Nov 02 2007
Why Avoid Claiming Success In Iraq?
I am not saying we are done and can go home now from Iraq. But the fact is there are going to be more and more claims that Iraq is going to be a success, or in some cases IS a success. Take for example this piece from an Australian Paper:
THERE is a reason Iraq has almost disappeared as an election issue.
Here it is: The battle is actually over. Iraq has been won.
I know this will seem to many of you an insane claim. Ridiculous!
…
Violence is falling fast. Al Qaida has been crippled.
The Shiites, Kurds and Marsh Arabs no longer face genocide.
What’s more, the country has stayed unified. The majority now rules.
Despite that, minority Sunni leaders are co-operating in government with Shiite ones.
There is no civil war. The Kurds have not broken away. Iran has not turned Iraq into its puppet.
And the country’s institutions are getting stronger. The Iraqi army is now at full strength, at least in numbers.
The country has a vigorous media. A democratic constitution has been adopted and backed by a popular vote.
Election after election has Iraqis turning up in their millions.
Add it all up. Iraq not only remains a democracy, but shows no sign of collapse.
…
In any case, whatever you may think of the arguments put in 2003, the argument today is whether Iraq will survive as a democracy, and whether we should help it.
The answers must be yes, and yes. Mustn’t they? Hello?
But if Iraq is “won”, why are so many Iraqis still dying?
Because some of the killers are just criminals, or are trying to kill their way to a piece of the action, or are – inevitably after so much cruelty and oppression – settling scores.
Others are agents of Iran, which wants to make America pay and Iraq obey.
It is a long and very convincing piece of logic. And I suspect more will be coming out. We cannot pack up and leave without making damn sure the situation will not backslide. But there is no problem in congratulating ourselves and the Iraqis on the progress so far. And there will be some times where al-Qaeda gets a punch through here or there. But the point is we keep striving for more success.
BTW, you can tell things are going well when Bush can go out on the stump and likens the Dems to the Neville Chamberlain’s of WW II with fervor and confidence:
President Bush compared Congress’ Democratic leaders Thursday with people who ignored the rise of Lenin and Hitler early in the last century, saying “the world paid a terrible price” then and risks similar consequences for inaction today.
Bush accused Congress of stalling important pieces of the fight to prevent new terrorist attacks by: dragging out and possibly jeopardizing confirmation of Michael Mukasey as attorney general, a key part of his national security team; failing to act on a bill governing eavesdropping on terrorist suspects; and moving too slowly to approve spending measures for the Iraq war, Pentagon and veterans programs.
“Unfortunately, on too many issues, some in Congress are behaving as if America is not at war,” Bush said during a speech at the Heritage Foundation. “This is no time for Congress to weaken the Department of Justice by denying it a strong and effective leader. … It’s no time for Congress to weaken our ability to intercept information from terrorists about potential attacks on the United States of America. And this is no time for Congress to hold back vital funding for our troops as they fight al-Qaida terrorists and radicals in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
There were many like Chamberlain who stuck their heads in the sand to avoid the threat that faced them – just like the Dems do now. The world paid a price for listening to them has Hitler took over Europe and we lost millions of lives in fighting him and his partners in Japan and Italy. But today there was a different story. Only the Democrats went out on a limb and declared America a failure against al-Qaeda. Only they tried to stop America from stopping Bin Laden. And now Bush is painting the picture of defeatism around them (deservedly so) since he knows the chances are Iraq will be a success long before he leaves office. And he wants the Dems to wear their label of defeatists all the way to the polls in 2008.
So we can bring all the troops home now, right?
I have a brother who is has been staunchly against the Iraq war from the beginning, with the obligatory hatred for Bush, for “lying” us into “this mess”. I see him every six weeks, or so, and invariably we argue politics, the Iraq war generally the top topic.
I’ve been noticing since the surge began some softening on the subject, but the last time I was home he (we are both in our fifties, and surprise, he lives at home with my mom) said: “I think this war has been a tremendous mistake, but I don’t think we should get out now”. I was absolutely stunned, as he had never wandered off the plantation, not for a moment, in all the years we’ve discussed the war.
