Number three is quite good.

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Best useful piece of information Alternet has put out in months...everyone should take note, analogies are the best way to illustrate problems to those who choose to ignore reality. I too have some dumb friends, and they could benefit from having their noses rubbed in it. I just wish someone with some real pull in the msm would stand up and shout, oh well, only time will tell.

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Our country is like a spinning top that is slowing down, it tends to start to wobble (inherent instability!), sometimes it wobbles a bit to the left, sometimes a bit to the right. The last 40 years it has been wobbling more and more to the right and the only way to get back some stability is to STOP the SPIN! and give it a fresh twirl, stability can return once new energy is put into the system.

Or all you r's can go on and just keep poking the bear, maybe it will wait till you die to eat you, or maybe it will bite your head until your skull cracks open like a pinata and he will lick up your brains like a bowl of icecream, and excrete you out in a few days to fertilize the happy ecosystem...at least then something good will come from all of your bullshit.

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tell em you don't support it. case closed.

or

(i know this may offend a couple people on here) tell them they are acting like a emotional liberal.

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The only problem with this article is that the author assumes that Republicans can understand abstract concepts such as analogies. Putting two and two together for these people is beyond the comprehension of the conservative mind, even when you juice up the math problem by using 2 apples plus 2 apples gets...(?). They will just tell you, "But I want FIVE apples, so the answer is five".

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Puppies in traffic equal US forces in Iraq? I don't think so. Our forces are more like a couple of leopards attacking a troop of baboons or lions going after Cape Buffalo. Able to predate a few, they risk being torn apart if they hang around until the troop can unite to run them off. In any case, I suspect comparing our soldiers, let alone Muslims, to animals would quickly become self-defeating, regardless of whether a particular analogy was apt or inept.

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The War in Iraq is over.
We won. We now have a military occupation of Iraq.

Military occupations cannot be won. Who is going to surrender and sign the peace treaty?

We need to constantly refer to our involvement as an occupation--not a war!

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Bush...is a good example.

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I may be wasting my time here, since I sense that you're quite happy with yourself, and arrogant enough to condescend to calling some of your friends "stupider" (than you, I suppose), but here goes:

1) We're staying in Iraq becuse it's now the responsible thing to do. We're there to try to keep the peace amongst belligerent religious and ethnic factions, from Iraq and the region, long enough to allow a new republic to incubate. Your little story about smashing cars off cliffs is so simplistic that it doesn't even serve as a quasi-appropriate analogy.

2) Brave puppies sent into traffic would be quite a waste. But, again, your analogy is simplistic. This time, though, it's even more inappropriate because you embed within it your own presumption that the action to bring a new republic to Iraqi people was a pointless waste (as sending puppies into traffic would be, right?). Are you really so self-centered that you pronounce no value to this action? Oh, yes. I forgot. You're arrogant.

Incidently, one of the "troops" that I correspond with regularly has this message for people who say they support the troops but didn't support the war, and now don't support the clean-up occupation. His comment? "Tell them to stop saying that they don't support the war but do support the troops. It's all the same. You can't support me without supporting what I came here to do. It was my choice to join and I did so with full knowledge of where I would go and what I would do. Most all of us here did. So, you can't support me as a troop, then slam my choice of doing what I do."

I think that says it nicely.

You're a jerk for thinking you know more about this war than ANY of our troops do.

3) We're not paying militias not to kill our soldiers. Again, you're condescendingly trying to load your argument with your own preconceptions to try to make it convincing. The surge has worked because we're not having to play "whack-a-mole" with insurgents. We're actually able to keep enough force in several areas to keep insurgents from coming back after we clean them out. Before the surge, when insurgents came back to a region we'd cleaned, they'd execute the locals there who helped us. That kept locals from wanting to continue to support our efforts. It was a downward spiral. With enough troops, we are able to clean and stay to make sure that our supporters and their families get to enjoy their new freedom.

4) On the subject of a definition of victory: General Petraeus, wisely, is avoiding using words to define what is undefinable. In fact, asking what "victory" will look like in Iraq is like asking "how long is a string?" Besides, any definition he may attempt to give would then become the focus of all of the haters who feel left out because they don't get to feel important when the serious stuff is going on.

So, just work on this one: What is good?

5) On the subject of contractors making money in Iraq: What, exactly, is your problem with this? What would you propose as an alternate way of getting things done there? Maybe you think that we should not pay contractors for their work there?

How about the troops. Should we pay THEM?

You're a simplistic and self-important ass.

I'm happy not to be you.

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they were ordered to illegally occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, they didn't have a choice.
You can support someones decision to become a N.G. soldier who signed on with the intent of defending the borders of their state, not involved in a pre-emptive farce "War on Terror" based off of lies and deceit halfway around the world where over 50% of Americans can't locate on a map.
The MSM has a picture of a smiling Cheney with a why?. You be happy to have been given Vietnam deferments, inconsequential drunk driving convictions, defied NRA hunting rules and shoot a person in the face with no recourse, amass a fortune raiding pension funds, dealing in drugs and weapons with no punishment to serve for crimes committed too.

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I hope Alternet readers will review my page:
http://james.fabpedigree.com/whyiraq.htm
and send me their comments via gmail to jamesdowallen

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I loved the metaphor/simile of Bush being like a color-blind child witha Rubic's cube.

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We brought democracy to Iraq! So now they have the freedom to die resisting it, or be tortured as terrorists in redition. Isn't freedom great. Of course there are those here that would have us pay attention to human dignity, or a God-Damned piece of paper called the Constitution or what ever. We should send all those freaks to fight in our war for democracy.

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You could just repeat #6 over and over. We'd get it.

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