Why is "Defeat" in Iraq for the U.S. -- or any war -- not an option?

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MagicConch

Golden Member
Apr 7, 2005
1,239
1
0
Originally posted by: railer
Blood for oil is an empty slogan for empty minds.

All but the most partisan of partisan hacks will agree that we are trying to do the right thing in Iraq. Whether we should have gone there in the 1st place, looking back comfortably 5 years later, is almost irrelevant IMO.

We made Iraq worse off, rightly or wrongly, and now we need to make it better.

Then leave.

Partisan slogans like "blood for oil" or "impeach bush" are just the idiotic ramblings of the simple minded.

We need to pull together and get this done right, whether Dem, Repub, lib, conservative, or otherwise.

It's a good thing it's not us being there that is the source of the problem because then we would never be able to solve it before we leave.
 

Excelsior

Lifer
May 30, 2002
19,048
18
81
Originally posted by: Vic
Originally posted by: Excelsior
Originally posted by: Fern


If I unstand correctly, only two countries in the ME oil region have any real military capability - Iran & Iraq.

Actually, you left out Syria and Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi govt has been doing quite a few media campaigns of late in order to smooth our relations with the West. The Travel Channel has been a part of this, if only for the reason that the Arabian kingdoms are really pushing for tourism business.
Anyhoo, the most recent piece aired was Anthony Bourdain's trip to Saudi Arabia, where his guide was the only female film maker licensed by the Saudi govt., and they took great pains to portray Saudi Arabia as being very much like an affluent America suburb.

I wasn't aware. Of course I was only speaking of SA regarding military capability.

I need to watch that episode. I love Bourdain's show. We both know that SA is nothing like an American suburb...except for the western compounds. I've actually considered getting a job there sometime after I graduate (health care related) but I am a bit worried about safety. The pay sure is good though.
 

Fern

Elite Member
Sep 30, 2003
26,907
173
106
Originally posted by: Excelsior
Originally posted by: Fern


If I unstand correctly, only two countries in the ME oil region have any real military capability - Iran & Iraq.

Actually, you left out Syria and Saudi Arabia.

Yeah, I left them out on purpose as I didn't think their military was worth a crap, at least compared to Iran & Iraq (which is now rebuilding).

Fern
 

Excelsior

Lifer
May 30, 2002
19,048
18
81
Originally posted by: Fern
Originally posted by: Excelsior
Originally posted by: Fern


If I unstand correctly, only two countries in the ME oil region have any real military capability - Iran & Iraq.

Actually, you left out Syria and Saudi Arabia.

Yeah, I left them out on purpose as I didn't think their military was worth a crap, at least compared to Iran & Iraq (which is now rebuilding).

Fern

When you speak of Iraq, are you including the US forces (I assume)...

And they aren't far off: http://www.globalfirepower.com...tail.asp?country_id=13
 

Fern

Elite Member
Sep 30, 2003
26,907
173
106
Originally posted by: Excelsior
Originally posted by: Fern
-snip-

When you speak of Iraq, are you including the US forces (I assume)...

No, that's why I noted they were rebuilding.

Before we invaded, Iraq was supposed to have the baddest @ss tank core around. The Russians were behind it.

Since we've been pumping a lot of training and equip into their military, I wouldn't be surprised if their military will soon be back at the top in that region (if not already).

I wanna be clear - I don't fancy myself any expert on military capability; others here seem to have that hobby. I'm just going off my recollection of what I've read etc.

Fern
 

dmcowen674

No Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
54,894
47
91
www.alienbabeltech.com
Originally posted by: TerryMathews
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Originally posted by: Vic
There's no reason to be afraid of defeat because we already won. We could have declared victory at almost any time in the past 4 years, packed up, and gone home. Why haven't we? Because Iraq was never a war. It is an occupation for the oil.

Corrected

Blood for oil is a joke. We keep paying blood in, but I've yet to see any oil come out.

Have you seen an oil shortage?
 

Excelsior

Lifer
May 30, 2002
19,048
18
81
I think it may take more than just a few years to be tops. In fact, it wouldn't even happen in our lifetimes.

 

nageov3t

Lifer
Feb 18, 2004
42,816
83
91
if we leave Iraq and the country descends into chaos, it could easily become what Afghanistan was on Sept. 10th, 2001.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
72,326
6,037
126
Originally posted by: loki8481
if we leave Iraq and the country descends into chaos, it could easily become what Afghanistan was on Sept. 10th, 2001.

