McCain: "If we lose in Iraq it would be a disaster."

Isn't that what they said about Vietnam? Why would it be any more of a Disaster than Vietnam was?

potus office.

Iraq is our Afghanistan. Which is unfortuante, because we've already got an Afghanistan; the actual Afghanistan. :P

Been there 4+ years and not much has changed.

Except for the record poppy crops.

Afghanistan was the Soviet's Vietnam, Afghanistan is our Afghanistan, Iraq is Bush's Waterloo.

Yep. :thumbsup:

that Iraqi's want to be liberated and want freedom and now that we have toppled Saddass they can't handle it and maintain it?

They are schizo aren't they?

They will give you some vauge idea of "democracy" in Iraq

I have no doubt we will be their for many years, and many more Americans and Iraqiis will die because of this before we leave

I do NOT count on the democrats to save us from this disaster

As wrong as this war is had it not been completely mismanaged Bushco could have pulled it off. If they would have listened to Shinseki and put 300 to 500 thousand troops on the ground, guarded the huge explosives plant(huge blunder), restored the utilities, and actually had a plan to deal with the post war.

Unless moving the few remaining Iraqis we didn't kill on to reservations is your definition of winning? Because that is about what it would have taken.

Don

I'm not willing to make that assumption.

hoping to make his fortune by playing commander in chief. Enough is enough, time to vote all these bastards out of office.

He went batshit crazy in his little cage in the Hanoi Hilton. How the fuck are we gonna win this war? What would a "win" even look like? We are now throwing away enought money each year to completely fund a single-payer health care plan in America. That we spend our money on the instruments of death rather than those of life is absolutely immoral.

What other OBVIOUS quotes do you have from Rethugs?

McCain will be out spinning his ass off about how it's not that big of a deal.

And Part II of the GOP Operation Goatfuck The American People is about to begin.

The region around Vietnam did not have 2/3rd's of the worlds remaining oil reserves.

The region around Vietnam did not have most of the worlds remaining natural Gas reserves that we are depending on for imports since North America only has 9 years of proven reserves remaining.

The destabilization that the GOP initiated with their misguided/ mismanaged war now puts all of these resources into jeopardy. The GOP made a petro grab, bungled it badly, and the American people are going to pay the price for generations to come.

To those who think this adventure is not already lost, ramping up (along with with massive aid/rebuilding) is one solution. That is, make a real effort.

The other approach, of course, is to pull out (or back, as Murtha suggests). If we do, we had better put a WW2 level mobilization effort into energy transformation, because we will be losing Persian Gulf energy resources within several years thereafter.

Which path is the least risk? Pull-out. My rationale is as follows:

- There is no guarantee that the rampup would work in preventing general gulf-wide civil war.
- Either path will take vast amounts of resources. At least with the pull-out option we will have begun the transformation of our energy supply.
- Even if rampup works, the region will be out of oil in 20-30 years anyway.

And if we do exercise the pull-out option, and a massive energy transformation is not implemented concurrent with this event, we are in big trouble as a nation. The extremely dangerous situation the GOP has placed us in does not end with a pull-out from Iraq, it simply changes the nature of the threat.

And all this is due to the complete incompetence of the GOP and their pursuit of this war. If they had decided Iraq must be taken, why did they not use adequate troop levels or follow the advise of State Department experts? Why did they rush to set up a wild west of crony capitalism, thus alienating most of the population? And why take Iraq at all? If the purpose was to fight Islamic extremism, why not use secular Iraq as an anvil much as the US used the Soviet Union in WWII?

Incompetence rising to the level of treason. Yes, treason, freepers. Not the Ann Coulter 'cause we don't like what they say' treason. I am talking 'place the entire nation in danger' treason.

:sarcasm:

Nixon on withdrawal from Vietnam:

In January I could only conclude that the precipitate withdrawal of all American forces from Vietnam would be a disaster not only for South Vietnam but for the United States and for the cause of peace.

For the United States this first defeat in our nation’s history would result in a collapse of confidence in American leadership not only in Asia but throughout the world.
_____________________________________________

. . . we want to see a stable Government there, carrying on the struggle to maintain its national independence.

We believe strongly in that. We are not going to withdraw from that effort. In my opinion, for us to withdraw from that effort would mean a collapse not only of South Vietnam but Southeast Asia. So we’re going to stay there.

