6 Years Later Iraq Better but Still Shaky

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by saden1

Win? How about we start choosing our words more carefully?

I am content with my word. Simply put DMek said "can't we move on", which I replied "... call it a win..." . I did not say we did win as in a done deal, simply that if we are going to move on, then let's put the W in Bush's column since it was his plan/strategy that brought us to this point, and now at most it is like a 3rd string qb coming in to finish out the last 2 minutes in a game that is over, as opposed to a Save in baseball.
I tell you what again, let's give Bush the W in Iraq, and a No decision if Afghanistan, and if Obama gets Afghanistan under control he gets the Save.
But, and this is just what I believe, those who want to "just move on" now, will be the first to use a revisionist schtick in a year and a half, to proclaim Bush had failed and the war was won through Obama's presidency. And that just isn't the case.

-if you know me, i have a belief that both political parties spin fiction to reduce their liabilities. and i know that bush haters will not give him credit on anything (i don't give him credit on much), but the fact is that iraq is going to be a "win", and it was Bush's strategy that will have won it.

[MTK]

Yeah I have a hard time calling any war a win, especially this one. What happened to Mission Accomplished anyway?

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

Yeah I have a hard time calling any war a win, especially this one. What happened to Mission Accomplished anyway?

So the American Revolutionary War, was not a win?

World War II, not a win?

Sadly this war will probably be more of a WWI style win, because America, as is normal, is going to cut out before true stability takes place. The current government most likely will parallel the Weimar Republic, with a fanatical sect coming back into power once america backs out of the country, similar to the league of nations once america refused to join. It cost us around 4,000 good men and women, plus the 10's of thousands who were injured, and instead of honoring their sacrifices many mock Bush by asking "what happened to mission accomplished". Bush politicized that statement so he mocked it as well. But the sailors on that ship, had accomplished their mission, and our troops on the ground over there have toiled long and hard to make iraq a country where every sect can come to the political discussion without their wives and children being gassed or killed, so yes that is a win. In the noblest sense of American military(regardless of political mumbo jumbo) our soldiers gave their lives so that people in another part of the world could be free from tyranny, yes that is a win.

[Beemnseven]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

So the American Revolutionary War, was not a win?

World War II, not a win?

Sadly this war will probably be more of a WWI style win, because America, as is normal, is going to cut out before true stability takes place. The current government most likely will parallel the Weimar Republic, with a fanatical sect coming back into power once america backs out of the country, similar to the league of nations once america refused to join. It cost us around 4,000 good men and women, plus the 10's of thousands who were injured, and instead of honoring their sacrifices many mock Bush by asking "what happened to mission accomplished". Bush politicized that statement so he mocked it as well. But the sailors on that ship, had accomplished their mission, and our troops on the ground over there have toiled long and hard to make iraq a country where every sect can come to the political discussion without their wives and children being gassed or killed, so yes that is a win. In the noblest sense of American military(regardless of political mumbo jumbo) our soldiers gave their lives so that people in another part of the world could be free from tyranny, yes that is a win.

I wonder if the dead soldiers' families consider it a "win" ??

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by Beemnseven

I wonder if the dead soldiers' families consider it a "win" ??

I served 5 years my friend, in the early 90's; if I had given my life, my family would have considered it a personal loss, but they would have known i joined with open eyes, and would have been proud of my contribution. No one forced me to join, and when i swore my oath, i did not say "but if i die it is a loss" I did not want to die, i did not even want to go to bosnia (and thankfully didn't, my unit left 1 month after i pcs'd to the states) but it was my duty, and one i would have done if called upon. to ask that question demeans our soldiers and their families. No one person will consider a lost life a win in any situation. If a man goes to jail, his family will consider it a loss, but if it upholds our country's laws it may very well have been a win. No one family, when focused on their child/sibling/parent will consider a death a win, but they may see the it as a part of a greater truth, and gain strength and peace in that vision.

My friend, every loss is tragic, 9-11 was tragic, the kurds who were tossed in the mass graves were tragic, our soldiers sacrifice is tragic, but if in the end a government is formed that prevents any more mass grave, allows free participation in the political process, and provides for stability in the region then our families will look on their personal tragedy with a belief that it was not in vain.

[wolfeskins]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

I served 5 years my friend, in the early 90's; if I had given my life, my family would have considered it a personal loss, but they would have known i joined with open eyes, and would have been proud of my contribution. No one forced me to join, and when i swore my oath, i did not say "but if i die it is a loss" I did not want to die, i did not even want to go to bosnia (and thankfully didn't, my unit left 1 month after i pcs'd to the states) but it was my duty, and one i would have done if called upon. to ask that question demeans our soldiers and their families. No one person will consider a lost life a win in any situation. If a man goes to jail, his family will consider it a loss, but if it upholds our country's laws it may very well have been a win. No one family, when focused on their child/sibling/parent will consider a death a win, but they may see the it as a part of a greater truth, and gain strength and peace in that vision.