I don’t believe for a minute that all of a sudden compassion for the plight of the Iraqi people took the fore in his mind, I think he finally assessed that a win for America there was in the offing, and he was reverting to damage control mode. I fully plan to “declare victory” next time I’m home, so we’ll see.
Thanks AJ, I have been able to represent the pro-war side every step of the way in my conversations with my brother, largely because I read your commentary.
How can the Democratic party deny that they were wrong now?
Well AJ: because the answer is right here:
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=278808786575124
As IF there was ever any doubt??
Keep in mind how the Bush Administration has defined “success” Right now the violence levels are back to the “good old days” of 2005!
Now that the Bush Administration can declare “Missin Accomplished” because the situation in Iraq is only as bad as it was in 2005, rather than the worse situation in 2006, the NeoConservatives are itching to launch another war in Iran, a country more than three times the size of Iraq.
I suppose Conservatives are going to tell us we will “be greeted as libarators” when we attach Iran as well.
Will “Iranian oil money” pay for their occupation as well.
Will the occupation only last “six months”? The way Donald Rumsfeld predicted for Iraq?
That is the real fear, that, since the situaion in iraq has stopped deteriorating, neoConservatives will get reckless again and give us a third quagmire.
Wow, “Bootlicker” has come up with another Sockpuppet!
“THECENTERISABUNGHOLE” was not enough for him, now it’s “Philadelphia Steve”!
Give me a break…
Hey “Philadelphia Cheesesteak”; go away little Anti-American/Pro-Jihadi Leftist Nutbag Traitor!
You’re allies and idols are over at the “Daily Cus-Omac”; not here!
Anyway, for the rest of you REAL Americans, I susgest you read this article:
http://www.spectator.org/util/print.asp?art_id=12233
A tremendous story about our brave troops in Uniform over in Iraq.
As for “Philadelphia Cheesesteak”; you’ve been warned, GO AWAY; or I’ll CRUSH you like I’ve crushed your other Traitor pals, like “Bootlicker”.
Why Iraq is Rarely on the Nightly News Now…
Because western journalists are reluctant to report success in a campaign they had all but declared lost….
Reading both the liberal and the conservative blogs, I can’t see any liberal blog that is unwilling to admit Al Queda in Iraq is defeated. They all seem in agreement that AQI has always been a very minor part of the violence in the civil war and their absence will do little to stop the fundamental warring between Sunni and Shia and the many other factions in Iraq. I tend to agree with them.
I remember after “Mission Accomplished” my friends in the military and their family’s partied like it was V-J Day. They were so betrayed. I see the writing on the wall for those here who are celebrating the end of AQI — you will be betrayed, not by liberals who are willing to agree with you about this victory, but betrayed by the Administration — for they know AQI has never been the problem and their rout will have little to no effect. Sorry, but in the comming months, look for the Administration to declare that either 1) AQI is stronger than ever or 2) there’s a new Al Aqueda group — thus putting the war back to square one.
I think you’re right, Dale – this “philadelphia steve” is just another sockpuppet – apparently the baggage of all of his past idiotic claims and false predictions (remember when Valerie Plame was going to directly lead to Bush’s impeachment?) became too much to carry, so he’s dropped that one and tried to invent a new one. So sorry, the same old crap is pretty easy to smell right off the bat.
Now that Al -Qaeda is defeated, he has to crawfish back and make claims about “violence levels”, which are a criminal (not military)matter. Don’t have the link handy, but I saw a nice analysis yesterday showing that Iraq’s current murder rate (ie, the “violence” he’s talking about) is now about equal to South Africa’s murder rate over the last 10 years or so. While that is deplorable and we all hope it gets better, no one in America or Europe claims that South Africa’s current government is illegitimate or is about to fall because they govern a violence-prone population. Those are things that will take generations for a society to grow out of. Clue for the clueless – one of the unfortunate side effects of moving from an oppressive, dictatorial government to an open one is that general criminal and violence levels increase. It’s easier to deal with garden level crime when the government feels free to shoot anyone they suspect (or who they don’t like) on the spot.