For the future of peace, precipitate withdrawal would be a disaster of immense magnitude. A nation cannot remain great if it betrays its allies and lets down its friends. Our defeat and humiliation in South Vietnam without question would promote recklessness in the councils of those great powers who have not yet abandoned their goals of world conquest. This would spark violence wherever our commitments help maintain the peace -- in the Middle East, in Berlin, eventually even in the Western Hemisphere. Ultimately, this would cost more lives. It would not bring peace. It would bring more war.

For these reasons I rejected the recommendation I should end the war by immediately withdrawing all of our forces. I chose instead to change American policy on both the negotiating front and the battle front in order to end the war on many fronts.

We have offered the complete withdrawal of all outside forces within one year. We have proposed to cease fire under international supervision. We have offered free elections under international supervision with the Communists participating in the organization and conduct of the elections as an organized political force.

The defense of freedom is everybody’s business -- not just America’s business. And it is particularly the responsibility of the people whose freedom is threatened.

This withdrawal will be made from strength and not from weakness. As South Vietnamese forces become stronger, the rate of American withdrawal can become greater.

An announcement of a fixed timetable for our withdrawal would completely remove any incentive for the enemy to negotiate an agreement. They would simply wait until our forces had withdrawn and then move in.

The other two factors on which we will base our withdrawal decisions are the level of enemy activity and the progress of the training programs of the South Vietnamese forces.

And I’m glad to be able to report tonight progress on both of these fronts has been greater than we anticipated when we started the program in June for withdrawal.

As a result, our timetable for withdrawal is more optimistic now than when we made our first estimates in June.

Now this clearly demonstrates why it is not wise to be frozen in on a fixed timetable. We must retain the flexibility to base each withdrawal decision on the situation as it is at that time, rather than on estimates that are no longer valid.

Along with this optimistic estimate, I must in all candor leave one note of caution. If the level of enemy activity significantly increases, we might have to adjust our timetable accordingly.
_________________________________________

I can order an immediate precipitate withdrawal of all Americans from Vietnam without regard to the effects of that action.

Or we can persist in our search for a just peace through a negotiated settlement, if possible, or through continued implementation of our plan for Vietnamization, if necessary. A plan in which we will withdraw all of our forces from Vietnam on a schedule in accordance with our program as the South Vietnamese become strong enough to defend their own freedom.

In speaking of the consequences of a precipitous withdrawal, I mentioned that our allies would lose confidence in America. For more dangerous, we would lose confidence in ourselves. Oh, the immediate reaction would be a sense of relief that our men were coming home. But as we saw the consequences of what we had done, inevitable remorse and divisive recrimination would scar our spirit as a people.

transcript: http://www.c-span.org/executive/presidential/nixon.asp

Iraq has been a BushCo. / REPUBLICAN war from the very start, fully backed by Chicken Hawks who always blamed the Democrats for losing Vietnam. But, this was their opportunity to conquer any foe as the world's only superpower, without any obstruction from the Democratic Party in our Government.

The Republicans have ran on being "strong on defense" and the "war party," and they have blasted the Democrats for being weak and pathetic on defense and blamed the Democrats for Vietnam.

If Iraq is lost, the Republicans lose all credibility on their claims about how they are so much better than Democrats when it comes to military and defense policy.

Yes we lost and yes it is a disaster.

It isn't a war...it's a FAILED REGIME CHANGE.

Bushco went in hoping to be embraced and gain a country on the new neocon map of the Middle East.

But they're fu#king stupid and don't know about history or politics...just opportunities and "growth".

We trained the Vietnamese and they successfully fought the Vietcong....but we lost the war politically.

Similarly...we can't win a political victory in Iraq.
They hoped we could implant a pro-US government...which is as lame as lame can be.

1. Long standing hatred of Sunni power will bring forth a Shia regime that will be pro-Iran and the formation of a much more terrorist prone government. In essence...Bushco has laid the foundation for MORE TERROR well into the future. That's why it IS A DISASTER.

2. After killing well over 200,000 innocent Iraqi's in both campaigns....the Iraqi's will never be long term US supporters. Well yes they will accept our money now...and our Walmarts, and our free health care...you would too...but politically....they will not ever be pro American.

no two ways about it, with only the occasional flash of candor. I say that because I think I detect a wish among people when they discuss him that he would be more moderate so that those who want to like him would feel better about it. He'd be no better than Bush. But he's not hard enough right to get elected by that disgusting party so forget about him.

It's a disaster.