(For the record, I call myself "Liberally Consevative". My voitng tends to lean right, but I look at issues more than party labels)

That's a very interesting analogy there. It helped me visualize the point you were making about how a leaderless army isn't necessarily a defeated army.

Are there any other views?

OK, here's another analogy:
If a hypothetical country with greatly superior military strength invaded the US, and had GWB executed for war crimes, would they have then "won" ?
Bear in mind that many Americans would quite like to see GWB on the end of a rope. But after that, they would politely tell the invaders to GFTO, and take steps to make the occupation as expensive and painful as possible.

Being the strict pacifist that I am, I'm inclined to think that when war is involved, everybody loses. But putting that aside, I pretty much have to echo what everyone else has said in response. Killing one evil dictator doesn't really do much. In the end he's only one man and if you're not careful then someone else will just step up to replace him and if they do it right, they'll have the support of the people even as they run the country into the ground (Peron anyone?).

Sevelle, for a second there you sounded just like Zim.

"I shall rule you ALL with my iron fist! YOU! OBEY THE FIST!" (shakes a scrawny fist in some fifth-grader's direction)

Sorry about the humourous aside, people. But humour makes us feel good, just like drugs.

Hinotori wrote:

From an entirely objective standpoint, it depends on if that's what they were in there to do. If the reason they invaded the country was to kill the dictator than of course they won. If they came there to bring peace and democracy to the area or land-grab and they haven't sucessfully done that yet then no.

Well said.  I'm not sure how to address this question except for echoing this important point.  Did we succeed?  Depends: what were we trying to do?

Which is of course a problem if the question is supposed to apply to Iraq, because no one seems to be entirely sure what we were trying to do there.  Here are a few reasons that have been floated around.

* Depose Saddam Hussein, an evil man who should not be allowed to hold power.  SUCCESS!

* Remove the Ba'ath party and re-enfranchise Shi'a Muslims.  SUCCESS!

* Bring democracy to Iraq.  SUCCESS, FOR NOW!

* Seize Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.  WE ARE DUMBASSES!

* Make Iraq safer.  FAILURE!

* Make America safer.  FAILURE!

* Make the world safer.  FAILURE!

* Bring peace to the Middle East.  FAILURE!

* Win the hearts and minds of oppressed peoples worldwide.  FAILURE!

* Get cheap crude oil from the Middle East.  FAILURE!

* Punish Al-Qaeda for 9/11.  WHAT THE CRAP?

* Cripple international terrorism.  OSAMA THANKS ALLAH FOR THE WAR EVERY NIGHT!

* Establish a permanent ally in the Middle East that is not Israel.  TIME WILL TELL.

So by most metrics, we've lost, or at least we're losing.  But someone who says we've won in Iraq isn't wrong; his victory conditions are just different from mine.  Better than arguing about whether to call it "victory" or "defeat" is agreeing that there are problems left to be solved in Iraq, and then figuring out how best to solve them.

Last edited by satyreyes (04-16-2007 09:17:14 PM)

Hmm... well I agree to a point. I think the leaders in the American government are going to war for selfish reasons and sugarcoating it to the American public...

I like the South Park episode, where Cartman flashes back to 1776, to find out what the founding fathers would have to say about the current war on Iraq. Would they be for the protestors, or the supporters? Back in 1776, they are fighting about the same issue (war) whether to go to war with England or not. Then Benjamin Franklin steps in and says, "We can't found a country that seems like we're warmongers and blood-thirsty, but at the same time, we can't appear weak and willing to be stepped on - so how about we create a country that appears to do BOTH. It's called, having your cake, and eating it to!" Flash forward back to South Park, and Cartman gives the speech which says, "You war supporters need the caring soul of the protesters because they make America look like it's filled with kind, compassionate individuals and the world hates only the President instead of the American people, and you protestors need the flexing arm of the war supporters, because if America were filled with just pussy hippie protestors, it would be taken over within a week! We need each other, it's called: Having your cake, and eating it too!" The show made a parody about what's really the building block of America, is the individual voices.

So, yes, while the American government is the group of power-hungry individuals that lead the country, and they are motivated out of greed and self-interest, the actual PEOPLE who fight in the wars are not. My relative was a soldier, a Marine who went to Iraq and died in Afghanistan. I spoke with him, and his entire platoon during the funeral, afterwards meeting/touring his entire home-base and what they had been spoon-fed from the upper room was that they were doing a good thing. They were helping the poor, underprivileged people, and fighting the evil regime off of the poor downtrodden people of that country. My cousin, the Marine, and several of his friends, met children from the country they were stationed in, without shoes - and would buy shoes for the children and pass them out. Our soldiers believe that they are "protecting" America, and helping other people at the same time. So, those little people serving in the military are part of this big war machine - they are the legs on which the table stands and without them, we would not have the ability to attack, or defend, or whatever the fuck they are doing. My point is, those people, those soldiers, ARE doing what they have been told is a good deed, for America, and for the world. Yes, the government lies to get what they want, when they want it, how they want it, and for different reasons than they pass down to the little people. But still, those hearts of the soldiers are in the right place. (not the freakish ones that go off and do something destructive, the average soldier)

From what I recall from hearing about the war over the years, the main reason Bush gave for invading Iraq was because he claimed it had Weapons of Mass Distruction and that if they didn't go in, Iraq would use them.  At the time, the idea that they should invade Iraq on humanitarian grounds was ignored because if they used that reason, then they should invade other countries with dictatorships for the same reason.

It was only after they fail to find these WMD that Bush started to use the humanitarian arguement for the war.

I think the biggest irony about the war was that the armies of the Coalition of the Willing (USA, Australia and England (mostly)) was in less danger from being killed during the invasion than when they 'won' the war.  That's because as long as the Coalition of the Willing was in 'war mode' its a damn jugganaught but in 'peace-keeping mode' terrorism tactics prove to be effective as the body count proves.

If any country considers invading the US, they would not use armys or navys or even air forces as they would get slaughtered and they know that their country would most likely get carpet-bombed from a distance back into the stone age, they would instead take up al-Qaeda's tactics and pick at the US with loads of soft target attacks while making sure the US doesn't find out that their country is involved

Personally, no.  As someone who would want to bring peace to an oppressed country, I don't think it'd be a good start to murder someone.  To me that shows I am no better than the convicted.  But as you know, some countries enter a war for more personal reasons, so I don't think a peaceful victory is their ultimate goal.  Would it be a victory if we killed said dictator? Yes, but not a great one.

Last edited by Drukqs (04-22-2007 11:31:04 PM)