My friend, every loss is tragic, 9-11 was tragic, the kurds who were tossed in the mass graves were tragic, our soldiers sacrifice is tragic, but if in the end a government is formed that prevents any more mass grave, allows free participation in the political process, and provides for stability in the region then our families will look on their personal tragedy with a belief that it was not in vain.

very good post.

[Beemnseven]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

I served 5 years my friend, in the early 90's; if I had given my life, my family would have considered it a personal loss, but they would have known i joined with open eyes, and would have been proud of my contribution. No one forced me to join, and when i swore my oath, i did not say "but if i die it is a loss" I did not want to die, i did not even want to go to bosnia (and thankfully didn't, my unit left 1 month after i pcs'd to the states) but it was my duty, and one i would have done if called upon. to ask that question demeans our soldiers and their families. No one person will consider a lost life a win in any situation. If a man goes to jail, his family will consider it a loss, but if it upholds our country's laws it may very well have been a win. No one family, when focused on their child/sibling/parent will consider a death a win, but they may see the it as a part of a greater truth, and gain strength and peace in that vision.

My friend, every loss is tragic, 9-11 was tragic, the kurds who were tossed in the mass graves were tragic, our soldiers sacrifice is tragic, but if in the end a government is formed that prevents any more mass grave, allows free participation in the political process, and provides for stability in the region then our families will look on their personal tragedy with a belief that it was not in vain.

Okay, there are several statements here I profoundly disagree with. First of all, here's the question Americans must ALWAYS ask whenever our troops are sent into harms way: is this conflict worth the life of the person that I love most? Casually tossing around the notion that "we won" without considering the families of dead or injured soldiers is what's demeaning. Especially when you know that they died when Iraq posed absolutely no threat to the United States.

Secondly, comparing the death of a soldier in an armed conflict to a criminal who breaks the law and is sent to jail is truly disgusting and certainly not what I would expect to hear from a former serviceman.

Finally, what "greater truth" are you talking about? Is it the truth that politicians have been sending Americans to their deaths in unnecessary, unconstitutional conflicts for far too long? The truth that no American should have to die to support some other country's political process? How about the truth that stability in the Middle East was shaken, not enhanced by our presence in Iraq?

Here's the real truth -- Iraq was not worth the life of ONE SINGLE AMERICAN.

[BleedBurgundy]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

I served 5 years my friend, in the early 90's; if I had given my life, my family would have considered it a personal loss, but they would have known i joined with open eyes, and would have been proud of my contribution. No one forced me to join, and when i swore my oath, i did not say "but if i die it is a loss" I did not want to die, i did not even want to go to bosnia (and thankfully didn't, my unit left 1 month after i pcs'd to the states) but it was my duty, and one i would have done if called upon. to ask that question demeans our soldiers and their families. No one person will consider a lost life a win in any situation. If a man goes to jail, his family will consider it a loss, but if it upholds our country's laws it may very well have been a win. No one family, when focused on their child/sibling/parent will consider a death a win, but they may see the it as a part of a greater truth, and gain strength and peace in that vision.

My friend, every loss is tragic, 9-11 was tragic, the kurds who were tossed in the mass graves were tragic, our soldiers sacrifice is tragic, but if in the end a government is formed that prevents any more mass grave, allows free participation in the political process, and provides for stability in the region then our families will look on their personal tragedy with a belief that it was not in vain.

Very well said.

[saden1]

With respect to Iraq I'd love to see you add up your wins and losses.

Edit: I'd like to focus on Iraq.

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by saden1

With respect to Iraq I'd love to see you add up your wins and losses.

Edit: I'd like to focus on Iraq.

I really don't understand the question. Again, my point started in relation to the statement "can't we move on", if we are able to move on, and leave iraq be, certainly it would be a win, meaning no more major loss of life, troops eventually come home, etc etc. The fact is that iraq was a major negative day in and day out when bush was in office, and now suddenly we just move on?
(i am not asking for a glowing endorsement of a war, or that it was a perfectly run war - to keep with the sports analogy of earlier- maybe it was a 7 - 6 win and you hate the team that won, but they won. )

[saden1]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

I really don't understand the question. Again, my point started in relation to the statement "can't we move on", if we are able to move on, and leave iraq be, certainly it would be a win, meaning no more major loss of life, troops eventually come home, etc etc. The fact is that iraq was a major negative day in and day out when bush was in office, and now suddenly we just move on?
(i am not asking for a glowing endorsement of a war, or that it was a perfectly run war - to keep with the sports analogy of earlier- maybe it was a 7 - 6 win and you hate the team that won, but they won. )

Lets go with go with the sports analogy...say you're Zorn, it's the Monday after a tough win against the hated Cowboys. You break down game film and start rating the performance of the players, coaching, and the team. What battles did you win and what battles did you lose? Any injuries?

