“If they’re going to support us, support us all the way.”

basso, I am talking about the answer to one question that I asked you. I am asking you for the third time.

Were the troops who believe the U.S. should have gone into Iraq in the first place, in the minority or the majority?

 

basso, you represented the poll that I originally referenced and tried to make it say something.

I then posted information from that poll supporting exactly what I claimed it did.

You have yet to acknowledge the data in that poll.

Why are you having a hard time answering the question?

Were the troops who believe the U.S. should have gone into Iraq in the first place, in the minority or the majority?

 

My post was in response to this...

 

And once again, in support of your silly "I wasn't wrong" quote, you offer nothing but a sketchy Kuwait exception to defend one of the things you were wrong about, ignoring entirely the other ways you were flatly wrong about this poll and just pretending it never happened. Even if we could agree the soldiers polled meant to except troops stationed in Kuwait (a silly stretch to be sure), you would still be wrong about the troops "supporting the mission" and "believing we will win."

Spin these numbers, silly:

1. Only half of the troops believe we can win this war.
2. Less than half believe we should be there in the first place.
3. Less than half support the president's policies in Iraq.

And, even with your bogus Kuwait argument, even if we accepted that, that would still leave less than half that believe we should increase the number of troops there.

Now let's get back to the original premise of the thread, which calls for complete and total support of the war as a condition for saying one supports the troops.

Even with your dishonest spin on one number (while pretending the others don't exist), the troops themselves clearly do not meet the standard for supporting themselves.

Let me repeat that.

This poll shows, in no uncertain terms, that according to the standard of the troops in the clip, according to the standard espoused repeatedly by Bush, Cheney and you, the troops do not support themselves.

And, according to your warped logic, that means they support the enemy and are happy when American soldiers (in other words, they themselves) die.

This is where you and yours have brought us, basso. According to you, the troops are traitors that hope they will die. But I'm the idiot.

 

Nice summation.

basso, I asked a question. All you had to do was give an honest answer. But you can't man up and do that. You once again try and distort things beyond honesty, and when called on it, and even offered a chance to bow out of it while still saving some face, flatly pretend like the things you were wrong about, or distorted don't even exist.

You support the troops yet you distort their opinions when I mention the poll which you linked and says exactly what I claimed it did. How honorable of your behavior toward our soldiers.

It would be nice if
a: you didn't try and distort and twist the information in the poll from our soldiers in the first place

b: once you did and were caught at it, you just admitted it and moved on

c: once you offered a chance to just answer one question from the poll that didn't even make you come out and admit your distortions but would still set the record straight you would be gracious enough to accept it.

What is with the foppy little princess ballerina act? Why you don't you get some "courage"

 

Other then wanting other people, good troops, sent in to fight YOUR war of disillusion, how exactly do you support the war?


I mean other then shouting you love Bush, and the troops and this war that is.


Are you willing to serve for the "noblist of causes"? Are you helping recruiting causes? Are you volunteering your time to injured vets? Are you fighting Bush's legislation that has cut vets benefits? Tell me TJ, how exactly are you championing our troops and our vets.

 

We've been asking this for three years.

 

from that bastion of lib-pigism, the drudge report...

why oh why, baghdad basso, do the troops want the troops to fail?

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16616389.htm

Soldiers in Iraq view troop surge as a lost cause

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Army 1st Lt. Antonio Hardy took a slow look around the east Baghdad neighborhood that he and his men were patrolling. He grimaced at the sound of gunshots in the distance. A machine gunner on top of a Humvee scanned the rooftops for snipers. Some of Hardy's men wondered aloud if they'd get hit by a roadside bomb on the way back to their base.

"To be honest, it's going to be like this for a long time to come, no matter what we do," said Hardy, 25, of Atlanta. "I think some people in America don't want to know about all this violence, about all the killings. The people back home are shielded from it; they get it sugar-coated."

While senior military officials and the Bush administration say the president's decision to send more American troops to pacify Baghdad will succeed, many of the soldiers who're already there say it's a lost cause.

"What is victory supposed to look like? Every time we turn around and go in a new area there's somebody new waiting to kill us," said Sgt. 1st Class Herbert Gill, 29, of Pulaski, Tenn., as his Humvee rumbled down a dark Baghdad highway one evening last week. "Sunnis and Shiites have been fighting for thousands of years, and we're not going to change that overnight."

"Once more raids start happening, they'll (insurgents) melt away," said Gill, who serves with the 1st Infantry Division in east Baghdad. "And then two or three months later, when we leave and say it was a success, they'll come back."

Soldiers interviewed across east Baghdad, home to more than half the city's 8 million people, said the violence is so out of control that while a surge of 21,500 more American troops may momentarily suppress it, the notion that U.S. forces can bring lasting security to Iraq is misguided.

