???
What didn’t we commit? Our footprint was about 5x that of Iraq. We instituted a draft, and sacrified 58,000 American lives (plus 2,000 ‘missing’). As noted, the only thing we did not do was create an atomic holocaust, probably only because we feared atomic retaliation.
This is just a myth from people who cannot seem to bring themselves to accept a huge and costly foreign policy mistake. Undoubtedly, the same myth will eventually propogate for Iraq, though it will be even more absurd in that case. Look at the current situation, even the government we have propped up there has indicated that it cannot accept an open ended US occupation, nor the continued exclussion of US occupying forces from the rule of law.
The entire point of the venture was permanent bases. Look at the architects and their PNAC writings dating back to '93 (PNAC officially formed in '97, but many of the signatories had already been writing about Iraq for years). Iraq was just a convenient opportunity to expand and project US military force in the region (don’t take my word for it, I’m just quoted the folks who thought up the whole disaster). But the darndest thing happened, the people had a will of their own. They wouldn’t accept our preferred puppet Chalabi, and no government that will accept a permanent US occupation can stand.
The irony is that in this miguided venture, the same folks who latch onto the myth of a lack of will in Vietnam and who will undoubtedly reuse the myth to explain their stupidity in Iraq have, in fact, made the myth a reality - in Afghanistan. History, locale, culture, were all aligned for a winnable conflict there, but the powers that be were not interested. They wanted Iraq, and fabricated a connection to 9/11 and stirred fears of mushroom clouds to get it.
Todays news:
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080714/ap_on_re_as/afghanistan;_ylt=AvuYJXu8dqG_rd1aOpGJrJOs0NUE
Won’t make much of an impression on the Koolaide crowd like Ridgerunner. After all, what are 9 lives in the all important global struggle for photo ops and the right to feel manly? It isn’t as if THEY will be risking their tiny cojones. But viewed in the context of the latest congressional reporting, internation force reports, etc. it tells us a lot. It tells us that war on the cheap, particularly at the expense of not providing basic security to the populace means losing.
So, for all those shaking their tiny fists in anger and fear about Islamic Extremism, how about a reality check on how we are doing on the enemies who actually attacked us on 9/11? Most were Sauds, which is hardly surprising since they’ve invested $70B in militant extremists and are the primary bankroll for AQ terrorism. Aside from record profits on oil, and the VP flying over to kiss butt, what exactly has changed there?
OBL and his version of AQ relocated to Pakistan, whom we can’t touch because we need them to have access to Iraq. There is also alarming implications that Pakistan is heavily involved in rogue nuclear proliferation.
And the Taliban, whom we ‘defeated’ in Afghanstan have, in the US military’s own estimation, have control over large sections of the country. They are also expanding their territory and are launching larger, coordinated attacks on our troops.
And, of course, we’ve created islamic extremists in Iraq, a place where they weren’t before because the country was under the control of a secular tyrant…
I’m not sure why people are so convinced that loud hyperbole about US history, Nazi sympathizers, and the fate of the Western world will alter the basic facts. We are failing to achieve meaningful strategic goals, and will continue to fail to do so short of a massive changes on a scale the US population is not willing to make. We’re not going to have another draft, and since the chickenhawks are, themselves, gutless wonders who won’t fight the wars they support, no one should be surprised.
The only question is, what poor sap will be the last US soldier to die just because a bunch of gutless self serving chickenhawks lack the capacity to accept responsibility for their own mistakes?
probably would have done anything to win, and from waht i heard, they DID…