I love that song!

Reminds me of camp.

Tom W

What does give up mean? Seems pretty vague and not useful.

Tom W

How many words does it take?

How many words does it take to define the word "No" to get an average person to understand it?

wait, don't answer that I'm afraid of the answer.

It depends on what your definition if "is" is.

You have to admit you have a problem before we can help you, Mr. Botnst. The staff here are all pulling for you . . . .

Improving?! Things have retreated to a low boil, plateauing (sp?) out at a somewhat manageble level, such that the loss, while steady, is pallatable.

Doesn't mean the venture will ever turn a profit, and with multiple generations of folks ready to bleed us gradually in any way they can, I don't see bright promise.

Zat so? If only the French under Napoleon had had the moxie to not give up.

Some things cannot produce "victory." Only sustained loss.

All evidence to the contrary.

Unfortunately, there are insufficient palintirs distributed to the rest of us to facilitate accurate discernment of future events.

The victory in Iraq will be when Iraq is able to secure their country without a US occupation force. Anything less than that is failure for both our countries.

I see no reason why Iraq should not be able to stand on their own in the forseeable future. Taking away their crutch (US) is not surrender, it will be their defining moment to suceed.

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The change that is needed is not a military one.
They have been fighting each other since the beginning of written history.
I think it is completely arrogant that we think we can send some
troupes and bombs over there for a few months and make things all better.

I think the change needs to be with Islamic faith/politics.
They still have a religion that is their government.
While they still think that they are better than everyone else in
the world because of their particular religion, I think they will continue
to kill each other and everyone else.
You do not change 1000 years worth of deep seated beliefs of people
overnight.
Not even with "Shock and Awe".

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WGAS if they kill each other. If they could confine it to that and not bother our interests, I could see selling them the weapons to make it faster and more efficient. Problem is that they will also kill everyone else.

Oh is that right? Then how do you explain your certain confidence that indeed we have improved things? That the diehard Iraqi nationalists haven't just temporarily gone underground again?

American casualties have slowed in rate somewhat but are still regular. It is going to be highly expensive for Americans to do anything in the country for the next few centuries, in my estimation, if not longer.

Unfortunately, the suicide bomber has beaten us to a degree -- they will never be able to conquer our territory with that but as a means of making the costs of occupation higher than the return, could be the Islamo suicide bomb has made a horrible breakthrough.

Any "success" on our part in Iraq involves a long term ability to profitably do business there with the newly enlightened democracy that is just about to spring forth. With IEDs and suicide bombers, the nationalists will be able to prevent that type of success for pennies to our dollar.

Anyone who thought enough people were going to accept our overlord role were smoking something along with the regular doses of kool-aid.

they have beaten us because we lack the will. There is no degree about that.

It depends on what you mean by conquer and what time frame you are talking about. Conquer as in whether they can invade in the next 10 years? Probably not. Conquer as in they can harm our interests, very likely. If they can harm our interests, is a physical conquering necessary? Absolutely not. Look at it this way, to harm you, do I need to beat the hell out of you? No. If I can hurt you financially and have you thrown out of your house and broke, do I have to beat you till you are lying in the street?

It's not a matter of will. If it takes us $100 to counteract what they can do for $1.47, the costs of being there eventually become untenable. In Korea after 4 years, in Vietnam after what 10 years, the costs became far greater than the return and the ventures were terminated.

The only way Islamo fanatics can harm us is if we let them in to do manual labor that we native born Americans have simply become too good for. The people who do the physical work tend to become stronger than the elitist fools who don't even have the strength to mow their own lawn.