The Case For Facing Facts

if you put enough troops in any small country you will reduce the violance. can you tell your enemy from your friends? i say you can not. you can not win what ever you are trying to win. as long as you stay there you wil always be dying. what will we gain by staying in iraq to creat what we call a win? it sound good when mccain keep holling that we are going to win. i still would like to know what will you win? it should be against some one law for america to keep killing people that have done nothing to america. we are fighting people whose only crime is being born an iraqi. we are wasting young people lives and limbs because we hate to face the fact that we are wrong. iraq did nothing for the people to be murder because we hated one man, their leader.

Of course, the root of the problem is Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants fan. Scream, holler and cheer for every one of his home runs. Home runs win games and winning games means Championships. It doesn't matter how you get it. Just win.

Well -- as we are finding out -- to alot of us it does matter.

Even if this whole "things are getting better" notion is true, I feel for conscientious Americans it's just hard to root when you know how it all started.

If only we hadn't gone into Iraq....what a wonderful world it would be with Saddam still in power. Those damn Iraqi people would never know freedom, never have a say in their government or their country. Saddam would still be there in power, with his deranged sons, probably digging more mass graves and murdering their own citizens. Damn that Bush messing up this fairy tale that Iraq was before we went there! It was such a wonderful place to live before we invaded.

Personally, just the idea that somebody has to write an op-ed piece like this, demonstrates how slanted the reporting has been out of Iraq. Wouldn't it be nice if reporters and the media actually told us the truth about whats going on, instead of forcing their political agenda on us. What if the media just reported what's happening, the facts, instead of expressing their opinions and trying to pass it off as the news!

nothing will make you happy liberals are to d"* stubern to even want to see any good that has come from that war omg stop hateing! your killing yourself

"though some violence persists, is much improved since the summer. Why do liberals not want to face this fact, let alone ponder its implications?"

Sheesh! Ask a skewed question, then imply those who've been asked refuse to reason. Many have pondered why the violence, while still horrific and unacceptable to any functioning society, has been reduced: 4 million citizens have been displaced from mixed neighborhoods. The sectarian terror campaign has been tragically effective.

Why is it some pundits safely housed in prosperous America refuse to admit the surge hasn't reduced the violence, the Shia vs. Sunni, Sunni vs. Qaeda, Shia vs. Shia, etc. etc. violence and murder have reduced the population that remains to be expunged.

You have no idea the damage your invasion and occupation have done to Iraq. If the displacement that has happened here had happened in the US, 60 MILLION OF YOU would have been driven from your homes! And none of you have been there over 400 years. Many of us trace our roots back 2000.

Your arrogance will be your undoing. FOOLS!

"Troubled. " "Embarrassed." "Guilty." "Regret." "Empathetic." "Shame." As long as liberals like Peters wallow in their feelings, neocons and "realists" will set the agenda, while liberals wring their hands and emote.

Now about the article it self. Its most likly one of the best I've ever read. It brings up very good points.

"Conservatives refuse to face the fact that free markets need to be regulated to guard against chicanery and to protect the health and safety of consumers, workers and the public in general. " Like this. This is a good point. (BTW I view myself as being in the center of the left on the right-wing side.
This article should be pinned as the best thing to ever come from Newsweek.

Its one thing to constantly report the war is being lost everyday, but its completly different to say we are still losing after things are improving. This is the problem with reporting only what people want to hear. After a while, when you start reporting something truthful, your old audiance stops believing you and continues to believe what they want to even with facts against them. People wanted to prove the people that started the war wrong so the liberal media reported that we are losing. But when the media grows some balls and starts to report improvments when things start to imporve you turn on your only source of information and coninue to believe we are losing. Do you think it is possible to win something you think you won't win?
I hope this trend (in Iraq) continues. If it does, our troops won't have to run out of Iraq while getting shot at becuase some scumbag politician who knows nothing about combat wants people to like him or her. Our troops would be able to leave a stable country, knowing that they did good andsecured democracy and freedom for people who deserve it.

Facts and figures can be very misleading. Both can be manipulated and can be biased.Newsweek should put an extra effort in reporting the truth. While painting rosy pictures for the public will benefit those few people in power, it will eventually backfire, they will be supporting the wrong candidate with wrong policies and ending up with a lot of frustrations and resentments.

Sir, Your apology should be directed to General Petraeus, and the Troops, to the American People and especially to the Families of the Soldiers who paid the ultimate price. Please, stop talking about Veitnam and Iraq in the same breath. You know all the differences. You say the surge is really working, and then begin to talk about other issues. I've been told stories about how the left-reporters would keep searching through the troops until they found one who agreed with their point of view, and then begin to write their report for the folks back home about how bad things were going. To your far left readers, you will always be Newsweek, but to me you will always be Newsweak.

