Friday, September 12, 2008

WHAT COULD VICTORY IN IRAQ LOOK LIKE?

While outgoing General Petraeus says he will never declare victory there, John McCain seems to be stuck in an outdated military thinking. This is not a typical war nor has it been run typically. Since 2006, most Americans have agreed that we will never be able to claim victory. In my memory, wars have been fought and when the loser surrenders, victory is declared. To whom should we look for surrender in Iraq? Saddam Hussein is no more (not ever having been a threat to us in the first place), but we have kept fighting. Why? The enemy isn't even in Iraq!

Why is McCain focusing on protecting Sarah Palin. Did anyone treat Hillary delicately? Did she ever describe herself as a pitbull with lipstick? Emphatically, no! Is a hockey mom without lipstick simply a pit bull? Why does McCain rarely mention Iraq and why did the RNC emphasize 9/11 and not the war when the war was conveniently manufactured, having shaken up the populace into a sufficient terror that anything was allowed after...especially by the bully type of American who thought only of punching out anyone to get revenge. Americans walked right into the spider-Cheney's web and we have been eaten alive ever since.

Osama bin Laden threatened he would break the American economy. He can now claim the only clear victory. He has succeeded due to the inability of this Administration to think of consequences. Can the USA claim a victory? Absolutely not. We succeeded in destroying the dictatorship of a country that didn't ask us to rescue them. This impulsive move destroyed almost the whole country. We allowed insurgents into Iraq who were fighting a 'war of terror' but we never really knew who they were nor was a formal war declared by any of them with the customary rules of engagement. There are, actually, rules to war as covered in the Hague Laws and the Geneva Convention though, since this is not a war to our enemy, they are not followed. We, on the other hand, consider it a war so we just choose to ignore them.

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