Posted on 12/16/2011 10:03:18 AM PST by Kaslin
For the Army and Marines who lost 4,500 dead and more than 30,000 wounded, many of them amputees, the second-longest war in U.S. history is over. America is coming home from Iraq.
On May 1, 2003, on the carrier Abraham Lincoln, the huge banner behind President George W. Bush proclaimed, "Mission Accomplished!"
That was eight years ago. And so, was the mission accomplished?
Two-thirds of all Americans have concluded the war was not worth it.
And reading the description of Iraq from the editorial page of the pro-war Washington Post, who can answer yes?
"Al-Qaida continues to carry out terrorist attacks. Iranian-sponsored militias still operate, and a power struggle between Kurdish-ruled northern Iraq and Mr. Maliki's government goes on. More Iraqis worry that, after the U.S. troops depart this month, the sectarian bloodletting that ravaged the country between 2002 and 2007 will resume."
And not all the Americans are really coming home.
Some 16,000 will remain in the huge fortress that houses the U.S. embassy and in fortified consulates in Basra, Irbil and Kirkuk. All four sites will be self-sufficient, so U.S. personnel can stay clear of what The Wall Street Journal calls "the perilous security situation on Iraq's city streets."
In each diplomatic post, the State Department employees will be outnumbered by private security contractors, 5,000 of whom will provide for their protection and secure travel.
U.S. Ambassador James Jeffrey warns of the dangers that await U.S. diplomats who venture outside the compounds: "If we move out into the Iraqi economy, out into the Iraqi society in any significant way, it will be much harder to protect our people."
NBC reported this week that two five-vehicle convoys loaded with Blackwater security types were necessary to escort two U.S. teachers to a meeting in a Bagdad hotel.
What kind of victory did we win if, eight years after we ousted Saddam Hussein and helped install a democratic government, Americans in Iraq should fear for their lives?
Did we win the "hearts and minds" of the Iraqi people when they are burning American flags in Fallujah to celebrate our departure? Why was no parade held, so Iraqis could cheer departing Americans for having liberated them from the tyranny of Saddam?
What did we accomplish if hatred of America is so widespread our diplomats live in constant peril?
Neooconservative Fred Kagan writes that people who think all will be well after America leaves believe in a mirage.
The Obama administration lacks a vision and a strategy, and the regime in Baghdad lacks the assured capability of securing U.S. "core interests" in Iraq, he writes. Among these are ensuring that the state does not collapse, that civil war does not break out, that Iranian influence does not surge, that al-Qaida or Iranian militias do not establish sanctuaries.
Moreover, writes Kagan, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is "unwinding the multi-ethnic cross-sectarian Iraqi political settlement."
To Kagan, an enthusiast of the war, everything vital that we won in almost nine years of fighting is at risk.
But if we have no assurance that the disasters he lists will not occur, perhaps within months of our departure, what kind of victory is this?
What did we accomplish with a war whose costs in blood, Iraqi as well as American, and treasure were so high?
"We are leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people," President Obama told the troops at Fort Bragg.
Are we?
The Kurds are cutting deals with U.S. oil companies that Baghdad refuses to recognize, seeking to incorporate Kirkuk, and edging toward independence, which would cross a red line not only in Baghdad but Ankara.
Muslim pogroms have uprooted half the Christians, and half of these Christians have fled the country, many to Syria.
Maliki is moving against the Sunni Awakening warriors whom Gen. David Petraeus persuaded to fight al-Qaida in return for their being brought into the army.
The Sunnis sees themselves as dispossessed and marginalized in a country they have historically dominated. Al-Qaida continues to launch terror attacks on civilians to reignite sectarian war. And as the Americans head down the highway to Kuwait, Iran works to displace America as the dominant foreign influence in Baghdad.
That we were deceived into believing Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction ready to use, and that he was the man behind 9/11 -- that we were lied into war -- is established fact.
But, equally astonishing, though Bush & Co. planned this war from Sept. 11, 2001, if not before, no one seems to have thought it through before launching it. For as John McCain said yesterday, as of 2007, "the war was nearly lost."
Yet the disaster that may still befall us in Iraq has not in the least inhibited the war hawks who, even now, are advancing identical arguments for a new war, on Iran, a country three times the size of Iraq.
Pat can go ritually wash his feet and put his ass in the air five times a day.
I have to say, at the time I supported the war, and certainly once you’re in you have to be in to win it.
But I did not anticipate the level of treachery of the democrats, who, after voting to go to war, saw the political opportunity to exploit it and created the “bush lied us into war” meme. A direct result of this effort was a Democratic congress in 2006, economic meltdown, a radical as president and the inevitable currency collapse from debt.
In theater, we have Iraq now nearly certainly to become a client state of Iran.
To answer the question posed in the title: Given the price we’ve paid in blood, treasure, and political consequences at home & abroad, I would have to say “no”.
The whole enterprise has led me to reject the notion of America as world policeman. We need IMHO to return to the principles of non-intervention laid out by Wahington in the Farewell Address and the consistent policy of the USA until the 20th Century.
No.
The personnel at the embassy, Basra and Kirkuk are sitting ducks.
The actual war on terrorism ( which is what it was an not the war on Iraq) start decades before.
We (Carter/Clinton mostly) decided to ignore it or down play it or treat it as a criminal act rather than an act of war.
Meanwhile the terrorist got bolder and bolder.
