<p>I agree. So now it is time to set things straight.</p>
<p>Citation, how many more Americans have to die before you realize we can’t win this war? 1000? 5000? 10000?</p>
<p>What about World War Two. After the first 50000 died would you have said that. Howbout after the first 10000 or 20000 or 100000 or 300 000 or 500 000. Unfortunately we are in a war. Soldiers die in a war. There is no way to stop that sad fact. But to stop fighting, to quit, to embolden the terrorists so that they can mock us and attacks us even more, would be a bigger mistake. You know, Israel felt the same thing as you did. How many more soldiers had to die protecting people in Gaza. So they had enough and left. Well what lesson did that teach us. Israel now faces rocket attacks almost every day. A terrorist orginization won the elections in a large part because they beat Israel. A terrorist orginization instead of being peaceful continues to attack Israel. Lets take a lesson from Israel. Why don’t we fight to win the war, and lets do it. Let win in Iraq.</p>
<p>AM, I don’t understand your thinking. ANY war can be won. It’s dependent on resources and will. The war in Iraq could still be won, by anyone’s definition, with enough resources and strength of will.</p>
<p>It used to be said that the Cold War would never be won, yet Reagan brought down the wall. The willingness of the US to invest in SDI, and the amount of money we could spend on defense overwhelmed the Soviet system. </p>
<p>The same is true in Iraq, in my opinion. I’m not a military person, but I think you have to send 300,000 to 400,000 troops, spend the money on rebuilding infrastructure and starting small businesses. Then see what happens.</p>
<p>Furthermore, you have to start fighting a war. Stop worrying so much about civillian deaths, and start worrying about the death of soldiers. This is not to say you should not take account civillians in war, but when terrorists set up base next to a school or in a hospital there is not much you can do, unfortunately.</p>
<p>Golani, our occupation of Iraq is absolutely nothing like WWII. If it were, you’d be down at the enlistment office signing up to go.</p>
<p>You are right. 500 000 soldiers have not died. We also do not need millions on a whole continent. But both were bloody wars, with no other option than to win. We need to win this war. We have to stay the course. Before I said troop levels should remain as they are. I was wrong. We need more soldiers. We need new rules of engagement. We have to fight this war like we fought WWII</p>
<p>SJMom, the reason Reagan won the Cold War is because he rejected the advice of the neocons, and sought diplomatic solutions, and solutions other than simply invading and hoping for the best. The reason we are in a quagmire in Iraq is because Bush embraced the philosophy that Reagan ultimately decided would not be successful.</p>
<p>Golani, we won WWII in no small part because Roosevelt was wise enough to actively recruit the best of the best. His people combed the country looking for people who had particular skills and talents to contribute to the war effort. Iraq is a quagmire in no small part because those same kinds of people were isolated from the decision-making, in favor of party loyalists. I’ve already posted the link a couple of times here about the disaster that resulted when a world-renowned physician/expert in post-war hospital rebuilding was replaced as the head of Iraq’s hospital rebuilding efforts by a Bush loyalist social worker with no relevant experience. </p>
<p>If this administration in any way believed that our cause was as just or as urgent as WWII, there is simply no way they would prioritize doling out plums to supporters over effectively managing the occupation. Not even I believe that this administration would really treat this war so cavalierly were it in any way (other than cost) comparable to WWII.</p>
<p>Fine. You are right that Bush bungled many things in Iraq. But lets fix them instead of leaving. We both know it will be better to stay and to win. We will only benefit. </p>
