[...] Flopping Aces » Blog Archive » “Victory” in Iraq Defined [...]

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The left-wing illuminati don’t even want to admit that the war has been a success, thanks to the surge. That’s why they can start pulling soldiers out.

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This post updated.

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Larry #14… kinda in and out of here sporatically on travel/vacation plans…. But this cannot be ignored.

Just what are you using as a monthly expense for cost of war? And I’m quite sure your math is better than you are portraying here…. even if you use $10bil per month… twice the amount of reality for the defense budget costs… Three tril is 25 years in Iraq at $10bil monthly. Or, if you bring it down to *real* figures… 50 years minimal at this aggressive pace of action.

Wanna bring this down to reality? Or are we just playing the billion/trillion name game?

And… if you have the time in your very important (no sarcasm there.. you really *are* one of those attempting to “cure cancer”…)… would you care to play with the defense budget (one of the only legitimate federal mandates to the country) after there is a withdrawal from Iraq, and a US escalation of troops in Afghanistan, intead of a NATO escalation?

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@Hard Right:
Ah yes, still trying to make us believe crushing Al-Q in Iraq didn’t make us safer. Well larry, we saw what happened when the taliban had a safe haven in little Afghanistan. So cite all the discredited clinton appointed generals you want, the fact is we are safer because of our actions in Iraq.

Who’s the Bush-appointed General that won’t tell you the same thing ?
What war college study hasn’t said this since 2003?
I wonder what it is you think has been serving as aQ’s #1 recruiting tool for the past 5 years if not the Iraq war. Or what better use those troops could have been put to regarding that whole Taliban in Afghanistan issue, what with that still being the case and the senior aQ leadership still alive today.

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Kilo: The war is technically won, we’ve been winning it for months, still hasn’t stopped certain elements from denying the success

Well you can add me to that list. If you say the war has been won for months, rather than since April 2003, then you aren’t talking about combat operations. Hence, WTF does an absence of combat operations count for ?

Instead, since that time, you are talking about stability operations. Now either Michael Yon and Soldier X’s rifle usage were some of those benchmarks for success or they weren’t. They weren’t.

You’ve got political factions trying to gain muscle with the SOFA, the SoI situation and control issues like Kirkuk. Remember, you can say surge, surge, surge all you want, but there’s still 100,000 armed, experienced former insurgents that were getting paid to fight al Qaeda instead of US troops, with the promise of being integrated into the ISF, who the government doesn’t particularly want to pay or integrate. You should be able to guess how that ends up, same as everyone else can.

I don’t know the date that that goes tits up (there is a date proposed, but it’s not like anyone is working to that schedule) but saying it is fixed today doesn’t change the obvious outcome. Either it’s resolved or you are simply delaying a date for the insurgency to resume and civil war to return. If that occurs how have you won any more than you had the day before the insurgency kicked off ?

There’s a reason you’re quoting a reporter saying this and not military leaders.

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Another deranged post from Larry. Ah yes, still trying to make us believe crushing Al-Q in Iraq didn’t make us safer. Well larry, we saw what happened when the taliban had a safe haven in little Afghanistan. So cite all the discredited clinton appointed generals you want, the fact is we are safer because of our actions in Iraq.

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Right on, WS! If only others could put aside the hate for a moment and just listen to words…

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@Kilo:

The war is technically won, we’ve been winning it for months, still hasn’t stopped certain elements from denying the success. I believe that to be Michael from MI’s contention, he can correct me if I’m wrong. Having read through many of M from MI’s comments here and his blog, I felt comfortable enough to make that judgement. Claiming his statement was “idiotic” was uncalled for.

Iraq has improved tremendously, thank our troops, the President and Sec/Def Gates, it doesn’t mean it is time to pull out. Troop reduction levels are still on an incremental basis and I haven’t heard that those plans have changed. Commanders on the ground best know when it’s time to pick up the tempo, that will then go up the chain to make changes in troop strength in Iraq, not to disgruntled members of Congress.

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@Kilo:

Well what better time is there to end a war than once you have won it ? What alternative scenario are you advocating ?
I wouldn’t have guessed that this would need explanation. What concept could be less complicated than victory in a war entailing the end of that war ? Did victory in Iraq always require permanent deployment in Iraq or is this something new ?

Troop draw-downs are already happening…under the current Administration. And thanks to our successes of the last year +.

We’re still in Japan and Germany, even though victory was won and in the absence of an insurgency.

Being able to keep a permanent base in Iraq would be in our strategic interest; but if it so happens that we are asked to have zero presence there, then so be it.

Regardless, our leaving from Iraq isn’t going to happen overnight at the snap of the fingers, no matter which administration were in power, and no matter how rosy the situation on the ground.

This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat.

-President Bush in an address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, United States Capitol, Washington D.C., September 20, 2001.

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