Blind groper wrote:To Coito
Iraq was a dubious victory in the sense that hostilities have never stopped, and the intent of the original invasion has not yet been achieved. Even today, inside Iraq, car bombs and killings are common. Since the USA has taken its armed forces out, this is no longer directed at the USA, but is still a continuation of hostilities.
Simply defeating an army is not a victory. War can be defined as a violent means of imposing another's will upon a nation. The USA used war to try to impose its will on Iraq. Defeating the Republican Guard was the easy bit. It was not a true victory, because the will of the USA is still not imposed, and opposition are still fighting back against that will.
Actually, yes, the hostilities have generally stopped. It's a violent area of the world, though, and it's not reasonable to expect that there will not be groups behaving violently from time to time.
The intent of the original invasion was to remove Saddam Hussein and to deBaathify the country, so that he would no longer be one of the "rogue states" that were considered the high risk States -- like North Korea, Iran, Syria, Libya, etc. One by one these States are being knocked down. That intent was accomplished very early on. The remainder was the inherent difficulty in creating a functioning Parliamentary democracy in a place that had seen nothing but dictatorships for, oh, 3,000+ years. However, they now have a functioning Parliamentary democracy.
It cannot be considered an "unwinnable war" just because iraqis are from time to time killing other iraqis with carbombs and such.
The USA was never seeking to "impose its will" permanently. It imposed its will during the occupation, but to succeed in creating a functioning Parliamentary democracy would be precisely to remove Iraq from being subject to the US's "will." The "opposition" is not who we were fighting in 2003 -- a few hundred people were killed in various 'insurgant' attacks in the second half of 2012. It's just something the new government has to handle.
To say that the US did not 'win' however, is not accurate. We won the military victory. We facilitated, along with our coalition allies, the creation of a new Parliamentary democracy where there had not been one -- ever. Yes, there are still forces being sent in from abroad, allied with dissaffected groups in Iraq, who are blowing some things up, but it is hardly a signifcant war.
I mean -- in 10 years in Iraq, the US lost 3,756 combatants. 375 per year. In Vietnam in a similar period, the US lost about 55,000+, 5,500 per year.
Is there another war you can point to where a country of 35 million people was invaded and mince meat made of that country's military and political regime (third or fourth largest army in the world at the time), so quickly and so bloodlessly?
Remember prior to the invasion? Many military folks and commentators were predicting tens of thousands of US body bags. The US accomplished in the spring of 2003 what, I think, no other country in the world could have accomplished so quickly and easily. The Iraq War, far from being a failure or a "loss" - has raised the bar so high on military campaigns that we probably can't even engage in another war without guaranteeing virtually no casualties.
I mean, in the Austrian campaign against Serbia in 1915, the Austrians, Germans and Bulgarians lost a combined 313,500 casualties, and the Serbians lost over 320,000. Serbia "lost." Under today's standards, the Austrians, Germans and Bulgarians would be said to have fought an 'unwinnable' war, even thought they defeated the Serbs.
The Battle of the Somme in World War 1 -- 1.2 million casualties, in one battle.
The Battle of Berlin in April/May 1945 (3 years after we're told by Euros that "the war was already won") involved about 1.2 million casualties. World War 2 -- an "unwinnable war" because of all the loss of life that it took, and the fact that a functioning Parliamentary democracy was created in west Germany....
And, think of the differences in the ways these 'past wars' were fought. In World War 2, Germany was utterly decimated. City by city, virtually, the place was flattened, firebombed etc. - there was no attempt to be neat and tidy. In today's wars, like Iraq, again the bar is raised -- we surgically take out military targets and government targets, command, control, communications and supply, and for the most part we avoid the civilians or at least try to. Naturally, many civilians still get caught in the mess - but it's nothing compared to "past wars" that you harken back to.
That's part of the reason why there is more difficulty in Iraq in eliminating all insurgency, as compared to post-WW2 Germany. Post WW2 Germany was flattened and firebombed and people were, essentially bombed into submission. It was "surrender or die." We don't have that kind of attitude anymore.
Comparatively speaking, the invasion of Iraq was a monumental victory.
