NationStates Jolt Archive

Is there any way the US can win the Iraq War if it continues to do what it's been doing?


Keep in mind I'm not asking whether the war can be theoretically won, like by nuking the whole country or something. The question is whether current US policy and strategy, continued indefinitely, will result in a US victory.


So, assuming the variables don't change, what are the chances?

War's won dude. Saddam's government has been toppled. Now the nationbuilding part is where the Bush administration is fucking up.

According to Bush the war was won over a year ago. The US is currently just stabilizing the country. The "stabilization" is going to continue for a long, long, long time if current policies continue.

The Iraq War has two stages. Stage 1, "The War With Iraq", is finished. Stage 2, "Nationbuilding and Guerilla Countermeasures" is underway. When nationbuilding is successfully executed in Iraq, then the terrorism will taper off, because the majority of the terrorists there right now are there because the nationbuilding is fucked up. We'll deal with the Iranian, Syrian, ect. terrorists separately.

The war was won. The mistake we're making is by not heeding the religious and politicial leaders in Iraq at the time. To paraphrase, they said, "We're grateful to you for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. We're glad you're here. But don't stay too long."

We're staying too long. We've reached the point where we are the focus for the conflict instead of the solution to it.

I don't think anyone can say for sure. I mean, in the first Gulf War we were expecting thousands of casualties and a drawn out conflict, and it turned out to be very short and with few casualties. It all depends on what strategy we decide to pursue in the upcoming years, and how well we support the new government.

I think we can be certain that immediate withdrawal would more or less doom the entire nation to failiure and chaos.

I dunno. But there are more people who are willing to cut and run than before.

Iraq was chosen because the administration thought it was doable and can be finished fast and that would free up more resources to go after bigger agendas.....

little did they know..

The Iraq War has two stages. Stage 1, "The War With Iraq", is finished. Stage 2, "Nationbuilding and Guerilla Countermeasures" is underway. When nationbuilding is successfully executed in Iraq, then the terrorism will taper off, because the majority of the terrorists there right now are there because the nationbuilding is fucked up. We'll deal with the Iranian, Syrian, ect. terrorists separately.
Americans really need to read some Chomsky. The US is the biggest terrorist nation in the world. It should clean it's own house up before it starts cleaning up others'.:sniper:

ummm lets see how many elections have been held ? Did a vote go through on a constitution ? Did the US train a new police force and Army ? Are they voting AGAIN democraticly for their government ? Hmmmmm seems to me the US is winning now ....along with the Iraqi people who refuse to let a buch of goons deprive them of the chance to take their destiny in their own hands .

Americans really need to read some Chomsky. The US is the biggest terrorist nation in the world. It should clean it's own house up before it starts cleaning up others'.:sniper:

Would you rather live in America or Saudi Arabia?

What are the guidelines for winning? When the soldiers leave, does that mean we won?
The old days would mean that Iraq is now our 51st state. We won!
I think we all first need a definition of what would constitute a win before anybody can really predict if we will win or not.

Would you rather live in America or Saudi Arabia?
Aren't they the same? The next biggest terrorist state is Saudi Arabia who are cosier then a peanut in a shell with George Bush. If Bush had any credibility he would cut off ties with those rascals. They're pretty democractic eh?

I think we should fear US victory as much as we should fear their defeat.

The insurgency, regardless of what the Bush administration would definitely have us believe, is out of control. The Americans are so untouchable militarily that the insurgents are hitting softer, more reachable targets, hence the hideously high deathtoll among civilians. American trigger happiness and a total inability to tell civilian from insurgent isn't helping either, neither is the crippled snail's pace reconstruction.

No one seriously likes the Americans, because of their heavy-handed tactics and abuse of locals and prisoners, in the classic story of the first world soldier told from birth that victory is all that matters, regardless of circumstance, and is now bitter and violent when said victory eludes him.

Similarly, the election was a joke. Nobody knew who they were voting for, and it was perfectly clear who the Americans wanted to win. That, and the insurgency, on several levels a direct result of the American destruction of Iraq, makes it impossible to have a transparent election. The consitution is similarly flawed, made by flawed lawmakers in a flawed election whose only purpose is public relations and a fig leaf for the Americans.

