Kevin Brown

However I have a feeling the Democrats if they do get elected in 08 and fellow through on a Iraq withdrawal, will be just stumbling from one foreign policy fiasco to another in the Middle East. Also the conqunces of withdrawal in my opinion will be far sweeping from the border of Iran to the Gaza Sptrip to the Deserts of North Afirca the whole entire Arab World, Indeed the whole entire Muslim world in that region is going to erupt in one giant powderkeg!

BaronVonUlm

We have been here before. In the 1899-1905 War in the Phillipines, the USA fought a tough war against a local resistance and WON. Yes, won. Many in the US opposed the war vocally, including Mark Twain. But, and I say it again....we won!!! Now for IRAQ. We could win. We should win. Regretably, we most likely will not win. We should have killed more people straight away in 2003-2004 and established brutal occupation authority, like General von Bissing did in Belgium in 1914. Even a Great Power can not win a politically correct war. The sad reality is, we could have won this war. Simply put, we did not have the character to do so.

BaronVonUlm

I hear much discussion of "staying" etc. I hear very little about winning. Those who know military history should realize that the Iraq War can certainly be won. The war is ours to lose. It seems we are resigned to that very eventuality. If we lose this war, the United States will no longer be a great military power. What power remains will be simply ignored by the rest of the world. We will become like the Japanese Empire. An economic giant, but a military non-entity.

Kevin Brown

The problem is we are facing boiling ethnic and religious tension and a corrupt an ineffcent Iraq Goverment coupled with corrupt and ineffcent security forces who lack the heavier side of equipment and also lack confidence and are not to mention like the rest of the country torn by ethnic and religious rivalres.This war could have been won, However by dismantling the Iraqi military after the fall of Saddam and by not going in with enough troops and not to mention looking on this thing with too happy a face we have failed and we have to find now a viable alternative to just leaving the place to fail apart and send the whole region up in flames.

BaronVonUlm

It took more than 6 years to secure the Phillipines after the 1898 War with Spain. The war was brutal. Every time we thought it was over, a new problem arose (including difficult Muslims in Mindinao). Still, we won. Victory was the only option. No thought was given to a political solution. There was no thought of a modus vivendi with the enemy. We fought, 20,000 died, and we WON. We can do that in Iraq. I fear we won't. Resolve is lacking, and frankly, so is character. America no longer has the character rquired to fight. I find it telling that Al Qaeda communiques could very well be written by Howard Dean.

BaronVonUlm

I am thinking, in terms of lives and treasure, the Iraq War has gone rather well. More were killed at Gettysburg, the Somme and Verdun than in the Iraq War. In fact, more Americans are murdered every year than have died in Iraq. Should I cite Automobile deaths ??? Perspective is needed desperately in this country.

Kevin Brown

Yes but it is still taking a heavy toll on our military. Also our military is being streched thin and if soething else in the World were to arise we wouldn't have enough forces to send to it.

BaronVonUlm

In point of fact, I do not think we could now fight another war regardless of the circumstances. I do agree, the war has taken a toll upon the military forces. From what I know of history, all wars take a toll upon the military forces.

As for the Iraq and Afghan Wars causing us to be stretched too thin, I say that has happened in every war we have ever fought. We have to fight the war we are in, not the one that might come. And, I also think we should always attempt to actually win the current war. It might give another adversary pause before they commence a war upon us.

FibrillatorD

I would encourage you, BaronVonUlm, to read up on the history of Iraq. Its a bit presumptuous to assume that because the US has succeeded in nation-building before that it can repeat its success with a completely different nation like Iraq. The truth is, Iraq has been through something like this before. The British, in the middle of the 20th century, tried and failed to establish a unified, albeit arbitrary, state of Iraq, and failed because of many of the same reasons we're failing to secure and unify Iraq now: sectarian conflicts, namely.

