We’re winning what? What are we winning? How are you defining victory? What is the goal?
You still never explained what the neocons were right about.
Let’s back up a little bit. Why do you think the invasion of Iraq was justified?
(quotation marks mine)
Yes, but the country hasn’t come to much agreement as to what “winning” means, over there.
Can somebody remind me what we’re trying to win in Iraq?
My cousin over there hasn’t the slightest idea, and he has come close to being killed twice.
Gee, Plan, that’s a term that wants for defiinition. “Bad guys”, I mean. To a lot of us, guys who invade a foreign country, bring death to hundreds of thousands of innocent people and untold misery to the rest, on the basis of nothing more than a paranoid fantasy…to a lot of us those would be the “bad guys”.
No doubt yours is a more subtle, more nuanced approach to questions of good and evil. One that can brush aside the needless horror visited upon the innocent, in the solemn assurance that soon, soon, there will be ponies. Do you foresee a day when the vast majority of Iraqi citizens will regard us with affectionate gratitude? (Was it Perle who said he expected a huge statue of GeeDubya in downtown Baghdad? How’s that goin’?..)
Who are the “bad guys?” This is a civil war, after all. Which is the “good” side and which is the “bad” side?"
He’s obviously defining ‘winning’ as handing the country over to a militia-beholden government whose writ runs as far as American covering fire and whose members will be clinging to the skids of the last metaphorical chopper out whilst simultaneously boosting terrorist recruitment world-wide and making Iran the de-facto major power in Iraq.
That smells like Victory in any language.
Otherwise I’ve got nuthin’.
The war had horribly increased our national debt. It has done horrible things to our reputation. We have had many of our rights taken away and our privacy has been cut back. We have trashed our economy . We have created companies that make billions fighting wars. We have had over 4000 soldiers killed and 40.000 injured. We have destroyed families .
Oh yeah, it has done bad things to Iraq too.
Remember Afghanistan. It has been ignored and that is the home of AlQueda. They are growing and training quite well there.
Would the czar leave Russia if the peasants weren’t pissed off enough to lynch him?
Stability in Iraq happens at Iran’s leisure. Both Maliki and Karzai are making overtures to Tehran. The Neo-Cons today are calling for war with Iran.
I think it’s funny that Francis Fukuyama has endorsed Obama.
The End of History II: The Rude Awakening.
Setting aside snark, I can find some definite reason for hope there. If Iran acts responsibly and reasonably as regards Iran’s Sunni minority, enormous strides can be made. A rapprochment between the US and Iran could be the most positive, peace assuring development of the decade. (Remember: AlQ hates them almost as much as they hate us. “Enemy of my enemy”, and all that.)
Iran backing the Maliki regime and muzzling al Sadr. Maliki declares Iraq secure, and invites the US to leave. (* Now* the boquets are scattered in our path.) Even the Bushiviks get a cookie, they can declare that all of this is a result of the glurge, vindicating their good judgement and leadership after all! And I can name half a dozen posters who will insist in these very pages that Iran saving our bacon is really Victory, but the dirty fucking hippies hate Bush too much to recognize the brilliance of The Leader.
Fine. Small price to pay, get our people out of this turd infested fever swamp. Got to eat some shit to get our people out, well, here’s my spoon. here’s my grin…
Peace at the price of accepting Iran as the Great Power in the Gulf Region, which is simply an acknowledgment of reality, but still is too high a price for some.
I’m fascinated by your notion of what constitutes a “win” at this juncture in this whirling vortex of squandered lives and treasure. If every faction in Iraq laid down their arms tomorrow please elaborate specifically what precisely we have “won” on balance compared with the pre-war status quo of Iraq as an annoying but ineffectual dictatorship that posed no substantive threat to us.
Lay it out. Diagram it. What will we have we won if we are able suppress the insurgency with overwhelming military horsepower?
I’m surprised that so many liberals have a hard time understanding what is to win in Iraq. I don’t think conservatives would have a hard time with that one. Probably some sort of values thing or differences in ways of perceiving.
In the simplest terms a win happens if 28 million Iraqis get to rid themselves of the Baathist regime and live under a democracy. If you don’t get that I’m sorry; I don’t have the time or energy to explain that to you. Maybe the reason conservatives get it so much quicker is that we have more concern for the little guys. 
BTW that is not only a good thing for the Iraqis. It’s good for the region - there are signs of growing democracy in neighboring countries - and it’s good for the world. More democracy = more peace:
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/
Here’s more evidence that the forces of civilization are winning, and not just in Iraq:
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=296780190323947
Lots of good news reported, including the following:
“In Egypt’s al-Qaida inner circle, a leading jihad ideologue, using the nom de guerre Dr. Fadl, has now openly questioned terrorism as a tactic, given al-Qaida’s mounting losses. He threatened to renounce violence — a new blow to the jihadists.”
If Dr. Fadl can show an open mind in the light of new evidence, maybe there’s hope for the left in the West.
Post clusterfuck ergo propter hoc The delusion that all positive developments in the ME are a result of a stupendously negative action.
“Why, yes, we gave them blankets soaked in smallpox, and that’s why they have the nice casinos!”
So we agree that movements toward democracy are positive. Good. Yeah, maybe it was a coincidence. Who knows for sure? The historians can sort it out in 100 years.
BTW, why the need for the vulgar language and example?
Time to revert to Plan C, dude.
True. Conservatives typically consider crippling, torturing, killing and otherwise inflicting misery upon lots of non-Americans a victory in itself. Every death of an innocent is a victory for them.
Yeah, right, that’s why you support mass murdering so many of those “little guys.”
And how is it a “win” if we end up with a democracy that hates us, and probably supports terrorism against us ? Assuming that the end result of this disaster is a democracy. And assuming that the trends reverse and the Iraq disaster helps democracy in the ME instead of convincing people that democracy means “bodies, bodies, bodies”.
Even if, by some miracle, democracy should hold in Iraq longer than thirty seconds after the last helicopter leaves, should it then be a policy of the United States to invade non-democratic nations and impose democracy upon them? Who’s next, Russia?
I thought that didn’t sound right:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_066.html
Turns out that “we” never did anything of the sort. It is possible that there was one incident where a British officer tried to infect Indians with smallpox. But that was before the Revolutionary War. No way that the US can be blamed for that, and there’s no proof it even happened.