"Don't you want to Win"?

OnDborder

"Don't you want to Win"?
Seems to be one of the major "talking points",from the NeoCons and republicans, pertaining to Iraq.


Just what is the definition of "winning" in Iraq?

TheBlackCat

It seems to be constantly changing. We seem to be at the point where civil war is inevitable, so I am not exactly sure what the current definition is.

OnDborder

Kind of like the "reasons" or justifications on why we went into Iraq?

TheBlackCat

Exactly. When it becomes obvious one reason for going into Iraq was wrong, they switch to a new one. When it becomes obvious one ultimate objective becomes impossible to achieve, they switch to a new one. It's called "moving the goalposts". If you didn't win the game, retroactively change the rules so that you did win.

LHC

I can't remember the site off-hand.. but there is a site where it has a bunch of contradictory statements from different times

For example, one of my favorite ones was like

March 2003
President Bush: Our primary objective is to capture Osama Bin Laden, and make him stand before a court of law. We will find him."

July 2003
President Bush: Osama is not our primary objective. Peace comes first.

Wish I could find that site..

The_Neon_Cowboy

roll eyes

There where plenty of good reasons for going in. Still is and yes their
eventally will be better off for it. Though the if it bleeds it leads mentailty
of the media coverage is kinda sad. So a negitive spin means $$$
not to mention alot ofthe press seem to play the game of "poltics"
and "spin". Ofern liberal left wingers setting in the drivers seat. Who iraq
would be smelling like roses right now with the same eact story line. Only
if the president where democratic....

I just love the people that say well they said they would be gretted and
daceing in the streets etc... many people (agains the this war )
say this never happened. Depite the fact that it did, I rember watching the
LIVE footage. Sure where they as welcome everyone no? Some people
Actully supported saddam or where stil afarisd of his loyalist, terroist buddies,
would kill thier whole family....

As for what is winning?? simple... Why havent you grasped this? They to be
able to bring the bulk of our forces home and for the iraqy forces and
goverment to be able to fight and stand on its own. Of couse there will be
us troop theres for a very long time/who knows. But will likely be small
bases there, as we have
all over the world.

TheBlackCat

Perhaps, but none of the were the reason we actually did go in. We went in because Saddam was busy trying to make weapons of mass destruction. Whoops, guess not. I guess we went in because Saddam was a supporter of Al Queda. Whoops, wrong again. So I guess we were going into to liberate the Iraqi people. Whoops, looks like they busy killing each other and are rapidly heading towards civil war and chaos, and probably ultimately a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy like Iran. We went in for a very specific reason. That reason was wrong. When this was discovered, the reason was retroactively changed. This reason was also wrong, so the reason was retroactively changed again. This reason is also wrong, so I guess we need a new one. Oil, I guess? That was the real reason all along. It is the only difference between Iraq and North Korea, except that North Korea's WMD program was well-established and known to be very far along by that point.

Or their children, or their grandchildren, or their great grandchildren. Sooner or later things will improve. Don't know when, but if the current US government estimates are right it will take at least another 15 years if I remember correctly.

You say this, but then...
A bit of a contradiction here.

I have news for you: the war would not have gone any better if the press had done anything differently. Did you know that war correspondents have been commonplace since the U.S. Civil War? It was not some random invention during the Vietnam War that suddenly made winning wars impossible. And the press has always been about making money, always been somewhat sensationalist. The press is business, and the purpose of business is to make money. These things are no different than in any other war in the last century. The Iraq war has probably received less media attention in the U.S. than most wars its size that involve the US. Unless something unusual happens, you would barely know it is happening from the press reports. You can't blame the progress of the war on the press.

Yes, because the press was just so nice to Clinton

Who has said this never happened? Sure it did. Everybody saw the footage. But gratitude has its limits. Things were supposed to get better Iraqi people because of us, not worse. The war was supposed to be over 3 years ago. But we are still here, things are progressively deteriorating, and the Iraqi people are getting tired of it. I don't blame them.

I see, so anybody who does not love the US unquestionably no matter what the US does or what the result of the US's actions are have to be either Saddam supporters or terrorists. This whole "you are either with us or against us" mentality is exactly why the world is so pissed off at the US right now. Many people in the US seems incapable of comprehending the notion that people can be good people and still disagree with the US. You don't have to be a terrorist to want a foreign occupation of your country to end.

