Bush's Iraq War is Already Lost

Far Graver Than Vietnam
By Sidney Blumenthal
The Guardian - UK
www.guardian.co.uk...

Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale

'Bring them on!" President Bush challenged the early Iraqi insurgency in July of last year. Since then, 812 American soldiers have been killed and 6,290 wounded, according to the Pentagon. Almost every day, in campaign speeches, Bush speaks with bravado about how he is "winning" in Iraq. "Our strategy is succeeding," he boasted to the National Guard convention on Tuesday.

But, according to the US military's leading strategists and prominent retired generals, Bush's war is already lost. Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, told me: "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost." He adds: "Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends."

...

"We have a growing, maturing insurgency group," he told me. "We see larger and more coordinated military attacks. They are getting better and they can self-regenerate. The idea there are x number of insurgents, and that when they're all dead we can get out is wrong. The insurgency has shown an ability to regenerate itself because there are people willing to fill the ranks of those who are killed. The political culture is more hostile to the US presence. The longer we stay, the more they are confirmed in that view."

What US people should think is how to minimize the damage, and bring troops home ASAP.

Why discussing lost War in Vietnam in presidential compain, while ignoring current Iraq war with people dying every day, billions lost every weeks?

It's a lose/lose situation now. Everyone will scream we need to get out, it's a grave situation, etc.... If we just up and decided to pull out of Iraq everyone would scream how we abandoned them, didn't follow through etc.. At this point nothing we do will be right in the eyes of popular public opinion.

Occupation is not what we are designed to do.

In the aftermath of WWII, we were occupying countries whose governments had signed formal insturments of surrender. We also had much larger numbers of troops in these countries during their reconstruction.

In the case of Iraq, we are facing a largely hostile populace, and with the view that we are crusaders, it makes it a largely holy war, which does aid and abed the obl folks.

As much as like the President, I really do, this invasion has become the disaster we were promised it wouldn't by the Pentagon and the DOD. How do you leave gracefully? You can't.

We can stay and bleed, and give our very best to the desert, or we can wait until elections and get out of dodge.

We are not willing to fight the kind of war necessary to win. I do not think we should. We should find alternative fuels, end our dependency on all foregin oil, stand by Israel, and let the special ops guys wipe out the terrorist camps. With the oil money gone, the terrorists would have less resources to fight with. That is a scenerio I like.

The Spider

When you start a fight, and have no plan, no objective, and no exit strategy, it is just really dumb.

How can you lose a war that was not a war to begin with?

US did not go into Iraq to be at war with the Iraqi people but to liberate Iraq from Saddam, what happened after the successful mission of liberation was the fault of this administration.

Here's another story about the failure this war, and this administration has become:

www.cnn.com...

Senate Republicans and Democrats on Wednesday denounced the Bush administration's slow progress in rebuilding Iraq, saying the risks of failure are great if it doesn't act with greater urgency.

"It's beyond pitiful, it's beyond embarrassing, it's now in the zone of dangerous," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, referring to figures showing only about 6 percent of the reconstruction money approved by Congress last year has been spent.

For all of us who have been against this war, this can be seen as vindication of our views, however it is very sad that we were even put in the postition to have these views. This is a war that should never have been.

I've read that the Oval Office has been sold to Tel Aviv on 9/11. So, unless Tel Aviv says otherwise, American Forces will remain in Iraq.

27jd,

I guess little by little other politicians are starting to distance themselves from the fiasco that Iraq liberation has become.

US liberated Iraq with minium casualties of both sides and that was a success to the mission.

Now what happened after that was the poor planing of this administration.

Now we have to finance the reconstruction of that country with money from US to be handle through contracts with not other that Cheney big baby money maker Haliburton.

Now meanwhile our nation deficit is unbelievable and the needs of the people and the reconstruction of our own country when it comes with social problems like medical care and a social program is not in the best interest of the bush administration but Haliburton is.

This is a shame. How can people be so blind when it comes to the president of our nation.

