Success in Iraq?

[Steve L]

Although this has been discussed in other threads, it was always as part of another topic. So I am asking this here as a separate, specific post. I hope in between all the flames and trolls, there might be some clear commments too.

What will "success" in Iraq be? How will we know when we win?

Will it be killing all the Sunnis and letting the Shiites take over? (helping Iran)

Will it be killing all the Shiites and letting the Sunnis take over?

Will it be killing all the Muslims in Iraq? (angering the rest of the islamic population worldwide and potentially leading to worldwide conflict)

Will it be getting the Sunnis and Shiites to set aside their differences and living peacefully together? (naive thinking and less likely to happen than something like the Palestinians and Israelies settling their differences)

I have asked supporters of this war this question many times over the last five years, and never once gotten anything close to a realistic answer. "Stopping the terrorists" is not an answer.

But, I suppose somewhere between left wing fantasy land and McCain's new 100 years war, there must be an answer. Too bad no one in charge has a clue what they are trying to accomplish over there.

[Sprawl]

I dont think Gary Bettman will have any success putting an NHL Franchise in IRaq.

i dont think there are any hockey arena's.
They'd have to go to israel

[biguglygoalie]

Originally Posted by Sprawl

I dont think Gary Bettman will have any success putting an NHL Franchise in IRaq.

i dont think there are any hockey arena's.
They'd have to go to israel

they can be the "iraq quagmires"
if you think ranger islander games get physical, picture the iraq israel matchup...

[Sprawl]

Giggity....

[hroark2112]

Green glass in the entire region.

The only way to really win.

[M-Dub]

I am so sick in hearing about it and our economy.

to me sucess in Iraq would be putting up a US flag and gas being 1.50 a gallon.. Get our guys out they hate us anyway and say ****em

[Timberwoof]

Good questions! I just have a problem with the way you worded this one:

Originally Posted by Steve L

Will it be killing all the Muslims in Iraq? (angering the rest of the islamic population worldwide and potentially leading to worldwide conflict)

Are Muslims in the rest of the world the only people who would be offended, angered, enraged to revolution or invasion by this strategy?

[azdave]

Be careful with the thought of killing all the Muslims in Iraq. That road has been traveled a few times in history with a trail of death, destruction and suffering. Problem is and no one really wants to admit this, either Democrat or Republican. We DO NOT have an EXIT strategy. Plain and simple, we do not know how to leave. If we did we would have left but there are concerns about civil war, chaos, oil pricing, mass murders and this list goes on for pages. Bush got us in and of course he was clueless as to how to leave. He really thought we would be welcomed in Iraq and all would go so peacefully was Saddam was gone. That fact alone gives you the idea of how unprepared and how dense he was/is. Hopefully, but I don't count on it, one of the 2 Democrats have a plan. McCain's plan is very easy to follow, same ol, same ol, just a different face behind the words.

[Timberwoof]

Originally Posted by M-Dub

to me sucess in Iraq would be putting up a US flag and gas being 1.50 a gallon.

Well, the first part has already happened, but it's kind of an empty gesture. Did you see the PBS Frontline special about US troops in Iraq the other day? A PBS journalist gave some cameras to some soldiers and let them tell their own stories. At one point, the guy was in the second vehicle in a convoy. They had to wait to cross a one-lane bridge until another convoy coming the other direction had passed. When they finally got over the bridge, the first vehicle got blown up by a bomb that had been planted in the road in the time between the two convoys. According to the soldier, the only people who could have done that were the Iraqi police at the checkpoint right across from where the bomb went off. The next day, as he passed the checkpoint, he smiled and waved, then saluted the cops, saying, "I know you set that bomb. If I had my way, I'd shoot all of you."

Yep, there's a US flag in Iraq, but it's not gonna stay. Remember Red Dawn.

The second part of your win-conditions will never happen. Petroleum is getting harder to find and extract; more people are buying it. Half the world's reserves have been used up already; we're past peak oil production. And an expensive war will make such a thing even less likely.

Now I have a tough question: Under what circumstances, positive and negative, would you decide that the US must get out of Iraq?

[Holy the Goalie]

The one thing I know (and believe me, I can count the things I know on one hand) is that we as Americans have gotten spoiled. We've gotten used to instant gratification; instant coffee, McDonald's drive-thru, youtube, et al. When you're bored, how many times have you turned on the TV, only to throw the remote down in disgust 60 seconds later, complaining that there's NOTHING on TV. You weren't instantly entertained, so you gave up.

