The War On Terror Can Not Be Won…
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Foreign Policy, The War On Terrorism…if we lose in Iraq.
Those are the words from the White House…(bolding theirs)…
Iraq Could Not Be Graver – The War On Terror Cannot Be Won If We Fail In Iraq. Our enemies throughout the Middle East are trying to defeat us in Iraq. If we step back now, the problems in Iraq will become more lethal, and make our troops fight an uglier battle than we are seeing today.
Listen, I don’t believe for a second that we lost the WoT if we lose in Iraq. Not for even a moment. We’ll bounce back, learn from our mistakes and fight a smarter war on Islamic extremists.
But…why in the hell are we saying this? We’re completely setting ourselves up for failure because of one poorly planned war? Did we lose the Cold War because we lost Vietnam?
Not good signs at all.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 10th, 2007 and is filed under Foreign Policy, The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 10th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
The domino theory simply won’t die. I just looked under my bed and didn’t find any Commies there, so the loss of Vietnam apparently didn’t result in the predicted worldwide Communist takeover. I’m not falling for it this time.
January 10th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Seems to me that someone, somewhere, perhaps in a very high position, thinks that there are a majority of Americans STILL falling for it…
Question now is -
Who is “Baghdad Bob”? Snow? Or the man himself!
January 10th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
The most ironic thing is how little Iraq had to do with the WoT in the first place. We went in there not because of any eminent threat from WMD’s, not for terrorists connected with 9/11, although all those things were fabricated for our review. Now the president wants us to suck it up for one last push, so how else to gain the support he needs? Don’t look under the bed, folks. It’s much too scary in those dark, unknown places. Trust me, sacrafice more and all will work out. Either he’s on drugs to help him pretend this will happen, or they think we’re all on something to make us believe him.
January 11th, 2007 at 4:11 am
True, Iraq didn’t originally have much to do with The War Against Terror - but getting hung up on that will blind you to the way it does now. Al Qaeda is over here. They are working directly with some of the more extremist Sunni. They’ve declared an Islamic State in Anbar Province. And while their bloody actions and lack of concern for Iraqi lives has created a bit of a backlash (as some of the Sunni tribes band together to hunt them down), its rather hard to say that Iraq doesn’t have anything to do with The War Against Terror.
It does.
And it seems a shame that we’d abandon those Sunni tribes intent on kicking their a$$es, and even more important that we’d abandon MUSLIMS who are willing to stand against their own extremists.
Would we lose The War Against Terror if we abandoned Iraq? I don’t think so. But it’d be a lot harder, and a lot bloodier. Especially since we are living up to EXACTLY what they claim. Which is that America is weak and will give up if they just kill enough of us (3000? When we lost how many in Vietnam? Any death is a tragedy, but letting everyone know that all they have to do is kill 3000 of us and we’ll give up just encourages their belief that we’re a paper tiger. And NEXT time there probably will be a lot more deaths.)
January 11th, 2007 at 9:51 am
hear, hear to kris.
January 11th, 2007 at 10:03 am
i think the war could still be won. All the people in Iraq and Baghdad just need to realise that all americans are trying to live like hey are and all were trying to do is help them. Which probably wont happen BUT WE CANNOT GIVE UP and leave if we do then all the wars we are in after this (if any) people will think hey kill some Americans, scare them and theyll leave……
January 11th, 2007 at 10:09 am
and kris you have a point, i think we woulld lose we went in a destroyed there country and killed there leader if we leave wats that telling them? and think about the number of troops lost how many are over there? 3,000 is alot but not as many as it could be there could be alot more than that were lucky, but by sending more troops over there wats then?
January 11th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Kris; Sure, I was a bit melodramatic after just watching the president’s speach and the reactions to it. So many Americans initially backed our invasion of Iraq but after so many layers of the onion got peeled away, the original justification for going to war just smelled worse and worse. No WMD to be found, photo ops declaring ‘mission accomplished’, endless stories about ‘dead-enders’ and thugs, and the now famous “bring it on” provoking the enemy and furthering their cause.
I really hate to sound so conspiracy theory driven in my criticisms, (and f#$% you to anyone who says we shouldn’t be critical in time of war) but how else do you explain all this”? The only ones winning in our valliant, moral, democracy spreading War On Terror, so far anyway, are Iran, Halliburton, and a ‘few dead-enders’. It’s all very fustrating, and the American public is getting very done with it, except, we need to realize, it’s only the beginning !
January 12th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Islamists do not recognize national borders and so the problem is how to root them out in a shell game that moves the pea to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, the Horn, and so on.
I agree with Kris that it’s pointless to get hung up on motives because the war is the war now, not then, and besides, much of it is speculation. It depends what you think the aim of the Iraq invasion was, not the causus belli.
I still believe that Iran was the target, not Iraq, but how does one move half a million men there with the media watching 24/7?
I’m in a minority but think the war is progressing as it ought, with Iran now flanked both east and west and the President making it clear that he intends to root out the terrorists and disturb their supply lines wherever they are. That means Iran and Syria.
The losses in this war are 3,000 men and women who volunteered to defend their country. Compare that to the losses of WW2, where so many Americans died to defeat a profoundly anti-liberal Naziism that is, in many ways, comparable to Islamism. Hell, compare them to the 3,000 Americans who died just because they went to work on 9/11. Is it really so awful or is the hatred of George W. Bush so intense?