Iraq is NOT a quagmire!!!

[Drogue]

Originally posted by MalevolentLight
Gepap calling someone stupid? No way! I always love it when someone who's IQ is probably not much higher than 110 calls other people stupid. (Yes, I'm calling you stupid, see how easy it is?)

Isn't GePap at UChicago, an Ivy League school? I'd say their average IQ was probably higher than that.

[The diplomat]

Re: Re: Iraq is NOT a quagmire!!!

Originally posted by Pax
How can you call the actions of the Iraqi's terrorism. If a foreign country invaded the U.S. and forced a regime change then would all who resisted the foreign power be labeled as terrorists.

In my opinion, the means you use to resist occupation determines if you are a terrorist. If you bomb a military intallation, you are not a terrorist. When you take a school hostage like the Chechen terrorists did in Russia, then you are a terrorists. When you take some civilian worker or missionary hostage and slice his head off, you are a terrorist.

As of today Iraq has no proven connection to AQ or any group that was engaged in hostile acts against the U.S. in recent history. No WMD's. What possible reason could a logical human being still believe that the war in Iraq is a war on terror. Your whole statement is based on a falsehood.

Zarqawi has ties to Al Queda. There have been several reports of high ranking Iraqi intelligence officers and Al Queda members meeting in Baghdad prior to the war. We know terrorists were practicising highjacking airplanes at Salman Pak in nothern Iraq. We know Saddam was funding Palestinian suicide bombers. We know Saddam had WMD before Gulf War I, and the UN never fully accounted that all were destroyed. We know Saddam built missiles that exceeded the allowed range as detailed in 1991 Cease fire.

It is simply not possible to say that Iraq is not part of the war on terror. Saddam clearly played a role in terrorism eventhough he was not responsible for 9-11.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by MalevolentLight
My point is that no matter how smart you are there is always someone smarter out there. I probably have a higher IQ than most the people on this board, but I don't use it as an arguing point because I know there are people out there smarter than me and it shouldn't be used anyway. Gepap apparently never learned this lesson...like most liberals.

I doubt it. When asked to place how high people were here, most put in the top 10% (of the site). Most people here are used to being top and are very clever. When it comes to IQ, there's a couple of *really* high people here. When it comes to education, there's quite a few Oxbridge and Ivy League graduates and undergraduates.

He didn't call anyone stupid, he called diplomat willfully ignorant, in that he's obviously capable of finding the facts regarding the WWII comparison, but has still presented an argument that is quite silly. As many have said, there are numerous differences between them that make that claim invalid.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Dissident
comparing IQ's what next, we compare penis sizes? Actually comparing our IQ's is equivalent to average men comparing penis sizes I think.

/me waits for Pekka to jump in...

[Gibsie]

Thank goodness The diplomat made this thread. Now I no longer worry my silly little head when I see videos of my countrymen pleading for their lives! I just say to myself, "that man should pull himself together and face his fate like a man".

[GePap]

Re: Re: Re: Iraq is NOT a quagmire!!!

Originally posted by The diplomat
Zarqawi has ties to Al Queda. There have been several reports of high ranking Iraqi intelligence officers and Al Queda members meeting in Baghdad prior to the war. We know terrorists were practicising highjacking airplanes at Salman Pak in nothern Iraq. We know Saddam was funding Palestinian suicide bombers. We know Saddam had WMD before Gulf War I, and the UN never fully accounted that all were destroyed. We know Saddam built missiles that exceeded the allowed range as detailed in 1991 Cease fire.

It is simply not possible to say that Iraq is not part of the war on terror. Saddam clearly played a role in terrorism eventhough he was not responsible for 9-11.

None of that goes to your statement at the start-that Iraq is not a quagmire.

Justifying invading Iraq is different from justifying the administration of Iraq after the fall of the Baathist regime.

[Pekka]

Yes, I was out and just came in, I knew my penis was sending me information to defend him.

Anyways, what does quagmire mean?

I agree and disagree with teh original post though. I agree, that it'll take a lot more to stop terrorism, and I disagree, I think it can't be won by fighting a war somewhere. Of course it should be fought though. It's kind of catch 22 IMO. I believe fighting it should reduce the risk of terror attacks, but fighting it also feeds the terrorist ideology, meaning it will never really stop. Terrorism is nothing new, it's been in here for the longest of times. We just got outraged somehow just about these days about it. So yeah.. I agree, that we'll loose good men fighting this thing. And yeah I think they have the passion and they won't stop, the terrorists I mean, so.. I feel it's going to last forever. Well not forever, but longer than our lifetimes.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Drogue

Isn't GePap at UChicago, an Ivy League school? I'd say their average IQ was probably higher than that.

