The war in Iraq isn’t over yet, but — surge or no surge — the United States has already lost. That’s the grim consensus of a panel of experts assembled by Rolling Stone to assess the future of Iraq. “Even if we had a million men to go in, it’s too late now,” says retired four-star Gen. Tony McPeak, who served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War. “Humpty Dumpty can’t be put back together again.”
Those on the panel — including diplomats, counterterror analysts and a former top military commander — agree that President Bush’s attempt to secure Baghdad will only succeed in dragging out the conflict, creating something far beyond any Vietnam-style “quagmire.” The surge won’t bring an end to the sectarian cleansing that has ravaged Iraq, as the newly empowered Shiite majority seeks to settle scores built up during centuries of oppressive rule by the Sunni minority. It will do nothing to defuse the powder keg that an independence-minded Kurdistan, in Iraq’s northern provinces, poses to the governments of Turkey, Syria and Iran, which have long brutalized their own Kurdish separatists. And it will only worsen the global war on terror.
“Our invasion and occupation has created a cauldron that will continue to draw in the players in the Middle East for the foreseeable future,” says Michael Scheuer, who led the CIA’s hunt for Osama bin Laden. “By taking out Saddam, we have allowed the jihad to move 1,000 kilometers west, where it can project its power, its organizers, its theology into Turkey — and from Turkey into Europe.”
[McPeak:] America has been conducting an experiment for the past six years, trying to validate the proposition that it really doesn’t make any difference who you elect president. Now we know the result of that experiment [laughs]. If a guy is stupid, it makes a big difference.
#30,
Do you have anything other than the baseless assertions of Maliki government? Because we have heard all those before. Three more troops were killed today, and we are currently in the middle of the most sophisticated car bomb offensive of the war. While there is a little less violence in Baghdad with 20k extra troops there, it is picking up in other parts of the country (including the south btw).
Do you have anything at all? Or is this just more rhetoric? Because thats All I see there… Also your claims go Waaaaaayyyyy beyond what US commanders are willing to say is happening.
Yes, it does appear we are still losing.
I’ve been against this invasion at least since the betrayal of Plame and the clear politicizing of U.S. intelligence services. I have been opposed to adventures like Iraq since I came to understand the difference between second and fourth generation warfare. That was before 9/11, but as I watched the Bushies squander the best will the U.S. has had since the end of WWII and the Marshall Plan, I knew beyond a doubt it was lost before it started.
You can’t win a fourth generation war without holding the moral high ground. An invasive war grounded in lies and powered by greed and vituperative politics, so dishonest it can in months destroy the incredible sympathy and good will the U.S. had after 9/11, has sunk so far below the moral high ground it probably doesn’t even think there IS a moral high ground. It’s a wonder to me the MSM, as someone called it, could get low enough, even on their knees, to fellate Bush but somehow they managed. They carried the Repubicrat water, echoed the K Street spin all the way. “We were deceived,” some of them have said. Bull. They didn’t even look for the truth.
CBS was as bad as Fox for misinforming the U.S. public about basic facts, such as Saddam’s lack of involvement with 9/11 or his hostility to the religious extremists running Iran. No wonder Cronkite is ashamed of what happened to the old Edward Murrow news center..
“If they’ll stop lying about us we’ll stop telling the truth about them,” said some French official or other, That was around the time one of the right-wing hypocrites led a stupidity charge to change “french fries” to “freedom fries” on the congressional menu.
And still the homegrown fools – even here – cheer the continuing damage the Bushies refuse to stop doing to U.S. security and the national interest.
Amazing.
TJGeezer,
If you havent seen it yet, here is a video on the war that should bring a smile you your face.
http://www.ifilm.com/video/2773525
33 – Heh. Asylum Street Spankers. Know what? They may have it right – maybe ridicule is the only way to stop people who have no regard for anything but money and power. At least ridicule may back their core mouth-breather voters away.
“Do you have anything at all?” GregA
I have links to news sources toback up my opinions. not only that one but this one, which mentions your claim of more sophisticated bombs and that while there has been an increase in killings the increase is less than it has been in the past.
You can look through your doom colored glasses all you want, but the “facts on the ground” , to coin a phrase, seem to say different. As does a Google News search for “Baghdad security”
And looking around I found this one, which is oddly very relevant to this blog.
http://tinyurl.com/2xfgda
“We” and the Iraqi people have lost, but the original objectives have already been met: The Cheney cabal has already locked up the oil contracts and will have permanent bases in the area, no matter what happens to the people of Iraq. http://tinyurl.com/3cx5r9
Want a REAL war…
Start education of ALL, females males, children in the nation…
and threaten to HOLD the nation in USA hands for 50 years…
Jim W,
You can’t even tell when you have lost an argument. How are you gonna tell when you lost a war?
**falls for GregA’s flame bait**
What argument? 🙂 I post links to informative news that refutes the idea we are losing in Iraq. You post your own rhetoric and a funny (yes, I laughed) youTube clip.
You really got me with that youTube clip. I guess we ARE losing in Iraq.
/sarcasm
🙂
#30. Oops, not so fast –
BAGHDAD, March 15 — Gunmen ambushed a convoy on Thursday that was carrying the mayor of the sprawling Shiite area known as Sadr City, seriously wounding him and complicating American efforts to rein in a powerful Shiite militia there. The attack killed Lt. Col. Muhammad Motashar, the director of the Sadr City police station.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/world/middleeast/16iraq.html