Lt. Hardy and his men of the 2nd Brigade of the Army's 2nd Infantry Division, from Fort Carson, Colo., patrol an area southeast of Sadr City, the stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

A map in Hardy's company headquarters charts at least 50 roadside bombs since late October, and the lieutenant recently watched in horror as the blast from one killed his Humvee's driver and wounded two other soldiers in a spray of blood and shrapnel.

Soldiers such as Hardy must contend not only with an escalating civil war between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite Muslims, but also with insurgents on both sides who target U.S. forces.

"We can go get into a firefight and empty out ammo, but it doesn't accomplish much," said Pvt. 1st Class Zach Clouser, 19, of York, Pa. "This isn't our war - we're just in the middle."

Almost every foot soldier interviewed during a week of patrols on the streets and alleys of east Baghdad said that Bush's plan would halt the bloodshed only temporarily. The soldiers cited a variety of reasons, including incompetence or corruption among Iraqi troops, the complexities of Iraq's sectarian violence and the lack of Iraqi public support, a cornerstone of counterinsurgency warfare.

"They can keep sending more and more troops over here, but until the people here start working with us, it's not going to change," said Sgt. Chance Oswalt, 22, of Tulsa, Okla.

Bush's initiative calls for American soldiers in Baghdad to take positions in outposts throughout the capital, paired up with Iraqi police and soldiers. Few of the U.S. soldiers interviewed, however, said they think Iraqi forces can operate effectively without American help.

Their officers were more optimistic.

If there's enough progress during the next four to six months, "we can look at doing provincial Iraqi control, and we can move U.S. forces to the edge of the city," said Lt. Col. Dean Dunham, the deputy commander of the 2nd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade, which oversees most of east Baghdad.

Maj. Christopher Wendland, a senior staff officer for Dunham's brigade, said he thinks there's a good chance that by late 2007 American troops will have handed over most of Baghdad to Iraqi troops.

"I'm actually really positive," said Wendland, 35, of Chicago. "We have an Iraqi army that's actually capable of maintaining once we leave."

If the Iraqi army can control the violence, his thinking goes, economic and political progress will follow in the safest areas, accompanied by infrastructure improvement, then spread outward.

In counterinsurgency circles, that notion is commonly called the "inkblot" approach. It's been relatively successful in some isolated parts of Iraq, such as Tal Afar on the Syrian border, but in most areas it's failed to halt the bloodshed for any length of time.

Wendland and Dunham said, however, that if the Iraqi forces in Baghdad falter, much of the city could fall to Sunni and Shiite insurgents.

"We have to have momentum . . . or else it could all fall like a house of cards," Wendland said.

Leaning against a pile of sandbags last week, 1st Lt. Tim Evers took a drag from his Marlboro cigarette. He said that while sending more troops sounded good, Sunni and Shiite fighters would only move out of Baghdad, fight elsewhere and wait until they can re-enter the capital.

Evers' men were part of the last U.S. effort to subdue Baghdad, Operation Forward Together, which included Iraqi and American soldiers. It lasted most of last summer and ended in failure.

"When we first got here it was, `Let's put up schools, let's work on a power plant' - but you can't do that without security, and security here is crap," said Evers, 26, of Stockton, Calif. "They keep trying different crap and it doesn't work. . . . They're talking about the inkblot method, and doing that you secure a small area, but the rest is still bad."

America's three-and-a-half-year effort to quell Iraqi unrest has been largely unsuccessful, according to statistics compiled by The Brookings Institution, which gets most of its data from the U.S. government.

In June 2003, a month after Bush declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq, 18 U.S. troops were killed by hostile fire. Last month, hostile fire killed at least 80 American troops, according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a Web site that tracks U.S. casualty numbers from military releases. On Jan. 20 alone, 25 U.S. soldiers were killed, almost one-third more than died in all of June 2003.

There are troubling indications in the Brookings statistics that adding more troops only to draw down later to lower levels - as is the current plan - may not bring peace.

The coming increase will bring the number of American soldiers and Marines in Iraq to some 153,000. During the country's national elections in December 2005, there were 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Fifty-seven of them were killed by hostile fire, and there were on average 90 daily insurgent and militia attacks. In December 2006, when the number of U.S. soldiers and Marines in Iraq dropped to about 140,000, 95 Americans were killed and there were on average 185 attacks a day.

The problem, many soldiers say, is that as long as the majority of Iraqis oppose the presence of American troops, a trend that's only accelerated since the 2003 invasion, no amount of bullets or bodies will solve the problem.

That's a bitter truth for Sgt. Chance Oswalt and many others on the streets of Baghdad.

Oswalt somberly named two men in his company who fought in Fallujah in November 2004, in the most intense urban combat since Vietnam, only to be killed in Baghdad late last year. One bled to death after he was shot by a sniper; the other was killed by a roadside bomb.

