Feb 20 2007
The “Life’s Too Hard” Whine
Ed Koch nails the left in this country for crying about how hard life is, when in fact they have nothing hard to deal with except the fact their policies are out of date and universally panned as failures. So what do they do? They complain for those who are living challenging and dangerous lives, even though these good people have nothing in common with the defeatists in our country. Read up on Koch’s worrisome conclusions about where this country has come since WW II. A snippet:
We have come to expect that wars can be fought without casualties, even the relatively modest casualties we have suffered in Iraq. During World War Two, more Americans were killed or wounded on Iwo Jima in one month than have fallen in Iraq in almost four years. Of course, every military death and severe injury is a tragedy. Nevertheless, former Secretary of State Colin Powell has said that our army in Iraq is “about broken,” which appalled and frightened me.
This is not a universal truth inside our military. In fact, just the opposite. They believe, if their hands were untied, they could make a huge impact in Iraq. And now Bush has given them a chance to prove it. But don’t believe all the nail biters sitting in their plush chairs here in the US. I know, sitting in a plush chair myself (OK – it ain’t that plush but given the conditions in Iraq it is luxury), that a lot is possible. Defeat is the loss of will, not the end of possibilities. And our armed forces are far from being out of ideas or options. What they deserve is some unconditional support and confidence they can pull this out.
From the beginning of the Iraq war we have had to emphasize how we surgically took out targets without a single bit of collateral damage.
We could put bombs down within a resolution of two feet and cruise missiles into the designated window, but somehow we came out being the killer of the masses.
We from the gitgo said some places were off limits to even respond to hostile fire.
We won the war as it was in less than three weeks and shifted way to early into the pacification mode.
Now we have the chance to regroup and loosen the nonsense rules of engagement that PC has demanded.
If they had never been imposed , this stuff would have never happened in the way it has. That is pure and simple and unbiased.
We are trying to pick up the pieces now that should never have been laid down.
I have seen many posts on the Milblogs of soldiers saying let us do our job in the way we know how and we will do the deed.
They are not bloodthirsty out of control troops who want to shoot anything that moves, but first hand observers of what the heck is going on.
For the trolls here, I am not an idle commenter.
I have many souls I have to carry that weight down my side of the bed from the days of VietNam.
If only you could know how that feels.
Opposition to the fighting in Iraq isn’t being generated by the servicemen and women in the field. It’s being generated by some disingenuous folks here in the States, for political reasons.
Merlin,
Thanks for your service and a much belated:
Welcome Home!
Tom
The left was going to find problems with this war was no matter how it was conducted. The Administration should have prosecuted this as a war from the beggining and not let up till all was ended. It is when the diplomats get involved that things usually fall apart.
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=9762
Anybody care how the Iraqis feel? Stats contained in link above.
Hint: how they feel is more important than how chickenhawk
Israel-protecting “unmarrieds” like Ed Koch feel. In fact,
Iraqis know those with some or all of the aforementioned
traits dominate American policy. No wonder they don’t like us
and approve of the insurgency.
Thanks Tom
I was lucky enough to live in a part of the country where it was realized even back then.
It helped with the return adjustment.
Lasso
You again wrap a fact of your choosing in an personal attack on someone not related to the issue at all.
I know many who’s shoes you wouldn’t be worthy to polish.
Strata praises a practical call to war with Iran by a man who is a member of two extreme minorities one of which purportedly has a vested stake in Middle East politics, and who has never served in the military and you believe these traits are not worth noting?
Facts seem to elude certain truth seekers…reading the antique media is ludicrous in trying to get the facts.
Many people comment on the President and VP, who do not know them * personally*. They are clueless when it comes to really knowing these two as they read the antique media hype, fantasy and garbage.
Remember Scott Peck? He was NO conservative but he wrote two books: “A World Waiting to be Reborn, Civility Rediscoverd” and “People of the Lie, The Hope for Healing Human Evil”. Excellent reads and there are some here who epitomize about what Scott was talking.
Colin Powell has been against this war from the beginning. He was against going into Iraq in the first Gulf War also. He has done everything he possibly can to attain defeat in this war. His job was to convince Turkey to let our troops into Iraq through Turkey and failed miserably. Or maybe not if it was his plan all along to fail which I believe was true. When we win in Iraq it will show the country what a defeatist he is. I once admired this man but he has shown his true colors. If we had gone into Iraq in the first Gulf War we would not be where we are now. This is what comes from waiting and allowing our enemies to regroup and recoup their losses. We delayed long enough for Saddam to make a fortune in the Oil for Food scandal and buy large shipments of arms and win the allegience of his fellow thieves (France, Gemany and Russia) and through them delayed the invasion. All through history we have been slow to react and have allowed our enemies to arm themselves (witness Germany) and we helped Japan arm themselves by selling them scrap iron before WWII. One wonders how congress and some of the past presidents justify these events.