Perhaps the biggest mistake has been Bush's and the military's failure to consider the costs of declining public support. Its a hard reality whose ramifications are all the more significant today, compared to the Phillipines, because of modern media capacities and a changed political climate. And to tack success to an unattainability like unwavering public support is just silly.

-Its not just a matter of number killed or resources expended, or even so much the nobility of the cause. Support declines because the war weighs heavier and heavier on our heads. Its quite exhausting. American people realize they're at some point on a foggy mountain, climbing. In 2008 they can either continue climbing into the same path, with no clear direction or end in sight under shoddy leadership, or they can turn around and head back downhill. I think most people realize that we've invested too much to let it Iraq waste away, but our legs are waning, and for good reason.

If we had made better use of our investments, if "success" was a clear and attainable end, and if we had proceeded along a plan which acknowledged the hard cost of declining public support, then we might be looking at a very different situation. But we didn't do these things -at least not adequately.

We need more help from the international institutions. Its a humbling request, for obvious reasons. But its maybe the merriest middle between leaving completely and pushing on stubbornly with a policy that's been given a 5-year trial run; it hasn't completely failed, but it hasn't succeeded either. Yet I believe Americans haven't lost hope that we could be doing better, at home and abroad -hence '06, and likely, '08.

BudW

[quote=dalem;373164]Sure. I figured it was a 5-10 year job when we were talking about going in. Nothing's changed my mind about that since then.

Personally, I've never really understood what the panic is all about.

-dale[/QUOTe

Panic? its about Americans getting killed-over 3000 and wounded -25,000, the war has lasted longer than the USA fought ww2, 500 plus billion for what? people who hate us and dont want us there.

BaronVonUlm

I know the History of Iraq and Mesopotamia well, though I am sure I could learn more. I think our military forces have made some serious mistakes in their planning for the campaign, especially the post-Saddam portion of it. Iraq has proved as difficult to govern as Yugoslavia was after Marshall Tito, and for much the same reasons. Iraq and Yugoslavia are (or were) multi-national states with serious religious divisions among the peoples. I have never believed in nation building. I certainly do not think it is what our military should be doing. One can not build one nation where there are many, especially when the peoples of those nations despise each other so much.

I believe that Ottoman and British rule in Iraq - Mesopotamia had different motivations. I do not believe that the Colonial Office ever stated that His Majesty's Government desire to build a "nation" in Iraq. Rather, Great Britain desired to control the region for oil and for the need to bolster the defence of the Indian Empire and the Persian Gulf. This was the whole point behind the Sykes-Picot Agreement, for example.

I am really starting to think that partition might be the only solution to Iraq, even at the risk of enhancing Iran. It might settledown some of the internal tensions.

I stand by what I said. The war could have been won and should have been won. It might, perhaps, still be possible to get a win here. General Petraeus will report in a few months.

Garry

it would be even harder to justify to public.... you invaded and then devided the souvereign state. So they have to split theselves

It can be won WITH TIME unless it losses support in USA. That is the main problem... and it does lose such support

Shek

Can you explain to me how OIF is exhausting for the American people?

__________________
"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

Big K

please dont take me wrong but if you want success in Iraq, you should study history, especially the Ottoman era in that area.

__________________
When i say, there will be no effect but i am not willing to remain silent.
-Fuzuli

BaronVonUlm

If the American people are as against the war as the press claims (and I do mean if) then I think partition may sell easier than it would have previously. I am hopeful that the public still desires a win here and that they will allow the TIME required to accomplish the mission. I think that if General David Petraeus gives anything less than a positive report in late August or early September, it will be over. The people will have had it. The US will withdraw. That withdrawal will equal our defeat. We have to hope for quantifiable progress and a positive report from General Petraeus.

One more thing we are going to have to worry about: Rt. Hon Gordon Brown. If Blair's successor decides to end the United Kingdom deployment in Iraq, then this will look very very bad for the United States. Brown has indicated that he will conduct an examination of the war policy.