<p>When it comes to Reagan, it was not just a diplomatic solution, but it was a mix of being very strong in the face of the USSR. For example, huge build up of arms, huge spending on defense, strong rhetoric-“evil empire”, drawing a moral distinction between the two, linkage of diplomatic measures and relations to the human rights improvements in the USSR. Reagan was skilled in what he did. He was able to combine two different techniques to beat the Rusks, something no other president was capable of doing before. Either they were completely appeasing them or were not strong enough or unfortunately for them Stalin was still in charge. But back to Bush and Iraq, with a new Congress, I will hope to see improvement for the better in Iraq. I am sure you want us to win there.</p>
<p>Golani, another of the reasons that Reagan won is that he was smart enough to let the USSR exhaust its resources and ruin its economy on foreign adventures. Sound familiar?</p>
<p>And please don’t try to co-opt me to your position. I don’t even know how victory in Iraq would be defined. Killing a lot of Iraqis? Toppling the government? That’s how we won WWII. Or do you mean somehow stopping the slide into civil war and chaos that has been unleashed by our short-sighted, poorly planned adventuring?</p>
<p>Cut and run vs stay the course may make for a good sound bite, but its a false dichotomy. Obviously we all know we can’t simply leave overnight after the administration created such a huge mess, and no one wants the US to be in a worse situation than it was before we squandered $300 billion on this. </p>
<p>But we are not obligated to destroy our own economy, sacrifice hundreds of thousands of American lives, and see our own country dissolve into a dozen or more competing states, simply to try to put the toothpaste back into Iraq’s tube. It’s very immature to think that the world is all black-and-white and all about winning and losing, and that one must win at all costs, even if it means destroying both sides.</p>
<p>In general the people who prevail are the people who are rational maximizers; they know how to weigh benefits, risks, and costs, and make the right decision, as opposed to blindly staying a course. The generals who planned D-Day knew that thousands of US troops would die in that one operation. But it was worth it because they knew that the operation had a good chance of succeeding, and that if it did, it would save many times over the number of casualties by shortening the war.</p>
<p>It’s exactly that kind of analysis that is lacking in this situation. No one ever won a war by refusing to pick their battles wisely.</p>
<p>Sure, that is another reason Reagan won the Cold War; however, we are not at war with foreign government so much we are at aware with a group of people. That is what makes it harder. If you are implying that America will ruin its economy with the war, that just plain wrong. America’s economy is great; 4.4% unemployment, a steady rise in GDP of I think about 2-3%, very high stock market with the Dow hitting 12 136 the other day, which by the way is a record, inflation is low. This does not compare to the Soviet economy at the time of Cold War one bit.</p>
<p>While preparing for D-Day, 2000 soldiers died. Not in a war, but in an excersize. But, unfortunately that is the reality of war. People will die in battle and in training, but we cannot let up because of that. Will it be worth it to have a democratic Iraq that does not threaten America with WMD’s or terrorism? Absolutely. </p>
<p>So the question is how can we achieve that? I think more soldiers, the better use of the air force, less politically correct fighting, better managment of the infrastructure would all help, but leaving. Well that would only endanger America. I hate to bring up the example of Israel again, but look what it got for its withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005.</p>
<p>SJMom: define victory. The define your strategy. There isn’t one.</p>
<p>“Stay the course” is a slogan, not a strategy.
