Hi Hawkmoon; Re: "Is that something particular to this war, or is that just the nature of American society?"
It's particular to this war. In general, the American public has no qualms about the use of force. They have no qualms about bombing the bejesus out of people who can't fight back. (The tendency to be in favor of wars where only the other side suffers is universal to the species, by the way, I don't mean to single the US out. Other countries have had their "Iraq" and eventually gave up too.) They have some qualms about sending our boys out to die, but not enough to stop them from getting into these kinds of things. What the American people won't do is to send the boys out to fight hopeless conflicts.
Re: "That's just the point.. For people like you, EVERY WAR is unwinnable."
Not true. I'm a right wing Republican. I was in favor of Afghanistan and posted as such here on SI.
Re: "That's your excuse for not being able to present a better strategy than the current admininstration is following."
I've repeatedly presented a better strategy. Pull our military out of the the rest of the world except where a local population begs for our presence (and for something better than just to fight like unpaid mercenaries for their side). That means we pull out of Iraq.
Over the long run, the business of America is business. This war is damaging the strength of our business in several ways. You wouldn't know what business is because you've sucked on the government tit your whole life. You think that the money to run the military magically appears from nowhere.
As the dollar drops and our trade balance reverses, the financial ability of our government to mind other people's business on the other side of the world will slowly become very obviously impossible. We'll sure enough pull out then.
And the hell do you think that the "best strategy" is to get into a war that we can't win? Any kind of strategy is better than that, fool. Suicide is not a solution.
Re: "Every human conflict has a solution, if all parties can be made to recognize some point of mutual benefit and compromise. And sometimes that point is arrived at voluntarily, via diplomacy, or it requires coercive measures.
"
This is more or less true, but the problem you will have with the result is that we are the ones being coerced, not them. Their mommies and daddies don't mind seeing their kids killed as much as ours. You got us into quite a jam. It's like you have a one-sided understanding of power. In war, the other guy gets to play, too.
Re: "And weak? We're hardly weak. We're just not willing to bring all of our resources to bear (like full mobilization and a draft) to fight this limited war."
Exactly. It's not that we're "weak", it's just that, well, our armed forces don't have enough soldiers (lack of full mobilization and draft), and that makes our army, well, what is the word for an army that is too small??? I was going to use "weak", but that doesn't agree with you. How about "scrawny"? Get out your dictionary and find me a nice synonym for "weak". Maybe "busy" would be a good word.
Here's a hint: The other side is willing to bring all of their resources to bear. What does that tell you? So after the war are they going to put an asterisk next to it? The US took thousands KIA, left Iraq more of a problem than before the war, trained a million guerillas to destroy Israel, lost the war, but it wasn't "weak" because it didn't try very hard?
Re: "Leaders are supposed to say things like that ..."
To be a real loser, you have to be in denial about having lost.
Re: "Uh hello??!! Assassinate Saddam and then leave Iraq in far greater chaos that has already been experienced?"
Iraq's military and police would have remained in control. The US could then negotiate with whoever took over the reigns of power, just like the US negotiates with strongmen, dictators and Communist regimes all over the planet. It would have been simpler and easier just to negotiate with Saddam. But no, Mr. goody two shoes had to save the Iraqi people from the evil dictator. Out of the frying pan into the fire.
Re: "And how is this any different that Afghanistan?"
Your basic problem is that you can't tell the difference between one war and another, or one country and another. Wars are always special cases, their are never two that are exactly alike. Certainly Iraq and Afghanistan are quite different.
In Afghanistan, the people met us with parades and flowers, like I said they would back in 2001. In Iraq, they met us with sullen looks and gunfire. The reason was that we are Iraq's traditional enemy, dating back to the Kuwaiti liberation. You don't cheer the guys who killed your friends and relatives in a war that they thought was fought very unfairly, and then regularly bombed them thereafter.
Re: "But were you against overthrowing the Taliban?"
No, I was in favor of it. You're obviously still arguing with some liberal.
Re: "Is there STILL insurgency in Afghanistan?"
Our casualties there keep increasing year over year. It appears to me that Afghanistan is slowly growing out of control and we will have to pull out sometime in the next 5 years. They're using more and more sophisticated techniques (taught to them by the experience of Iraq and, soon enough, Lebanon) and are becoming more effective.
Back in 2003 you idiots were going on and on lying about how many casualties the US took from insurgents in occupied Germany. In fact, the primary problem for US soldiers in postwar Germany was veneral disease, and the secondary problem was automobile accidents. Now that you've seen two real insurgencies, one in Iraq, the other in Afghanistan, you're so amazingly stupid that you can't even recognize it, and you have to ask for my opinion.
Re: "My idea of victory is the creation of a fledgling democratic state that can defend itself against Islamo-Fascist and secular enemies in the region (primarily Syria and Iran)."
Unfortunately, you have not provided a path to this objective. No matter what kind of state we set up in Iraq the locals will still hate Israel, and by extension, the US. The only reason we're not yet fighting the Shiites as well as the Sunnis is because they're too busy fighting each other. After one or the other side takes over the country, the enmity towards Israel will return just as it did in Lebanon when their civil war stopped.
Re: "My idea of victory is to maintain a forward defence of the United States that keeps the enemy focused on defending their "home turf", while continuing to thwart any plans to attack our own."
The military cannot protect us from terrorists. The number of terrorist plots and membership in Al Qaeda keeps growing. Several of our allies have been hit hard. The only thing that has so far protected us is that the FBI and local law enforcement has become much more careful.
Re: "My idea of victory is motivating Arabs to recognize that they are in a civil war with the militant extremists in their religion. I want muslims to have no choice but to recognize that Islamo-Fascists are just as willing to target muslims as they are Westerners and that we're not going to just left them remain indifferent."
When Arabs get the vote, they vote the Islamo-Fascists into power. Maybe after the Islamo-Fascists have been in power for a decade or so, and the Arabs start complaining about potholes, they will vote for someone else, but other than by this you will never see the Arabs repudiate what you call Islamo-Fascists.
Re: "My idea of victory is denying the Islamo-Fascists the ability to tap the tremendous wealth of Iraq's oil to fund their Islamo-Fascist evangelical efforts."
Well your activities have certainly driven up the price of oil, and this has given large amounts of money to Iran and Saudi Arabia. As far as Iraq's oil, who do you think is going to control it after we leave? What is the biggest political party in Iraq?
Re: "Those are my criteria for victory Bilow.. pretty much in order of priority. Now what are yours?? Oh.. that's right.. you don't believe we can ever be victorious against terrorism.. We're just supposed to bend over and take it.. Well, buddy.. you can have my ration of KY.. I'm sure you'll find a use for it."
My criteria for victory is a normalization of our relations with all the countries in the Middle East. I've never said that terrorism is a permanent part of life, though a small amount of violence is normal in any human society. As our financial difficulties force us to downsize our military and pull our armed forces back to the US our relations with the Arabs will improve correspondingly.
I know that you don't agree that any of this is possible. Well four years ago I told you that a successful occupation of Iraq would not be possible. You got to try your idea and it turned out to be a turd. In the fullness of time, our country will be forced to try out my idea.
Get used to it. The business of America is business, not fighting other people's hopeless wars on the other side of the planet. Eventually we will return to our traditions.
By the way, the primary reason the US has little trouble with Islamic terrorism is that we have very few Islamic peoples here. Instead, we have Mexicans and South Americans sneaking over our border to the south. I bet France, Spain, Germany and Britain would love to trade their Islamic immigrants for Catholics. But that difference also means that it is a lot easier for the Islamists to get Europe out of the pissing match.
-- Carl |
