Hows that leash feel around your neck...

Right now I'm thinking of the words "Love it or leave it". Today as I was browsing through my favorite website I happened upon this article Click where Times military reporter Michael Gordon is taking heat for supporting our troops, and an initiative to remove terrorists from our planet...I know what a concept right? Here's the thing that struck me; the man apologized. He goes on PBS and says that he supports our efforts to stomp out terror, to stabilize a once prospering den of terror and to create a safer, happier, and more western friendly ally and is openly chastised for it. What planet are these people living on?

So I am to assume by the statements made in that article that basically, even though the actual words state that hes using just his opinion, that hes not allowed to speak his mind when it comes to anything that might be viewed as non anti American?

Lets take a gander at just exactly what it is that people are protesting. Predominantly we are dealing with uninformed and mislead people who are under the mistaken impression that this is about random and insignificant things. These items would be things such as oil, revenge, posturing, and then theres the ever popular "hippy" issues of peace not war, endless/pointless diplomacy, make them your friend not your enemy and so on and so forth.

Lets just cut right down to it, here's the reality of the situation which is readily available to anyone who cares to look. Were there the infamous WMD's that are always talked about, simple answer, yes Click. We have lost over 3,000 troops there in the three years of active combat. I'm sorry, did I read that right, we have lost 3,000 troops in 3 years of active combat... am I supposed to think that this is significant? Lets put this in perspective, over 4,000 Californians die each year in alcohol related auto accidents, a state that has 10 million more people living in it than the country of Iraq... however a state that is not in active combat with military troops making armed patrols. Mind you if you want to compare apples to apples here... in 2005 there were 2,503 murders, 2,392 in 2004, and 2,407 in 2003 in California, or if your not that quick on the math 2.434 times as many outright murders in a peaceful state of America where a great many of the anti war banner crybabies hail from than in 3 years of active combat. Sounds a little strange right. Don't go away yet, I have more juicy details for you. Like for instance lets look at this number, 194,820. Whats that number you ask? Well that would be the number of lives SAVED by the United States being in Iraq. Also that only factors one issue, Saddam himself. That's the average number of people, based on the record of his killings that were averted by removing him from power. That does not include the death squads, his psychotic sons, the over 701,629 refugees that were averted due to us being there nor any other factors, that's just Saddam.

There have also been free elections, a fact which many people over look as useless or insignificant. Then theres the fact that a constitution was developed, how many years was it after our constitution before we had a functional and useful government? And how many people died during that time as a result of those actions? When you put it all together, theres alot of spin on the issue, but the facts as they lie is that the extreme majority of violence is due from Al-Qaeda and their related actions, they are flooding in from Iran and it is in there interest to continue the violence. Such actions taken include the bombing of churches and religious leaders. Keep in mind these leader's are Muslim, so they are bombing people who are spreading their faith in the effort to force their faith on others. These actions are the exact reason we went to war. In the end we have done what we set out to do for the most part, the vast majority of the country is pretty safe, there were free elections, the violence is minimal and is predominantly terrorists killing civilians. And if all of this doesn't help people to see the light that fighting there is not a waste of time take a look at these two points Click Click.

But I'm sure your right, the largest Muslim country in the world is willing to back Bush up and agrees with the need to stabilize Iraq to prevent terrorist actions, so much so that they are willing to send in their own military as support (so much for no one supports us eh?), and an educated, leading Iraqi surgeon praises the United States military for its actions in saving him and his family. You would think that if it was really as hopeless as we are led to believe that none of this would be the case. It seems much more likely to me that Anti-America media in America is much more interested in censorship of anyone who may speak favorably of the situation. Pity, I would have thought that a major news publisher would want to uphold the freedom of speech and speak in his defense, not chastise him and "draw a line" for personal opinion... So much for land of the free eh?