“Winning” is a goal, not a strategy.</p>
<p>A couple of years ago, I opined rather consistently, in many forums, that Iraq had a choice of two out of three: stable, pro-American, democratic. Circumstances have now cut that to one out of three…at best.</p>
<p>There’s no political “center” to hold. Iraq isn’t a central front of the so-called war on terror though, as even the declassified portion of the latest NIE points out, our presence in Iraq is creating more terrorists and support for terrorists than we are killing. We’ve also nice increased the influence of Iran in the region. In short, we’ve had a reverse Midas touch, with everything we do turning into manure. Body counts are irrelevant.</p>
<p>So describe a realistically attainable end state and then define at least a sketch of a road to get there that is rooted in some semblance of reality, not campaign slogans and wishes.</p>
<p>I disagree that you can only have one of the three. A democratic country by nature will be beneficial to America. A decmocratic country by nature will at first experience instability but eventually will be stable. But also it is important that it is a true democracy-meaning a free society, not just a country where you have an “election”</p>
<p>A democratic Iraq will be good for America because of the freedom in Iraq. Do democratic free countries go to war against eachother? Ofcourse not, they may have opposing interests but they will not go to war. This is because people in a free society do not want to constantly fight and kill and live in terrible conditions so they will not put themselves in that situation.</p>
<p>Golani, I’m not talking about abstracts. Look at the Iraqi political puzzle pieces on the ground. Nobody is saying “We’ll put our tribal/ethnic/sectarian interests aside so that we can have a democracy.” It’s more like roller derby with AK-47’s & RPG’s, with balloting being mere incidental and meaningless exercises. Get a grip on the reality.</p>
<p>
But that’s so unusual for you! :eek:</p>
<p>I define victory in Iraq as a stable democracy capable of self defense. I don’t need to define the strategy – that’s job of the people in the middle of it. I think that the constant negativism has an agenda of its own – I’ve come across comments by returning soldiers and journalists who say that the way Iraq is portrayed in the US is nothing like reality. All the Dems have ever had is criticism – I can’t recall any positive suggestions.</p>
<p>As far as the Cold War goes, H has worked in the defense industry for more than 25 years, through Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43. He would tell you that the support for defense and the military has ebbed and flowed through the different administrations. It’s always stronger during Republican periods.</p>
<p>SJ, the people in the middle of defining strategy have done a woefully inadequate job. They have little more clue of how to achieve “victory” than you do.</p>
<p>This is rather unfortunate, since there are real lives at stake.</p>
<p>Umm Golani, you haven’t done your homework if you think we can afford to spend hundreds of billions on foreign adventures without doing any harm to our economy. The economy only looks good because of the tremendous amount of borrowed money we are spending. If you max out all your credit cards on a monthlong binge, of course you’ll look prosperous. Eat at the best restaurants, jet off to Europe, etc., and say you have no financial trouble because you live well. But sooner or later the bill comes due.</p>
<p>I have posted the link at least once here so I won’t do it again, but the Government Accounting Office is issuing some very dire warnings about the consequences of the national debt. More than a third of our current debt was run up in the 6 years of the Bush presidency. If Bush continues to borrow at the rate he has, there may soon come a day when we can’t even make the interest payments. It’s not only the war doing it, but the $300 billion we spent on the war can’t help. Bush also raided the Social Security surplus 8 times during his first term alone. </p>
<p>Sjmom, a stable, US aligned democracy capable of self-defense in the Middle East is a noble goal for Iraq. Israel has been able to achieve these only because we give them massive amounts of foreign aid, and even then, they’ve been embroiled in conflict after conflict. A small US-aligned Muslim democracy in the Middle East will have the same challenges. If that’s our goal, we can expect to spend the next 40-50 years defending that country from its neighbors before its achieved.</p>
<p>Military spending may increase during Republican years, but I don’t think we can say that this Republican government has much of a record of supporting the military. Particularly not in this war, where so much of the funding has gone to private, politically connected contractors, who in some cases compete with the military for highly trained people. (Because our government pays them huge rates, they can offer a guy with special ops training many times over what our government can).</p>
<p>The non-partisan IAVA and the Disabled Americans Veterans would strongly beg to differ with the proposition that this erstwhile Republican Congress supported the military. Republicans voted against body armor, and in favor of reducing funding for rehabilitation services for the soldiers getting head injuries in Iraq. Overall, most get a D or F on issues that affect military families and veterans. Additionally, they just passed legislation that does away with the Inspector General for Iraq in less than a years time, meaning that there will be no oversight of the private contractors who in some cases have jeapordized American lives by failing to live up to contract provisions.</p>
<p>Very intelligent post, Conyat.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>Conyat - it appears you are mixing partisan interpretation (certainly your right) with outright myth.</p>
<p>Here’s a handy site folks can use to check political facts: </p>
<p>[Annenberg</a> Political Fact Check](<a href=“http://www.factcheck.org/article438.html]Annenberg”>http://www.factcheck.org/article438.html)</p>
<p>parent, Care to be more specific? What myths has conyat posted?</p>