First off, "every single" is a ridiculous overstatement.
Second, maybe these complaints over "how many troops" and "how many billions of dollars" would start to carry some weight if our losses thus far were more than a blip by historical standards, and if our country were starting to show at least some signs of being at least somewhat impoverished by the effort. You know, if the sales of Nintendo Wii's were slowing down or something.
Till/unless that day comes, these are weirdly melodramatic complaints.
Will we have hundreds of thousands of troops perpetually stationed in the heart of Arabia, drawing interference and distracting the terrorists?
I don't know about "perpetually", but let's say, for the sake of argument, that I declare the answer to be:
"Yes, until further notice."
Now, tell me, what's your problem with that, exactly? Why, specifically, would that bother you?
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?
Good question. But notice, if that happened, we could, and would draw down the Iraq presence. You can worry about a perpetual Iraq presence or you can worry about terrorists ceasing to focus on Iraq, but not both, because the latter would negate the necessity for the former.
There will never come a point at which we can declare victory in Iraq.
You are right. That is because, contrary to what most people seem to think, it is not really a "war" per se. The war was fought, and won, in 2003. What we have is a reconstruction and counterinsurgency, which takes longer, and which comes with no clear-cut "victory" per se. Ok?
The only real question is, are Americans tough enough to stick it out? The bizarre thing is, it's NOT AFFECTING the vast majority of Americans AT ALL, and yet the answer STILL might be "no". Which I don't get at all.
I can take complaints from people who are ACTUALLY AFFECTED by a thing. But 95% of what we hear are complaints from people whose precious, pampered, spoiled-brat lives haven't been TOUCHED at all by the Iraq endeavor. Is it really too much for me to ask those people to kindly shut the hell up? I suppose it is, but a guy can dream....
I don't actually agree with FOF about the war 100%--I happen to think it's a winnable war, if only we'd the national will to fight it--but just out of curiosity, Dr. Frank, is your life affected by space travel? Is your life affected by troops stationed in Haiti? Is your life affected by deep-sea ocean mining? Is your life affected by internet data-mining? Is your life affected by illegals who live in east Texas? Ever have an inkling you might want to someday address those issues around here?
The reason I ask is that logic like yours is EXACTLY the same as 'men can't have abortions so they shouldn't get to pass or even vote on laws about it.' So you've proven yourself the philosophical equivalent of Molly Yard. Congratulations! In keeping with your policy, I hereby limit those who can publicly address the republic's national issues of the day to people who understand freedom, and particularly, freedom of speech--so now YOU can kindly shut the hell up.
It is futile. It's a bit like stationing your hand in the middle of a swarm of bees.
You don't combat terrorism with an occupation. Putting hundreds of thousands of troops in the middle of the Islamic world doesn't lessen the threat of Islamic terrorism. It increases it. We are now a larger target than we were before 9/11.