Here Goes Nothing ...

I've read alot of these post but not all and have seen some good stuff and some stuff that just not true. They did find links between Sadam and Al Queda (spelling) which is fact and I'm not talking about 9/11 just some links between them. Yes they did not agree with each other but did have a common hate for us. This War has not gone as bad as is reported by our media because it only focus is on what has gone wrong. One American life is too many but we have cities were more poeple have died from guns than we have lost in Iraq. Mistakes have been made but that happens in all wars and it tough because it is human lives we are dealing with. We cannot have a time table for withdraw (or not one that is public) that would tell the insurgancy just to sit back and wait until we leave. I'm not sure how we are going to exit but we have to get the Iraq people ready so we can get the heck out. Most od Iraq is living in peace and are happy that we are there but we never see that in our daily news its only the violance. That is a shame that our own news seems to ignor what the troops have accomplished and only focus on whats wrong and the few bad apples we have serving us over there. Lets just hope they are coming home ASAP and may god keep them safe.

While I realize they did not unify against the US.
It is generally, if not universally accepted that the countries in question, harbor, if not support those groups that have, and are targeting the US, and it's allies. These groups make no attempt to disguise their intentions as a whole.
From that standpoint, it benefits us to maintain a presence in the region, and thus a force in an outcome, that we can............"live" with. If we adopt a wait and see, non-interference policy, we may well be inviting a host of 9-11 style incidents

i don't disagree with that. right now we have much more military freedom in afghanistan and iraq and more leverage on pakistan to deal with such groups than we did before.

not to argue , but... how do you know any of this? have you been there? im not sure why some people think that all media is 100% against president bush. now, if you told some of them have an agenda because they are tired of being lied to, and everything being hush hush, i would agree. there has to be a timetable( i agree, not public) because if you cant see the finish line, you never really started
this is a response to firstdowns post

well, in this area there's lot of military families, mine being one, and you hear from first and second hand sources (military that have been there) that it's not as bad as the media says, and the iraqi blogs (by iraqis living in iraq) seem to share the same comments.

not that most of iraq is peaceful, just that it's not as bad as reported.

I don't think Americans can take the morale high ground about not getting kicks watching people die. What country televises high speed car chases which generally end in death or at least lots of destruction, who gets people gathered around a chair to watch someone have thousands of volts sent through their body? Americans and Christians (if we want to make this a religious thing) have long histories of watching death and torture for fun, closure, whatever.

As far as the kids spitting and such on bodies. Granted, Saddam killed a lot of people, but we are seen as the aggressor, and I can understand it. These kids, many growing up seeing much of the violence that we've seemingly brought to the nation that wasn't in every day view before. They see death every day, their idea of a good day is not having to bury a family member who dies from useless violence, a random car bomb aimed at US soldiers. While I'm not standing up for Saddam, he was an awful human being. From what I understand, his killings weren't exactly random. Don't piss Saddam off, stay alive. I'm not sure on that, just how it was explained to me and from the bit of reading I've done on it.

As far as papers not reporting positive news. They do. But saying everything is fine and well isn't a headline. Would you buy a paper that said "EVERYTHING'S OKAY!" Also, negative events come in one big splash. BOOM, something bad happened. Everything being okay is a gradual process. It's not that papers get in their meetings and say "Okay, we need to find a way to make this look bad!"

I don't think Americans can take the morale high ground about not getting kicks watching people die. What country televises high speed car chases which generally end in death or at least lots of destruction, who gets people gathered around a chair to watch someone have thousands of volts sent through their body? Americans and Christians (if we want to make this a religious thing) have long histories of watching death and torture for fun, closure, whatever.

As far as the kids spitting and such on bodies. Granted, Saddam killed a lot of people, but we are seen as the aggressor, and I can understand it. These kids, many growing up seeing much of the violence that we've seemingly brought to the nation that wasn't in every day view before. They see death every day, their idea of a good day is not having to bury a family member who dies from useless violence, a random car bomb aimed at US soldiers. While I'm not standing up for Saddam, he was an awful human being. From what I understand, his killings weren't exactly random. Don't piss Saddam off, stay alive. I'm not sure on that, just how it was explained to me and from the bit of reading I've done on it.

