Got to agree. For sheer political selfishness these guys publicly state that Iraq is a failure. Is Iraq now facing hard times? Yes, so let's stop being PC and either do what needs to be done or GET OUT! Enough of this nonsense of ignoring the 800 lb gorillas in the room (Syria and Iran). The better question is, "Do we have the national will to persevere and win?"
I think we have the will to KILL the enemy and win - but not the will for the nation building going on now.
Rebuilding Iraq should happen AFTER we have won, it should not be a strategy to "win hearts and minds". But, what do I know?
, "Do we have the national will to persevere and win?"
Yeah right. Once we declare a War on Islam which could lead to World War III alot of people would want to find another way. But what other choice do we have. To win means taking care of Pakistan, the Saudi's and the Persians. Remember these terrorist are not just in the Middle East. ALot of Europe will have to be cleaned out as well.
The answer to that is a resounding NO. We haven't had the will to persevere and win a war since 1945.
Because of political pressure from Americans who were tired of reading or hearing about casualty reports we settled for a cease fire in Korea that left North Korea still entirely in communist hands and still a threat to South Korea after 3 years of war and almost 54,000 American dead. We pulled out of Vietnam because of public pressure after 9 years and 58,000 American dead plus 300,000 wounded. We can celebrate and hi-five each other when we slap down a tiny nation like Granada or Panama in a couple of days while sustaining only a handful of casualties. But the generations following the WWII generation simply haven't had and still don't have the stomach or the will to endure and win a long war of attrition and heavy casualties such as WWII was.
Here are a few stats that may give some perspective to the Iraq casualty figures. Approximately 700 MORE Americans are killed EVERY MONTH in traffic accidents here at home than have been killed in Iraq since day one of the invasion. Over 1/2 as many American servicemen were killed on D-Day alone as have died in Iraq since the invasion began. Almost 5 times as many French civilians were killed by Allied bombs, shells, and bullets in the D-Day invasion than Americans who have died in Iraq from the beginning of the war. The combined casualties sustained by the French and German armies during the WWI battle for Verdun ALONE totalled almost 1,000,000 men.
And now the majority of Americans are anxious to cut and run and declare victory after 2800 American deaths from all causes when everyone on the planet knows that most of Iraq is still in chaos, that it's government is still weak, incompetent, and dangerously divided by religious sectarianism, and that the Iraqi people will be totally engulfed in a vicious, bloody, civil/religious war the same day our troops leave. And what then will we have gained by the deaths of American servicemen and women when we bug out of Iraq? Since the Shiite PM Maliki and the Shiite cleric Al Sadr are already making overtures to predominantly Shiite Iran, I will not be surprised if the Iraqi government is officially allied with Iran and possibly Syria within months or even weeks after our departure.
Small wonder that we have so much trouble winning the hearts and minds of the ordinary people in every place where we try to install a democratic government. They all know by now that after a certain number of American casualties are incurred we will pull out and leave them to the tender mercies of the same kind of murderous tyrants, or worse, that we came in to rid them of in the first place. Maybe it would be better if in the future we just refrained from attempting to help oppressed people or from deposing hostile dictators since we obviously don't have the stomach to follow through when our people begin to die in that attempt.