We're BEAT in Iraq, Turn Tail and Run

[mopaul]

call me a coward and a pussy and a traitor, just don't call me late for dinner, and don't call me collect.

[eleny]

1. at least that way they can't call you dead

[mopaul]

2. run away, run away, live to fight another day

[Jacobin]

3. Here's the way it has to work in Murka

By 2008, there will be 6,000 plus dead americans and the presidential election will be mostly about how to have 'peace with honor'(tm). The Dems to win, will talk about ramping up the troop level so we can 'win' the war and so they can 'out-tough' the republicans.

The dems will win, it matters not which one.

The dems will then escalate and lose more killed and wounded in action.
In 2012, the next president (doesn't matter whether its tweedle Republican or tweedle Democrat) will run on a platform of 'peace with honor'(for real this time) and we will turn tail and run, pretending that the puppet government we installed can stand on its own, which will collapse within weeks.

See how easy that is?

That's how a war is lost in Murka!!

[wiggs]

4. The only way the pug administration can...

get out of this with any semblance of integrity is to claim that something far more important will cause us to divert manpower and money away from Iraq. We should be worried about this.

Otherwise, they are in until at least after the 2006 elections. Then the dems can get us out and blame the neocons for the disaster.

The US has a 300 billion dollar investment in Iraq...the administration, and maybe even dems, will have a hard time giving up on that even though most of it has already found it's way home to US corporations.

[Straight Shooter]

5. Yeah, and let's brand both cheeks with a red flaming "W"

I hear ya, mopaul, I hear ya.

:toast:

[EVDebs]

6. Not really. Just pull out troops when the Iraqi government say that

"All foreign troops should be pulled out". Retreat strategically to Kuwait and Qatar etc. and wait. Those 'foreign insurgents' will end up being some of the first casualties in the ensuing civil war.

There will soon be car-bombings in Sunni areas just as in the Shia areas and the Green Zone will be a zoo.

Then the Shia/Kurd majority will want vengeance and Saddam, remember him, he'll be executed once handed over for 'trial' to the new government.

The similarities to Vietnam are all there over thirty years later. The US military doesn't seem to demand that the Powell Doctrine be followed. The minute this 'preemption' doctrine of Bush gets removed the better off we'll all be in the long run.

[libodem]

7. I'd like the pull out to start now

we can't get these kids home soon enough. The 12 month tours are inhumane and its only done to the Army kids. This war is taking a huge toll on peoples personal lives. As well as living under constant threat. What a strain. The soldiers that aren't being killed or wounded are being destroyed mentally and emotionally by divorces and home problems.

[mopaul]

8. yes, but all signs point to things gearing up

you know they WON'T do the right thing

[mopaul]

9. at this point, everyone who dies will have died to save face

which can't be done. we have shit in our own nest, just like nam

[KharmaTrain]

10. Damn Sad Part Is We're Headed Toward Cut & Run

ala Saigon, 1975.

The military is taking a big strain and it's inevitable it's gonna hit a breaking point. We still haven't hit the point where the grunts feel totally used, but that day is rapidly approaching. We still haven't hit where the majority of the sheeple want to create enough noise to force this regime to even consider some kind of end game to this charade. Right now this is a blind alley.

This regime's hubris has alienated so many allies in the region and made that area so dangerous, no outside nation will go in to replace us and the continued drain on our military resources will lead to greater demoralization of our troops...the worse the moral, the more embolden the insurgents become.

There's one aspect that makes this very different than Vietnam...we still don't know who we're fighting. If we were to cut and run, who would take power? If this is some coordinated effort (and some of it has to be to be as effective as it is), who fills the vacuum?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. They need more running shoes "on the ground" since boots won't do it.

The world's "mightiest military" is a flop at guerilla war, just like they were in '68.

[Johonny]

12. We're not beaten

We simply have no goals, objectives or plan. The soldiers were put in a game were the pawns that were suppose to play long enough to get GWB into the history books. Yet he forgot that the presidents that are remembered as great war presidents all had clear goals in the war they fought. If there is no point to the battle there can be no winning or losing. It just persists until we stand up to say we will no longer tolerate it...