What IS Bushes Iraq strategy?

[outriding]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
His plan it to win, not sure he plans to do that, but he plans to win.

Democrats plan is to withdraw, either tomorrow or in a year, but I think almost all of them call for a withdrawal.

Bush talks about winning, the Democrats talk about with drawing. There is a big difference in ideas.

But feel free to bash Bush for lack of a plan, I have not seen the latest one yet. I think post election we get the Baker plan, until then we just sit and wait.

1)Become President
2) Start war in Iraq
3) ???
4) Profit

 

[VooDooAddict]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
His plan it to win, not sure he plans to do that, but he plans to win.

Democrats plan is to withdraw, either tomorrow or in a year, but I think almost all of them call for a withdrawal.

Bush talks about winning, the Democrats talk about with drawing. There is a big difference in ideas.

But feel free to bash Bush for lack of a plan, I have not seen the latest one yet. I think post election we get the Baker plan, until then we just sit and wait.

We've gotten rid of Saddam and his non-existant WMD programs. We've helped establish a new government. ... As I remember it these are the only two goals that seemed to be set forth at the start of the war. A major pulling out won't change those facts.

What? The "terrorists" will say they won if we pull out? Listen, enemies of our nation will always spin whatever we do as a victory for themselves. They will blatently lie about our actions to give themselves more power amoungst thier own people regardless.

The "War on Terror" is a differant type of war, right? Guess what. That should include using a different measure of victory and having wide reaching goals. You need to apply some basic risk assesment. Which areas of international terrorism can you target to give our county (and it's allies) the greatest reduction in risk of large terrorist strikes? It apears that "Bush and Co, LLC." are using the old your "enemy is dead, can't fight back, or unconditinally surrendered" measure for victory. That doesn't work against non-nation/state entities.


(Edit after this point)
I'd also like to note. We have effectivly "pulled out" of Afgansistan by giving control to NATO. Have we LOST in Afganistan because of it?

The bottom line and the point is all the rhetoric form the administration on Iraq is simply that rhetoric. The administration isn't giving us any substance on Iraq or the War on Terror. It's all about political control.

I also wanted to add that my first point shouldn't mislead you. I was against the war in Iraq to begin with. Not because I didn't think that Saddam was bad, not because I didn't think that WMDs wouldn't be bad. I didn't want us to be distracted from the mission in Afganistan. There we had a nation who's government was openly giving sanctuary to a group that attacked us on our own soil (i.e.not a foreign military presence or embasy). A heavy hand and an example was needed. However I felt we needed to focus on completing the mission to rebuild Afganistan and not expand into a country who was uninvolved in the attack.

(any further edits will be for my many spelling errors.)

 

[senseamp]

Strategy? Don't need one. Rumsfeld doing a "fantastic job," according to Bush.

 

[Jeff7]

Maybe it's like Conrad Burns said.
"He says our president don't have a plan. I think he's got one, but he's not gonna tell everybody in the whole world. And if you wanna go out and spar for a fight, are you gonna tell your enemy what your plan is? I don't think so. That's the way we'll win it, because we [wanted it? I couldn't understand this word or two]."


That's the clip from Youtube. I had seen it of course on The Daily Show, edited a bit.

Jon Stewart's reply to Burns' "not telling anyone":
"Not gonna tell everybody in the whole world, like the Army."

So there is a plan, but if anyone knows about it, they might leak it.




"A plan so brilliant my head would explode if I even began to know what I was talking about."

 

[her209]

When an 8-ton truck comes flying down the street, do you lie down on the road and hope it doesn't run you over?

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
"A plan so brilliant my head would explode if I even began to know what I was talking about."

QFT... look at the torture legislation. He wants to "clarify" what torture is under the Geneva Convention, but he won't allow those "clarifications" to be made public. "Just trust us. "

 

[ProfJohn]

Here is a list of reasons why I doubt Bush will give up in Iraq any time soon.

The terrorists already believe that they drove the Russians from Afghanistan and Israel from Lebanon and Gaza. They are convinced they chased us out of Lebanon in 1983 and from Somalia in 1993. According to Osama bin Laden and those who share his views, we are militarily strong but psychologically and spiritually weak. Like it or not -- and no one likes it -- we cannot leave Iraq now without utterly and decisively validating this analysis. We might as well run a white flag up the flagpole at the Capitol.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Here is a list of reasons why I doubt Bush will give up in Iraq any time soon.

The terrorists already believe that they drove the Russians from Afghanistan and Israel from Lebanon and Gaza. They are convinced they chased us out of Lebanon in 1983 and from Somalia in 1993. According to Osama bin Laden and those who share his views, we are militarily strong but psychologically and spiritually weak. Like it or not -- and no one likes it -- we cannot leave Iraq now without utterly and decisively validating this analysis. We might as well run a white flag up the flagpole at the Capitol.

To quote some British official who's name I have forgotten, in a statement made BEFORE the Iraq war, "...the Bush administration may agree that failure is unacceptable, but that doesn't mean they will take any steps to avoid it." And that's the fundamental problem with Bush's "strategy", it's a little long on motivation and a little short on actual, you know, strategy. He gets up and gives one of his firebrand speeches saying "We MUST win in Iraq" and I'm sitting here thinking, "And?..." Normally that kind of statement is followed by "...and here is how we should do it." Yet that part of the strategy (known in military circles as, "the strategy") seems to be missing. Rhetoric alone does not win wars. It's not a matter of giving up or not giving up, it's about using your damn brain and trying to get us from where we are to leaving Iraq a relatively peaceful democracy with our heads held high. You folks yak and yak and yak about the necessity of reaching point B, and I don't necessarily disagree with you, but so far I have yet to see a plan for reaching that point or any progress being made in that direction. And a certain point, all the positive rhetoric in the world doesn't make up for a total lack of ability to reach the goal.

I'll say it right now, I disagree that the best idea is to pull out as soon as possible, yet I would rather have the Dems (even the ones supporting that strategy) leading the effort than the Republicans. While I think it's important to fix Iraq before we leave, I think we're MORE likely to get that from people who's primary motivation is getting our troops out of there than people who just want to stick around waiting for the victory fairy. The Republican "strategy" isn't going to work no matter HOW long we stay, and their comments regarding Iraq are starting to sound suspiciously like Nixon's secret Vietnam strategy that he refused to tell anyone about. And while the Dems might pull our troops out before Iraq is "done", I suspect they are going to push a lot harder for finishing that the Republicans will...that's the benefit of a timetable, and there is a lot of incentive to pull out with the job done than pull out and see Iraq get even worse. With the Republican strategy of just waiting around for "victory" to fall from the sky, there is no incentive to make any progress yourself. Faith-based war fighting is not really a good idea.