Richard Clements wrote:
...



if you read my first post to this thread it was a comparative of
Iraqi
Freedom and WWII, another similarity is the guy who got his foot
blown off,
just so you know He made the request to go back, that hasn't happened
since
WWII either.

I read it and the comparison is still rediculous. The US enterred
the war in Europe after the Axis powers had occupied or otherwise
subjugated most of Western Europe. The US invaded Iraq after Iraq
had failed in two expansion attempts and after the Iraqi military
had been reduced to near complete impotency.


as far as Bush supporters wanting to take out Sadam, I wish Clinton
would
have had the ball to do that, but they where a little preoccupied at
the
time, and to try to cover it up he blows up a baby food factory.

As you know, and therefor chose to omit, a much larger simultaneous
attack was made on bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan. As you
also know, the Republicans in Congress were vehemently opposed to
those attacks, though some especially dishonest revisionist have
tried to advance the abusrd claim that the Republicans were being
critical because Clinton didn't follow-up with ground forces.
Plenty of blame to go around.

and as
far as no end in site, we are all ready pulling troops out bit by
bit, and
we are much further along then we where a few years after the capture
of
Germany and Japan. and that's the point I was making

Comparing the capture of Germany and Japan, two nations with a combined
population nearly equal to the US at the time, to the occupation of
Iraq is just as absurd now as it was befor.

Vietnam is a much better comparison. After Tet in 1968 the Viet
Cong were never able to mount a sustained offensive. After that
we were able to reduce US troop strength in Viet Nam. But the
communists never stopped fighting until we left and they won.

The Iraqi insurgents will never stop fighting until we leave and
it would appear the the bulk of the Iraqis, other than the Kurdish
Peshmerga, are reluctant to fight their fellow Iraqis. I don't
blame them either. If the US were occupied by a foreign power
(another rediculous analogy, I agree) I would not fight against
the American insurgents even if the occupying power had deposed
an evil dictator.

No tiny nation like Iraq can conduct an effective defense against
the US. But no miltary can put down an insurgency without
overwhelming support from the indigenous population.

--

FF