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Originally Posted by willravel
There were plenty of people in 2001 and 2002 who said that invasion was the wrong course of action. There were plenty of people who said shock and awe was the wroung route. There were plenty of people who heard Bush say things like "You're either on our side, or you're on the terrorist's side." and knew something was wrong. There were plenty of people who questioned why we stopped chasing Ossama and started chasing Saddam. There were planty of people who asked what Iraq had to do with terrorism. There were plenty of people who asked why we were going against the UN. There were plenty of people who knew this was going to go very badly.
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i don't understand how this fits into the discussion.
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Not a super comparison. We lost a lot of good soldiers over there. There was little danger of death on the football field yesterday. Also, we didn't win. America did not beat terrorism by dethroning Saddam and killing and alienating so many Iraqi citizens. We heald elections, and that was a touchdown, but this game is far from over. I'd say we're losing right now.
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you're evading the point. as a military operation: many said it was going to be a disaster. given what we know about what has happened since and the grave nature of our business... can you really say that?
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Why didn't you speak up if you knew so many soldiers were going to die and there would be so many rebels in Iraq against the "army of freedom"? Why not ask if there was a way that didn't cost so many lives?
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it's like you didn't even read the first post. our losses have been less than i thought there would be and MUCH MUCH less than the predictions of many others. i'm saying that given the difficulty of the mission our military was tasked with, the casualties are acceptable. again, how many lives did you expect it would cost? less than the current numbers? if so, do you think that such expectations are justifiably realistic?
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You think the Middle East is stable? Eek.
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a weak jab thrown knowingly without context.
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You think that it's okay to lose 1447 American military officers just because some people said it'd be more? Big victory. I won't rejoice over that.
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i don't think it's "ok" to lose a single soldier (by the way, not every military serviceman is an officer). again, given the nature of their mission and their enemy... what did you expect? how can you judge it a failure if you given no criteria for what it would take to be measured a success (and provide accompanying rationale for why that is a realistic goal).
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There could be a civil war if the American soldiers weren't fighting the rebels. There is a rebelion going on against the US invaders. Again, where's the victory?
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right, there COULD be a civil war if it weren't for the american soldiers. so... our objective to prevent a civil war has been SUCCESSFUL. of course there is a rebellion... it would only take a few hundred syrian imports to qualify as a "rebellion" on your nearest TV network. did you ever think at any point in time that there wouldn't be such a movement? i know i knew it would happen.