"All of our friends who have been killed by (roadside bombs) and snipers, it's like there's no justice for it - it's just another body bag filled," he said. "The guys who died just trying to stay alive and get home, they'll be forgotten. No one will remember their stories."

Riding on a patrol last week, Spc. Elmer Beere looked out of his Humvee window for any hint of wires leading to a roadside bomb.

"It's kind of relentless and pointless," said Beere, 22, of State College, Pa. "It'll be the same thing going on here, no matter what we do."

 

I have been in Iraq for the last 17 months. I just got back home last week. Above is what the sentiment seems to be. We arent losing the war. We can not be beaten militarily, however we are not winning either. There is nothing we can do for the Iraqi people at this point. They must do it themselves. We can support them in the background but we are at a point in which we dont have a true battlefield objective. We are police at this point. We do patrols. Its really not a war now. The younger foot soldiers seem to feel its pointless. The older military personel seem to "Want to kill terrorist". For those of you that feel our military can bring peace to Iraq, I suggest you brush up on history and go there and view the situation yourself. Comercial flights fly into the BIAP "Baghdad International Airport" from Jordan and a few other country's. Mosul is also about to open the airfield for civilian flights. Book aflight and go see for yourself .The "WAR" has been over for sometime now. Take my assesment for what its worth, but the fact is, I have been there.

 

Thanks for the insight, unfortunately that is the scenario we're faced with. It's a no win situation going forward.

If U.S. pulls out, we will be seen as the irresponsible people that broke Iraq and left it to clean up it's own messes. It will not only de-stabilize the region but increase the hatred of U.S. from those people. Iraq wasn't a great country under Saddam, but the evil you know is a lot better then the evil you don't to a lot of people. This is why revolutions or overthrowing the government usually takes a while, if it happens at all. People are willing to take stabillity with chains over instabillity with "possible freedom". Even in the U.S., look at how fast we were willing to sacrifise civil liberties to decrease possible unknown attaacks.

If U.S. stays in, well I don't think we'll see the light at the end of the tunnel. I think the rest of the world needs to take a bigger action, but it's not gonna happen when our commander in chief publically antagonize any one who's not "with us" as he was going in and then when the war was "won", refused reconstruction bids from any one who's not our "ally".

 

Its simple really. Reduce the forces to a support only role. This will make the IAF's learn to defend themselves. They are a ragedy bunch in real life . I guess you would have to see them for yourself to understand that. Back to the point, at this point we should only be in a support role. Lets be real here, since when has this administration really given a damn about what the rest of the world thinks. We need to do what's in "America's" interest first. Leaving is not an option. Plugging more soldiers in should really not be an option. Pull back and support the IAF's when they request support or need help. The people will get tired of the violence eventually and rise up. Now another thing, if anyone even remotely believes that we will pull completely out of Iraq, they are fooling themselves. We will be there in some shape form or fashion for decades to come.

 

I support the troops not the mission.

DD

 

I guess I can agree with that to an extent. But I believe the US will get blamed for anything and everything that goes on over there, fair or not just because they destabilized it.

 

Absolutely just like the Russians in Afganastan.......big mistake by the USA.

DD

 

Welcome back home!

Thank you for pointing out the solution is not just military but also political and diplomatic.

I completely agree with your suggestion on reducing our military role. In conjunction with this, we must negotiate with Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia about Iraq's future. Otherwise, these countries will continue to "exert influence" in Iraq against our interests.

The article is correct in pointing out the bad guys will simply disappear and lay low until the "surge" is over. The surge is just the latest bad idea on Iraq from this disastrous administration.

 

Welcome back, are you done or is there still a possibility for you to be sent back?

I've got a question, when you see stuff like this "support the troops, bring them home" or "support the troops, keep them there" stuff, does any of it seem genuine to you and your fellow troops? What happens over there when a debate like this is played out on tv by some talking heads and a bunch of you guys happen to watch it?

 

Thanks for your service, u851662. Glad you made it home alright.

An old friend of mine is a Marine who deployed to Iraq yesterday. I hope he is also able to come home safe soon.

 

If you have a child who is choosing a career you don't like, would you say you support your child but not his mission?

It's not a 1-to-1 comparison I know but I still can't see how you can support the troops and not the mission. It's OK to say you don't AGREE with the mission but this seems like something different. Maybe it's all semantics

EDIT: What about saying that you support the Rockets but not their mission to win a championship?

 

Or perhaps it's more like saying you support Yao Ming but would rather not have him play in the WBC because you feel it will wear him down and hurts the Rockets' chances to win an NBA title.

You support the person because you're a fan/supporter/etc but not the mission, but you think the mission is bad in the overall scheme of things.