However, trying to "convert" the country to a democratically elected representative republic is heart stopping stupid.
"When did everyone decide to agree that the war in Iraq was a mistake? '
For me, the dawn came when it became apparent there were no WMDs to speak of. The ongoing civil war just nailed down the realization that invading Iraq without conquering it was a mistake.
very good ...my thoughts exactly
This is a disingenuous argument, and completely unsupported by any facts. Having U.S. military personnel in a foreign country does nothing to prevent terrorist attacks here in the U.S. The lack of any major attack here in the U.S. since 9/11 -- if there is even anything meaningful in a 5+ year period with no major terrorist attacks in the U.S. -- is primarily attributable to domestic anti-terror measures that were put in place after 9/11.
Militants from Syria and Iran are streaming into Iraq and that's a pity, but it's especially a pity for them as they would much rather stream into the United States.
See my point above. Nothing prevents "militants" from Syria and Iran from streaming into the U.S. today -- especially if they learn a few Spanish phrases and stream into this country across our southern border.
Is it a "mistake" because four years after the fall of the Ba'ath regime, we don't have a peaceful Iraq?
Well, yes -- sort of. For most of the people you've cited, they consider it a mistake because they were delusional enough to believe in 2002 that Iraq was even capable of being a peaceful, stable country. In this sense, they were completely misled by a number of officials in and out of government who predicted that establishing peace and stability in Iraq would be easy.
Did anyone anywhere think we were going to do that in four years? Did anyone think that the various powers that be (or would be) in the Middle East would take it lying down?
Yes. See my point above.
We are not in Iraq to avenge ourselves for September 11th, or to find Osama bin Laden, or to save the world from WMD, and we never were. We are there to begin the changing of the Middle East.
This kind of utopian, delusional, Wilsonian nonsense was utterly repudiated in 1917-18.
Fighting muzzies over there is much preferred to fighting muzzies here. It has the added benefit of keeping the Persians in Iran all worried and bothered. Unfortunately it's not where we usually prefer to fight our major wars, France.
There are two causes of peace; the peace that comes through capitulation and the peace that comes after a war that destroys your attacker. World War Two gave us the former; will the Lefties give us the latter?
It is tough-sounding rhetoric, but does it really make sense to "take the fight to them?" How many troops and how many billions of dollars and how many decades do you think it might take to kill every single Islamic extremist? Will we have hundreds of thousands of troops perpetually stationed in the heart of Arabia, drawing interference and distracting the terrorists? How long before the terrorists get smart, grow bored of blowing up our soldiers in Iraq, and return to blowing up our civilians in skyscrapers?
There will never come a point at which we can declare victory in Iraq. For every terrorist we kill in Iraq two more are born and another migrates from Pakistan to join the carnage.
"I wish we had enforced the no-fly-zones and sanctions until enough US pilots had been killed and Saddam had acquired enough conventional and unconventional weapons that he could have attacked our forces in the Gulf instead."
That's what it would of looked like if we hadn't fought then--we would have fought later and not on our own terms!
Of course I note that all the 'cut and runners' are baby-boomers for whom every war is Vietnam and every president is Nixon. Fair weather patriots....
It's just the Baker people starting to make noise again. They've always been around, they've just been marginalized because they are stupid. Now that the goings are tough, they are making noise again.
If things start going well, they'll shut up again.
However, trying to "convert" the country to a democratically elected representative republic is heart stopping stupid.
This is a carefully crafted use of language to spotlight your concerns about the newest sentiments of some suspect talking heads. They do not speak for me--you do.
Nicely done.
BravoZulu... perfect lady.Nicely done. I am reminded of P.J. O'Rourke's book with the title "Give War a Chance". Some of his arguments for war as part of foreign policy mirror some of what you have stated in a clear, pithy manner.
You are my heroine! An essay sweet with truth.
I was and am in favor of the war.
I did not agree with the favored published reason for this part of the war. “Weapons of mass destruction” and “War on terrorism” are great catch phrases and have mass appeal. The reasons I would have stressed was Iraq’s failure to abide by the terms of the cease-fire.