Originally posted by Warpspeed
When you start a fight, and have no plan, no objective, and no exit strategy, it is just really dumb.

Who started this fight?

What has anyone here done in the war effort, except whine. We can excuse zcheng because he is the enemy and can be expected to do no better. It is the Americans here who make me sick. I hope you all have live to enjoy the luxury of living under zcheng's Communist Chinese rule or having your daugthers raped by muslim fanatics.

Ye shall reap what ye sow. Sow nothing, reap nothing. Those who have lived before you have bequeathed to you all the rights you enjoy and the best you can do is critcize and complain.

[edit on 04/9/16 by GradyPhilpott]

GradyPhilpott,

The facts are there very clear indeed, the Iraq conflict its just a fiasco, its not our nations fault but our leaders.

You can only call it a fiasco because you believe the lies of our enemies. Every war, every battle, every firefight looks like is a fiasco, until things begin to fall together. With people like you, America would have never won any war. Every island taken in the Pacific cost thousands of US lives, but they were won because we battled on.

The blood of those who die in Iraq today is on the hands of those who will not support the effort they die for. Now is the time for Americans to stand up and support those who give their all to make sure there are no more 9/11's and everytime an American denigrates that effort it deteriorates the morale of our nation.

Ask zcheng. That's his goal and you are his fellow travellers.

marg6043,

I have read many of your replies to these forums over the past week and have come to realize that much of what you say stems entirely out of opinion. When you say that the war in Iraq is a fiasco you site no proof or evidence of your claim, you just let others do it for you.

Of course there are two sides to every story, and when one retired military General says the War on Terror in Iraq is going badly another says it is going well. When one politician says it is going to be another Vietnam, another says it is going to be over and done with in a relatively short time. Its all mostly opinion. Our job is to look at those opinions and formulate our own and argue them using facts.

My point is, if you are going to say something like that, can you at least back it up with evidence since you obviously have never been to Iraq yourself and you do not have 1st degree information of your own to site.

-Jordan

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott

Originally posted by Warpspeed
When you start a fight, and have no plan, no objective, and no exit strategy, it is just really dumb.

Who started this fight?

What has anyone here done in the war effort, except whine. We can excuse zcheng because he is the enemy and can be expected to do no better. It is the Americans here who make me sick. I hope you all have live to enjoy the luxury of living under zcheng's Communist Chinese rule or having your daugthers raped by muslim fanatics.

Ye shall reap what ye sow. Sow nothing, reap nothing. Those who have lived before you have bequeathed to you all the rights you enjoy and the best you can do is critcize and complain.

[edit on 04/9/16 by GradyPhilpott]

What, so if we don't support the Iraqi War then we are "traitors"?

Because I don't believe that Saddam was involved in 9/11?

Because I don't believe that the Iraqi regime supported terrorists?

Because I don't believe in the loads of WMDs that were never found?

Because I don't believe it was any of our business to go over there?

Because I don't believe in an offensive war?

You are telling me that I should believe all this administration has to say, even if it varies day to day, I should "double-think".

Wow, thats amazing.

You know what, I do support the troops, that's why I say........

BRING THEM HOME.

Can't change the past, they've already gone, so why do I complain, because the ends do not justify the means. We are not psychics here who can predict that Saddam was training terrorists to attack America. Maybe you should put your comments in the Predictions forum.

[edit on 16-9-2004 by Jamuhn]

Originally posted by Jamuhn
You know what, I do support the troops, that's why I say........BRING THEM HOME.

I fell for that lie once. Try it out on someone else.

Dude calm down,

No one EVER said you were a traitor if you don't agree with the current administration, hell, think about how us republicans felt during the Clinton regime

My point is that while it is fine to disagree with the goverment (that is what makes our country strong,) you still need to recognize that there are certain isses that people feel very angry about, and that to them if you disagree with them then you automatically become the "enemy." Now, I personally disagree with you but I'm not going to brand you as a traitor or a communist because that would be the very thing that we are currently fighting against in this country. Don't take it to heart what others are saying, they are just as ignorant as the terrorists are.

