Paul Vs. Thompson

Len- You keep ignoring the fact that Iraq is fractured along many lines.

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Into three main factions, each of which hates us and the other two factions. Right.

There is no general support of the population for the insurgents.

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You don't need the support of the whole country; just your village and the surrounding area. Sunni insurgents are popular in Sunni areas, and likewise the Shiites, and so on. You're right that there are multiple distinct insurgencies, not one united one, but each of them has the advantages I described above.

--Len.

Yeah, that's shiny.

Anyway, I think now is the time to remind everyone that we have a few simple rules here. One of those rules states that we do not argue about religion at THR. Another says there will be no personal attacks.

Let's make sure none of the rules get busted, please.

Carry on.

Even supplied by communist China and the Soviet Union, they would have lost if our country hadn't been divided over the issue.

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The only way to get them all is to kill everyone. If you miss one, he'll be pissed off that you killed everyone else.

--Len.

Len- The South won almost every battle and lost the civil war. Your arguments just get weaker...

Len- The South won almost every battle and lost the civil war. Your arguments just get weaker...

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True: the south came mighty close to winning the war. Lincoln responded with the scorched-earth march to the sea, in which no home went unburned, no crops undestroyed, and no woman unraped. They fought a war of utter extermination.

We could do the same in Iraq, and as long as WWIII didn't break out, we'd win. That's true. But we'd also make today's collateral damage look like a fender-bender. Americans have so far tolerated the Iraq war with its current rate of innocent deaths, but there'd be rioting in the streets if the US adopted Sherman's tactics.

--Len.

All the factions in Iraq do not hate us. Once again you really do not have a good grasp of the situtation. This makes your argument go from really weak to completely irrelevant. Until you have your facts staright there is no point in discussing fruther; you are just pushing your poorly informed opinion.

All the factions in Iraq do not hate us.

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What forest? All I see is a bunch of trees!

Kurds like us a lot better than the Shiites do. Of course. Or are you referring to the talk-radio claims that most Iraqis love us, but the "drive by media" is keeping us from finding out?

--Len.

Right. They lost every battle, but won the war. That's what a war of attrition is all about.

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No, thats what a war of public opinion is all about. We lost Vietnam because of political, not strategic, reasons. Exactly the reason we would lose at this point in Iraq.

Correia, have you heard anything on what percentage of the actual "terrorist" growth in Iraq is homegrown, and what is foreign in nature? Unlike Afghanastan, in which the anti-Soviet insurgency was there to stay, because there was nowhere to go (homeland defense), would it be true to state that if we provided a united front in Iraq, and it no longer became strategically viable for the insurgency to hold out for another 50 years against us, the terrorist elements would just.... leave? Go back home (to Iran, etc)?

So you have been there?

No, thats what a war of public opinion is all about. We lost Vietnam because of political, not strategic, reasons.

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It's all a matter of time. Political considerations may have shortened the timetable, but the end result was practically assured. Defeating an entrenched guerrilla force with popular support requires a level of brutality that no American would tolerate. Short of "killing them all," perhaps, but far more brutal than Americans would stand for.

--Len.

You mean like Ireland?

You really are ignorant of the facts.

Like I said before, at least I know who my friends are.

I bid you farewell.

You mean like Ireland?

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Ireland is definitely a good example to consider. Guerrilla resistance in Ireland has been ongoing from the 1790s through the present day. If we suppose that it's now over for good, then it took over 200 years--and even then it wasn't defeated. It laid down its arms and focused on politics.

Were we willing to spend 200 years in Vietnam? Are we willing to spend 200 years in Iraq?

And Ireland and England even had a common language and culture. All the Irish wanted was independence. There were no aspects of religious or cultural conflict, no language barriers, and no gang of Celtic nations with strong interests in the outcome.

--Len.

Yeah, religion didn't play a role in Ireland.... Do you know anything about anything?

Yeah, religion didn't play a role in Ireland.... Do you know anything about anything?

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You're good at missing the point. YOU raised the subject of Ireland, which is as good as saying, "SEE? We could have won in Vietnam in 200 years!" Think about what you say.

--Len.

So what do you guys think? Paul or Thompson?

I am voting for the strongest supporter of the COTUS. Unfortunatly that happens to be Paul.

Fred is strongly anti-freedom so I can not vote for him. Too bad Chuck Hagel is not running. I can't find anything about him not to like.

Lunchmeat- I don't know what revisionist history fantasy land you live in but there was no united front during the Korean War.

Bush has the lowest level of approval since Truman during the Korean War. So you are just proving the opposite point.

It's all a matter of time. Political considerations may have shortened the timetable, but the end result was practically assured. Defeating an entrenched guerrilla force with popular support requires a level of brutality that no American would tolerate. Short of "killing them all," perhaps, but far more brutal than Americans would stand for.

--Len.

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You just messed up. If we would be fighting this war like military's generally fight wars, it would be over. But because of TV cameras, lilly livered folks at home and the fact that we are fighting this war with the utmost care for innocent damage, by the example you just posted, we are not doing what your argument has been based on. So, the more you protest, the more you make the other side think they can win, the more you hurt our troops and prolong the war. Because if we didn't have the likes of you to worry about and embolden our enemy to the point of them thinking the harder they try the more easily we'll surrender and leave, we would be done by now, or mighty close.

