Iraq War
Posted 29 weeks 5 days ago byJust recently our troops found papers that showed how bad things are for Al Qaeda in Al Anbar province and other areas in Iraq. They can't find new recruits to attack soft targets, kill innocent life, etc. But, despite the success in Iraq, the Democrats want to withdrawal our troops and give premature deadlines for leaving. This would be a terrible thing to do since we are so close to finishing our job over there. Any sign of weakness (like giving deadlines for our leaving) would only embolden our enemies. The Democrats should stop playing politics with the Iraq issue and give full funding to our troops without delay.
Thoughts
Re: An infinite war?
Submitted on February 12th, 2008 by BenMy short answers, Stew, are: 1) Not really, and 2) When we have a real victory to declare.
The Vietnam analogy isn't a great one. Yes, I know President Bush has used it before. By the time Saigon fell in 1975, U.S. combat troops were long gone. The shame of Vietnam was that the United States -- led by a weak president overshadowed by his scandal-plagued predecessor and with an activist Democratic majority controlling Congress -- cut off military aid to its former allies in South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese could have fought on and maybe even won if we had simply provided air support.
The dilemma in Iraq today is that the Iraqis are nowhere as able as the South Vietnamese. The central government isn't strong enough and the Iraqi security forces aren't prepared to assume full control of the country. The Iraqis are doing more than they were doing a year ago, before the surge got underway, but we're still a long way from the kind of precipitous withdrawal that Barack Obama and to a lesser extent Hillary Clinton envision.
It's a shame that the Bush administration let victory in Iraq be tied to the triumph of some kind of Islamo-Jeffersonian democracy in that country -- at best unlikely, and most likely impossible. An American victory there should have been to permanently neutralize Iraq as a threat to U.S. interests and to put a check on other terror-sponsoring regimes in the region (i.e. Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia). It will be up to a future president to achieve those goals, I'm sorry to say.
An infinite war?
Submitted on February 12th, 2008 by Stew D. BakerMy question is this. If you speak to most Vietnam vets, they agree that fighting would have gone on indefinitely, will little results and many casualties. This war is creating less casualties (on the US forces), and only 30,000 troops have been dismembered, which is a far cry from Vietnam. However, the same argument was made at the time for staying in Vietnam. Do you feel it might apply here as well? At what point do we declare Iraq a real victory?