# Sadly, I believe I win, but the nation loses. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 17, 2008, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867 "2008-07-17T20:46:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/21 "2008-07-18T15:03:23Z")
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright] I think the general inference is that “we’re fighting them over there so we won’t have another 9/11 over here”, rather than an invasion… but yes, lots of Americans took this literally. [/QUOTE] Yes, there are people that seriously believe Bin Laden’s navy is going to come and invade us. I’ve never understood why people think terrorists are an existential threat to the nation. As horrible as it sounds, the most they can do is blow up a few more buildings or maybe set off a small nuke. On a macro level, they are no threat to our way of life. **Stryfe** , not a joke, just pure sarcasm. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/22 "2008-07-18T15:11:54Z")
[QUOTE=World Eater] On a macro level, they are no threat to our way of life. [/QUOTE] Well, except, for a lot of people, “our way of life” is to live in the equivalent of a gated community, where our walls prevent any of that nasty outside world from ever affecting us in the slightest, and we can completely ignore the consequences of our actions. They definitely threaten _that._ ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/23 "2008-07-18T15:25:47Z")
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright] I think the general inference is that “we’re fighting them over there so we won’t have another 9/11 over here”, rather than an invasion… but yes, lots of Americans took this literally. 40-something years is apparently not long enough for the majority of the population to fall into the credibility gap. [/QUOTE] I suspect that, for a lot of fine citizens who do/did take the “fight them over here” rationale seriously, their gullibility/trust in the argument finds support in the ever-growing swarms of “_those_ people” invading the country/immigrating, legally and illegally – you know, Muslims and Mexicans and East Asians and, and, and – well, _them_. _Those people_ – the fifth column of swarthy foreigners just waiting for the signal to rise up and unleash terror upon a helpless nation. God help us – they’re _everywhere_ these days! ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/24 "2008-07-18T15:31:45Z")
[QUOTE=World Eater] I’ve never understood why people think terrorists are an \*\*existential \*\* threat to the nation. [/QUOTE] Bolding mine. I blame Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche… ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/25 "2008-07-18T15:38:46Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] Well, except, for a lot of people, “our way of life” is to live in the equivalent of a gated community, where our walls prevent any of that nasty outside world from ever affecting us in the slightest, and we can completely ignore the consequences of our actions. They definitely threaten _that._ [/QUOTE] Touche. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/26 "2008-07-18T15:44:07Z")
[QUOTE=EddyTeddyFreddy] I suspect that, for a lot of fine citizens who do/did take the “fight them over here” rationale seriously, their gullibility/trust in the argument finds support in the ever-growing swarms of “_those_ people” invading the country/immigrating, legally and illegally – you know, Muslims and Mexicans and East Asians and, and, and – well, _them_. _Those people_ – the fifth column of swarthy foreigners just waiting for the signal to rise up and unleash terror upon a helpless nation. God help us – they’re _everywhere_ these days! [/QUOTE] Damn straight. Better watch yourself, whitey- our day is coming. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/27 "2008-07-18T15:50:23Z")
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright] Getting killed at a lower rate is still _getting killed_. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Don’t fight the hypothetical] I hate to point out the obvious but there wouldn’t be any “dead American soldiers” if we were not there. [/QUOTE] I’m a bit confused here. Are people saying that the loss of _American_ lives is the only measure of success of this war? Please tell me that’s not what you guys are saying. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/28 "2008-07-18T15:56:13Z")
[QUOTE=Jamaika a jamaikaiaké] I’m a bit confused here. Are people saying that the loss of _American_ lives is the only measure of success of this war? Please tell me that’s not what you guys are saying. [/QUOTE] I’m saying nothing of the sort, for myself. For the people who needed to be sold on the surge, though- ie. the American electorate- that really is the only number that matters. Invariably any story about “the rising death toll” in Iraq describes, in detail, exactly how many soldiers have been killed, what states they came from, and so on, and includes a few juicy quotes from the grieving families. Somewhere near the end, all but footnoted, there will be a brief mention of the million or so Iraqi dead. This phenomenon isn’t isolated to war reporting, though, and it certainly isn’t isolated to Americans. A minor disaster in your own country is always bigger news than a historic tragedy in somebody else’s. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/29 "2008-07-18T16:19:21Z")
[QUOTE=Jamaika a jamaikaiaké] I’m a bit confused here. Are people saying that the loss of _American_ lives is the only measure of success of this war? Please tell me that’s not what you guys are saying. [/QUOTE] I wasn’t making this argument, but if you buy the premise that we’re only there to spread piss and dumocracy, and only terrorists would oppose this, then by that measure any reduction in the deathcount of American soldiers surely means we’re approaching our goals of extinguishing Global Terra. Wait, I misspoke; our goals actually seem to be to _fight_ Global Terra. “Winning” is a condition as yet undefined. It’s an incredibly oversimplified way to measure the success of an enterprise. But you know, what other metrics have we ever been given by this secretive administration? ---
