We Won in Iraq?

[Marauder06]

We won? I thought we just took our ball and went home.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/10/29/david_petraeus_how_we_won_the_surge_in_iraq

How We Won in Iraq
And why all the hard-won gains of the surge are in grave danger of being lost today.

 

[AWP]

You really think Petreaus would man up and say we lost? His career, life, and reputation were built there. He's the Father of the Surge and was the Army's premiere COIN "expert," so we stand a snowball's chance in hell of ever seeing "we lost" from Petreaus.

We also have clowns like this:

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/artic...-of-counterinsurgency-doctrine-in-afghanistan

In sum, the essential task is deciding how to do less with less. It has been said that in Afghanistan, as in Southeast Asia 40 years earlier, the United States, with the best of intentions, unwittingly tried to achieve revolutionary aims through semicolonial means. This is perhaps an overly harsh judgment. And yet the unquestioning use of counterinsurgency doctrine, unless bounded politically, will always take the country in just such a direction. Before the next proposed COIN toss, therefore, Americans should insist on a rigorous and transparent debate about its ends and its means.

Which sounds great until you look into the guy who wrote that and his efforts epic bucket of failure in Afghanistan.

The emporer's new clothes...

 

[DA SWO]

Didn't win, didn't lose.

We defeated Saddam and his Army.
Got the locals involved election-wise.
What they elect to do with the gift we gave them is up to them.

Anything bad happen in Bosnia lately?

 

[RustyShackleford]

Exporting democracy one country at a time...

 

[Kraut783]

Democracy's not for everyone.....

Won combat operations....that seems to be the easy part, it always the after that gets us....

 

[DA SWO]

Democracy's not for everyone.....

Won combat operations....that seems to be the easy part, it always the after that gets us....

Yep
Panama
Kuwait (to some extent)
El Salvador
Haiti
Ass-crackistan
Iraq.

A modern history of post conflict failure on our part

 

[pardus]

We won? I thought we just took our ball and went home.

Oh it's a win, just like Vietnam was.

 

[Brill]

MAJOR COMBAT OPERATIONS ARE...Oh?..Vir(tually)

 

[Diamondback 2/2]

How could Iraq be defined as a loss?

The US armed forces were not defeated in Iraq. So is it a loss b/c our politics and Dept of State retards can't allow a nation to govern its own country?

Really getting tired of reading/hearing Iraq was a loss. Define how, what and where (times & locations) we lost in Iraq.

 

[pardus]

How could Iraq be defined as a loss?

The US armed forces were not defeated in Iraq. So is it a loss b/c our politics and Dept of State retards can't allow a nation to govern its own country?

Really getting tired of reading/hearing Iraq was a loss. Define how, what and where (times & locations) we lost in Iraq.

You need to take a step back from your experience mate. Your thoughts could be transplanted seamlessly to 1973/5.
We lost in Iraq, plain ad simple. Go there on vacation with your family and tell me i'm wrong.

 

[Diamondback 2/2]

You need to take a step back from your experience mate. Your thoughts could be transplanted seamlessly to 1973/5.
We lost in Iraq, plain ad simple. Go there on vacation with your family and tell me i'm wrong.

Not trying to be a dick but I think that's a bunch of crap. How is it a loss? Could you take a family there on vacation before OIF?

I really hate when people try to compare Iraq with Vietnam, as the two were totally different wars.

 

[AWP]

You can win on the battlefield and still lose a war. War is a continuation of politics.

Our desired end state changed as we needed it to. We created a victory in word, not deed.

Iraq was an L and Afghanistan will be no diffferent. The people and factions we fought are still in country and in some cases in the government we left behind.

If we accept Iraq as a victory then we also have to accept that how we fought that war, militarily and politcally, was right.

As to Iraq and Vietnam, there are a number of similarities so limited comparisions are appropriate.

 

[DA SWO]

You can win on the battlefield and still lose a war. War is a continuation of politics.

Our desired end state changed as we needed it to. We created a victory in word, not deed.

Iraq was an L and Afghanistan will be no diffferent. The people and factions we fought are still in country and in some cases in the government we left behind.

If we accept Iraq as a victory then we also have to accept that how we fought that war, militarily and politcally, was right.

As to Iraq and Vietnam, there are a number of similarities so limited comparisions are appropriate.

Here is my lesson from Iraq and Afghanistan:

Don't go in, unless you intend to conquer.
Don't conquer. unless you are willing to rule.

 

[TLDR20]

. Go there on vacation with your family and tell me i'm wrong.

I doubt Germany and Japan were prime vacation spots for a few years post WW2(we won), while Vietnam is a great place to vacation now(we lost). Your example def was not the strongest there. I do t think vacation rentals are a good metric of W's and L's.

 

[pardus]

Not trying to be a dick but I think that's a bunch of crap. How is it a loss? Could you take a family there on vacation before OIF?

I really hate when people try to compare Iraq with Vietnam, as the two were totally different wars.

You're not being a dick at all.
Actually yes, you could take your family to Iraq pre OIF in perfect safety. I was actually offered a temp job there in 2000. Saddam was a prick but he kept things stable. How many Jews are there in Iraq now? how many were there pre OIF? Saddam protected them. How many bombs were going off in the street pre OIF?

The loss was a political one, not a Military one (just like Vietnam).

 

[Brill]

I doubt Germany and Japan were prime vacation spots for a few years post WW2(we won), while Vietnam is a great place to vacation now(we lost). Your example def was not the strongest there. I do t think vacation rentals are a good metric of W's and L's.

I would time share the shit out of Grenada.

 

[Diamondback 2/2]

Operation Iraqi Freedom was a military operation in the Global War on Terrorism. Although we refer to it as the "war in Iraq" technically it was not an independent war. The objectives of OIF were met by the Military and thus it was in fact a "win".

Now the political failures in Iraq started way before OIF and do continue, but that doesn't IMO, make OIF a loss. War is not a continuation of politics, war is the measure used when politics has broken down. We can't work out our differences, so now we will fight them out. Where politics comes back into play, is when the winner of that war, allows the occupied nation to take a role in the occupation and or post war governing of the defeated nation.

If we use the "war in Iraq" definition, than I cannot see how Iraq could ever be considered a loss, as we defeated the country, occupied it and turned it back over to the Iraqis successfully. What they do with it, is up to them. If our politics break down again (and I think they have) then we are faced with a choice of doing a repeat, or waiting for the politics to become favourable for both of us. I don't think we will be doing the repeat, so we are going to have to wait until that country figures out its own politics.

Vietnam was a war between two nations North & South. We did not invade either nation, we did not occupy either nation, and after we withdrew our assistance to the South, the south was invaded and taken by the North. Loss or Win, is hard to claim when we technically were never at war. That's not to say we did not fight battles in the region, however, I think most will agree that we won those.

The overall point I am making here, is that from a technical standpoint we won in Iraq, and that I have yet to see any factual or technical information to support that it was anything but a win...

 

[Marauder06]

If we want to have a discussion over whether Iraq is a win or a loss, we should probably begin by establishing what the strategic national objectives were for Iraq.

 

[Brill]

If we want to have a discussion over whether Iraq is a win or a loss, we should probably begin by establishing what the strategic national objectives were for Iraq.

I'll bite:

1) To kill people and break their stuff (check)

2) To deny AQ access to chem-bio weapons (delayed)

3) To deny AQ a santuary (just moved the chess pieces around)

3) To get some payback for Sah-Damn trying to kill President Bush (check and mate!)

 

[Marauder06]

How about some original source material that describes our objectives from like 2008 on?