Posted on 12/06/2006 7:25:53 AM PST by presidio9
Popular consensus has it that we are losing the war in Iraq. Robert Gates, the White House nominee to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, stated on Tuesday that the United States was categorically not winning in Iraq. "What we are now doing is not satisfactory," Gates said. Popular consensus also has it that we are losing the war in Afghanistan. "[B]ecause of the Bush administration's inattention and mismanagement," wrote The New York Times editorial board on Tuesday, "even the good war is going wrong."
America has not "won" a major "hot" war since World War II. The Gulf War cannot be considered a full-fledged victory; it returned the situation in the Middle East to the status quo. The aggressor in that war, Saddam Hussein, would remain in power for another dozen years. The Vietnam War was surely a devastating loss. The Korean War ended in stalemate; North Korea, the aggressor in that war, remains militant and dangerous 50 years later.
It has been six decades since we emerged fully victorious from a major "hot" war. This is because the very definition of war has changed. Each modern war is now more of a battle than a war. Tearing out the enemy's motivating ideology by the roots is no longer a nation-centric task. Nazism was located in Germany and Shintoism in Japan. We could defeat both countries and win the war. Fundamentalist Islam, however, spans the globe. Even if we disestablish fundamentalist Islam in Afghanistan and Iraq, we still have not won the war. Afghanistan and Iraq are the equivalents of Okinawa and Utah Beach. Super-national ideologies mean that war is not a local affair, but a global one.
So how do we win a global war? We won the Cold War by waiting out our communist opponents. We could lose the war in Vietnam and still win the broader Cold War. We could stalemate in Korea without losing the fight against communism. Communist ideology was bankrupt, and if we denied them resources (as we did by funding anti-communist forces around the globe and rolling back communism under President Reagan), we would be successful in the long run.
That strategy will not work with fundamentalist Islam. Fundamentalist Islam is not an ideology that will crumble from within. It demands total religious obeisance of its practitioners, regardless of material hardships incurred. And anything but total replacement of fundamentalist Islam by another, friendlier ideology is seen as a victory by the fundamentalists. The Gulf War was not merely a victory squandered; it was a defeat. Denying Iraq oil may have hurt Saddam Hussein, but failing to depose Hussein hurt Western credibility and emboldened Muslims the world over.
Even were fundamentalist Islam internally unsustainable, we could not wait them out. The demographics are not in our favor. As time goes on, there will be more fundamentalist Muslims and fewer liberal Westerners to carry on the fight. Stalemate in Korea and prolonged fighting in Vietnam hurt the cause of communism. Stalemate in Iraq and Afghanistan favors our enemies, who can simply wait (SET ITAL) us (END ITAL) out.
There was one Cold War tactic, however, that remains useful today: suspicion of our enemies. Winning the Cold War relied on anti-infiltration strategy, particularly in Western Europe. Unfortunately, western civilization seems unwilling to acknowledge the growing fifth column in its midst, specifically because recognizing the growing threat would seem "racist." This is a recipe for disaster. If fundamentalist Islam relies on demographics to achieve its ends, ignoring the growing demographic threat in Europe is a crucial error. If fundamentalist Islam relies on proselytizing to spread its views, ignoring that proselytizing in the United States is an unforgivable mistake.
Will America ever win another war? Only if we combine our Cold War vigilance with our World War II ruthlessness. We cannot afford to lose in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and a stalemate is a loss. We cannot ignore demographic trends in the name of multiculturalism -- diversity will only survive in countries that can resist the long-term onslaught of fundamentalist Islam. This will be a long, hard slog, as former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld put it. In today's world, true victory always is.
Here's where things get sticky, though: in terms of "winning" the war, can you really separate the nation building from the fighting? Will we have "won" if Iraq ends up being as -- or more -- dangerous than when Saddam was in power?
"Winning" in Iraq has to be defined in terms of what happens after we're gone -- a stable, non-agressive Iraq, for example.
Then again, Iraq isn't really "the war," at all. It's just a theatre of the war. The main event has more to do with Islamic totalitarianism ... a fuzzy, ill-defined mess. It's not certain that there's any real head to it ... though Iran certainly seems to be trying to take a leadership position.
