Is the concept of winning so important to Americans we cannot see the moral delemma it places us? Why must winning always be achieved ahead of a solution that does the right thing? Do we confuse winning with doing the right thing?
I am thinking about Iraq, and the reasons we are in the war. We have heard them a hundred times and they have been changed several times to suit the Republican Neocon needs. I have have never heard any involving attaining the peace with Middle East players in negotiations. We are in a war a very few people wanted, and for their own agendas. They gave us unpolished rhetoric of fear about why we should invade a sovereign nation with a premptive strike. Fear is always a good, short term tactic, but we can tire of living with it. Topping the list was our "national security or our national interests,"which equates to just one word...OIL! What other interests do we have there!
We did not invade Iraq because they were behind 9/11, that case has been proven untrue. We didn't invaded Iraq to get their WMD's, that case is false . We didn't invade Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, he was never a threat to us. In fact, at one time he was an American ally, we gave him chemical weapons to use in his fight against Iran. So, forget that one. We didn't go to war to free an Islamic society by giving them democracy. They do not want it and resent us for pushing it on them.
The Iraq Islamic fundamentalists are satisfied with who they are. We are not! They have had internal strife with religious, tribal frictions and a government that refuses to work with a cohesiveness that makes a sovereign nation function. The Middle East has been working, fighting together in some sort of toleration for two thousand years or more. Why do we not let well enough alone, and allow them solve their own problems without our interference! By stepping in, we insert our country into the familiar situation of what happens when a person intervenes in an argument between a husband and wife. They both gang up on the interfering person.
Most of all, let us remember we did not invade Iraq to pursue peace. our sheer American presence on their soil prevents that from happening. Occupiers are never welcome. They resent us because they consider us infidels on their sacred land. They know we want their oil. To accomplish that we have to win militarily. This is insane especially when everyone agrees no peace can be achieved by a military force. Only by a political solution can peace come about. We cannot control their oil politically. Part of the political equation we do not seem to understand is the the Iraqi's want the American presence out of their country. Period!
We have achieved all the stated reasons Bush said he went to war, now he is simply finding new ones for us to stay there. Today, the rhetoric is of winning the surge and future bases of operations in Iraq. We have overtaxed our troops with multiple rotations, we have decimated Iraq so badly we are now in a nation building posture. Putting our treasure into Iraq when these resource should be going to solve our own country's problems. The American people are sick of that attitude. They want a change!
So what are we winning? As Senator McCain intimates we will be there as long as it takes, even if it is a hundred years. (Does guarding oil wells mean anything?) As a military man he thinks in terms of winning, not in terms of a political peace. That idea is very worrisome, especially for a politician to speak of military might equating to meaning "right."
However, the military people in Baghdad do not believe we can win with a military occupation, the Iraq problem can only be solved politically. The surge is an effort to buy the Iraq government time to reach a political solution. In almost a year they have not done so. It is not realistic to say the surge, as intended is remotely working. We do not have the political guts to pressure the Iraq government to a political reconstruction solution. In five years they have refused to coalesce, knowing the Bush administration and our troops will be there to bail them out, and do their fighting, trying to win a war we cannot win. Iraq has no time ultimatum. It is open ended. We have put no pressure to Iraq's government. A little goes a very long way with Bush.
The Bush administration really does not want a political solution in Iraq. We want their oil! Perhaps that is why winning is so important that we will stay and fight to get it. It's matter of occupation, and manipulation of a sovereign nation and its people. It is a Republican Neocom game with extremely high stakes.
