITICIANS.

Layla 27 wrote:

paleocon wrote:I support the war in Iraq although I believe that it has been mismanaged in several key ways.  However, I do accept that some reasonable people may not support the war.  

That said, communist, hard left democrats like Clinton and Obama and Edwards and Kerry, et al  hate the military, hate America and hate the troops.  Communist, hard left democrats are not reasonable people by any definition of the word.  They lack the capacity for reason and when challenged immediately resort to ad hominem attacks.  Their lack of support of the war is based on a deep-seated hatred of America and the principles upon which this great nation is founded.

what are you saying "mismanaged?" are you saying that John Abazaid and Tommy Franks are Incompetent?

They are great people who are did their job. BUSH failed to recognize the insurgency and trusted RUMSFELD who had little military experience, ahead of the Generals who did. DO not blam OUR GENERALS for the MISTAKES of RINO POLITICIANS.

Layla, you are wrong.  Tommy Franks was to blame for the problems in Iraq as was General Casey who had zero combat experience.  There is a Pentagon study coming out shortly addressing the problems with the Iraq war.  They do this for learning and training. Tommy Franks made bad decisions.  Bush and Rumsfeld listened to their Generals in the field.  Those Generals did not plan for what was going to happen after they took Baghdad and apparently had a little bit of a power trip.  I am the mother of a soldier who spent 2 tours in Iraq, Layla.  I only blame Bush in that he was too trusting of his military senior officers and did not start the surge sooner.  Rumsfeld had to fight those generals every step of the way because he tried to change the way they do business.  You cannot run around in tanks while you are in the middle of urban warfare. The Generals did not want to change.   Believe me when I tell you this..the Generals stayed in their air-conditioned safe green zone throughout the battle of Fallujah (my son was there) and many of those battles where we lost troops from the IEDs, mortars, etc.    Please read this:

