Iraq war was lost the day it started

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/greeley/cst-edt-greel14.html

If we "cut and run" from Iraq, Republican senators argued recently, we will lose our credibility, dishonor the memory of those who have already died there, break our promise to the Iraqi people and settle for something less than victory. The United States does not quit that way. So Republicans will run in November against dishonor, flag burners, gay marriages, the New York Times, the Supreme Court and the Democrats who want to lose Iraq (just like they ran a half century ago against Democrats who "lost" China). Will it work? Sure it will.

In fact, the United States did cut and run in Korea and Vietnam. It did settle for something less than victory in these two wars. The United States did abandon the North Korean and Vietnamese people. It did dishonor the dead soldiers, if withdrawing from an impossible conflict does dishonor those who have died. Some of the senators know that. Most of the American people, ignorant as they are of history, have forgotten.

However, the truth is that Iraq was "lost" the day the war started. It was an artificial country like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, stitched together after the Great War. The British forced its rebellious tribes together with bombs and poison gas. They left the minority Sunni tribes in charge. They ruled brutally through eight decades, viciously suppressing the Shiite majority and other tribes, particularly the Kurds in the north. Saddam Hussein was merely the logical conclusion of the cruel dictators who ruled before him. snip

Galbraith has been around Iraq long enough to know that the first Bush administration supported Saddam in his war with Iran, providing weapons, equipment and intelligence, some of it in support of poison gas attacks on the Iranians. He also remembers that the previous Bush urged the Shiites and Kurds to rise up against Saddam after the Gulf War. He and his advisers did not believe that they would take him seriously. Hundreds of thousands died. The people of Iraq have very good reason for hating Americans.

<snip>Therefore, having ignored the lessons of history, they repeat its mistakes. Americans will continue to die in Iraq because no one making decisions could bother reading its history.

[Camp_Democracy]

1. "The war is not meant to be won...

...it is meant to be continuous"
George Orwell

[ladjf]

2. It was lost from the moment the PNAC group decided that it would

be feasible to attack Iraq for the purpose of stealing their oil. Add that to the fact that an invasion against one of the "axis of evil" was just what the blood thirsty right wing was looking for to win the election in the U.S. It was an evil and unfeasible idea from the beginning. We are reaping the "whirlwind".

[genie_weenie]

3. I disagree sir.

The problem is you are viewing this through the prism of history. If the current Despotic Regime (meaning the one here in the land of the free and home of the brave) succeeds in setting up a puppet government which allows oil corporations to export as much oil as possible in the next 20-25 years, then the inevitable reaction (ala Iran in 1979) seeks to oust us and becomes ardently anti-American for generations WILL NOT MATTER.

Those who exploited the area will long have made fortunes, and those Rich persons/groups/corporations having allied themselves with Government will ensure legislation which safeguards their ill-gotten gains forever will be safe.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. The Vietnamese understood that war isn't about body counts,

tonnage of bombs dropped or, even the number of battles won or lost.

We didn't understand that then.

We certainly don't understand that now.

According to the goals set by the administration, nothing, nada, zip, has been accomplished except enrichment of the military/industrial complex and the gravediggers.

[genie_weenie]

5. Sadly I think the point of Iraq was enrichment

of the MIC.

Maybe even the whole War on Terror since Afghanistan has been treated as sideshow. Not central enough in the ME to those who profit of death (although the pipelines from the Caspian are going to make so people Rich) and not long enough to include yearly supplements to the 400 Billion DoD budget of 100+ Billion.

edit to add the last part.