Posted on 10/23/2011 4:37:34 AM PDT by newzjunkey
Full title: Strong Words From Newt At Iowa Faith and Freedom: 'After 8 Years, We Will Leave Iraq in Defeat, Don't Kid Yourselves, It Is Defeat'
Newt Gingrich at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition Dinner tonight gives some straight talk on Obama's decision (yesterday) to withdraw all American troops
Gingrich: "We lost the 3rd Iraq war. This may or may not be popular to say but as a historian I think it needs to be said. We won the first Iraq war in 1991 driving Iraq out of Kuwait in 4 days. We won the second Iraq war to defeat Saddam Hussein in 23 days...After 8 years, thousands of lives, hundreds of billions of dollars, we will leave in defeat, don't kid yourselves"
It is vietnam redux.
I am also enraged. Enraged because of the ROE during this and Afghanistan. We never would have won WWII with the current ROE. IF we need to go in, we NEED TO GO ALL OUT.
We leveled German cities, we nuked Japan...to WIN!
I think those that now criticize Bush going in, forget the scenario at the time and the complete world wide agreement on the situation then. Having said that, we WON in Iraq and this jerk that is playing POTUS and Hillary and the Dems refused to move forward with the negotiations needed to set up bases there for the last THREE years! They wanted to “lose” to vindicate themselves politically. Disgusting.
I assume that you are not a military commander and instead an civilian and tax payer and perhaps one who has given a son or daughter to fight for the liberation of Iraq.
How many more trillions of dollars should be spent?
How many more of our sons lost?
The people there have not been able to straighten out their mess for more than a thousand years and we could not do it with a trillion dollars and thousands of lives.
Obama: “The clock was ticking in Iraq and Iran out of time.”
I don't listen to the MSM who keeps telling us how bad it is. Instead, I listen to military commanders who have worked there and tell me the TRUTH.
Maybe you need to check your sources.
Probably the most important negotiation as been lost....by Obama. IIRC, there was an agreement for a base under Bush's withdrawal formula.
Iran is chomping at the bit...
Ironic if you knew
Having been out of the long term strategic-planning business for many years, again, I leave the answers to our current generations of strategic PLANNERs - whose loyalty is to the best LONG TERM interests of the USA, not to the barack obama 2012 reelection campaign
What are they saying? Not much, hmmm.
Now, just think of the money and lives that we’ll save if we pull out of everywhere...like Korea
And let’s eliminate our space program, missile defenses
and our nuke stockpile, too while we’re at it..obama promised that too and it may be his next move.
(Would those who have given a son or daughter to Iraq prefer to see the nation pacified and patrolled by Joint Forces until the job is finished, or abandoned? With Barky’s fast timing, they won’t get to vote)
They've been infuential in steering the Iraq leaddership away from having bases there...majorly so.
No matter how the picture is painted, 'Obama failed' to establish a US presence there....which was more than understood when we went in there.
Iran sees this as thier victory over the US. Calking one more up in their court.
Couple this with all the other "victories" this administration allowed Iran, there is no doubt that radical socialists and islamists are working together.
The socialists give the islamists the Middle East while the islamists create the turmoil and spike required to collapse the Western nations so they can be reorganized under a single UN-like authority.
Yep...and now those pulling the strings meeting again on Monday to attempt to establish a single "Treasury". (drudge has it)
The war of which Newt is talking is not a war that we could ever have won with military force. It is a war that we might, over time, win through economic relations.
It would have been better if our military forces were immediately replace by the blue helmets of the U.N., following our overthrow of Saddam. But, the various criminal, terrorist and foreign elements in the country did not allow that.
It would have been better if we had the capability of putting overwhelming force on the ground. But, we had a downsized military and it was oriented to a different mission than occupation.
Therefore, when Plan A failed, and Plan B was not an option, we went to Plan C, which was mostly a holding action while we reconstructed Iraq’s ability to defend itself.
We succeeded in Plan C, and Newt is wrong to call what we did a defeat. What other country in the world could continue to recruit soldiers while involved in combat halfway around the world, for a decade? Our soldiers are truly undefeated.
But, Plan C involved Iraq taking its place as a sovereign nation in the world. And, we do not control what will be the outcome of that. It is now for the Iraqi people to use well the opportunity we have given them.
With that falsehood as a major philosophical component of the WOT, it should not be a surprise that many other political blunders would follow--trying to move the Muslim world out of the 8th century--but instead putting our troops in that time machine and transporting them back to 1968...
I would like to hope that this has taught everyone that "nation building" cannot happen without first completely crushing the old order--Islam still being present made the task impossible IMO...
I don’t think drawing those lines help in understanding the conflict at all.
History will look at all the of the segments Newt tries to separate out as just a part of a larger conflict which will come to be referred to as the Persian Gulf War, because it is simply a thirty-year-long war between Iraq and Iran for dominance over the region. Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait was a part of that conflict too. It looks like our policy may now be to stop intervening in that battle for regional dominance. I suspect that is because of the development of horizontal drilling and shale fracturing, other worldwide oil and gas supplies, and U.S. government acceptance of hundred-dollar oil. Also, the people of this country do seem to be getting weary of pouring blood and treasure into micromanaging every conflict worldwide with no quantifiable benefit to them.
Thanks for the link to the article. Fascinating summary of what I think so many average Americans know instinctively, but can’t articulate as well.
Saw this on C Spam late last night.
Newt Knocked It Out of the Park!!!!
(even more than Pujols)
Muslims helping Muslims.
Enraged because of the ROE during this and Afghanistan.
I am enraged by the ROE set down by the POS who occupies the white house at the present time.
If that is done, we will no doubt find our ROE is in the hole.
Semper Fi, Sir.
That is where I am. The extended militarism that has been going on for many decades has depleated our military, depleated our economy, depleated our treasury, and depleated our standing in eyes of the world.
It is highly desireable in my opinion to rebuild our defenses, and cease sending money (we don't have) all over the world.
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