October 31, 2003
"...we just mow the whole place down, see what happens"
As attacks on U.S. troops and NGO compounds continue in Iraq, the GOP’s unified message about the war’s success seems to be weakening.
While official party line now focuses on how the U.S. is bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq, some members forget the script from time to time.
Trent Lott recently suggested:
If we have to, we just mow the whole place down, see what happens. You’re dealing with insane suicide bombers who are killing our people, and we need to be very aggressive in taking them out.
Now there’s the way to win over the Iraqi people and show them that they’re better off now. Oh wait. if they’re all dead then we don’t have to win anybody over…
Posted by blipsman at October 31, 2003 01:49 PMWe’re really winning their hearts and minds with this one, aren’t we? Personally (and I know I’m not the only one who thinks this way) I’m hearing a lot of “Domino Theory” rhetoric coming out of the pro-War folk. Didn’t Viet Nam teach us anything? Even Dick Gephardt uses the same language: “We cannot leave Iraq like we did Afghanistan in the 1980s to become a breeding ground for terrorism and home for terrorist training camps. It is critical that the United States and the world succeed in this effort and bring our operations in Iraq to a successful conclusion”.
Funny, weren’t the Asian countries that went to Communism trying to throw off their old, colonial “overlords”? Funny, weren’t the (American backed and funded) Taliban and Mujahideen trying to throw off Soviet “overlords”? Hmm…here’s to the new boss, same as the old boss, I guess.
Posted by: huxley75 at October 31, 2003 04:06 PMMany Americans seem to have a problem comprehending the fact that suicide bombers come in infinite numbers and so do the bombs that come with them. I think it’s comes from the fact that most of us were introduced to suicide bombers (Bonsai)near the end of the War in the Pacific during WWII.
It was a desperation attempt by the leadership in Japan to win a war they just couldn’t lose. Of course the war ended and that was the end of the suicide bombers. We think that will happen in Iraq too. But look to Israel. How many years and now generations of suicide bombers have they seen? We have to find another way.
History shows that invaders gain control by burning, raping, killing lots of civilians, dropping atomic bombs and burning cities. If you don’t have the stomach for it you should stay home. I think we should stay home.
There were some demonstrations in Iraq today and some of the demonstrators were waving pictures of Saddam. Come on now, if we are going to let them do that, we have no business sending our troops there.
Posted by: JJ at October 31, 2003 07:44 PMJJ, Bonsai is the art of making miniature Japanese trees. Banzai is the cry of the Kamikaze the Japanese suicide warriors. It is named after the divine wind that saved Japan from a Mongol invasion.
I think that Truman did the right thing with using the bomb in 1945 and it ended the war with much lower casualties on both sides. It is hard to face the fact that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nothing compared to the millions of deaths a town by town, house by house invasion of Japan would have seen. Truman was a great man and a great Democrat.
Good old Trent Lott what a “compassionate conservative” he is.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at November 2, 2003 04:47 PM“Many Americans seem to have a problem comprehending the fact that suicide bombers come in infinite numbers and so do the bombs that come with them.”
Two small points. There isn’t much evidence that suicide bombing exists independent of a well funded terrorist planning and funding apparatus. The war against Japan didn’t just passively ‘end’.
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw at November 11, 2003 03:07 PM
