www.rhjunior.com Great comics with a hefty dose of Christian and anti-nutjob goodness.

"With your mind as high as Mt. Fuji you can see all things clearly. And you can see all the forces that shape events; not just the things near to you." -Miyamoto Musashi

   Bzzzt. wrong answer recruit.

   I was not led to believe anything.

   Here is what I believed when I learned we were going in...

  "it'd about damn time, what took you so long"

you concur that the administration listed sixteen seperate and viable reasons for going to war with Iraq prior to the start of the war. 

No.  The dates for his quotes run all through the war.  IMO the president continually changed the reasoning for the war when previous reasoning no longer applied.

The 16 official rationales covering ALL reasonings to go to war were released to both the UN and combined House of Representatives/Senate in joint session weeks prior to the war.  Both were comprehensive.  The only people who cannot seem to read these rationales and comprehend are members of the press.

A single reason involving WMD Did NOT HAPPEN

Actually, it did.  The following is from the president's 2003 State of the Union Address... 

the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised…. Under [UN] Resolutions 678 and 687 — both still in effect — the United States and our allies are authorized to use force in ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.

Please read and comprehend.  I said that a SINGLE reason for WMD did not EXIST, that is a sole reasoning in a vacuum.  You state it did during the State of the Union address.  You will note that during that address OTHER rationales were also presented. 

For each phase of the war we have acheived victory, while the press has repetitively reported defeat.

The initial invasion was a huge success, yes.  There have been public elections, yes.  The US military has had great successes along the way that the media has reported in great detail

Not such great detail since most people are still operating under beliefs spawned by reporting. 

Example, most people believe that US actions have caused the electrical grid to fail, when in fact more juice is being consumed in Iraq than ever before.  Same-same Gasoline, and petroleum production.

Most assume that AQ is running rampant in the country, and that only a handful of Iraqi soldiers are standing and fighting because the press has not told them differently.

The instances to which you refer I'm unfamiliar.  If true, they are good examples of misinformation.  Personally, I would doubt any malice on the part of reporters. 

Reporters assume that ALL statements made by the Military are obviously lies and treat them as such.  This is malice since the military has a better record of truthfulness than does the press. 

This adds up to the military NOT wishing to breif the press anymore since they usually are treated poorly in the exchange.

JWF...I'm not really a "Big Guy"--just slightly above average, but with a "Big Brain".  <kidding>

By all military historical perspective, the insurgency has gone very well.

I assume you mean it has gone very well for our side.

We have lost fewer lives, spent less money, and if things keep playing out the way they are, we will wrap this up in less time than average insurgencies. 

Which average insurgencies--involving the U.S.--are you referencing?  The Whiskey Rebellion?  The Huk uprising?

Whether the current Iraqi conflict is characterized as a "war", a "pacification/occupation" phase, an "insurgency" or otherwise, can you produce a quote or summarized view by any administration official suggesting our intervention and continuing involvement has essentially unfolded according to original predictions and/or expectations.  If it has, why in the world was Rumsfeld sacked?

Jer

Iraq is moving faster than US congress

The POPE says, GOD BLESS AMERICA!!

IranianUranium<sleep>New/Infrastructure/repair?/ROFLMAO

If you bothered to look up these events then I accomplished part of my objective, which you must have if you also found Shay's rebellion.

If you think the Whiskey Rebellion was mild, then you are underestimating the value of a show of force.  I will assert that had Jimmy Carter been president when the Whiskey Rebels decided they weren't going to pay the whiskey excise tax, that rebellion would have overthrown the tax and federal authority to tax such luxuries.

The only reason you think these 'small' insurrections were crushed with ease is YOU weren't the one crushing them.

"I know a thing or two about history so please don't lecture me. "

Ha!  You've already shown me and everybody else here you don't know squat about this bit of history!

I think you neglect another aspect of this comparison.  In Iraq, we have foreign operatives who have not yet withdrawn from the conflict, notably, Iran and Al Qaeda.  Defeat these elements and the situation in Iraq isn't really any different than the situation in early US. 

Defeating the maniac in Iran isn't hard.  He is a paper tiger.  Tell this little terrorist, Ahmadinejad, to hand over Mookie Al Sadr's head on a platter or we kick his ass, do it with credibility, and I think Mookie will suddenly and mysterious fall into our hands.

Defeating Al Qaeda won't be so easy.  Finding them is difficult.  Killing them is easy.

Warner...Thanks for the recommendations.  In the interest of total candor, probably 90% of my Civil War reading and nearly all of my books on the subject deal with battles, military strategy, biographies of generals, soldier's accounts,etc.  As such, I am much more familiar with the military as opposed to the political and social aspects of the Civil War and its prelude and aftermath.

The books you mention should help fill in the gaps.  For a superb narrative overview of the Civil War, it is hard to beat Shelby Foote's 3-volume masterpiece--although some scholars criticize its lack of sourcing.

Jer

P.S.  No, I did not know that about West Virginia.  Maybe you guys should raise that issue if Obama wins in a cliffhanger.