“I cannot support a failed foreign policy…There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory.”
-Tom Delay (R-TX)

“You can support the troops but not the president.”
-Tom Delay (R-TX)

“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is.”
-Gov. George W. Bush (R-TX)
t/h LanternWaste at DU.

Bottom line, I don’t think you can come up with a reason to stay other than Bush’s, which is to not admit that the entire project has been a disaster. And by not admitting it, and by continuing to put our young men and women in harm’s way, we increase the disaster.

I appreciate your thoughts.
seesdifferent

As for a few fallacies of yours, we always had adequate body armor, we have had to upgrade as the enemy force had upgraded their ability to cause us harm. Most troops want to stay and finish the fight, thus the hig reenlistment numbers the Army and Marine Corps are experiencing. And finally how can a war where every major battle has been won, where our enemy is tied down unable to strike us elsewhere and where the majority of the troops involved believe they will win be construed as a disaster?

I found your blog through a progressive website and wanted to check it out, I don’t know who you are, but you are way out of tocu with reality if you think the majority of soldiers don’t want to finish this fight. The appeal for redress which is an group seeking to have military personnel appeal to congress for a withdrawal has exactly 900 and some change names on it. Over 1 million total personnel have served in Iraq in the last 3 and 2/3 years and the best the appeal for redress camapign can sign up is less tha .1% of total service members that have served? I enjoy civility and good debate, but your premise is folly. If you worked with the troops daily, if you led them, if you had them as your friends you would know the truth.

Saddam was just what we made him.
And the facts are that, unlike the action in Bosnia, this war has been an unmitigated disaster for us and for Iraq. The country has suffered more deaths, torture, misery, and displacements than under Saddam. I support the 140,000 troops still in Iraq by trying to get them adequate body armor, trying to get them home, and advocating adequate health care, including psychological help, for those who have fought there. The Iraqis have expressed their desire for us to go home, have expressed that attacks on Americans are okay. We don’t know who the enemy is in Iraq. Only a handful of our civilian or military personnel understand the Arabic language, few can speak it, and only a few understand the history and culture of the area. The issues in Iraq are mostly political. More and more people in the world hate us all the time. The majority of Americans (and the troops) want a withdrawal and the end to this madness. Those are the facts. Continuing the madness is much what we did in Vietnam and it is something like delusional, and certainly a denial of the facts. The Iraq Study Group at least came to grips with the reality.
I have no way of knowing who you really are, but I can say that your ideas are not representative of our troops, our people, or the world, nor are they grounded in reality.
Best wishes and happy holidays. Thanks for expressing your views.
Seesdifferent