Some Clarity Added For A Clearer Understanding

My good blogfriend Super Frenchie has found it necessary to send in the hoards to see my earlier post on a stunt that was almost pulled by French President Chirac, which can be read here, if you haven't already done so. But first, let it be known that he has asked my permission to link to and hammer me in the past, and I have given him the green light to do it, whenever he wants. I do not mind at all. There's no hostility, whatsoever.

Well, he did. And needless to say, it's awakened the dead. Note the comments on SF's post.

One commenter has taken special exception. (Here, here, and here)

And that's fine. She is entitled to her opinion. There is no sense arguing about it, it matters very little to me how she or anyone else that disagrees with me feels about this, or any other issue for that matter.

But when I am called a warmonger by someone that doesn't know the first thing about me, that's when I must set the record straight.

I don’t think it’s all that far fetched to think that LA Sunsett is a warmonger. Here’s what he thinks about Iraq:

(Link)

If I were President, the Sunni triangle would be known as the Sunni canyon and al-Sadr would be dead. And damn the bleeding hearts. You can call me cruel if you want, but we’d be closer to being gone by now.

The she follows with:

Cruel? This comes across as being, errr, delusional, and yes, the way that a warmonger thinks…

Despite what this commenter may think about me, I am certainly not a warmonger. Nowhere in my post did I call for military action against Iran. And as for this comment about the Sunni Triangle, read the entire post for a better perspective of what I was trying to say.

But if it still isn't clear, allow me to break it down further.

If we are going to send our young men and women to fight a war, then we must fight it to win. There is no such thing as a politically correct war. If we are going to engage an enemy, then we must try to destroy that enemy and not play silly little political games and appease those that are against what we are trying to do.

I am an ex-soldier, who stood in uniform. I wasn't drafted, I volunteered, and served with honor. Many in my family served with honor, before me. Some did not come home, those that did were forever scarred. I went to their funerals, I witnessed the changes in people that made it back alive. I do not relish the fact that we are at war now, but if we are going to fight a war, we need to do it the right way and make every effort to win it.

We can debate the reasons we went to war for the next hundred years, it will not change one thing. There will always be people that are against it, people that are for it, and people that see both sides of the argument.

When Bush made the decision to go into Iraq, I was a bit apprehensive. I knew the risks, the potential use of chemical weapons weighed heavily into that. When I saw the elite units of the Iraqi military lay down their weapons and blend into the civilian population, I knew this was going to be a long fight. I knew this was not going to be easy and that there was a good chance that this would not be resolved anytime soon.

I also knew that Saddam had WMDs, at some point. Regardless who gave them to him, he had them. I also knew that he wasn't cooperating with UN inspectors. He refused to verify that those weapons had been destroyed, all the while playing cat and mouse games, trying to make the world think he had them. Watching those towers crumble, I fully understood that we could not take the chance that he didn't have them. Since he gave us no good reason to believe him, I knew that there was a real chance, he had them and would get them to people that would have no qualms about using them.

People, there are no absolutes in this world, especially where these issues are concerned. If George Bush would have ignored the situation and an attack had occurred in which the materials were found to have been supplied by Saddam, then he would have been in even worse trouble for not protecting his people. Regardless of how you view his decision, he made the decision, and I am not going to second guess it.

What I will do is, second guess the inefficient way he has conducted the war, the miscalculations, and underestimating the resistance. That is all fair game. Which brings me back to this point, either fight the war to win or don't fight it.

So, with all that a bit clearer, I challenge anyone to prove that this attitude constitutes one of a warmonger.

It's easy to sit in judgment of decisions that one does not agree with. And it's perfectly fine to voice your opinions about them, pro or con. It is not okay to presume to have any answers about someone that disagrees with your position, and types irresponsible comments about someone they know nothing about. It's what some people do, when they have nothing better to offer a debate.