Of course if someone were going to compare current Iraq with Saddam’s Iraq, they had darn sure better add in the 100,000 people per year that Saddam had killed in order to keep a lid on things. For the math challenged (like bootlicker/philadelphia steve) that means about 275 murders per day, every day, while Saddam was in power – the biggest difference being that almost ALL of those were state-sponsored, rather than being free-lance. (to him and his ilk, those are the “good old days”)
Compare that to a day like Oct. 13, 2007 (2 1/2 weeks ago) when only 4 – repeat, only 4 – people were killed or found dead in all of Iraq!
but no, Kos tells him that SOMETHING has to be bad about what is happening now, since everything the US ever does is bad. Both sad and funny to see how far he has to dig to try and make that claim stick.
I suspect you are going to see a murder rate in Iraq that is something close to the murder rate you see in South Africa. At least for a while, anyway. Notice how nobody is pounding out the drumbeat of “quagmire” in ZA.
We are looking at about 50 people murdered per day in South Africa compared to about half of that in Iraq on a daily basis.
The death toll in Iraq won’t get much lower than it is now because it has probably never been below what it is now for the past 40 years or so. We are probably seeing “normal” death rates for Iraq.
Typical Conservative conversation. Spew out some personal insults, repeat Spectator/Limbaugh/Newsmax talking points, exit with crowing declarations of victory.
Works for Bill O’Rielly every time as well.
I do not blame America for everything, or even ANYTHING. I blame George W. Bush for being deceitful and incompetent. The fact that President Bush is nowhere near as evil as Saddam Hussein is not an excuse for his incompetence. (In fact, I do not believe that Mr. Bush is evil at all, only arrogant and too lazy to do his homework before he launches into an invasion of a country that did not attack us first).
George W. Bush is not synonymous with the United States of America. This is not a monarcy or dictatorship, despite Conservative wishes.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis and Americans have died because the Bush Administration botched the occupation of Iraq. What could have actually been a short, one or two year occupation is now a ten or twenty year insurgency. This is not because of Liberals or outsiders. It IS because Donald Rumsfeld planned for occupying the Iraqi oil ministries, but not securing the Iraqi army weapons depots, then disbanded the Iraqi army and sent them out, unemployed, with their weapons, to become employed by militias.
That and dozens of other bungling actions are the reason we are still in Iraq, and Conservatives ar crowing about how great things are because Iraq is “only” at the levels of violence from 2005.
And who is accountable for that? Donald Rumsfeld, the man Dick Cheney called the “greates Defense Secretary in history”.
But not one single Conservative here is permitted, by party loyalty, to admit that Rumsfeld botched the occupation and that cost many lives. They must, instead, insist that my pointing out these facts means I hate America.
The fact that there have been, and are, more evil people in the world is not an alibi for George W. Bush. Although Conservatives insist that as long as he is not as evil as Joseph Stalin, that qualifies George W. Bush to be as great as Abraham Lincoln.
I don’t think anyone is repeating anyone’s talking points. I think we are repeating hard numbers and the realities of the situation. And I think many recognize that there is a group of people who are forced to continue to close their eyes to the reality of the situation because it would mean that everything they had been saying for the past few years is wrong.
If the battle is, for the most part, over then basically all the Democrat politicians were wrong. When they claimed that the war was “lost” it was in fact not lost. So … what ELSE are they also wrong about?
See, this isn’t a matter of “belief” or open to interpretation or spin. This is a physical reality that is not open to manipulation by people having a different political bent. Fewer deaths is fewer deaths … PERIOD. Same with things like fewer attacks, locals cleaning up cities, the unemployment and inflation rate in Iraq improving, etc. These aren’t “talking points”, these are cold hard numbers that can not be refuted with a differing opinion.
