The defeatist crowd is suffering from delusional full-blown Bush Derangement Syndrome, which prevents them from recognizing reality.
The Author of the excerpt below has it exactly right.
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As for the conduct of the war, Saddam's regime was removed in just a few months. He was captured, tried by the new Iraqi government, and executed. His psychopathic sons and heirs were killed in an intense gun battle. Other countries like Israel and Saudi Arabia were not drawn into the war. Democratic elections in Iraq were held on three separate occasions, resulting in a coalition all-Iraqi government that drafted its own constitution and continues to function and be accepted more and more by Iraqis.[/FONT]
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By our military adapting to insurgent tactics, it now appears that foreign influences by Iran and al Qaeda are being neutered, al Qaeda in Iraq is being defeated and the former Sunni and Shia insurgents are slowing coming into the fold, avoiding all out civil war. Both US Coalition and Iraqi casualty counts are down and oil production and infrastructure repair are up and on the mend.[/FONT]
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It has taken almost five years and 3,190 U.S. combat fatalities to date to accomplish that. God bless those heroes. I hate to treat any death as a statistic, but the fatality count has been an ongoing subject in the media (at least before the surge, when the rate started declining). Here is a list[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]
of individual battles in World War II in which more than 3,190 servicemen were killed in action, limited to the Pacific theater and to the US Navy and Marines.[/FONT]
- [FONT=times new roman,times]Invasion of Marianas[/FONT]
- [FONT=times new roman,times]Return to the Philippines[/FONT]
- [FONT=times new roman,times]Iwo Jima[/FONT]
- [FONT=times new roman,times]Okinawa[/FONT]
- [FONT=times new roman,times]Unspecified Pacific or Asiatic area.[/FONT]
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I'm not sure how important the Marianas were to the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, but I think the removal of Saddam's regime and its replacement with a reasonably democratic government not hostile to the U.S. was pretty important to peace in this world and to U.S. security in particular. I do not view the deaths of our servicemen in Iraq as in vain. I thank God that there are still men and women willing to fight for our country, especially under such thankless conditions.[/FONT]
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In the broad scheme of things, President Bush chose a moderate course against the radical jihadi movement, a movement that could potentially spiral out of control across dozens of countries with millions of Muslims ready to behead infidels, release a few WMD and install the new caliphate.[/FONT]
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Bush is not trying to bomb anyone back to the stone age; he is trying to bring some semblance of democracy and self-government to the Middle East and Asia. He is not indiscriminate. He used measured force in Afghanistan and Iraq, but firm diplomacy in Pakistan, Libya, North Korea and elsewhere. His actions were not unilateral, "cowboy" or against international opinion. He formed a coalition of over 45 countries, including the United Kingdom and Australia[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]
, to remove Saddam's regime.[/FONT]
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Regarding that international opinion, major roadblocks to getting UN approval for using force in Iraq came from France and Germany. Since then, those countries and Canada have elected pro-US leaders, while the original coalition remains largely intact. President Bush, counter to the picture painted by the media, has strengthened our standing in the international community.[/FONT]
Full Artcle here-
American Thinker: Hey GOP: Cheer Up, Chin Up!