So the reason I think victory would be as bad as defeat is as follows: The only way for the "sovereign Iraqi government" to win is by becoming a police state.

The elections didn't help. The constitution is a pipe dream, because the Americans are still there and too much blood has been shed. But if they leave, the government wouldn't last a week. So the only way to put down the insurgency is to kill lots and lots and lots of people, some of whom may actually even be insurgents.

Or let it take its course, which the Americans will never allow, not necessarily because it would be immoral (the moralistic argument doesn't really fly when you've been starving people for a decade, then bomb the shit out of them some more because of a lie and tell them to be happy that they're finally free), but mainly becuase they might not be able to control whichever group finally gets to the top, be they measured statesmen or crazed fundamentalists who've been having a riot since Saddam got hauled out of his hole.

Ultimately, the winning of Iraq is about control. That's why its important to support the "sovereign" government, because it needs America to survive, and has formulated the laws and constitution under American supervision. LEt the people of Iraq win (and you can bet there are plenty of them in the insurgency. It would defy credibility to suggest that the whole thing is run entirely by Syrians and Iranians without a substantial base of support somewhere in Iraq), and there's no telling what they might do.

Aren't they the same? The next biggest terrorist state is Saudi Arabia who are cosier then a peanut in a shell with George Bush. If Bush had any credibility he would cut off ties with those rascals. They're pretty democractic eh?

No, in America you are allowed to criticize the government. Chomsky would be dead and you would be imprisoned or tortured for reading him.

We need SA because they have oil...unfortunately, economic reality forces us to work with them rather than try to force them to democratize.

Americans really need to read some Chomsky. The US is the biggest terrorist nation in the world. It should clean it's own house up before it starts cleaning up others'.:sniper:
I've read some Noam Chomsky. I'm unimpressed, and his writing is so boring and dry I wanted to kill myself.

I'll admit that the US has often behaved in an unethical manner, for example our interventions in Latin America for the profit of fruit companies and the deterrance of communism, but all in all we're not as bad as the nations who sponsor suicide bombers in the name of religious totalitarianism.

I've read some Noam Chomsky. I'm unimpressed, and his writing is so boring and dry I wanted to kill myself.

I'll admit that the US has often behaved in an unethical manner, for example our interventions in Latin America for the profit of fruit companies and the deterrance of communism, but all in all we're not as bad as the nations who sponsor suicide bombers in the name of religious totalitarianism.

"Unethical?" The interventions in Latin America lead to the direct support of regimes which caused hundreds of thousands of people to vanish off the face of the earth, with millions more displaced. This is not a minor lapse.

While the United States does not hack people's heads off in public (Again...the Saudis), it has in the past supported crazed religious fundamentalists (Everybody's favourite cave-dwelling nutcase-on-dialysis, for example).

And, unlike the afore-mentioned fundamentalists, there is no other nation on the planet which is capable of influencing other nations' policies so thoroughly and so disastrously.

What are the guidelines for winning? When the soldiers leave, does that mean we won?
The old days would mean that Iraq is now our 51st state. We won!
I think we all first need a definition of what would constitute a win before anybody can really predict if we will win or not.Its when the enmy surrenders...Its when you impose your will.

The war will be won by the US if the American people can dredge up sufficient patience to see it through. It takes time to build ( or rebuild ) a nation.

The US needs to do some admitting. Saddam Hussien was not a real threat, if the house of Saud falls, which is looking likley America will lose lots of it oil reserves. Most refineries are set for Pursian oil.
No there is nothing inherently wrong with this situation, America wants a controlled supplier of oil, so they find a country with a tin-pot dictator and take it over. The Iraqis get a sensible government and in theory a better standard of living and America gains an oil supply. It's classic liberal Imperialism, taking over a place "ethically". The Americans need to get a hold of things however, they can't just destroy the Govnt. and expect the Iraqi's to swoon then form a decent government. No, Iraqi's will form the government thay want, which of cause defeats the exercise. What America wants is for Iraq to have a pro-western, captialist, secular government. These instituions need to to be built and intially run by America, at least for the foreseeable future and for the mean time accept the unglorius casualties of low intensity warfare. They need to actually, or at least notionally, be seen to be improving the standard of living for Iraqi's. They will not do this however.

