I am starting to think going to Iraq was a mistake

MMI | 4/30/04 | MDP

[Check_Your_Premises]

As an avid supporter of the President's Iraq policies, the last few days have been difficult for me. The number of casualties seemed to reach a "critical mass" for me. I found myself simply not caring to sacrifice anymore of our brave soldiers for Iraqi independence and democracy. Screw 'em.

I was not sure why I began to feel this way. As I said I am an avid supporter of the plan to bring an oasis of freedom and liberty to the 12th century toilet that is the middle east. It seemed to me that if we are to end terrorism we have to destroy the sources, which are the failed states and ideology of that region.

Why not? We have succeeded at such things in the past. We transformed post war Germany and Japan into thriving and peaceful democracies. Unfortunately, we have also failed at such things in the past. Of course, I am speaking of the war that Teddy Kennedy's brother got us into.

The one problem I had with liberating Iraq from Saddam's clutches is that we were removing one of the most important steps to the forming of a successful democracy. The successful overthrow of tyranny is a process that produces the type of leaders that are required to bring the successful transition from tyranny to liberal democracy. By liberating Iraq, for the Iraqis we were not allowing their "Founding Fathers" to become. It is of course worth noting that such leaders may never have been produced.

It seems to me now that the war in Iraq suffers from the same fatal flaw as the war in Vietnam. I may be speculating here, but it seems we simply cared more than the South Vietnamese, that their nation remain free. No American should be expected to die defending the home of another not willing to do the same. In the same sense we seem to care more about the freedom of the Iraqi people than they do themselves. This is why I don't really care anymore. If they truly cared or understood their fate, they would be dying ten to our one. And in that case I think the American people would support them steadfastly. God knows I would.

So what was different about our success stories, Japan and Germany. Well we basically bombed the entire nation back into the stone age. I think their civilians were probably so glad that we weren't going to execute our own "final solution" to the "Japanese and German question", that they were willing to do whatever we said. It is also worth noting that in annhilating their armies we effectively removed any person who would be opposed to our efforts. As George Will put it recently, they "knew they were defeated".

So the question is if:
1) we care more about the freedom of the Iraqi people than they do (something we could only have known in hindsight), and
2)we are not willing to wage total war until all opposition is removed,

than how can we possibly win there?

Well I think you see where I am getting at. General Sherman would probably agree with me. However since we do not have the will to fight this way, it is clear that we cannot win until that fact changes. What could bring such a change of will about? Unfortunately, I think we are victims of our own success in preventing further terrorist attacks. Until every man, woman, child, and leftist acutely feels that they are in grave danger of death at the hands of these murderers, America will not be ready to do what she must to win this war.

Until we are ready, maybe we should hold off on any further "imperialist" adventures in the world's excretory regions.

Semper Fidelis

MDP

[Alberta's Child]

The problem with your analysis is that this is not an "insurgency" we are facing in Iraq.

I would also point out that some of the insurgencies you mentioned that were won by the "government" were Iraqi insurrections that were put down by Saddam Hussein himself. Do you consider these cases to be good examples of "success?"

[Dane]

For anyone here who has seen the movie "Last of the Mohicans," I consider myself very similar to the character Hawkeye -- the one who best personified the American spirit. I'll expand on that if anyone is interested.

JMO, the person most interested in doing that is yourself.

[fr_freak]

You must have more reasons to doubt our going into Iraq than what you've listed, becasue your sole reason - that we are not sufficiently committed to bringing democracy into Iraq (and the Iraqis are not committed at all) is completely illogical.

Your concern would be valid if our sole justification for going into Iraq were to bring democracy, but that wasn't even high on the list. Our main reason for going in was the threat Saddam and his terrorist-supporting regime presented to the US, a threat we laughed off until 9/11/01. We went there to take him down, destroy the Iraqi ability to support terrorism at a state level, and, something that so many people overlook, to establish a military foothold in the Middle East. Think about it - if we feel that we need to take another regime down (Syria, Iran) we have a couple of divisions within driving distance, including heavy armor. Just the threat alone is enough to make those countries watch their step.

Our current efforts in Iraq to turn that country into a democracy are for two reasons: 1) so we don't have to come back in 5-10 years and do this all over again, when the next fundamentalist or otherwise tyrannical loser takes over, 2) hopefully to spread democratic philosophy throughout the Middle East, in a domino effect (democracies have by far been less aggressive in history).

Your doubts seem to stem from a misinterpretation of our true objectives with Iraq and a confusion between our current goals and our original ones.

[68skylark]

I really like the first part of your comment -- I hadn't thought of our conflict in that way, but I think you make a good point.