As far as papers not reporting positive news. They do. But saying everything is fine and well isn't a headline. Would you buy a paper that said "EVERYTHING'S OKAY!" Also, negative events come in one big splash. BOOM, something bad happened. Everything being okay is a gradual process. It's not that papers get in their meetings and say "Okay, we need to find a way to make this look bad!"
Find me a couple positive main stream media reports on the war. I mean stuff the average American will see or hear. CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and I bet you end up using FOX news as the only one giving anything positive. I don't think they get in the room and only look for bad but there is plenty of good that they must ignor. Your stuff about the kids spitting that going way back when the war started. How come they don't show the troops in a positive light that goes on in over 90% of the country. We only get what happens in a very small area of Iraq.Yes, the media looks for stuff to bash the president for and it has shown itsself again in the firing of those 9 judges which they are making such a big deal about. Clinton fired 94 judges in one day and had travel gate which the News did not feel was important so why is this? Oh, and those 94 judges are allot more than the 9 that Bush Admin. fired and they do not even have to have a reason to let them go.

I don't think Americans can take the morale high ground about not getting kicks watching people die. What country televises high speed car chases which generally end in death or at least lots of destruction, who gets people gathered around a chair to watch someone have thousands of volts sent through their body? Americans and Christians (if we want to make this a religious thing) have long histories of watching death and torture for fun, closure, whatever.

I didn't mean to imply that we Americans, Christians, etc. do not find fascination with violence, car accidents, etc. But there's a big difference between the kind of violence we watch (e.g., Jerry Bruckheimer films or Cops) and the kind of violence large segments of the Iraqi populace indulge in (e.g., an innocent journalist's head is slowly sawed off with a knife). It's a matter of degree; watching "The Terminator" is different from watching what amounts to a snuff film from Baghdad.

*I obviously am not saying that all Iraqis, Muslims, Middle Easterners, etc. indulge in such sadistic stuff. I am positive that the majority of Iraqis, Muslims, etc. do not agree with such violence, want to live in peace, and raise nice families just like you and I.

As for the news reporting, I don't understand how you say that news agencies do report positive stories about Iraq and then turn around and say that positive stories don't sell papers and that positive stories are not as easy to report as bad ones since progress occurs over time.

As for the news reporting, I don't understand how you say that news agencies do report positive stories about Iraq and then turn around and say that positive stories don't sell papers and that positive stories are not as easy to report as bad ones since progress occurs over time.

Sorry, I was a bit out of it when I posted. What I was trying to convey is that they are reported, they just aren't front page reports. Firstdown, a majority of Americans don't read and watch the news for what, 30 minutes a day? There's not really enough time. If you really want me to dig through The Washington Post, NY Times, etc, etc I will. They aren't front page stories, but they are there.

Sorry, I was a bit out of it when I posted. What I was trying to convey is that they are reported, they just aren't front page reports. Firstdown, a majority of Americans don't read and watch the news for what, 30 minutes a day? There's not really enough time. If you really want me to dig through The Washington Post, NY Times, etc, etc I will. They aren't front page stories, but they are there.You will have a hard time finding one I searched and had no luck.

I didn't mean to imply that we Americans, Christians, etc. do not find fascination with violence, car accidents, etc. But there's a big difference between the kind of violence we watch (e.g., Jerry Bruckheimer films or Cops) and the kind of violence large segments of the Iraqi populace indulge in (e.g., an innocent journalist's head is slowly sawed off with a knife). It's a matter of degree; watching "The Terminator" is different from watching what amounts to a snuff film from Baghdad.

*I obviously am not saying that all Iraqis, Muslims, Middle Easterners, etc. indulge in such sadistic stuff. I am positive that the majority of Iraqis, Muslims, etc. do not agree with such violence, want to live in peace, and raise nice families just like you and I.

As for the news reporting, I don't understand how you say that news agencies do report positive stories about Iraq and then turn around and say that positive stories don't sell papers and that positive stories are not as easy to report as bad ones since progress occurs over time.
I don't think that a large populace of Iraqis indulge in watching this kind of violence and would think that its a smaller number as in the ones doing the violence. A friend of mine who was over there a year or so back said that when they are attacked and you see these people jumping up and down mostly happens when the news shows up in most cases. He told me of a bombing and about these 8 or 9 Iraq guys in their 20's were helping them and when the news showed up they stoped and started doing that stuff. They still fear for their lives for two reasons. One he said is that they still have the fear of the Sadam type and people coming to kill them and their famile. He said this is a fear that they have lived with all their life and have not yet learned how to live without it. The other is a real fear of armed gangs coming to kill them for helping the Iraq goverment and the Americans. He said this is a real fear but is not as common as one would think from the news reports we get which he said was way over blown.