"U.S. Forces Welcomed as Saddam’s Rule Crumbles
Wed April 9, 2003 10:07 AM ET
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. troops swept into the heart of Baghdad to an ecstatic welcome on Wednesday, as Saddam Hussein’s 24-year rule crumbled into chaos and looting. As U.S. Marines rolled in from the east on day 21 of the war, hundreds of people gutted official buildings, hauling off anything from air conditioners to flowers."
Pretty much the same thing can be found from other non-Arab, non-US news sources.
This is bantered about by those who long for the heady days of Vietnam, when protest meant something and the actions of the government were to be reviled. They cannot find their place in a liberation fomented by a just war.
And as I wondered in this thread, how many of those thankful Iraqis are expressing their gratitude in hopes that the American invaders with their guns will not shoot them?
When I think of a quagmire, I think of a prolonged and unpleasant military involvement in another country. While there were a few individuals who believed we might not win the shooting war quickly, most people recognized that the “war” part would, indeed, be relatively short. I am certainly glad that so much has been accomplished so far.
As to realistic concerns over a quagmire: I haven’t seen any unwounded troops sent home, yet; I certainly have not seen the U.S. military presence reduced to the Marine guard at the U.S. embassy; I don’t see an independent Iraqi government yet; I do not see Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish members of the Iraqi parliament debating with words instead of weapons.
I truly hope to see all of that, soon. But until I do, I am withholding my judgment regarding the “quagmire” aspect of this invasion.
The plain truth is that the Saddam cheerleaders in the USA were wrong and they don’t want to admit it. It isn’t a quagmire and it won’t be a Stalingrad, no matter how much they wanted it to be.
The plain truth is that all mudslinging only proves that you have little interest in discussion, nor in Iraq, but are merely interested in ‘I have a bigger gun’ games. The truth is furthermore that there is no evidence it won’t be a quagmire, especially not with people like you, who mistake a big d*ck and a big gun as signs of superiority, and care crap about the fact that the locals state already now it is time for the US to exit stage right posthaste.
Criminey, it has been three weeks only! There is still a lot of work to do, a lot of work does not equal a quagmire, nor does the fact that Baghdad was subdued far more easily than expected mean we are free of any ‘quagmire’. This is a process that will have periods of extreme difficulty, periods of ease and hopefully it will be constantly moving forward toward improvement of the daily lives of the Iraqi people.
Why, don’t you know anything? If the whole matter isn’t settled in 17.3 minutes, it’s a QUAGMIRE and the USA will lose BILLIONS of military lives in it!
I don’t think very many people thought the war itself would be a quagmire. Where some see the potential for getting stuck in the mud is in the “nation-building” phase. We could find ourselves up to our necks, trying to keep the Shiites and Sunnis from killing each other, trying to keep the Turks and Kurds from starting a nice little civil war in the north, etc.
Things may turn out just fine, but there’s a lot of potential for circumstances that will make us shake our heads six or twelve months from now and say, “How in hell did we ever get sucked into this mess!”
And if this turns out to be a springboard for an invasion of Syria or Iran, well, I don’t dare even speculate about that…
Good ol’ Gary “Monkey Business” Hart, to name just one. Unfortunately he seems to have revised his site and I can’t link to the specific speech where he said it, (roughly Jan. 20th) but I can give a cite where he again tossed out the idea of 50,000 to 100,000 American casualties as a realistic possiblity.
This pretty much should fit any reasonable person’s definition of a “quagmire” (50,000 to 100,000 US causalties? Isn’t that something like 1/3-1/2 of our troops over there?)
Well, well, people are forgetting about Afghanistan. The warlords are there, Taliban is making a comeback, and the US forces are stuck there for who knows how long.