Triumph and Tragedy in Iraq

[Abraham]

"Triumph and Tragedy" is the title of the last part of Winston Churchill's 6 book series on the Second World War. He describes that in victory there's never just triumph, but always tragedy as well, even on the side of the conquerors...

This title struck my mind when I saw Pres. George Bush on TV declairing to finish the final consultations of his new Iraq policy and heard the reaction from opposition forces.
And it strikes me over and over again that the Americans feel so desperate over the Iraqi war - or 'situation' may be a better description. To generalise; it seems that Americans expect a war to be won - which happened - and then there's a big party with parades and flags et voilá; - just like a wedding day - 'happy ever after in the marketplace'.

But surrender isn't much more than the militairy suppression of resistance. Conflicts don't end with waving a white flag or signing an Instrument of Surrender.
It's thén that the hard work starts, building bridges between former enemies. This can take many years. History teaches us that often low intensity conflicts flare up in conquered or 'liberated' territory.

The problem in unstable regions like the Balkan and - parts of - the Middle East is that the concept of souvereign nations is weak. States in the Middle East often have borders that are not much more than straight lines drawn by former colonial powers. The inhabitants of such nations iareusually made up by tribesmen or ethnic mirorities that have a long history of feudal rule and violent animosity between themselves. Such states almost need strong - if not dictatorial - rulers to keep them more or less stable.
'Liberating' such countries is practically impossible. Regime change, like the death of Tito or the removal of Saddam Hussein, leads to internal weakness and consequently to internal power struggles, often resulting in civil wars along tribal ethnic lines.

Only after such a struggle is settled the country can try to stabilise again, which it finally will. This is because war leads to national poverty as even the most bitter insurgent will one day find out, given the general growth of the world economy.
Therefor an internal power struggle should be allowed the burn out in a 'controlled' way, how sad this might be. There is hardly another option. Separations of regions and reshaping of borders should be allowed. The fixation on the absolute immunity of borders in international law, especially those that are not determined by natural geographical and/or historical features, should be a thing of the past.

Of course many US policymakers know that wining the war is sometimes easier than winning the peace.
The tragedy is that the US public was getting prepared for fighting a war against a tyrant, but was not getting prepared for the bloody aftermath of winning that war. Ultimately the highest policy maker, the President of the United States, is to blame for spreading only half the message.
The tragedy is also that although there were legitimate reasons for a regime change in my opinion, the seemingly more convincing but not thoroughly checked (i.e. the wrong) reasons were presented as most important to win the US public over for this war.
That was the first step that later created doubt and let to the crumble of bipartisan support for the war and its aftermath.

But does that mean that the war is a total loss?
Far from that.
A regional military power was utterly crushed by relatively small US & Coalition forces in just three weeks, which sends a clear message to rogue states.
From the point of view of reactionairy regimes the fact that after the regime change the country turned into a mess is hardly any consolation, given that they might be the next regime to be changed...
Nevertheless, the positive influence of this point is severely diminished by some US political and military decisions that gave relatively small forces of Al Qaida the opportunity to turn Iraq into the battlefield of the US War against Terrorism.
Al Qaida can never win that war, but the US might loose it! That would mean a political victory for Al Qaida with far reaching consequences for both Muslim extremism and the US foreign policy.

My personal opinion is that in the end this war and regime change were necessairy for Iraq to start a new chapter in its history. I'm pretty sure that otherwise one of the sons of Saddam might have been his successor and the misery of the Iraqi people would continue for another generation.

Iraq is too much of a state, too important for the world economy and has too much potential to whither away im a puddle of misery. Ten or fifteen years from now Iraq - may it be in a different shape - will be part of the world community.
It is to the Iraqi people to decide what kind of Iraq that will be.
At least they'll have a choise...

[geetrue]

Abraham

My personal opinion is that in the end this war and regime change were necessairy for Iraq to start a new chapter in its history. I'm pretty sure that otherwise one of the sons of Saddam might have been his successor and the misery of the Iraqi people would continue for another generation.

This is a truth I've never heard before ...
In fact the thought alone chills the soul of what
Iraq would have been like under the sons of Saddam.

America must think that when this war is over
that it will return to the 1970's and not have to
worry about war for another 20 years ...

No way Jose'

Keep our troops over there ... Another war is being
stirred up as we type this message. I hate war, my
children hate war, my grandson is only 16, but I know
he would hate war if he had to go and as for my dog ...

all he wants to do is eat ... lol

[Letum]

Freedom for Iraq was a good goal if that was Americas primary motivation.

but freedom at any price?
If you say freedom at any price you could end up with a lot of "free" corpses and nothing else.