Why waste my time on stupid questions?
We also didn't ONLY lose a couple of major office building landmarks...we lost a good part of the nation's Pacific Fleet.
A bit of a difference IMO.
No, we will win battles but not wars. In order to win complete victory you must hang the guilty. We will not, and Saddam still draws breath to this day.
I wonder how Hitler's trial would have gone?
Let's blame it all on the demoncrats. Please!
ok, if you don't want to win the war by killing people and breaking things, you should openly suggest 'loving the enemy to death.' At least people will understand where you stand concerning winning the war. Fine by me, just wanted to know where you stood.
Without a doubt, PC is an inherent part and must be defeated by common sense. As reagan_fanatic stated, it may take a calamity for us to realize what we need to do. Let's hope not.
What a baloney-headed writer!!
We won this war. The problem has always been that the Administration, in duplicity with the mainstream media, is still set in the old-school 20th Century definition of a WIN.
The Iraqi terror-insurgents are defeated to the point all they can do is set off roadside bombs, or IED's, or take a few pot shot mortar rounds here and there.
The PROBLEM is, and this is the HUGE problem, is that whenever a suicide bomber does his or her thing, the media (and the Bush Admin) drops into the "we are losing" mode.
You can NEVER stop all terror suicide bombers 100-percent, in any Muslim country, because around 20-percent of the populations are always radical nutjobs.
The only thing we can do is lessen the number of attacks.
When? Well the next time we are deeply affected by 15,000,000 in armed forces [in today's population, maybe 20,000,000], Rosie the Riveter leaves the office for war production (if she can manage to import the material], rationing, air raid drills, blackouts, and bond drives to raise war funds. In other words when everyone is involved in effort to win.
Would the price of winning be acceptable today? Look at the popularity of a draft and tax cuts.
Winning a war requires more than advocacy from keyboard commandos.
You can't have missed out on that fact that this statement is a logical train wreck....
You just need to come up with a definition that fits your needs. I used to think that a war had been won when your opponent's government was overthrown. I expect that many years from now historians will refer to Iraq as both "America's shortest and longest war." Hey, I should trademark that, it might catch on: "America's shortest and longest warTM"
Rush was misquoting something that G. Gordon Liddy said YEARS ago... "The purpose of an army is to break things and kill people."
The purpose of war is for a country to eliminate a threat to itself and/or its citizenry. One of the reasons that much of our country is so weak is because we haven't faced annihilation in over half a century. Sheeple aren't students of history; they forget that evil exists today just as surely as it did when Hitler rolled across Europe. Add to that the near-inability of liberals (and many self-described "moderates") to accept reality, let alone decipher and act upon it, and you have the problem we have today.
Liberalism is the social cancer of our age. Through ignorance and weakness, it is killing America a little bit more every day, and someday the bill will be due. When it does... in the form of Chinese agression, a nuclear detonation in one of our cities, or a third European conflict... who will be the first to stand in defense of the United States of America? Not those who caused the problem in the first place, that's for sure.
Bush, like his father, is ultimately weak, and so is the majority of the Republican House. I wish they would stop being part of the problem and get the hell out of the way.
One white nuclear flash in Mecca would solve the problem. Muslims respect nothing but strength. If we made the rock gone and Allah couldn't stop us, it would be the beginning of the end of Islam. It's a tumor and we are just fighting the symptoms.
Not if the Democrats have anything to do with it. They are the cowards of America.
They want everything yesterday and are not willing to put in the effort to win.
Sigh. See, I knew that you did not understand the distinction between the methods of war and the purposes of war. You still don't -- and so it leads you to asking stupid questions, and building silly strawmen.
Seriously, think about the difference for a while, and come back when you're ready to discuss like a responsible adult.
No, it's not. Toleration and freedom of religion doesn't mean they have to be elected to our governing bodies. Membership of a religion that 1) lies to those who are not members and 2) seeks to subvert the Constitution and laws of this country should not be trusted when they take an oath to support and defend the Constitution.
Not with the dinosaur media composed almost completely of liars and traitors.
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