-Jordan

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott

Originally posted by Jamuhn
You know what, I do support the troops, that's why I say........BRING THEM HOME.

I fell for that lie once. Try it out on someone else.

Yea, you have to take into the context of what I was saying because it isn't a lie.

We're over there, and we probably have to stay there, but I've been using that line since troops were sent BOY. LOL.

Eh, btw, it's not anger, it's passion lol.

[edit on 16-9-2004 by Jamuhn]

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott

Who started this fight?

Um, we did.

What has anyone here done in the war effort, except whine. We can excuse zcheng because he is the enemy and can be expected to do no better. It is the Americans here who make me sick. I hope you all have live to enjoy the luxury of living under zcheng's Communist Chinese rule or having your daugthers raped by muslim fanatics.

You really hope our daughters get raped? What kind of monster are you?

Ye shall reap what ye sow. Sow nothing, reap nothing.

I couldn't agree more. See the events of 9/11/2001. We learned this lesson all too well, and you would have us kill even more people, piss off even more arab youth. Smart idea.

Those who have lived before you have bequeathed to you all the rights you enjoy and the best you can do is critcize and complain.

The best we can do is not blindly trust folks like you to protect us from tyranny. It has not served us well for the last 4 years.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
You can only call it a fiasco because you believe the lies of our enemies. Every war, every battle, every firefight looks like is a fiasco, until things begin to fall together.

Right. Like it did in Vietnam.

The blood of those who die in Iraq today is on the hands of those who will not support the effort they die for. Now is the time for Americans to stand up and support those who give their all to make sure there are no more 9/11's and everytime an American denigrates that effort it deteriorates the morale of our nation.

Ask zcheng. That's his goal and you are his fellow travellers.

You seem very angry about all this. And paranoid. Would you care to respond to some of the posts with facts instead of your spiteful and completely unprovoked personal attacks?

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
You can only call it a fiasco because you believe the lies of our enemies.

We call it a fiasco because it is and so is anything Bush touches. It is well known fact and you must now deal with it. At what point do you seriously look around at the carnage of our troops and innocent civilians and say ENOUGH? You know, you strike me as a well educated person and I know you are a marine, but where's your compassion for humanity? Did the USMC do this to you,Grady? I know its taken me 20 years to get MY marine husband to feel something and be human again. He's not 100% yet, but he's on his way. Please read some of your own posts. You're entitled to your own opinions and I respect them although I am against Bush. But this war is not and will never accomplish anything.
Why arent we going for Osama? Isnt he the real murderer here?
This whole war is nothing but a total sham.
** No offense intended here, just an observation since Im married to a marine**

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
Who started this fight?

What has anyone here done in the war effort, except whine. We can excuse zcheng because he is the enemy and can be expected to do no better. It is the Americans here who make me sick. I hope you all have live to enjoy the luxury of living under zcheng's Communist Chinese rule or having your daugthers raped by muslim fanatics.

Ye shall reap what ye sow. Sow nothing, reap nothing. Those who have lived before you have bequeathed to you all the rights you enjoy and the best you can do is critcize and complain.

Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11.

You better go to Iraq and join the glorious fight, otherwise you are just instigating others to die for you.

What has "Communist China" bring to US? China has provided large cheap products for US consumers, thus benefiting everyone in US. Go try to defame and curse China if you will.

In every post, I stated my goal in my signature. China and US are both great and giant nations. US and China should be friends and never go to war.

With regards to Iraq war, it is illegal war, outright invasion and occupation. From history, I know US will be defeated no matter how long it will take.

For the sake of US and the world, US should mend its foreign policy, and bring troops home. There is a old saying in China: "Wang Yang Bu Lao", meaning "It is alway not too late to build a fence to protect your sheeps."

The longer US troops stay in Iraq. The more to die for both US and Iraqi people. The end result will be the same.