America Loses Another War - Iraq: a shameful ass-whupping

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America Loses Another War - Iraq: a shameful ass-whupping, or just a pathetic trouncing? Ugly disgrace? Choices, choices



12/15/06 "SF Gate" - — - The good news is, we're all back in harmony. All back on the same page. No more divisiveness and no more silly bickering and no more nasty and indignant red state/blue state rock throwing because we're finally all back in cozy let's-hug-it-out agreement: The "war" in Iraq is over. And what's more, we lost. Very, very badly.

Sure, you already knew. Sure, you sort of sensed from the beginning that we couldn't possibly win a bogus war launched by a nasty slew of corrupt pseudo-cowboys against both a bitterly contorted Islamic nation and a vague and ill-defined concept that has no center and no boundaries and that feeds on the very thing that tries to destroy it. It was sort of obvious, even if half the nation was just terrifically blinded by Bush administration lies and false shrieks of impending terror.

But now it's official. Or rather, more official. Now it's pretty much agreed upon on both sides of the aisle and in every Iraq Study Group and by every top-ranking general and newly minted defense secretary and in every facet of American culture save some of the gun-totin' flag-lickin' South. We lost. And what's more, we have no real clue what to do about it.

After all, it's not easy to accept. It's the thing we do not, cannot easily hear, the thing most Americans, no matter what their political stripe, just can't quite fathom because we're so damned strong and righteous and handy with a gun and we are the superpower and the God among men and the bringer of light to the world and therefore we never lose. Except, you know, when we do.

It's not like we were overpowered. We weren't outmanned or outgunned or outstrategized and hence we weren't defeated in any "traditional" kick-ass take-names sign-the-peace-accord way.

Nor was it because our beloved, undefeatable, can't-lose military doesn't have the latest and greatest killing tools of all time, the biggest budget, the most heroic of baffled and misled young soldiers sort of but not really willing to go off and fight and die for a cause no one could adequately explain or justify to them.

We still have the coolest, fastest planes. We still have the meanest billion-dollar technology. We still have the most imposing tanks and the most incredible weaponry and the badass night-vision goggles with the laser sights and the thermal heat-seeking readouts and the ability to track targets from two miles away in a dust storm. It doesn't matter.

What we don't have is, well, any idea what the hell we're doing, not anymore, not on the global stage. We lost this "war" and we lost it before we even began because we went in for all the wrong reasons and with all the wrong planning and with all the wrong leadership who had all the wrong motives based on all the wrong greedy self-serving insular faux-cowboy BS that your kids and your grandkids will be paying for until about the year 2056.

Maybe you don't agree. Maybe you say wait wait wait, it's not over at all, and we haven't lost yet. Isn't the fighting still raging? Can't we still "win" even though we're still losing soldiers by the truckload and thousands of innocent Iraqis are being brutally slaughtered every month and isn't Dubya still standing there, brow scrunched and confounded as a monkey clinging onto a shiny razor blade, refusing to let go and free us from the deadly trap, ignoring the Iraq Study Group and trying to figure out a way to stay the course and never give in and "mission accomplished" even as every single human around him, from the top generals to crusty old James Baker to the new and shockingly honest secretary of defense, says we are royally screwed and Iraq is now a vicious and chaotic civil war and it's officially one of the worst disasters in American history? Oh wait, you just answered your own question.

Yes, technically, the "war" is still on. The fighting is not over. And yes, you can even say we (brutally, tactlessly) installed ourselves with sufficient ego to give us a modicum of violent, volatile control over the Gulf region's remaining petroleum reserves — which was, of course, much of the point in the first place.

But the nasty us-versus-them, good-versus-evil ideology is over. Ditto the numb sense of Bush's brutally simpleminded American "justice." Any lingering hint of anything resembling a truly valid and lucid and deeply patriotic reason for wasting a trillion dollars and thousands of lives and roughly an entire generation's worth of international respect? Gone.

What's left is one lingering, looming question: How do we accept defeat? How do we deal with the awkward, identity-mauling, ego-stomping idea that, once again, America didn't "win" a war it really had no right to launch in the first place? After all, isn't this the American slogan: "We may not always be right, but we are never wrong"?

It's still our most favorite idea, the thing our own childlike president loves to talk most about, burned into our national consciousness like a bad tattoo: We always win. We're the good guys. We're the chosen ones. We're the goddamn cavalry, flying the flag of truth, wrapped in strip malls and Ford pickups and McDonald's franchises. Right?

Wrong. If Vietnam's aftermath proved anything, it's that we are incredibly crappy losers. We deny, we reject, we evade and ignore and refuse responsibility until it becomes so silly and surreal even the staunchest warmonger has to cringe in embarrassment. At this point, it seems nearly impossible for America to accept defeat with anything resembling perspective and dignity and the understanding that maybe, just maybe, we ain't all that saintly and ain't all that perfect and maybe God really isn't necessarily on our side after all, because if God took sides she wouldn't actually be, you know, God.



