[Mr 5 0]

Originally posted by CHRIS75 :

the only reason i say nuke them is because we are going to spend all this time, money and manpower and lives to change what happens in the middle east, but in all fairness it will never change, you watch we'll pull our soldiers out of there but we'll be back in a couple of years dealing with another dictator and the same problems over and over again.

I have to disagree with your presumptions here. I assume that you realize that 'nuking' any country is an absurd plan of action in an age when many nations in that region have nuclear weapons (Israel, Pakistan and India come to mind). The U.S. using even a limited nuclear weapon in Iraq (or any other Arab nation) would have disastrous results and probably serve to launch a nuclear war in the middle east, which would be catastrophic, making such an act by the United States simply untenable.

I will freely acknowledge that the middle east, with it's tribal feuds and centuries-old animosities and wars, is not exactly fodder for democracy and I do not believe we'll see anything close to a liberal democracy in Iraq but we will see a representative government and not a theocracy or a dictatorship - for a number of reasons. The main one being that Coalition forces (mostly American, of course) will be on occupation duty in Iraq for years to come, much as they were in post-war Germany and Japan. They won't be in charge of the government but they will be there to support the elected government from would-be dictators and those who would try to overthrow the elected representatives of the Iraqi people. Many once said that the war-like Germans and insular, aggressive Japanese would never be able to sustain a democracy, either, but they did and very well, too. Almost 60 years after the defeat of the Axis powers; Germany, Japan and Italy are all democratic nations, albeit with somewhat socialist economies. So, I do not buy the claim that the Iraqi people will never be able to sustain a democracy. I believe that the personal and economic benefits of a democracy will be readily apparent to most Iraqis, who are generally a rather sophisticated people, unlike some of their neighbors.

no matter what we do it never going to be enough. who really cares about the abuse! these soldiers are over there fighting and dying for us and our freedoms to help another country out, taken away from there family's they have a lot of stress on them let them take it out on the enemy (the people who cause this sh*it in the first place).

We only 'care' about the prisoner abuses because how we treat our prisoners are an indicator of who we are. Sinking to the level of barbarians is not how we do things. While most of the abuse was fairly mild as 'abuse' is generally thought of, it was still wrong and unnecessary. 'Taking it out' on your prisoners is the way of a brutal and ignorant people, something the U.S. is not and never has been. I will readily agree, as I've already stated, that the leftmedia has made this abuse scandal far more important than it deserves. I'm sick of the whining about it at this point. It happened. It was wrong. It was reported, investigated (and the investigation announced to the media in January) and the perps were accused and will be tried in a military court. No cover up, no denial, no excuses. Enough already with the endless hand-wringing and whining, which is really just using the scandal to attack both the war itself and of course, the Bush administration.

You watch before this is over we'll be fighting the whole desert.

I doubt it. Most Arab armies are weak and relatively small. It's terrorists we're fighting, not Arab armies or even specific Arabs. While the U.S. is not loved in the middle east, many of the dictators, kings and Mullahs are not loved by their people, either, and those 'leaders' are worried that they'll be next to end up hiding in a hole somewhere if their people decide they've finally had enough of being oppressed and mistreated by a small group of unelected people. Note how former terrorist-lover Moammar Gadhafi of Libya decided to be a good citizen and willingly divest himself of his chemical and biological weapons and labs and to shut down his nuclear research. That happened because of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the deposing of Saddam Hussein and his corrupt, brutally oppressive government. No, most Arabs don't really want to fight us, despite their anti-American bluster and bellowing. It's easy to get people out in the street to wave anti-America sighns on cue and yell 'Death to America' but getting the same people to actually put their lives on the line to support some nasty dictator or king is another story and one not likely to play out in the Arab world, especially when they see the positive beneifts of cooperating with the U.S. and establishing a representative government. While many Arab 'leaders' still cling to a fanciful pan-Arab vision, it's becoming clear that as we move further into the twenty-first century, that rancid dream is dead and trying to revive it (via Islamic terrorism) only brings misery and oppression.

We need to take care of this now and get it over with once and for all, what happens if the next time the sh*t hits the fan over there and we have a pu**y as a president ( LIKE KERRY) then what? The other thing the president should do is deport them otu of this country (GOOD OR NOT) so we don't have to worry about the next type of transportation there going to use to kill american's.

I agree that we need to 'take care of this now' - and that's what we're doing. Unfortuantely, it's not quick and easy - like dropping a nuclear bomb - and Americans tend to get impatient. Still, the fact remains that despite the leftmedia attempting to make it look as if we're losing in Iraq, we most definitely are not. George W. Bush is president, will very likely continue to be president for another four years and in that time, not only will Iraq enjoy the benefits of democracy but the terrorist networks will be reduced to the criminal gangs they always really were and their threat will have diminished considerably by 2009 - when Bush's second term ends.

I tend to agree with the idea of deporting Arabs but if they're here legally that won't be possible short of some kind of martial law being imposed, which could happen if were hit again in anything close to what happened on 9/11. Our borders do need to be tightened considerably but for reasons I cannot comprehend, the government (the Bush administration) doesn't seem eager to do that. I don't see why not. I'm not too worried about another terrorist attack on the U.S. because that will only make things much worse for the terrorists and make President Bush's re-election a sure thing at that point. Of course, terrorists have never been known for their intelligence. They had the Bush administration on the ropes after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke - and then they decided to behead an innocent American civilian, Nick Berg and release the video of the act, quickly turning public opinion away from worrying about suspected terrorist prisoners posing naked in embarrassing positions to a national revulsion with Arab terrorists, despite the leftmedias attempts to change the subject back to the prisoner abuse story. That beheading video was powerful proof that our enemy - terrorists - are barbaric and hateful - and they must be defeated.