Analysis: Iraq is no Vietnam

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

All I did was post the report.

Actually, you didn't. You posted the cherry-picked portions that the White House chose to declassify to limit the political fallout created by the discussion of the summary in the NYT. Remember that the NYT came out with this before the White House declassified any portion of the report. Either way, you pasted the portions that the White House wanted the public to see rather than "the report". That's all that is available unless you have some special clearance to access the classified stuff in which case you probably wouldn't post it here.

Tha said, your entire "...argument steps around the implicit question raised by the intelligence finding: whether postponing the confrontation with Saddam Hussein and focusing instead on securing Afghanistan, or dealing with issues like Iran’s nascent nuclear capability or the Middle East peace process, might have created a different playing field, one in which jihadists were deprived of daily images of carnage in Iraq to rally their sympathizers." NYT

Edited November 20, 2006 by ET-US2004

[Carol&Marc 0]

All I did was post the report.

Actually, you didn't. You posted the cherry-picked portions that the White House chose to declassify to limit the political fallout created by the discussion of the summary in the NYT. Remember that the NYT came out with this before the White House declassified any portion of the report. Either way, you pasted the portions that the White House wanted the public to see rather than "the report". That's all that is available unless you have some special clearance to access the classified stuff in which case you probably wouldn't post it here.

Tha said, your entire "...argument steps around the implicit question raised by the intelligence finding: whether postponing the confrontation with Saddam Hussein and focusing instead on securing Afghanistan, or dealing with issues like Iran’s nascent nuclear capability or the Middle East peace process, might have created a different playing field, one in which jihadists were deprived of daily images of carnage in Iraq to rally their sympathizers." NYT

ET and Erekose are very passionate and strongwilled about their ideals. Between the two of them they know "ALL" about everything especially if they read it somewhere, oooops! If they read it enough times!

I know of another man thats just as passionate bout what he beleives and I would bet my life he knows a HE!! of lot more about whats goin on in the world than these two aforementioned political hacks.

Call him Mr. President

[aussiewench 9]

[peezey 0]

Perspective is a wonderful thing. Those of us that lived through the Viet Nam conflict know that Iraq and Vietnam have only one thing in common: they're both wars. That's where the "sameness" ends.

We've lost 3k soldiers in Iraq in 4 years, a remarkably small number compared to the Viet conflict whereby we lost 55k over the same span.

The outrage over the "soaring" losses in Iraq are simply an exaggeration with little or no perspective. Soldiers die in war. That's a sad fact. The enemy plays the U.S. public like a badly tuned musical instrument, each time they pull or pluck a string we scream and whine GET OUT!

Place the worst of news on our TV's every night, replete with dead children and dead U.S. soldiers and the Americans will soon react in outrage- less any sensible perspective- and demand to get out by any means.

The enemy obviously knows this. We are, as a nation, sadly predictable.

Their campaign and strategy to win this war is thus far successful as they've learned from our Vietnam experience but apparently we did not.

So, here we go again; we are committing the same stupid mistakes allowing ourselves to be duped and manipulated by lots of leftist propaganda from both the enemy and our own media.

Here's a good analytical article comparing Iraq to Vietnam. It's a good read to gain some perspective regarding mission and casualties.

Is Iraq Another Vietnam? Not for U.S. Troop Levels

So, the Generals should get back to us when the death toll is 55k? We can reconvene talks then about how it's ***gasp*** still unwinable, but thankfully 12x more people have died so we could know for sure?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

All I did was post the report.

Actually, you didn't. You posted the cherry-picked portions that the White House chose to declassify to limit the political fallout created by the discussion of the summary in the NYT. Remember that the NYT came out with this before the White House declassified any portion of the report. Either way, you pasted the portions that the White House wanted the public to see rather than "the report". That's all that is available unless you have some special clearance to access the classified stuff in which case you probably wouldn't post it here.

Tha said, your entire "...argument steps around the implicit question raised by the intelligence finding: whether postponing the confrontation with Saddam Hussein and focusing instead on securing Afghanistan, or dealing with issues like Iran’s nascent nuclear capability or the Middle East peace process, might have created a different playing field, one in which jihadists were deprived of daily images of carnage in Iraq to rally their sympathizers." NYT

ET and Erekose are very passionate and strongwilled about their ideals. Between the two of them they know "ALL" about everything especially if they read it somewhere, oooops! If they read it enough times!

I know of another man thats just as passionate bout what he beleives and I would bet my life he knows a HE!! of lot more about whats goin on in the world than these two aforementioned political hacks.

Call him Mr. President

Do you have any contribution other than your usual mud throwing? Any substance there? Anywhere?