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by saden1

Lets go with go with the sports analogy...say you're Zorn, it's the Monday after a tough win against the hated Cowboys. You break down game film and start rating the performance of the players, coaching, and the team. What battles did you win and what battles did you lose? Any injuries?

k, well first i'm glad you went with the home team getting the overall win, and that was what my comments were intended. I see the "W" as being a regime change that works for the betterment of both the international and iraq's national societies. The "W" means that no more kurds will be slaughtered, just because they are kurds. It means that no more chemical attacks will be conducted on iraqi civilians by their own government. (By the way if you want to compare for real purposes wouldn't iraq be better cast as the raiders? although with some of the players that dallas has had maybe it works) It means that women and children will not be tortured because of their husband/father's political or religious beliefs.

But it definitely was not a victory without cost:
America lost some of its best players - the corporals, the privates, and the 2lt's who make up the backbone of our armed forces.
We took a black eye for a personal foul call at Abu Ghirab(sp)
We overspent on old line equipment and new fangled rookie technologies, where the opponent was more like the buffalo bills(pre TO) and way under the financial cap by using cheap "expendable" players (suicide bombers, small IED's)


Here is the "game" breakdown (my apologies to GTripp for not being nearly as good as his):

In the 1st quarter it looked like a blowout, we rolled through their defensive line, took out the 1st string line and had their QB scrambling, and eventually he went down with a severe head injury.

In the 2nd and 3rd quarters, they started clawing back, negating our fast strike offense, with well timed offensive strikes. But our defense kept forcing them to settle for FG's( IED strikes, skirmishes). They made one strong attempt to get at the Green Zone, but were re-buffed and we established a solid defensive front.

Late in the 4th quarter our coach, encouraged on by asst head coach-offense (nicknamed "Condi" (Goat ref)) called for a strong ground game to pound it out and secure the win. By solidifying the political ground gains with a strong offensive surge, the game was nearly over when Dan Snyder (the american people) saw that the coach, along with vinny(the congress) ran roughshoud(sp) over the organization's internal structure and was so angry that he fired the coach with 2 minutes to go. The new coach came in and had his qb kneel down during the final two minutes and the win was official.

Battles won:
we took out their 1st line offense quickly, and did not let them use any devastating trick plays.
we took away homefield advantage, and actually got the crowd on our side (by putting political structures in place, opening the political process and ensuring no retaliation against opposing sects occurred (or minimized them when they did)
we reduced the effectiveness of their backup plans(ied's suicide bombers).

Battles lost:
politically we lost clout
financially we took a hit
our soldiers paid heavy emotional, psychological, and physical costs
but honestly, i don't see any as lost, just a lot harder fought then some people expected.

(i digress to politics for a minute, I remember early on Bush told the american people, that this war would not be easy, and it would go on for a long time- he was speaking of the process- not specifically of the land war and occupation of iraq - because commentators the world over were saying that america did not have the resolve to fight. We lost roughly 4000 good soldiers, the enemy talked of sending home 10s of thousands of american bodies, i have posted earlier, no lost life is a good life, but the enemy did not do what they wanted to do, we limited their ability to kill our soldiers, but once we set foot over there they were going to kill some of us. WWI had 10's of thousands dead in a single day, vietnam had nearly 60,000 american dead - 1.5 million total dead, war is not fun, it is not nice, the opponent is not without ability, we limited that ability. end of digression)

Coaching:
i would say game prep was good, hence the strong 1st quarter, but shallow, we did not anticipate and make in game adjustments very well. The coach relied to heavily on one coordinator, didn't listen soon enough to other assistants, and waited until the win was in jeopardy to change the strategy.

I would liken most of the press to JLC except instead of Danny being the hated entity it was the coach. They absolutely hated the coach, and any story they ran, even "positive" ones had slight, or not so slight, digs at him.

[Beemnseven]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

"The "W" means that no more kurds will be slaughtered, just because they are kurds. It means that no more chemical attacks will be conducted on iraqi civilians by their own government."

It might have been better if the United States government hadn't sold those chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein in the first place.

