Oh, Jesus! I'm really confused now. On another thread you said that Iraq was won. Now you're saying we haven't won yet in Iraq. Or maybe we had won when you posted the other post but now we lost what we had won and have to win it back. What was the criteria again for having "won" in Iraq?

I gather from your post above that we went to Iraq for some reason other than the many and varied reasons the Bush Administration said we went. So why when we win will the war in Iraq will the war not be over? I thought when we win a war the war is, you know, won. But you are saying Iraq isn't the end of the war. This is making my head hurt. How does one win a war and the won not be ended? Is this like a Buddhist koan?

Well first off, I am not offering direct insult to anyone as my use of the word decapitate was in response to it being used to describe what we had supposedly done to the taliban leadership, not as a direct accusation to any soldiers. Secondly, I'm Canadian and my government voted against partaking in a war that was declared illegal by the international community so none of those soldiers are in fact serving for me. Third, I dont believe the war in Iraq serves the interests of the general Americain people as it has never been adequately proven that the Hussein regime had anything to do with 9/11. What the War in Iraq does seem to be doing is giving extremists a wonderful array of targets (ie average american men and women) and wonderful ammount of propaganda opportunities to recruit more radicals.

I was niot alicve during Vietnam but I do know my history, I'll admit that anti war pressure back home forced the U.S. out of the war, but I would not accept that the VietCong were done for at that point. If that was the case, how did the North Vietnamese steamroll over the South? It's true that they were "defeated on the battlefield" again and again, but that seemed to do little to quell the surge of nationalistic and extremist sentiment there.

As for Japan, there was no guerilla war in Japan so it doesn't really serve as an example. There may have been if the island was invaded and all the records indicate that the Japanese were preparing for jsut that. However the use of the atomic bomb forced emperor Hiro Hito to surrender or watch his people be immolated in flames. This sucked the wind out of the ideological sails and probably allowed the U.S. to avoid a lengthy occupation and guerilla war in Japan. I don't believe atomic weapons are an option in Iraq or the rest of the Middle East so I don't see how you propose to suck the wind out of their ideological sails. Particularly when that wind seems to be blowing directly from Americain troops being present in their homeland.

Actually, I think the reason your head hurts is because you suffer from being terminally stupid. So ... in little words, just for you ... (in case I lose you, www.dictionary.com)

We are not fighting the government of Iraq .... Iraq is the location that a battle front against Islamic fundamentalists is taking place. In the nether regions of your oh so simplistic mind, try to remember this ... this war is against Islamic terrorists wherever they are, whether that be Iraq, Iran, Palestine, or Chicago. We are being successful against the terrorists in Iraq. Our allies in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, England, Spain, and other countries have taken up the battle in other arenas.

(By the way, this is available in the Cliff Notes version ... and, just for our liberal friends, a comic book version)