i keep saying i wont respond, then i read another post that shocks me, and i have to. but, i wont get into stupid responces to rants of ignorance. i will say this wyo. you seem to think you do know what your talking about, so answer a simple question, that you odviously have the answer to. did iraq have anything to do with 9 11? did they supply anything to it? how about even 1 person from there country? did they support the terrorists that attached us?
most dodge that simple little bit of info when praising our so called leader, and start rants that would make a 9 year old giggle. let me guess, i am not a real american now, becouse i have a brain that thinks on its own, and doesn't follow blindly, is that right? i wont ask you who you think is a good president, and who has screwed america of its welth, and security, i am sure you have many democrats to blame for that. i will state once again though, i am all american, i just am not a sheep who follows blindly couse some so called good ol' boy( roflmao) stated that iraq had anything to do with 9 11, and sheep follow blindly.
bush did a great job with afganistan, then set his sights on iraq? why? why iraq, over iran, and many other terrorist supporting nations. iraq did not support terrorists. the un knew this. they also knew he had no weapons of mass distruction. all proven. they stated this over and over. then bush removed them to attach.
tell me, are we safer as a nation now that iraq is the newest terrorist spot on the planet? think for yourself, dont let the love of a moron sway you here. are we safer now with iraq breeding terrorism daily? are american people safer now( you must include the men and woman dying every day in iraq)
for what? why do these men and woman have to die? fighting terrorists? show me ANY PROOF that iraq was a terrorist nation! everyone avoids that simple question. the u n knew they were not, along with the terrorist nations themselfs, lol.
so, with all the wisdom you spewed in your previous post, please inlighten me on these simple questions i need answered. dont avoid the hard ones either, that is just too easy.
thank you, and god bless the men and woman of the us armed forces

 

Are you serious?? Iraq didn't support terrorism before we went to war?? They became a terrorist nation after we invaded, right? B.S.!!! One of the biggest terrorists in history ran that country. He used terror to run it. Do you really think that Iraq would give a darn if terrorists were using that country to plan attacks before we invaded. I dont think you have all the "facts", and I dont claim to either. Remember when we were attacked on Sept. 11, and most of Iraq was dancing in and cheering in the streets?? That whole region is taught to hate us, taught to kill Americans is honarable. The U.N is a friggin mess. They were scamming money via who?? IRAQ! Half the European nations have/had interests in Iraq, lots of things will be uncovered about scandelous dealings with these countries. If you had millions/billions invested in Iraq, would you want to go to war with them?? Better yet, if what you were doing was illegal, would you want the U.S to go to war with them and find all this out?? To imply Iraq wasn't a terrorist nation before we went and invaded is foolish and plain un-true, IMO. Thats my "rant". [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

 

Gee Whiz...lets see we have billions of dollars in oil contracts with Saudia Arabia..........seven of the highjack terroists that attacted on 9-11 were in fact Saudis....Bin himself a Saudi.......follow the money trail to Saudia Arabia. Man o man you don't have to be the head cashier down at the Walmart to figure this one out why didn't we attact our attackers.....gee it couldn't be the oil contracts could it.....you are right Mr. dumass the europeans did have billions of dollars in oil contracts with Iraq.....there is just a little hypocracy there, don't you think?.......we were on the right track in Afganistan....why did we back off and go after a nobdy? I mean the guy has been killing his people for years never seemed to bother us before ....I mean really we sent him the means to do it......right? Now don't get me wrong the guy was bad, but we have other ways of dealing with Dictators. They can be made to disappear quietly.

Now that we are in this mess it is time to do what our leaders didn't do in the first place start planning our exit get our men and women back home.. they have done there job... time for the politians to pull there thumbs out of there pompus A$$s and finish this up.

After all Haliburton has enough of our money they can afford there own security force[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

 

Well, I was gonna go off on the Iraq not being a terrorist nation or even supporting terrorists, then I read mrdumass' post. I couldn't have said it better. To think that Iraq was/is not supporting terrorism is completely assinine, Who is killing Americans over there every day? Is it the Iraqi army? UH, no, we destroyed that, is it other Americans? No, probably not. Call me what you will, however, a sheep I am not. I do not follow blindly because of the "love of a moron". I believe in my country and what WE fight for. I also do not claim to have such a"vast knowledge" of everything. I am glad that you were able to read between the lines enough to tell that I am smarter than you, but a genius I am not. (relax, that's humor). I also do not presume to be the man that defines what a true American is. I gave my opinion of what I believed a true American is. I do feel honored to be asked all of these questions, as if I had the answers, do you think if I knew the answers, I would be a cop? Heck no, I would be in Washington D.C. makin' lots more money than I am now. This is the reason I normally do not get involved in political or religious conversations. I believe what I want and you believe what you want. I don't really care. Just remember, God, Country, Family, Corp. That is how my priorities roll. Yours, none of my business. And I don't ever have to worry about it. I will never have to worry about (IMO) a hippy watching my back when the **** hits the fan. God Bless and good night. I'll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitress. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

