The War is Lost? [Updated]
Actually, Bush has "officially lost" not one, but both wars, according to self-styled military expert (and comfortable armchair warrior) Andrew Sullivan. His "proof" is a recent report that Al-Qaeda has recently recovered much of its strength. I don't doubt the report, but it's hardly a real victory for them.
He also claims Bush lost "almost every ally". That's certainly news to nearly every member of the coalition who are still deployed along with the US; only Spain and Italy have completely withdrawn their forces. That's also news to the Germans and the French, who in the last couple of years booted out vitriolic anti-American leaders in favor of ones much more supportive of the US. Of course all is not perfect - What we have lost since 9/11 is a good deal of world sympathy, as well as worldwide support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, I don't believe that generating sympathy was really our goal from the beginning, and world support for the Iraq war was actually pretty weak to begin with.
Anyway, let's run this logic down: Al-Qaeda is still running strong, so we have lost.
Oh wait a minute, we are still here too, and as strong as ever. So are the UK and Israel (two other of Al-Qaeda's biggest enemies). So does that mean that Al-Qaeda has also lost?
Is it possible we are both losers? But there's a contradiction here. Since we're at war, if one side lost, hasn't the other side won..? Ouch - these syllogisms are going to make my head hurt...
As I wrote awhile back, the war is actually a stalemate. A recent assessment of the progress in Iraq also agrees; On 18 benchmarks, 8 show progress, 8 do not, and 2 are mixed. So we're running 50%, which means the situation is essentially unchanged. Is that a victory for Al-Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgents? Certainly not in their book. Still, we could do better.
Now, the reality is, either we will decisively defeat the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan or we will leave before the job is totally finished. We can't stay there forever. But even if we pull out, Al-Qaeda has far from "won". In Iraq, they would still have to deal with the Shia militias who greatly outnumber them, and I don't think the Shias would be as gentle in their war as we have been.
Has Al-Qaeda even achieved any of it's goals at all? Nope, not a one.
Of course, as Reason.com points out, terrorists are still, well, terrorizing people as much as ever. Terrorists, by definition, terrorize, but it's a means to an end, not the goal itself. Hamas is not satisfied with scaring the Israelis, they would prefer to boot them all from the country altogether. Al-Qaeda is not satisfied with just frightening the Christian West; their true goal is a one world Islamic state. Terrorizing people is the easy part. The harder part is actually getting tangible results from your campaign.
Otherwise, the US could just switch to terrorism and rack up a few "victories" of our own. It's tempting sometimes.
Update 13/07/2007 12:45:00 PM: The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today eloquently pointing out the problems with using benchmarks to measure progress in Iraq. Frankly, soldiers on the ground, and especially the Iraqis themselves, simply know when things are getting better or worse. But it hard to quantify these things in a mass-consumer digestible format.
Also, today the US House of Representatives voted to order a troop pullout from Iraq within four months. They would need at least a 2/3rds majority to override a presidential veto, and they just aren't going to get it, particularly in the Senate. This is the time for the White House and Congress to try to hammer out a compromise, not waste our time passing bills that are never going to become law.
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5 comments:
What the US has lost and will have to work for decades to regain is the goodwill it squandered in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001. The war in Afghanistan had the support of far more countries and the sympathy of far more of their citizens than Iraq ever did. Still they blundered in, fudging the facts and hyping the lies just like in the first Gulf War. (Does anyone even remember the Hill & Knowlton "killing babies in their incubators" scam from that war?)
Your look at the war as if it were nothing more than a baseball game where who's on first and what's on second is more important than stopping the carnage comes as no surprise.
There is indeed a problem claiming that we have lost the war in Iraq or Afghanistan. Since it is still going on, we can't say we've lost. I mean, technically speaking, even though it's the ninth inning and the St. Louis Cardinals are getting creamed something like 12 to 2, they haven't yet lost the game. So, in that respect, you are definitely right.
Nevertheless, the underlying point, that we are losing, and badly, is unaddressed.
Just ask yourself this: After 4+ years of war, if your enemy is as strong as it was on day 1 of the war, are you winning or losing the war? Odds are, you are losing since you are dang sure not winning.
Additionally, we aren't nearly as strong now as we were at the beginning. Check our debt level lately? The credit card is that much closer to being maxed out. Oh yeah, then there is that constant complaining that the military is overstretched and that we are running low on equipment.
Finally, exactly what does it say about us that we are at a stalement with a foe that has as its major base a third world nation that is somewhere just past the stone age? I'm sure China and N. Korea are quaking in their boots at the prospect of going up against us given our showing over the last four years, aren't they? :(
PEACE!
To doa70 (Mike):
Thanks for dropping in!
After 4 years of war, since we are also as strong as we ever were, even more so actually, then that means we are winning too?
Running up debt is not really a measure of failure. During WWII, the US racked up twice as much debt as a % of the economy as we have today. Plus, the public debt, which shot up right after 9/11 has basically leveled off the last few years.
You make a good point that what does a stalemate mean when we are fighting such a primitive enemy? But think of it like killing mosquitos. When there are swarms of them, its easy to kill all you want. But there gets to a point where they become so few and dispersed that you can't find them and kill them faster than they are reproducing. Does that mean they won?
The insurgents in Iraq have also not acheived any of their goals (causing govt to collapse, preventing elections, driving the US out, setting up a shia/sunni religious govt, etc). They can't even openly control any territory for more than a couple days at most before they are forced to flee or be wiped out.
I'm sure China and North Korea already knew that they could wear us down through a long guerilla campaign, a la Vietnam, but I don't think they are wild about trying it out (of course, neither are we).
As a military man, you should know thoroughly two simple truths:
1. It is easier to destroy than to create.
2. It is easier to take ground than to hold ground.
We have won decisively in Iraq already, in the old-school sense, by simple virtue of the fact that we sacked their capital in two weeks, killed the two princes who wanted to rape the President's daughters, captured the king & killed him.
That is old-school victory. Simple.
We've won already, right?
The stalemate is caused by the fact that we're trying to hold ground. That is difficult.
It is also difficult to use the best tool of destruction ever created - the US military - to try to *build* a society instead of destroy it.
If that is how *we* define victory, which it seems to be, then *by our own definition* we will most likely lose.
Is it possible we are both losers? But there's a contradiction here. Since we're at war, if one side lost, hasn't the other side won..? Ouch - these syllogisms are going to make my head hurt...
The purpose of war is to achieve geopolitical objectives.
Nobody won the First World War.
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