How many innocent deaths can you justify in the goal of freedom?
Can you justify causing sectarian violence that may go on for centuries as a result of achieving freedom?

There comes a point where the cost outweighs the benefit.
I think that it was clear that such a point would be crossed if America invaded Iraq.
I think that it is clear that that point was crossed a long time ago and the cost increases every day.

[Skybird]

Stop arguing and come to your senses, Abe. Your words just help to kill more American soldiers for nothing but illusions.

Due to the high stakes that got lost, I agree with those saying that this already is far worse than Vietnam. There is a reason why so many retired generals and military experts, who are now free to voice their personal opinion more openly than during their active career, rate Iraq as a defeat, a loss, a debacle. I stumbled over various such articles in recent months, just picking this one since it is quite representative:

http://dir.salon.com/story/opinion/b...war/index.html

Originally Posted by Gen. Odom

The two parties whose interests have been advanced have been the Iranians and al-Qaida. Bin Laden could argue with some cogency that our going into Iraq was the equivalent of the Germans in Stalingrad. They defeated themselves by pouring more in there. Tragic.

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Record

The worst case has become true. There's no analogy whatsoever between the situation in Iraq and the advantages we had after World War II in Germany and Japan.

Originally Posted by Andrew Terrill

We see larger and more coordinated military attacks. They are getting better and they can self-regenerate. The idea there are X number of insurgents and when they're all dead we can get out is wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Blumenthal

If Iraq is what you label a win, I hope I never must witness what it looks like when you label a war as a defeat and loss.

[Abraham]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Stop arguing and come to your senses, Abe.

Hi Sky, good to see you back. Long time since we've clashed! I've been kind of missing you...

Originally Posted by Skybird

Your words just help to kill more American soldiers for nothing but illusions.

Come to your senses, Sky.
I give my analysis on Subsim.com of the war and its results and my words kill soldiers??? Don't you think you're slightly overestimating the effect of my posting?

Originally Posted by Slybird

Due to the high stakes that got lost, I agree with those saying that this already is far worse than Vietnam...

Just to remind you; the Vietman war - at least the US involvment - lasted from the early '60 till the early seventies ('71 or '73, whatever date you choose). The war took the lives of about 58.000 US servicemen.
You consider a war that after almost three years cost about 3.000 lives of US servicemen "far worse"??
How come?
Did you do your mats wrong or were lives in the '60s of the 20th century cheaper?
The harsh truth is that while this war costs US lives almost every day, the losses are affordable for a country like the US.
And I seriously doubt if an immediate withdrawl is affordable for the US from a military or political point of view.

And - inaccurate as you used to be in the past - I didn't label this conflict a 'win'. If you're in doubt, read my post again.

Anyway, no hard feelings and good to be clashing again...

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Abraham

Come to your senses, Sky. I give my analysis on Subsim.com of the war and its results and my words kill soldiers??? Don't you think you're slightly overestimating the effect of my posting?

It's the opinion that counts. It mirrors some other's decision-making opinion who do have a say in the shaping of events. Sticking to this opinion creates policies that kill American soldiers for no other reasons than illusions.

Originally Posted by Abraham

Just to remind you; the Vietman war - at least the US involvment - lasted from the early '60 till the early seventies ('71 or '73, whatever date you choose). The war took the lives of about 58.000 US servicemen.
You consider a war that after almost three years cost about 3.000 lives of US servicemen "far worse"??
How come?
Did you do your mats wrong or were lives in the '60s of the 20th century cheaper?
The harsh truth is that while this war costs US lives almost every day, the losses are affordable for a country like the US.
And I seriously doubt if an immediate withdrawl is affordable for the US from a military or political point of view.

I said "due to the high stakes that got lost". I am not comparing losses in soldiers' lives, but the strategical fallout. The defeat in Vietnam damaged US prestige only, and did no more real damage to the US. But the debacle in Iraq has caused them serious strategic damage that by far outshines the strategic damage done by Vietnam.

Originally Posted by Abraham

And - inaccurate as you used to be in the past - I didn't label this conflict a 'win'. If you're in doubt, read my post again.

" (...) it seems that Americans expect a war to be won - which happened (...) "

[Letum]

The war was won.
i.e. the conventional Iraqi military forces where destroyed. This happened in about 3 weeks.

