I appreciate this info though I completely disagree with it.
It is difficult for me to see the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as anything short of monumental successes.
I actually think the Taliban and Saddam were bad.
I recognize that individuals still sympathize with such views but it seems that conditions favor the US in a massive way.
We have pacified Afghanistan in a way the Soviets never could even after a decade of effort.
Iraq has three elections and a US trained military force larger than our current 140,000 plus ground forces. All of this is done in less than 3 years.
Is there a US war that has been more successful than these two?
I question whether WWII was as successful. Death rates of civilians, combatants, etc. are all positive relative to previous wars and better in terms of pre-post war condition comparisons.
I think it is the nay sayers who live in a bubble.
Hussein and Taliban were bad.
I agree entirely. My mother was raving about the evil Baath, and subsequently Hussein 35 years ago. I thought we should have continued GWI for another 24 to 36 hours. Something that no one has mentioned in all that I have read is that Gorbachev was facing a terrible situation with his hard liners. Anyone remember how close it came to him being overthrown. We could not have continued it much longer without giving the hard liners too much ammunition, then I don't know how Russia would have turned out.
What I really thought was unforgiveable was the way Bush Sr. allowed the Iraq planes fly to crush the Shiites in the south after he had specifically encouraged them to revolt. Perhaps his son is trying to expiate some guilt in connection with that shameful episode.
Yes there have been some successes. We will never have Husseins psychopathic and sociopathic sons to deal with. However, the premise was that Iraq's oil wealth would spark the rebuilding of the country. This has not happened, and have you been to the pump lately? The looting should have been stopped hard. A few summary executions in public. Instead we got Rumsfeld's "what are a few pots" crack. Instead of dismissing the upper echalons of the military and the Baath leadership and keeping the troops on payroll, we dismissed them all and as unemployed young men will do, they got restless. So I would say we have had some successes, are muddling through, but there was still a lot of PPPP (Pi.. poor prior planning), SNAFU and FUBAR
You have it exactly right - There is no question we are winning the WOT / Iraq - None, from anyone who is willing to be intellectually honest about the subject.