# Volunteers Needed: "The War On Terror Cannot Be Won If We Fail In Iraq" **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 14, 2007, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887 "2007-01-14T01:06:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/181 "2007-01-16T17:37:28Z")
In the specific case of Matt Lauer, it’s not far off the mark. NBC was a target of the 2001 anthrax attacks, after all. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/182 "2007-01-16T17:42:30Z")
Yeah, except we don’t know who did the attacking. Could have been AlQ. Could have been The Joker, for all we know. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/183 "2007-01-16T17:45:26Z")
But a terrorist by definition, whoever it was. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/184 "2007-01-16T17:45:26Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] In the specific case of Matt Lauer, it’s not far off the mark. NBC was a target of the 2001 anthrax attacks, after all. [/QUOTE] Don’t forget that Bush has prevented another terrorist attack since 9/11, so I don’t know what you’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/185 "2007-01-16T17:47:23Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] I do have my opinions about this war, and I do considerably more for it than spouting off on a message board. I’ll spell this out for you if you really want me to. Thing is, though, nobody asked me to do these things. It is not a requirement that I do them to be a good citizen, a good conservative Republican, or consistent in my debate points. I do them in part because I want to, and in part because some of these things are my job. I have not demanded that other people do anything. I think everybody has to find their own path. [/quote] I agree that everyone has to find their own path. But if, for instance, it were generally known that the world was in imminent danger of blowing to smithereens, and I could do something to keep it from happening, I’d be wasting my time arguing about it online. And I’d think that anyone else who was able to help save the world, but wasn’t, was a waste of oxygen. Well, according to Bush, the world won’t explode if we lose in Iraq. But he does say the West will lose the Global War on Terror to the Islamofascists if we lose in Iraq. Now, that’s pretty damned serious. Not as serious as the end of the world, but still pretty damned serious. I agree that, even in the face of such a threat, everyone has to find their own path. But I am roundly condemnatory of any large group of like-minded people who believe what Bush claims to believe, yet very few of them find paths that involve enlistment. And I’d be even more condemnatory of them if they were making a lot of noise about how Bush was right, and those who criticized him were for all practical purposes supporting the terrorists. I do not know each individual person’s story, so I am not going to condemn any one individual. But once we’ve got a nice large group, and we can look at its behavior as a whole, without having to reach conclusions about outliers, the statistician in me says we can reach conclusions. And yeah, the behavior of this group stinks to high heaven, no matter how valid the excuses of some individuals may be. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/186 "2007-01-16T17:49:18Z")
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] I reference, in only slight jest, Bush’s interview with Matt Lauer. In that interview, he makes it clear that “We are at war against people who want to come and kill your family.” It hardly seems that Bush is telling us that not winning the war means that it goes on. I would interpret that to mean that not winning the war means that Matt Lauer’s family is dead. [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Mp4vLBvU1bA/hqdefault.jpg "Matt Lauer Corners Bush on Torture") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp4vLBvU1bA) Spin all you want, but it’s incredibly thin material you are working with **John Mace**. The simple point is that Bush very much wants us to regard this as a fight for our very lives. [/quote] Well, we \*\*are \*\*at war with people who use the deliberate killing of as one of their main combat tactics. I wouldn’t phrase it the way Bush did, but I wouldn’t say that was flat out wrong either. But more importantly, that doesn’t mean we will lost “the War on Terror” if we lose in Iraq, **as the OP asserts**. Now, if he wants to modify that assertion, then we can debate what the new assertion is. > [@](#): > > You can take one line and make it not mean all that much, in the same way that you can try to suggest that saying we fought WWII for our allies in Europe is a “lie.” It’s just that it’s sad to see you do so. So why didn’t we get involved in Europe until Germany declared war on us (after Japan attacked us, and we declared war on them)? We might truthfully say that we **stayed on** in Europe after WWII because we learned that our interests were intertwined with the Europeans during that war, but we certainly didn’t, as a country, think so prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. FDR did, but he couldn’t convince the rest of us. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/187 "2007-01-16T17:49:31Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] Did you or did you not require the same reaction from people who supported Clinton’s Wider War doctrine as you do from people who support Bush’s Spread of Terrorism doctrine? [/QUOTE] I did not. And I explained why @137, per the criteria I stated @139. Is there an echo in here? I coulda sworn I just said this. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/188 "2007-01-16T17:50:44Z")