Right and if we don't leave we may wind up like Afghanistan.
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,085
5,618
126
Welcome to one of the main results of not having a legitimate reason to go to War with Iraq in he first place. There is no goal to achieve, no way of truly "winning".
 

piasabird

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
17,168
60
91
If the war is not possible to win, then why do we keep sending people to die so some other country can live in peace?

We can not even stop insurgents from Mexico from invading the USA???
 

First

Lifer
Jun 3, 2002
10,518
271
136
Depends on your definition of defeat. If U.S. defeat means more lives saved, both American and otherwise, as well as more stability in the ME, while the alternative (victory for us in Iraq) meant more deaths and more instability, defeat would be the only logical choice. Unfortunately the lack of these sorts of basic reasoning skills is exactly the kind of poor judgment that got us into Iraq in the first place.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
348
126
Originally posted by: Atreus21
Originally posted by: NFS4
I'm listening to John McCain's town hall meeting live, and he keeps saying that "We can't accept defeat" or that "I'd rather lose a political campaign than lose a war".

What is wrong with defeat? What is wrong with admitting that we may have screwed up? What's wrong with admitting that some actions may have been wrong? Why must we WIN at all costs and not accept defeat in a war?

Is it pride? Is it for morale? We are not a perfect nation, so why must it be assumed that every war must have a perfect outcome of "WIN"?

I dunno, just my random musings...

We are not perfect, but we are the best in the world. Every conflict we've engaged in throughout our history has been on behalf of a good cause, Iraq included.

That's why we cannot lose.

Ya, like how we helped the Vietnamese in their struggle to be free people, ending colonial occupation for centuries, by the Chinese, the French, and during WWII, the Japanese.

Ho Chi Minh wrote to *Woodrow Wilson* for asking for the US to help them. After the Japanese occupation ended in WWII, o Chi Minh said hey, now's a good time for not re-occupying them, and asked the US to help them have France not come back. He even wrote a 'Declaration of Independance' modelled on the US.

And the US helped them get their freedom, right? Oh no, that's right - we supported the French re-colonizing them, because it was 'in our interest' to side with our 'European allies' and turn a blind eye (until JFK had the morals and courage to change the policies) - and at one point were paying the French 90% of the cost of *their* war there. But the French lost, and so that was that, right?

No, faced with their doing their own thing, not under our thumb, we came up with a scheme, and promised a 'temporary' partitioning, until elections - but when it was clear Ho Chi Minh would win and not 'our guy', we *blocked* the elections and refused to let the country re-unite. What next? We trained and sent terrorists from South Vietnam into North Vietnam - which is what the destroyers were doing in the 'Gulf of Tonkin' incident that actually happened (in their waters, despite our saying otherwise, as I recall).

No, we had yet to send millions of Americans there to fight Vietnamese peasants - dropping more bombs than in all of WWII, dropping Napalm, dropping Agent Orange.

Two million of them killed. Now, we 'thought' we had a good cause - there was a global war on communism, and we assumed that they must somehow be part of some big evil communist tide that would leave us 'fighitng them in San Francisco if we don't fight them there' (it might sound familiar. Some presidential war justifications are apparently standard). And besides, LBJ had domestic political pressures pushing him to war, and he lacked the strong standing of JFK to refuse was, as JFK had.

Now, you can say we had 'good intentions', but not a 'good cause', IMO. I can't think of a way to view those two million people killed as a 'good cause', only as our misguided cause.

And I can't say that our *irresponsible* mistake in not bothering to understand the situation before so much violence is not too excusable. Robert McNamara now says so too.

If you are going to make that the standard, then pretty much every side in every war is justiified, including the Muslim terrorists who are pretty sure they have a good cause, too.

No, you are blind to the ulterior motives our nation has had in countless wars - take the Mexican war (and half of Mexico, like we did), through Grenada, or our 'proxy wars' and using others for assassination to prevent any government who refused to serve our corporations' demands, as in Chile, Argentina, and many other places.

Your homework assignment, to help you become informed and not a parrot for the propaganda, is to read:

"Against Empire" by Michael Parenti (useful for 'expandng your horizons' despite its controversial views) and 'Confessions of an Economic Hit Man', by John Perkins.
 

QuantumPion

Diamond Member
Jun 27, 2005
6,010
1
76
Originally posted by: Lemon law
But victory in Iraq was and still are somewhat impossible dreams, we need to start thinking in terms of cutting our losses. The real winners of that war will likely be the Russians, Chinese, and the Iranians.