The current estimates by the US government is that your idea of "winning" will require us to maintain massive troop presence in Iraq for a minimum of 15 years, I believe, if it is possible at all. Iraq may be too far gone at this point to ever stand on its own, civil war seems all but inevitable at this point. Frankly, civil war was inevitable from the day the decision was made to invade. Did you know Iraq already has the number of trained troops Bush said we would need for Iraq to be able to operate without our help? But it is not enough, it may never be enough, and despite the help of the Iraqi forces things continue to deteriorate.

The_Neon_Cowboy

1st) If bill Clinton (a democrat) did his job
* we would not be in Iraq now
* Saddam would have been dead and out before bush ever took office
* the world view would of been extremely positive
* osoma bin laden would be dead
* we may of never had a 9/11
* hundreds of thousands of Iraq's would probably be alive
After they started to rise up, against Saddam as the USA was
coming to free them from their oppression, then Clinton folded to his
liberal buds and political winds. Chose to pack up the troops an go home.
then cross his fingers things happened by it self. those who up rose quickly
them selfs and their entire family's where slaughtered like cattle.

Now on to responding to you....

AS for oil yes is it a factor? Well duh, is it the only reason? Or a reason at all?
the correct term would be factor. NOT a reason. like you would like to
paint here or tell you self? NO!The fact is the U.N. was "on the take" and chose
to set on their hands. All evil needs to thrive is for good men to do nothing .
That was all that was happening. Doing nothing doesn't get the job done.
have some lumps.....a small excerpt

A drop in the bucket so oil wasn't any Major reason, sorry try again.

"You say this, but then...

A bit of a contradiction here."

Not really, as most this footage was not aired, coved, pumped out like the oh
some one was just killed. Also it was quickly forgotten it seems a week after a
special showing just such footage. People where saying, nope never happened
and every XXX solders was killed. People like your self make comments like
so much for dancing in the streets, and greeting us as liberators.

Nor when journalists bagged asked people to jump up and down etc... to make
their antiwar pictures / footage more "dramatic".



"I have news for you: the war would not have gone any better if the press had done anything differently. Did you know that war correspondents have been commonplace since the U.S. Civil War? It was not some random invention during the Vietnam War that suddenly made winning wars impossible. And the press has always been about making money, always been somewhat sensationalist. The press is business, and the purpose of business is to make money. These things are no different than in any other war in the last century. The Iraq war has probably received less media attention in the U.S. than most wars its size that involve the US. Unless something unusual happens, you would barely know it is happening from the press reports. You can't blame the progress of the war on the press."

Well the point is instead of a negative spin, and focusing only the negative. If it where another party in office, the head lines, the story angle and coverages would read so
very differently. Also it forms public opinion, as well as world opinion.

"Yes, because the press was just so nice to Clinton "

yes it was see: "the clintion cronicals" . Bascaiily when you look at positive
and negtive coverage for the last elections. It was something like
bush 30% positive coverage /70% negitive coverage
kerry 70% positive coverage / 30% negitive coverage
though in more balenced chanels it was more like 50/50


"Who has said this never happened? Sure it did. Everybody saw the footage. But gratitude has its limits. Things were supposed to get better Iraqi people because of us, not worse. The war was supposed to be over 3 years ago. But we are still here, things are progressively deteriorating, and the Iraqi people are getting tired of it. I don't blame them."

Many people on these very forums in iraq topic threads have said it. From who's
point of view? are thing so breaking down? actually life is getting better over there.
Short the actions of terrorists.

"I see, so anybody who does not love the US unquestionably no matter what the US does or what the result of the US's actions are have to be either Saddam supporters or terrorists. This whole "you are either with us or against us" mentality is exactly why the world is so pissed off at the US right now. Many people in the US seems incapable of comprehending the notion that people can be good people and still disagree with the US. You don't have to be a terrorist to want a foreign occupation of your country to end. "

See "the history", our troops where withdrawn before the job was done when he invaded kuwait. when we had world support and positive openion. leaveing a vaccume of dead, and people felling like the usa dicked them over. When saddams and his menions crushed those who wen't against him.