I do not agree with how the war was waged and do not agree with what we are currently doing. If used properly, the planned “surge” will help.
The war conducted from 19 March through 9 April was executed magnificently, with two glaring mistakes as I see it. We did not take into account the culture of the Iraqi People. We ignored Iraqi military formations not involved in the combat or that we had overrun.
Iraqi is a tribal culture. The “Big Man”, the baddest dude in the country is the boss. Saddam was the baddest, most ruthless of the tribal leaders. We assumed that because we want democracy everyone in the world wants democracy. There are a lot of Iraqis who don’t want democracy. Those Iraqi formations that we ignored were simply told to go home. We didn’t even make an effort to disarm them. They became a ready pool of armed and trained recruits for every religious and political militia.
Our answer to the growing insurgency was to go on the defensive. We tried to handle it like cops, not soldiers. We became reactive, not proactive. Training a new Iraqi police and military force helped, but it is no quick solution - again, their culture has to be overcome. Loyalties are to family, sept, clan and tribe. There is no real feeling of nationhood. Iraqis also take their religion far more seriously than we do. I can not imagine widespread armed conflict between Methodists and Baptists.
If the new “surge” is to be successful it has to be offensive. We can not afford to fight a war while doing nothing that an Iraqi may find offensive. We have to be the new “Big Man” on the block. We will be respected by Iraqi militants when they learn to fear us.
"We can crush the enemy, run from the enemy, or try to change the enemy. President Bush is trying to change the enemy. It's as valid an approach as the other two alternatives."
I don't think that the national consensus was ever established to 'change the enemy.' It was to stop Saddam from making and using WMDs on us, or arming terrorists to do so as his proxies. Here Bush has utterly failed, and it seems to be because he did not plan for Russian, Syrian or Iranian intervention aiding the movement of WMDs outside Iraqi territory. To admit 'mistakes were made' is not correcting them, especially when the major mistake that was made was assuming American projection of power alone was enough to cow those who prefer their own regional hegemony. To ask for 20,000 troops compounds that mistake--he should have asked for 100,000, or 200,000, asked for national service, to solve the problem of America's inability to awe these guerrillas and make them fear incursions into their own territory. Bush should be rattling sabers, and instead, he's clinking a butter knife. And across America, we're going to the mall this weekend. Good thing we're fighting that war on the home front, too.
These guys would have bailed out after Normandy, Battle of the Bulge, etc. and we would now all be speaking German, save for Stein and Krauthammer, they'd have long been sent to gas chambers.
The problem is that we are not fighting them.
After first kicking some serious butt, we have spent the next four years worrying about if American soldiers put 20 bullet holes in a mosque during a firefight or if dropping a JDAM on Muqtada al-Sadr's head might cost Prime Minister al-Maliki some radical Shiite votes.
If you are going to fight a war, you need to fight a war and stop playing foolish games with American lives.
Bush has failed by trying to please everybody, by not articulating the strategic imperatives of securing the Persian Gulf's stability and, most importantly, by fighting a war with Politically Correct rules of engagement.
In the end, that has given the Democrats and the liberal news media four years of time to marinate the U.S. electorate in their defeatist propaganda and it has allowed the Democrats to gain the power of the control of Congress. The Democrats will now use that power to force a bug out, to hand Iraq over to the radical factions, to leave the Persian Gulf is a very dangerous strategic situation and to reinforce Osama bin Laden's boast that America can't tolerate casualties thereby encouraging future terrorist activity.
America, as George C. Scott said in "Patton", loves a winner and America just LOOOOVES to see America kicking ass during "Shock and Awe" wars. Most of America loves that better than the Super Bowl.
America, however, quickly loses patience in figthing wars where the focus shifts from winning decisively to trying not to lose, trying to respect the mosques that Islamist fanatics don't respect themselves and trying to count how many radical Shiite votes a cowardly Iraqi Prime Minister will lose if the U.S. terminates people like Muqtada al-Sadr with extreme prejudice.
Cindy Sheehan's brave son died fighting al Sadr's thugs.
Years later, his mother has undermined the war effort and Muqtada al-Sadr is still alive.
You can't expect America to tolerate such a situation indefinitely.