June 29, 2008

<NYT_HEADLINE version="1.0" type=" ">Occupation Plan for Iraq Faulted in Army History </NYT_HEADLINE><NYT_BYLINE version="1.0" type=" ">
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
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WASHINGTON — Soon after American forces toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, Gen. Tommy R. Franks surprised senior Army officers by revamping the Baghdad-based military command.
The decision reflected the assumption by General Franks, the top American commander for the Iraq invasion, that the major fighting was over. But according to a new Army history, the move put the military effort in the hands of a short-staffed headquarters led by a newly promoted three-star general, and was made over the objections of the Army’s vice chief of staff.
“The move was sudden and caught most of the senior commanders in Iraq unaware,” states the history, which adds that the staff for the new headquarters was not initially “configured for the types of responsibilities it received.”
The story of the American occupation of Iraq has been the subject of numerous books, studies and memoirs. But now the Army has waded into the highly charged debate with its own nearly 700-page account: “On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign.”
The unclassified study, the second volume in a continuing history of the Iraq conflict, is as noteworthy for who prepared it as for what it says. In essence, the study is an attempt by the Army to tell the story of one of the most contentious periods in its history to military experts — and to itself.
It adds to a growing body of literature about the problems the United States encountered in Iraq, not all of which has been embraced by Army leaders.
Lt. Col. Paul Yingling of the Army ignited a debate when he wrote a magazine article that criticized American generals for failing to prepare a coherent plan to stabilize postwar Iraq.
In 2005, the RAND Corporation submitted a report to the Army, called “Rebuilding Iraq,” that identified problems with virtually every government agency that played a role in planning the postwar phase. After a long delay, the report is scheduled to be made public on Monday.
But the “On Point” report carries the imprimatur of the Army’s Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth. The study is based on 200 interviews conducted by military historians and includes long quotations from active or recently retired officers.
Publication was delayed six months so that Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the current Army chief of staff and former top commander in Iraq, could be interviewed and senior Army leaders could review a draft.
The study’s authors were instructed not to shy away from controversy while withholding a final verdict on whether senior officials had made mistakes that decisively altered the course of the war, said Col. Timothy R. Reese, the director of the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., who, along with Donald Wright, a civilian historian at the institute, oversaw the volume’s preparation.
Even so, the study documents a number of problems that hampered the Army’s ability to stabilize the country during Phase IV, as the postwar stage was called.
“The Army, as the service primarily responsible for ground operations, should have insisted on better Phase IV planning and preparations through its voice on the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” the study noted. “The military means employed were sufficient to destroy the Saddam regime; they were not sufficient to replace it with the type of nation-state the United States wished to see in its place.”
For his part, General Franks said through an aide that he had covered Iraq decisions in his book and had not seen the forthcoming report.
The report focuses on the 18 months after President Bush’s May 2003 announcement that major combat operations in Iraq were over. It was a period when the Army took on unanticipated occupation duties and was forced to develop new intelligence-gathering techniques, armor its Humvees, revise its tactics and, after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, review its detention practices.
A big problem, the study says, was the lack of detailed plans before the war for the postwar phase, a deficiency that reflected the general optimism in the White House and in the Pentagon, led by then-Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, about Iraq’s future, and an assumption that civilian agencies would assume much of the burden.
“I can remember asking the question during our war gaming and the development of our plan, ‘O.K., we are in Baghdad, what next?’ No real good answers came forth,” Col. Thomas G. Torrance, the commander of the Third Infantry Division’s artillery, told Army historians.
The allied land war command, which was led by Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan and which reported to General Franks, did additional work on the postwar phase, but its plan was not formally distributed to the troops until April 2003, when the ground invasion was under way.
Inadequate training was also a factor. Lt. Col. Troy Perry, the operations officer of the First Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment, told Army historians that his unit trained extensively, but not for the sort of problems that it would encounter in setting up “stability operations” for securing Iraq once Mr. Hussein’s government fell.
A fundamental assumption that hobbled the military’s planning was that Iraq’s ministries and institutions would continue to function after Mr. Hussein’s government was toppled.
“We had the wrong assumptions and therefore we had the wrong plan to put into play,” said Gen. William S. Wallace, who led the V Corps during the invasion and currently leads the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command.
Faced with a brewing insurgency and occupation duties that they had not anticipated, Army units were forced to adapt. But organizational decisions made in May and June 2003 complicated that task.
L. Paul Bremer III, who replaced Jay Garner, the retired lieutenant general, as the chief civilian administrator in Iraq, issued decrees to disband the Iraqi Army and ban thousands of former Baath Party members from working for the government, orders that the study asserts caught American field commanders “off guard” and, in their view, “created a pool of disaffected and unemployed Sunni Arabs” that the insurgency could draw on.
Some of General Franks’s moves also appeared divorced from the growing problems in Iraq. Before the fall of Baghdad, Col. Kevin Benson, a planner at the land war command, developed a plan that called for using about 300,000 soldiers to secure postwar Iraq, about twice as many as were deployed.
But that was not what General Franks and the Bush administration had in mind. In an April 16 visit to Baghdad, General Franks instructed his officers to be prepared to reduce forces rapidly during an “an abbreviated period of stability operations,” the study notes.
“In line with the prewar planning and general euphoria at the rapid crumbling of the Saddam regime, Franks continued to plan for a very limited role for U.S. ground forces in Iraq,” the report says.
The next month, General Franks directed General McKiernan, then the senior officer in Baghdad, to leave Iraq, along with the staff of his land war command, which had helped plan the invasion and had overseen the push to Baghdad.
A new headquarters would be established to command the military forces in Iraq and was to be led by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez. He had led the First Armored Division into Iraq before being promoted and picked to succeed General Wallace as the head of the Army’s V Corps, which was to serve as the nucleus of the newly established command.
When Gen. Jack Keane, the vice chief of staff of the Army, learned of the move, he was upset. General Keane had helped General McKiernan assemble his headquarters, which had long been focused on Iraq and had more high-ranking officers than V Corps, which had been deployed from Europe. General Keane assumed that General McKiernan’s headquarters would oversee what was fast becoming a troubled occupation.
“I think we did not put the best experienced headquarters that we had in charge of that operation,” General Keane said in an interview with Army historians. “It took us months, six or seven or eight months, to get some semblance of a headquarters together so Sanchez could at least begin to function effectively.”
General Keane told the historians that he raised his concerns at the time with Lt. Gen. John P. Abizaid, who had been picked to succeed General Franks as the head of Central Command.
“I said, ‘Jesus Christ, John, this is a recipe for disaster,’ ” General Keane told Army historians. “I was upset about it to say the least, but the decision had been made and it was a done deal.”
Asked about the decision to establish a new headquarters, General Franks told Army historians that he had told the Pentagon what was needed and that it was the Defense Department’s responsibility to ensure that the headquarters was rapidly installed.
He said he told the Pentagon leadership that a new headquarters was needed and that it was up to them to “figure it out.”
General Sanchez, who has retired from the Army and recently published a book about his time in Iraq, told historians that his new command was hampered by staff shortages and by the failure to coordinate the transfer of responsibilities to his new headquarters.
“There was not a single session that was held at the command level to hand off or transition anything,” he said.
Summing up the episode, General Wallace told historians that the shift to a new headquarters involved a complicated transfer of responsibilities at a critical time.
“You can’t take a tactical headquarters and change it into an operational headquarters at the snap of your fingers,” he said. “It just doesn’t happen.”
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