Sir, you were wrong, and you can admit it. You say the serge is working, and then take the debate in other directions. This is the liberal mind-set, never give in and never give up. In writing what was right (very little), you began to talk about what was wrong, and how you now feel it should be, and how we all should moderate to the middle. Well, first you should say I AM TRULY SORRY, then retrace and retract all the written statement, and verbal too, that you have made about the conservatives and the war effort. This would get our attention enough to pay attention to some of your ideas about some of the other issues. You and many of the media-left should personally apologize to the General and the Troops. This is not and never was Veitnam, and if someone ever tries to spit on my Son, the way they did my brother, let's just say it better not happen. With the left, it is always party over policy, party over patriotism, party over country (if it can't be run by the left, then it should not exist). Learn to say I'm wrong and I'm sorry, and men it. The most important thing for America in Iraq is VICTORY. iT IS ONLY RIGHT FOR THOSE WHO PAID THE ULTIMATE PRICE.

The underlying issue is the reasoning behind politicians in this day and age.
Their only concern is power and having a life long career. Reelection at all
cost is the norm. below is my position on Iraq:





Anti war and Bush critics will never be content. Looking at the strategic circumstances defines this mission, not narrow minded demagoguery.

The Iraqi government is still in dippers, and is struggling no less with their new processes than our Congress, which stays inept after two hundred years. Imagine, they have passed a budget, and our Congress has not.

We are still the elephant in the room in Bosnia after ten years, South Korea, Japan, and Europe after 60 years plus. We spend billions keeping the peace on the high seas in every corner of the globe year after year. We also provide relief in every corner of the world from tragedies such as the tsunami.

Should we be the elephant in the room as thousands of years of hatred are resolved all over the middle east? Yes! and good for us! We have a place in Iraq where we can be peace makers throughout the region.

I am a Vietnam Vet - sad even now - affected by the attacks and failure of the left to create resolve in Vietnam. The Democrats started Vietnam, and then abandon them. That is the only shame of Vietnam.

Facinating. This could not be a simple article about the improving times in Iraq. How opposing abortion and this war are connected eludes me. The fact is war is tough, and a lot of mistakes can be made before winning. Look at the string of losers Lincoln went through before Grant. And Grant wasn't the man in 1862 he was in 1864. As for the usual cry that "Bush lied", go back and check Clinton's speeches in 1998 about SaSaddam

Mr. Peters, thank you for a very insightful article. You have managed to articulate this moderate's views. Being in a very large extended family, of whom 5 have had boots in Iraq, the latest just being home after 6 months of intense battle, I have struggled with the fact that I have been against the war in Iraq since the beginning. Being a baby boomer, I have vivid memories of my uncles, cousins and brother being in the armed services during Vietnam (most of whom served there), and remembering the shame of our hasty retreat, and our abandoning those who had served with us (the South Vietnamese). I also remember watching my family members deal with the "Peaceniks" who spit on them and called them baby killers, and how they suffered through PTSD and depression on their own without appreciation for their service. I want to see better plans for our extrication and our plans for fixing our mess that we made over there. As Americans, we have to fix what we did -- whether we personally, or as a nation, did it.

After years of lies, dead soldiers comming home in body bags,
trillions of our tax dollars going to war proffiteers who happen to be
some of Bush and Cheney's best buddies and all for a war that we
should never have started in the first place, excuse me for not
running down to the five and dime to get some party favors so we can
celebrate a smidgin of progress.

After years of lies, dead soldiers comming home in body bags,
trillions of our tax dollars going to war proffiteers who happen to be
some of Bush and Cheney's best buddies and all for a war that we
should never have started in the first place, excuse me for not
running down to the five and dime to get some party favors so we can
celebrate a smidgin of progress.

Have we reached the point where we are completely braindead? We are borrowing money (millions by the minute) to supporort a war that in the end we will be unable to finance. Who is lending us the money so we can fund this fiasco? The infrastructure in this country is in deep decay and we want to feel a welling of pride at our "signifigant" progress in a country that has reverted to a system that existed in the 15th century - fuedal warlords. There has been no progress on the political front. What we have is a devils' bargain.

We don't need anymore of this "comfort food". Why don't you tell us how good it's going to be when we finally "win". The big three (EXXON, Shell, Conoco) have picked up the oil contracts for Iraq. That is what this has been about since the beginning - OIL and greed. You can save that nonsense about the "Greening of Democracy" for the hillbillies who buy that @#$%