**Author:** ![Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/30 "2008-07-18T16:50:03Z")
> [@Fish](#): > > It’s an incredibly oversimplified way to measure the success of an enterprise. But you know, what other metrics have we ever been given by this secretive administration? This is a whoosh, right? The loss of Iraqi lives, maybe? I mean if we take as a given that we already are involved in Iraq, then certainly the best metric of the success of The Surge (or any other strategy) is the total death toll, and not just whether American soldiers get killed. That’s the point I was trying to make, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/31 "2008-07-18T17:03:00Z")
[QUOTE=Jamaika a jamaikaiaké] This is a whoosh, right? The loss of Iraqi lives, maybe? I mean if we take as a given that we already are involved in Iraq, then certainly the best metric of the success of The Surge (or any other strategy) is the total death toll, and not just whether American soldiers get killed. That’s the point I was trying to make, anyway. [/QUOTE] **Fish** asked what other metrics we’d been given _by the administration_, not whether reasonable people would, you know, think Iraqi lives might have value too. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/32 "2008-07-18T17:03:13Z")
[QUOTE=Jamaika a jamaikaiaké] This is a whoosh, right? The loss of Iraqi lives, maybe? I mean if we take as a given that we already are involved in Iraq, then certainly the best metric of the success of The Surge (or any other strategy) is the total death toll, and not just whether American soldiers get killed. That’s the point I was trying to make, anyway. [/QUOTE] I think what he’s (she?) saying is there _are_ other metrics, but the admin has conditioned the public that the death count is the only one that matters. That and they’ve been real stingy is releasing the real metrics. Hmmm, come to think of it, forget releasing them, they haven’t even defined them. /now depressed ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/33 "2008-07-18T17:26:23Z")
[QUOTE=Jamaika a jamaikaiaké] This is a whoosh, right? The loss of Iraqi lives, maybe? [/QUOTE] Sure. Tie it to whatever you want. Tie it to the price of oil, to the pollution index, to the prime rate. Tie success in Iraq to voter turnout. The point is, our mission there is so ill-defined that George Bush & Co. haven’t bothered to tell us how we know when we’re done, much less how we’re doing at the moment. We get ambiguous phrases like “death throes” and “turning the corner” and, if you can believe it, “Mission Accomplished.” What mission? What corner? Whose death throes? Americans are still dying over there. Isolated though it is, it is a fact we can grasp. And if Americans are dying, then whatever the hell it is we’re doing must not yet be done. You could even tie our success in Iraq to pollution _and_ the rate of piracy in the Caribbean and you’ve got a religion. That’s about what we have now. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/34 "2008-07-18T17:47:14Z")
[QUOTE=Fish] Sure. Tie it to whatever you want. Tie it to the price of oil, to the pollution index, to the prime rate. Tie success in Iraq to voter turnout. The point is, our mission there is so ill-defined that George Bush & Co. haven’t bothered to tell us how we know when we’re done, much less how we’re doing at the moment. [/QUOTE] Not ill-defined; just constantly redefined. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/35 "2008-07-18T17:49:28Z")
[QUOTE=World Eater] I’ve never understood why people think terrorists are an existential threat to the nation. [/QUOTE] > [@askeptic](#): > > I blame Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche… As trite as it has become, :::golf clap::: ---
**Author:** ![Lanzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/74df32/32.png) [@Lanzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lanzy)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/36 "2008-07-18T17:56:54Z")
[QUOTE=wring] I’d say so : Join Date: Sep 1999 Posts: 4,527 [/QUOTE] Wow, that’s a lot of posts. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/37 "2008-07-18T17:57:00Z")
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright] Not ill-defined; just constantly redefined. [/QUOTE] If I hear pundit claim that “the statistics don’t reflect the reality on the ground” I’m gonna hit somebody with a stick. All the while I’ll be cackling madly, “Then why don’t you produce some statistics that do!” I swear, it’s like a cult. Truuuuust the gubmint. They wouldn’t lie to us. Everything is going fiiiiine in Iraq. [Jedi handwave] There weeeeere weapons of mass destruction. Tacos ruuuuule. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/38 "2008-07-18T20:35:27Z")
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright] just constantly redefined. [/QUOTE] [“A general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals”](http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hcWJu9bbzrJZ7uNHjvMn0BuTGqHQD920BJ900) ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/39 "2008-07-18T20:42:28Z")
[QUOTE=Squink] [“A general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals”](http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hcWJu9bbzrJZ7uNHjvMn0BuTGqHQD920BJ900) [/QUOTE] Ooh, I can’t wait for various apologists on here to tell me the difference between that and a timeline and a deadline and a schedule! -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867/40 "2008-07-18T21:04:04Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] Well, except, for a lot of people, “our way of life” is to live in the equivalent of a gated community, where our walls prevent any of that nasty outside world from ever affecting us in the slightest, and we can completely ignore the consequences of our actions. They definitely threaten _that._ [/QUOTE] Our way of life also didn’t used to involve torturing people and locking people up without charging them. So the terrorists have affected our way of life, but only thanks to their allies in the White House. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sadly-i-believe-i-win-but-the-nation-loses/456867.md?page=3)