<p>The comparison to WWII is so off-base, it’s difficult to even respond.</p>
<p>I actually think it was a big mistake to label our current endeavor as a “war” on terror.</p>
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<p>A simple question that nobody seems willing to answer:</p>
<p>What exactly constitutes “winning” the occupation of Iraq? How will we know when we have “won”?</p>
<p>I response to I-dad, I think the pro-war types believe we will have “won the war” when all the Muslims are dead (either they will have killed themselves off, or we will have).</p>
<p>I think some people would find that a satisfactory “end” and “winning” of the war.</p>
<p>Demographically, such warmongers seem to be living in deep LaLaLand, since Muslims procreate at a very rapid rate, and their population is growing, not diminishing, no matter how many we (or they) kill.</p>
<p>Thinking we will “stamp out” Islam with sheer firepower is just lunacy.</p>
<p>Bush’s legacy will not be determined for many years until well after the current war has come to an end. Remember this, history is written by the winners and the winners will write the history of the Bush administration as well. What remains to be seen is who those winners are.</p>
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<p>OK. If that’s the way they define “winning” in Iraq, why do we have 170,000 troops plus 100,000 contracted mercenaries there trying to stop Muslims from killing Muslims?</p>
<p>“Mine elevates the discussion yours denigrates it. You have children in college? Because you strike me as the sophomore.”</p>
<p>Well whittierst, perhaps you forgot you wrote this:</p>
<p>“mindless-ill-informed-lacking-in-historical-perspective-liberal-hateful-group-think drivel”</p>
<p>Hypocritical, wouldn’t you agree? But worse yet, it’s the kind of talking points one hears from Rush, Bill Riley et. al. Good job whittierst and thank you for your elevated rhetoric.</p>
<p>“I would urge anyone who is genuninely interested to study a bit of WWII history and take a look at where we were in the war’s progress just before Iwo Jima.”</p>
<p>A far better parallel would be the Athenian battle for Syracuse as described by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War. Apparently most in the Bush administration never read the book.</p>
<p>hi Dadguy,</p>
<p>I sent you a PM. :)</p>
<p>“I actually think it was a big mistake to label our current endeavor as a “war” on terror.”</p>
<p>Now there is a point we can fully agree on interesteddad, but possibly for different reasons. Terror is a tactic not an enemy. Terror is a means to an end and commonly resorted to by the militaily weaker side. </p>
<p>But who exactly is the other side? That is what Bush never spelled out and the failure to do so is part of the reason we are in the current quandry. The enemy from the get go was obviously an Islamic extremism with its own convoluted ideology but no sovereign state. Political correctness made spelling out that enemy impossible even in the wake of 911. I don’t think that is going to indefinitely remain the case though.</p>
<p>Sooner or later, and sooner if the democrats have their way Islamoterrorism will be returning to our shores. It may be Iranian Shia inspired or it may be Sunni followers of Bin Laden or other Salafist groups from Saudi Arabia or elsewhere but this clash of cultures is not going to go away. We can run but we cannot hide.</p>
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Amazing - we agree on something.
But not for long. The problem was not political correctness but rather the chicken-hawk Neocon regime-change idealogues who substituted Iraq for the real enemy.</p>
<p>If Bush conducted Iraq policy like he fights the Democrats, Iraq would be our 51st state by now.</p>
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<p>Yes I would. On that point you’ve got me. Well done. I shouldn’t have entered this discussion in that way. It does nothing to advance the debate or advocate the position.</p>
<p>This discussion could [will?] go on forever. So I’m going to sign off with this. </p>
<p>I supported the invasion of Iraq because I believed what every other intelligence agency and bureau in the world believed - and which he had himself demonstrated and did nothing to disuade - to wit: Saddam Hussein had WMD and was willing to use them on his enemies. He defied every international group and effort to either disarm him peacefully or prove that he didn’t have WMD. In a post 9/11 world, if you believe we have the right to pre-empt nacient hostilities, we didn’t really have a responsible choice but to do what we did. To paraphrase HRC, if I knew now what I knew then I would have no other choice but to invade, disarm and change the regime.</p>
<p>The invasion was brilliantly executed. The post-invasion period, never intended [perhaps wrongly] to be a long-term occupation, wasn’t and hasn’t been anything close to brilliant or successful - at least to date. We have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I lay most of the blame for that at the feet of Rumsfeld and GWB. Arrogance mostly.</p>
<p>But I also lay a great deal of blame at the feet of the American people. The invasion was brilliant in the way it was executed with such a small force and great speed. That’s exactly the sort of war the American people are today willing to support. They can handle that on CNN. There is no way, however, the American people would support what we have now learned was needed to actually win the peace - a massive occupation force taking complete control of all levers of Iraqi political and economic influence - basically post-war Germany and Japan redux. But I’m pretty sure the American people wouldn’t support such a thing and our all-volunteer military couldn’t handle it.</p>