But what happens to a country if they lose the thing that supposedly defines them most? If we don't have our bogus "victory," if we don't always win, if we don't have a sense of righteousness so strong and so inflated and so utterly impenetrable that even when it seems like we've lost, we still stumble through some sort of offensive end zone victory dance, well, what's left?

What, conscience? Humility? Humanitarianism? Or how about the realization that we could maybe, just maybe learn to be defined by something other than rogue aggressiveness and the vicious need to win? Something like, say, a mindful, flawed, difficult but oh-so-incredibly-essential move toward that most challenging and rewarding of human ideals, peace?

Yeah, right. Who the hell wants that?

Thoughts for the author? E-mail him.

Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SFGate and in the Datebook section of the SF Chronic

Last edited by manalitwist on 17 Dec 2006, 5:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks for that unbiased, enlightened article.

(sarcasm)

No no no, we declared victory in Iraq a long time ago. We just failed miserbly at post-war planning. (Post-war planning? What post-war planning? We don't need no stinking post-war planning!)

So.... What does everyone think that Bush is going to announce as his brilliant new war plan? Anyone else smell a draft coming? Just wondering...

You know it's safer to stand in a building full of enemy soldiers than it is to have American soldier anywhere near the area, they also open up fire on other countries patrol vhc's if they try and over take them,, that's the kind of stuff American soldiers give to its allies, probably be the war on them gangs that they say are terrists and are after alcida terrorist in America somewhere can't remember where... the 13 gang I think they where called or was it 18..


Also play chicken with a grenade with it's pin out...

You know, I don't necessarily think that all of this reflects as badly on the American soldiers as it does on the administration. A lot of them have been deployed multiple times, they know that they can't tell enemies from allies, and they know that there are far too few of them to get the job done. I hate this war, I hate Bush, I hate what he has done to this country and to the world. BUT, I feel for the soldiers who have to administer his B.S. policy because they can't help but go insane in those circumstances.

British soldiers are known for the best warfare or is it tactics? Anyway problem is we don't have the money...

American's have the money - but the soldiers lack tactics well most more of a body target for sniper's to pick off while the one's who can fight end up been held back, they don't just attack they shoot the place up - anything moves it's going to be shot at - and using a anti tank missile to hit a sniper talk about overkill...

Prob could go on with other countries but you get the point...

America could probably be great if that part was tac - know the British would love them just to give them the money....

Edit 2:: Just thought while on another topic population control, maybe hidden way of wracking up bodies, maybe that's why they hold back they good ones... Big price to pay for other people's views on american soldiers though..

Yeah the only way we(I'm from the US) are going to win is to stop nation building and
let Iraq build their own nation. The whole operation was based on the theory the Iraq
were basically in bondage and would welcome our troops. Thats was not the case.
They had a foot in their faces from Sadam because that what it took to maintain order
there and thats what its going to take for the for seeable future. I say we let the Iraq
do their own opression and Americans should come home.

Easy.

Tell Sadam that since no weapons of mass destruction were found, he must have been complying with UN resolutions all the time, so apologise for locking him up and let him take control again.

This was in the San Francisco Chronicle? Geez. As objectively speaking as I can say (and I am not objective nor I am a military expect) the US isn't really winning the war in the Iraq right now. But to say there are completely losing is unrealistic. It's in the middle of winning and losing. Most of the country is actual pretty secure but Baghdad is an absolute mess (from what I understand, and again, this is not one of my better areas).

The war is probably entering a crucial period right now uh...maybe.

It's entirely possible (and frequently so in many cases) to lose the war while still winning battles. This is the situation the US's found itself in.
When the CiC and SecDef are off in their ivory tower, planning (or strategerizing) without input from military personnel (you know, the guys who do this for a living and presumably know WTF they're doing), the outlook is not good.
In addition to that often-fatal error, it's also pretty apparent that the administration has no clear goal in mind. It's great to throw around terms like 'democracy' and so on, but you cannot have a democracy of any sort without some measure of stability. They apparently expect your average Iraqi-on-the-street to fall to their knees and praise the gods of Immediate Credit and No Limit and Personal Freedom. This is a bit rough to do when you have no running water, reliable electricity and live in the constant fear of either the US thinking you're an insurgent or the insurgents thinking you're a US collaborator/sympathiser, for which you will be shot. I'm pretty sure I'd have some difficulty giving a damn if I were unable to reliably feed my family.
I fully support most of the "Coalition" troops over there. Hard job, crappy conditions, unclear leadership, and 'the people' don't want them there. From a tactical standpoint, the armed forces are doing their job well. Tactics are not the US's weak point. It's the strategy, and right now (well, for the past several years, really) there's been, effectively, no real strategy to speak of.
"Find Bin Laden." - incomplete
"Invade Iraq, remove Saddam, restore order" -incomplete
Afghanistan's sliding back into Taliban-ruled chaos (remember them? don't hear too much about them any more, do ya? Ever wonder why?), Iraq's deteriorating on a daily (if not hourly) basis and Bin Laden, the putative mastermind behind the entire reason US/CDN/UK/etc troops are over there in the first place, still walks free.
Mission Accomplished, indeed!

