How do we 'win' a war in Iraq that has no clearly defined long term objective?

[Angry Mollusk]

Bush lied us into the war in Iraq- exploiting the fear and paranoia created in the wake of 9/11. The administration claimed there was a connection between 9/11 and Iraq. (Yet many right wingers now assert that claim was never made, other right wingers assert Saddam was behind 9/11)
The 9/11 connection was discredited soon enough, then the reason changed to the imminent threat of WMD. Iraq had weapons at one point- How do we know? We sold them to Iraq! But they were detroyed in the early 1990s.
The administration painted visions of mushroom clouds and did eveything to scare the crap out of the american people, suggesting Iraq had the means to launch an attack. Were WMD ever found? Nope....
(yet the right wing, in rewriting history asserts we found WMD)

Then the reason for the invasion was to depose Saddam Hussein. Hussein was a brutal dictator- but it was never mentioned how for years he was a US puppet, and had been backed and supported by the CIA since the 1960s. One reason the rest of the world was so suspicous about this justification was because they knew what the american press would never discuss- Saddam Husein was a former US puppet stooge....
Bush made it clear that the findings of the weapons inspectors were irrelivant, the invasion would happen anyway.

Why Tony Blair allowed a great nation like the UK to be on Bush's leash is beyond me. Bush used Blair, and Blair's reputation suffered for it, and British soldiers died for nothing...

Okay, Saddam is deposed. Is the war in Iraq over?
Nope....we are there to.....bring stability??....
Okay, how is this acheived, when ours is a foreign army occupying a soverign nation-that never attacked us? Imagine now if a foreign army occupied the US or the UK- whatever their intentions were- good or bad, gurenteed people would take up arms to defend their homeland and their families. Today, anyone who tries to defend themselves in iraq is labled a terrorist....
The right wing Republicans insists that the ONLY reason Iraqis are shooting back is because 'they hate freedom'. Don't you think the Iraqis would be unhappy that their fellow citizens (or family members) are subject to arrest, imprisonment and torture without due process? The people in Iraq are human beings, and it's understandable they want the invading army to leave.
These right wing Republicans have no bloody idea what freedom means. These are the same people who think dissent is a threat to freedom- when the truth is dissent IS freedom.

Right now in Iraq, I guess we are waiting for 'the surge' to work.
Then what? I have heard many right wingers argue we need to stay in Iraq 'until we kill all the terrorists'. Again, they seem to lack the intelligence to realize terrorism is a tactic of fighting, not a defined number of people. And what scares me is the right wing is very loose on who they lable a terrorist. They have called American citizens-namely liberals-terrorists simply for engaging in dissent.
Assuming there isn't a calamity that results in the postponement of the election, I pray a Democrat will win (Hopefully Obama). Because if Mccain wins, the war will spread to Iran, and that may have a domino effect that will result in WW3. As I mentioned in a different thread, I don't think many of these right wing war mongers really care who we kill, so long as the killing continues, and so long as the people being killed are Muslim. The venom aimed at Muslims is out in the open, and one local right wing talk show host wished for 'a rain of nukes' to be dropped on Iran.

When will this campaign of killing end?
WHAT is the objective of the war in Iraq????

McCain asserts we can't leave until we 'win'. What is there to win? What the hell is the objective at this point???

[madokie]

1. when all the defiant Iraqi are dead then we will simply occupy until the oil runs out

for trying to protect their homes they are vilified and murdered by our soldiers at the orders of the cic.

[hobbit709]

2. It's not a war

It's an OCCUPATION. I gave our local CBS station an earful after watching the news where they called it "The Battle For Iraq"

[Cosmocat]

5. YEP ...

has been since Baghdad was taken ...

The flag was captured ...

thousands of years of war, and that was how the game was played ... A military force from one sovereign state takes the territory of another sovereign state and "wins" the war ... Everything after that is an occupation ...

Until now, of course, if you are a republican ...

[Jawja]

3. Thank you for your commentary.

There IS an objective in Iraq: to control the oil fields and to set up military bases to further the goal of PNAC.

But they can't tell the American People this - who are paying for it in treasure and blood - because we might not agree with this agenda. Spreading "freedom and democracy" is a smokescreen to convince Joe Sixpack that the cause is moral and worthy. It's total horse shit. True, it is a "war" we can never "win" because winning a war is not the objective. The "war on terror" is a con job to sell the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan, and if things go by the PNAC plan, Iran.

Establishing an occupation where the resources are controlled and military outposts are maintained in the oil-rich Middle East are the objectives.