In addtion American and Britain by setting such early "pull out" times they have made themselves lame ducks. Which seneor Iraq will do America's bidding when in 3 years America is gone and the "collaborators" find themselves alone.

Americans will not accept long term (e.g decades) and the Government will follow suite. Hence,

-America will have proved again how useless it is at intervention in the middile east

- Terrorism will grow

-America will lose its international reputationas a military power (Austrialia never had one and Britain hasn't since the 50s.)

Oh dear...

Is there any way the US can win the Iraq War if it continues to do what it's been doing?
Depends, do you consider our victory over Japan a win in world war 2?

What does "winning" mean...

I don't think they can expel AQ from Iraq. I think that democratic progress can happen, but whether a democracy in a war zone is worth anything is another matter.
That doesn't mean that the defeated minorities (read: Sunnis) won't abandon the process and Iraq breaks apart.

I think eventually the Americans are going to leave, proclaiming that Iraq is sovereign and democratic, while on the ground things are different. From that spawns a new generation of jihadists, and the US prepares to invade the next place...

Define "win". You can't win unless you have a win condition.

War's won dude. Saddam's government has been toppled. .

If that all we need to do then we would have won long ago, but the wars not over, People are dienig each day, USA has no real plan to fix iraq and get out

Its when the enmy surrenders...Its when you impose your will.
I don't think we're dealing with an enemy that surrenders.

This is bushanomics here. I'm bush like. The war in Iriq is almost done. Dick has said that the muslims are in their last throws. And when my dick talks I always listen. The war in Iriq is important. Freedom must be spread like a rapid disease like crabs. The country Iriq has a lot of earl, shit, I mean W.M.D.s , damn it, I mean oppressed people, who have oppression. It's the laberals who are tellin the tourist that they can win. The tourist would never have any hope it it werent for those laberals. Which is why in the mid term elections. I say we vote out all laberals. That way we will win the war in Iriq.

People should realize it takes time to rebuild a nation and restart a government. MacArthur fought insurgents in Japan FIVE years after we dropped the nuke. This isn't anything new. The Japanese and German resistance inflicted far heavier casualties than than the Syrian, Saudi, and Iranian ones we are fighint are (the people we are fighting are Iraqi, they are from neighboring nations).

The idiots who are shocked that we are fighting like this after we took out Saddam need to read a fucking history book and realize this happened before and we will be successful as we were in the past.

MacArthur fought insurgents in Japan FIVE years after we dropped the nuke. This isn't anything new. The Japanese and German resistance inflicted far heavier casualties than than the Syrian, Saudi, and Iranian ones we are fighint are.
What German resistance? And AFAIK, the Japanese insurgents were not in Japan, but remainders of the Imperial Army on islands and such.
Very different now.

(the people we are fighting are Iraqi, they are from neighboring nations).
Let's just say that chances are they are both.

Americans really need to read some Chomsky. The US is the biggest terrorist nation in the world. It should clean it's own house up before it starts cleaning up others'.:sniper:

Great, you get the masses to enjoy reading for pleasure, learning, or both, and I'll do whatever the heck you want.

A win would be a stable representative dispensation at the helms of a sovereign Iraq, with few bases thrown in for the US to have a presence in the region.

This would mean that sunnis swallow the bitter pill that they cannot rule over the majority shias anymore.

That cannot happen as long as sunni factions can draw inspiration from other sunni strongholds and as long as the bases of those sunni strongholds are not simulataneously and ruthlessly targetted and eliminated.

Kinda like how you have to clean up Pakistan to secure Afghanistan.

Since these things are not (or cannot?) happen, I am very doubtful of a win as defined above.

It is still achievable though.

Depleted Uranium, White Phosphorus... you know, if we rounded off the NBC triad with some Ricin it still wouldn't make any difference. It's all in a completely lost cause.

