Voice of the people

[USMC the Almighty]

Define win.

Creating a stable Iraq that can defend, govern, and sustain itself.

 

[lipmonkey]

The Iraqi's are the only ones capable of stabilizing Iraq.

The puppet government in place isn't capable of governing Iraq, and I doubt the current leaders ever will be.

Sustain? That's a hell of a long ways down the road.

 

[USMC the Almighty]

The Iraqi's are the only ones capable of stabilizing Iraq.

Correct in the long run, but right now a stable Iraq is in the best interest of the U.S. and historically, the U.S. hasn't left its own interests for other countries to take care of.

The puppet government in place isn't capable of governing Iraq, and I doubt the current leaders ever will be.

It takes time to develop a government that has the trust of the people.

Sustain? That's a hell of a long ways down the road.

Well of course. It was 24 years before it appeared as though the U.S. could sustain itself.

 

[SW85]

Some of you are just sheep manipulated by propaganda... does anyone realize that we are not the heroes in this war... if anything, we are an enemy... just because we are good at war doesn't mean we are right in engaging in war... and if we were good at war, we would have preserved more Iraqis, rather than dissolve and police their entire country. WAKE UP PEOPLE!!! I am not a troll, I am a patriot who supports the principles American was founding on.

Finally the veil of pompous verbosity drops.

I'm assuming the "principles American was founding on" doesn't include good grammar, spelling, punctuation, proper use of words ("war mongrel"?), or intellectual coherence. Frankly I'd tear into you for this little snippet alone, but since you're still somehow managing to contribute nothing meaningful, new, or original to this debate even though you've dropped the self-righteous Cicero-speak, why bother?

The only thing I will say is that I am positively floored people think the war is lost, much less going badly. So we don't have an obvious objective for victory -- it's what Clausewitz called "judgment by results." Is it working out for us? Libya has disarmed, Syria has ceased its occupation of democratic Lebanon, we've slain more al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq than anywhere else at any other time up to this point combined (including Afghansitan), and, right, the thing about millions of Iraqis turning out to vote. It's progress, and better than the brittle, terrorist-sponsoring dictatorship that held things together only by virtue of brute force before.

So Iraqis are dying. Blame the Islamists, who are largely the ones killing them. And if you think it's bad now, wait till you see the bloodshed that would follow from a theater-scale withdrawal.

So Americans are dying. If you don't like it, again, blame the Islamists. All of the American soldiers there understand the risk, it being by definition an all-volunteer army. Desertion rates are still a fraction of what they were in Vietnam because (*gasp*) so is the casualty rate. We lost more men in worse hours during Vietnam than have died in the four years or so since the second Gulf War began. Incidents of fragging (soldiers deliberately killing their superior officers) are virtually non-existent, and from what I understand, several of those few that have occurred were motivated by causes utterly unrelated to unwillingness to fight in the war.

All these tired one-liners about how only Iraqis are capable of stabilizing Iraq -- all I can say is duh. The whole purpose of the continuing US presence there is to keep non-Iraqis out of the process, namely bloodthirsty Iranian bottom-feeders, and to provide a shield within which a democratic Iraq can rebuild itself. The whole idea behind democratic government is that the state, which exercises a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within the nation, compels the people to resolve their differences through concensual politics (i.e., debate, policy, elections, etc.) rather than just killing each other. Until the Iraqi state gains that monopoly, the Iraqis will never be able to stabilize their own country. Withdrawing is not going to make them capable of self-governance as a people; it's going to result in genocide and the nation's gobbling-up by power-hungry neighbors. Iraq, as a coherent political entity, will cease to exist, and many of its former citizens will very likely be dead.

 

[OPGhostdog]

Look at the title of this thread...Voice of the People.
I have noticed that there seem to be a disagreement
about what Irishone,s opinion. The man,s opinion is
voicing what he thinks, and who are we to dis respect
his post?

Some of you are just sheep manipulated by
propaganda... does anyone realize that we are not the heroes
in this war... if anything, we are an enemy... just because we
are good at war doesn't mean we are right in engaging in war...
and if we were good at war, we would have preserved more Iraqis,
rather than dissolve and police their entire country.
WAKE UP PEOPLE!!! I am not a troll, I am a patriot who supports
the principles American was founding on

.

We are manipulated by paragenda into thinking that we are the
superpower of the world___well not anymore. I have to agree
that our Government is good at starting Wars until they get to
hot for us to finish them, and like I have said many times that
we're not Global cops.

