Vietnam was thought of as a colissal blunder both immediately afterwards and at the time your speaking of. At this point in the World Wars-we had already won. Maybe the public is the smarter party in this scenario?
It's ridiculous to compare Japan and Germany to Iraq. First, we fought both as nation-states which had traditional top-to-bottom leadership, uniformed armies, and well-defined ideological positions. Neither one of them had any real counter-insurgency (unless you're counting Germany's few pathetic "werewolves" who were quickly dispatched) once they surrendered.
Germany was a Western nation with a history, prior to its shameful Nazi detour, of democratic idealism, culture, and major contributions to arts, letters, and science. Germany's reputation for these things was why so many people refused for so long to credit reports of Nazi atrocities. It was not that difficult to get the Germans to return to their roots once Hitler and company were removed.
The Japanese had no democratic tradition, but they did have an incredibly homogeneous society in which devotion to the central authority was a religious obligation. Ignoring calls to put the godhead - the Emperor - on trial for Japanese atrocities we instead obtained from him a directive to his people to surrender, to obey the occupiers, and not to resist in any way. Up to that point the Japanese had been training everyone, even the children, to prepare for a bloody invasion of Japan in which schoolgirls were trained and expected to rush American troops with spears and rocks. Had it not been for the decision of the Japanese, after two atomic bombs, to surrender, this is what our invading forces would have faced.
Iraq's insurgents lack any cohesion at all. They are a collection of groups with differing goals, differing ideologies, differing religious viewpoints, and no central authority. Many consider themselves patriots seeking to oust an occupier, while others think of themselves as some sort of martyr-bait for a greater future in paradise. Some are vested in destroying their religious rivals while others are promoting their tribal or family interests. Some are just criminals seeking to fill the vacuum left by our removal of a strong central authority and replacement of it with an ineffectual, weak, vascillating, and corrupt government. So how are we supposed to "stay until we complete our mission?" What IS our mission? How much more will it take - 20,000 more troops? 100,000 more troops? 200,000? What counts as "completion?"
And here's another thing - we did not use our military to turn things around in Germany and Japan. We instead kept many of their government functionaries in place and simply assisted them in building a new framework.
You should change the name of this blog to the Red Herring. Saying that this war is acceptable because less American fathers, sons and brothers are dying for no reason than in the last war we fought with no strategy and no exit plan is despicable and intellectual bankrupt.
Bill Kuster: We already won? Technically, we have won the War in Iraq. We defeated the Baathist regime and removed Hussein from power. Much like those former wars, however, we have not won over the hearts of those in Iraq. By leaving now, those who see hope in us will join many others in the country seeing the US negatively, because we gave up on them.
Catzmaw: What would you suggest instead then? As I said, I would never wish to suggest that the lives of those lost are meaningless. But however we feel about Iraq right now, only by leaving will Iraq become Vietnam; with the slow growth of internal defense by the Iraqis, they rely on us to help keep the peace. They may not be Americans, but right now, they are our responsibility. Should we abandon them now when they need us most?
And Anonymous, all I can say is wow. I listen to the left constantly complain about war. The way they go on, ANY war is wrong. They would've opposed the American Revolution (which gave us the freedoms we have today), the Civil War (which ultimately ended slavery, one of the worst blights to ever hit this country), and the World Wars as well (which again protected our rights and gave rights back to the people of many countries all over the world). The War in Iraq could prove to be one of those, that helps rid the world of radical Islam and starts a new era of peace in the Middle East, or could prove to be a new Vietnam and strengthen radical Islam to the point that we will never be able to fight them back.
The U.S. rarely loses or gives up in a war, and so far, the last two times it happened, people have suffered. Vietnam resulted in millions of deaths post-war. Korea left half the region under a dictator. If we keep fighting in Iraq, I have no doubt that we will succeed. But if history has taught us anything, giving up now would mean that not only do we lose, but the people of Iraq lose as well.
Are you all ready to give up on the people of Iraq who want a future for themselves, their families, and their country?
And here I thought that liberals gave us the Revolution, the Civil War, and both World Wars (and Korea and Vietnam for that matter). It was the conservatives who were opposed to at least the first four. Now maybe you were referring to the modern, post-Vietnam, anti-war liberalism that has a wing in the Democratic Party, but that is not the same. Conservatives have a very bad record on supporting change and liberty in America.
I find this graph interesting. It compares two things that perhaps should be compared directly. Maybe if you scaled it to the number of deployed soldiers, size of the Army, total casaulties (to account for improved medical care), etc. you might be able to have a graph stand side by side. As it is, it is just silly.
The real reason there is a problem with this war is that it is a 1% war - the President's idea of "sacrifice" is that Americans have to "suffer" by watching reporting on the evening news. If he had sold it from the outset as a real struggle with commitment across the population, then he would have more buy-in today when things aren't going so well. As it is, the war was sold (and I mean sold, because they were pushing it on us) with fear, lies and innuendo. When that is stripped away, the Administration ends up with no legitimacy on national security and leaves us vulnerable to threats of nations that really might/do have WMD like North Korea and Iran. Care to bet how much support there is in the country for strikes on Iran?
The best strategy was the one Rumsfeld had when he told his generals not to plan for an occupation because we were going to win and get out. Too bad they didn't following through on that.
Interested Observer, the liberals of yesterday are not the liberals of today. The liberals of yesterday stood for something. Now, they'd rather kneel to those who threaten us.
As I have said, mistakes have been made, but if we were going to leave, we had to leave then (though, even at that time, we would have likely seen a new regime grow from Iraq). Now, leaving would be a huge mistake. And clearly, a strike against Iran is not particularly popular. Guess we'll have to wait for them to strike, and scratch our heads as the same people who oppose such a strike will cry "why wasn't anything done about Iraq?"
I have no problem with casualties in the pursuit of an objective. Troops should be used in offensive warfare. Having them as glorified policemen in an occupation is a bastardization.
There's a key difference Republicans keep missing here when they say this means we don't have the stomach for another World War. If this situation now, or the one in Viet Nam, were similar to how things were after we'd beaten Germany and Japan there, then yes, there would have been pressure to pull out, and the people wouldn't have stomached staying there.
Americans (and yes, even Democrats) have a lot of stomach for wars, actual wars, where we're fighting an enemy in regular military action trying to defeat them. How many Democrats do you hear demanding we pull out of Afghanistan, even though we've lost more people there than we did in Somalia before Republicans began demanding we pull out and threatened to cut off funding to our men and women in harm's way?
What bothers people about Iraq is that first, most Americans don't feel like we belonged there in the first place. But moreover, the enemy we came there to fight (Saddam Hussein and his government, a fight that I, as a Democrat, still believe to this day was righteous, just, and necessary) has been beaten. We WON, but now we're still embroiled in fighting there. I guarantee you, if this had happened after World War II, the Greatest Generation would have done the exact same thing Americans are now.
It's not the number of dead, its the necessity of their sacrifice that matters.
As a side note, this is my explanation for why I don't believe current attitudes mean we can't stomach another World War... these aren't my attitudes per say. I don't think a withdrawal is intelligent... But, I'll be the first to say that I don't know what WOULD work... and that fact alone, to me, spells quagmire.
"Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for if it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and lost it, have never known it again." President Ronald Reagan
"If we don't stand our ground now, on whose ground will we stand in the future." Joanne Cline July, 19 2002
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