By my count over the last 5 years, this is the third time in which we have “won” the Iraq war. Every time that has happened, con blogs have convinced themselves that this should be the time that Democrats concede that the righties were right about everything. Despite the fact that the right has been historically incorrect on everything regarding this war.
And then of course facts happen and it turns out that what we’ve known about Iraq since March of 2003 is the same: We should not have gone into Iraq. Good men and women have died unnecessarily in Iraq. The Bush administration lied us into Iraq. Invading and occupying Iraq has made America less safe and more hated.
in an ideal world, none of those things would be true. But we do in fact live in the real world and not a reality of our own choosing.
From a crass political point of view, Democrats have suffered on the issue of Iraq, but this is only when their position has been indistinguishable from the Republican position, or when the candidate allows his position to be thrown in to a bowl of mush.
You keep saying we’ve lost, but you never say how we’ve lost.
Invading and occupying Iraq has made America less safe and more hated.
How has it made us less safe? Specifics please. Oh and don’t give me the “Al Qaeda is regrouped and is stronger” nonsense, because Al Qaeda has been significantly weakened.
You do nothing but talk in generalities:
“right has been historically incorrect on everything regarding this war.”
The left has been saying we’ve “lost” in Iraq for 3-4 years. Yet the situation over there has done nothing but improve over the last two years when Democrats were last declaring we “lost.” Is Obama ready to defend his stance that “we lost” in Iraq once the general election campaign kicks off? Why do you think he doesn’t want to take a trip and see what’s going on?
How has it made us stronger Jay? Specifics.
How has it improved over there Jay? Specifics.
How has al Qaeda been significantly weakened? Specifics.
How are we winning in Iraq?
Do we even know yet what “victory” would look like?
Also, how can you see what’s going on in Iraq by walking around with 100 armed soldiers escorting you and with snipers and gunships overhead assuring your protection? And you still have to wear a flak vest.
We’ve lost almost 4,000 American lives for no reason. I know the Republican response is “well, they signed up”. But that’s not good enough. Our troops sign up and in exchange we owe them to go to war when necessary for good reasons. The current administration violated that trust.
And yes, Al Qaeda has grown. Their influence grows. Every year we sit in Iraq to be knocked off gives Bin Laden more influence, as well as other terrorist/jihad groups.
I love how an “improving” situation ignores the drumbeat of American casualties and our security hurting.
Clearly going to Iraq does nothing to educate politicians. John McCain’s been there and he’s still clueless.
How “strong” does al-Qaida even have to be? We kill hundreds of them each month and feel like we’re kicking ass, but we seem to forget that al-Qaida killed 3,000 Americans with 20 men, box cutters, and nefarious planning.
20 men. Box cutters.
Toppling Saddam’s regime does nothing to keep this from happening again.
Wrong Oliver. We’ve lost almost 5,000 American lives.
“Yet the situation over there has done nothing but improve over the last two years”
Really? That’s great news! NOW can they come home?
I’ll concede the fact that we “won” the Iraq war. That, more than anything, makes the case that, now that we’ve “won”, it’s time to let them take it over.
Really? That’s great news! NOW can they come home?
Sadly, no.
We’ve lost almost 4,000 American lives for no reason.
Yay. You’ve repeated the “no reason” drivel ad nauseum. The fact is, soldiers sacrificed their lives to make Iraq what it was not before – a genocidal terror-sponsoring threat to its neighbors and our allies. And it is succeeding. Al Qaeda, which was planning attacks around the world was lured into Iraq where we took them head on with troops instead of hoping that we wouldn’t be attacked again on our shores. You keep bellowing about “Our troops should be out killing terrorists!” What the hell do you think they’ve been doing?
And yes, Al Qaeda has grown.
No Oliver, Al Qaeda has NOT grown. Cripes, even the fractured leadership of Al Qaeda themselves have admitted they’ve been weakened. This isn’t to say that they still aren’t a threat, but to claim that they are stronger now than they were in the wake of 9/11 is just too freaking dumb to comprehend.
Their influence grows.
No, it is not growing. Their own attacks that have killed thousands of Muslims are making them more unpopular than ever even with the clerics and militants that were considered allies by Al Qaeda leadership. Good grief man, do you even read anything? Where did you possible come with with the nonsense that their influence grows?
I love how an “improving” situation ignores the drumbeat of American casualties and our security hurting.
I love how your comment ignores falling casualty numbers and the fact that (knock on wood), we haven’t been re-hit in almost 7 years now.
“The fact is, soldiers sacrificed their lives to make Iraq what it was not before – a genocidal terror-sponsoring threat to its neighbors and our allies.”