Here this entire thread is questioning Irishone21, due to the
contents of his post, and to be honest I do not agree with
Irish all the time. I will post exactly how I feel about anything
that's posted, but calling names isn't mature for citizens of a
so-called country that believes in freedom of speech, and we
need to give War a rest.

I do not support any conflict or war that we start, but I do
support the fact that our Troops need to come home, and
like Irish stated...We are no heros. USMC, You know what's
the real side effects of War, and you & I both know that the
War in the Middle East is uncalled for.

 

[lipmonkey]

USMC

the U.S. hasn't left its own interests for other countries to take care of

Viet Nam comes to mind. We not only abandoned the war, we abandoned the soldiers who fought in it.

It takes time to develop a government that has the trust of the people.

The Iraq government doesn't stand a chance of uniting the country. They are actually making matters worse.

It was 24 years before it appeared as though the U.S. could sustain itself.

I'm not sure what time frame or war you are referring to.
In any event, did we undermine our allies in any war we fought to the extent we see today in Iraq?

 

[SW85]

The man,s opinion is
voicing what he thinks, and who are we to dis respect
his post?

I can disrespect whoever or whatever I feel like, and you have no right to stop me. He gets to express his opinion - so do I.

We are manipulated by paragenda into thinking that we are the
superpower of the world___well not anymore. I have to agree
that our Government is good at starting Wars until they get to
hot for us to finish them, and like I have said many times that
we're not Global cops.

The only reason we don't finish wars is because the left keeps subverting them. If you guys had the ability to look at things in a dispassionate, realistic way, there might not be such a problem.

Here this entire thread is questioning Irishone21, due to the
contents of his post, and to be honest I do not agree with
Irish all the time. I will post exactly how I feel about anything
that's posted, but calling names isn't mature for citizens of a
so-called country that believes in freedom of speech, and we
need to give War a rest.

Since when does freedom of speech not include the right to call a man a moron? And did you miss the bit where Irishone called everyone sheep?

I do not support any conflict or war that we start

Christ, I can't buy that kind of honesty from anyone else on the left.

Viet Nam comes to mind. We not only abandoned the war, we abandoned the soldiers who fought in it.

Because of the same people who are demanding we abandon the war effort today.

In any event, did we undermine our allies in any war we fought to the extent we see today in Iraq?

Our "allies" are ruthlessly self-interested bureaucrats who had lucrative oil contracts with the brittle Saddamite dictatorship. Hell, the Germans under Schroeder supplied Hussein with the tools and expertise that enabled some of his atrocities.

In case you forgot, Bush spent a year or so at the UN trying to corral up support for an effort to enforce its own resolutions. When he went to war, he had the backing of Congress, NATO, much of the UN (outside the oil bloc, of course), and the American people. Much unlike Clinton, for the record, who's attack on Iraq occurred without a vote of Congressional approval and without even a glance at the UN.

The cognitive dissonance of the anti-war left just floors me every time.

 

[lipmonkey]

I figured the lame , no brain, excuse of cying about Clinton would work it's way in here somehow.

Talk to the hand.

I guees the left makes up a big part of our population these day because close to 3/4 of Americans want out of Iraq, so get real.

Iraq is Viet Nam. Same damn thing. Trying to run the war from Washington, and it will meet the same fate.

It's a war we can't win. Only the Iraqi's can do that.

 

[SW85]

I figured the lame , no brain, excuse of cying about Clinton would work it's way in here somehow.

I brought Clinton up to prematurely refute the inevitable citing of him as a pinnacle of how world diplomacy ought to work. The man snubbed the UN and didn't get Congressional approval to launch a military attack yet is lauded as a diplomatic hero; Bush spent a year at the UN corraling support, built up a large coalition, and won Congressional approval, and yet he's a rogue renegade cowboy etc. It's just silly.

I guees the left makes up a big part of our population these day because close to 3/4 of Americans want out of Iraq, so get real.

I don't blame the people for being taken in (in fact I partly fault the administration for making all the same mistakes Johnson did during Vietnam in failing to corral public support for the war). The media's coverage of the war has focused exclusively on Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, etc., with no effort made to depict the savagery and barbarism of radical Islam or the courageous efforts of those Americans (and Iraqis) who are fighting against it. People cannot come to a conclusion on the basis of information they aren't being given; they can only know what their told. And the left holds a near-monopoly over the information industry.

Iraq is Viet Nam. Same damn thing. Trying to run the war from Washington, and it will meet the same fate.

It's a war we can't win. Only the Iraqi's can do that.

Did you even read my last post?