Saddam Hussein to receive death penalty

So were the Nuremburg Trials after World War II, but I don't hear you people complaining about that.

If you win the war, you get to hold trials for people by saying they violated laws that you created after the fact and execute them. It's all a formality. It'd be a lot easier to just shoot them on the battlefield than go through all the formalities.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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Except, technically, we haven't won the war in Iraq.

Depends on what you mean by 'winning.'

If by winning you mean that we destroyed the Iraqi Army and deposed its leadership, yes, we've won.

If by winning you mean that we turned Iraq into the shining beacon of Democracy that is the envy of the rest of the Arab world, then, no, we haven't won - yet.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

The ONLY reason why the United States will lose in Iraq is because of people demanding that we essentially give up.

If we stay and fight, we will win, hands down, every time. It's not a matter of ability, it's a matter of will and quite simply, the civillian population of the United States and half of its population doesn't have the will to do what it takes to win in Iraq.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

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what you're actually saying is that, if the insurgants stay and fight, they'll win because they have the will. in fact, like i said before, all they have to do is oppose us and keep killing off our soldiers.

You don't know what you're talking about.

Insurgencies can't go on forever, especially when they tend to kill more civillians than actual soldiers. Insurgencies win because they make things difficult for the politicians who command the troops back at home. The insurgents can only win if we choose to give up. Every day that passes, we eliminate their support base because everytime we engage them we kill them by the DOZENS and they tend to kill hundreds of the people they claim to be 'liberating' from American occupation.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

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But is US winning, no matter how long it takes, the course of least harm?

Ask yourself this question then: Is America handing victory to the insurgents, allowing Iraq to completely collapse into what will inevitably become a fundamentalist state allied with Iran the course of least harm?

Yes, the Iraq War is costly as hell and could've (and should've) been prosecuted much better than it has, but the costs associated with having to deal with an Islamic axis in the Middle East is a far greater cost.

The cost of winning is preferrrable to the cost of losing.

How ya doing, buddy?

People's decision to elect Democrats into power is a sign of weakness, nothing more, nothing less. We know what the Democrats want to do - give up.

10 years down the road, the decision to turn over power to the Democratic Party will come back to bite us harder than even I can begin to fathom right now.

Iraq will implode completely once we surrender to the insurgents and withdraw, Iran will help the Shites take control and it'll become a mirror of their former enemy. Together, they'll go after Israel and one domino after another will fall.

Good job, Americans.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

The policy of the Democratic Party is withdrawal. Of course they aren't going to demand the immediate removal of troops, but they have been since '04 demanding some sort of 'timetable', which basically amounts to "American troops will leave on ___" which tells the insurgents that all they have to do is chill the fuck out until American troops leave and then just unleash hell during the ensuing power vacuum.

Do you think during World War II that the opposition party was sitting back demanding a timetable as to when we would stop fighting the Japanese and Germans (I'm keenly aware that SOME Republicans probably were arguing something similar, but in no way are the like the modern-day Democrats)? Fuck no. No, it was "The troops will come home when the battle is won" - period, point-blank.

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I dont see how anyone could reasonably believe anyone would get us out before Iraq is stable.

Listen to the statements of Jack Murtha, Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, and a host of other Democratic leaders. Mind you, you're talking about future Speaker of the House Pelosi and potential future Senate Majority Leader Reid.

Whether they call it withdrawal or redeployment, the policy of the Democratic Party is simple: Give up.

FELIPE NO

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insurgencies can't go on forever? well, i guess so. but on the same token, neither can state-supported combat using armies.

Yes, but the very things I listed are the reasons why insurgencies can't go on forever. Insurgencies, over time, destroy their support base, especially when such insurgencies have very little regard for civillian lives like these. Insurgencies count on the fact that civillians of the occupying country will force the politicians to surrender. If the will to stay and fight remains for a prolonged period of time then an insurgency cannot win because they win only through psychological warfare on the civillians back home, not militarily. The longer U.S. troops stay, the more time the Iraqi government has to solidify its resources, and consequently the less effective the insurgents become. If we leave before the Iraqi government can effectively defend the country and have something to truly offer the people to not make them support or at least tolerate the presence of the insurgency.

Again, I'm not for being in Iraq forever, just long enough so that we can make sure the Iraqi government is strong enough to handle shit on their own. If we leave right now, then it's outright surrender.Given the majority I just woke up to, it's fairly certain that America will leave prematurely, giving the Democrats their self-fulfilling prophecy because they've been determined to see Iraq fail from day one and have done everything in their power to undermine the policy, with the requisite help from the most incompetent administration I've ever encountered.

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Again, what is your definition of a victory in Iraq?

See above.

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Aren't you of enlistable age?

I'm 22, with a fucked up left ankle held together by a metal rod that not only makes me physically unable to be in the military, but fucked up me being the most dominant defensive tackle coming into the University of Texas in 2002 (which assuredly would have me in the NFL by now....dunno, hopefully?), which forced me to accept an academic scholarship to the University of North Texas and a dual degree in political science and history.

Besides, why don't you just come out with your idiotic "You can't support the war unless you're in the military" argument instead of trying to veil it?

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We can't be certain of the future, no matter how confidently you try and predict it.

I'm an analyst by trade - I did go to college and got a degree for this shit and get paid on the side by both the private sector (hello Heritage Foundation) AND the government (CIA) to study this shit. How many of you kids had a job offer from the CIA sitting on the table the second you got ya degree? If we surrender in Iraq (and the way things look, as soon as January 2009 when a Democratic president takes over, we will) then the whole region is fucked off because we won't be able to do shit anymore because it becomes a known fact that if you inflict a few thousand casualties on American troops that we will give up. That's when they go for the juggular.

