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Originally posted by Lilith South Korea... Iraq? I mean aside from people shooting at each other who happen to mostly be from their own country, there really isn't a parallel. Though there is an awfully big tangent! Korea had Clear cut sides, NK, Russia and China vs everyone else Iraq has Everyone out for their religious belief, everyone out for their national service/pride, a bunch of imported ruffians serving up trouble (US, UK, Al Quaida and Iran) and a whole lot of people that just don't like each other over personal grudges. Korea had UN Troops and approval from the majority Iraq has US Troops and some people from other countries in small amounts along for the ride Korea had A decisive outcome to push the enemy line over the border Iraq has No boarders, no easily identifiable enemy. Korea had A great big demilitarised zone to keep them from killing each other after the big dust up settled. Iraq has Independent warlords fighting each other and the odd foreign target wandering through giving them something new to shoot at or blow up Korea had Settled down to a dull roar after 40 something years Iraq has Endemic and religious hatreds for each other which will last generations.

yall are are missing my point. it's not in the details. it's not in even in the combatants. it's in ideals and what very well could be the outcome if it was fought as hard and with as much courage as we have accomplished before.

i realize this is a very strange concept to grasp for most of you. i seriously and respectfully do not fault you. to a point. but we've witnessed before what terrible outcomes have manifested when we replace courage with politics and political gain.

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Now, if you really want to draw some parallels, we could compare Iraq to Vietnam...

if those that want failure (all of them) had their way, we are well down that path already.

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Originally posted by Q5echo i realize this is a very strange concept to grasp for most of you. i seriously and respectfully do not fault you. to a point. but we've witnessed before what terrible outcomes have manifested when we replace courage with politics and political gain.

Wrong, in this case.
Been there, done that. Lost a great deal as a result of it.
I find it mildly hypocritical that the US citizens and soldiers who advocate this type of warfare do it as nothing but tourists, they go there, do their thing and go home again to apple pie and fanfare. Having never, luckily seen their own homes and lives torn apart by outside and internal fighting in a country they call their own, not in living memory at least.
It happens all over the world, it happens all the time in dozens of countries and those failed states never see UN, US, UK forces march in to save the day, because we don't matter.
Because we don't have anything that matters to them, maybe the Iraqi's should consider themselves blessed to have something the big countries want, otherwise they'd be left to rot in the dirt like Africa and parts of south America.

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if those that want failure (all of them) had their way, we are well down that path already.

It was failure from the onset and dug very deep with fragile lies, misinformation, plain, dumb ignorance and maybe a very large splash of arrogance.

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Originally posted by occrider Ummm ... what? Exactly what about Iraq is analagous to Korea? Sigh, you guys could at least try. Heh or are you so bold as to desire replicating the Korean example for Iraq in the retarded manner everything has been done in Iraq so far? Do you all actually still delude yourselves into believeing that you can actually do ANYTHING competantly?

Uh, I was clarifying someones question.

Never said Iraq could be another SOuth Korea. As I said before, the difference between SOuth Korea and Iraq is the South Koreans wanted the US to help them.

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Your question offends my patriotism.

A better question would have been, "Who doesn't win with military forces occupying Iraq for the next couple of days by which time we will no doubt have achieved total victory in the hearts and minds of the people and turned Iraq into the promised land?"

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Originally posted by Lilith It was failure from the onset and dug very deep with fragile lies, misinformation, plain, dumb ignorance and maybe a very large splash of arrogance.

The original intent was well meaning but the follow-through is definitely a train wreck...

The only people that can prove that any different are the Iraqis themselves.

___________________
"...End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path...one that we all must take.
The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it...
...white shores...and beyond...the far green country under a swift sunrise."

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Originally posted by Fir3start3r The original intent was well meaning but the follow-through is definitely a train wreck... The only people that can prove that any different are the Iraqis themselves.

Oh sure, as long as the original intent was well meaning. Nevermind the country has been left in a big chaotic mess. But you know, if the Iraqis really care then they'll stand up and make sense of the clusterfuck thats worse than before we got there. Otherwise they're just a bunch of ingrates.

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Originally posted by josh4 Oh sure, as long as the original intent was well meaning.

/sarcasm

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Nevermind the country has been left in a big chaotic mess.

Left?
How does over 100,000+ troops equate, 'Left'?

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But you know, if the Iraqis really care then they'll stand up and make sense of the clusterfuck thats worse than before we got there. Otherwise they're just a bunch of ingrates.

Unless you have some better idea, we're all ears

___________________
"...End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path...one that we all must take.
The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it...
...white shores...and beyond...the far green country under a swift sunrise."

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Originally posted by Q5echo but we've witnessed before what terrible outcomes have manifested when we replace courage with politics and political gain.

Real men don't need to resort to violence. That's what separates us (most of us, at least) from the lower primates, we know how to make use of our minds.

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Originally posted by Q5echo as well you should on it's technical merits. wars are different from one to the next, but when we fight them, there will always remain a commonality when we fight with courage. when we don't, when we fight with politics, you get pure horror to follow.

I agree, but I would hope that goes without saying by now.

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you should also appreciate, though, what courage has brought a many unfortunate people in the past at our hand, our sword, and at our sacrifice. thats my point with this thread.