I think this got tangled, yes?
Anyway, we’ve changed Iraq from a terror-sponsoring threat to a terrorist target. Hooray!
Al Qaeda, which was planning attacks around the world was lured into Iraq where we took them head on with troops instead of hoping that we wouldn’t be attacked again on our shores.
We lured al-Qaida into Iraq and they still found time to launch attacks in other places. We talk about going at them head-on but we knew from the beginning that they don’t fight “head-on.”
Instead, now we’re an occupying force in an oil-rich, sovereign country of Muslims, just like bin Laden always told the Islamic world we wanted to be.
It was a stupid war in the planning and it’s a stupid war in the continuing execution.
Re: falling casualty numbers
This is not the first month that was the “lowest” of the war, only to be followed by a month of bloody horror. Your chickens have yet to hatch, please refrain from counting them.
Well, not “head on” per se. Sort of an offset collision, seeing as how Head on would have been in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The fact is, soldiers sacrificed their lives to make Iraq what it was not before – a genocidal terror-sponsoring threat to its neighbors and our allies.
Wait, that’s our goal? I thought that was why we went in in the first place.
Jay’s ultimate plan to fight alQaeda: paint targets on US soldiers and dump them in a foreign land. Not to mention the million or so dead Iraqis. Nice.
The fact is, soldiers sacrificed their lives to make Iraq what it was not before
Yes, Iraq before was a stable dictatorship, brutal but not a threat. It is now an unstable terror haven with no clear path to stability. As Borat would say “great success”.
Oh sorry, I’m supposed to believe Al Qaeda is weak because George Bush says so? As the president who presided over Al Qaeda’s most potent attack ever, pardon me if I don’t roll over in capitulation.
The conservative/Republican refrain that if you ignore the almost 5,000 dead Americans for no real strategic or moral goal, the Iraq war is a great success are the equivalent of asking Mrs. Lincoln how the show went, despite that unpleasantness with Mr. Booth.
For years now, conservatives have sought to drown out this dialog by yelling VICTORY!!! with nothing to back it up. The McCain campaign is the latest iteration of this strategy and all it does is hurt America.
Jay’s ultimate plan to fight alQaeda: paint targets on US soldiers and dump them in a foreign land.
No actually that’s Oliver’s plan who is always saying, “We should be out fighting terrorists in other countries.”
Yes, Iraq before was a stable dictatorship, brutal but not a threat.
Right. Helping to fund terrorism wasn’t a threat. It was just brutal. Thanks for the heaping tablespoon of stupid.
It is now an unstable terror haven with no clear path to stability.
Actually, it isn’t a terror ‘haven’ as the surge that you and other liberals claim didn’t work, obviously did work. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has done an outstanding job of building coalitions across sectarian divides, helping to quash Shiite militias in southern Iraq and Sadr City and has he has basically told Iran to stay the hell out. It’s like you just totally want to ignore what has happened there over the last 15-18 months.
Oh sorry, I’m supposed to believe Al Qaeda is weak because George Bush says so?
Oh brother. Actually, perhaps you should READ a little instead of spouting DNC and Obama press releases. Check out ‘The Unraveling’ by Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank as well as ‘The Rebellion Within’ by Lawrence Wright in the New Yorker.
For years now, conservatives have sought to drown out this dialog by yelling VICTORY!!! with nothing to back it up. The McCain campaign is the latest iteration of this strategy and all it does is hurt America.
Wonderful. You’ve proven that you can wright campaign ads. Of course, you’ve provided no facts or point of reference to support your assertions.
Sort of an offset collision, seeing as how Head on would have been in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
You mean like the operations the CIA has been carrying out on the border of those two countries since January? The ones that killed Al Qaeda leaders Abu Laith al-Libi and Abu Sulayman al-Jazairi? Like that?
You’ve proven that you can wright campaign ads.
write not wright….
So Jay. The question still stands. If it’s all going so well, when do our people come home? Al Qaeda is defeated. Al-Maliki is building solid coalitions and quashing the militias. Attacks against U.S. troops are way, way down.
What else needs to be accomplished?
Actually, it isn’t a terror ‘haven’ as the surge that you and other liberals claim didn’t work, obviously did work. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has done an outstanding job of building coalitions across sectarian divides, helping to quash Shiite militias in southern Iraq and Sadr City and has he has basically told Iran to stay the hell out. It’s like you just totally want to ignore what has happened there over the last 15-18 months.