The peace has not been won.


Just because there are violent neo-Nazis still about, it doesn't mean that ww2 has not been won.
Just because there is civil unrest and non-conventional attacks in Iraq, it doesn't mean that the war wasn't won.


"War" is a thing that can be won with bombs.
What we have in Iraq is violent civil unrest, no ammount of bombs can "win" civil unrest.

Civil unrest, however can be far worse than war, and much harder to deal with.

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by Letum

Just because there are violent neo-Nazis still about, it doesn't mean that ww2 has not been won.
Just because there is civil unrest and non-conventional attacks in Iraq, it doesn't mean that the war wasn't won.

Thats a false comparison. When, in Western history post-1945, have we had to deal with the kind of civil strife as exists in Iraq because of Neo-Nazis?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Letum

The war was won.
i.e. the conventional Iraqi military forces where destroyed. This happened in about 3 weeks.
The peace has not been won.

A popular wordgame that has no real meaning for me, but politicians and NGOs love it. No - not the war had been won back then, but a single battle, a single operation. If you remember, back then I always referred to that cracking-up of the Iraqi army as the "field-battle part fo the war" only, or just "one battle in a long war". I used that terminology - and often - to make clear that the real, the major part of the war just was about to start. The first three weeks - only were the overture. If you change a player in a team, it does not qualify for a being a new match. The pitcher has a bad day, so you send in another guy - still the same match. Maybe what came later came as a surprise for you - players showed up in the opposing team's lineup that you did not expect to see - but it was no surprise for me. I predicted both the nature of the "new" enemies, and the general changes in the conflict's style and cruelty, and that it would increasingly shift towards civil war, and Iranian intervention.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

Thats a false comparison. When, in Western history post-1945, have we had to deal with the kind of civil strife as exists in Iraq because of Neo-Nazis?

1945 after the surrender & early 1946

There are countless other comparisons that can be made from other wars if you don't like that one, it's just that things start to get a little obscure when talking about major conflicts other than the two world wars.
The roman invasion of England, for example, was won, but followed by a long period of civil unrest.
In fact almost every war in which the invader wins is followed by a period of civil strife.

The war in Iraq ended with the disappearance of the Iraqi army. The kind of low-intensity conflict we see now is not a war.

Originally Posted by Skybird

If you change a player in a team, it does not qualify for a being a new match. The pitcher has a bad day, so you send in another guy - still the same match. Maybe what came later came as a surprise for you - players showed up in the opposing team's lineup that you did not expect to see - but it was no surprise for me. I predicted both the nature of the "new" enemies, and the general changes in the conflict's style and cruelty, and that it would increasingly shift towards civil war, and Iranian intervention.

Its not a case of a new player in Iraq.
The whole team (army) has left, and the game (war) is over, but now members of the crowd (civilian militants) that lost the game keep jumping on to the pitch and kicking balls (attacking) at the goal (Americans) and either running away or blowing up in the process.

[Skybird]

Its not a case of a new player in Iraq.
The whole team (army) has left, and the game (war) is over, but now members of the crowd (civilian militants) that lost the game keep jumping on to the pitch and kicking balls (attacking) at the goal (Americans) and either running away or blowing up in the process.

Sounds like American Football to me. The Offense left the field, but nobody would declare victory yet, because the Defense is lining up. - Anyway, this all is nitpicking. In the history books, Iraq 2003-200x will be recorded as one single war only - the third Gulf War. Separate it into different stages if you wish, but that does not change it. When Nazi troops invaded the Balkans, Greece, France, they also defeated a regular army in these places, and then other types of enemies showed up to battle them: resistance fighters, partisans, and the like. But nobody ever thought of that as several different second world wars, but still just one. Nor was for example Stalingrad a war in itself, but just one battle.

Hm, I start typing too much again. Too much time this night. Glad that weekend is over...

[Abraham]

Originally Posted by Letum

1945 after the surrender & early 1946

Yes, the situation was often very tense. However, because Germany was almost completely bombed out the Germans didn't have the time, energy and resources to embark on large scale civil unrest against the invaders/victors. Moreover, the military regime of the Allies (not just the Russians) was extremely harsh shortly after the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Originally Posted by Letum

There are countless other comparisons that can be made from other wars if you don't like that one, it's just that things start to get a little obscure when talking about major conflicts other than the two world wars.
...
In fact almost every war in which the invader wins is followed by a period of civil strife.

Exactly!