Oops. That should have been “deliberate killing of civilians” in that first sentence. Since our familiy members are largely civilians, they are potential targets. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/189 "2007-01-16T18:02:28Z")
**RTFirefly** , you have to account for your own behavior as well, your statistics be damned. Because you support your share of fighting, rhetorically at least. Do you support it any other way? What do you do for military readiness? What do you do for veterans? What do you do to help people in developing countries, particularly Islamic ones? Did you contribute to tsunami relief? Ordinarily I wouldn’t ask, but since you’re bringing up the subject, I think you have to account for it. Your position, after all, seems to be that it is hypocritical to support a war and risk little yourself. Well, you supported sending troops into Afghanistan, and many have died there. What have you risked, if anything? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/190 "2007-01-16T18:10:37Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] This thread is still alive? Maybe we should go back at look at the fundamental fallacy in the OP. “Winning” the war on terror means we will have eliminated all the terrorists, and ceased to be threatened by, presumably, radical Islamists. But “not winning” does not mean we’ve lost, it just means that the battle goes on, at whatever level of intensity. Who knows what that intensity level will be, and nothing in Bush’s quote says that “Western Civilization” will be lost. [/quote] That’s a valid criticism. I don’t think I’ve got a rebuttal handy, either. > [@](#): > > But if it makes you feel good to rant about it, this is the right place to do just that! 🙂 It did. But good job of finding the flaw in my argument! Because I’ve got no refutation, now that I’ve had a few minutes to think about it, just to be sure. This undercuts my first criterion - that of the seriousness of the threat. An ongoing threat of terrorism at some level might be serious enough, if it were a pretty damned high level, such as nukes being exploded in a different American city every few months, but that’s a lot more than they’re saying in this instance. While I think **Hentor** is right in saying that Bush & Co. want us to regard this as a fight for our very lives, that’s more than they’re willing to say explicitly, AFAIK. No question that they’re being two-faced as all sin about it, but they’re not explicitly saying anything that rises to the level of ‘if you believe it’s really that serious, you’d have to have a damned good reason to do no more than root from the sidelines.’ ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/191 "2007-01-16T18:37:51Z")
[QUOTE=RTFirefly] While I think **Hentor** is right in saying that Bush & Co. want us to regard this as a fight for our very lives, that’s more than they’re willing to say explicitly, AFAIK. No question that they’re being two-faced as all sin about it, but they’re not explicitly saying anything that rises to the level of ‘if you believe it’s really that serious, you’d have to have a damned good reason to do no more than root from the sidelines.’ [/QUOTE] I think it’s an extremely appropriate criticism that Bush has not make the American public participate (read: sacrifice) in order to fight the “War on Terror”; other than having to take our shoes off at the airport. We’ve definitely been oversold a bill of goods, and we are doing almost nothing, as a country, to address the real problem. We still think that slinging our weight around like a bull in a china shop is a good thing, when we should be looking for ways to extricate ourselves from the powderkeg also commonly known as the Middle East. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/192 "2007-01-16T18:41:48Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] **RTFirefly** , you have to account for your own behavior as well, your statistics be damned. [/quote] **No.** I damned sure don’t. At least not on this board. If you and I were having a friendly beer away from this board, I’d do a 180° on that. But I think personalizing the debate _on this board_ to the level you’re doing in this post is a lousy idea. I’m not going to tell you, here in either the Pit or GD, if I’m donating to veterans’ causes, or if I contributed to tsunami relief, or anything like that, _to justify my position in a debate_. If I feel like doing that in MPSIMS, I may. But I think that to ask posters to demonstrate that they have ‘done good’ as an implied condition of participating in a debate here is a really, really lousy idea. > [@](#): > > Ordinarily I wouldn’t ask, but since you’re bringing up the subject, I think you have to account for it. Your position, after all, seems to be that it is hypocritical to support a war and risk little yourself. Where’s that ‘slams head against desk’ smiley when you need it? [QUOTE=RTFirefly] I’m demanding efforts of Iraq war supporters **who believe the Bush Administration’s warnings of apocalyptic consequences** if we lose the war, not simply to Iraq war supporters. That should be pretty clear from the criteria I’ve set down in various places in this thread. But I explicitly said this to **TheLoadedDog** @106. [/QUOTE] Anyway, if that makes sense to you, I’m retiring from this battlefield. AFAIAC, **John Mace** has skewered the proposition I set out in the OP. If others disagree, they are of course welcome to carry on the fight (like I could stop them), but I think I should go get some work done. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/193 "2007-01-16T18:51:04Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Oops. That should have been “deliberate killing of civilians” in that first sentence. Since our familiy members are largely civilians, they are potential targets. [/QUOTE] Of course, as we all know, when the US butchers thousands of civilians it’s “un-deliberate.” [Surveys pointing to high civilian death toll in Iraq](http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0522/p01s02-woiq.html) > [@](#): > > BAGHDAD – Evidence is mounting to suggest that between 5,000 and 10,000 Iraqi civilians may have died during the recent war, according to researchers involved in independent surveys of the country. > > None of the local and foreign researchers were willing to speak for the record, however, until their tallies are complete. > > Such a range would make the Iraq war the deadliest campaign for noncombatants that US forces have fought since Vietnam. > > Though it is still too early for anything like a definitive estimate, the surveyors warn, preliminary reports from hospitals, morgues, mosques, and homes point to a level of civilian casualties far exceeding the Gulf War, when 3,500 civilians are thought to have died. > > “Thousands are dead, thousands are missing, thousands are captured,” says Haidar Taie, head of the tracing department for the Iraqi Red Crescent in Baghdad. “It is a big disaster.” > > By one measure of violence against noncombatants, as compared with resistance faced by soldiers, the war in Iraq was particularly brutal. In Operation Just Cause, the 1989 US invasion of Panama, 13 Panamanian civilians died for every US military fatality. If 5,000 Iraqi civilians died in the latest war, that proportion would be 33 to 1. > > US and British military officials insisted throughout the war that their forces did all they could to avoid civilian casualties. But it has become clear since the fighting ended that bombs did go astray, that targets were chosen in error, and that as US troops pushed rapidly north toward the capital they killed thousands of civilians from the air and from the ground. What? Oooopsie! Moreover, although my google-fu is not helping, I clearly remember reading that Rumsfeld had to be consulted in pre-war raid (of which there were many) when the chosen targets posed danger to fifty or more civians in the surroundings. \*\*He approved each and everyone of them. \*\*. Hate to break it to you, John, but I don’t see you as the guys wearing the white hats. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/194 "2007-01-16T18:51:09Z")
[QUOTE=RTFirefly] **No.** I damned sure don’t. At least not on this board. If you and I were having a friendly beer away from this board, I’d do a 180° on that. But I think personalizing the debate _on this board_ to the level you’re doing in this post is a lousy idea. [/QUOTE] And yet you feel you have the right to call the commitment of others into question? Why is that? ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/195 "2007-01-16T18:57:17Z")
[QUOTE=RTFirefly] While I think **Hentor** is right in saying that Bush & Co. want us to regard this as a fight for our very lives, that’s more than they’re willing to say explicitly, AFAIK. No question that they’re being two-faced as all sin about it, but they’re not explicitly saying anything that rises to the level of ‘if you believe it’s really that serious, you’d have to have a damned good reason to do no more than root from the sidelines.’ [/QUOTE] Okay, if the bar is finding a quote from them that says “We will all die if we don’t win in Iraq,” I suppose I’ll concede that that is unlikely to turn up. These people are masters of making statements that invite the listener to close the loop for them. Look at the latest PR push. Google “We cannot afford to lose in Iraq.” You’ll find that this phrase has been said, all in a single span of days, by Rice, Cheney, Secretary Gates, and Senator Lindsey Graham. Clearly it is a concerted effort, a talking point that they want out there. What does it mean, that we “Cannot afford to lose in Iraq”? In my opinion, it is intended to convey the all-in nature of the conflict. The consequences of losing in Iraq are greater than we can bear. But of course, it can be dissected in different ways, particularly by those killing time on a message board in mild defense of President Bush. “Well, Bush never said it!” “It simply means that the costs of losing would be great, since the war on terror would go on…” etc, etc. But, yeah, it’s a semantic battle that I’m sure I just won’t be able to win - I **can** afford to lose the semantic battle about Bush’s selling of the magnitude of the cause being fought for by some of us. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/196 "2007-01-16T19:14:16Z")