You heard me. The war America is fighting in Iraq isn't one that America is losing. It is one that America has lost-- already. An abysmal and total wash, by any rational yardstick or reasonable stretch of the imagination.

Don't want to believe it? Von Clausewitz once said that war is nothing but the continuation of policy by other means. Let's look at every conceivable policy goal that has ever been articulated for going to war in Iraq:

1) "To bring democracy to the people of Iraq":
All we've brought them is misery beyond Saddam's wildest dreams, but that's beside the point.

Even if for some reason it could be argued that a stable, democratic Iraq in the Middle East would be in the best interests of the US, the chances of any such entity coming about are virtually nil.

I’m not even going to dignify the laughable collection of yes-men that we’re supposed to believe form the “Iraqi government” after the elections, with the benefit of serious discussion. This bunch can’t even agree on a workable constitution. As soon as US troops pull out, this “Iraqi government’s” leaders are likely to suffer much the same fate as Soviet puppet Najibullah did after the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan (hung from a lamp-post in the public square, with his gonads sliced off and stuffed in his mouth).

The chances of "Iraq" itself existing as a nation-state when the smoke clears, are dismal. I'll put all my money on eventual trifurcation, whether we like it or not.

Leading to a Shia state in the South, led by our present "allies" in that region, Iran-backed Al-Badr and Al-Dawa. Meaning, a proxy state for Iran. In the fine democratic tradition of Iran, women who have the temerity to put on lipstick find it removed by Islamic Revolutionary Guards wielding razor blades. So, no democracy there. No friend of the US either.

A Salafist/Wahabbist Sunni state in the Center. Taliban redux with Saudi Arabian money and political backing. Enough said.

And a shaky travesty of a Kurdish state in the North, which may be the least ill-disposed to the United States; but which not only the Sunnis and Shias but also our allies like Turkey will do their best to undermine. Turkey has its own restive Kurdish population and doesn't like the idea of these people getting an independent country. Turkey is also our ONLY democratic Muslim ally in the Middle East, so there's simply no question of overriding them.

So...no stable ally, no democracy, and in all probability no more Iraq as we know it. Whatever is left of Iraq when all is said and done, the only certain thing is that it will hate us.

We've LOST.

2) "To secure the energy interests of the United States by gaining control of Iraq's oilfields":

Shia Southern Iraq's oil will be controlled by Iran. Central Iraq doesn't have too much oil, and what there is will be controlled by the Salafist breakaway's patrons, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Northern Iraq has some, but just try getting to it between Iranian artillery, Qaeda IEDs and Turkish air-raids.

So...no increased supply of oil or enhanced measure of energy security for us as a result of this war. But at least the French won't have any either.

Still, we've LOST.

3) "To prevent the use of Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction against us by terrorists":

Yeah, this one we know all about. Did you know Bush once drove a car into a hedge and was arrested for DUI? Maybe he thought (and still does) that he was doing something heroic at the time. Maybe his delirium tremens caused him to see a pink elephant in the road, and he believed he was doing the nation a service by running over the commie bastard.

And just maybe some similar crackhead jesus-freak hallucination inspired Bush's belief in Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction as well. Or maybe, which is far more likely, he knew there were no weapons of mass destruction and was lying through his teeth to the American people. Doing everything conceivable to push his case, such as jeopardizing CIA agents in their country’s service so as to threaten and browbeat their family members who asked inconvenient questions.

No weapons of mass destruction, nor any credible indications of the capability to produce such weapons, have been found. America is down 2000 citizens and counting.

We've LOST, again.

4) "To Discourage Other Rogue States from building Weapons of Mass Destruction":

This is a really funny one in a pathetic sort of way, because the Bush adminstration actually cited it when they were grasping at straws to continue justifying the war before the 2004 election. Dick Cheney stood up at the RNC and declared that Iran and North Korea had been discouraged from pursuing their nuclear weapons programs as a result of the Iraq invasion, and that Pakistan's A.Q. Khan network, which supplied weapons design and technology to both those countries, had been "rolled up".

