“I know how to win wars. I know how to win wars”

[DiamondDave]

What self-serving silliness.... (I hope you like the alliteration).

There are two, count 'em, gulf wars. One was handled by Daddy, who did a good job and listened when his state department said "don't go to Baghdad".

The other is the nightmare war of choice run by Baby....

You can spin it any way you'd like.... but you're being disingenuous.

FLAT OUT INCORRECT

2 instances of action... one war.... there is also what is commonly known as "the war on terror".... but the 2nd action in Iraq was a direct result of the non-compliance of the cease fire agreement which SUSPENDED, not ended the actions of Desert Shield/Strom under GHWB

 

[Tech_Esq]

Hmmm.. The bar scene was utter hell yet Mac managed to both elude the enemy (his wife) and still conquer woman after woman.

LOL....you trying to get me to vote for him or something?

 

[Tech_Esq]

I just hope the next Administration knows how to win the war on the Afganistan/Pakistan border. We are spread too thin to win. And that is where 9-11 came from. There and Saudi Arabia. Not the government of course, but most of the citizens were from Saudi Arabia, not Iran and certainly not from Iraq.

Bin Ladin and his buddies are somewhere in Afganistan/Pakistan and if you read my posts #4 & 5, that is where we need to be surging.

Luckily the military says it is meeting their recruiting goals. I wonder if the new GI Bill that Jim Webb sponsored has anything to do with it?

Keep thinking you can parse a swamp! I don't think you can legitimately say that the bad guys came from this place in the middle east but not that place. When my son was in Iraq he said they even had fighters from Chechnya. In fact, those were the ones they worried about, they could shoot straight. The Iraq's couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. (Apparently).

The point is they are all trying to kill us. Iran has been trying much longer than Osama. Their various political goals may diverge, but they all want us dead and there is nothing we can do about that.

Leaving will not work. If we sent them billions in aide and prevented any American from traveling to that part of the world for 100 years, they would still want us dead.

 

[Tech_Esq]

FLAT OUT INCORRECT

2 instances of action... one war.... there is also what is commonly known as "the war on terror".... but the 2nd action in Iraq was a direct result of the non-compliance of the cease fire agreement which SUSPENDED, not ended the actions of Desert Shield/Strom under GHWB

True statement

 

[Charles_Main]

True statement

The difference between Obama and McCain on war could not be more clear.

Obama thinks you get out of wars, McCain knows you lose or win them.

 

[jillian]

The difference between Obama and McCain on war could not be more clear.

Obama thinks you get out of wars, McCain knows you lose or win them.

Really? Then why is Obama saying we need to put more people into Afghanistan and deal with the Pakistani problem?

Maybe it's that Obama thinks you need to get out of stupid wars of choice.

 

[Wow]

We lost Vietnam. We're not doing well in Afghanistan. Iraq is questionable.

We lost Vietnam?
US armed forces were withdrawn following a cease-fire agreement in 1973. Two years later, North Vietnamese forces overran the South reuniting the country under Communist rule. Over 10% of the population can not read nor write now.

We're not doing well in Afghanistan?
NATO is fighting this war and they are useless.
Look at how Americans defeated the Al Qaida in Iraq.

Iraq is questionable.
What war is in Iraq?
The war is over, Americans/Iraqis slaughtered the Al Qaida.

Care to explain your inaccuracies?

 

[Article 15]

See Kuwait


and before you go off with the typical lib retort of "no, I mean the 2nd war"... remember that there is no second war... it is a continuation of the first that was justified because of Iraq's refusal to comply with the terms of the cease-fire agreement (and remember that a cease-fire does not mean the end of war... just the suspension of hostilities with conditions attached)

The job was finished in the Gulf War.

660's objectives were met.

That Bush Administration actually thought things through.

Here's Cheney:

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.

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. And the question in my mind is, how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is, not that 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.

Call it the continuance of the first conflict if the semantics makes you feel better or even (lol) right.

It was still a galactically stupid and pointless move to "reopen" the Iraq War.

 

[Article 15]

So said John McCain yesterday.

Can anyone tell me what exactly he's done in his life that makes this statement remotely true?

No, Ravi, I'm sorry but I cannot come up with anything.

 

[Ravi]

We lost Vietnam?
US armed forces were withdrawn following a cease-fire agreement in 1973. Two years later, North Vietnamese forces overran the South reuniting the country under Communist rule. Over 10% of the population can not read nor write now. - The goal was to get rid of communism at the time. If you think we did, then I can see why you think we won.

