Get us out...or CNN out
 

Had a nice interview with a new employee today, back fresh from Iraq where he was a 10 year Staff Sargent in the USMC. He said we would have this mess cleaned up in 90 days if CNN just went away and let 'em go to work on these dudes. We can't fight this and win with CNN filming every event, too much collateral damage necessary, the towel heads know our limitations, and use it against our kids. F this let's get it done. I am a patriot thru and thru, but this is Viet Nam without a jungle. I don't see how we can tell if we're winning this...so let's just GTF out. Let them solve it without anymor of our blood spilled.

That seems to advocate the idea that as long as there are no cameras to capture war crimes and violations of the Geneva convention and intentional murder of innocent citizens....that it makes it ok?

It's CNN's fault that our soldiers have rules they have to follow for engagement? :o

Yep, collateral damage has happened in every war ever fought, and to think it's no different here is folly. There has been plenty already. My point is we are handcuffed in this campaign and we cannot realistically win this if every troop is looking over his shoulder at CNN while he tries to defend himself and his fellow troops while he takes care of business. War is ugly, and winning one is ugly, there is nothing fair about it. I have seen it thru my own eyes, and defense does not win this, only offense stops their effort, and blood will be shed doing it. When we stop them cold, we can come home.

Rule of War #1....there are no rules in war....

He told me we quit the "shock & awe" methods we had used earlier, and he's right. We don't win when they're launching from the mosque and we just dodge bullets. Win ugly, or gtf out. Let's decide before any more kids are lost for no good reason. Never thought I would see it this way, but there is too much indecision for me to see it any other way, at least for now.

[quote=brianwspencer]That seems to advocate the idea that as long as there are no cameras to capture war crimes and violations of the Geneva convention and intentional murder of innocent citizens....that it makes it ok?

You think they're following rules?

Hoss you're right and that's my point. How can we ever tell we're winning this? I don't think we can! What is the definition of a win.............democracy of a country that can't handle it? If the media demands to be on the scene, "inserted" if you will, then let's just pack up and get out of this mess. We cannot finish this is every soldier is held accountable for actiosn the insurgents use against them daily.

I have my board out...riding that wave too.

They aren't soldiers, therefore they don't have rules to follow. I'm not naive about how it all works. I don't believe in the magical world where we can win a war without killing innocents -- but the statistics are damning, saying that we're doing a plenty job of killing innocents with the cameras there.

So we should get the cameras out, slaughter half the country, then wash our hands clean and call it a day?

No amount of offense is going to make this go away. Not with a surge, not with camera-less warfare, not with anything. The more people we kill, the more people will hate us and the more insurgents there will be to fight. If we escalate our tactics and our numbers, it just escalates the whole thing and we're right back where we are now with bigger numbers.

[quote=MinnSkinny]That doesn't justify our stooping to the level of the terrorists. If we want to claim the moral high ground, we actually have to walk on it. If we torture and maim and attack with no respect for Geneva, how are we any different from them? After all, we're the ones who went into Iraq in the first place, so we can't even claim they attacked us. This ain't Afghanistan.

[quote=GenuineRisk]I have no axes to grind here, but this isn't about high ground. This is about the lives of our kids. We cannot continue to spend the human capital of hundreds or thousands of young Americans over there, when we have no chance of changing the mindset of the general population. I do not see a viable solution now, and I don't see one on the horizon either, so my point is, let's either win ugly or withdraw.
What is your solution?

as well said as anyone could say it. i'm not trying to be confrontational -- i'm just sick of the whole thing.

those are the two best options, but since we know we won't do the first (and we shouldn't), and Bush refuses to do the latter...we are just going to keep spinning our wheels and getting people killed until someone steps up and brings them home.

My point............exactly. And let's hope we do it soon.

i e d....thats fair..

Real costs:
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/46161/

when has ted turner ever done a POSITIVE story on his news channel....support the troops.

[quote=MinnSkinny]So the lives of the Iraqis lost in a "win dirty" mean less than dirt to you? We invaded, we underfunded and understaffed Bush's private folly and now that we did all of that, tough sh*t, Iraqi women and children, we're going to blow you up, torture and rape you, because better that we win dirty on your blood and limbs than one more American who voluntarily enlisted in the army die doing what he or she knew was a risk when he or she signed up? Do you even think these people are human, or do you think they're not?

Actually, your use of "towel-head" answers that question for me.

Hey, MinnSkinny, where do you stand-- rape is a tactic of war as old as war. Would you support American men raping Iraqi women to intimidate the men? Is that appropriate? How about raping children? What, exactly, do you think the soldiers should be doing that the presence of CNN is keeping them from doing? Tell me, would you support our soldiers raping women and children? That's a very effective win dirty tactic. Would you support it? Where is your line?

What I think we should or shouldn't do doesn't matter two sh*ts, because Bush is clearly continuing to ignore the advice of the biggest experts in the world, so why would what I think matter? Our boys and girls are going to continue to die until January of '09, and then most Americans will conveniently forget who put us in war, and only blame the poor sap who takes over the Oval Office. I'm sure, if it's a Dem, that Republicans will loooove the opportunity to paint the Dems as losing another war. Vietnam started under Eisenhower and ended under... Nixon? Or Ford? But somehow, it was only the Dems' fault.

Sigh. I hate this war, and I hate that 3000 young men and women will never go home and that tens of thousands more have gone home blind, missing limbs, deaf, attached to a plastic bag for the rest of their lives, etc. And that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead and hundreds of thousands more also blind, crippled, deaf, etc. And I don't mean to be yelling like it's your or anyone else's fault, MinnSkinny, (with the exception of Messrs Bush and Cheney, whom I hope will meet those souls who have died in the past 3 years when they themselves pass on, old men, safe in their beds, and they can tell them then if the "threat" of WMDs was worth it). But, for all the attacks I get about liberals being moral relativists, I can tell you torture is wrong. Winning at any cost is wrong if it is done with torture and rape and abuse. And no cause will ever make it right. And if CNN's presence is really stopping the soldiers from doing some things, then it's because they know, on some level, that those things are wrong.

I apologize for sounding harsh, MS- it's not you; it's this horrible mess Bush got us into. But torture wrong. Always wrong. Never right.

GR,

That was beautiful. As much as I sometimes fancy my own writing skills, I could not have said it better with three days to think about it.