Today, Iran is blatantly defying the IAEA to make head or tail of what is really going on at its Bushehr plant. North Korea locked out the IAEA from Yongbyon altogether... and there was the suspicious looking mushroom cloud that reared up along the China- North Korea border early this year. Condoleezza Rice, who never had any reason to doubt the existence of an Iraqi nuke program, was agreeing all over the place with North Korean government propaganda that the mushroom cloud was caused by a “mineshaft explosion”. Maybe she still holds to this view now that Kim Jong Il has declared his possession of nuclear weapons, and demands all kinds of aid and assurances in exchange for giving them up.

And Dr. A.Q. Khan? Nobody knows where he is, or whom he's sold what to, or even what he still might be selling. The FBI haven't had any more access to him than they've had to Osama. Pakistan's dictator Musharraf put Dr. A.Q. on TV to make a "public apology", and then spirited him away to parts unknown along with all his trade secrets.

So quite obviously, the other rogue states haven't given up on their WMD ambitions. If anything, they're more eager than ever to have WMD, which they see as the sole guarantor of their regimes' continued security and survival.

Do I have to remind you we've LOST?

5) "To fight terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them here":

There have been MORE international Al-Qaeda attacks per year, causing more casualties per year, OUTSIDE of Iraq-- not less--since the invasion. Meaning, Al-Qaeda has more fanatics ready to do its bidding in more places worldwide than it ever had before. It's terror-making capabilities haven't been "tied down" in Iraq...if anything, they've expanded tremendously all over the world as a result of "Iraqi Freedom".

Some people will argue that this objective has been successfully achieved by saying "well, there hasn't been another 9-11 since we invaded Iraq, has there?"

For those people, I have a magic penny that will prevent you from ever getting hit by a bus. In all the time I've carried it in my pocket, that has never happened to me. I'll sell it to you for a hundred bucks wired to my Pay Pal account.

Meanwhile, we've seen Madrid 3-11, London 7-7, Amman 11-9, and a host of other terrorist attacks (that did kill Americans among others) from Morocco to Bali. More frequent and more destructive than at any time before March '03. Thinking we're safer here today than in September 2001 is to delude ourselves. Thinking we're safer because of the war in Iraq is an indication of acute brain death.

Because the war in Iraq has furnished Al-Qaeda with what it almost didn't have anymore, following the defeat of the Taliban. A recruiting ground and training area rolled into one; in a location that is far more convenient, comfortable and central to the Middle East region where they really want the most leverage of all.

Anyone who knows damn-all about Baa'thist Arab Socialism, knows that for ideological as well as political reasons, Osama Bin Laden's brand of Wahabbist Islamic fundamentalism was poison to regimes like Saddam's. Saddam did everything in his power to curtail movements like Al-Qaeda, for his own sake. A smart thing to do MIGHT have been playing Saddam and Bin Laden against each other. Instead, we've applied "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" in a curiously perverse way; we've been a successful enemy against Bin Laden's greatest regional enemy, and ousted him.

For extra credit... what does that make us to Bin Laden? We've LOST.

So what else is there? We got rid of Saddam...and left the certainty of much worse to follow in his place. We tried to establish new military bases for ourselves in the Middle East, following the Saudis' request for us to pull out... and ended up creating "green zones" outside which our guys may not venture for the high probability of being blown up at every turn. We wanted to convince the world that we stood as a bastion of democracy... and have instead earned a reputation as human-rights offenders who defy all civilized norms of behavior, sanctioning the torture of detainees. We set out to punish a tyrant who used weapons of mass destruction such as mustard gas against civilian populations...and now, we're using depleted uranium munitions and white phosphorus against those same civilian populations.

A "continuation of policy by other means", certainly, but in which direction?

What we're left facing is the worst kind of policy choice. We have a bad situation in Iraq that will become truly awful if we leave. So our men and women in uniform must remain there for the foreseeable future, risking life and limb every single day. All in the desperate hope that things don't get as much worse as they might if we pulled out.

If that isn't losing, I don't know what is.

