Its just like Vietnam, the fighting will continue as long as AQ and the Iraqi insurgents want it to continue. We cannot “win” in Iraq because we cannot impose our will on AQ or stop the terrorism.
As for the Iraqi’s stepping up, you mean there’s “light at the end of the tunnel”. Damn, I’ve heard that before from LBJ and Nixon.
Okay, you get the same question Harry Reid got. What happens to the Iraqi people when we leave?
I completely agree with your sense of the situation over there.
I admit that I reluctantly supported the war, believing that the president and his team not only knew about the WMDs but had thought it all through to a successful end-game. My bad.
I should have trusted my instinct that it would devolve into an insurgency which no modern nation can win against third-world fanatics. Not us in Viet Nam or the Russians in Afghanistan or, especially, the French in Algeria.
That being said, I think it will be a horrendous disaster for us to simply face defeat and come home. But public support is in freefall and we will be coming home and soon. Our departure from Viet Nam cost a lot of Asian lives but was relatively painless (except psychologically) for us. This defeat will not be painless for us. It probably portends the arrival of as Islamic superstate with a deathgrip on ME oil supplies and nuclear weapons, or else, a major ME war with Israel using nukes to attempt to thwart the previous scenario and its own annihilation.
I have no good ideas. Our president has far too little credibility to lead us in such difficult times.
It’s NOT just like Vietnam. For one thing, Vietnam didn’t attack us. For another, as Helen Thomas foolishly blurted out yesterday, our presence in Iraq has drawn al Qaeda there to fight us. If you knew how many of them we were killing it would stagger your mind. Kill them there, kill them here, but kill them we must. We can quit, but THEY won’t.
We need to go after them in Syria, and in Iran, and even in Pakistan if that's what it takes. Be more offensive rather than just waiting for them to turn up in Baghdad and Fallujah and Mosul. Heck, sometimes I think the only solution is to kill every living thing from the East Bank of the Jordan River all the way to the foothills of the Hindu Kush.
As for Laura..... The President has failed miserably domestically in this second term: his first initiative was Social Security reform; that died on the vine. We did get Roberts and Alito on the Court, but only after his base rose up in rejection of Meiers. Then he got behind the immigration reform push, enactment of which would have been an absolute disaster for the nation. The only thing I can really support him on and give him credit for is the stick-to-it-iveness in Iraq. And the surge is producing results!
The President realizes what a mess it would be if we leave. But he needs to fight the PR war at home a lot more effectively, because the MSM and the Dems are painting a picture of Iraq as an utter failure and exercise in futility with no end or resolution in sight.