Posted on 06/22/2014 10:01:37 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Like fellow veterans of the Iraq war, Ive watched the events of recent weeks with a combination of anger, helplessness, and disillusionment. So many gains reversed and so many lives lost and for what? The American lives given heroically in Iraq were not in vain, but a legacy is a terrible thing to waste just ask Vietnam veterans.
The implications of radical Islamists capturing large and significant swaths of Iraq and threatening Baghdad are so much greater than any soldier, unit, deployment, or decision. Iraq veterans are wringing our hands over events, but we did all we could against long odds abroad and at home.
After 9/11, the nation was not properly girded for long, difficult, and messy wars. The premise of the Iraq war has always been murky and contested; the post-invasion period was terribly managed; and the military leadership was slow to adapt to a mounting insurgency. The deck was always stacked against us, and weve all learned countless hard-won lessons from Iraq which Ive written about for years in these pages.
But was the mission in Iraq doomed from the beginning? Of course not. The surge of 20072008 answered that question turning a hopeless situation into a beacon of possibility. Violence was abated, sectarian reconciliation was occurring, and politics was replacing street fighting. The gains of the surge, as General Petraeus said, were significant, but fragile and reversible.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
I agree, I trust Dick Cheney. I think he’s a straight shooter. He says zer0 blew it.
Nobody here cares what you think boy.
Exactly. In and out. The public doesn’t have the stomach for much else...and frankly neither do I.
If the pols aren’t willing to officially declare war, it’s not worth risking the lives of our military. A state of war means they’re soldiers; a police action, as we’ve learned from history, means they’re political pawns.
And cannon fodder.
If we aren’t willing to wage total war, we shouldn’t bother beyond an occasional well aimed airstrike.
In WWII we defeated our enemies to the point where the populations had no will to continue to fight. We could release POWs without fear because they were returning to a population that wasn’t going to help them continue the fight. There were some who wanted to continue to fight a guerrilla war against the allies after the German surrender but it failed because the German people wanted no part of it.
Neither Germany nor Japan has ever been a problem for us since.
Wow. Normally one must go to a playground or an Occupy camp to get that level of erudition.
I'm going to steal that one. It's so ... third grade-y.
bkmk
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