Now there's an universal truth as quantifiable by any sane standards. If this weren't enough to swallow, adding insult to injury are those right-wing chickenhawks who haven't lifted one plump, manicured finger for their country a single day of their lives... talk radio blowhards and their ditto-heads on internet fora. You know, the self-righteous Bushmongers who forbid the American people to admit this vast and plain truth publicly, because oh my God, what would it do to the morale of our troops? These vermin have the gall to present us with a choice between gauging the evidence of our senses, and supporting our armed forces.

To all such cretins, fuck you and the White-House-usurping traitor you rode in on. Yesterday’s explosion of rage in Congress over your attempts to filibuster Murtha with a strawman vote—that was just the beginning. We’re taking America back, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

If you've talked to anyone who's actually done a tour of duty in Iraq, you'll realize they aren't seven-year-olds who still believe in Santa Claus. They don't have tiny little spirits that can be as easily crushed as the Chickenhawks would have us believe. They're enormously brave human beings who see this truth even more plainly than the rest of us... and our pretending it doesn't exist, doesn't make it go away for them.

Many of them try to move past it by doing things on a small scale that they can be proud of... helping to build schools and hospitals, or bringing aid to dispossessed Iraqi civilians. In terms of the big picture, they don't have too many options. They can either see things the way they really are, as Major Paul Hackett and many others do. Or they can buy into Bush propaganda and blind themselves wilfully to the evidence of their senses . And blinding oneself to anything wilfully is a poor choice for somebody trying to survive and function in a war zone.

Is there any way the US can win the Iraq War if it continues to do what it's been doing?


Keep in mind I'm not asking whether the war can be theoretically won, like by nuking the whole country or something. The question is whether current US policy and strategy, continued indefinitely, will result in a US victory.


So, assuming the variables don't change, what are the chances?
This war was lost, the moment that the US declared Saddam a threat to the mighty USA, tried to link Iraq with Al-Queda, wouldn't let the UN inspectors finish their job, tried to link 9-11 with Iraq, and by illegally invading their country.

Oh, and terrorism has increased, not diminished. "Mission Accomplished" my ass!!

Further loses keep piling up, such as 2,000 troops killed, 15,000 injured, over $200 Billion spent, Abu Gharib, Guantanamo Bay, "Shock and Awe", a resilient insurgency, white phosphorous bombs, 100,000 Iraqi casualties, corporate pork barrelling, violation of human rights, weak intel, improper body armour for their troops, allowing the Sheehan incident to get out of hand, etc, etc, ad infinitum.

Oh, and terrorism has increased. "Mission Accomplished" my ass!!

The US is fighting Al - queda in Iqaq with its military not in New York or LA with its civilians .

Depleted Uranium, White Phosphorus... you know, if we rounded off the NBC triad with some Ricin it still wouldn't make any difference. It's all in a completely lost cause.

You heard me. The war America is fighting in Iraq isn't one that America is losing. It is one that America has lost-- already. An abysmal and total wash, by any rational yardstick or reasonable stretch of the imagination.

Don't want to believe it? Von Clausewitz once said that war is nothing but the continuation of policy by other means. Let's look at every conceivable policy goal that has ever been articulated for going to war in Iraq:

1) "To bring democracy to the people of Iraq":
All we've brought them is misery beyond Saddam's wildest dreams, but that's beside the point.

Even if for some reason it could be argued that a stable, democratic Iraq in the Middle East would be in the best interests of the US, the chances of any such entity coming about are virtually nil.

I’m not even going to dignify the laughable collection of yes-men that we’re supposed to believe form the “Iraqi government” after the elections, with the benefit of serious discussion. This bunch can’t even agree on a workable constitution. As soon as US troops pull out, this “Iraqi government’s” leaders are likely to suffer much the same fate as Soviet puppet Najibullah did after the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan (hung from a lamp-post in the public square, with his gonads sliced off and stuffed in his mouth).

The chances of "Iraq" itself existing as a nation-state when the smoke clears, are dismal. I'll put all my money on eventual trifurcation, whether we like it or not.

Leading to a Shia state in the South, led by our present "allies" in that region, Iran-backed Al-Badr and Al-Dawa. Meaning, a proxy state for Iran. In the fine democratic tradition of Iran, women who have the temerity to put on lipstick find it removed by Islamic Revolutionary Guards wielding razor blades. So, no democracy there. No friend of the US either.