[saden1]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

k, well first i'm glad you went with the home team getting the overall win, and that was what my comments were intended. I see the "W" as being a regime change that works for the betterment of both the international and iraq's national societies. The "W" means that no more kurds will be slaughtered, just because they are kurds. It means that no more chemical attacks will be conducted on iraqi civilians by their own government. (By the way if you want to compare for real purposes wouldn't iraq be better cast as the raiders? although with some of the players that dallas has had maybe it works) It means that women and children will not be tortured because of their husband/father's political or religious beliefs.

But it definitely was not a victory without cost:
America lost some of its best players - the corporals, the privates, and the 2lt's who make up the backbone of our armed forces.
We took a black eye for a personal foul call at Abu Ghirab(sp)
We overspent on old line equipment and new fangled rookie technologies, where the opponent was more like the buffalo bills(pre TO) and way under the financial cap by using cheap "expendable" players (suicide bombers, small IED's)


Here is the "game" breakdown (my apologies to GTripp for not being nearly as good as his):

In the 1st quarter it looked like a blowout, we rolled through their defensive line, took out the 1st string line and had their QB scrambling, and eventually he went down with a severe head injury.

In the 2nd and 3rd quarters, they started clawing back, negating our fast strike offense, with well timed offensive strikes. But our defense kept forcing them to settle for FG's( IED strikes, skirmishes). They made one strong attempt to get at the Green Zone, but were re-buffed and we established a solid defensive front.

Late in the 4th quarter our coach, encouraged on by asst head coach-offense (nicknamed "Condi" (Goat ref)) called for a strong ground game to pound it out and secure the win. By solidifying the political ground gains with a strong offensive surge, the game was nearly over when Dan Snyder (the american people) saw that the coach, along with vinny(the congress) ran roughshoud(sp) over the organization's internal structure and was so angry that he fired the coach with 2 minutes to go. The new coach came in and had his qb kneel down during the final two minutes and the win was official.

Battles won:
we took out their 1st line offense quickly, and did not let them use any devastating trick plays.
we took away homefield advantage, and actually got the crowd on our side (by putting political structures in place, opening the political process and ensuring no retaliation against opposing sects occurred (or minimized them when they did)
we reduced the effectiveness of their backup plans(ied's suicide bombers).

Battles lost:
politically we lost clout
financially we took a hit
our soldiers paid heavy emotional, psychological, and physical costs
but honestly, i don't see any as lost, just a lot harder fought then some people expected.

(i digress to politics for a minute, I remember early on Bush told the american people, that this war would not be easy, and it would go on for a long time- he was speaking of the process- not specifically of the land war and occupation of iraq - because commentators the world over were saying that america did not have the resolve to fight. We lost roughly 4000 good soldiers, the enemy talked of sending home 10s of thousands of american bodies, i have posted earlier, no lost life is a good life, but the enemy did not do what they wanted to do, we limited their ability to kill our soldiers, but once we set foot over there they were going to kill some of us. WWI had 10's of thousands dead in a single day, vietnam had nearly 60,000 american dead - 1.5 million total dead, war is not fun, it is not nice, the opponent is not without ability, we limited that ability. end of digression)

Coaching:
i would say game prep was good, hence the strong 1st quarter, but shallow, we did not anticipate and make in game adjustments very well. The coach relied to heavily on one coordinator, didn't listen soon enough to other assistants, and waited until the win was in jeopardy to change the strategy.

I would liken most of the press to JLC except instead of Danny being the hated entity it was the coach. They absolutely hated the coach, and any story they ran, even "positive" ones had slight, or not so slight, digs at him.

Your assessment to me boils down to the highlighted line. According to you Vietnam was a win, Korea was a win. As with everything in life taking a long term view tremendously increases the chance of success. I could take the same long term view with respect to Iraq and say in 100 years Iraq would become a "democracy" without us having to go to war.


Few more thoughts:

1. Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Condi, et al are all under one cocktail umbrella with Bush the Olive at the center. Some see a Martini, others see a Molotov.
2. The reason why we went to war shouldn't be relegated to the back seat. We went in for WMDs, terrorists, and the threat of future attacks on us. If you're going to conduct a preemptive war you aught to have your predictive knife sharp.
3. People who say "no one could have predicted [...]" are either liars or don't know how our defense department actually works. Does our defense department not being capable of doing some predictive work make sense?
4. Bush at least had the smarts to say "we're making progress," and "we're winning." I don't think we've "won" anything just yet, there's still a host of problems in Iraq.
5. Anyone that thinks they can win against international terrorists militarily is delusional.
6. Iraq war negatives include: people wanting to get nukes for protection, more people committing to join the terrorist ranks, and some lone SOB with bio-tech knowhow creating bio-agents.

[JoeRedskin]

^^ Nicely done.