Seriously you would believe the world is better off with people, brutal dictators like Saddam in power? oppressing his people? if you honestly believe this people would be better off?If so then there no talking since to you.

"The current estimates by the US government is that your idea of "winning" will require us to maintain massive troop presence in Iraq for a minimum of 15 years, I believe, if it is possible at all. Iraq may be too far gone at this point to ever stand on its own, civil war seems all but inevitable at this point. Frankly, civil war was inevitable from the day the decision was made to invade. Did you know Iraq already has the number of trained troops Bush said we would need for Iraq to be able to operate without our help? But it is not enough, it may never be enough, and despite the help of the Iraqi forces things continue to deteriorate."

Um yes terrorists, are trying to start a cival war. The Iraqy people know this as well.
I highly doubt in the next 5 years there will be in magor U.S troop presseance there.
little lone 15 years? thats a load of bull.

iraq has the number of trained troops? again ... bull. trained to what level? what 3
months of basic traing? and so forth people would would be called "green" or new, wet
behind the ears , unexperianced. What you read in a book, or n a traning ground,
des not fully prepare. A fraction, of said troops are of the caliber they need to have.
Not to mention, there are undesirables in said armed forces that need to work their
way out.

Agent11

http://www.conservativeusa.org/wagdog.htm
(dont be afraid of the truth, click it... besides it is a conservative site.)

Remember 'Wag the Dog'??? 'no war for monica' ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag_the_Dog

Coincidence

'Less than a month after the movie was released, President Bill Clinton was embroiled in a sex scandal arising from his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Over the course of 1998 and early 1999, as the scandal dominated American politics, the US engaged in three military options: Operation Desert Fox, a three-day bombing campaign in Iraq that took place as the U.S. House of Representatives debated articles of impeachment against Clinton; Operation Infinite Reach, a pair of missile strikes against suspected terrorist targets in Sudan and Afghanistan just three days after Clinton admitted in a nationally televised address that he had an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky; and Operation Allied Force, a months-long NATO bombing campaign against Serbia that began just weeks after Clinton was acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial. Critics, including Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, charged that the former operation was an attempt to distract attention from the Lewinsky scandal, and Serb state television went so far as to broadcast Wag The Dog in the midst of NATO attacks on Serbia. The video cassette version of the film contains an extended feature after the credits that has commentary about the movie in the context of the Lewinsky scandal by the producers of the movie and Tom Brokaw. Similar accusations arose when missile attacks were launched against terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and a pharmecutical factory in Sudan on August 20, known as Operation Infinite Reach, 3 days after Clinton admitted to a Grand Jury he had had improper relations with Lewinsky. This would end up being the major reaction to the bombing of the United States' embassies in Africa. Similar criticisms were later leveled against President George W. Bush, whose invasion of Iraq and saber-rattling discourse with Iran were also viewed by some, including New York Times columnist Frank Rich, as being a foreign distraction to avert domestic unpopularity.'


If anyone was hamstringing Clinton it was Newt and the republicans.

I'm tired of republican revisionist history.

SFOSOK

Hell I have no right to judge as I'm not there and cannot observe what is going on. After my training and deployment I'm sure I'll have a decent idea of whats up.

My bud who is over there says its bad, but not nearly as bad as the media paints it. But I can't really state an opinion as I'm not there and I haven't seen it with my own eyes or lived it.

Agent11

I have 3 cousins in the US military. Two in the Marines and one in the Air Force. I was all set to join the Marines, did all the physicals and just had to wait on some paperwork before driving back to the bay area and swearing in. . but then the downing street memo broke and I talked with my cousins.

We bombed the hell out of 2 countries, promised them a better life.. We have not given it to them.

Now the taliban is back in afghanistan, and we do not have the resources to do anything but protect the capital.

Although Saddam was not the best dictator in the world he was contained, no one was dieing and he was being watched closely. Now there is a massive amount of ethnic warfare that we can do very little about. And the average Iraqi wants us the hell out so they can have their civil war in peace.

We should have invaded Afghanistan and done it right, intead we screwed two countries.

Falstaff

Winning in IRAQ is leaving the country with a stable government and creating a friendly state in the middle east..that is about it.

OnDborder

I do believe you got it..
But at what cost?
I think it's going to be un-achievable without our men and women being stationed/killed/wounded there. Plus an un-definable amount of US taxpayer money spent to achieve the nirvana...

