precisely what I was thinking... bad cover up.

 

seems much has changed in the couple weeks I haven't posted...

 

That's moderation Salty-style. Get used to it.

 

since when was this war about winning?

 

You heard Bush today... 'we will win that victory.'


....wait a a sec. - can you lose a victory?

 

:rotfl:

 

It's always been we just can't find the right strategy to do it. It'd be stupid to think that we went over there to have our *** handed to us. I don't think we'll have a party in charge that's that retarded.

 

If there had ever been a chance of winning, (which I don't think there ever was) that went away when we captured Saddam and yet did not draw down our visible presence one bit.

Ever since that point the US has been in a position of occupation force, which makes US troops legal targets in that theater under the internationally recognized rules of warfare.

Before you jump all over me for being anti-american and against our troops, remember who lied to start this war and who has been unable to propose any strategy apart from "stay the course"- with this kind of "leadership" there is no way any conflict can be "won".

 

I can understand that philosophy. I think we have a great shot at winning just not with the current tactics. We give the enemy far to many chances to make us targets. I'm sure Salty and any other combat arms servicemen on her have heard this a thousand times, "move fast and minimize exposure time". It's all about stealth, surprise and violence on the objective. Those are the keys to a successful assault. At the moment, we have none of those.

 

You have me all wrong. There was always a WMD link with Saddam since the 80's. Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton and Bush Jr. knew it. Even though Bush Jr. admits it wasn't as big of an influence to invade as he made it out to be, Iraq is still a huge chess piece regarding terror in that part of the world (i've discussed this before). I accepted his withdrawal on the WMD lie, kicked the dirt and moved on to the strategical chess piece reasoning that was always there. Furthermore, when haven't I supported the pullout of our soldiers? The question has always been should we pull them out. If anything, I have way more connections to friends and KIA friends than anyone here. One of my very good friends was a bona fide atheist that just finished his 3rd tour. Now I'm getting emails about how he's a religious man with severe depression and post dramatic stress on the verge of divorce.

It's gotten to the point where the insurgents and more peaceful masses of Iraqis continuously screw things up as they do not have the capacity to do much of anything correctly without acting like a 3rd grade bully. That being said, I think the withdrawal of troops may help them realize that they will soon be on their own. It's unfortunate that they are not grateful for out presence so it has to come to this sooner than later. This is all i'm saying... I almost makes me wonder if possible civil war may do this country some good?

My first option would have been keep the troops there longer until their military is full trained and their chain of command is strong. But no, they are way too incapable to pull this off as we've seen over the last couple years. Unfortunately, the only smart ones in that country are the officials. Sometimes you just have to kick your 18yr old son out of the house so he can find a job.

 

That all makes sense to me, and I agree with a lot of the reasons you want to start withdrawal. I'm just wondering if everyone (Iraqis and Americans) would have been better off if we didn't attack or if we waited for a bigger international force to take out Saddam and reestablish a gov't...


It's all speculation though. At least we both agree that at this point, we need to start an exit ASAP.

 

The WMD link was our corporations SEC Filings...

 

It's way too soon to tell. It may take decades.

The only way it'll be remotely beneficial for Americans is if Iraq thrives as a peaceful nation and influences surrounding countries. Other than that there's no way for it to be beneficial to America because it's already been so damning to us.

This is where this quote comes from in post #3: It's really just a double edged sword for me at this point. You want something to work so badly but poor execution along with an uncooperative population and insurgency are making it so hard in the 10th inning.

 

I definetly think we'd have had a better chance of reconstruction had we had the help of multiple U.N. savvy nations. That wasn't the case though. What would have happened if we'd have waited until 2007 to attack? We'll never know. Maybe we'd have had all these great technological advantages already at hand like IED signal scramblers, Predator body armour, laser equipped FA/IN sights and armoured vehicles. At the same time, maybe Saddam would have already pawned off his weapons to terrorists cells (he may have done so but time will tell) or dug in around Baghdad for a battle of epic proportions. Who knows?

I will say again that I think we need to stay until the job is done but not with the current fieldcraft. We need to change up like I mentioned before, get the job done and bring the troops home. SF soldiers live and die (quite literally) combat. I have forgone relationships and will more than likely forego children so that I can devote my life to Spec. Ops. I have already decided on this. Call me brain-washed if you want but I love my job and want even more from it. Let these mindset people do the fighting. Even though it's a National Guardsmens duty to serve because he signed up I'm past all that now. Yesterday was a big milestone with the 2000th death and frankly, it made me mad. The deaths that occured in Iraq because they wanted to be there are not mentioned on the evening news. Only the ones who felt it was their duty.

 

Here's an interesting take on how it might have been done better;

http://hammernews.com/prevention2.htm


The First Rule of Occupation since the Sumerians is: disarm the population, but Rumsfeld knew better, wanting to test his faster lighter cheaper invasion theories, and blindly convinced we would be feted as liberators. DeBatto says, “They made a decision at the highest level- Rumsfeld- to just let it go. They wanted not to be seen as brutal occupiers and didn’t react at all. You had these heavily armed Americans who could have stopped anything, yet they let these looters take everything they wanted. We have given every weapon Saddam stored for 30 years.. to every terrorist and 2-bit thug in the Middle East.”