We're not doing well in Afghanistan?
NATO is fighting this war and they are useless.
Look at how Americans defeated the Al Qaida in Iraq. - We started the war in Afghanistan and then left it for NATO to fight and you call that a win?

Iraq is questionable.
What war is in Iraq?
The war is over, Americans/Iraqis slaughtered the Al Qaida. -Okay, we did defeat Saddam but that was actually a pretty stupid goal.

Care to explain your inaccuracies?

So, how does McCain's experience justify his statement exactly?

 

[Tech_Esq]

Really? Then why is Obama saying we need to put more people into Afghanistan and deal with the Pakistani problem?

Maybe it's that Obama thinks you need to get out of stupid wars of choice.

Put more people in Afghanistan? The history of the British in Afghanistan and the Soviets in Afghanistan would militate against increasing the size of forces there. We are much better off using small scale forces in numbers and leveraging that will air power and technology where possible than adding a bunch of ground-based soldiers into the theater.

Do any of you liberal generals know why?

Hopefully, Obama has also flip-flopped on his thought that bombing Pakistan is a method of working with them.

I'll skip the sarcasm with respect to Iraq. It's clear that too many here do not understand the point of fighting the war in Iraq. Maybe Bush was right in not explaining it and I've unfairly criticized him. Perhaps it's far to complicated for people to understand.

 

[Charles_Main]

Really? Then why is Obama saying we need to put more people into Afghanistan and deal with the Pakistani problem?

Maybe it's that Obama thinks you need to get out of stupid wars of choice.

So you admit then he thinks you can just get out of a war. I am sorry you can't you either win or you lose. If we leave Iraq and it becomes a broken state and terrorist heaven then we have lost. No amount of semantics or politics will change that fact.

I never wanted us to get into Iraq in the first place, but we are, and IMO we have to win it.

 

[Tech_Esq]

The job was finished in the Gulf War.

660's objectives were met.

That Bush Administration actually thought things through.

Here's Cheney:



Call it the continuance of the first conflict if the semantics makes you feel better or even (lol) right.

It was still a galactically stupid and pointless move to "reopen" the Iraq War.

Just because you don't understand it, doesn't make IT stupid.

 

[Article 15]

It's clear that too many here do not understand the point of fighting the war in Iraq. Maybe Bush was right in not explaining it and I've unfairly criticized him. Perhaps it's far to complicated for people to understand.

Why don't you give it the old college try ...

 

[Article 15]

Just because you don't understand it, doesn't make IT stupid.

See my last post.

Pssst ... I fought in it ...

 

[Tech_Esq]

See my last post.

Pssst ... I fought in it ...

I will give you my standard response to your last post and see what you make of it. I will also say that having spent 5 years in the Infantry and knowing soldiers, just because you fought in it doesn't make you a policy-maker nor an expert on foreign policy nor expert on military operations. You do have some special insight into certain aspects of the topic. I will not be touching those aspects in my explanation.

Pssst... my son was in a Stryker Brigade Combat Team in Mosul. 11B just like dad.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

I'll skip the sarcasm with respect to Iraq. It's clear that too many here do not understand the point of fighting the war in Iraq. Maybe Bush was right in not explaining it and I've unfairly criticized him. Perhaps it's far to complicated for people to understand.

Yeah, I second the call to explain.

There is no 'winning' the Iraq 'war'. It's closer to a massacre than a war.

Americans Killed: ~4500
Americans Exiled: 0
Americans Internally Displaced: 0
Iraqis Killed: ~1,000,000
Iraqis Exiled: ~2,000,000
Iraqis Internally Displaced: ~2,000,000

Some war, McCain wants to 'win'. What exactly would be the conditions for victory anyway? Kill every Iraqi who wants to end the occupation of their country? Well, you guys are 5 million down, 30m more to go.

 

[Article 15]

I will give you my standard response to your last post and see what you make of it. I will also say that having spent 5 years in the Infantry and knowing soldiers, just because you fought in it doesn't make you a policy-maker nor an expert on foreign policy nor expert on military operations. You do have some special insight into certain aspects of the topic. I will not be touching those aspects in my explanation.

Pssst... my son was in a Stryker Brigade Combat Team in Mosul. 11B just like dad.

Uh ... where's the standard explanation?

Thank you for yours' and your son's service.

Of course fighting in a war doesn't make one an expert in you aforementioned fields I was letting you know from where I was coming from.

 

[Tech_Esq]

Why don't you give it the old college try ...

This probably off-topic here, but since you asked....

