# WWII - 3 1/2 years; Iraq - 2 1/2 and counting **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 14, 2005, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945 "2005-08-14T08:15:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Soylent\_Gene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@Soylent\_Gene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soylent_Gene)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/1 "2005-08-14T08:15:25Z")
When is Bush gonna “win” this war and get out? The only reason we are still there is because he screwed things up so bad that leaving will result in civil war, or years of bloody insurgent conflict. One year from now (the 3 1/2 year point) I dont see things being any better. Are they better than they were one year ago? Great article by Frank Rich… [link](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/opinion/14rich.html) I especially agree with his point of how Bush doesnt even follow his own “lessons” from Vietnam. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/2 "2005-08-14T08:30:16Z")
Last I checked, WWII lasted for roughly 5 1/2 years. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/3 "2005-08-14T08:32:09Z")
Unless you are Manchurian Chinese. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/4 "2005-08-14T09:59:12Z")
FWIW, I thought this was a pretty good piece. I especially liked his concluding paragraph > [@Frank Rich](#): > > Thus the president’s claim on Thursday that “no decision has been made yet” about withdrawing troops from Iraq can be taken exactly as seriously as the vice president’s preceding fantasy that the insurgency is in its “last throes.” The country has already made the decision for Mr. Bush. We’re outta there. Now comes the hard task of identifying the leaders who can pick up the pieces of the fiasco that has made us more vulnerable, not less, to the terrorists who struck us four years ago next month. I agree that the majority of Americans have already decided that enough is enough; we’re outta there. The problem is going to be finding someone who can get us out of there. My thought is that the Republicans will gladly lose the next election(s), knowing that there’s no way in hell _anyone_ can get us out of Iraq without the situation there becoming more unstable, thus allowing them to point fingers in the following election(s) and say “look how bad they screwed that up! We can do better than that; after all, we’re the party that got us _into_ the war in the first place!” And the American sheeple will say “hmmm, that sounds good” and we’ll have another 8-12 years of Republican dominance, with more of the same BS taking place. my $.02, FWIW ---
**Author:** ![MAGunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a87d85/32.png) [@MAGunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MAGunter)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/5 "2005-08-14T11:23:15Z")
IMO: The OP is little better than baiting. That said, the article posted was one that I found interesting and worth commenting on. > [@](#): > > Officially this calendar is tied to the next round of Iraqi elections, but it’s quite another election this administration has in mind. The priority now is less to save Jessica Lynch (or Iraqi democracy) than to save Rick Santorum and every other endangered Republican facing voters in November 2006. Honestly, did anyone expect otherwise? I’m sure a few Republicans will contend otherwise, but it was obvious to everyone _why_ we’d plan to bring home troops just before the mid-term elections. Beyond that, I have little comment as I believe this will end up pit-worthy. ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/6 "2005-08-14T13:16:08Z")
As badly as things are being handled by the president concerning Iraq the comparison with the length the US was directly involved in WWII is meaningless. We’re trying to maintain some kind of stability and that can sometimes be far more difficult to do than waging a full on war. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/7 "2005-08-14T13:28:45Z")
They are not comparable- they are different kinds of wars. If you want us to fight Iraq like we fought WWII we could have Iraq won (and by won, I mean really won- total pacification) in a week. I don’t tink that you would like how we’d have to do it, though. Total war is not exactly acceptable anymore. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/8 "2005-08-14T13:58:37Z")
> [@Padeye](#): > > As badly as things are being handled by the president concerning Iraq the comparison with the length the US was directly involved in WWII is meaningless. We’re trying to maintain some kind of stability and that can sometimes be far more difficult to do than waging a full on war. Right. If you count all of our Marshall Plan involvement in Germany, for example, with occupation troops, military government types, etc. then our presence was a lot longer than 3-1/2 years. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/9 "2005-08-14T13:59:03Z")
IMHO, if the OP wants to compare apples (Iraq) to oranges (WWII) it would be more useful to compare the **occupation** of Iraq to that of postwar Germany (11 years, according to a quick Google check) and Japan (7 years). I couldn’t find info on the average length of stay of an occupying force for all wars, but I suspect overall the time periods are more like those of the post-WWII era than of Iraq. I’m also rather blase about the linked article; Mr. Rich doesn’t seem to say much that anyone who follows the news at all didn’t already know, and much of it seems to be more like partisan crowing over the well-known failures of the Bush administration than actual analysis. That said, I’ve always agreed with those who have said that Iraq was no significant threat to US interests at the time of invasion, and it seems pretty clear at this point that neither the US as a whole, nor Iraq, have benefited significantly from the invasion. Effectively, the situation was lost at the decision to invade; both a continued occupation at current troop levels and a rapid pullout appear destined to lead to continued death and misery for the Iraqi people in the near future. I suppose the only meaningful question is, which is likely to be worse? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/10 "2005-08-14T15:14:40Z")
> [@Airman Doors](#): > > They are not comparable- they are different kinds of wars. > > If you want us to fight Iraq like we fought WWII we could have Iraq won (and by won, I mean really won- total pacification) in a week. Which WWII opponents were totally pacified in a week? ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/11 "2005-08-14T15:24:17Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Which WWII opponents were totally pacified in a week? Which WWII opponents were as militarily inferior? None. If we did right now what we did in WWII, war without regard for anything or anyone, Iraq would be pacified in short order. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/12 "2005-08-14T15:30:38Z")
