Noam Chomsky speaks at West Point

[ArmedDrunk&Angry]

I don't want to flame either.
But any comment on Noam Chomsky is going to divide down the left/right line.

Victory would be a continued low intensity conflict fought totally by the Iraqi's.
It's not an impossible victory but it certainly won't be easy and it won't be over by 2009.

After watching another 3 hours of Noam on youtube I don't really think we have any hope of "winning" in Iraq and I will support anyone who has a way out that preserves our ability to project strength in an area that is vital to our national interests.

[[R-MOD]Wasteland]

I don't want to get this thread locked, but hopefully it's OK if we keep the talk civil. I don't think anybody's really offended yet, have they? I'd like to respond...

Originally Posted by ArmedDrunk&Angry

I finally finished the the whole series and once again he makes a great argument that we are to blame.
I don't see how that changes the security problem we have today due to radical religous terrorists.
The mistakes of the past can not be corrected by new mistakes with better intentions. For better or worse we are at war with the terrorists and those who support them and the lack of moral justification for the war doesn't mean we should surrender.

I don't think he's really saying we should surrender or leave prematurely. Well, at least I doubt he is. I haven't finished the series yet. But I have read a lot of his work, and I doubt he'd support that position. I think he realizes that we're there now, and should finish what we started. I do think it's important though that tomorrow's officers hear some of the stuff they're unlikely to hear anywhere else. It's also important to let them see that not all us people with left wing sympathies are rabid-black-blocing-Starbucks-haters. It also lets them understand what the average Iraqi thinks about the situation. You can liberate someone from a despot, but at some point they'll start to say "yeah, but at least he made the trains come on time". So it's important that the officers not fall into the mentality of "what the fuck is wrong with these people, don't we know we're helping them with their freedom?"