They don't welcome everyone. Gun owners for example. The left has been downright hostile to 2nd Amendment supporters. Religious people are another group that the left regularly pillories. Same with business owners.

That's not rude, just inaccurate.

Tell me how Iraq has been a success. I have relatives in Iraq with shiny pieces of metal on their collar, they have been saying for years it's a mess. Your take on it?

Well written. :up: subchaser12 is also on point.

Personally I've never understood how Americans on the other hand want freedoms and on the other have these religious zealots that they elect to high offices to basically curtail their freedoms. What gives?

Actually, there are ppl out there considering Iraq worse then Vietnam when it comes to the US and it's stance in the world. Losses are not as high as in Vietnam, but the damage america took, in it's reputation, in it's economics and the own populations psychology have a far greater impact on the US' freedom of action in the world. While Vietnam did not change much in the constellation of the world in the 70ies, Iraq has practically brought down the US from "the" superpower with a huge diplomatic authority in the world to a "mere" superpower which now faces opposition whereever it looks.
It also made the world a whole lot less safe in general.

Well no one is really afraid of America anymore. Why should they be? We lost in Vietnam. We got the beatdown by untrained starved Africans on drugs in Somalia. That dead body being drug around on CNN was a Delta Force guy, supposedly our "best of the best", that was no ordinary grunt. Delta Force was in the failed Desert One fiasco where we tried to rescue hostages in Iran. There was the Marine barraks that got blown up by ONE guy in Beirut. Then there is Iraq and Afghanistan where we are getting slapped around and embarrased yet again by a bunch of insurgents that have nothing more than AKs, RPGs and IEDs. For such a big baddy superpower we sure get our butts kicked a lot.

What war have we won since world war 2? Even in world war 2 we were only on the winning side, America acts like we did it single handed. Let's look at the score since World War 2

Korean War = Draw
Vietnam = Lost
Grendad = Win
Panama = Win
Desert Storm = Won an air campaign with limited ground fighitng. Bombed Iraq for 9 months.
Somalia = Lost
Iraqi "Freedom" = Lost
Afghanistan = Lost.

Why should a country really fear us? The only thing we are capable of is knocking over a banana republic in South America.

Well, it took us long enough but we recently threw our religous zealouts out of office in a landslide. Better late than never. I don't think we will see a return of the religious right in this country. They are free to go to church 24/7 and eat all the potato salad they want. However, the rest of the country got sick of them telling the rest of us how to live our lives so we threw them out.

And what crystal ball are you using to determine how safe the world would be at this point in time had events not transpired as they did?:hmm:

And I have trouble lifting it sometimes ! I'm going to have to invest in one of those industrial paint spray guns. :D

Limited ground fighting? The greatest tank battle since WWII , and one of the biggest known in all history...?

I agree, the ground action was short. But do not conclude from that that it was easy, or light. It was extremely intense. 8 Iraqi divisions, at least 4 of which were tank-heavy divisions, were completly mauled, if I remember correctly 3 were completely wiped out. During the battle at Basra the Iraqui fought back, and by far did not give up withoiut fighting. It's just that the M1's armour, fire range and "silver bullets" (uranium ammunition) together with their night fighting capability proved their hitting fire ineffective. If both sides would have used comparable equipment, the American losses in vehicles would have been very high. It did not compare to the kind of asymmetraical war the Americans would face again twelve years later.

What landslide are you talking about?

We know the3 assessments of even US intedl services that in the wake of Iraq the global security status has not become better, but worse. Today there are more young men willing to fight or commit suicide terror attacks then before, and Al Quaeda has grown both in size and complexity. Again: that are not just my views, this is what the community of Us intel has to say on the issue. Of course, the league of dilletants, the adminsitration, felt free to simply disagree witzh that. It's just that they were unable to give convicning reasons why the intel assessement is wrong and their wishful thinking should be superior in insight and quality.

You missed my point. How do you know that something even worse than the results of the invasion would not have occurred since the date of said invasion? It is easy to say that the world is not as safe as it was then, but how do we know what the alternate world would have been like? The answer is that we don't know, nor will we ever know because it's too late to do it over.

OT
 

Al Gore Involved in Ga. Race, Wants Filibuster-Proof Senate
McCain Asks Voters to 'Battle' for Sen. Chambliss

So what you're about? at best your hypothetical what if-sacenario can serve as a lame excuse given for a situation of "just in case that".

What we know is that the number of terrorists and attracted young men has grown as direct consequnces to the Iraq war, and that the costs for business secuerity measures and anti-terror-proteciton in our home countries have multiplied dramatically. And that is not hypothetical, but bitter reality.

And Neal: you'll hate it - but I predicted that as well! ;)