Why We Lost the War

Leaving aside your other comments (all worthy of agreement or some discussion, Jason) please, let's not toss this crap around: See, that's why I just love conservatives, because they love to craft their own realities and put words into other people's mouths. as if it was a status unique to conservatives or Republicans (which are *not* synonyms, btw).

Struck a nerve? Let's get things straight: 1) I said you all wanted to surrender, I didn't call you a "surrender monkey" 2) Calling it victory in 2003 and with drawing matters how? Since, you know, we didn't leave and round two with AQ was under way. 3) Let's not play games with the troops healthcare etc. It always sucks because we are always cheap, Democrats and republicans. And, I could easily whip out statistics that show health care spending, etc increasing under the Republican congress and Bush with plenty of the bills I'm sure you'd claim for democrats being co-sponsored or co-written by a republican. Thankfully, some folks get it. However... 4) What does getting more money for health care and education have to do with providing support for the actual mission and insuring or pushing for the troops to actually win? Particularly when, indeed, you, et al have been insisting that they be pulled out? 5) You, et al have been demanding the troops leave right in the middle of a hard fought battle and now that violence is way down, the Iraqi government is working AND AQ is making this announcement, you still call it a defeat and demand withdrawal under those conditions. A loss, in fact. You are insistant on it. What else would I call it but surrender? 5) the little word games the Democrats want to play by calling it a "disaster", "failure" etc but not out right "defeat" might make you feel better and give you a way to phrase it differently to feed to the public, but a quick look in the dictionary or any sense of actual language makes your statements very clear: defeat and surrender. Even now, in addressing this post, you're trying to insist that there is no win and it is still a failure, by proclaiming these websites bogus. When, in fact, if you actually read the linked post, you'd know that the jihadi websites in question are the ones that carry bin Laden and Zawahiri's messages first. Among the many things that make them legitimate carriers of the AQ message. But, let me point to the obvious. Not only is this on these websites, but violence is so far down in Iraq, it hasn't made the front page or prime story for major news outlets for months. Except, of course, a moment in Basra and Sadr city which have nothing to do with AQ and which have conveniently slipped away from the news again for the same reason. So many AQ leaders have been killed or captured they can barely mount a road bomb. Their statistics match our statistics. In short, they were defeated. One other reason it makes sense. If you ever actually read any history of previous jihad's in the middle east, you'd realize it is a standard procedure for these organizations to do self evaluations or "lessons learned" as we like to call it. Zawahiri's Bitter Harvest and Knights under the Prophet's Banner come to mind immediately, along with some great reads from the post Syrian uprising in 1992 to name another. It's one of the reasons I do not find such posts from AQ incomprehensible or proof of some sort of hoax. It is standard operating procedure. So, yes...dear Jason, we won Iraq, two times: crushed Saddam and then crushed an insurgency/terrorist guerrilla war. Three if you want to count the Iranian shia militias as a separate force to be countered. And you still want to hurry away under the guise of "failure". That, sir, is surrendering after the victory. I'm sure there is a historical precedent for it, but I'm also sure that people look back on that time with equal amounts of wonder and ridicule. Frankly, I think you should be extremely happy that Obama will not have to demand troop withdrawals in the middle of a terrible war because it would have definitively painted Obama and the Democrats as the party of surrender and crashed their national security credentials for decades. Now, at the very least, if he gets elected, he can be seen as the candidate that presided over the close of a very difficult war. Plus, since there is no formal surrender, he won't ever have to say "defeat" or "victory". So what are you crying about being called a "surrender monkey" for?

On the Dem side, we're interested in regional stabilization, which includes a more detailed strategy other than the unending occupation of Iraq to succeed.

I missed that one, thanks Bill. Let's see: Increased UN Sanctions? Check Engaging through Iraq and Afgahnistan? Check Military forces in place to contain Iran? Check Multiple attepts to engage in direct talks? Check Seeking to stabilize Lebanon and working towards stabilizing the Palestinian-Israel? check Working with Israel vis-a-vis Golan heights and Syria? Check Engagement with Syria? Check I could go on. What exactly is missing besides your vaunted vision of speaking to the Iranians and assuring them we will let them continue to exist at no charge to oppress their people and support terrorist organizations around the world? What we should be really asking is what, beyond our current activities and this vision of conversation (that the Iranians have been unwilling to participate in for decades) should we be doing? Maybe some flowers on the anniversary of the revolution and a thank you note for not killing our people when they took them hostage? Or maybe some congratulatory references to their on going efforts to kill our men and women in Iraq? Seriously, you keep saying that no one has a plan on the republican side, but I have not seen one plan from the Democrats beyond "talking". That's it? That's your comprehensive plan to stabilize governments beyond what is already being done? Let's buy Brzezinski's plan. You know, give them a nuclear weapon because it some how automatically confers stability on the conflicting parties. You know, like Pakistan and India where the Pakistanis have some serious nutball extremists who would love to get their hands on the nuke. I'm also sure that the Kashmiris who have suffered during the interminable long war there and died by the thousands appreciate his dismissal of their suffering as, you know, not so terrible since everybody has a nuke. Nothing like some good ol' non-resolution and long term continuing warfare to make those nukes taste good going down.

I missed that one, thanks Bill. Gotcher six, Kat. When our server's not being persnickety...