NH Opinions - The war in Iraq

[thewoz]

I thought that I would post an article that I found on Intellectual Conservatives a while back.  It clearly shows how we should reserve judgment until we hear all the arguments for and against any topic.  It should be noted that many of our past Presidents, even our so called great and popular Presidents i.e. Roosevelt, JFK, and many others, have ignored the laws of our great Country and our Congress.  This does not mean I agree or disagree with how or why we went to war in Iraq, however since we are in Iraq we should act in a way that gives our troops what they need, OUR Country's willingness to take the fight to our enemies before they attacked us, and send a powerful message throughout the world that there would be no safe harbor anywhere for those who intend us harm. 

I hope that you enjoy the article.
theWOZ


The President is an Idiot

By Phillip Ellis Jackson

It?s time to see history as others see it.
Okay, I?m convinced.  The President?s critics have made their case.  The man is a complete and utter fool ? and a dangerous one at that.
His shortcomings are almost too many to cite, but we can list the most egregious ones.
? It?s become all too clear that the President has used the war to proscribe civil liberties.  The war is just an excuse to silence his critics and deny people their personal freedom.  The man is nothing less than a tyrant hell bent on stripping us of all our Constitutional rights in the name of ?protecting? the country. 
? As far as the prosecution of the war is concerned, he doesn?t have a clue what he?s doing.  His policies are chaotic and confused at best, grossly incompetent at worst.  We?re losing to a ragtag band of misfits who are cleaning our clock at every turn.  There?s only one way this war is going to end, and that?s badly.
? What?s more, the people he?s placed in charge of the war effort are no better.  They won?t listen to reason, lack vision, and haven?t the slightest idea what they?re doing.  In occupied areas the local population despises them, and the only times they show any military success is when they use overwhelming power to brutalize and destroy.  Yes our army is vastly superior to theirs, and in this sense we can clearly ?win,? but again what price victory? 
? And finally, let?s not forget about his reasons for going to war in the first place.  He lied.  There?s just no other way to describe it.  Just when did ?freeing the slaves? become part of our reason for attacking Georgia, or Mississippi, or Alabama for God?s sake?  Besides, these people had nothing to do with the assault on Fort Sumter (a one-time episode to be managed; certainly not a reason for going to war!), and never fired a shot at us until we shot at them.  We should redeploy our troops now.
I?m speaking of course of Lincoln and the Civil War. 
The withering criticism of Lincoln?s effort to hold the nation together so a different political agenda could be advanced seems cruel and self-serving with the light history has shed on his actions.  And yet, each of these arguments was treated with the utmost seriousness ? as least superficially ? at the time they were made.  Lincoln was an incompetent tyrant who suspended habeas corpus, brutalized the South with his heavy-handed policies, killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of innocent people (soldiers and civilians alike), and offered the original bait-and-switch reason for pursuing the war when he emancipated the slaves. 
Yes, there are certain ultra-conservatives and white nationalists who want to debate whether Lincoln actually had the Constitutional authority to prosecute the civil war in the first place, and will lament the implications of freeing the slaves instead of shipping them all back to Africa so we could keep the nation pure, white and Christian. But these represent the ?out of touch? views today, not the actions for which Lincoln was so roundly criticized a hundred and fifty years ago.
And from this we should all take note.  If your judgment about the President and his actions is based solely on the contemporary consensus of men and women with a vested interest in an opposing policy outcome, then be honest enough to admit that you?re not engaging in a reasoned analysis, but rather a partisan political hit. 
When the issue is whether to build an unnecessary bridge in rural Alaska or another Robert K. Byrd memorial facility somewhere in West Virginia, the stakes are important ? but not crucial.  Lose the fight and your taxes go up, but your head still remains firmly attached to the rest of your body.   But when the issue involves a fundamental clash of civilizations that threatens the present and future security of every American ? if not every Westerner ? then your support or opposition for the war against Islamic fascism carries with it a much greater implication. 
As citizens of a free country whose opinions actually matter, we have a responsibility to do more than merely support or oppose an elected official simply because it dovetails with our own personal agenda.  Republicans and conservatives in general have applied this principle to their actions.  Those who support an aggressive war against Islamo-fascism of the kind prosecuted by George W. Bush have also opposed the immigration and domestic spending policies of the kind proposed or implemented by George W. Bush. 
It?s the policy, not the person, that is the object of attention, unlike Democrats and liberals in general.  The same people who supported a call for regime change in Iraq in 1998 opposed it (after initially supporting it aka John Kerry) when George Bush actually acted on the matter.   From Hillary Clinton to Joe Biden, the same people who said that we needed more troops in Iraq before the election so they could criticize Bush?s war policy now oppose the introduction of any new troops into Iraq so they can criticize Bush?s war policy.
The simple fact is, if there was no invasion of Iraq, the same people who oppose the Iraq war but support our efforts in Afghanistan would now be virulently opposed to the death and destruction being wreaked throughout this innocent third world country which, by the way, never attacked the United States.  Instead, we should be hunting down that rogue element that temporarily made its home in the mountains of Tora Bora and is now hiding in the mountains of Pakistan. 
Of course, the moment Bush went after these people inside the Pakistan border, he?d be accused of invading another sovereign nation and thus radicalizing an entire generation of offended Islamo-fascists, so that any future attack on America under any future Administration could be traced to this seminal event ? thus allowing us to forget about the appeasement and indecision of the Clinton years that emboldened our enemies to attack us on 9/11 and start this whole process in motion. 
I?m not the first person to draw a parallel between the criticisms of Lincoln and Bush, and I suspect I won?t be the last.  America?s willingness to take the fight to our enemies before they attacked us, and send a powerful message throughout the world that there would be no safe harbor anywhere for those who intend us harm.  It?s no coincidence that a certain Libyan dictator got rid of his nuclear program shortly after the U.S. invaded Iraq.
But several years of relentless partisan Democrat attacks, gleefully carried by a willing national and international press, have undercut this message and instilled an exact opposite one.  Bush will continue the fight until the day he leaves office, but after that all bets are off.  Even if the Democrats don?t succeed in undercutting victory in Iraq, they have already shown that the U.S. ? as a whole ? has no stomach for a sustained fight. 

[CNHT]

Are you really the WOZ or are you just impersonating him? (Suspecting that you look like him)

[thewoz]

I am really the "WOZ".

Just not the one from Apple!

[CNHT]

I am really the "WOZ".

Just not the one from Apple!

Aw OK... LOL