Home > "Victory" can never be
Wars and conflicts International USA
I still remember the advertising slogan for Tobe Hooper’s horror classic "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" WHO WILL SURVIVE AND WHAT WILL BE LEFT OF THEM?
This phrase prompts me to consider something which hasn’t been written about yet. We’ve talked at length about US troops coming home and the trauma they’ve experienced (coupled with various "mysterious" diseases which will inevitably kill them), but haven’t said a single word about WHY the US cannot possibly "win" the "war" in Iraq by "staying the course", or attempting to rebuild the torn and wrecked infrastructure (as promised by Bush), or by "routing the insurgents". It simply cannot be done. It is an impossible task.
One of the main reasons is the hatred the people have for us and the rest of the dopey "Coalition of the Willing". They don’t hate us for our "freedoms", but for the horrors we foisted upon them and their relatives. Not only that, but thousands of surviving families (as in Fallujah) were displaced,and over a half a million professional who could afford it, have left the country because of insecurity, the direct result of our poor planning and wretched, cruel, mindless occupation policies.
When and if hostilities ever cool down (often estimated at from 10-20 years), the country will stil be a mess and the population still traumatized, sick (DU?) and discouraged. The life they once knew...Saddam or no Saddam..is not likely to return.
In the end the US will find some way to save face (the Iraq PM is making overtures right now), and can pull out gradually claiming "victory for democracy"
Colonel Potter, in M.A.S.H. (the Korean War TV show), had an expression for what the government always tells their citizens,especially in time of conflict:
"Mule Muffins!"
Forum posts
27 June 2006, 06:15
If the PM of Iraq is talking about the ability of the Iraqi forces to protect the people thus allowing foriegn troops to come home, is not that the goal and movment in a positive direction? I think so.
27 June 2006, 16:49
Foreign troops, i.e. which really means the US military, obviously, since their strength makes up over 90% of the coalition, are the REASON why Iraq is in a midst of a civil war. You remove all foreign troops, and you will reduce dramatically the violent death rate of this long suffering nation.
The US did not invade and occupy Iraq out of noble intentions, nor was this invasion and occupation about defending itself from imminent attack, since Iraq was too weak to attack anyone, no thanks to American led UN sanctions against that impoverished this nation throughout the 1990s, sanctions that eventually help kill over one million Iraqis. Also: the CIA survey group report of May, 2005 proved conclusively that no WMDs were found after searching for nearly 30 years, invalidating the disguised pretext for war.
There will be no long lasting peace if the American people do not own up to the fact that this war was nothing but a disguised annexation of a sovereign nation. To continue to blame the Iraqi people for a war that was started and maintained by the US and the ongoing civil strife it has caused is to lose sight of reality. The American people need to be aware as to how Machiavellian the Pentagon and the State Department have become. Otherwise the US will continue to use a very aggressive and murdering foreign policy, to our moral and economic detriment. This nation has long lost its shining armor, its status as ’Champion of Liberty’ since Vietnam. This nation’s foreign policy has been nothing but mercenery action done in the interest of giant American conglomerates, and the rest of the world knows this.
Scroll back to 1975, when many pro-war hawks in Congress were saying that the complete abandonment of Vietnam by the US would be a catastrophe for the Southeast Asia. Well, look at the history. There was no domino effect whatsoever, Cambodia, Thailand, the Philllipines, Japan, nor Hawaii fell to the great Communist hordes. The US withdrawal from Vietnam was a catastrophe only for the military industrial complex, who were looking at their gravy train coming to a halt. But for the Vietnamese people, the complete withdrawal of US troops marked the beginning of era where the common people didn’t have to worry about yet another rocket attack in the night. To think that the withdrawal of US troops would bring Iraq further into chaos is to believe in the lie, that the US intentions in Iraq were noble, and that Iraqi people as ancient as they are, are too stupid, too impulsive, too vengeful to control their own destinies. From the knowledge we have gained in the last three years as how well the US occupation has been for common Iraqis, it is the US that has been too stupid, too vengeful, too impulsive, too uncivilized, too murdering to control the destinies of even their own people, let alone an innocent nation that had never attacked us in the first place. I cannot think of a more heinous form of denial and hypocrisy than that currently being displayed by both the US military and the American people in regards to the people of Iraq.
If the American people really cared about the misery and desperate straits of the Iraqi people, they should first stop looking at the rest of the world with the arrogant hypocrisy that has made them infamous all over the world, they must first admit to the faults of their government, and ask for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all foreign troops, i.e. US troops. Iraq is not our country, Iraq’s oil belongs to the Iraqi people and not to the US. Saying that this war is anything else but the annexation of a once sovereign nation would be a lie, and there cannot be a long lasting peace based on a lie.
29 June 2006, 21:58
VICTORY can never be with Bush. Wrong! He had huge signs printed with the word VICTORY on them to show his escape from reality. What matters is what he believes. His strutting,swaggering and smirking show that he is living in a fantasy world, protected by senators and sycophants and a couple million true believers who insist that everything is going according to the non-strategy of Bush which "stays the course" despite hell and high water, despite all the failures, death and destruction. Bush believes that our American dead soldiers are a very low cost for him and his neocons to control the world, which is worth BILLIONS of dollars. He would gladly sacrifice many thousands more to attain his imperial crown. He would gladly bankrupt our nation, our economy and destroy our environment in order to control world politics and the money that goes with it. The neocons are moral and physical cowards, who would love to give your life for their fortune.
They should all be jailed and treated like the people at Abu Ghraib in recompense for their dastardly felonious deeds. By the way, did we ever "declare" a war legally against Iraq? Did Bush ever tell anyone why he invaded Iraq? Why does Bush build billion dollar military bases and a gigantic embassy in a country he invaded thru lies?m Why does Bush declare victory and yet state that somebody else will have to win the war after he retires? Two-faced or Three-faced?