Author Topic: Can anyone tell me what constitutes a WIN in Iraq?  (Read 1532 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Crazy Horse

  • Army 0 Navy 34
  • Topic Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5570
  • Reputation: +235/-143
  • Sex, Booze and Bacon Minion
Can anyone tell me what constitutes a WIN in Iraq?
« on: January 25, 2008, 02:46:02 PM »
Ahh Shit here we go again

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2765006

Quote
Cyrano  (1000+ posts)       Fri Jan-25-08 02:38 PM
Original message
Can anyone tell me what would constitue a "Win" in Iraq?
 The last time we won a war was when the Germans and Japanese surrendered to us unconditionally.

So what would a "Win" in Iraq look like?

When all the Iraqis are dead?

When Exxon-Mobil owns the entire country?

When Iraq becomes the 51st state and votes only for Republicans?

When every Iraqi converts to Christianity?

When they decide to elect Paris Hilton as their queen?

Beats me. Anytime I hear the phrase "Win in Iraq" come out of a politician's mouth, I really don't have the slightest idea what they're talking about.

Can anyone help me out here?

Quote
vpilot  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jan-25-08 02:41 PM
Response to Original message
1. That is the problem,
 Edited on Fri Jan-25-08 02:41 PM by vpilot
especially with the hard core war supporters, they have no clue what a win would be but yet they still spew that mindless talking point.


Quote
lapfog_1  (1000+ posts)       Fri Jan-25-08 02:41 PM
Response to Original message
2. A big sucking sound
 that comes from the bottom of the empty oil wells.

I love the smell of light sweet crude in the morning... it smells like victory!

 
Quote
WinkyDink  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jan-25-08 02:41 PM
Response to Original message
3. Yes, with the possible exception of Paris Hilton. Otherwise, no joke.

 
Quote
wienerdoggie  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jan-25-08 02:41 PM
Response to Original message
4. As long as we're still there, we're "winning", as far as the Neocons are concerned.
 Edited on Fri Jan-25-08 02:43 PM by wienerdoggie
"Losing" is leaving, and allowing Iraq to become its own country, and possibly allowing our influence to wane, and losing our strageic foothold, and watching Iraq's oil turned back to state control instead of US/multinational/corporate control. Winning is staying, losing is leaving.


I'm still waiting on all that Iraq oil that ya'll continually tell us we are getting

Quote
indepat (1000+ posts)      Fri Jan-25-08 02:44 PM
Response to Original message
7. When the Iraqis agree to let most of their oil revenues inure to the benefit of big oil?

 
Quote
Tierra_y_Libertad  (1000+ posts)       Fri Jan-25-08 02:48 PM
Response to Original message
8. "Peace with Honor" See precedent in Vietnam for what really happened

Oh yeah..........that war that was won by the military..........yet lost because of dirty hippie people like we see at the DUmp and the politicians ya'll support.

Quote
alyce douglas  (1000+ posts)     Fri Jan-25-08 02:49 PM
Response to Original message
9. when Iraq starts looking like Dubai.
 and they will continue killing those civilians and our troops out there for this illegal endless occupation, for the damn abuse and greed of the * regime.


Quote
ieoeja (1000+ posts)      Fri Jan-25-08 02:50 PM
Response to Original message
10. That is a trick question.
 
Conservatives would tell you we win if Iraq ends up with a liberal democracy supported by the overwhelming majority of Iraqis, that supports the international community and does everything in its power to stamp out Islamic theocracy and the terrorists who support it.

Al Qaeda and their ilk will consider it a victory when we leave. Preferably they would like Iraq to end up as an Islamic theocracy that supports the violent expansion of Islam. If not that, they would be happy with a destablized Iraq where they could work largely unhindered by government forces.

But even if Iraq ends up exactly as American Rightists wish it to end up with a gov't dedicated to the destruction of Al Qaeda, when we leave Islamic militants will call that a retreat and use that to appeal to a new wave of recruits.

IDIOT!!!!

Quote
I work for workers (276 posts)      Fri Jan-25-08 02:52 PM
Response to Original message
11. A stable and democratic Iraqi government. 
 I posted this two days ago on a thread nobody saw, so I'll repost it:

Had this happened a couple of years ago, there was a legitimate argument that a democratic Arab state would provide a peaceful counterbalance to the grassroots support radical Islamic terror enjoys in the Mid-East. It didn't. Even assuming Iraq fully stabilizes, its birth pains will have likely been bad enough to prevent it from becoming an Arab shining city on a hill, at least any time in the near future.

Now the issue at hand has changed. If the US can't stabilize Iraq by the time we pull out (assuming a Democratic victory in 08, this gives the military three more years to do so) advocates of terror will have learned a very dangerous lesson; they can destabilize the developing world regardless of developed world intervention.

I don't think we will see another 9/11 style attack. That type of terror is going the way of the dinosaur. It's too expensive, requires too much effort, and produces too much backlash. Terrorism is as much about economies of scale as it is about spectacular violence. The terror of the future is infrastructure terror, small attacks with big returns against the machinery that makes modern life function. When infrastructure crumbles, a populations faith in government crumbles along with it.

When a government loses legitimacy, one of two things happens. Either another government rises to take its place, or society fractures along ethnic or religious boundaries and plunges into chaos. Terrorist groups lack the ability to replace the state, and the state lacks the ability to stop terror, so the first option is highly unlikely in the long term. The second is almost guaranteed.

Today's economy is globalized. If the infrastructure of a nation holds its society together, the infrastructure of all nations is supporting our collective economies. Every time a pillar is brought down, the rest need to prop up more weight.