A Salafist/Wahabbist Sunni state in the Center. Taliban redux with Saudi Arabian money and political backing. Enough said.

And a shaky travesty of a Kurdish state in the North, which may be the least ill-disposed to the United States; but which not only the Sunnis and Shias but also our allies like Turkey will do their best to undermine. Turkey has its own restive Kurdish population and doesn't like the idea of these people getting an independent country. Turkey is also our ONLY democratic Muslim ally in the Middle East, so there's simply no question of overriding them.

So...no stable ally, no democracy, and in all probability no more Iraq as we know it. Whatever is left of Iraq when all is said and done, the only certain thing is that it will hate us.

We've LOST.

2) "To secure the energy interests of the United States by gaining control of Iraq's oilfields":

Shia Southern Iraq's oil will be controlled by Iran. Central Iraq doesn't have too much oil, and what there is will be controlled by the Salafist breakaway's patrons, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Northern Iraq has some, but just try getting to it between Iranian artillery, Qaeda IEDs and Turkish air-raids.

So...no increased supply of oil or enhanced measure of energy security for us as a result of this war. But at least the French won't have any either.

Still, we've LOST.

3) "To prevent the use of Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction against us by terrorists":

Yeah, this one we know all about. Did you know Bush once drove a car into a hedge and was arrested for DUI? Maybe he thought (and still does) that he was doing something heroic at the time. Maybe his delirium tremens caused him to see a pink elephant in the road, and he believed he was doing the nation a service by running over the commie bastard.

And just maybe some similar crackhead jesus-freak hallucination inspired Bush's belief in Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction as well. Or maybe, which is far more likely, he knew there were no weapons of mass destruction and was lying through his teeth to the American people. Doing everything conceivable to push his case, such as jeopardizing CIA agents in their country’s service so as to threaten and browbeat their family members who asked inconvenient questions.

No weapons of mass destruction, nor any credible indications of the capability to produce such weapons, have been found. America is down 2000 citizens and counting.

We've LOST, again.

4) "To Discourage Other Rogue States from building Weapons of Mass Destruction":

This is a really funny one in a pathetic sort of way, because the Bush adminstration actually cited it when they were grasping at straws to continue justifying the war before the 2004 election. Dick Cheney stood up at the RNC and declared that Iran and North Korea had been discouraged from pursuing their nuclear weapons programs as a result of the Iraq invasion, and that Pakistan's A.Q. Khan network, which supplied weapons design and technology to both those countries, had been "rolled up".

Today, Iran is blatantly defying the IAEA to make head or tail of what is really going on at its Bushehr plant. North Korea locked out the IAEA from Yongbyon altogether... and there was the suspicious looking mushroom cloud that reared up along the China- North Korea border early this year. Condoleezza Rice, who never had any reason to doubt the existence of an Iraqi nuke program, was agreeing all over the place with North Korean government propaganda that the mushroom cloud was caused by a “mineshaft explosion”. Maybe she still holds to this view now that Kim Jong Il has declared his possession of nuclear weapons, and demands all kinds of aid and assurances in exchange for giving them up.

And Dr. A.Q. Khan? Nobody knows where he is, or whom he's sold what to, or even what he still might be selling. The FBI haven't had any more access to him than they've had to Osama. Pakistan's dictator Musharraf put Dr. A.Q. on TV to make a "public apology", and then spirited him away to parts unknown along with all his trade secrets.

So quite obviously, the other rogue states haven't given up on their WMD ambitions. If anything, they're more eager than ever to have WMD, which they see as the sole guarantor of their regimes' continued security and survival.

Do I have to remind you we've LOST?

5) "To fight terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them here":

There have been MORE international Al-Qaeda attacks per year, causing more casualties per year, OUTSIDE of Iraq-- not less--since the invasion. Meaning, Al-Qaeda has more fanatics ready to do its bidding in more places worldwide than it ever had before. It's terror-making capabilities haven't been "tied down" in Iraq...if anything, they've expanded tremendously all over the world as a result of "Iraqi Freedom".

