A forum poster elsewhere writes: “ Senator R. Lugar, the ranking Republican member on the Foreign Relations Committee yesterday said we have to get out of Iraq. Senator Warner will be next. Put a fork in the Iraq war, it is done. Get our troops out of harms way, rather making them sitting ducks in a shooting gallery. Pick up your military toys and go home. This is not a game, many innocents are getting killed for a war that never should have happened.”
I certainly agree that Senator Lugar’s recent statement and ongoing lack of support for the efforts underway in Iraq (if not downright undermining them) are very sad and unfortunate.
However, the entire point of the current operation is that our troops, and certainly WE, are not simply “sitting ducks”, waiting for the next jihadic attack by those driven with an ideology of Islamist domination.
Iraq, and Operation Arrowhead Ripper, and the current troop “surge”, are all about taking the fight TO the enemy, to demoralize and defeat them, and not just waiting to be picked off at their convenience.
Bob is quite correct in one respect. This is not a game. This is deadly serious stuff. The mission, and it’s success, are critically important.
There is an interesting idea entertained by many, that soldiers should only go to places where no one is going to shoot at them.
This neglects the important recognition that a soldier’s primary job is specifically to deal with situations where they are most likely going to be shot at.
Their willingness and ability to deal effectively, professionally, and successfully with such situations is a critical deterrent to such conflicts in the end.
Open warfare is a horrible, messy, nasty business – whether conventional, or urbanized asymetric guerilla warfare.
Those who directly engage in it risk injury and death at the hands of opponents who specifically wish to do them injury and death. Non-combatants who are caught in the crossfire, or who in the case of terroristic warfare, who are themselves considered legitimate targets, also suffer tremendously.
It is easy to say that a war “never should have happened”. NO war, “should ever happen” – and yet they do, and some of them simply must be fought.
You never go to war lightly – but once there, you don’t fight it half-heartedly. You fight to win, and to succeed in your mission.
This is not simply a matter of “can’t we all just get along”. Good heavens, we can’t even guarantee peaceful relations among members of the same family, much less between groups of people or nations. The predatory instinct is alive and will in the human species, as evidenced by the number of people who go into politics.
And who do you call to help when trouble breaks out in the home? Nine or more times out of ten, it’s the guys and gals with the guns, trained to handle the situation – each one of whom knows that domestic disputes are THE most dangerous kind of call, to them personally.
Police are injured and die combating crime. Firefighters are injured and die fighting fires. Pilots die piloting airplanes. They train and prepare to minimize the risks, but the risk remains part of the job.
Do we stop combating crime or fighting fires or flying airplanes because people get hurt and die doing those jobs? Man after all was never meant to fly.
I know. Iraq did not attack the WTC in 2001. Al Qaeda was never in Iraq (many insist) prior to the toppling of Saddam. As brutal as Saddam was, at least he kept things under control there, and kept the Iranians busy.
The Kurdish genocides apparently were not as critical to us as are say, the genocides in Bosnia, or perhaps Darfur.
There were 23 legislated reasons approved by a large majority for removing the Saddam regime. Mission accomplished.
Having won that war, however, it is now incumbant upon us to ensure that we (and “we” includes our new Iraqi allies) sustain and preserve that victory, in the face of other ideological forces who seek to exploit and destabilize the situation to their own advantage.
The Islamists are not stupid. They know that they cannot prevail in a straight-out, head-to-head fight. They lose every time. Nor can they prevail against a united, resolute, and sustained effort by the Western nations to resist and defeat their brand of theocratic fascism.
Their only hope then is to follow the proven strategy of the North Vietnamese to muddy the waters and undermine the public resolve to carry on the fight. They don’t have to win – they only have to convince enough of us to quit – not to fight – not to resist. Resistance, after all, is futile.
In that, they have so far been remarkably successful, going so far as to get leading members of Congress, pundits, and the media to publicly declare that “the war is lost”, and that “we can’t win”.
Politics, it has been said, makes for strange bedfellows. Reid and bin Laden – who knew?
The attacks of 9/11 were a wake-up call. Not just that the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban in Afghanistan was harboring and supporting an Islamist terror group with the desire and ability to launch an attack on the US mainland, but a wake-up to a reality that Israel, the Philippines, and much of the rest of the world has been facing for quite some time – that there exist people in the world with a fanatical and violent desire to impose a world order that is antithetical to Western principles of liberty, justice, and peace.
The war we won is not the war we are now faced with. Iraq has become the new epicenter of Al Qaeda, precisely because THEY understand it’s strategic importance to them psychologically, as well as financially and as a potential safe haven.
Defeat and failure for the Islamist cause in Iraq will be tremendously demoralizing for an expansionist ideology that explicitly equates military victory with the divine favor of Allah.
Bob of course will not be convinced. His vitriol and hatred for George Bush, Richard Cheney and anything vauguely Republican are total and complete, and overrule anything approaching reason.
Every day is a struggle. The enemy is intelligent and determined. On some days they achieve their goal of an explosive and well-publicized success, and are rewarded by sympathetic coverage that, “Tokyo Rose”-like, attempts to undermine public resolve to oppose them.
On balance, however, and in spite of a partisan political spirit of defeat and despair, things are far less grim in Iraq than one would tend to believe listening the the prevalent media spin.
The overall movement is toward national reconciliation, and against the Islamist extremists. Continued consistent effort in all areas will continue to result in victory in the short run, and success in the long run, for ourselves, and the Iraqi’s.
Withdrawing and giving up before the job is finished certainly does not honor, and does not even support the troops who have dedicated themselves to the success of their mission.
The quickest way to enable their homecoming is to give them everything they need to succeed completely in their mission, including our complete support for their mission. That in itself sends a powerful message to the enemy.