[QUOTE=RTFirefly] I did not. And I explained why @137, per the criteria I stated @139. Is there an echo in here? I coulda sworn I just said this. [/QUOTE] You addressed an analogy that you made up (comparing the wars), and not the one that I presented to you (comparing the speeches). But I will accept your concession to John as a concession to me. Let’s just say that you were too proud to concede to me and used John vicariously. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/197 "2007-01-16T19:14:19Z")
I would absolutely agree that the level of rhetoric used by Bush et al in describing the threat of “terrorism” is waaaaay above what it needs to be and we are in no way being asked to put up an effort in that fight comensurate with the claimed level of the threat. But I still disagree with the OP that there is some inherent hypocracy in not signing up for a tour of duty in Iraq if you support the war. That’s taking the case to the opposite extreme. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/198 "2007-01-16T19:25:33Z")
The rhetoric of these arguments back and forth leave me a little confused. While I do not support the Iraq war and have not, I believe it is for reasons different from most of the more liberal members of the board. \*\*I do not expect people \*\* who state a belief a war needs to be supported **are required to do so in person**. Men and Woman volunteer for a variety of reasons. You cannot be in the reserves and not expect to possible have to serve in a war you do not believe in. I just missed Desert Storm by less than a year. Many of my friends were working in the USS Ranger as it violated what to then had been military strategy of never having an Aircraft Carrier in the Persian Gulf. I was worried at the time and as a member of the IRR\* I was unsure if the war would disrupt my life. If Desert Storm did not go so well, they may have activated the IRR. If called to return, I would have and I would have known I was going to serve in a just war. I would not expect those at home, who supported the war, to have to join up. That is the point of an all-volunteer military. If President Bush has abused his powers and the military too much, than future recruitment and pretension will be a problem. I believe Shrub has abused his powers in many ways. I believe there will be a period following this war where recruitment will be difficult again. I believe we, as a country will recover from the idiocy of this war of false pretenses. If we had concentrated on the Afghan war, we would have had more than enough forces and support to do the job properly and we would have helped the people of the country in a huge way. Instead, I can see no justification to claim that we have helped either Afghanistan or Iraq at this point. **Scylla** , while I do not expect you to join the military to prove the value of your opinion in supporting the war, your excuses are pure bullshit. Anyone that is capable of running an ultra-marathon is better suited to army duty than I have ever been. I served the Navy, I did my time and I am proud of it. I did my time to help myself out, and so other did not have to. **RTFirefly** , while I agree with most of your views about this war, and I might hate Shrub & Cheney more than even you do, I still think your Op holds no water. **Mr. Moto** , good to see you back. Jim - Navy Inactive Ready Reserves. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/199 "2007-01-16T19:37:15Z")
Google-fu rewards effort and returns a cite on Rumsfeld-approved civilian killings: Scroll down to a third of the page: [Bush Warriors Sign Off on War Crimes](http://archive.democrats.com/preview.cfm?term=Iraq%20War) > [@](#): > > Chris Floyd writes: "The armchair warriors who directed the American-led conquest of Iraq would like us to believe that the estimated 10,000 innocent civilians who died in the invasion were simply unfortunate, inadvertant, unavoidable, accidental victims of a just and noble action. No one wanted these innocent people to die. Surely no American leader ever knowingly ordered a mission with the certain knowledge that innocent people were going to be killed by it. These deaths just happened; no one is to blame for them… But like almost every other statement issued by the Bush Regime on the subject of Iraq, this comforting fairytale is a cynical, blood-soaked lie… **More than 50 times, Rumsfeld was approached with mission plans likely to leave at least 30 innocent people vaporized and mutilated by unstoppable high-tech weaponry crashing down on them without warning, without the slightest chance of escape. More than 50 times, Rumsfeld signed his name to these multiple death-warrants**. Highlights/coloring obviously mine. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887/200 "2007-01-16T19:47:00Z")
[QUOTE=RedFury] Highlights/coloring obviously mine. [/QUOTE] The source is obviously yours, too. A notoriously one-dimensional [political hack](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Floyd) quoted in a leftist blog. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/volunteers-needed-the-war-on-terror-cannot-be-won-if-we-fail-in-iraq/387887.md?page=11)