<p>I occasionally and guiltily rejoice over relatively minor things–political misspeak, for example–but “rejoice” is not the right word for what I’ve felt regarding American setbacks in Iraq. Rage, hatred of Bush, despair, horror. Those describe my feelings much more aptly.</p>
<p>Dorothy_ParkerX: You can impugn the patriotism of all or many of most of the people who were against this war all you want, but that’s not really going to help the troops who you claim to care about (I would assume, as implied by your post). What would you to bring this war to a successful close, or just a close if you don’t think success is possible, as soon as possible?</p>
<p>I think you mistakenly believe that liberals “want Iraq to fail”, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. I would have loved to see that country succeed, and would gladly have said that my initial fears were wrong.</p>
<p>ditto
but obviously that isn’t happening</p>
<p>I never rejoiced in setbacks- it was frightening and depressing to see that the worse it got, and the more dire the reports ( especially from sources other than US), that the focus became even more determined to turn it around into “win” - at any price.</p>
<p>So what’s a win? Pacifying a city so that a Pro-Iranian Shia majority in the control of an ageing mullah can rule? Controlling the oil pipelines? Set up permanent U.S. military bases? I guess folks think I ask this rhetorically, but I’m not…what’s winning mean? That the Shia don’t hate us? That the Sunni don’t hate us? That the Kurds don’t believe that the U.S. will sell them out to the Turks at the drop of a hat? That someone somewhere believes that the Secretary of State doesn’t lie? That U.S. “intelligence” isn’t the laughingstock of the world? That the Iraqis experience the resurrection of the half a million children killed by Bill Clinton? What is “victory”?</p>
<p>…I honestly don’t know. </p>
<p>I hope for the best, though that becomes harder as the saddness of it all wears on and wears thin. I am pragmatic as regards the war–have been from the beginning. I never wanted this war, I had general and personal reasons to fear it; still, I hoped and prayed for the best and never once celebrated the worst. The cc sarcasm I have read here, for years, seemed and seems frivolous and uncaring–to me.</p>
<p>Whether I was ‘right’ all along or not means nothing to me. Nothing at all.</p>
<p>“Really? You’ve seen my facts shot up?”</p>
<p>There’s been a lot of them. I think Kluge is the one who on many occasions puts your facts in the context they were presented in. 
And no, I’m not going to bother “reasearching” your posts. If I did, it would mean I am overly concerned about what you have to say. Which I’m not too concerned about what you have to say. </p>
<p>Now again we’re off on some side tangent that has nothing to do with anything.</p>
<p>“So what’s a win?”</p>
<p>A great point.</p>
<p>“Whether I was ‘right’ all along or not means nothing to me. Nothing at all.”</p>
<p>But doesn’t it help you measure your own judgement, and take the measure of the judgement of those who led us into the debacle? </p>
<p>I wrote a post above saying I was right all along. My point wasn’t that I was smart. My point is that there were people – and there were many people – who had intelligent and moral and patriotic reasons to believe that this war was going to be a stupid and harmful misadventure. I would loved to have been proven wrong, and if Iraq had turned into what George W said it could, I’d be right there in the cheering parades. But there was not even a slim chance, I and many others felt, this would be the case.</p>
<p>So now, when you are told by this Administration to hang on a bit more things are going to get better. Or that the “opposition” which now includes a lot of Republicans by the way doesn’t have a plan (Uh, the Iraq Study Group plan would be just one to name), don’t you have skepticism about their judgements or their truthfulness?</p>
<p>You said you didn’t want this war. God help us if there are a lot of people that want any war. Sometimes wars need to be fought, though. It’s just that this one did not.</p>
<p>…I suppose I lack you sense of self if not your political genius. </p>
<p>I do not presume to know. I have opinions and no more.
I feel this ignorance, often sharply.
I could not possibly have known that this war was absolutely wrong, if wrong, as I believed it was. </p>
<p>Things change.