To destroy our way of life, terrorists need only to collapse the infrastructure of the world's weaker nations and let the ripple effect hurt the economies of the developed world. Iraq is teaching them how to do this, and teaching them they can succeed at it. If that nation does manage to overcome the forces trying to tear it down, with our help or without, it will have sent a powerful message to violet radicals of all kinds around the world.
 
 
Quote
coalition_unwilling (1000+ posts)      Fri Jan-25-08 03:07 PM
Response to Reply #11
18. You speak of "terrorists" the way Cold Warriors used to speak of "Communists",
 as some sort of monolithic group of quasi-Satanists. Such lazy verbal logic has allowed for monstrosities like Vietnam (under the rubric of combatting global communism) and Iraq (under the rubric of combatting global terrorism) to flourish.

I would argue that very few people self-identify as "terrorists." Non-partisan studies have shown that the Iraqi Resistance is composed 95% or more of Iraqis, with only very small percentages being non-Iraqi 'jihadists.' Even that percentage of non-Iraqi Jihadists, I doubt many of them would self-identify as 'terrorists.'

I would further argue that very few members of the resistance see their self-defined aim as being "to collapse the infrastructure of the world's weaker nations." Instead, they probably define their mission as a) resistance to Western imperialism and neo-colonialism and\or b) re-imposition of an Islamic caliphate stretching from Malaysia to Algeria.

We would do well to remember that the nation states are themselves relatively recent creations of Western imperialism. To wit, there was no Iraq or Kuwait before World War I and the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire. The primary mode of social organization among people in the middle east is not the post-1648 Europe-centric 'nation state' but rather tribal.

You are so full of shit

Quote
wienerdoggie  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jan-25-08 03:07 PM
Response to Reply #11
19. No offense, but we were never after a stable and democratic Iraqi
 government. We want a weakened Iraqi government and a subservient people who will allow us to stay. Read "Shock Doctrine". And you're overemphasizing the role of terror in Iraq, which means that you bought the Repub BS about Al Qaeda as the reason we're still there, and that's unfortunate. Are there foreign fighters and terrorists there? Yes--a relatively small number. Are they defeatable by the Iraqis? That's already been proven--look at Anbar and the "concerned citizens" payroll. That's not the real lesson of Iraq--it's only natural that troublemakers would try to exploit the power vacuum and the tribal conflict, but it's manageable. The real lesson of Iraq is that Cheney and the Neocons knew exactly what would happen when we lifted the lid off the boiling pot by removing Saddam, and what happened with the insurgency and the tribal warfare was exactly what they WANTED and EXPECTED to happen. We didn't add more troops (the Surge) until four years into the insurgency, and there's a reason for that


Bullshit

The thoughts these people have is overwhelming sometimes. This is a prime example of why we don't need a President with a D behind their name
You got off your ass, now get your wife off her back.

Offline Lord Undies

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 11388
  • Reputation: +639/-250
Re: Can anyone tell me what constitutes a WIN in Iraq?
« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2008, 03:02:48 PM »
Toppling Saddam Hussein and engaging terrorist on the real estate we call Iraq has been a winner!  It has exposed the liberal anti-American communist left in this country for what they are and it is priceless.  There is no guessing how many lives and future lives we have saved by exposing the leftists.  Yes, the "Iraq War" is a winner for that reason alone, but not the only reason.

Offline franksolich

  • Scourge of the Primitives
  • Global Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 58679
  • Reputation: +3057/-173
Re: Can anyone tell me what constitutes a WIN in Iraq?
« Reply #2 on: January 25, 2008, 03:12:22 PM »
When Saddam Hussein was hung, I considered the mission accomplished, and eminently successful.

For me, that was the only reason necessary for going into Iraq; not the threat of terrorists, not the threat of weapons of mass destruction--but for America to fulfill its historic destiny to topple tyrants, to set people free.

I haven't been in too much agreement with all that has happened since, but I remain behind George Bush 100%.

But to me, we already won when the homocidal genocidal tyrant was hanged, and anything that happened after that was pretty unimportant.
apres moi, le deluge

Offline TheSarge

  • Platoon Sergeant
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 9557
  • Reputation: +411/-252
Re: Can anyone tell me what constitutes a WIN in Iraq?
« Reply #3 on: January 25, 2008, 03:35:49 PM »
Quote
Cyrano  (1000+ posts)       Fri Jan-25-08 02:38 PM
Original message
Can anyone tell me what would constitue a "Win" in Iraq?

The exact polar opposite of what you and the rest of the asshats at the DUmp want that's for sure.
Liberalism Is The Philosophy Of The Stupid

The libs/dems of today are the Quislings of former years.  The cowards who would vote a fraud into office in exchange for handouts from the devil.

If it walks like a donkey and brays like a donkey and smells like a donkey - it's Cold Warrior.  - PoliCon



Palin has run a state, a town and a commercial fishing operation. Obama ain't run nothin' but his mouth. - Mark Steyn

Offline djones520

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4207
  • Reputation: +181/-146
Re: Can anyone tell me what constitutes a WIN in Iraq?
« Reply #4 on: January 26, 2008, 01:49:48 AM »
The question is quite easy to answer.  We "win" when the Iraqi government is capable of standing on it's own two feet, and the terrorist threat is limited to the point that we are no longer needed to fight it.  Until then, we stick it out and kill them ragheads like theres no tomorrow.
"Chuck Norris once had sex in an 18 wheeler. Some of his semen dripped onto the engine. We now call that truck Optimus Prime."