> [@Airman Doors](#): > > If we did right now what we did in WWII, war without regard for anything or anyone, Iraq would be pacified in short order. WWII was also vastly different on the home front. We had rationing, scrap drives, the draft… The entire population was mobilized in a way that has not happened in any of our military adventures since. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/13 "2005-08-14T15:34:55Z")
> [@Airman Doors](#): > > If we did right now what we did in WWII, war without regard for anything or anyone, Iraq would be pacified in short order. I think you’re making a good point about the dfferent tactics used during WWII, but the idea that Iraq could be totally pacified by WWII methods (even atom bomb dropping) is highly suspicious. And given the fact that some of the insurgency is manned by non-Iraqis coming into the country, even if we killed every Sunni Arab in Iraq, there would still be an insurgency. I’ve heard it said that an insurgency like that in Iraq typically takes a minimum of 10 years to subdue. Of course, the whole idea that Iraq will exists as a single country for 10 years is a shaky proposition, too. At any rate, comparing WWII and the Iraq war makes little sense. After all, it created a “cold war” that went on for 50 years. As to when the Iraq war is officially over, that’s a matter of definition. Getting Saddam out of power and installing a new government is as good as any definition. The fact that we have troops in Iraq is not a good definiton at all. By that measure, the Korean War is not over. (Yeah, I know that no armistace was ever signed, but we can look at a point in time and say that War was, for all practical purposes, over). ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/14 "2005-08-14T15:45:28Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Of course, the whole idea that Iraq will exists as a single country for 10 years is a shaky proposition, too. Has Iraq ever existed as a single country without a repressive central government authority? ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/15 "2005-08-14T15:55:26Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > I’ve heard it said that an insurgency like that in Iraq typically takes a minimum of 10 years to subdue. Yeah, but the thing is that there was little to no insurgency after WWII because we so completely demoralized the populations of the countries we beat. If we were to answer a roadside bomb with a city strike or a sniper with a Fallujah-type action (like we did in WWII), we would not win the “hearts and minds”, but we would cow the Iraqis thoroughly. Back then it was enough to win at all costs. Now we have to take into account civilians and their sensibilities, and that has never been a formula for victory in any war. It’s callous, yes, but it’s true. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/16 "2005-08-14T16:01:10Z")
> [@Airman Doors](#): > > Yeah, but the thing is that there was little to no insurgency after WWII because we so completely demoralized the populations of the countries we beat. If we were to answer a roadside bomb with a city strike or a sniper with a Fallujah-type action (like we did in WWII), we would not win the “hearts and minds”, but we would cow the Iraqis thoroughly. Back then it was enough to win at all costs. Now we have to take into account civilians and their sensibilities, and that has never been a formula for victory in any war. It’s callous, yes, but it’s true. It seems to me that this would severly restrict the times in which we could use military means to solve problems-and maybe that would be a good thing. Especially so if we have a leader whose emotional development seems to have ended at age 18. Every military intervention would immediately trigger total war. Carpet bomb the city if there was a sniper shot. Napalm the countryside for miles around in case of a roadside bomb. Interesting idea. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/17 "2005-08-14T16:16:42Z")
But such tactics would severely damage the near universal love and approval we currently enjoy amongst the wildly enthusiastic Iraqi people! Really, **Dave** , you’ve got to be more pragmatic about these things! And then, of course, there are fine points of international law to consider, whether or not the Coalition has the right to dissolve the Iraqi population if that population should fail to respond to our gently avuncular guidance. Its a fine point, but one that certain fuzzy-thinking one-worlders will no doubt exploit! And those lefty peaceniks at the UN will soil their panties for sure! An intriguing suggestion, **Dave** , but simply not practical. On the other hand, maybe one, perhaps two, discreet nukes… ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/18 "2005-08-14T16:25:32Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > An intriguing suggestion, **Dave** , but simply not practical. On the other hand, maybe one, perhaps two, discreet nukes… Discreet, Hell! Let’s drop the big one! Ain’t you guys ever studied [Political Science?](http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/SongUnid/E5E5C50CCA8ECFC048256A3700478B4C) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/19 "2005-08-14T17:10:22Z")
> [@David Simmons](#): > > Has Iraq ever existed as a single country without a repressive central government authority? No. I hope you didn’t think I was implying that it had. Of course, that’s hardly a unique situation in the world. And we’ve seen lots of situations where the countries break up (with varrying dehrees of violence) once that authority is gone. > [@AD](#): > > Yeah, but the thing is that there was little to no insurgency after WWII because we so completely demoralized the populations of the countries we beat. If we were to answer a roadside bomb with a city strike or a sniper with a Fallujah-type action (like we did in WWII), we would not win the “hearts and minds”, but we would cow the Iraqis thoroughly. Really? This is a completely different situation. We didn’t have to nation build in either Germany or Japan-- those nations already exsited. The process of nation builidng itself creates an insurgency. Even your example of Fallujah doesn’t support your thesis, as the insurgents in that city largely just relocated to other areas. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945/20 "2005-08-14T17:28:17Z")
Boy, the OP’s logic proves Lincoln sucked; _five_ years for the civil war. And George Washington … Seven? What a maroon! On the other hand, it definitively establishes Reagan as our greatest president, what with taking Grenada in 72 hours and all. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-3-1-2-years-iraq-2-1-2-and-counting/316945.md?page=2)