Posted on 05/14/2007 6:44:21 PM PDT by ARAD
Hey folks,
I'm still trying to understand why anyone is using the phrase, "War in Iraq????" We are trying TO WIN THE PEACE!!!
When the War for Independence was over, Washington had to put down rebellion in Vermont. That didn't mean the war was still going on, it meant he was trying to win the peace. When our soldiers were killed in Germany, after WWII, it didn't mean that we were still at war with Germany, but trying to win the peace. Why are we at war in Iraq, when the war has been over for years, and officially, it never was a war? All it is doing is allowing for horrid headlines. People don't like war, they like peace. If our side would have done the right thing, and used proper terminology all along, maybe the psychology of the nation wouldn't have allowed the security threats, democrats, to lead both Houses.
This is something that is really bothering me.
ARAD
ARAD
“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.” —George Washington
Interesting thought...because Iraq is not a war, but just a conflict. I’m not sure why the media insists on referring to it as a war when, in fact, it is not a war.
It’s a good point, but, we are no longer at war with Iraq but with AQ and Iran in Iraq...so there is a war in Iraq.
Thanks for replying!
ARAD
The answer is very simple: confounding strategic clarity serves the interests of the left.
Just as it served the left to segment the WW III (a.k.a the Cold War) into different ‘wars’ (the Korean War, the Vietnam War, . . ) so they could claim disingenuously to favor restraining Communism, while objectively supporting its spread by opposing a particular campaign (misnamed ‘war’), so now it serves the left’s interest to confound the magnificently successful war against the Iraqi Ba’athist regime (which under terms of international law was really part of the Gulf War) and the present action against Al Qaeda. Thus the left, including their media wing, using the strategically fatuous ‘War in Iraq’ to lump the messier counterinsurgency with the wholely successful conventional war the preceeded it to falsely deny President Bush his claim to total victory in the earlier war (cf. their sneers at the “Mission Accomplished” banner).
Really the overthrow of the Ba’athists was clean up of a loose end of a threat to Western strategic interests posed by secular (socialist) Arab nationalism, while what is going on now is not ‘winning the peace’, but a campaign in WW IV, the war between the West and politicized Islam (stupidly named the ‘global war on terror’). The point of the campaign is to establish an allied government in Iraq (which is why, the hopes of Al Qaeda to the contrary, this is not a war between the West and Islam—the allied government will be majority Muslim), which can continue clean up operations against Al Qaeda with minimal help from the US.
Republicans constantly allow Dems to frame the field of debate and choose the rhetoric - except for Gingrich. Until they start challenging such things like you bring up, they will continue to get spun. Both Bushes, and Bob Dole just stared blankly shocked by the audacity - while Dems get by with it. If the Dems were not so void of ideas, they would have trounced the Repubs over the last two decades.
It's is completely dishonest for the Left and the MSM to call the War in Afghanistan the real war on terror and Iraq a mistake. There is no doubt that what happens in Afghanistan has an effect on Iraq and Iraq effects Afghanistan.
I would call the end of WWII in Europe a "mopping up" action, in Iraq, we aren't mopping up from the war against Saddam, we are fighting the same enemy we are facing in Afghanistan. What that really means is that AQ knows they have lost on the Afghanistan front and has refocused their effort in Iraq. I would compare it to the German Loss in Africa and then we moved to Italy and then into France and Belgium. So if today's MSM were to be reporting in 1944 I guess they would say that we had a war in Africa and now we are starting a new war in Italy and then a new war in France, etc.
This semester in my Poli-sci class I had to listen to a bunch of students say how it is a civil war in Iraq, etc. but I always stumped them when I asked then how many times they have heard on the news that some insurgent group has taken credit for some bombing or for engaging the US military that didn't have some kind of AQ connection. So far, no one has claimed any action in Iraq that didn't also claim to be part of AQ.
It’s not a war, now. It’s a reconstruction. But the media apparently can’t spell that.
The liberal press cheers on the jihad with constant propaganda. Its a better issue than something ugly, like, abortion, or gay marriage and they hope to capture the WH with it. The last election did nothing but embolden them to do more. When 30% of the country can't speak English, is it any wonder why this stuff works?
You are right. The “war” (major combat ops.) ended in 2003. The current conflict is “counterinsurgency”, or more correctly, counterterrorism.
Besides, Gulf War I never officially ended in 1991; that was merely a cease-fire, conditional upon Saddam disarming and not killing Kurds & Shi’ites. Saddam broke it, hence hostilities resumed.
The battle of Iraq as far as conventional warfare is concerned commenced in Apr. of '03, and lasted about three weeks. (We won easily, of course). Since then we've been engaged in a combo of a police action and nation building effort. ....a much more difficult enterprise, given the region's instability.
The leftist media far prefers to call what's been happening in Iraq for the past four years a "war" for obvious reasons. If they called it what it was - a police action and/or a nation-building effort - it would make it seem like we're doing something noble (which of course we are). .....obviously not the sort of impression they want to give.
Right now Iran is doing its best to defeat us politically just as Vietnam did. And their allies in Congress are doing an effective job of raising the white flag.
If we were to take a page out of the leftists’ playbook, we’d just abolish terms like “Insurgents” and replace them with more apt ones such as “dead-enders”. Just keep hammering away, ignore the critics, explain clearly why the new term is better, and continue using it until it gains critical mass and sticks. Rush has been awesome with “Drive-by Media”. It’s a start, it’s quite a feat to try to catch up, but the left has been doing it incrementally, for over 50 years.
Likewise, “Iraq War” becomes “Iraq Reconstruction”.
Anti-war Americans become “Appeaseniks”.
Sharpton and Jesse Jackson become “race-baiters”.
“liberal democrats” becomes “socialist democrats”.
“Economic liberal” becomes “Tax-and-Spend Statist”.
“Social liberal” becomes “Nanny-Statist”.
Actually, the Republicans should have--while they were in power--made it clear that it is a bona fide war, with bona fide enemies. Those who give such people aid and comfort could thus be recognized as directed by the Constitution.
“Why use the phrase, “War in Iraq?????????????????”
Well...”Peace in Iraq” seemed kind of silly what with all the explosions and dead people everywhere.
I think they call it the War in Iraq to detract from the real war which is the Global War on Terror.
If 50 times a many Americans died in the rebellion in Vermont as in the War for Independence, it would still be the War for Independence.
Bush and Rumsfeld early on started calling it the WOT and the War in Iraq. Drove me freak’n nuts.
Very few or even no US soldiers got killed in Germany post WWII - by insurgents, or former military or "werewolves".
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