The fact is, as I have been telling people for almost a year now, we have won. It was simply a matter of time before AQ gave up. And now it appears that they have.
Oh, and Steve, or Glenn or whatever your name is, you are making a fool of yourself.
Re: “If the battle is, for the most part, over then basically all the Democrat politicians were wrong. When they claimed that the war was “lost†it was in fact not lost. So … what ELSE are they also wrong about?”
It was about a stable, central Iraqi government that could control the country, remember?
That government does not exist. And, with the arming of Sunni militias, we are in for a three-way civil war among the Shia, sunni and Kurdish militias.
That is failure.
The fact that our military can defeat other military, or guerilla,units whentheyu confront them in the field does not make either George W. Bush a genius of the central Iraqi government (the one that fails to exist outside ofthe Green Zone) competent.
The Iraqi government is the measure. Conservatives keep shifting the “targets” to equal whatever is happening today, then declare success.
I measure success against the promises and statements made by the Bush Administration since 2002, not since November 1, 2007.
The fact is that the United States will have to spend somewhere between $1.5 and $2 trillion dollars over the next few decades that it did not have to spend. Recall that President Bush declared that $30 billion was ‘too much” to spend on health care for children. But America will spend at least fifty times that much UNNECESSARILLY because of Bush Administration incompetence in the occupation of Iraq.
And ther is NOT ONE SINGLE CONSERVATIVE on this board who is even permitted to acknowledge that fact, let alone say who is accountable for it.
Hope I’m not entering this twice… hate when that happens.
I’ve read a lot of blogs on the “right” and the “left” and I don’t really see the left as unwilling to say there’s a victory over Al Queda in Iraq. Mostly, they point out that AQI has such a miniscule presence compared to the Shia on Sunni viloence and the 60+ other factions from tribes/neighborhoods that their elimination will do little to quell the civil war.
After “Mission Accomplished,” everyone I knew in the military — including wives and husbands — (I live near a Marine base) was partying like it was V-J day. They were so betrayed. And I see the same thing happening. I don’t think the people here cheering the end of AQI will be betrayed by liberals, but again by the President. It seems pro forma to me that within a few weeks (if not less) Bush will declare 1) AQI is getting stronger or 2) there’s a new Al Queda group in Iraq. You’ll AGAIN be stuck in the awkward position of defending Bush when he’s contradicted you AGAIN about “victory.”
Trust me, no one will be gloating. This is a bloody mess, but we need solutions, not distractions.
Dear Philly Steve:
Yer comments . . . like yer namesake cheese steaks . .. are far too real for the clientele here.
$2.4 trillion poured down a rathole in the desert . . . enough to have covered the Social Security shortfall for 75 years . . . because George and Dick wanted to show 30 years later they really weren’t as big of hypocritical cowards as they appeared back when they COULD have served their country in ‘Nam.
Draft-dodgin’, drunk-drivin’ criminals . . . there should be a country western song named after these guys.
Wow, Anti-American/Pro-Jihadi Leftist Lying Nutbag Traitor Cus-Omac, “Bootlicker”, is actually trying to hold a conversation with his rectally-manipulated Sockpuppet Doppleganger “Philadelphia Cheesesteak”!
Talk about surreal, and Nutbagish!
Isn’t this cute – bootlicker is posting replies to himself!
cute but sad.
Ah, Dale-the-cashier-broken-down-jarhead.
You must be back on your meds, tho . . . your ranting was so brief. Glad to know the Geodon is helping.
WWS . . . that stands for Womanish Wussy Society, don’t it?
SS and Phily Steve,
•No poster on this intelligent site is intellectually constrained at all. It’s just that we can make sense out of the many details that confuse the Left and hence are in general agreement.
• Rummy had to deal with changing tactics by an enemy with a global reach.
• No person with half a grasp thinks of Bush as evil.
• As for service, both Bush and Cheney are serving right now with great courage in the face of a mindless betrayal by what should be the “loyal opposition.”
• The money spent freeing the ME will look like a bargain in another generation.