There'll be no victory or success in Iraq, despite what some say they want

Calls for 'victory' or success in Iraq by Bush and some Democrats only serve as a continuation of the con job that sold many Americans on the Iraq invasion in the first place. Calls for victory or success there is an invitation to a perpetual war that could be escalated to achieve it, as Nixon did after telling everyone he was getting our soldiers out. Any U.S. plan that relies on the military to achieve victory at this point is a prescription for a widening war as we saw in Cambodia at the end of the Vietnam war. One more shifting of a political line on the map, at the expense of more of our soldier's lives, before they claim whatever victory they imagine there.

There will be no victory or success that comes out of this manufactured, illegal, and immoral war. Our soldiers were misguided into bombing and killing thousands of Iraqis who had never threatened our country, even remotely. They didn't succeed in even gaining the support of those Bush professes to want to help. They didn't achieve anything close to democracy out of elections fostered by the heavy hand of our military. We bombed their country into a pre-industrial state and still haven't put it back together.

There will be no victory or success out of our involvement in Iraq. It is, and will continue to be with our military forces deployed there, a complete and utter failure. Nothing, not even withdrawing our soldiers from Iraq, can change that.

the hand of the destruction you perpetuate.
We keep fighting these "insurgents" while giving cause to the terrorist.

;-). You make precisely the points I am going to make. I am also going to point out huge expense of war, and what we could have bought for that money. We could have funded basic immunizations for every child in the world for 74 years, and the entire global struggle against AIDS for 22 years. (costofwar.com)

is a comparison between the amount we are spending on Iraq's infrastructure and the amount we are cutting from our own budget. Costofwar.com has an excellent state by state breakdown of the impact of the amount we are spending in Iraq on state's discretionary spending. I looked at Pennsylvania for example: http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=34&Itemid=61

In this case, 'victory' is control of the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the White House for a generation. The courts, too, if you can get them.

Because if you control the government, you control when and where and how the money goes. And with the money goes the power. And the power follows the money.

The Iraq war is not actually a foreign war. The war in Iraq is only incidentally in Iraq.

We are watching in in fact an American Second Civil War, fought by proxy.

Or the world's most expensive campaign commercial, take your pick.

The decision to fight it at all, instead of making Afghanistan work, was motivated by domestic political concerns. It was not forced by events.

The decision when to fight it was motivated by domestic political concerns, else it would have happened, if it happened at all, in the Fall of 2003.

The decision how to fight it was motivated by domestic political concerns, else there'd be a draft.

The Iraq war was ginned up out of whole cloth, in defiance of best military thinking and practice, in order to neuter or destroy for a generation any organized, domestic political resistance to a nascent, domestic, American kleptocracy.

I have a darker view. I fear all the corpses in Iraq -- American, Iraqi, coalition -- have been created, deliberately, specifically, to beat us, here in America, over the head with, as tools of political and social control, playing on base motives of fear, revenge, racism, greed, what have you.

A cowed, angry, American people -- that's their definition of 'victory'.

Clausewitz was only sort-of-right. Der Krieg ist nicht anders als die Forsetzung der Partei-politik mit andern Mitteln.

success can be had, and that is why NO PERMANENT BASES and withdraw troops in significant numbers as we draw down at each POLITICAL BENCHMARK achieved.


Please be accurate, and don't twist the meanings. We already have a media that does that to the Dems - they twisted Murtha's to mean cut and run, and Kerry's gets twisted here to imply he means military success when he clearly stated many times that NO military success is possible.

What part of NO MILITARY, NO GUN will win in Iraq did you not understand?

I agree with his prescription (edit: most of his prescription) for the withdrawal of our troops. But, I think he uses politically correct language when he describes the 'soldiers who believe in their mission', and when he said, " . . . we're talking about how to win, how to succeed, how to best achieve our goals. That's the choice here." That's what he said.

I don't know what he means by 'win' in Iraq. It may be politically necessary to make the republicans believe they have won in Iraq to get them to leave, but it is, I believe, dishonest to describe anything the U.S. has done in Iraq and anything we may do in the future, including the withdrawal of our troops, as a 'win'.