A war would have happened no matter because we could not allow the terrorist to keep picking away at us in mini-terrorist attacks like the USS Cole etc.
I am in the 1/3 catagory that believe the war in Iraq was part of the overall war against terrorism...If people think the threat is over because we are pulling out of Iraq or the ME in gemeral they are insane in my not so humble oppinion.
That is not the history of the religion of pieces.
Pat Buchanan is a jackass.
“On the carrier Abraham Lincoln, the huge banner behind President George W. Bush proclaimed, “Mission Accomplished!”
That was a huge propaganda opportunity for the left wing press, but Pat should certainly know better. The Abraham Lincoln was returning to the U.S. from a tour of duty, and that banner was celebrating that fact. The Abraham Lincoln’s mission was accomplished—until the next tour of duty. It never occurred to Bush or anyone else how that banner would be misused.
That having been said, I also think that you should never fight a war unless you intend to win it. The Democrats constantly sabotaged the war in Iraq, Bush got distracted, and in the end is is arguable that we should have pulled out years ago, after we ceased to have any interest in winning it. At the moment, all we are doing is subsidizing various groups of Muslims, most of which hate us.
He has set the wheels in motion for a war that will not end well for the Muslims or anyone else for that matter.
Mel
If I were active duty military I would have to question a Commander in Chief who was consistent in his opposition to the
war in Iraq. Right up to the point where he found it politically expedient to use ending the war when he chose to do so —just exactly was the mission ever anything other than some mere politician using the men and women in uniform to simply advance their status as President. Bush to prove we would not back down— Obummer to prove we will not finish any war decisively but will quit job undone.What was the Mission?This President still refuses to say Mission accomplished.All he said is we are done. Tossing away our
objectives and our Military like used toilet paper.
We never really defined what we were fighting for or against. Terror is too amorphous a thing to fight.
It was all about religious freedom and any groups or regime that make violence against people based on belief their policy should have been recognized as terroist and opposed.
Way back, when we deposed the Taliban in Afghanistan, the new democratically elected government prosecuted a man for the capital crime of converting from Islam to Christianity. This was evidence that we had let the terrorists take charge again.
Think about it, the 911 terrorists wanted to kill infidels, and most of them came from Saudi Arabia. The same Saudi Arabia where the government makes it a capital offense for a Christian to tell a Muslim about Jesus. The same Saudi Arabia where schoolchildren are taught to chant “Death to the Jews”,”Death to America” “Death to Israel”
Not to pick on the Saudi’s, North Korea, China and most Islamic countries have self identified as terrorist by this criteria. While the nations may have formed alliances with us, they are terrorist.
Religious oppression is the heart of terrorism and our failure to forcefully identify all organized religious oppression and prosecute the war against terror on that basis spelled disaster for our effort.
We should have required target governments to enact and enforce policies conducive to religious freedoms like making it a crime to kill missionaries. If you force countries to enforce freedom of religion then you have moved that government from the terrorist column to the list of civilized nations.
It was this pursuit of the freedom of religion that more than any other idea brought about the founding of this nation. We forget that at our peril.
I read an article recently that described Afghanistan as "strategic, due to its location" From someone at Foreign Affairs, I believe. I laughed. I realized - if that barren, rocky, primitive, @sshole-of-the-world country is "strategic" - then as far as the policy wonks are concerned, we could literally have to have wars everywhere and anywhere.
Fast forward 56 years to September 11th, 2001: an amorphous but equally death-crazed enemy attacks the American homeland and kills 3000+ innocent victims in the name of their bloodthirsty 'religion'. We know who the perpetrators were and where their base of operations was. At the same time, we possessed (and still do) thousands of nuclear weapons, some of which with explosive power orders of magnitude greater than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet the Islamonazi beasts that committed the 9/11 atrocity felt no fear that America was going to use those weapons in retaliation. The question is ... why didn't they feel that fear?
We all know the answer to that: Cultural Marxism, a.k.a. Political Correctness. We worry more about what the 'rest of the world' 'feels' about us rather than defending our own interests and defeating enemies. The proper response to 9/11, IMO, was articulated by Ann Coulter 2 days after 9/11: Invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity. Many fewer American lives would have been lost had we gone that route and backed it up with the threat of nuclear annihilation if they didn't capitulate. Yeah, the Russians and the Chinese may have publicly squawked, but behind the scenes they would have cheered us on.
But, alas, the Cultural Marxists prevailed, and instead of being cut down to size, Islam was declared a 'religion of peace', and 10 years on, is actually advancing its agenda in America and the rest of Western civilization. If we ever really want to end these 'endless' wars, we really need to understand that it is a clash of civilizations between an advanced culture (ours) and barbarism (the Islamonazis). To that end, we really need to get rid of the Cultural Marxist element in our society. Otherwise, we're doomed to the same fate as the Europeans, as our culture declines into a demographic twilight as we will no longer have the means or the inclination to defend it.
In other words, we turned Iraq over to Iran, which is who we were actually fighting.
It was better when Iraq was fighting Iran.
The banner was indeed referred to the carrier’s accomplished mission, or better said, the crew, officers and the men and women of the USS Abraham Lincoln
“That having been said, I also think that you should never fight a war unless you intend to win it. The Democrats constantly sabotaged the war in Iraq, Bush got distracted”
Keep making excuses for Dubya. It only further highlights his pitiful Presidency even more. He and Rummy the dummy wanted a war done on the cheap. They got one along with all its attendant consequences.
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