Now that cowboy I can agree on yes, we are fighting terroists now, they have all flocked to this hot spot, I can agree with you there. our priorities are some what different I prefer Family, My country, My Harley Davidson, My DS. lol
Oh, and I never forget to tip the waitress[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

 

it seems to me, my questions were tweeked a little here. i asked if iraq was a terrorist supporting nation. i did not ask if sadam was a freak of nature, who got off on killing in mass his own people. there are MANY out there just like him. sadam is and was a vary bad man, and he is as good as done. but, the real question still remains, was iraq a terrorrist supporting nation? did they have anything to do with 9 11? yes, they cheered in the streets, so did iran, alot of saudi's, and some afericans, well, we can go on and on there. did iraq have anything to do with 9 11? were they happy, yes. were they all excited at are sorrows, heck ya. along with numerous other country's. still, was iraq one of the country's harboring the talaban? did they help plan 9 11? did they supply money to the cause? noone answers these plainly, becouse we all know the answers to the questions. they have been stated by our own government. cia, fbi, and so on all have stated that the u n got it right. bush turned his back on them, to invade iraq. i know, this is properganda by our news. but, these men have made books and statements to this fact. there are articals posted by hondabuster earlier in this post showing this, BEFORE we invaded! osama did not like sadam, and they did not work together. this is a fact that is also stated by our own cia. people in our own government resigned over this invasion. this can all be proven in not finding any weapons of mass distruction, or a single taliban terrorist. oh, you can say we find many of them, NOW, becouse the plan was to protect the oil, and not the borders or the weapon deapows. again, proven!!! our own sec of state stated that, of corse with his own twist.
iraq is the no. 1 terrorist nation, NOW. more attachs are happening there every day, but this is AFTER WE INVADED THEM! not before. before we invaded them, they were a nation with only 40% of there power grid working. no air force to speak of, and a military that was 1/10 of what is was before the golf war.
the facts are, iraqi's are acting like terrorists now, but not before we invaded. i would like to think that i, and all of you, would also act like a terrorist if we were invaded and overrun. i know i would be planting anything to take out the overpowering country in my land.
maybe i dont state how i feel vary good, and god only knows my spelling and typing skills need great improvment. but i dont look past the facts, before and after we removed the un and invaded a country.
if you feel i am a hippy who thinks war is wrong, they you are also mistaken. i simply beleave that war is the LAST OPTION to be taken, becouse i value the lives of young men and woman who inlisted to protect our great land. it is odvious that bush did not take all and any options to keep our men and woman from invading iraq. yes, they screwed with us, but the inspecters were in country, and sadam was just doing what all dictators do, pushing his luck. bush rushed into a war with iraq, with no end in mind( admitted by his own generals) no plan for pease, and with no idea of how to keep iraq from becoming a terrorist nation( witch, for the first time, it now is)
as for war. i loved it when he went streight into afganistan. i was a huge supporter of bushs, and was a proud american. i just knew the taliban was going down world wide. i also knew iran would be next, becouse they openly back them. i also knew we would finally deal with our so called friends, the saudi's. we would leave our mark, and let the terrorist's across the planet know they are no longer safe anywhere. instead of this, we left afganistan weaker than we should of, and went into the only middle east country that is shaking at the thoughts that iran, or anyone else can overrun them, and did not harbor the taliban. it is easy to say( hoping) that bush had a stragity for this, but if you openly look at what he has gotten us into, you would see he ran this one blindly.
all the same, iran should of been the next to follow us, or fall from power. taking out iraq, poorly at that, made us look foolish in the middle east, and actually showed the taliban that we can be hit, weakened, and deshoveled.
noone here will agree on what everyone else is saying, but one thing is for sure. iraq was not a terrorist supporting nation, proven. they did not attach us on 9 11, proven. we handled this so badly it is sad.( that one is odvious) and, for the first time, iraq is now one of the biggest terrorist nations on the planet. ( unless anyone here can show me more attachs happening every day against its own people and americans)
and to keep with the questions twards me. iraq was enimy's with the taliban. they were not in bed together. osama openly hated sadam, becouse of his treatment of muslims. sadam used brutal forse, and killing, to control his own country. he did not attach us though. there are many on this planet who should not be rulling there country,s. they should all be removed from power too. i must of been mistaken though, becouse after 9 11, i thought we were actually going after the people who attached us, not the weak, mean people. if thats the case, then maybe we might of gone into aferica. they are in the middle of a geniside. over 4 million people have been slaughtered in the last few years. soon goint to pass hitler of the biggest race haters on the planet. most dont know this, becouse there is no profit there for us. if you think i am lying, then i sudjest you look into it.
i thought we were suppost to fight terrorists, not invade one of the only country,s that were at odds with them.

