6 Years Later Iraq Better but Still Shaky

Have you ever wondered what one trillion dollars looks like? (http://deliveriesgalore.com/2009/03/18/one-trillion-dollars/)

That is pretty insane.

I think you hit the nail on the head Beem and here's why: when we look at Iraq or any war from that perspective things become crystal clear. I cannot count how many times i've been at parties, family gatherings or just typical conversations while someone carries on about the greatness of the war. I always ask whether they encouraged their son, daughter, brother, sister to sign up. It's actually pretty fascinating to see the response... nobody ever says yes. Nobody. If I'm feeling a bit grouchy i ask whether they would have encouraged it during WWII... some people are honest and say they get the idea but then again some just get f'n peeved. My favorite incident was a relative who berates anyone not supportive of Bush and Iraq. When I mentioned the military was really short on good soldiers and his oldest son would be a perfect fit his wife literally went rigid w/ terror... and he finally stopped w/ all the speeches.


that's really a stupid question that you posed to the party goers. you ask it already knowing the answer, which makes you look like your making a good point but really your not. most people are not gonna encourage their child to join anything that raises the possibility of them getting injured or being killed. kinda like "hey son i think you should become a cop in the worse city around here so you can get shot at" or "hey daughter i think you should become a firefighter so you can run into burning buildings". joining the military should be a personal decision and the person joining should understand the possabilities of going to war.
just because someone supports going to war does not mean they should encourage their child to join the army. i support the chesapeake city police department but i'm not gonna encourage my son or daughter to become a cop.

lots of Americans seem to be warhawks as long as somebody else's loved one has to fight.



thats really a jackass statement.

thats really a jackass statement.

Do explain, please.

thats really a jackass statement.

after you just said that (paraphrasing) "of course no one wants to put there children in harms way" (which, by the way, agrees with the statement you just called asinine).

It is a good question though, cause it gets people to think about being so gun-ho about a fight that they're taking no part in.


as for iraq, the political structures aren't really what got the home crowd on our side. we lost them when we made them all jobless (go back to any war including alexander the great, and rule #1 is keep people employed, that way they have better things to do than sit around all day thinking about how to hurt you).

then we got smart and put awakening counsels on the payroll (which is 100,000 extra bodies) and increased troop counts and some tactics - and that was that. we'll have to see if the militants are just waiting for us to leave, but it looks like the political parties are starting to break away towards more nationalist groupings, which is good for stability.

that's really a stupid question that you posed to the party goers. you ask it already knowing the answer, which makes you look like your making a good point but really your not. most people are not gonna encourage their child to join anything that raises the possibility of them getting injured or being killed. kinda like "hey son i think you should become a cop in the worse city around here so you can get shot at" or "hey daughter i think you should become a firefighter so you can run into burning buildings". joining the military should be a personal decision and the person joining should understand the possabilities of going to war.
just because someone supports going to war does not mean they should encourage their child to join the army. i support the chesapeake city police department but i'm not gonna encourage my son or daughter to become a cop.

I'll spell it out for u since u somehow missed the point... in WWII there was no question. People DID encourage their loved ones to join because the fate of the world rested in our hands. My parents and grandparents (when they we're living) can attest to this. Iraq is the opposite. People of a certain political persuasion r gung-go until it involves their loved ones. You might say this war doesn't pass the smell test, because people aren't willing to see their loved ones in harm's way. It's pretty simple.

So let me get this straight. The argument supporting the stance that the Iraq war was a failure is based upon saying that we never should have been there in the first place?

That's a whole separate argument. If I take a shot from half court in a non-buzzer beater situation, my coach might not like that I did it, but if it goes in you can't argue it wasn't a success.

There were massive failures with this war, failures that led to spending way more time and money there than we had imagined. But that country now has a democracy instead of an unstable dictator. The economy is beginning to get its legs. Order is being maintained to a level consistent with other middle east nations. And most importantly, human rights have improved 100000% as women are now voting and becoming a significant part of society.

I won't argue that the reasoning to go to war wasn't shaky. But nobody here should argue that the decision in any way diminishes what was accomplished.

What would be really interesting is to poll Iraqi citizens: Are you better off/happier today than you were 6-7 years ago?

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:


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.
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.
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?
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.
Anyone that thinks they can win against international terrorists militarily is delusional.
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.

Do explain, please. sometimes going to war is the correct thing to do regardless of if you have a loved one in the military or not. thats what the military is for. thats their job, it's in their contract. if they're called upon to go to war then they go. i supported going to war in iraq , your jackass statement makes it sound like the only reason i and anyone else that supports going to war only support it because i/we do not have a loved one in the military.