Why do we have to "win?" Why do we need "victory?"

I'm sick of hearing this. How is allowing the Iraqi's, and the rest of the world for that matter, chart their own course losing?

How can we change this football-game rhetoric to something more constructive? How can we work toward a mutual respect with the Iraqi people and the Islamic world?

Something very fundamental needs to happen on both sides of the world.

not providing stability when we leave. Compare to Afghanistan, when the Soviets left, the US left as well to let the locals chart their own course. That didn't work so well as the locals had a civil war and were willing to accept the Taliban as they provided order. And the rest is history.

Is it even possible? I'm beginning to think that it is not possible.

Welcome to DU

what gets me is the lack of a definition for winning. Georgie says that the Iraqis need to be able to do things for themself. They also say that this victory can be measured by progress. How then does this differ from the word "benchmarks" that the Dems use? I think that by holding the term "victory" somewhere high in the ether, they are setting a goal that can never be attained. If they said "victory is...one, two, three" we could see steps towards victory. They will not define victory in the terms of benchmarks or degrees of victory.

I think that this is just double speak for constant war. The war on terror, I guess, will go on until there is no one that is angry with anyone else.


They want this to drag out for decades. Why else would we build huge bases in Iraq, so that we can leave?

Did anyone ask the Iraqi's? How about moving the troops to Saudi Arabia, and fighting them there,or even Crawford, Texas.

The war enthusiasts can't answer that.

He's desperate to prove something to somebody - probably mommy and daddy - that he's a big boy who can do big boy shit like win wars and kill people.

No one wants to lose. Its kinda like Bush has bought a stock and the company failed and its now a penny-stock. Rather than sell it and admit he lost
over a trillion dollars, thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of lives, he keeps praying that the stock will turn around.

Chimpolini McCodpiece is a pathological narcissist and a spoiled brat and is incapable of any kind of mature negotiation or compromise ... just like a kid in his "terrible twos" throwing a shit-fit, kicking and screaming on the floor.

"war." He does not want to go down in history as a loser.

Meanwhile, our men and women in uniform continue to die because of this arrogant sack of shit.

This war can never be won, because the US troops don't know what they're fighting for.

The whole concept was doomed from the start because Bush never made it clear WHAT we are fighting for.

All he does is use jargon, and slogans.
And to be honest with you, I think lots of Americans WANTED to "win", and have "victory", but he never made it clear a)what we were fighting and b)how it was going to be done.

Just from that standpoint, Bush is sinking in quicksand because

As an example, here is a song from Monty Montgomery, a singer from Austin Texas. He just wrote a song about Iraq.

"And I don't know what I'm fighting for,
and what this war is about.

As I take a bullet in the chest
Soldier at his best".