Let Me Paraphrase President Bush's speech tonight:

[Beer and Pizza]

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My problem with this line of thinking is that the terrorists can't be defeated. It's like trying to wage a war on murder, or theft. There will always be thieves and murderers and in the Middle East, there will always be jihadists. The best we can do is to set up a stable government in Iraq that can deal with them as best they can and leave them to their own devices.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is a difference between individuals committing crimes and organized criminals. We will never stop the psychotics or drug addicted individual criminals, but we can greatly diminish the organized criminals (mafia, barbery pirates).

Terrorists fit into the organized crime category. We can severly reduce or stop it with the right techniques, just as we have with domestic organized crime.

[Analyst]

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Whereas the president has also correctly recognized what is at stake, but is also willing to see this through to a successful conclusion even if it takes longer than we would like, let alone longer than an artificial time period set up by democrats solely for the purpose of political grandstanding.


[/ QUOTE ]

If only the administration had shown such patience, restraint and foresight before deciding to invade Iraq, rather than claiming we were in immediate danger and pulling the trigger. And before anyone answers "but everyone believed he had WMD", even if Sadam did have WMD, he was completely contained and little to no threat - certainly less so than a number of other nations.

[InchoateHand]

"Terrorists fit into the organized crime category. We can severly reduce or stop it with the right techniques, just as we have with domestic organized crime."

Really? Thats news.

[DVaut1]

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They must have failed that class, thus the reason for becoming politicians. I submit there is no political capital to be gained opposing the war.

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That's a rather specious submission, to say the least. Of course there's political capital to be gained by opposing the war. How do you think a no-name former Vermont governor is now head of the DNC, if not for harnessing some measure of the political capital available by opposing the war?

Yes, there is a population of Americans (not a majority by any stretch) who both oppose the war and are hungry for leadership. Of course, there is lots of political capital there.

To claim there's no political capital to be gained opposing the war is tantamount to claiming there's no one opposing the war. Simply untrue.

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So now you've disagreed that the war is going badly and stated you hope we win, but the point of this thread was not to support the defeatists, or to defend them, just disagree that they are defeatists.

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That's about right -- except I do believe the war is, in some areas, going poorly (and I'll freely admit there are, of course, some things going well). Merely saying that some things are going poorly does not mean that I believe we're bound to lose the war, nor does it making pointing such things out make me a defeatist.

Just because your favorite football team is down 14-0 at halftime, and playing poorly, doesn't necessarily mean that you think your favorite team is doomed to lose the game.

[BCPVP]

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If only the administration had shown such patience, restraint and foresight before deciding to invade Iraq, rather than claiming we were in immediate danger and pulling the trigger.

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I don't believe Bush or senior admin officials claimed we were in "immediate" danger. In fact, I remember hearing Bush say we should invade because if we wait till the danger is immediate, we've waited too long. Care to back up your statement?

[MMMMMM]

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I can assure you if a manager had brought me a statement like this as a project objective in my corporate life, they would have had some sort career of a relatively stable sort with considerably less ability to get future projects done.

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We're not talking corporations here.

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This is not an objective this is a recipe for a disaster.

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What I stated is an objective, and a good one.

[MMMMMM]

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My problem with this line of thinking is that the terrorists can't be defeated. It's like trying to wage a war on murder, or theft. There will always be thieves and murderers and in the Middle East, there will always be jihadists. The best we can do is to set up a stable government in Iraq that can deal with them as best they can and leave them to their own devices.

[/ QUOTE ]

The groups which are organizing these attacks can be themselves attacked, have their funding cut off, receive less popular support, etc.

The goal is is to greatly reduce things of that nature, not eliminate them entirely. Also, the organized groups of jihadists can be attacked and disrupted in various manners.

[MMMMMM]

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"Come on now. Obviously the definition of victory is some sort of established democratic Iraqi government, with the Iraqis able to maintain their own security within a relatively stable Iraq, and the jihadists possessing considerably less ability to attack. "

[/ QUOTE ]

If thats your definition, we are entirely doomed to failure.

That is certainly not the President's definition of victory.


[/ QUOTE ]

How do you know that is not the President's approximate definition of victory? And why do you think those objectives cannot be attained or approximated?

[PoBoy321]

I think that both you and B&P are overestimating the level of organization of many of these groups. While there certainly are many groups with a very complicated infrastructure like Al-Qaeda and Hamas, they ultimately rely on self-sustaining cells which are able to act without any ouside support whatsoever.

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So yes, Bush screwed up, but now he's finally getting things right on this matter (or so it appears). So let's applaud that and acknowledge that this is an improvement. Let's focus on other issues with have with Bush's idea. I'd like to focus on understanding the motivations of Islamist fundamentalists and try to pressure Bush to stop with the frequent nonsense implication in his speeches that they are motivated by "hatred of Western values of democracy, liberty, and freedom" when in fact they are motivated by their opposition to the presence of American troops in Muslim nations, particularly Saudi Arabia.

[/ QUOTE ]

So, we should ignroe the fact that Bush made a HUGE blunder by invading in the first place because he's now doing a good job of cleaning up his own mess?