<p>But, whatever you think of the situation or how/why we got into it, its the situation we have. We’ve got to figure out how to make it work. We can’t simply declare defeat and leave [declaring victory and leaving was an option that passed long ago.] We can’t let Iraq become Iran’s Lebanon. We can’t simply let Sunnis and Shias and Kurds (supported by their benefactors in Iran and Saudi Arabia and greater Kurdistan], engage in genocidal ethnic cleansing by creating a vacuum and then leaving it for them to fill.</p>
<p>At this point we have no choice but to stay until we have achieved victory.</p>
<p>I know the words to define victory - establishing and leaving a stable, pluralistic, mostly democratic Iraqi society that is allied with the world’s other pluralistic democracies in fighting islamic radical terrorism - and probably one that serve as a counter-balance to Iranian hegemony in the region. But I can’t honestly tell you how to know when that’s happened. I suppose we’ll find a moment to say “Okay. This is it,” and let history ultimately judge whether we were right. I just know that now isn’t that time.</p>
<p>I’m no big fan of GWB, Cheney, Rumsfeld or the others. But I am even less a fan of those who will willingly throw the modern world’s future under a bus driven by clerical fanatics living 7th century dogma in order to score some quick political points. I believe that calling for the immediate withdrawal [or redeployment or whatever you want to call it] from Iraq is a call for defeat and surrender - if not a throw under the bus at least a kick from the curb. Whatever you think of GWB, et al. you can’t be for that. Nothing good will ultimately come from it. Only eventual disaster.</p>
<p>Good night.</p>
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Not happening. Null set. All of this is completely independent of anything the US military accomplishes or doesn’t accomplish and is completely dependent upon the pieces on the Iraqi political chessboard. You can not contrive a scenario, based upon reality, that will yield a result anywhere near what you have postulated. Look at what the most dominant 4-5 factions in Iraq are. The fact that Iraq is a disaster waiting to happen is the fault of the US. Of course, when it finally goes down the tubes the Busheviks will blame the Democrats, the media, and the ungrateful Iraqis themselves, anybody except who they see when they look in the mirror. There is no “center” in Iraq to hold and secularists at this point are a minority that is diminishing by the month. </p>
<p>Anyone supporting our continued involvement has got to grapple with one essential fact: the outcome depends upon Iraqi political developments and is largely immune to our control.</p>
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This is the statement which loses me every time. What it means to me is “This is a person who got really scared when a bad thing happened and decided to start making decisions based on emotion, not reason.”</p>
<p>The post 9/11 world is the same as the pre-9/11 world. The bad guys got a little luckier with their tactics, and it was an emotionally wrenching experience watching the buildings fall, and contemplating the 3,000 lives lost. But those bad guys are the same ones who tried to blow up the same building eight years before. And the other bad guys in the world (including our own home-grown variety - remember Oklahoma City?) have been doing stuff like this for years - forever - and probably always will. The world was never completely safe and won’t ever be that way. Certainly lashing out without thinking at whatever country, group, or individual a flawed politician fingers as being responsible for “all of it” won’t ever make us safe. In a sense, the failed adventure in Iraq is a good lesson, for those willing to learn it: other people being bad is no excuse for us being stupid.</p>
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<p>In other words, “You broke it, you bought it.”</p>
<p>In the teacher’s guide of a book I use with my A.P. classes is the following statement meant as a sprinboard for discussion. I think it applies very nicely in this situation.</p>
<p>“In order for America to do well, it must stop trying to do good.”</p>
<p>Letter to the editor in today’s Boston Globe</p>
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<p>Couldn’t agree with you more, drb, especially the last sentence of Novak’s piece. I spent a year and a half living in the Middle East.</p>
<p>“But suppose we had pulled out of Vietnam in 1968? Would the result have been any different? Would global communism have been any more energized than it was when we finally did pull out years later? No.”</p>
<p>A couple million Cambodians would have died in the killing fields a couple of years earlier but so what you and me ain’t Cambodians.</p>
<p>The ironic thing is the domino theory was spot on.</p>
<p>…Obviously explaining the global triumph of Communism which occurred during th past 30 years. [/sarcasm]</p>
<p>I’m not actually sure what higherlead’s definition of “irony” is, but I imagine it would be a fascinating study to dissect that last particular bit of whimsy.</p>