Sadly, UChicago, for all the Ivy on our walls is not considered "Ivy League"., which actually is a sporting league of all things.

I also graduated 2 years ago- and are gainfully overemployed currently (and wasting tax payer dollars here on Poly)

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by GePap
Does your willfull ignorance know no bounds?

I could not name the number of differences between this "war" and the Second World War in under 20,000 characters.

So I will simplify the answer- in WW2 it was obvious which State-actors were the revisionists powers that needed to be fought. You have no clue what the enemies today really are- so comparison is utterly absurd- beyond absurd-just utterly stupid.

First, I know the differences between WW2 and the war in Iraq. I was not saying the wars were the same. I was saying that we need to persevere in Iraq despite our losses just as we persevered in WW2 despire our losses there. We did not cut and run in WW2. We should not cut and run in Iraq either.

Second, we know exactly who are enemies are in the war on terror. Al Queda is a clear enemy. Also, the States of Iran and Syria are allies of terrorism. So, we have clear enemies that we can easily target if we needed to. The war on terror is not this vague mist that cannot be defined.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by MikeH
"Are we willing to die for freedom?"

Personally? No.

Do you mean your not willing to die for a cause that someone simply describes as 'freedom' (me neither!) or are you saying that you wouldn't die to truly save the freedom of yourself and your countrymen from a clear and real threat?

[Shi Huangdi]

Why is it that GePap is never able to make a point without making the most vitroilic venemous attacks against people? Was he not raised with enough manners to learn how to respectfully disagree with people? Does he view himself as so much more intelligent than everyone else that it angers him that someone could possinly disagree? Or does he use the internet to be a jerk because he knows if he acted that way in real life he would get his face pounded in?

Anyway, it makes me glad the Democratic Party has people like GePap working for it. With people like him as the face of the Democratic Party, brighter days are ahead for the GOP.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by The diplomat
First, I know the differences between WW2 and the war in Iraq. I was not saying the wars were the same. I was saying that we need to persevere in Iraq despite our losses just as we persevered in WW2 despire our losses there. We did not cut and run in WW2. We should not cut and run in Iraq either.

Just like Patton just shouldn't have withdrawn from the outskirts of Dessau in April 1945, America should persevere in Iraq!

Second, we know exactly who are enemies are in the war on terror. Al Queda is a clear enemy. Also, the States of Iran and Syria are allies of terrorism. So, we have clear enemies that we can easily target if we needed to. The war on terror is not this vague mist that cannot be defined.

So how are you going to defeat Al-Qaeda, genius?

[GePap]

Originally posted by The diplomat


First, I know the differences between WW2 and the war in Iraq. I was not saying the wars were the same. I was saying that we need to persevere in Iraq despite our losses just as we persevered in WW2 despire our losses there. We did not cut and run in WW2. We should not cut and run in Iraq either.

We cut and run out of Vietnam- we accepted a cease-fire in korea. We waged a harsh repression in the Philipinnes- Maybe you should realize that the US has fought more wars than just WW2....

Second, we know exactly who are enemies are in the war on terror. Al Queda is a clear enemy. Also, the States of Iran and Syria are allies of terrorism. So, we have clear enemies that we can easily target if we needed to. The war on terror is not this vague mist that cannot be defined.

So hizbullah is an enemy in the war on terror? Fine..Hizbullah is a party in the Lebanese legislature- is Lebanon a clear target for you? Would you invade Lebanon to get at them? or Invade Syria? Iran? What about saudi Arabia and Pakistan? Do you think they have "come clean"? Finally, do you honestly think AQ can be "defeated" with the force of arms, or within the next 20 years?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
Why is it that GePap is never able to make a point without making the most vitroilic venemous attacks against people? Was he not raised with enough manners to learn how to respectfully disagree with people? Does he view himself as so much more intelligent than everyone else that it angers him that someone could possinly disagree? Or does he use the internet to be a jerk because he knows if he acted that way in real life he would get his face pounded in?

Anyway, it makes me glad the Democratic Party has people like GePap working for it. With people like him as the face of the Democratic Party, brighter days are ahead for the GOP.

You mean with class acts like Giancarlo and MalevolentLight on your side, those paragons of manners?

I make no attempts to couch my sarcasm and contempt when someone makes a trully absurd statement. Make a clear and well argued statement and I will deal with it in kind.

[Shi Huangdi]

If you have such greater backing for your position, you ought not to need insults to make your point, especially when they were being civil, as Diplomat was. But you respond to him with content such as:

You can;t beat an enemy you don;t know, and its pretty damned clear you have 0 clues about our enemies except for some cartoon cutout in your mind.

That's an unprovoked ad hominem attack, and you show yourself to be an uncivil person by using it.