OnDborder

Who's definition of "stable goverment"?
Iran, China, Venezuela, Sudan, Lybia, etc. all seem to have stable goverments.. Do you think our goverment would approve of something like theirs? It might make it too difficult for the corporations, that bought this goverment, to set up business..

TheBlackCat

Oh please. Did you forget it was Bush Sr. who invaded Iraq in the first place but decided to leave Saddam in power?

I don't even know what this means


Right, because the republicans were pushing so hard for the US to go after Al Queda. They were too busy impeaching Clinton to care about those sorts of things. You can't blame Clinton when the Republicans made no effort to do anything differently.

No, it was Bush Sr. who chose to pack up the troops and come home, not Clinton. And the massacre of the Kurds took place under Reagan, another Republican, who did absolutely nothing. It was only when Saddam threatened countries with oil that we did anything.

My point exactly. Have you every wondered why we chose to attack Iraq, which we thought at the time base don questionable intelligence might be trying to build chemical and biological weapons, yet ignored Iran and North Korea which had active, well-developed nuclear weapons programs? North Korea has no oil, and Iran was perfectly happy to sell it to us. Iraq couldn't though because of the trade embargo. We did nothing against North Korea, and now they have working nuclear weapons. We did nothing against Iran, and they are busy extracting weapons-grade uranium. We did invade Iraq, which had no active WMD program of any sort no any obvious sign they were actively trying to develop one.

What other reason is there that doesn't apply equally well to Iran or North Korea?

So what? So they danced in the streets. They aren't so happy now, and with good reason.

There is no way to put a positive spin on this. Things are going horribly and are getting worse. Besides, the press puts negative spin on things. It always has and always will. That is what the press does. That is what sells. It is no different now than in wars in the past.

And what, exactly, do you base these numbers on? And even if it was true, has it occurred to you that perhaps there was more negative stuff in general for Bush as there was for Kerry?

Very well, point ceded.

Yes of course,. "Except for all the people being killed, maimed, crippled injured, except for all the property destruction, the livelihood lost, the constant fear of random, senseless violence, everything is just going great!" Sure, if you choose to ignore all the bad things that are happening things can't help but look good.

Yeah, BY BUSH. He was the one in power at that time, not Clinton.

Lets look at some quotes by Dick Cheney, who happened to be secretary of Defense at the time, on why they didn't try to take out Saddam during the Gulf War:

"I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we we're going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we'd have had to hunt him down. And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place. What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or Ba'athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable? I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the President got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq."

"And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.... Once we had rounded him up and gotten rid of his government, then the question is what do you put in its place? You know, you then have accepted the responsibility for governing Iraq."

"And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties. And while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war."

"There have been significant discussions since the war ended about the proposition of whether or not we went far enough. Should we, perhaps, have gone in to Baghdad? Should we have gotten involved to a greater extent then we did? Did we leave the job in some respects unfinished? I think the answer is a resounding "no.""

"I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we'd have had to hunt him down. And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place."

"What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or Ba'athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable?"

"I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the President got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq."

"I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today, we'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home," Cheney said, 18 months after the war ended.

Bush Sr. had some similar comments:

"We should not march into Baghdad. To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day Arab hero. Assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerilla war, it could only plunge that part of the world into ever greater instability."

"Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under the circumstances, there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different — and perhaps barren — outcome."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Yet people seem to think it is okay to leave Kim in power in North Korea, to leave the Ayatola in power in Iran. And if Iraq just ends up as another fundamentalist theocracy, which it appears it will (if it survives as a single country at all), then we have accomplished nothing. We have replaced one brutal dictatorship with another probably worse dictator. So yes, I think it is a waste of time to eliminate a brutal dictator and replace him with another, worse dictator. That is illogical to me.

It is not the terrorist, unless you define all of Iraq as "terrorists". The various ethnic groups in Iraq have hated each other for centuries. They were never going to get along. They never have gotten along. This is because the various groups cannot and will not cooperate. The terrorists are simply a symptom of that. The same thing happened in the US about 150 years ago, if you recall.

Sorry, but I think senior US military officials know a bit more about the situation in Iraq than you do.

Actually they are trained to the level the US government specified as being sufficient.