god bless the men and woman who continue to fight for this great country

 

Heres an interesting article, written by a high ranking , very highly decorated vietnam vet.
hackworth article
"Pentagon is lying its way out of an unwinnable war - again

Col. David Hackworth

As with Vietnam, the Iraqi tar pit was oh-so-easy to sink into, but appears to be just as tough to exit.
This should be no big surprise! Most slugfests - from bar brawls to military misadventures like Vietnam and Iraq - take some clever moves to step away from once the swinging starts.

This is why most combat vets pick their fights carefully. They look at their scars, remember the madness and are always mindful of the fallout.

That’s not the case in Washington, where the White House and the Pentagon are run by civilians who have never sweated it out on a battlefield. Never before in our country’s history has an administration charged with defending our nation been so lacking in hands-on combat experience and therefore so ignorant about the art and science of war.

Now the increasingly flummoxed Bush team is stealing the page on Vietnamization from Nixon’s Exit Primer, coupled with the same deceitful tactics he used to get us out of the almost decade-long Vietnam quagmire: telling lies.

The Nixon gang kicked off its con in 1969 via a killer of a PR snow job to pacify an American public whose support for the war was exhausted. The guts of this spin show were: We have clobbered the enemy; the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) is main-event material and ready to take over the fighting; and we can bring our troops home. This propaganda was supported by ARVN combat-readiness reports systematically doctored by our brass to show that the units we were advising were good-to-go.

I was on the ground as an adviser to ARVN when the campaign launched, and I was completely floored. Even the elite outfits - Rangers, Special Forces, paratroopers - were not fully capable of defending their country when put to the test. And these gung-ho troops were ARVN’s finest. Average ARVN grunts down in the ordinary infantry divisions were so ineffective that they couldn’t have fought their way out of a day-care center without massive U.S. air support.

Meanwhile, U.S. units started redeploying. Two years after the last grunt climbed on the last silver “freedom bird” and headed home, ARVN folded like a wet noodle.

All that blood, sacrifice and billions of American taxpayer dollars went for naught because politicians hadn’t worked out the endgame before Round One. And then their solution-without-honor was to lie their way out of a no-win war.

Thirty-five years later, President Bush told the nation that Iraq had nine fully trained combat infantry battalions. Just as he was proclaiming the prowess of the Iraqi army, a major in the Iraqi Training Command told me that the soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, when committed to their first battle, threw down their weapons and ran. “Not sure where the president is getting his info, but we have only one battalion that’s good-to-go,” he said.
Inquiring minds want to know: Is our president still being fed bad skinny comparable to the intel incorrectly linking Saddam to Sept. 11 or claiming that Iraq was chockablock full of weapons of mass destruction?

More recently, Pentagon hype claimed 140,000 trained and equipped Iraqi troops were set to go toe to toe against an estimated 15,000 insurgents. But when congressional pressure from both Republicans and Democrats lit fires around the feet of both Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers, they were quick to admit that only 40,000 Iraqi soldiers were ready to meet the tiger. The rest, according to Myers, “were useful in less-taxing jobs . . . in relatively stable southern Iraq.”

The hard truth is that it takes a good 10 years to build an army from the ground up. And the major emphasis must be placed not on numbers such as how many battalions have been fielded or how ready the recruits are, but rather on good, old-fashioned officer training. Until this happens and the corrupt Iraqi officer leadership - from gold bar to four stars - gets a good scrub, our troops are stuck in the tar
.
Bush needs to set up a truth squad directly outside his Oval Office door quicksmart. Then, whenever the Pentagon plays fast and loose with the truth, the liars can be immediately rounded up and punished.

Because lying won’t get our troops out of Iraq without our national security taking a long-term hit that our country simply cannot afford."

 

Speaking of supporting our troups, heres how bush proposes to do that. Makes a person wonder whos side hes on.



newswire
Legion Leader Says Proposed Budget Reaches Deep Into Veterans' Pockets

2/7/2005 5:43:00 PM
------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: National Desk

Contact: Joe March of The American Legion, 317-630-1253; 317- 748-1926 (mobile); or Wade Habshey, 317-630-1255, both of The American Legion

WASHINGTON, Feb.7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The leader of the nation's largest military veterans organization reacted strongly to the effects that President Bush's budget plan will have on veterans. He called it a smoke screen to raise revenue at the expense of veterans.

"This is not acceptable," said Thomas P. Cadmus, national commander of the 2.7 million-member American Legion. "It's nothing more than a health care tax designed to increase revenue at the expense of veterans who served their country."

