Thread: Fork: Homeland Security->War in Iraq

Some interesting questions posed by geoffreyt in the Homeland Security thread; I'd like to discuss them, but didn't want to hijack the thread, hence, this fork. His original comments: (numbers added by me, number refers to the sentence before it.)

Its like the defense spending we shell out our HARD earned tax dollars to fund. If we go to war, why don't we win? 1 Are we going simply to spend tax dollars we have not yet collected? 2 Why isn't the war won? 3 Are we a stupid people with lots of money to throw away? Why is the enemy still standing? 5 I thought the reason our country would go to war would be to vanquish the enemy. If this is so, why have we not won? 6 Are we unable to win with all our resources? 7 Rest assured Osama Bin Laden, if he had our resources, would have won years ago. 8 Have we no warriors in our country? 9

I would like to respond to this by the numbers.
1. The reasons for this are widely varied, and have almost nothing to do with the technology, training or troops. (which is what defense spending buys) I put it to you that the lack of a "win" is due more to politics and tactics (which are dictated by politics)
2. Evidently so. I agree that deficit spending is not wise.
3. As in the abovementioned point, politics, mostly. Also, not having a clear definition of "winning" doesn't help.
4. [omitted]
5. The enemy ISN'T standing. The enemy is slinking around hiding behind civilians, wearing civilian clothes and using civilians as a shield. If we were battling a standing army, the war would have been over in a couple of months, I imagine.
6. Define "vanquish" and define "enemy." If we simply wanted to destroy the country, with no regard for world politics, that could have been done in a few hours with no loss of human life (on our side, anyhow) and minimal cost. But you don't fight a cross-continental war in a vacuum, you do it on the stage of world politics. We are not fighting an organized military, we are not fighting a sovereign nation, we are fighting an IDEOLOGY. That's a pretty ephemeral thing to identify, let alone "vanquish."
7. The lack of a "win" in Iraq has nothing to do with resources.
8. I disagree. If he had our resources, his group would be large and easy to find. It is by the very nature of his small and poor operation that we cannot root him out.
9. I imagine you are saying this out of frustration at the political incompetence and fiscal irresponsibility of some of America's leaders, and that you don't really mean it. BUT, this is a pretty rude and disrespectful thing to say on a forum that has a large contigent of veterans on it, many of whom have made personal sacrifices to keep our nation safe.

No one's happy about the war, and how our country is trying to "fight fair" with a dishonorable enemy who violates all rules of conventional land warfare. But if we were to stoop to the disgraceful (if effective) tactics of the enemy, and battle with no regard for civilian life (an inescapable fact of urban warfare) would we really be any better than them? I submit to you that we would not.

So, yeah, it sucks having to fight with one hand tied behind our proverbial back. But let's not jump to conclusions and cast aspersions upon the hard working members of defense industry and worst of all, the brave and selfless troops in the sandbox now.

Originally Posted by jockeys

Some interesting questions posed by geoffreyt in the Homeland Security thread; I'd like to discuss them, but didn't want to hijack the thread, hence, this fork. His original comments: (numbers added by me, number refers to the sentence before it.)

Its like the defense spending we shell out our HARD earned tax dollars to fund. If we go to war, why don't we win? 1 Are we going simply to spend tax dollars we have not yet collected? 2 Why isn't the war won? 3 Are we a stupid people with lots of money to throw away? Why is the enemy still standing? 5 I thought the reason our country would go to war would be to vanquish the enemy. If this is so, why have we not won? 6 Are we unable to win with all our resources? 7 Rest assured Osama Bin Laden, if he had our resources, would have won years ago. 8 Have we no warriors in our country? 9




I would like to respond to this by the numbers.
1. The reasons for this are widely varied, and have almost nothing to do with the technology, training or troops. (which is what defense spending buys) I put it to you that the lack of a "win" is due more to politics and tactics (which are dictated by politics)
2. Evidently so. I agree that deficit spending is not wise.
3. As in the abovementioned point, politics, mostly. Also, not having a clear definition of "winning" doesn't help.
4. [omitted]
5. The enemy ISN'T standing. The enemy is slinking around hiding behind civilians, wearing civilian clothes and using civilians as a shield. If we were battling a standing army, the war would have been over in a couple of months, I imagine.
6. Define "vanquish" and define "enemy." If we simply wanted to destroy the country, with no regard for world politics, that could have been done in a few hours with no loss of human life (on our side, anyhow) and minimal cost. But you don't fight a cross-continental war in a vacuum, you do it on the stage of world politics. We are not fighting an organized military, we are not fighting a sovereign nation, we are fighting an IDEOLOGY. That's a pretty ephemeral thing to identify, let alone "vanquish."
7. The lack of a "win" in Iraq has nothing to do with resources.
8. I disagree. If he had our resources, his group would be large and easy to find. It is by the very nature of his small and poor operation that we cannot root him out.
9. I imagine you are saying this out of frustration at the political incompetence and fiscal irresponsibility of some of America's leaders, and that you don't really mean it. BUT, this is a pretty rude and disrespectful thing to say on a forum that has a large contigent of veterans on it, many of whom have made personal sacrifices to keep our nation safe.

No one's happy about the war, and how our country is trying to "fight fair" with a dishonorable enemy who violates all rules of conventional land warfare. But if we were to stoop to the disgraceful (if effective) tactics of the enemy, and battle with no regard for civilian life (an inescapable fact of urban warfare) would we really be any better than them? I submit to you that we would not.

So, yeah, it sucks having to fight with one hand tied behind our proverbial back. But let's not jump to conclusions and cast aspersions upon the hard working members of defense industry and worst of all, the brave and selfless troops in the sandbox now.

