Can Dems admit that the Iraq war has been a success?

[fencesitter]

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/6685614.htm

Point/Counterpoint in todays' Phila Inquirer. This guys editorial made me go crosseyed with his logic! a Quote, "Body count? Considering we defeated a large, long-prepared army in a ground war with the loss of only 138 lives, Bush's war is one of the most successful military operations in history. And it was carried out with a precision and concern for an embedded civilian population unmatched in the history of warfare." Unbelievable.

The counterpoint is okay, but we all could rave a bit better.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/6685613.htm
When will anyone admit that it has been a huge fraud?

[villager]

1. If that's success, I'd hate to see failure!

:eyes:

[fizzana]

2. yes

If I was a delusional pathalogic liar. Fortunately, I'm not, so no -I can't admint the war in Iraq has been a success'

[GravyFish]

3. What success?

Let's think about this. If it was a success, there would have been more of a point to the 133 men that were killed. There were NO weapons of mass destruction, the people are more unhappy under american rule, gas prices are soaring, and the economy's failing because of what this is going to cost! And this is a success?

[bemildred]

4. I admit its been great for Democratic election prospects.

[Saintgermane]

5. The author makes the mistake

of equating a quick tactical victory with strategic success. The point of military force is to accomplish by aggression what cannot be accomplished by diplomacy - to paraphrase Clauswitz.

The jury is out on whether the latest Iraq war will be a success or not. Too soon to call it either way. Certainly, if things continue as they are, or worsen, the likelihood of the U.S. achieving it's strategic goals - elimination of terrorism, a stable middle east with democratic, and western-oriented, governments, and a stable world oil market diminishes.

Vietnam, by any measure, was a tactical success - we won most every significant battle, lost 'only' 58,000 dead to the Viet Cong's several million, yet, we never did accomplish our strategic goals.

Whether or not one agrees with the current objectives, the objective assessment of whether the war is eventually 'won' or 'lost' must revolve around an analysis of whether or not the administration ultimately achieves it's stated strategic goals, not an artificial assessment of casualty ratios to this (or any other) point in time.

Even if we lose not another soldier, but fail in securing our objectives, we will have 'lost' this latest war.

For the record, I consider the war unjust, and my opinion is we are likely to fail in accomplishing our policy objectives.

[bemildred]

6. Well put.

The objection of many to the war was precisely that
there was no realistic expectation that it would achieve
its stated political objectives, and that precisely what
has happened, would happen.

[ddoumeche]

7. concern for embedded civilian population ?

How do you know that, there are no fiables reports yet.

Some estimations for iraqies soldiers are about 50,000 deads.

For civilians, there are two sources :
- the Iraq Freedom Parti who accumulated datas around the country reported 37.000 deaths.
- an analysis of medias showed between 7000 and 8000 deaths. But that's just the bodies spotted by journalists and published. So it's in reality more, maybe much more.

[MissMarple]

8. Oh..., honey,

Success over what? The original premise has not born fruit. We went to war with an ill prepared third world country whose delusional leadership thought they could defeat their enemy in the desert. This is not the 1800's, this is not victory. This is a very bad thing.

We have far more wounded, many having loss of limbs( i.e., both hands) because we are keeping more of the wounded alive. And we can't withdraw. This is winning, this is success?

And we still don't know for what purpose. Why are we there? And why doesn't George & Co. want U.N. oversight?

[Brucey]

9. Means and ends...

Right. What the idiot Republicans don't understand is that the ends don't always (or ever) justify the means. So many dead, so much destruction for what end? Is success simply judged by the end result? What about the costs? Would it be okay if I killed your mother if I got a free car wash? This bragging about murdering Saddam's sons and chasing Saddam from power does not justify an illegal invasion of a country, countless wounded and killed, huge profits for certain corporate donors, and the destruction of the infrastructure of a mostly defenseless country that has been under sanctions for 12 years and wasn't even able to fly a plane while it's cities were mercilessly bombed by a bunch of robot idiots screaming about freedom. For what?

[fizzana]

10. The war has only just begun. n/t

n/t

[OldCurmudgeon]

11. Oh, it's been a *wonderful* success!

why, we just whooped the butt of an massive well-prepared Iraqi army, who had been gearing up for a major fight. Rolled right over 'em. A victory without parallel in military history!.

And then we grabbed that nasty guy Saddam, caught him right in the middle of a menage-a-trois with Osama and Mullah Omar, and shipped 'em all off to Gitmo.

After that we rounded up all those WMDs and made the world a safer place.
Now the iraqi people just luv us to bits, never missing an opportunity to toss flowers at our soldiers.

Oh wait.

Sorry, I must have accidentally popped over to Planet Freepoid. My bad.

On this planet, we slaughtered the pitiful army of an third world country impoverished by a decade of sanctions. Rolled right over 'em. It was a victory without parallel since last I cleaned the dust-bunnies out from under the bed.

Then we couldn't find Saddam, stopped looking for Osama and Mullah Omar 'cause we had to pull our troops out to use in Iraq, and basically set things up so the Taliban and Al Qaida could make a comeback in Afganistan...and now Iraq, too!

Never did find any WMDs. Didn't bother securing arms depots or storage facilities for radioactive materials. Funny how that stuff just walked off. Maybe they'll show up later, in New York or Chicago or something.

And the iraqi people hate our guts and never miss an opportunity to lob an RPG in our direction.

With "victories" like these, who needs defeats?