Lots felt the war on communism (the cold war) was un-winnable–perhaps even you; they were wrong. The Gulf war was wrong; these were wrong as well—perhaps even you, or mini, or Kluge or Allmusic, or Hindoo. I’ll get to be wrong a number of times as well; I’m comfortable with that…the next time will not even be close to the first time. Far from it.</p>
<p>Still, I will not celebrate my occasional genius if the sum of it is a lost war.</p>
<p>But what is a “won war”?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>These are points that have been repeated so often by the left that they no doubt believe them to be true. However, inquiring minds would like to see any sort of proof that either of these allegations are anything more than scurrilous lies themselves. Certainly the reports done by the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Butler report, the Iraq Survey group, or the Robb/Silberman commission do not support these views. Heck, even John Edwards admits that the evidence against Saddam was consistent with the views of the Clinton administration.</p>
<p>“the views of the Clinton administration”</p>
<p>The views of the Clinton Administration were a pure act of self-justification. I mean what are they going to do - after they’ve killed a million people (half of them children), say “whoops, we’ve made a mistake?”</p>
<p>Again, what does “victory” look like? What are the benchmarks for the liars and cheats? What sanctions should be used against them if they fail to perform?</p>
<p>I was too young to have a reasonable opinion about the Cold War’s “winnability” at the time, but I have studied countries enough to know that nationalism and/or tribal identity are about as strong a force as anything in most countries. So if you come from the outside and try to dictate a system of government, especially by force, people tend to forget your “good intentions” and fight against your efforts. Our own Revolutionary War was in a sense a vindication of this principle.</p>
<p>As an example, even Robert MacNamara conceded eventually that his mistake was thinking what we were really fighting in Vietnam was communism. The Vietnamese had resisted China’s domination for centuries. They didn’t like outsiders telling them what to do. If we had let Vietnam “fall” as they rebelled against the French, we probably would have had an ally in the Cold War rather than an enemy.</p>
<p>Your occasional genius – and mine (though I don’t think genius is apparent or required in this case, rather common sense was) – doesn’t affect this war except that your/my voice as a single citizen does(assuming you like me are a regular citizen). Thus the only grounds for celebration would be our prevailing successfully. But unfortunately we (the Royal We, our country) were set up for failure, and the Administration ignored dissenting voices (not just about the war, but about troop levels and other crucial issues).</p>
<p>I feel the first Gulf War had its mistakes, but in the end, it was a very successful war that was worth fighting. If we hadn’t fought it, it’s likely Saddam would have headed toward Saudi Arabia next and the world economy would have been savaged as oil supplies were disturbed. And the outcome of the first Gulf War was a well-contained Saddam Hussein who was not free to wreak his havoc outside his country. We didn’t need to depose Saddam; it would have been much cheaper and safer to let him stay in power ultimately. Yes, he tortured and killed his own people, but we never really cared about that when he did it before, and the plight of the average Iraqi has gotten significantly worse since this war started.</p>
<p>Some people may disagree with this on the grounds that Saddam was funding suicide bombers in Israel. He WAS doing this, but for me, this was not sufficient reason to go to war against him, given the alternatives.</p>
<p>FF: As I’ve pointed out previously, you don’t have to look at the lies leading up to the war to see a preponderance of lies. You can look at those stated during the war. “The last throes of the insurgency.” “Mission accomplished.” etc. Why don’t you see these things clearly? Why do you assert the credibility of such bald-faced mendacity?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>…I should think you already have an answer, mini. Having no doubt worked it all out before–as is your wont–devolving into such sarcasm and mirth over the war in Iraq as suits you. </p>
<p>So then, answer this question yourself, mini. In this way you will prefer the genius of the answer, if not quite the genius who answered it; looking out relieves the troubled soul of the burden of looking in, as I hear.</p>
<p>…then perhaps share that answer, having arrived at the good one. For myself, I imagine the abomination of war to be good only when compared to a very dire…a very horrible alternative; as someone said above, such slaughter as this only goes from bad to worse, to things that cannot even be said with a good conscience. </p>
<p>There are many bad alternatives; it is only a matter of <em>how</em> bad, and what horrible alternative. Everything else is just talk. </p>
<p>…but people like to talk; much more so the frothing genius and intellectual inebriate.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How about this: Installation of a non-genocidal democratically-elected government that propounds peace and tolerance as some of its goals.</p>
<p>DPX–there were lots of reasons to suppose this would not go well; one didn’t have to be smart or prescient to think so. Several people right here on CC laid out scenarios that turned out to be frightfully close to the truth.</p>
<p>Being against it, thinking it’s a bad idea, yet hoping for it to be okay after all–that’s one thing. But it’s easy for it to slide off the side into magical thinking. I WANT it to be okay, so it’s GOING to be okay. That’s different.</p>
<p>Lives were and are at stake. Thousands of US soldiers; tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Millions more of them displaced. An angry, terrified country going up in flames, terrorists multiplying.</p>
<p>I don’t get any kicks out of watching this unfold.</p>
<p>I don’t think Cassandra went around feeling joyfully vindicated, and I don’t think that the many responsible, thoughtful folks who looked at the situation and so the potential for disaster do so, either.</p>
<p>BAY: …And actually governs the country. I would agree Bay. This is close to what the Administration posited as its initial goal for Iraq. The goal shifted to become installing a government that actually governs. Quite a ratcheting down of objectives to say the least. It could be argued that that’s when we lost this war. But I’d say we’ll be hard-pressed to ever leave behind a government that actually governs and doesn’t commit civil war upon its own people.</p>
<p>“How about this: Installation of a non-genocidal democratically-elected government that propounds peace and tolerance as some of its goals.”</p>
<p>Okay. So you are okay with a pro-Iranian Shia-dominated government that refuses to sell oil to the United States, refuses the presence of any and all U.S. troops on its soil or in its territorial waters, signs military defense pacts with Iran and Venezuela, refuses the Kurds any further autonomy and kicks all U.S. “advisors” out of Kurdish terrority; and holds a public trial that reveals how the Rumsfeld Handshake with Saddam Hussein precipitated the use of poison gas against the Shia in the south. </p>
<p>Sounds like a plan to me. ;)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>garland,</p>
<p>I suppose so; I had a number of my own. </p>
<p>But then, if I were to guess, I should think that quite a number of people harbored similar all-knowing reasons to oppose the US in the Cold War, the Gulf War–there were not a few Republicans who opposed WWII for what I also suppose to be very good reasons, that I would not share.</p>
<p>But more to the point, it has been my rather limited experience that honest concern for what’s best rarely keeps company with sarcasm and insult; a decent dissent will not even share a smoke with a blowhard; which, if my premise holds true, would deny not a few people involved in this discussion even such a simple courtesy as a smoke-break with their greater angels. Much less an honest moment.</p>
<p>.</p>