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Morning Open Thread: What does “win” mean? |
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George Bush, in his speech on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war, reiterated that America can “win” in Iraq:
Five years into this battle, there is an understandable debate over whether the war was worth fighting, whether the fight is worth winning, and whether we can win it. The answers are clear to me. Removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right decision, and this is a fight that America can and must win.
The question I and others have been asking since Hussein was removed from power is simply what would winning in Iraq mean? Clearly, we prevailed militarily in Iraq, but Iraq no longer has a military solution. So is talking about victory still relevant? What are the criteria for winning? Because without a firm idea of what winning means, this just looks like endless war to me.
What’s your definition of winning in Iraq? I know what mine is - leaving.
This is a central question and no one ever seems to ask Bush (or McCain) directly what he means by “winning”. I don’t think supporters of the war really know what this means either–and it’s possible they don’t really care. It seems pretty clear that Bush is trying to “run out the clock” and pass on this serious problem to the next administration.
I would love to see someone really press Bush or McCain on this question–what does it mean to win? might be nice to remind Bush of the Powell doctrine he once endorsed…http://www.counterpunch.org/procter02152003.html If Bush has any exit strategy for Iraq, I haven’t heard it.
McCain wants to leave behind a stable, pro-US democracy. As for Bush, the cynic in me says that victory for him has been achieved; we have our hands on Iraq’s oil and fear of terrorism remains a potent political tool in the hands of conservatives. The rest of me says that he agrees with McCain.
Victory in Iraq, for me, would be the establishment of a stable government that can bring the Iraqis some measure of peace and stability. I don’t care if it’s democratic or not. What Iraqis need is time to heal from not only this war but from decades of brutal rule and internal strife. But I have to say that I am far from hopeful.
If McCain would actually define it as such, then great. So far, I don’t think he has, though I could be wrong.
It would be good to get such a definition, because it is likely out of our grasp. Yes, Iraq may one day be a stable and secure country. But America no longer has the ability to make that happen. That’s the conversation I would like to have, instead of the inane talk of “winning” and “losing” that means little.
Leaving would not be “winning” because all of the destruction from this war has done nothing but further frustrate the people in Iraq. Right now, the U.S. military is the only thing maintaining order over there. I agree with you Matt, it’s gonna take a long time to heal but stability is really what they need.
I think he’s already said it or at least hinted at it from what I remember from the Republican debates.
I do agree that there is little chance of a stable, pro-US, democratic Iraq emerging anytime soon. McCain’s estimate of 100 years might be a little low on that front. All this talk about “winning” and “losing” is absurd to be sure. It makes it sound like a football game where such ideas are clear and obvious. Solutions in Iraq are anything but clear and obvious.
There is no point in discussing what “winning” means because to “win” something there must have been either a threat or a competition to start with. There was never really any threat from this country and Congress knows it! this country kept Iraq in a starvation grip of economic sanctions for a decade after the first Gulf war(77 representatives signed legislation to remove these sanctions before the invasion in 2003).
We all know that UNICEF estimates that over 500,000 children died of starvation during this time. We were blatantly using the “no fly” zones and were aware of every move made in that country. WMDs simply were not there.
So really the question here is not how do we “win” the question is how do we stop a bully(our government) from beating up the little kids around the world for their oil? Simple, become energy independent-THE SUN IS FREE!!!!!!!!!
Well, we still need petroleum to produce solar cells and other renewable resources. So we’ll never really be free from oil, just less dependent on it.
Anyway, it’s not like the Hussein regime was all that great. I’ve watched videos that one of Hussein’s sons made when he executed political dissidents. Can you imagine slowly putting a man into a chipper/shredder feet first until he passes out? And then waking him up so he’ll be fully conscious a few minutes later when they put him in a little deeper? And so on and so on until he dies? There were plenty of good reasons to remove Saddam Hussein from power. But we didn’t use any of them, nor could we while we continue to support repressive, brutal regimes all over the world. But trying to characterize Hussein’s Iraq as a helpless, innocent little child being beaten up by the big American bully is kind of ridiculous.
Good reasons to remove Hussein from power, yes. Should we have done it? No. Too much colonialism.
If an outside force is ever to remove a leader of a country, it needs to be i the context of international movements. Coalitions of the willing just won’t cut it in the post-colonial age.
I don’t know about you, but there are many things that this government has done in the American name that do not resonate with me. And I do not believe these things are reflective of me or of most of my fellow countrymen, So when you refer to a video of Hussein’s torture as evidence that the people in that country were not innocent, starving victims of disastrous leadership is like me referring to a video of water-boarding and saying that you, because you are a citizen of this country are not innocent in that situation. And Water-boarding which certainly is not as extreme as being fed into a wood-chipper pales in comparison to watching the twin towers fall, followed by WTC7 where our government killed thousands of our own people on our own soil to justify a war over oil… You want to talk about brutal regimes? Lets talk about this one!
Agreed, Jason. All intelligence showed that they weren’t producing WMDs so there was no justification to remove the regime. Afghanistan was a justified war but Iraq wasn’t.
As for Anne……I think you missed my point. You weren’t talking about Americans and Iraqis (unless you’d like to call me a bully), you were talking about the American government and the Iraqi government. So that was what I was addressing. I’m not going to get sucked into the “9/11 as an inside job!” argument because plenty of structural engineers have done it for me already.