Again, I think such appreciation goes without saying, and I have no general point of contention with your overall thought on that.

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i've said this before here and ill say it forever. no greater freedoms or prosperities has come from other than the barrel of our guns, ever. thats a fact. i believe no greater horror has come from politics.

I wish it was as simplistic as that, but you know as well as I that it's not.

And BTw, where does diplomacy fall in your false dichotomy?

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these are weasels we're dealing with in Iraq not Mao's invincible army. desperate, but very deadly weasels. criminals that not even the most religious Iraqi wants in their country.

While at the same time, some of the biggest religious freaks are most assuredly ALSO part of the elusive enemies we are fighting as well. Again I know you're aware of that, but it's yet another difference between the analogy of the Korean War.

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i don't want to be there. George Bush doesn't want to be there no matter how you twist his words, but we're there and if you believe that nothing can stop us we won't be there for long. given the fact that no one believes in us or the Iraqis i'm pretty sure we all know thats not gonna happen.

Soooo, if I'm to follow you correctly - if we all just clap that much louder, we'll leave quicker? But since most of our hands are red and bleeding from clapping so much, let alone muscular fatigue in our arms, that will only cause us to stay longer?

Can you at least try and understand that we've all heard this for the past 4 years, and that argument still remains very unconvincing given the reality of the situation on the ground?

22 killed and 40 injured in a car bomb today, along with 20 decapitated bodies found:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...7062800447.html

31 American soldiers killed in the past 7 days:

http://icasualties.org/oif/prdDetai...x?hndRef=6-2007

But we shall continue to clap louder?

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you can speak about it all you want as loudly as you want. i just want you to remember what your words do and how they affect people and soldiers on both sides of the fight.

I doubt my words on Trancaddict forums carry very far across to our soldiers in Iraq, or to the Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias, or al Qaeda terrorists for that matter. But if my words do reach these groups then so be it - they are the majority of American public sentiment for a reason, and the blame of that sentiment cannot be shifted towards Democrats, towards Air America, towards anyone but the architects and idiots that put us in that position in the first place with absolutely not a fucking care in the world about how to secure Iraq and get our boys (and gals) the hell outa there alive.

Perhaps one day you too will come to realize the true abusers of this war and the true people behind this fiasco.

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no, you keep fighting. you ignore the rhetoric study the enemy (because he studies you and everyone else) and despite it all you keep fighting. because deep down inside you know thats what you have to do if you want to get to a place in order to get home.

I understand this is what the soldiers have to believe in order to make some sanity of their situation. I do not and never will fault them for doing so and fully applaud their bravery as I always have.

You know where the brunt of my criticisms (and nearly all anti-Iraq war criticisms) have always been directed towards - those that put us in this situation in the first place.

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Iraq can and will be a place like history has shown us it can be when we put the courage into it.

Feel free to correct me, but you also later said:

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it's not in the details. it's not in even in the combatants. it's in ideals and what very well could be the outcome if it was fought as hard and with as much courage as we have accomplished before.

Which I think both thoughts could be tied together to sum up your overall point of this thread, right? Well can you tell me who in their right minds wouldn't want such a result? This is the ultimate dream of anyone no matter what side of the aisle you're on. The trouble is understanding the situation and knowing what can and cannot realistically be accomplished.

I'd love for Iraq to be a S. Korea. What an accomplishment that would be (aside of having a powerful enemy and a nutbag dictator a few miles away from them ready to push the button at any point I guess). But the problem when you compare the ends is you are handwaving or ignoring the gigantic differences in the means of getting to such lofty goals between the two wars.

I find this the ultimate problem with the neoconservative philosophy. Their goals and dreams are a wet dream for America, perhaps at the expense of every other country on the planet, but as a greedy American I'd loooove to have the ultimate outcomes that neocons circle-jerk about. But they tend to have the darnest time understanding just how those goals are accomplished. And perhaps what's most damning to them, their ignorance of the means with the consequences and repurcussions of their actions is shown on full display. We need to look no further than how those neocon architects got us into this Iraq mess in the first place, all the way to the point where we're now arming the very f$ckers who've shot and killed our soldiers for short term goals of going after another bad-guy group - al Qaeda, and to the point where even our leaders are saying this "surge" is our last best option with no "plan B" to fall back on.

It's a horrible mess that cannot be denied, and I don't think anyone's voice should be silenced by the threat of speaking about the reality situation is somehow detrimental to our soldiers. As you said, they fight regardless because that's both what they're told and how they themselves cope with war.

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

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Originally posted by Trancer-X Real men don't need to resort to violence. That's what separates us (most of us, at least) from the lower primates, we know how to make use of our minds.

I see...so the guys who plowed into the towers were apes and mindless then?

___________________
"...End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path...one that we all must take.
The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it...
...white shores...and beyond...the far green country under a swift sunrise."

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Originally posted by MisterOpus1 22 killed and 40 injured in a car bomb today, along with 20 decapitated bodies found: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...7062800447.html But we shall continue to clap louder?

Because stuff like this NEVER happened before Team America arrived!

___________________
"...End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path...one that we all must take.
The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it...
...white shores...and beyond...the far green country under a swift sunrise."