Actually, Jay, political progress has gotten less likely, not more. The Sunnis once again withdrew from parliament. Maliki ignored the groups that were carrying out attacks in Iraq and instead decided to send an army to kill his political opponents in advance of an election. (And after the Basra operation originally failed, we helped him kill his political opponents until the Iraqi army was ready to take over.) And Maliki is an Iranian puppet, much more so than the more pro-Iraqi Sadr.
We invaded a country that was an anti-Islamist dictatorship (which was very bad but hadn’t sponsored an act of anti-American terrorism in years) and made it by any standard worse off than it was even under that horrible dictatorship. We used the resources we should have been using against Bin Laden to take out one of the obstacles to Bin Laden’s Caliphate. And we’ve been killing Iraqis who pose no threat to America and claiming that they were really “Al-Qaeda” and would “follow us home.”
So how are we “winning,” Jay? The number of attacks in Iraq now, even now, are at the same level as in early 2005. That’s when National Review wrote a story called “We’re winning: How the U.S. learned the art of counterinsurgency.” The strategy we were pursuing then was very much the same as the failed Petraeus strategy: try to reduce casualties and dicker around until the next round of explosions. It didn’t work, because Iraq will never have actual progress until America leaves. A country under a hated foreign occupation (Japan & Germany = not the same thing) can’t stabilize itself.
You don’t understand that, Jay, because you and McCain and Bush think war is a video game, where you either “win” or “lose.” In the real world, Iraq is in a civil war (at a lower level than in the dark days of early 2007, when the surge caused more Iraqis to die, but still pretty bad) and America can’t “win” or “lose” an Iraqi civil war, and we don’t have an actual “enemy” to fight in Iraq. Those who actually take national security seriously, like Obama or Clinton, know that the only recourse is to get out; McCain wants the humiliating defeat of America (by keeping us there forever), so he wants us to stay there just because we’re “only” losing 20 soldiers a month and Iraq is “only” at the civil war level of 2005, when we were also not “winning.”
Helping to fund terrorism wasn’t a threat.
You have links to prove this, of course.
a genocidal terror-sponsoring threat to its neighbors and our allies
Iraq- with virtually no air force, no navy, with barely one-third its pre-Gulf War strength.
Oh yeah, what was it that their neighbors were so worrried about? Well, as the Arab League* put it:
“We have discussed that there are certain threats to a number of our countries … and we said we are not going to accept any military action against any other country, including Iraq.”
They didnt seem too worried.
*(Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait)
Maybe we need to stick around for the big victory party where we’ll finally be greeted as liberators, right Jay?
We have been successful if you define success as turning Iraq into an Iranian buffer state, driving the price of oil up, and looting the US treasury. Hoorah!
Valoco, I don’t have the time to go through all of the numerous fallacies, mistakes and just plain wrong assertions you have made so I will just focus on a few.
There IS political progress in Iraq and there has been much success with the Iraqi military taking over much of the fighting in many areas. It is the reason why three of the five combat brigades that made up the surge have left without being replaced. The 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Divison of Fort Lewis, Wa., has begun to leave Iraq and so has the 2nd Brigade, 3rd ID, Fort Stweart, Ga. Petraeus is recommending that more troops come home by years end.
Your assertion that attacks are at the same level as in 2005 and and that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war is either you showing an astounding level of ignorance or just plain dishonesty. The violence levels now are at their lowest point since early in 2004, a 70% drop since the surge (the surge Democrats still say didn’t work). Sectarian violence is down so much so that thousands of families that were displaced due to the violence are now returning. And this is the ’seriousness’ of which Barack Obama takes with regard to national security:
“I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraqis going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”
Wow. Stunningly wrong.
There IS political progress in Iraq and there has been much success with the Iraqi military taking over much of the fighting in many areas. It is the reason why three of the five combat brigades that made up the surge have left without being replaced.
The reason they left without being replaced is that the surge was never meant to be sustainable. These troop levels have been maintained as long as they possibly could be. And Petraeus is recommending that force levels in July be “paused” at 140,000, which is more than there were before the surge (and even that level was unsustainable). There is no evidence that there has been any “return on success” at all; return on success would be drawing down below pre-surge levels, which is impossible because the surge has done nothing to stabilize Iraq.
Your assertion that attacks are at the same level as in 2005 and and that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war is either you showing an astounding level of ignorance or just plain dishonesty. The violence levels now are at their lowest point since early in 2004,
That’s not actually true. While Icasualties’ list of Iraqi deaths is much lower than the actual figures (there are a lot of deaths that aren’t counted as Iraqi civilian deaths), it shows 396 civilians as dying in May, one of the best months, true – but according to that same chart, 257 civilians died in March 2005 and 301 in April 2005. After the Iraqi elections of 2005, the violence was at a level that was high, but low enough to lead to false claims that we were “winning.” Just like now, when more Iraqi civilians are being killed.