If I may, I'd like to respectfully disagree just a little with your second paragraph. I was commenting on exactly this point earlier today in another thread, about whether people "naturally" gravitate toward liberty. I'd love to know if you have any reaction. If you'd be willing to take a look, my comment is #11 on this thread.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1127313/posts

[MississippiMan]

So what was different about our success stories, Japan and Germany. Well we basically bombed the entire nation back into the stone age. I think their civilians were probably so glad that we weren't going to execute our own "final solution" to the "Japanese and German question", that they were willing to do whatever we said. It is also worth noting that in annhilating their armies we effectively removed any person who would be opposed to our efforts. As George Will put it recently, they "knew they were defeated".

There's the key. Our leaders have fallen under a spell and have come to believe that we can change things with "nice wars." Not only will we not hurt any innocents, we'll only kill the worst of the bad guys and make the rest of them see our niceness and join our cause. It of course does not work. And it won't work. When you DEFEAT an enemy, the population HURTS and they do what is necessary to see that we don't have to come kick their butts again. It's called FEAR. The population of Iraq as a majority has zero fear of us or our wars; and as you said, they don't care enough about freedom to fight for it themselves.

Saddam needed to go, and I wholly supported his removal. At this point, however, the comparisons to Vietnam are starting to ring true.

MM

[Sam the Sham]

The majority of Iraqis are NOT on the side of the enemy, that is for sure. But if they are passive enough or intimidated enough, it can shake us off the path of political development, if events "spiral out of control".

But the numbers of insurgents never seems to go down, nor their effectiveness to be diminished. This indicates that the only real constraint they suffer is in materiel, never willing recruits to replace casualties. The very fact that the Iraqi Civil Defense batallion that was brought to Fallujah at the start of this operation promptly evaporated due to desertion speaks volumes.

Granted that the Kurds for their own reasons support us (they are surrounded by enemies and need us to keep the Turkish Army from barrelling into Kirkuk as they would deeply like to do). Granted most Iraqis do not want to see their country become another lawless jehadi staging area run by gangs of foreigners and teenage boys with guns. But to assume that Muslims will ever regard a military occupation by "infidels" and "crusaders" as a good thing is dead wrong. Muslims viscerally hate and resent rule by non-Muslims. In nearly a half century of occupation Israel has been totally unable to create anything like a Palestinian client political leadership in the West Bank or Gaza.

What is the policy ? To create a new Iraqi political leadership ? "Infidels" and "crusaders" cannot create leaders whom Muslims will ever accept as legitimate.

Some have talked of "fighting them here or fighting them there". Where is it better to fight a shark, from a boat or in the ocean ? An "infidel" occupation army in an Arab country is a shark on dry land, totally out of its environment and dependent upon uncertain "allies". With jehadis flowing in from across the Arab world, melting in with the a population that obviously gives them sustenance and shelter it is we who are the fish out of water. Men like Mohammed Atta stick out in America. We just weren't looking for them before. Now we are.

The insurgents have a recruiting base in the millions. We simply do not have the manpower to seal the borders of Iraq. They can keep up this steady drip, drip of casualties forever on their own turf among their own people. And that is the problem here. They can keep this up forever.

[ExGeeEye]

Do you have any information as to the continued presence and/or activities of the Werwolf after 5/8/45? Thanks :)

[Alberta's Child]

Seems you missed 9-11.

Baloney. You've never heard me utter even a whisper of opposition to the war in Afghanistan. The war in Iraq has nothing to do with that; in fact, I contend that 9/11 simply gave this administration a convenient excuse to carry out a war in Iraq that it wanted to pursue the moment it took office.

If you need any proof of that statement, consider this: the civilian leadership in the Department of Defense in this administration is dominated by people who have been publicly calling for U.S. military action in Iraq for the last ten years. What is most remarkable in light of all this was their astonishing lack of any interest in al-Qaeda or Osama bin Laden anytime before 9/11.

[Check_Your_Premises]

It took fifty responses to get one which actually read what I wrote and can respond intelligently.

Love reading your stuff by the way.

That's an interesting assertion, backed by dubious data. In The American Revolution, significant numbers of American Colonists took up arms on behalf of the British Army and were organized into armed formations that were large enough to be logistically self-sufficient. Based on the premise you offer here, Jefferson, Franklin and Washington all three should have hung up their spikes, hired a good barrister and cut a good plea bargain.

The data to support my assertion that we care more about the Iraqi's freedom than they do is that I don't see them fighting and dying in droves to win it. I hear stories of them running from the fight. I don't see responsible Iraqi leadership developing. Regarding your analogy to the our revolution: Well I guess the difference between the Founding Fathers in America, and us in Iraq is that it was THEIR country. I don't want to die protecting some jag-off who doesn't have enough self respect to protect himself.

