Nothing's ever going to change in Iraq....
From MSNBC -- Bomb blasts ripped through more than a dozen Iraqi cities Monday in apparently coordinated attacks that killed at least 60 security forces and civilians.
It was in the worst attack this year, and one that highlighted al-Qaida's resolve and ability to wreak havoc. There have been at least 23 separate bomb blasts since late Sunday night.
Civilians die by the scores in Iraq as the smug political class in the US fantasizes that we've actually accomplished anything at all there. All we've done is donate 10 years, countless billions of dollars, and thousands of lives to an utterly lost cause. We've been bragging as recently as last month about how decimated Al Qaida has become as a result of our military presence and then they coordinate the killing of 60 civilians right under our noses. We've done nothing in Iraq but waste time, treasure, and blood.
My God, what are we still doing there?
7 comments:
I dispair of changing your mind about Iraq, but be aware that Saddam left in power would still be torturing and slaughtering his own people, starting wars of conquest in the region, and would surely have nukes by now.
There's a lot wrong about current Iraq, but it's 1000% better than 10years ago and also far better than it would be if we had just removed Saddam and left the country in a state of nature.
Bill, do you really think this has been worth the blood and treasure spent there? At what point is overthrowing an evil dictator the responsibility of the people he opresses or neighboring countries? Why not just let Iran and Iraq slaughter each other and stay the hell out of it? Israel can take care of herself if that's a concern.
If it's human rights that motivate us, why aren't we invading the Norks, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Syria, and other Muslim countries who opress with murder their own people?
I don't want to rehash the whole WMD question, but if the mere possibility of a nuclear arms program is reason enough to attack and topple a head of state, why haven't we invaded Iran?
Or do we only invade countries who're easy to invade and won't put up much of a fight? The WMD issue doesn't hold much water for me.
Yes, it was worth it if we don't abandon them like we did the South Vietnamese.
Was Iwo Jima worth more KIA than the whole Iraq war? Context is all.
I can't wrap my head around a valid comparison between 1940's Japan and modern Iraq, except this: We killed Japan in 5 years. If they are comparable, why haven't we killed the enemy in Iraq. They remain and will always remain in Iraq causing terrorist trouble. We can't stay there and police the streets of Iraq forever. Iraqi police are as corrupt and inept as Afghanis or Mexicans. Left to their own devices, they'll cave to the terrorists the way Mexican police always cave to drug cartels. It's a losing battle that we cannot win no matter how you look at it.
The mantra of all US military actions since Vietnam has always been "only do it if we plan to win". What's the definition of winning in Iraq or Afghanistan and is there any path by which we accomplish it? I don't see it.
I was trying to say that Iraq and Afghanistan, like Iwo Jima and Peleliu, are battles in a larger war, against Islamic radicals in the present case.
We have killed an awful lot of the bastards there who won't have to killed again any where else.
Also, blaming the nation of Iraq for the atrocities visited upon their civilians by terrorists is kind of unfair.
I don't think invading, occupying, and policing indefinitely an entire nation is comparable to taking the tiny, isolated, mostly uninhabited island of Iwo Jima.
While it's true that we've killed a lot of bad guys, at what cost have we done that? I think we'd come out on the short side of a cost/benefit analysis. Could these prehistoric nomads really threaten the US now that we're aware of their intentions and whereabouts? (We were willfully clueless before 9/11.)
I'll make this compromise Bill, we we can stay in Afghanistan and kill all the people we like(heaven knows we probably need to get rid of old ordinance anyway. It may as well be killing people we don't care about in far away lands), but rebuilding the whole country at taxpayer expense is accomplishing nothing but enriching the military-industrial complex we sub the work to.
Kill people = yes.
Nation build = no.
p.s. we're enriching the subcontraactors when we aren't enriching the f-ing enemy. Nobody much seems to care about 1/3 of a billion dollars taken from American citizens landing in the laps of Talibani drug lords, corrupt politicians, and other assorted terrorist types that use the money to buy weapons to kill US troops with.
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