No offence D but my brother is in the Army as a Royal Engineer, lack tactics is I could go on age's of the kind of instructions you give to a soldier - it's where ever the person in charge point's they shoot - they do not shoot 1 thing they shoot up the hole place, any allied force tactically attacking from another side do not want to be on the charging side when the Americans are one's providing cover fire... allot of people have come within mm's of been shot by going round a corner or going past a window on the forward attack - they don't think they just shoot the direction they where told to shoot... And when passing an American convoy they get prepared to take cover....

Reason we can go round with less body armour is because we don't shoot until we are shot at - Americans shoot first ask question's later.. Here’s something British people do not get shot at by the enemy sniper’s they only shoot Americans.

According to internal Iraqi documents, Iraq was only one year away being able to construct an atomic bomb and in addition had active WMD programs at the time of the invasion. Iraq failed to live up to the terms of the disarmament treaty, and a casus belli had already been in existence between the United States and Iraq due to the assassination attempt on a former American president during a time of peace. This was re-enforced by the firing on war-planes enforcing the cease-fire agreement to end the Persian Gulf War. That very act (and others) effectively neutralized that agreement inherently.

The invasion was legal, regardless of whether the U.N. stated so. It should be noted that the French have been engaged in military action in Africa some of it without explicit U.N. approval and some of it only with retroactive approval with limited to no complaints anti-war critics (let alone the French press which would hardly bite the hand the feeds it).

Link: source

I'll NUKE ALL OF IRAK!! !! !

Indeed, diseased. Such was the lesson of the Vietnam War. You could have done so well that you could had convinced the countries surrounding the war zone that you had won, and still lose because congress decides they would rather abandoning an entire people to depositism then fly some bombers or donate the cash necessary to save a country we pledged to support. Victory means nothing when your own ally stabs you right in the back.



Oh, smart stuff, that is. The "ivory tower" is usual a reference to University. Well, Bush is a Yale man. Oh, then he is a civilian. Damn, those civilian commanders and chief. Freakin' constitution. We should have a junta we should. Where is that Pinochet fella is? Oh, he's dead? Damn shame. Big war heroes those President Thomas Jefferson was. Not to mention Abe Lincoln. He is was made internationally famous for his action in the BlackHawk War. Franklin Roosevelt? I'm sure he would have served if they asked politely.

Rumsfeld, yeah he doesn't have any military experience. They don't have that in the air force flying those Grumman jets. Also his lack of time as leading the troops when he was a flight instructor doesn't help. Good thing they fired him.



Perhaps the sending of tens of thousands of troops to Baghdad might be intended to stabilize the situation. The idea that you cannot have a democracy of "any sort" without some sort of stability is doubtful. The North had elections in the midst of all out Civil War (which Iraq is not because there are not clearly defined sides). Iraq has had open elections as well. Afghanistan, which is more stable then Iraq but not nearly perfectly, has had them as well but one (well, me) could argue they were less perfect then Iraq. How do you define democracy?



I would never expect the average Iraqi to fall to the knees and praise the gods but when one can I will say we can probably withdraw troops for Iraq. The one thing you cannot argue is that the average Iraqi doesn't appreciate their newfound personal freedom. I could care less whether they thank us. Right now, they may not want to thank us because they are suspicious of us understandably, or they may be scared to death if they thank us they may be killed by murderous lunatics. What can be stated emphatically is the economic situation in Iraq is far better then it was under Saddam. I have a source for that if you wish.



Accidental Civilian causalities are actual pretty low by the US (and again I can provide a non-right wing source if you wish), and have been getting better over time. The vast majority of civilian killed/wounded have been by insurgent groups. The fact that Iraqis are willing to kill their own people (women and children) shows just how evil those particular Iraqis (as well as the terrorists from out of country) are.



There is no great food shortage in Iraq. Sincce the fall of Saddam the overall economic situation has improved greatly.



I am sure the Iraqi people don't want us there. It is not a fact that we know that the majority of the Iraqi people want us to leave immediately. Would you be willing to put it to a vote?

EDIT: For some reason I had the weird habit to write your name as "deceased", diseased. All I can say is I wish you recover from whatever your suffering from (assuming it is not AS as there is no cure) as soon as can as I would not wish to see you...deceased.

Hey you want hear me trashing the British forces there doing great. I do not think its
a tactical battlefield failure on the American side either. Trying to defeat an Insurgency with popular support and trying to create democratic structures in a country that has no history of it has got to be a mission no soldier in the world wants.
Everything depended on the Iraqi people supporting the US strongly when the Sadam's
government was crushed. The failure was planning a war based on that notion. That
was misstake one (going to war). Misstake two was not getting out much sooner.
I think we should pull out and let Iraq completely destroy itself with civil war.