Regarding question 2, you didn't seem to address my actual question. What I am referring to is the politically correct way we are fighting. This is not the way Sherman fought, or the way we fought in WWII. We attacked their civilians centers. On principle I am against fighting this way, but certain wars seem to require it. I think this is one of them.

[blueski]

War with Iraq was not the mistake...and whatever reflection you do now, here or wherever, must never translate into the US tucking in its tail in Iraq and leaving...and it never will. Iraq is just the beggining folks, we'd better toughen up a bit.

We will accomplish our goals in Iraq...if that means a free Iraq and perhaps a stable one...but this still does nothing to fight terrorism...it does nothing to win the hearts and minds of the Arab world...it just means we have a whole lot more fight ahead of us now.

Fooling around with threats of attack gave Saddam enough time to ship out tons of WMD to his equally dangerous neighbors. We allowed a seive of WMD and terrorists to flee the country and now, it is spreading. We can say terrorism is down by some statsistic, but one attack would blow that stat out of the water, it is always about the next, one big attack.

If our goal is to fight terorrism (terrorism being any efforts against US freedom) we need to take the fight to many more battles all around the world and this is going to last long after we are all gone.

And while this was not about bringing democracy to a people in Iraq, it sure should have been about how to we prevent the birth of more terrorists. And it is obvious right now to me that the few insurgants hanging around in Iraq are meaningless in terms of terrorism...we have to worry about those throughout the Arab world who are seeing this and now dedicating their lives to fighting the US. An Iraq war should have had a plan on how to stop them and it obviously has not.

[cinFLA]

If you need any proof of that statement, consider this: the civilian leadership in the Department of Defense in this administration is dominated by people who have been publicly calling for U.S. military action in Iraq for the last ten years.

Uh, seems you are not aware that we HAVE been involved in military actions in Iraq for the last ten years.

[Hand em their arse]

Mr. Kennedy, are you lurking again????

[ChipShot]

You write "That is what makes this whole thing so preposterous. How can an elected government like ours possibly make plans for a 30-year war if it can't even be certain today that it will even be around to execute these plans after January 2005?"

Because it is the right thing to do and yes someone else will eventually lead us to victory. Just like Reagan did in the cold war.

If we do not start, we will not finish.

[#1CTYankee]

See Post#108 ;-)

[DeaconRed]

Yea Cut and run
The Klintoon way
Thats what got us in this mess in the first place.

[shattered]

I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to post some perspective here.

I will admit to sometimes feeling a little like the original poster, and reading this thread has helped me to get a handle on my feelings.

[Alberta's Child]

Uh, seems you are not aware that we HAVE been involved in military actions in Iraq for the last ten years.

Yes, absolutely.

A bunch of cruise missiles taking down radar sites on the eve of Bill Clinton's Lewinsky testimony, and a bunch of Navy aircraft patrolling "no-fly zones" over Iraq wasn't much of a "military action" -- that's why many people in the current administration were clamoring for something more decisive.

[highlandbreeze]

I'm with you! Unfortunately, I've come to believe over the past few days, that Americans do not have the will or the patience to fight the war on terrorism.

I thought after 9-11 that all that would change, my husband said it wouldn't. Apparently he was right

[Junior_G]

Very good post. You have a lot of valid questions about whether or not we should have embarked on this path. Unfortunately, though, the simple fact of the matter is that we are there now and to withdraw prematurely, though sometimes beneficial in the sack, would only serve to teach the radical islamists that we are weak and can't take a hit. It would be the same lesson Osama thought he learned when we tucked tail and ran from Somalia. We cannot do that again.

[RSmithOpt]

We went in to Iraq to remove a brutal murderous dictator and his regime who was supporting Al Qaeda (I believe we determined that after capturing people in Afghanistan and around the globe) and in complete violation of multiple UN sanctions. The general public knows only the tip of the iceberg. We did not go into Iraq to change their religion, culture, past history, language, etc. Our leaders already understood the beliefs of the Iraqi people before any decision was made. The UN oil for food program was a joke as we know that it was a highly polished scam allowing a brutal dictator to stay in power, payments to the French, Germans, and Russians while Southern Shiite Iraqis were starving, and lining of the pockets of a select few. So, I guess it was a mistake to have compassion for another people, remove a sadistic regime, break up the terrorist activities and bring some kind of stability to the region while trying to protect your American a$$ and millions others on our soil and in Israel from the proliferation of radical Islam. OK, I hear you.