How long did it take from the time we, as a nation, declared our independance from England, to the point where we were fully self-sufficient as a nation? 10 years? 20 years? How long did it take for Germany or Japan to get "back on their feet" after WWII began?

I suffer from the same "give-it-to-me-now fever" that afflicts so many Americans; I'm sick of hearing about the war, I want my friend to come home safely, I want the Iraqis to take charge, blah blah blah. But I try to keep in mind that things like this take years and years, even decades to take care of. Whether or not we should ever have gotten into the mess isn't the issue now (nor is it the topic that was originally introduced); rather, and I'll echo Steve on this, what can we do to leave in the BEST WAY POSSIBLE? And are we, as a nation (and a worldwide community) ready to accept that the trip to the finish line will be a slow, steady march, rather than a sprint?

[M-Dub]

I will be honest I follow politics more than most people my age I feel. (or my friends anyway) I own my own business and feel I do pay attention to a bit going on around me.

I voted for Bush. He is good for my state. ND. I do not however agree with where we are in the world today. I dislike how we look out for everyone else when other countries do their own thing and dont get in everyones business.
I feel we are trying to help people that would rather have us dead anyway and by helping them we are only bringing our selves down.

Some say I have a bad attitude about it but I am more concerned about what goes on here than everywhere else.. Put up a wall and live our lives so to speak. I know that might sound ignorant but that is my feelings and I wold like our contry to work tword helping OURSELVES.


as much money as we have spent in IRaq we could have giving every citizen thousands of dollars.

[biguglygoalie]

Originally Posted by Holy the Goalie

The one thing I know (and believe me, I can count the things I know on one hand) is that we as Americans have gotten spoiled. We've gotten used to instant gratification; instant coffee, McDonald's drive-thru, youtube, et al. When you're bored, how many times have you turned on the TV, only to throw the remote down in disgust 60 seconds later, complaining that there's NOTHING on TV. You weren't instantly entertained, so you gave up.

How long did it take from the time we, as a nation, declared our independance from England, to the point where we were fully self-sufficient as a nation? 10 years? 20 years? How long did it take for Germany or Japan to get "back on their feet" after WWII began?

I suffer from the same "give-it-to-me-now fever" that afflicts so many Americans; I'm sick of hearing about the war, I want my friend to come home safely, I want the Iraqis to take charge, blah blah blah. But I try to keep in mind that things like this take years and years, even decades to take care of. Whether or not we should ever have gotten into the mess isn't the issue now (nor is it the topic that was originally introduced); rather, and I'll echo Steve on this, what can we do to leave in the BEST WAY POSSIBLE? And are we, as a nation (and a worldwide community) ready to accept that the trip to the finish line will be a slow, steady march, rather than a sprint?

it took roughly 5 years if that in germany and almost no time in japan - any resistance was nothing compared to the current mess. unfortunately the lessons learned in the immediate post wwii weren't applied... thanks viceroy bremer

not the best of sources, but its a start
japan After Japan surrendered and World War II ended and the US occupied Japan, was there a Japanese insurgency? - Yahoo! Answers
germanyWerwolf - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Timberwoof]

Germany did welcome the Allied soldiers, and Germany did have a fairly long though periodically interrupted tradition of a liberal-democratic[1] order of society. Although there were Catholic and Protestant Germans, they hadn't fought over that issue since the Thirty Years War. Germans have a pretty strong work ethic: in 1949, Konrad Adenauer declared a currency reform and launched the Economic Miracle. So I deny that it took years of US military involvement in Germany after the war to get the society and economy going again. And I deny that the situations of Germany and Iraq are similar enough that you can draw any conclusions about one from the other.

Somebody else who knows more about Japan than I do will have to write the post about how the comparison fails with that country as well.

[1] by which I do not mean damn-Liberal or Democrat

[Steve L]

Originally Posted by M-Dub

,,,as much money as we have spent in IRaq we could have giving every citizen thousands of dollars.

But remember, as any good "conservative" will tell you, it is better to spend on war than allowing to government to spend anything on our own people, which is tantamount to COMMUNISM or SOCIALISM!!!!!

[Timberwoof]

We can't put up a wall. We will never be "fully self-sufficient". No country has for the past two or three thousand years; no country will be--not without a serious fall of civilization. People from different countries will always engage in trade. The alternative is no more chocolate.