1, 2 & 3 Of course its our politics

4 Omitted

5 Sometimes, like in fighting cancer, you have to destroy good cells to destroy the bad cells. Who ever or what ever hosts the enemy should be in jeopardy. A war is all about self preservation. If you don't like the bad cells living among you, GET THEM DEAD or OUT. Then yo may live in peace. I have no sympathy for those who allow terrorists to operate from their homeland.


6 http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_18.../vanquish.html

7 correct, its a lack of guts

8 You certainly may disagree. Osama would have pushed the button and we would not be having this discussion.

9 I am not frustrated. I am disillusioned. Why we would go to war not to win.

I do appreciate your input. I am not about offending the men and women in our military. On the contrary, I am saddened at out losses and the ability we have to side step these unfortunate losses. We can and must do better. The future will only be more challenging than the past.

Geoffrey, as I said in the other thread. I agree. I think our government went into this war and tried to pull it off on the political cheap. We should have had more troops there from the beginning. We had the force to beat their standing army, but not enough to secure the country. And yes, we may have killed more innocents in the beginning by being a little more aggressive, but that may have saved innocent lives lost over the past few years - not to mention our own men and women. Same in Pakistan. We need to tell them to clear that zone, or we'll do it for them or find someone who will. If you're going to go in, go in with both feet!

Jordan

Note: The term "we" in this post means the US, only after I wrote most of this did I remember that I should clarify it.

My whole problem with this is that it was billed as part of the war on terror, but it was really a war on saddam. All we're really doing at the moment in my opinion is postponing a civil war... it's not our place to take sides. What we really need to do is get out, let them finish and fund education centers to the winning side, it it would be in our interest.

At least that's the way I view it... there are two sides. We can't support the side we want to win physically as then they'll only be overrun when we leave. We can only supporth them with technology and money.

If we really want the Shia to win we should give them arms (as we should have done in the civil wars in the late 30's which we opted out of.)

No matter who wins though aid should be sent to build places of education, but as we've failed to do so in the past I assume we'll fail to do so in the future.

For some reason it wouldn't let me edit, so I'll add in another post:

I want to make clear that I'd prefer the US kept to the non intervention policies of the past, but as it was only a few years later I think the spanish revolution sould have been a good place to recind that history. Yeah... hindsight and all.

Having allowed Iraq to turn into such a mess becuase of my above post - I actully think your ideas are a reasonable alternative. We would have us choose one side to win (we're going to have to counter Iran's involvment). Then support that non-democratic dictator and do all we can to bring that culture into the 21st century. I do think a lot of the radicalism spreads because of economic and social backwardness. I think many of the Iraqi's (not the terrorists) would be happy to spend their time making money instead of fighting us or their neighbors, but they need security to do that and a hard hand to deal with the terrorists.

Jordan

Originally Posted by jnich67

Having allowed Iraq to turn into such a mess becuase of my above post - I actully think your ideas are a reasonable alternative. We would have us choose one side to win (we're going to have to counter Iran's involvment). Then support that non-democratic dictator and do all we can to bring that culture into the 21st century.
Jordan

Those who do not learn from history are forced to relive it...

The US already tried that. What you are suggesting is EXACTLY what happened so many years ago. The name of that dictator was Saddam Hussein. And he would keep out the communists...

And here's a funny thing about Iran: The US did the same there to keep out the communist. They toppled a democratically elected government and installed what is now the leadership that thinks the US is the great Satan.

If history should teach Americans 1 thing, it is that active meddling in foreign affairs is seldom a good idea in the long term.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Those who do not learn from history are forced to relive it...

The US already tried that. What you are suggesting is EXACTLY what happened so many years ago. The name of that dictator was Saddam Hussein. And he would keep out the communists...

And here's a funny thing about Iran: The US did the same there to keep out the communist. They toppled a democratically elected government and installed what is now the leadership that thinks the US is the great Satan.

If history should teach Americans 1 thing, it is that active meddling in foreign affairs is seldom a good idea in the long term.

I realize that this has been done and its not an ideal solution, but its one way to sort out the current mess - almost like starting over, no?

I look forward to the day (not that I'll be alive to see it) when we don't rely so heavily on oil and we can make this part of the world irrelevant - kind of how we treat most of Africa. Then they can kill each other all they like.

Oh, and many of these problems wouldn't exist is if certain "colonial" powers - cough - hadn't drawn false borders around different groups of people in the 19th century.

Jordan

Originally Posted by jnich67

Oh, and many of these problems wouldn't exist is if certain "colonial" powers - cough - hadn't drawn false borders around different groups of people in the 19th century.

Jordan

cough - Wasn't it post WW I?

Maybe we should have just drawn one big circle round the whole area and called Islamisbad? Would it have made that much difference? Probably not as they'd have still fractured off into their own little groups given half a chance and certain superpowers support.

Originally Posted by jgeoffreyt

A war is all about self preservation. If you don't like the bad cells living among you, GET THEM DEAD or OUT. Then yo may live in peace. I have no sympathy for those who allow terrorists to operate from their homeland.

That's a real doozy. Like most of the people in Iraq have much of a choice. Do you have a choice about terrorists living, training or operating in your country? And don't tell me there are none. Are you allowing them?

Originally Posted by murph

cough - Wasn't it post WW I?

Maybe we should have just drawn one big circle round the whole area and called Islamisbad? Would it have made that much difference? Probably not as they'd have still fractured off into their own little groups given half a chance and certain superpowers support.



That's a real doozy. Like most of the people in Iraq have much of a choice. Do you have a choice about terrorists living, training or operating in your country? And don't tell me there are none. Are you allowing them?

Well, do we citizens of the USA have much of a choice here in the USA. Is it your intention to give that society a pass to be a cancer, to give them an excuse, to KILL US? Yes, you have hit the nail on the head. "