...but not for the reasons used by the media/Left. One of the first things I do when I come into the office is read an online news rollup. The Iraq news for the past month or so has been wailing and handwringing on the part of the media and *gasp* Army brass about Haditha and how horrible it is that deployed servicemen--and Marines in particular--tend to view American lives as more valuable than Iraqi lives (:IMHO!: ) So today I open the "paper" and--surprize, surprize!--the first story is raising a concern that the "surge" strategy in Iraq is a failure because--wait for it--it has led to increased US casualties. So which is it people? Do we protect American lives at any cost? If so, then why are a half dozen Marines on trial in California for their actions related to a terrorist attack? If we need to view Iraqi lives as as valuable as Americans, then why is this pinhead from the "Christian Science Monitor" getting ready to call the new strategy a failure solely based on the to-be-expected increased US casualties?! You can't win. More on this later, but for now I'm starting the thread so I don't forget.
Broadly speaking, it's called "forward defense." You fight the bad guys over there so that you don't have to fight them over here. I noticed that article today as well, Volpone. I was wondering how long it would take the press to start calling the surge a failure. And just think, all the troops aren't even in place yet. Hearkens back to the initial invasion, when a sandstorm held up the advance for a few hours and the press was calling it a "quagmire" and worse.
It's only been a few months since the surge. It's a huge, complicated problem over there! They can't call it a failure yet. And duh, more troops = more casualties. TIME, people. Give it time. I've convinced myself we're gonna be there as long as our government wants us to be there, so at least give our soldiers time to do something. There's nothing else we can do.
OK. Having read the whole article, it is a lot more objective than the headline. Still the source quoted from the Brookings Institute got my Irish up quite a bit. The other thing that riled me up was where the Brookings weasel was going on about how anything over 100 (American) deaths a month would be cause for concern. This was particularly ironic considering that, for whatever reason, the guys from "American Chopper" were visiting the D-Day cemetary at Normandy, where something like 9-10,000 Americans died on a single day. If this pinhead applied his logic to then, the Nazis would still hold Europe today.
Like 90 percent of life, it's not an either-or proposition. No, we don't protect American lives at any cost. Otherwise, we wouldn't send troops anywhere. I haven't read the Christian Science Monitor, but it seems to me that if the surge isn't helping stop or slow violence, then it's not succeeding. Now, is there a realistic prospect that it will succeed? Got me. But at some point, don't we have to evaluate its success or failure? Isn't it reasonable to, after so many "Friedmans" (six-month intervals that allegedly will mark a watershed moment for Iraq), decide if it's doing its job? If not, then there's no point in this discussion. We're staying till we leave and the success or failure of the tactics we use don't matter. If yes, then it's a question of whether we have enough time and information to see if the surge seems to be working. What's particularly unstrategic about that is that by fighting over there, we are apparently generating more bad guys, according to the government's own reports. And nothing really is stopping the bad guys from leaving over there and coming over here. Or at least, nothing inherent about having troops over there. We can assess the strengths and weaknesses of what we've done thus far, project what the likely success or failures are of the courses of action in front of us and go from there. I don't know if "Stay the course 2.0" is necessarily the best choice.
What gets me is the refusal of the administration and its backers to offer any concrete definition of what victory would look like and how what we're doing can be expected to lead to that concrete victory. The complete aversion to meaningful goals and benchmarks is what assures "there's no point in this discussion." The closest the occupation's proponents come to stating a concrete goal is to say that victory would be buying enough time to enable the Iraqi government to meet Iraqi security and military needs, but no effort is ever made to connect our actions to that goal, probably because they don't really connect at all. Progress on that front has been lethargic to nonexistent, and that's not going to be changed by 20,000-60,000 more American troops. Anything less than a 5-10 year commitment of at least 250,000 more troops trained for urban policing rather than traditional military work and we may as well just give up on that goal. Indeed. The level of silliness in the whole "we have to fight them there so we don't fight them here" mantra is astounding. They're the ones choosing to fight in Iraq rather than anywhere else or not to fight at all. It was al Qaeda's goal all along to goad us into fighting them there, although bin Laden thought "there" would be Afghanistan, not Iraq. We're doing bin Laden's bidding by fighting "there." This is another argument I don't get. Time could always be given for any military endeavor. Saying we should just give it time to see if it will work because we're already doing it would, if accepted as an argument, justify continuing any mistaken endeavor under the sun. Like "fight 'em there so we don't fight 'em here" it just can't be a sensible argument, yet people, even well intentioned people, take it seriously. What I see on display in these really poor arguments people make in support of Bush's military adventurism in Iraq is, well, . . . just take a look at my avatar and you'll get it.