When Colin Powell was Secretary of State he was the cause of fights within the Cabinet because of his passivity. I wonder how he justified to himself leaving Saddam alone to renew his nuclear rearming. George Bush has been badly served by certain members of his cabinet and one of the worse was Ashcroft but Colin Powell tops the list.
Strata praises a practical call to war with Iran by a man who is a member of two extreme minorities one of which purportedly has a vested stake in Middle East politics, and who has never served in the military and you believe these traits are not worth noting?
I get so sick of the liberal spiel of if you didn’t serve in the military you have no voice in whether we go to war or not or cannot comment on the war and if you do you are a “chickenhawk”. I guess that makes me a chickenhawk. Nevermind very few women went into the service when I was eligible to join. It is the height of absurdity to tell me I don’t have a voice in how my country is run because I was never in the military. If that were true then the majority of the liberals would have no voice either because very few of them served in the military and to hear them tell it they don’t even know anyone in the military. I have not noticed that stopping them from giving their opinions rancid as they are. That’s like saying I have no say about sending a thief to prison because I have never been in prison or I can’t gripe about the government because I have never served in the government. Or I con’t commenton the law because I have never been a lawyer. The whole issue is ridiculous and shows how the left is willing to allow free speech if you agree with them but not if you do not.
And as far as men like Murtha go, he was no top military leader who has run a war. He was not in a position to give orders about how the war was run. He was in the lower echelons and was one of the ones who followed orders from highter up. Therefore, any views he has about military strategy is no more important than any other member of the military of which there are hundred of thousands. Are we to ask every serviceman what we should do about Iraq? That is a ridiculous assumption.
But it never pays to argue with a liberal. They never let proof and facts get in the way of their agenda as our resident smartbutt shows every day.
Lasso
In case you haven’t noticed, we have an interest in Mid East Politics and many other regions also apply. The same goes for Russia, China, the EU and a whole lot of other people.
You have danced around twice in this thread about complaining of Ed Koch as being a Jew and perhaps a gay man.
I know he is one of those things and I could care less about the other.
It is not necessarily a call to war, but a call to adjusting tactics to stop what is happening within Iraq’s own borders by reacting to a symptom.
Simply new intel gained that is actionable.
So then it can be countered and neutralized or at least greatly reduced.
It is how wars are fought.
Merlin,
Thank you for your service to our country. Your posts are excellent and right on here.
You’ve probably read enough of lasso-untruth to realize he’s a peacenik anti-war, lefty anti-semite who chooses to remain ignorant of facts and the truth.
Wiley
Thanks for your thoughts.
If I could be over there today I would do it in a heartbeat. But alas I am cursed with age.
I for one know the difference between and enemy and someone who happens to occupy the same space of real estate.
My posts reflect the damage and weight of all the things I have done in my life.
Having been there it gives you a totally different perspective.
I do not discount at a glance those who have not been in the mill, but I observe them with a certain circumspect distance.
All views are important they contribute to the mix. But there are some I can soon discount as be invalid and shallow.
This is not an unlikely outcome of anyone’s deliberations.
Hopefully it will not too much impede real progress in the most important issues of our day.
BarbaraS
Intelligence man Greg Thielmann, google him, –Powell’s ex-right hand man. Resigned the day before Powell’s lies at the UN. That’s right, L-I-E-S.”Facts” he knew to be untrue. He was a loyal soldier to a corrupt boss. But of course you could condemn W’s father equally for not going into Baghdad, which you claim was the right thing to do,
although proven an unwinnable quagmire killing and maiming
tens of thousands of US servicemen only to hand Iran a strategic victory.
As for Ed Koch, I only find it telling that Strata can be stirred by
such a mediocrity and one with obvious selfish intent.
Lasso
Do you enjoy shouting down an empty barrel?
If anyone here could consider you a lesser object on the face of the universe, it would be hard to discern.
We only look at you as an ill planned freak of nature somehow gone very wrong.
Lass
I think I will permanently shorten your handle to that, since it seems so right.
We like most blogs have only a handful of active commentors but many other readers.
I wonder how many look at you and point and giggle.
Merlin
“cursed with age” or senile?
“In case you haven’t noticed, we have an interest in Mid East Politics and many other regions also apply. The same goes for Russia, China, the EU and a whole lot of other people.”
Only oil, which as James Burnham said will be sold to us at market prices by whoever controls it. Russia and China are proximate;
so you believe Russia & China have just interests in Cuba and
the Virgin Islands?
Sorry my pointing to Koch’s aberration caused your Pavlovian
wish to strike out in that regard, bringing attention to your own
possible deviation?
Barbara
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/14/60II/main577975.shtml
Powell’s worst sin as related by his cheif aide.
Sorry my pointing to Koch’s aberration caused your Pavlovian
wish to strike out in that regard, bringing attention to your own
possible deviation?
Another example of simplistic leftist projection.