Cadmus was referring to the portion of the proposed budget that would double the co-payment charge to many veterans for prescription drugs and would require some to pay a new fee of $250 a year to use their own their own health care system.

"Is the goal of these legislative initiatives to drive those veterans paying for their health care away from the system designed to serve veterans?" Cadmus asked. "The President is asking Congress to make "health care poaching" legal in the world's largest health care delivery system."

"When the President first came to Washington, among his first official acts was to triple the prescription co-payment from $2 to $7," Cadmus said. "Once again, the President wants to double the co-payment and fortunately, Congress has wisely rejected that proposal. Making veterans 'pay for timely access to quality health care is wrong."

This is the third year in a row the President has attempted to establish an enrollment fee for those veterans making co-payments and third-party reimbursements to the VA.

"Many of these veterans are Medicare-eligible and already paying the federal government for their part A and B coverage, so why should they have to pay an additional enrollment fee? VA can't even bill Medicare," Cadmus said. "Other veterans with private health insurance make co-payments and then VA is reimbursed for services. Again, why should they be forced to pay an additional $250 to go to VA medical facilities?" "During my visits to VA hospitals, I have not run into Bill Gates, Donald Trump, or Ross Perot seeking care. I see mostly veterans - many on small fixed incomes - trying to make ends meet and exercising their very best health care option." Cadmus observed.

"Veterans' health care is an ongoing expense of war," he added. "You don't thank veterans for serving their country and then tell them, 'By the way, better not get wounded or you'll have to pay extra for your health care.' This is offensive to every veteran in America. That is why this government must move VA health care out from under the umbrella of discretionary spending to mandatory spending," Cadmus stressed.

The American Legion has requested a $3..5 billion increase in health care spending in FY 2006. The President is proposing $9.5 billion in foreign aid, about $2.1 billion more than the current level.

"As young Americans in uniform battle terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as 119 other countries, it is incomprehensible that our veterans will pay for the shortfall in VA health care funding from their own pockets as tax dollars flow out the back door of America," Cadmus said.

"We reminded the President of our position on veterans' health care needs during his campaign and I personally testified on the issue on Capitol Hill last September," Cadmus added. "Our budget request is very realistic when you consider the Secretary has slammed the door in the face of hundreds of thousands of veterans eligible, but currently forbidden from seeking quality care from VA."

"The current appropriations process is broken and is not adequately funding VA medical care," Cadmus said. "President George W. Bush's Task Force to Improve Health Care Delivery for Our Nation's Veterans on May 26, 2003, identified the mismatch between demand and funding as a major obstacle in meeting the nation's commitment to veterans. The American Legion and nine other veterans' organizations believe the answer lies in changing VA health care funding from discretionary to mandatory appropriation."

"No active-duty service member in harm's way should ever have to question the nation's commitment to veterans. This is the wrong message at the wrong time to the wrong constituency."

http://www.usnewswire.com/

 

No offense, Wyo but you have a complete misunderstanding of Iraq. Did Iraq always have religious nuts? Yes...But they were oppressed by Saddam. So if you think about it, he was the last guy we should have replaced..What you fail to understand is that we created a situation that now allows the religious nuts to pull their **** in Iraq...We did it..

Was Saddam a scumbag? of course. In a loony place like Iraq... perhaps a scumbag was needed to clamp down on the Islamic Nuts....We aren't doing a very good job of it, are we?......2 yrs. and the insurgency still is strong..

Not to mention they just had an election and the big problem now is that they elected a Shia Cleric who wants to install an Islamic theocracy .....It's nuts if you think about it.....the exact opposite of what we should be doing..... remember we were hit by religious nuts on 9/11, not Bathists dictators...

 

i am assuming now the newest responce will be that the general doesn't know what he,s talking about. and of corse, the leagon leader must be a tree hugging commi, to go against anything the all mighty bush says, lol.
hondabuster. yet another great article you found there. it seems to me, the people who love and back bush, are the same people who dont really understand what is, and has happened. that, or there blind loyalty( like honda owners,could not resist) lol has led them to back there president regardless of what he has done, thinking that backing your president is how you back your troops.
i beleave that backing the troops is done by showing the people what there prseident has done to them.
i will go farther as to saying that defending a leader who has done most everything wrong, and has put so many young americans in harms way, only to cause so much more damage than good, is not backing the troops. dont follow blindly into that good night people. read, find the truth. its there. if anyone really studied what our own generals have said, and most retired government officials have stated( the ones not in bush,s pocket) you would see what has happened to this great country. i guess this is what happens when someone is put in charge, who has dodged any wars, run the businesses he has controled into the ground, and backs big business over all other americans. bush is simply a lying fool who has been caught over and over again, again PROVEN!!!
now thats a rant