Fiber Slasher receiving threats and hate e-mails for his opinions ??? Folks questioning his patriotism for stating his beliefs ??? That's absurd. Conversely, Fiber Slasher thinking those with opposing view points are fueled by "hate and racism". I'm not so sure.
I agree with Slash that President Bush sold the American people on the war primarily on the premise that we were under an imminent threat from Iraqi sponsored terrorism combined with Hussein's stock piling of WMD. No doubt about it. We all heard and watched the speech. No media spin or bias there. Any attempt to sell the people on deeper purposes probably would not have produced the mandate necessary to go in.
Having said that, there were other reasons for engaging and removing the Iraqi dictator. As I have stated before, oppression and poverty are the seeds of terrorism. Freedom and economic opportunity will obliterate terrorism. A free and prospering Iraq will send a message across the Mid-East that will force the Kings and Emir's into rapid reforms. No question about it. It can be achieved.
The war in Iraq is not the "quagmire" many would have you believe. My friends who are just arriving over there for their second deployments can't believe the changes. Infrastructure coming into place. Iraqi's working along side American forces for a common mission. Markets open and thriving. Obviously, it isn't perfect. It will take time. We all should have understood that going in.
With any regime overthrow, there will always be elements vying to fill the power void. Personally, I thought it would be worse. Not that having said that justifies the loss of even one life, let alone 1,100 great young Americans. It is the price paid and bore to make the World a better place, one step at a time.
Another common misconception is that the problems in Iraq are due to a a "rush to war" without a clear plan. The plan to invade Iraq was forged 25 years ago. It undergoes constant updating by the military on a daily basis. It is reviewed and polished with updates in technology and intelligence. There are regular military excerises, both domestic and multi-national carried out with regularity to work out the bugs and put the plan into motion.
A great example of what I'm speaking of is regularly in the news with North Korea. The North Koreans get very upset when we conduct huge full scale military excercises with the South Koreans and Japan. They accuse us of prepaing to invade them etc. The news media has a field day with this stuff. They make Kim Jung Il sound like he's mad for accusing us of "preparing to invade them ". Guess what ? He's right ! We are preparing to invade them !!! We're not going to carry it out at that time, but we are preparing. We've been doing the same thing with our Iraq plan.
Enough of this long winded post. There were alternative means that could have been conducted to achieve the same end game of diminishing terrorism. Many Americans would have preffered these means. They are not wrong to believe this nor are they unpatriotic. Vote your conscience and vote on what you believe in. On November 3rd, let's work together in whatever direction the majority has voted us towards. God Bless America, the home of the free because of the brave.
Jerry Ketsdever