“I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraqis going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”
This was of course true. In 2007, before Sadr’s cease-fire in August 2007 changed the game, the surge made Iraq an even more violent and horrific place than it had been before the surge started (if you compare early 2007 to early 2006, it’s even worse).
So the surge caused a spike in Iraq violence, and then Iraq violence subsided to merely horrific 2005 levels, but Iraq is still horrible and has no actual functioning government (except Iran’s government). If we had withdrawn, there would also have been a spike in Iraq violence, but a U.S. withdrawal would have allowed the Iraqis to form an actual government, which they can’t do while they’re under foreign occupation.
So Obama was proposing something that would have killed fewer Iraqis than the surge and would have led to political progress. The surge killed lots of Iraqis and led to no actual political progress (except fraudulent legislation like the De-Ba’athification legislation, which was actually meant to keep Sunnis out of the government). So what exactly did the surge succeed in doing, except bringing back the horrific status quo of 2005 where we need to withdraw but defeatist conservatives won’t hear of it?
I love how your comment ignores falling casualty numbers and the fact that (knock on wood), we haven’t been re-hit in almost 7 years now.
Our family got our dog 7 years ago. Coincidence? I think not!
And Jay, Ferris, if we’ve “won” in Iraq, why not bring the troops home? Shits and giggles?
No actually that’s Oliver’s plan who is always saying, “We should be out fighting terrorists in other countries.”
SO you’re pro-terrorist? Ok then.
I love how your comment ignores falling casualty numbers
Yeah, I read your article, and your conclusion doesn’t hold. Can we conclude that May was a good month in Iraq? Yes. Can we conclude from two data points that there is a continuing downward trend? No. For all we know, this could be a statistical anomaly. We need more data before we can make any conclusions. Data, of course, which you will no doubt refuse to provide.
The reason they left without being replaced is that the surge was never meant to be sustainable.
It would have to be sustainable if it wasn’t working.
And Petraeus is recommending that force levels in July be “paused” at 140,000, which is more than there were before the surge (and even that level was unsustainable).
That is incorrect. Current troop levels are 140,000. By July it will be 132K which is right where it was at in January of 2007 at the start of the surge. By the end of the year it will be lower.
There is no evidence that there has been any “return on success” at all;
There is plenty of evidence. You just choose to ignore it because it doesn’t fit the “we’ve lost” narrative that Barack Obama chooses to continue to spout. How it worked:
A. Violence is down 70%.
B. Al Qaeda has been expelled from Baghdad and the Anbar Province.
C. Sectarian violence is way down
D. Refugees are moving back by the thousands
The surge worked because Iraqi security forces were ready. It worked because Iraqi citizens have become tired of Al Qaeda and Jaysh al Mahdi and started providing beneficial tips to the ISF helping them leading to arrests of insurgents and discoveries of weapons caches. It worked because troops were more aggressive in dealing with the insurgents and Al Qaeda.
This was of course true. In 2007, before Sadr’s cease-fire in August 2007 changed the game, the surge made Iraq an even more violent and horrific place than it had been before the surge started (if you compare early 2007 to early 2006, it’s even worse).
Dude, this is 2008. The fact that there was a spike in violence at some point does not make Obama’s remarks true. That’s just asinine thinking. He was wrong. Very wrong. Deal with it.
but Iraq is still horrible and has no actual functioning government (except Iran’s government).
The surge killed lots of Iraqis and led to no actual political progress
Do you have any evidence to support this sophistry or is your thinking that simply writing something makes it true? Even the international community at the Stockholm Conference praised the progress Iraq has made over the last year.
Empire, baby!
What I find funny is that out of all the ultra-con talking points, only one was backed by a source, and I even managed to shoot down that one. Noice work there, Jay. Don’t quit your day job.
What I find funny is that out of all the ultra-con talking points, only one was backed by a source, and I even managed to shoot down that one
Really? I hadn’t even realized you had written anything. Looking back, I see some scribbles, but nothing of any substance.
Try again. Read the articles I discussed and the come back and tell me how wrong all of it is.
It’s funny, but all the gains Jay points out come because of the involvement of Iran who has brokered deals between the Shiite factions keeping a lid on the worst of the violence. Take that prop away and it all disappears. In other words, the political gains Jay touts is Iran consolidating its influence.
Try again. Read the articles I discussed and the come back and tell me how wrong all of it is.
If they’re not good enough for you to bother linking them, how are they good enough for me to even bother reading them?