But maybe I'm wrong, maybe surrender is the right policy and everything will be better if America refuses to engage the enemy and just plays defense.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Understand this and understand it well, lurker. I support the U.S. military to the highest degree possible for a civillian. While I don't break down and cry everytime I hear about soldiers dying over there, it does indeed disturb me, but alas, that's what happens during wars - soldiers die. I got a brother who has served five tours in Iraq, another that's served since 2001 in Afghanistan, so to say that I have basically nothing at stake here, that I'm just totally detached from the reality that soldiers do die in war is bullshit.

That's one of the few things that someone could say to my face that would get the piss knocked out of them.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I never said we had to kill all the insurgents, only that time is on our side because insurgents only do what they do in order to make things hard for politicians at home.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Very easily. Next question, please.

How ya doing, buddy?

There you go with the strawman argument bullshit, lurker.

I have nothing against developing a workable strategy for victory (because the current one is shit), but what I do have a problem with is "Ok, we're going to keep troops there until May 1st 2007 and then we're going to leave, regardless of the situation" - which is what the Democrats want.

Back to the boxer analogy - it's like telling the other boxer that if you don't knock him out by the 5th round that you're going to throw in the towel. He then knows that to win, all he has to do is survive until the 6th round, at which time you will give up. He really doesn't even have to fight you anymore once he knows this - he can just cover up and absorb your blows, doing everything he can to prevent you from knocking him out.

But if he knows that you're coming after him full force until you put him on the ground for the knockout, then he doesn't have that option. At some point, he knows he's going to have to have to actually beat you because you won't give up.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

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i don't believe you have the authority to make such a statement on behalf of a group which you are not a part of.

I don't give a shit what you believe. This is the policy the Democrats want and by and large, the leadership of the Democratic Party, which is overwhelmingly anti-American and socialist in their ideologies, wants America to immediately begin to draw down troop levels regardless of the level of progress in Iraq.

Even though the newly elected Democrats in Congress are more centrists, the people who hold the power are these ultra-liberals who want to make America weaker.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Jack Murtha
Harry Reid
Nancy Pelosi
Dick Durbin
Howard Dean

All of them hold positions that support the withdrawal of U.S. troops. There are likely more.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

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i just showed this to be untrue.

No, you haven't. You showed that some unknown, unnamed quantity of Democrats want a more goal-based approach to withdrawing troops from Iraq. However, nearly every Democrat in Congress that holds a position of power (Minority Leader, Minority Whip, etc.) or has a prominent name in the media supports withdrawing from Iraq regardless of progress because they believe the war is a lost cause.

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i love it. anti-american. that term is utterly ridiculous to be applied to anyone who is elected and represents the opinions and views of AMERICANS (at least those of a plurality of the election voters)

Whether or not these people were elected has zero bearing on whether or not they are anti-American or not. And by and large, the Democratic Party supports an agenda that will weaken the United States economically and geopolitically, which can't be construed as anything less than Anti-American.

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i don't understand this point of view -- why would ANYONE who lives and works for the promotion of america want to make it weaker.

You don't understand it because you falsely assume that the Democratic Party in the United States actually lives and works for the promotion of America.

FELIPE NO

No, Pro-Peace would not be a better word than Anti-American because it does not accurately describe the blatant refusal to even acknowledge who the enemies of the country are, let alone fight them.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

See, you're wrong because the Democrats can (and have) oppose Bush simply because he is Bush - that's been their de facto policy since 2001 when Bush took office.

The 2002, 2004, and 2006 elections were elections where the Democrats ran on a platform of "We're not Bush." This is what the Democratic majority in Congress is built upon - opposing George W. Bush.

And the policies the Democrats advocate WILL weaken the economy significantly but they will in turn blame the weakening on Bush because he is still in office and push for even higher tax increases and even more gov't spending.

And no, there is no such thing as a 'federal recall.'

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Of course they will continuously oppose Bush - it's why they were elected. Incoming Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid see it as their mandate - anything Bush wants to do will be frustrated at every possible opportunity.

Dark days are ahead for America under Democratic leadership in the terrorism age.

Which will make my national debut album, Dark America, all that more relevant when it hits shelves next September.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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That's your point of view, to think what I am saying is torture. My point is death is not the answer to anything, and it won't bring back anyone, and it won't solve anything. Do you think his death will make the insurgents go "You know what, they're right...lets bring out our white flags and surrender." No, you kill one saddam, ten more show up. It's a cycle of violence and pain, that will never end, unless someone acts big and ends it. That 'someone' being them or us [The West]. And like i've said, being exhiled from society is something that would be good for everyone. He would be punished for his actions, and basically...thinking about what he did, until he dies naturally. Kinda like permanent Time Out if you will.

That's that bullshit.

Whether you lock Saddam away for the rest of his life or kill him, the end result is the same. Might as well go with the speedy execution and be done with him. We're dealing with the kind of people who don't react well to 'someone acting big and ending it.' They only respect overwhelming strength.

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Because I don't believe that death is justice, but more like a archaic form of personal vengance on a subminal level. You gain nothing by killing another life. And if you're a christian...holy shit, you commited one of the top ten sins, no matter how much your actions were sincere and 'good for the rest of the world'. I'm not as christian as I used to be, but I think some of those ten laws [the big one being 'thou shall not kill'] should be something the west should embrace.

On the contrary, death is the ultimate justice. You lose your life, which you can never regain. And "Thou Shalt Not Kill", if you look at the proper context, is actually 'Thou Shalt Not Murder." And yes, there is a difference.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

You know exactly who the people I'm talking about are - Islamic fundamentalists.

And I'm a conservative when it comes to foreign policy if you must know.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?