[KharmaTrain]

4. The Powell Doctrine Bass Ackwards

This invasion has become a Catch-22...and a lethal one. Supposedly our military has won or is winning, yet troops remain because there is some objective yet to be achieved that has never been defined. It's the total contradiction of the Powell doctrine...with Powell himself complicit in this clusterfuck.

There is no endgame here as things currently stand as there is no benchmark of what constitutes "peace" and an end to the "threat of terrorism". Is it a stable government (puppet), total sugjugation of the country's resources by friendly corporations? The longer this charade goes on, the more muddled any "victory" can be and the more demoralized the nation and the military becomes. It's an end-sum game that the Iraqis are surely measuring as to when to end the so-called "truce" and amp up the violence and attacks. It's not if...just when...and they're rested and determined to resist continued American military presence on their soil. The problem now is to find a way to get out without further endangering the peril position this regime has put the military in.

Try asking a repugnican to describe "victory" and you'll hear some high-minded or biblical definition, but ask for specifics and listen for the crickets. The right wing plays this "patriot game" to cover its real plundering and profiting from this invasion. Every day billions are squandered on pet corporations and contractors who will milk this ride to the bitter end. Then they'll be right at the door wanting to "rebuild" after the deck of cards fall in.

The objective was and still is $$$$$$. If you had loaded up on stocks of defense contractors in 2000, you'd be looking at a very nice return...and those dividends keep paying. It's a self-perpetuating game that will be hard to both break and dismantle...but giving the executive to the repugnicans for another 4 years guarantees the mess will get deeper and the costs will be a lot higher.

Cheers and welcome to DU...

[Warren Stupidity]

6. Extract all the cheap oil and go home.

We should be at mission accomplished in about 30-50 years.

[baldguy]

7. Losing is staying; winning is leaving.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

8. Good Question

I and all of the other people who live in the so-called "reality-based community" have wondered about this for a LONG time. I'm convinced that the Bush (mis-)administration is merely stringing everybody along until they get whatever they want out of Iraq which, at this point, seems to be setting up a permanent strategic military presence in Iraq and a corporate takeover of Iraq's oil. McCain seems to have bought into the idea of continuing the occupation having been convinced (deluded) into believing that the only thing wrong with our presence in Iraq is that Bush didn't handle it right for the first 3-4 years and that his so-called "surge" that he has famously embraced has turned things around in Iraq for the better. I don't know if his motivations for wanting us to stay in Iraq are quite the same as Bush/Cheney but I'm sure that they're no less wrongheaded. However, none of the dwindling number of people still supporting the occupation bother to talk about what their objective is or attempt to define "victory" anymore and I'm sure that it's not accidental. What is frustrating to me (and I think everybody else) is that most people don't seem to be questioning our continued presence there even though most people in general oppose continuing our occupation and remain frustrated about our continued presence. Unfortunately, Bush's "surge" has wildly succeeded in keeping Republicans from defecting en masse to the anti-war cause and convincing the punditry (who most politicians seem to think represent public opinion) that things are "better" in Iraq and that we need to "stay the course" whatever "course" that may be. It would seem that, because of the Democrats' timidity and Bush's intransigence, we will likely remain in Iraq until at least the end of Bush's term absent a major catastrophe that causes a lot of American casualties (although that could of course have the opposite effect of drumming up more support and/or leading to an escalation of military action or troops).

[Angry Mollusk]

9. Ask a Republican why we are in Iraq, don't expect specific answers

Great post Butlerd..

Just today I called a local right wing radio show asking the host what he thought our long term objective should be in Iraq...

The answer?

'To kill all the terrorists'

By that rational, we will never leave, as anyone there who tries to defend their family or home will be labled terrorists...

Luckily though there are many people who once supported the war who have now come out against it- But do they ever admit that the left was correct all along? Of course not...

[Thothmes]

10. The same way

Lyndon Johnson was going to win the war in Viet Nam. Thousands of Americans killed, billions wasted, no end in site.

[Angry Mollusk]

11. McCain wants to expand the war with no obectives into Iran

If McCain is elected, watch out, he will try and expand the war to Iran- and will there be an objective? I doubt it- Killing for the sake of killing seems to objective for the war in Iraq, and will probrolly be the same for a war in Iran.

Vietnam was another war with very vague objectives, and a war we should never have fought.

[leftchick]

12. The objective is OIL and hegemony

until the US achieves those goals, and when they do. we are there forever.