VICTORY in IRAQ?? What is Victory?? Is there any substitute for VICTORY??

[Flash]

Flash,

I know when intellectually out gunned, but Ill give it a shot anyway Sir.

Standing by to have my opinion torpedoed Sir.

Don't give me too much credit, I am assuming that you have been there and done that a lot more than I have. And this is the internets......

Q#1: The enemy is anyone hostile to American Forces occupying the GWOT Battlespace.

It gets hard to tell when they switch sides.

Q#2: Yes, Sir I do mean their religious system. If their core value system is in conflict with the US Constitution I believe it to be in conflict with human decency.. And that is as directed by the Commander's Intent. I wouldnt go on my own personal Crusade.

As long as you don't hand out religious coins or shoot a Koran.

Q#3: If baseball was their national pasttime before our Victory? Then I change my statement to " we wrote their Constitution and laws after WW2".

You got me, I concede that.

Q#4: I'm not SURE about much Sir. But Im pretty sure we ended the Shintoist belief in devinety of the Emporer as a living God.

Again, you got me. We showed the Emperor 'had no clothes', the Japanese ran with it (at least the young ones).

 

[A4sForever]

....You don't equate peace with victory?

In the larger sense ... no.

Peace can be had through appeasement and weakness. Here's a perfect example:

The picture on the left resulted in the picture on the right ... w/ the British PM mumbling something about ... "Peace for our time" ... one year later, WW2 began.

"Peace" and victory are NOT synonymous to my way of thinking ...

 

[Zissou]

Don't give me too much credit, I am assuming that you have been there and done that a lot more than I have. And this is the internets......



It gets hard to tell when they switch sides.



As long as you don't hand out religious coins or shoot a Koran.



You got me, I concede that.



Again, you got me. We showed the Emperor 'had no clothes', the Japanese ran with it (at least the young ones).

Sir, If war was easy? Liberals would do it.

 

[fusu]

zissou and flash,

the best scholarship to come out on the issue of post-war japan is likely John Dower's book "Embracing Defeat". (it won the pulitzer alongside the national book award and the bancroft prize). http://books.google.com/books?hl=en...ts=RTbR0DexlP&sig=HwWQ1VH9YgG5KiwCXVcXlFoMfpw

more than just a simple narrative on the imposition of values, the occupation should be read as a negotiation between American and japanese forces, attitudes and ideals.

dower's assertion is that the japanese constitution was an american draft that was "japanized" and over the course of the cold-war adapted into a distinctly japanese style society (notice the zaibatsu never really left power in japan despite their control of the economy and the occupational authority's initial attempts to dismantle them).

It think this kind of negotiation between japanese and american values was why the occupation worked so well. In the end victory probably could be defined IMO as a kind of "iraqized" republic.

 

[Mumbles]

For Chrissake's.....I don't see how this thread CAN'T get political

 

[A4sForever]

Sir, If war was easy? Liberals would do it.

+ 1 when my "rep gun" gets reloaded.

And it just dawned on me that "victory" is not necessarily "peace", either.

WW2 was a direct result of a botched "victory" in WW1.

25 +/- years later, we won, big time, over the entire globe in 1945, but because of a lack of focus and wrongheaded "policies", we ushered in the longest "war" we've ever been in w/ 10's of thousands of casualties -- the Cold War.

 

[A4sForever]

For Chrissake's.....I don't see how this thread CAN'T get political

Just don't bash sitting politicians while you're an active military person ... that little pleasure can be left to me, since I'm "retired".

Use your collective heads.

 

[Hozer]

Victory?

When there's an Irish pub in Fallujah that serves pigs in a blanket with Guinness.

 

[Flash]

To me, a stable country that is not a terrorist hotbed. Strategic stability, and a smaller occupying/hosted force.

Get the country more along the lines of Jordan than Iran or Saudi on the political arena.

From a strategic force standpoint, US troops stationed there like Germany or Japan, but not having to undergo constant combat operations. Give them stability while getting their economy and infrastructure operating normally.

Realistically, in that part of the world, with the local value of human life what it is to some of the LIPs, there will always be some death brought upon us when we are there for the foreseeable future. That sucks, but it is the truth.

You are smarter than you lead on, or look, you sure that your Ogre persona is not an act? Nerd?

 

[MasterBates]

I did go to GMI. Take that for what you will.

 

[usmarinemike]

Just don't bash sitting politicians while you're an active military person ... that little pleasure can be left to me, since I'm "retired".

Use your collective heads.

Sorry sir, but none of us is as dumb as all of us.

 

[jt71582]

I haven't read one that summed it up any better than MB's first. Strategic stability, from political, economic, and military standpoints. I believe in the cause, treat the ailment, not the symptom.

Forgive me for lack of eloquence, just read MB's again and I'll be glad to take his rep.

 

[HackerF15E]

I can barely read this thread through all the 'sirs' being thrown out there.

 

[Huggy Bear]

Victory the old fashioned way (from Conan's mouth, but originally paraphrased from Ghengis Khan):

"To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women."



If you want a good read on how we (the US) botched one of the biggest vicotries of our time read Charlie Wilson's War (don't bother with the movie). In a nutshell the US and Saudi footed the bill for weapons and supplies, pakistan provided logistics and training and the muhajadeen paid with their blood to bring the Soviets to their knees in Afghanistan. That was the biggest single factor in the downfall of the Soviet Union. However, once the Soviets left in '89 we stopped helping Afghanistan. That led to Civil War, the Taliban in '96, and you know what happened in 2001.

Point is, we need to stay in Iraq for the long haul. We didn't just cut and run from Iraq after the "victory" in '03 like we sorta did in afghanistan in '89. Look what happened there.

 

[KTBQ]

From a strategic force standpoint, US troops stationed there like Germany or Japan, but not having to undergo constant combat operations. Give them stability while getting their economy and infrastructure operating normally.

God help the poor souls who get PCS orders to Basra, Nasiriyah, etc.