Peace With Honor – A Reprise?
“Good evening. I have asked for this radio and television time tonight for the purpose of announcing that we today have concluded an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia.” Richard Nixon January 23, 1973
“I would describe our troops as having succeeded in the mission of giving to the Iraqis their country in a way that gives them a chance for a successful future”. Barrack Obama December 2011
Parallels are iffy things at best and I don’t want to get bogged down in quibbling over each minute detail, if you please?
Don Surber has a post up that got me thinking. He’s declared “Victory in Iraq” and that declaration troubles me.
As the United States leaves Iraq after more than 8 years of war, liberals are feeding defeat to a war-weary nation that just wants its troops to come home.
We won in Iraq. Mission Accomplished. It cost 4,500 American lives and maybe 10 times that number in Iraqi lives. The Iraqi death toll — 50,000 in 8 yearts — was a far cry from the 300,000 Iraqis killed by the Saddam Hussein regime or the million lives lost in the ill-fated Iraqi-Iranian War.
It cost taxpayers $800 billion? That works out to one-sixth of the defense spending in that time. The U.S. government now borrows $800 billion every 7 months so the argument that we drained our Treasury on this war is false and hypocritical. We drain our Treasury on “entitlement” programs.
It’s not particularly profound to want to add TIME WILL TELL to the equation.
I can’t help but wonder where we’d all be if the allies had stopped at the German border and went home?
Category: Geezer Alert!
I am not going to engage in quibbling about a declaration of victory because the traditional notion of victory—crushing the enemy until he is annihilated or he capitulates—simply does not apply here. My personal take on it is that the American men and women who served—some of whom sacrificed their lives, others limbs, and still others peace of mind—did their duty as they swore to do it. These good people took to their respective missions with selflessness, devotion, and pride. They dedicated themselves, one to the other, in the great tradition of our military . These things sound trite, I suppose, but our country is richer for their service and it is this that should be celebrated.
We won the Iraq War when we defeated Saddam and he was captured and executed. We did not do so well with the post Saddam insurgency since we thought we would be greeted as heros after his overthrow. I keep telling my liberal friends this everytime they bring it up
2-17AC #1: our country is richer for their service and it is this that should be celebrated.
I do hope you don’t (nor others here) take my post as devaluing anyone’s honorable service.
Obviously I don’t read it that way, but this is a sort of a ‘Been There, Done That’ moment for me and a few million others.
No, no, no, Zero. I did mean that at all and no one should infer that from my comment. Why do I always seem to be in trouble with you?
@4. That was supposed to read” I did NOT mean that at all….” Rats.
Whether there was a military victory in Iraq rather depends upon how one defines victory. For those of us with some age on us, the old definitions do not apply. Crushing a simply defined opponent is not possible when dealing with terrorists. No, I don’t like it but that’s life in the real world.
I am firmly in the camp which sees that our mission was successful. While our troops kept the focus “over there,” there was no repeat of a profound event in any way similar to that of 9-11. It didn’t happen. We collectively prevented it. Period.
Will that now change? Maybe, maybe not. That will depend upon our success in keeping the number of terrorists who are willing to repeat something along the lines of the 9-11 attack to an absolute minimum number and controlled somewhere other than here.
2-17AC #4: Why do I always seem to be in trouble with you?
Because you usually take the time to actually read what I’ve written. Problem is I just ain’t that good of a writer. [grin]
I used to be boringly verbose… now I’m too impatient to be as clear as I should. We’ll have to suffer through it.
Iraq was a complete victory for us. We punished Saddam’s regime for refusing to honor the terms of its surrender. Instead of installing a government of our own liking, we let the Iraqis themselves write their own constitution and choose their own leaders. And the result was a country that doesn’t threaten its neighbors or our interests in the region (whereas Saddam’s regime was a large threat to both).
A world where Stalin stopped at the German border is a very hard one to imagine (failing to grab an inch of available territory would’ve been quite out of character). Saddam was sitting next to some weak and wealthy neighbors (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia) – which is why, after losing the Iran-Iraq war, he was able to grab Kuwait to try to pay for it. A beaten-but-unconquered Germany, by contrast, would’ve had much stronger neighbors, without the same readily-available “liquid assets” to make them worth attacking. Once Hitler died or was ousted, not even Goering or Doenitz would’ve had an interest in starting up the war again.
For that reason, I think Saddam’s Iraq was *more* likely than Hitler’s Germany to threaten its neighbors again if the enemy regime had been left in place.
Alberich #8: For that reason, I think Saddam’s Iraq was *more* likely than Hitler’s Germany to threaten its neighbors again if the enemy regime had been left in place.
Thanks for taking the time to consider my question about WWII. I, obviously, consider the question a bit more complex, and tainted by actually events (history), but I had to pose it anyway for context.
OWB #6: Whether there was a military victory in Iraq rather depends upon how one defines victory.
My point in a nutshell! Sometimes the inherent flexibility of the English language is a PITA. Nuance and spin drive me crazy(ier) every day when I read the news.
Well, if we learned nothing else from the Kerry wars, we now know that we cannot possibly understand nuance in any of it’s form. Apparently you must be liberal to possess the sort of insanity that can twist simple words and phrases into meanings which would drive Daniel Webster to distraction. You know, like, how words only mean what you feel they should mean if you can, you know, gaze upon the unicorn, and, uh, hum a chorus, and all the, you know, stuff. And such.
Dude.
Nobody knows if we won the war or not because nobody knows what the point of it was.
#12: Fuck you I know what the point was. To kill bad guys, and leave behind a better place with less fuckary, for the children.
Victory: Do we have it? I know that I have my victory. I know Jaysh al-Mahdi tried to kill me and mine. I killed them. I took them in the night, put a sandbag over their head, and threw their sorry whining asses into my trunk. then off to the DHA where they’d disappear for a long long time.
“It cost taxpayers $800 billion? That works out to one-sixth of the defense spending in that time. The U.S. government now borrows $800 billion every 7 months so the argument that we drained our Treasury on this war is false and hypocritical. We drain our Treasury on “entitlement” programs.” Exact-fucking-lutely, the wars and DOD are not, and never were, bankrupting the country.
8# I agree. Nicely put.