Why not get withdrawal any way you can - that's why Tom Hayden said what he said - Kerry's withdrawal plan is doable because it appeals across the political and legislative spectrum in ways the extreme language on both ends will never realize.

If it can't be realized, it can't be done.

I identified immediately with Bill Clinton's pragmatism. What an incredible era of incremental achievement. But, I've become disillusioned with using half-truths to achieve our political goals. I don't think they work, and may well work against us as we get to the crux of a political debate, on anything. Truth and honesty were lacking in the lead-up to the war. I think truth and honesty is the only way to get Americans to continue to want us out of there in the numbers we see today. The more they know about the disaster there the more they oppose the occupation.

I'm not convinced the 'win' language is so politically smart. Any sugar coating just gives room to rationalize continued or prolonged occupation, if just by Bush. They already have the statements of Democrats on their site using their statements about goals and strategies for success to justify their own version of how to achieve those goals or their own version of success. It's not just misleading, it's a weak political argument that is not very distinguishable to the public, at least on its face, from Bush's. Not many folks look beyond the label. We also need a direct admission of failure to dissuade us from trying anything like this in the future.

He worries about the effect of the Bush victory approach on the peace movement, and thinks their pretense about steps to withdrawal could take some steam out of the anti-war movement by lowering anxiety about the occupation.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20051203/cm_huffpost/011635_200512031440

We need to unite on this and stop letting SPIN divide the Dems. We have withdrawal plans on the table and we need to support both to show unity for the GOAL of withdrawal.

We've got them talking exit, but we've got to find the best way to hold their feet to the fire. What Hayden said that resonated with me was that we could lose control of the rhetoric. That's why I advocate a direct admission of failure to effect an immediate withdrawal.

I don't think we get there by hemming over linking that exit to achieving some future, nebulous set of goals. That, in my view, is a license for Bush to justify continuing or prolonging the occupation by simply stating that we haven't yet achieved some goal or benchmark which resembles Sen. Kerry's or those of others on our side who have put foward plans.

cut-and-run
slow pull out

whatever

We cannot "win" in Iraq, or for that matter, anywhere now. Our military is in shambles, the equipment depleted, the money squandered on "contractors" from Halliburton, et al. We can continue to pour bodies and the remainder of our equipment into the area until hell freezes over. It will not matter. We will always be occupiers and the colonial power while we are there. And as has happened with all previous colonial powers in the area, we will eventually leave or be kicked out.

I have lived in Iran and have some knowledge of their thinking. The TheoCons have not a clue about the Middle East.

It was voted on by congress as "an authorization to use force".
What followed immediately after this was "REGIME CHANGE"...advertised front and center...."you have 48 hours to get out of town".

What is now happening is a result of a failed REGIME CHANGE.
It is not a war.

We are in the middle of an IRAQ CIVIL WAR...that's the closest possible analogy one could make to a war.

A long standing clash between Shia and Sunni has been unraveled as a result of our REGIME CHANGE.

Bush's ideal democracy will never work.
Training Iraqi forces will not stop the continued hostilities that are between the Sunni and Shia.
Our staying simply fuels the fire.

The insistence that this is a war is important for the Administration for obvious reasons.

1. It got them re-elected....Americas bought into the BS that we were at war...as if this is the front lines of a world wide war on terror.
2. The WAR allows the neocons to continue their aggression in the area. There is no end to what they will get involved in and screw up.
They have already set their sites clearly on Iran, using the same lame nuclear nightmare scenario argument.
3. As long as the American people think we're at WAR....the REPUKES can keep us off guard, our attention off other issues....while tax breaks to the rich and other agenda items are slipped down our throats.

WAR....is a concept that Bushco wants Americans to believe in.
The minute people realize it was a failed REGIME CHANGE...the clearer they will see that it failed and there's no way our staying there will achieve any better government result.

are trying to sell them as "success" plans.

Success being defined as getting out while leaving behind an Iraq that is relatively stable.