Whoa whoa whoa, you gotta back up and delete this. This isn't the political narrative any more! The new narrative is that the war is won now, thanks to the Democrats constantly supporting the war from the beginning! It was the tired failed policies of the Bush administration that wanted to pull out before the job was done. For future reference, please keep up to speed on the current truth from the DNC hotline before you blow the whole operation.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
348
126
Originally posted by: QuantumPion
Whoa whoa whoa, you gotta back up and delete this. This isn't the political narrative any more! The new narrative is that the war is won now, thanks to the Democrats constantly supporting the war from the beginning! It was the tired failed policies of the Bush administration that wanted to pull out before the job was done. For future reference, please keep up to speed on the current truth from the DNC hotline before you blow the whole operation.

Link for your lie? Didn't think so. You can really tell the desperate when they can't muster any argument and have to just lie about their opponent.

I encourage a lot of Republicans to get a clue and switch to democrat.

But not all. Some are so predisposed to dishonesty and such we have little use for them.
 

QuantumPion

Diamond Member
Jun 27, 2005
6,010
1
76
Originally posted by: Craig234
Originally posted by: Atreus21
Originally posted by: NFS4
I'm listening to John McCain's town hall meeting live, and he keeps saying that "We can't accept defeat" or that "I'd rather lose a political campaign than lose a war".

What is wrong with defeat? What is wrong with admitting that we may have screwed up? What's wrong with admitting that some actions may have been wrong? Why must we WIN at all costs and not accept defeat in a war?

Is it pride? Is it for morale? We are not a perfect nation, so why must it be assumed that every war must have a perfect outcome of "WIN"?

I dunno, just my random musings...

We are not perfect, but we are the best in the world. Every conflict we've engaged in throughout our history has been on behalf of a good cause, Iraq included.

That's why we cannot lose.

Ya, like how we helped the Vietnamese in their struggle to be free people, ending colonial occupation for centuries, by the Chinese, the French, and during WWII, the Japanese.

Ho Chi Minh wrote to *Woodrow Wilson* for asking for the US to help them. After the Japanese occupation ended in WWII, o Chi Minh said hey, now's a good time for not re-occupying them, and asked the US to help them have France not come back. He even wrote a 'Declaration of Independance' modelled on the US.

And the US helped them get their freedom, right? Oh no, that's right - we supported the French re-colonizing them, because it was 'in our interest' to side with our 'European allies' and turn a blind eye (until JFK had the morals and courage to change the policies) - and at one point were paying the French 90% of the cost of *their* war there. But the French lost, and so that was that, right?

No, faced with their doing their own thing, not under our thumb, we came up with a scheme, and promised a 'temporary' partitioning, until elections - but when it was clear Ho Chi Minh would win and not 'our guy', we *blocked* the elections and refused to let the country re-unite. What next? We trained and sent terrorists from South Vietnam into North Vietnam - which is what the destroyers were doing in the 'Gulf of Tonkin' incident that actually happened (in their waters, despite our saying otherwise, as I recall).

No, we had yet to send millions of Americans there to fight Vietnamese peasants - dropping more bombs than in all of WWII, dropping Napalm, dropping Agent Orange.

Two million of them killed. Now, we 'thought' we had a good cause - there was a global war on communism, and we assumed that they must somehow be part of some big evil communist tide that would leave us 'fighitng them in San Francisco if we don't fight them there' (it might sound familiar. Some presidential war justifications are apparently standard). And besides, LBJ had domestic political pressures pushing him to war, and he lacked the strong standing of JFK to refuse was, as JFK had.

Now, you can say we had 'good intentions', but not a 'good cause', IMO. I can't think of a way to view those two million people killed as a 'good cause', only as our misguided cause.

And I can't say that our *irresponsible* mistake in not bothering to understand the situation before so much violence is not too excusable. Robert McNamara now says so too.

If you are going to make that the standard, then pretty much every side in every war is justiified, including the Muslim terrorists who are pretty sure they have a good cause, too.

No, you are blind to the ulterior motives our nation has had in countless wars - take the Mexican war (and half of Mexico, like we did), through Grenada, or our 'proxy wars' and using others for assassination to prevent any government who refused to serve our corporations' demands, as in Chile, Argentina, and many other places.

Your homework assignment, to help you become informed and not a parrot for the propaganda, is to read:

"Against Empire" by Michael Parenti (useful for 'expandng your horizons' despite its controversial views) and 'Confessions of an Economic Hit Man', by John Perkins.

I don't even know what to say about this. I guess some people are too far gone to even bother trying.