Going back to the response after September 11, which must be the genesis for this discussion. After Afghanistan was attacked and the Taliban toppled, Bush gave a speech. I think it was January 2002. It may or may not have been the State of the Union. In that speech he laid out his strategy concerning the war against the terrorists. Besides the typical you're with us or against us, if a country harbors terrorists, they are just as guilty, rhetoric, there was something else. He said something on the order of there needed to be a sea change in the middle east, that Madrasas could not be the only option. That hate could not be the only lesson available. I think this gives a glimmer of what Iraq was meant to be.

If you were going to take the offensive in the middle east, actually address the over-whelming hatred against the US that exists there, how would you do it? What could you possibly do to change it? Even a long shot. Clearly, what Clinton did, did not work. So, what else? Give them what they want and just leave? Order all commercial enterprises and US government installations shuttered and leave? That's not practical. So what?

The order of the day was a neo-con Hail Mary. You have to understand neo-cons worship at the alter of Democracy. I think they have a bit too much faith in that concept, but be that as it may, they believed they could flip a country make it a "shining city on a hill" make it an example. A choice for the restless young men of the middle east. Not immediately of course, but when all was said and done. Remember Bush told us this was a 50 year war. (Afghanistan is one battle in the war, Iraq is another battle in the war).

The question was which country? Iran or Syria? Both members of the "Axis of Evil," both terror supporters in their own rights. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the various Emirates dismissed because they were allies. Yeman? Too irrelevant. Other north African states too far on the periphery of the middle east, besides leverage could work on them (as in Libya). What about Iraq?

A country that lies in the middle of the middle east. A country with a secular background, less religious than other countries. A country with a strong, educated work force and some oil wealth. A country that had been weakened by sanctions for over 10 years.

Strategic Advantages:
Taking Iraq drives a wedge between Iran and Syria. It isolates Iran because we have Turkey and Turkmenistan in the north Occupied Afghanistan on one side, Occupied Iraq on the other. The US Navy controlling the Persian Gulf on another border. Perfect position to monitor one part of the Axis of Evil and add pressure to their government all around.

Syria is similarly isolated. Turkey to the north. Occupied Iraq, Israel only Lebanon and its puppet government was friendly, though that changed.

Taking Iraq meant instantly removing one malefactor from the middle east puzzle and at a minimum neutralizing it while we occupied it. With a little luck, it flips completely and we have another friendly country providing an axis across the middle east of Israel, Jordan and Iraq of friendly nations. Note how Saudi Arabia isn't in the list.

Reasons for war besides the above sited abbreviated list of strategic advantages:

The sanctions were falling apart. (France was openly advocating for the removal of sanctions. Most other European countries were just ignoring them). The oil for food program was a corrupt joke. The Iraqi military routinely fired on allied planes patrolling the no fly zones. Without continued sanctions, Iraq would once again become resurgent adding one more problem into an already problematic middle east.

The question then was do we remove the sanctions and hope for a new casus belli or do we go with what we have or think we have? (It would have been pie in the sky to think that Saddam was going to just be a good citizen, so that was not an option to consider).

My question was, why not tell the people what we are doing and why. Why use the WMD BS to justify the war. But, this was probably someone's bright idea that this is an easy mark. Everyone knew he had WMD, the hard part was making it look immediately dangerous. The only thing worse than the execution of the run up to war was the execution of the immediate aftermath of the military campaign. But, I think I'll stop here. I promised a why did we do Iraq essay, not a review of the entire war.

Ok, go ahead and fire away.

 

[Article 15]

Ok ... good. I do understand your narrative. I get the theory behind what the neo cons were aiming for. And I agree with you that they do put too much stock in democracy. Sometimes it just isn't for a certain region at a certain time because when you let the people pick their leaders you may not like the results.

Now for all the farsighted and well intended plans of a democratized Middle East the planners missed a whole lot of glaring issues in the short run.

- Removing the secular strongman from a minority faction (the Sunni) who have been brutally keeping down the Shia majority.

- Not being at all prepared to deal with any kind of reprisal coming from the majority in their new found position of power on their prior terrorizers.

- The backlash from the Sunnis and refusal to acknowledge or even understand their new role as the "loyal opposition"

- The ties between Iran's and Iraq's Shia leadership and where that relationship may lead.

- A severe underestimation of the political landscape with in the United States and ignorance of the idea that one cannot effectively wage a "long war" in a free society with regular elections. It just doesn't jive well. Vietnam certainly should have taught them that.

- And it loops back to the propaganda campaign to garner the public approval needed to get us into the war in the first place.

The list goes on ...

But I guess that's a good place to start.