Who can deny that our policy of interventionalism was wrong then, now that we can clearly see the results of 30 years of non-interventionalism?

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Yes, because the Soviet Union was imaginary. They wouldn't have done anything to hurt us.

budney is a patriot for speaking out.

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Yes Budney is so brave the way he won't answer questions and then change the subject, and then uses hyperbole and strawman arguments to avoid actually discussing any difficult issues. He is bold in the way he takes a stand against things like our "carpet bombing" of Iraq.

It is patriotic to bring up things that have nothing to do with the topic at hand, and when you are called on it, rapidly move to the next topic, with a histronic "sigh".

Of course, you could just insinuate that the people who disagree with you are rascists who hate freedom and liberty, because that makes you lots of friends.

How many here are FFL's that would get rich off a new awb?

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Yes, because I'll grow so filthy rich when I go bankrupt because I can no longer sell the items that I make my living off of.

It is all a conspiracy against you.

Budney began making interesting points at the onset, most of which are valid (aside from the racist stuff, that was a bit over the top), but as he's been piled on from various angles, I think his arguments have slightly deteriorated. Good thing for truth that the merit of an argument does not reside with one lone poster on an internet gun board. No offense Budney, the premise of your arguments have a lot of validity, but I think you're supporting evidence just isn't cutting it here towards the end.

All of this talk over the war in a Paul VS Thompson thread is a bit much, because it's NOT the only issue.


But a good question is, if we all voted for Ron Paul, do you really think he would simply be able to turn tail and run IMMEDIATELY? Sure, he wouldn't stay the course for 100 or 200 years as some have suggested would be necessary to fight the insurgents and build the new nation, but then again, he wouldn't be president for 100 or 200 years.

Ron Paul would also work towards doing what we could with Iraq aside from military operations because he believes in dimplomacy and trade with other nations (including Iraq). The notion that he'd pull out every troop within 10 minutes of his presidency and then ignore Iraq totally is simply not supported by what he's said in the past. He may not deal with the solution in the way that some people are going to like, but I think people are going to extremes to make the worst possible case here and it's just not realistic.

It was mutually assured destruction that kept the USA and the USSR from directly engaging eachother.

You just messed up. If we would be fighting this war like military's generally fight wars, it would be over. But because of TV cameras, lilly livered folks at home...

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That's not a mess-up. Of course the US military CAN win: if absolutely necessary, it's more than capable of exterminating every last Iraqi from the planet. Somewhere between here and their utter extermination, they'll surrender. Guaranteed. Or else there won't be any left to surrender. Either way, we win.

The problem is that not only is utter extermination off the table, but so are less extreme measures that fail the morality test. Although Americans tolerate the current loss of innocent life, it's not without great misgiving. Escalating that would only take us where Americans are simply not willing to go.

But that doesn't make them "lilly livered." That's what we call "morality." You're suggesting that if we just took anyone out of the loop with any scruples, and let the killing escalate as far as necessary until they capitulate, then the problem would be solved.

I don't disagree, but it doesn't matter: that's not on the table. It's utterly immoral. If we actually stood for that, we'd be at least as bad as the enemies we're fighting.

--Len.

Budney began making interesting points at the onset, most of which are valid... but as he's been piled on from various angles, I think his arguments have slightly deteriorated. Good thing for truth that the merit of an argument does not reside with one lone poster on an internet gun board.

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Very well said. There's no question that my arguments have been, to say the least, imperfect: perfecting them would take more research and time than I could afford to put into a discussion thread on an gun board. However, I think it's fair to say that my core arguments have remained sound throughout. Picking fault with the minutia is inevitable, but it misses the heart of the matter.

As for "racism," there are several problems with that line of discussion. For starters, Muslims aren't a "race," so I've preferred to say "bigotry." For another thing, the genocidal blood lust that crops up sometimes in these discussions isn't racism at all; it would be the same if the war were against Canada. Strictly speaking, that's jingoism. These things are similar in some ways, yet distinct, and there's no simple word or phrase that captures them all.

Remarks like, "We just haven't killed enough," and "if the lilly-livered chickens would stand back and let the army show 'em how it's done..." and so on are the sort of thing I'm referring to. Remarks in another thread, "Would you Sell a Gun to a Muslim?" are also what I'm referring to. By no means is everyone who supports Bush a racist. However, the racist/bigoted/jingoist contingent is very real and cannot be ignored.

But a good question is, if we all voted for Ron Paul, do you really think he would simply be able to turn tail and run IMMEDIATELY?

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I think he's man enough to at least give it a try, but he'd fail. Everyone everywhere would be opposing him. On the right, folks would call him a cut-n-run coward; on the left, people would accuse him of being "imprudent." The military commanders would drag their heels; congress would delay whatever they could; bureaucrats everywhere would passively resist by sloppy performance.

But on the bright side, that's how they'd react to everything RP tried to do, if he became president. Shutting down the NEA will be just as hard as pulling out of Iraq.

--Len.

No Len, I'm not suggesting we're fighting this war wrong. You have been for 13 pages now. You say we're too aggressive and make us out to be a no better than the terrorist. I say we're fighting it correctly.

Thank you for finally agreeing.

All of this would matter only if Ron Paul got the Repub nod to run for POTUS........