The comparison might be apt if three years after the invasion of Normandy we hadn't progressed in any of our goals. (Acquiring territory, liberating France, forcing a German surrender). Are you of the mindset that we must remain regardless of whether we are achieving any goals? Based on your previous posts, I believe you are, but I could be wrong.
Just tryin' to illustrate what should be obvious: casualties are not a good measure of progress. You can get 0 casualties by not fighting at all.
What would be an acceptable measure of progress in the case of Iraq? And how are we doing by that standard?
Great points all around. I suppose I was getting depressed reading news article after news article and knowing that we're in a war I can't stop. That's depressing! So to change my point... Calling it a failure based on American deaths is not a very smart idea, since more troops = more American casualties. It's only logical. That, and WWII claimed tons more lives than people like to think about. I think the surge can be labeled a failure by other standards, such as little-to-no improvement in Iraq whatsoever. Casualties? No. Thanks for correcting me!
Uh...Normandy was three years into the war. North Africa? Italy? Ring any bells? You have the benefit of knowing how everything turned out in WWII; you don't have that with Iraq. To the determined critic, there would have been plenty of grist for the mill in June 1944. I believe our presence in and of itself is achieving a goal. And we've already achieved lots of goals (deposed Saddam, brought about a democratic, constitutional government, whacked some top-level Al-Qaida commanders, etc.). There has already been tremendous success in Iraq just on those bases. And, despite all the hand-wringing about the insurgency plunging the country into civil war, it has not happened. Now, we hear that the Sunnis are working to drive out Al-Qaida...
Militarily, the actions of killing off those who want to destablize the governmnet. Diplomatically, incouraging reconciliation with the Sunnis and removing extremist Shia groups from the government. And there is progress showing on both fronts. Not as quick as I would like it, but progress nontheless. See my responce to you in my Amiriyah thread for example. I agree, it might be a case of too little too late, but maybe not. By now most US troops have a year to two years of the best possible 'training' you can get for urban policing.
No, Al-Qaida was. You know...the people we're fighting against in Iraq right now. The people who are on the receiving end of a Sunni uprising in Anc's thread...
As many in the pro-war camp pointed out when this war became longer than that one, different wars, different metrics.
Could it be Dave's Insanity Salsa, which is a fair bit hotter than the vast majority of non-Dave's hot sauces I've ever seen?
Of course there will be different metrics. WWII and the War in Iraq are two totally different kinds of conflicts. Had the object of Iraq been to reduce it to rubble (a la Germany or Japan in 1945), we could've done that in ten minutes. But in neither case is casualties alone an indicator of progress. Casualties frequently worsen right up until the war ends, both for the winner and the loser.
Never said it wasn't. You originally had a hypothetical in which people were handwringing about how disastrous the invasion of Normandy turned out. I am saying that three years later was enough time to appraise whether that was the right move. I would tend to say three years after many, if not most, military manuevers would be enough time to appraise whether it was the right move given what we know and/or given the benefit of hindsight. But there would not be plenty of grist for the mill in June 1947. Or if you want to look at it another way, I'm fairly certain that wouldn't be the same sort of grist for the mill at any point of WWII that there is now. No one could call the American entry into WWII pre-emptive, or say that it was directed at the wrong countries, or that it distrracted from a more pressing goal. There's one point of comparision that's not quite so flattering: Japanese internment camps then and things like Gitmo and secret prisons now. I think history will look on both with shame. So no other concrete measurable goals besides "stay the course" then?
Hostility would be I go over to where you are, and do it to you. I kindly suggested you do it to yourself. I have no hate in my heart for you, you're merely a dupe of delusion, and can't help yourself.