Some people will argue that this objective has been successfully achieved by saying "well, there hasn't been another 9-11 since we invaded Iraq, has there?"

For those people, I have a magic penny that will prevent you from ever getting hit by a bus. In all the time I've carried it in my pocket, that has never happened to me. I'll sell it to you for a hundred bucks wired to my Pay Pal account.

Meanwhile, we've seen Madrid 3-11, London 7-7, Amman 11-9, and a host of other terrorist attacks (that did kill Americans among others) from Morocco to Bali. More frequent and more destructive than at any time before March '03. Thinking we're safer here today than in September 2001 is to delude ourselves. Thinking we're safer because of the war in Iraq is an indication of acute brain death.

Because the war in Iraq has furnished Al-Qaeda with what it almost didn't have anymore, following the defeat of the Taliban. A recruiting ground and training area rolled into one; in a location that is far more convenient, comfortable and central to the Middle East region where they really want the most leverage of all.

Anyone who knows damn-all about Baa'thist Arab Socialism, knows that for ideological as well as political reasons, Osama Bin Laden's brand of Wahabbist Islamic fundamentalism was poison to regimes like Saddam's. Saddam did everything in his power to curtail movements like Al-Qaeda, for his own sake. A smart thing to do MIGHT have been playing Saddam and Bin Laden against each other. Instead, we've applied "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" in a curiously perverse way; we've been a successful enemy against Bin Laden's greatest regional enemy, and ousted him.

For extra credit... what does that make us to Bin Laden? We've LOST.

So what else is there? We got rid of Saddam...and left the certainty of much worse to follow in his place. We tried to establish new military bases for ourselves in the Middle East, following the Saudis' request for us to pull out... and ended up creating "green zones" outside which our guys may not venture for the high probability of being blown up at every turn. We wanted to convince the world that we stood as a bastion of democracy... and have instead earned a reputation as human-rights offenders who defy all civilized norms of behavior, sanctioning the torture of detainees. We set out to punish a tyrant who used weapons of mass destruction such as mustard gas against civilian populations...and now, we're using depleted uranium munitions and white phosphorus against those same civilian populations.

A "continuation of policy by other means", certainly, but in which direction?

What we're left facing is the worst kind of policy choice. We have a bad situation in Iraq that will become truly awful if we leave. So our men and women in uniform must remain there for the foreseeable future, risking life and limb every single day. All in the desperate hope that things don't get as much worse as they might if we pulled out.

If that isn't losing, I don't know what is.

Now there's an universal truth as quantifiable by any sane standards. If this weren't enough to swallow, adding insult to injury are those right-wing chickenhawks who haven't lifted one plump, manicured finger for their country a single day of their lives... talk radio blowhards and their ditto-heads on internet fora. You know, the self-righteous Bushmongers who forbid the American people to admit this vast and plain truth publicly, because oh my God, what would it do to the morale of our troops? These vermin have the gall to present us with a choice between gauging the evidence of our senses, and supporting our armed forces.

To all such cretins, fuck you and the White-House-usurping traitor you rode in on. Yesterday’s explosion of rage in Congress over your attempts to filibuster Murtha with a strawman vote—that was just the beginning. We’re taking America back, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

If you've talked to anyone who's actually done a tour of duty in Iraq, you'll realize they aren't seven-year-olds who still believe in Santa Claus. They don't have tiny little spirits that can be as easily crushed as the Chickenhawks would have us believe. They're enormously brave human beings who see this truth even more plainly than the rest of us... and our pretending it doesn't exist, doesn't make it go away for them.

Many of them try to move past it by doing things on a small scale that they can be proud of... helping to build schools and hospitals, or bringing aid to dispossessed Iraqi civilians. In terms of the big picture, they don't have too many options. They can either see things the way they really are, as Major Paul Hackett and many others do. Or they can buy into Bush propaganda and blind themselves wilfully to the evidence of their senses . And blinding oneself to anything wilfully is a poor choice for somebody trying to survive and function in a war zone.
TL, DR