i dont feel qualified to criticize war strategy, but politcally i dont have any major problems with bush.
I think that is nation building and a futile dream. The notion that we can make Iraq into some kind of Jeffersonian democracy is just not viable. There is not one democracy anywhere in the Arab world, including our allies. It is equally futile to imagine that we can solve the social/political situation with the military. It's a political problem requiring a political solution. There is no further military victory to be had there. I think we only have a responsibility to defend Iraq from being attacked by its neighbors because we eliminated their army. We need to let them form their own government and they clearly have a lot of internal issues to work out, by fighting or diplomacy or whatever. There ain't a lot we can do about it. We should only be helping the Kurds to rebuild because they are cooperating with us and are not trying to kill our soldiers. But we don't owe the Sunnis and the Shiites a damn thing. They hate and kill us and each other. Let them fight it out without us and we'll deal with the winner on country-to-country terms. Behave or the B-52's come back and you pick up the pieces yourselves. We should move the army to the Iranian and Syrian borders and seal them from infiltrators and any possible military incursions until the Iraqis are ready to do it themselves. Meanwhile we quit patrolling hostile neighborhoods in the the Sunni/Shiite areas and taking casualties that gain us nothing. Redeploy the rest of the military to safe bases in friendly Kuwait. They can always be called upon if needed for some action that is in our interest. We don't have to retreat to Kansas, just redeploy into a smarter military position for the next phase of this clusterfugg--keeping Iran and Syria contained. Saddam used to perform this function for us but we fired him. This is why we can't just abandon the Persian Gulf. But we need to cease this fruitless, endless patrolling the raghead neighborhoods as if resolve alone will fix the thing. Let the rags sort it out themselves. There is nothing to WIN by staying the course. There is nothing to LOSE by fighting smarter.
How do we win an occupation, SDM? Do we stay there forever? Is that "victory"? How long do we have to stay until we "win"? Don't you see, as long as we are occupying Iraq we haven't won anything. There is nothing to win. There is nothing to lose. We are either bogged down there or we are not. Everybody agrees that we are better off finished with this, and all we have to do to finish it is leave. We don't have to leave the Middle East or even all of Iraq. Just the Shia/Sunnia civil war. It ain't our fight.
The Iraqis decided what form of government they wanted. We did not make any decisions for them. As far as nation-building is concerned, we have done it successfully before. The most notable success was Japan following WWII. I realize the circumstances surrounding Japan were quite different than those in Iraq, but the chances of succeeding in Iraq at the time Saddam fell were quite good. If the Sunnis and Shiites can get their act together and stop killing each other, the chances are still good. There is a great deal of good that will come out of a stable Iraqi government. I agree that we should fight smarter, but fight we must. To leave Iraq now would be an unmitigated disaster.
I'll be honest and say that I don't have all the answers about winning an occupation so I'm not sure. We have to take the gloves off and get tough with Iraq. We won't win wars as long as the news media and others make big deals out of Abu Ghrab, the news media has no business reporting anything from the country we are at war with. That is unprecedented in a time of war until 1991. It is nearly impossible to win the media war when you are on the offensive. Imagine the reporters after the D-Day practice disaster or surrounding D-Day or Battle of the Bulge. Everyone would think we were insane and it wouldn't have happened. This is why I want to win but it will take a lot of changes in DC for that to happen. Seriously, I don't understand this line of thinking. We have been in Germany and other countries after WWII and are still there. We could benefit and so could the Iraqis from an American base in Iraq. I don't think most of Iraq is that bad actually, seems like most of the problems are in Baghdad or surrounding areas? How long until victory? Depends on who is calling the shots? Many including myself think we have been to easy on the Iraqis and others. I would've already hit targets in Iran quite some time ago. Disagree, we have everything to lose if we leave. The reason we are bogged down is because this administration has dropped the ball and went from being offensive to defensive. They have been irresponsible in their duties to win this war. Like I said above we will pay another price later on if we pull out. Iran, Syria or terrorists could take over Iraq like they have tried to do in Somalia, Lebanon and other places. They could create a crisis by cutting off oil supplies from areas of middle east. You never know the alliances that could form and threaten our way of life. EDIT: What I meant about reporters in a time of war is that the military usually have their own journalists or they had to go through Strict screening before stories would be allowed to be reported. Another thing this administration has failed to do!
Perhaps the invasion of Iraq had a longer-term undisclosed strategic purpose - applying military and diplomatic pressure on Iran? We're well suited to that now with military forces and bases now flanking Iran in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The well-educated populace should be highly incented to avoid a military showdown and force political change.
I don't believe this is quite the case. Brenner made all the decisions during his tenure. If Iraq had cooperated with us the way Japan did, then I might agree with you. But they didn't and they won't. I believe they have forfeited the kind of aid and support we gave Japan.
Quite the opposite, I feel. We removed the counterbalance that Iraq played to Iranian and Syrian ambitions in the area. Now they are both emboldened. We already have bigger, better, and far safer miitary bases in the Gulf region than those embattled bases in Iraq. We have airbases in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Afghanistan, The UAE, Qatar, Jordan, Diego Garcia, and Kuwait. We have naval bases in Bahrain, Egypt, Djibouti, Qatar, the UAE, and Diego Garcia. We have Army bases in Kuwait and Afghanistan and a Marine bases in Djibouti and Kuwait. We have options to use bases in Khazakhstan and Uzbekistan for the war on terror. This doesn't even count about 60 NATO bases not far away.
You mean, presidents that you percieve as honest. The people that criticize Bush have a fundamentally different opinion of him than do you. And quite frankly, I don't know how people still think that Bush is honest after misleading the American public to the extent that he did. At any rate, I feel perfectly qualified to criticize someone whose salary I help fund. I frequently do it to state employees.