USA loses in Iraq

[QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"][QUOTE="GreySeal9"] I did follow the conversation and it was pretty entertaining but what Ninja Hippo pointed out was indeed a massive contradiction regardless of how engaged who first. Like I said tho, there's no point in arguing about it. You don't have to agree, but it comes off as a pretty big contradiction. GreySeal9

[QUOTE="Sajo7"]Everyone lost.Ace6301

[QUOTE="Ace6301"][QUOTE="Sajo7"]Everyone lost.Sajo7

[QUOTE="GreySeal9"][QUOTE="chessmaster1989"]Dear mods, please reinstate old rules. This thread is more evidence of why.chessmaster1989

[QUOTE="GreySeal9"][QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"] What contradiction? I mentioned to someone that the war WITH Iraq ended earlier and he went on a rant about combat soldiers. Which was not even the discussion. And frankly the war had ended. Yes I know everyone uses the term war for combat but a legal war....which I told him more than once I was talking about required Congress to declare. Merely having guns and bombs involved...which he stated in one of his posts....does not mean we are involved in "war". Armed conflict...yes. But not a legal war. He then in the last few pages said Iraq wasn't declared a war by Congress...which is, of course, wrong. Congress did declare war. Whether one agrees with the action or not....it was a legal war as required by US policy. Second after the initial invasion and subsequent war with the Iraqi military under Hussein the government fell. For all intents and purposes that ended the declared war. Now the insurgents are a different issue. Had they not occurred we'd have stayed and helped rebuild and wait for the new government to be elected as we did and then we'd have left. However, the subsequent insurgency problems were of a more disruptive tactic than full scale war. Yes. The military had to engage the insurgents....but even in the absence of a war declaration they would still defend themselves when hit. So that in and of itself does not mean a country is at war. And considering my post did clearly said WITH Iraq.....I have no idea why he went off on a tangent about subsequent actions. The US was not fighting Iraq but insurgents...and working with the Iraqi government.LJS9502_basic

At least Halliburton got out with something.

Probably the real reason you guys were even there was the war profiteering.

You can't really force the uncivilized to become civilized, they have to figure it out themselves.

Nobody won, everyone lost.

[QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"]

[QUOTE="GreySeal9"] The contradiction was that fidoism and the other guy in Ninja Hippo's post weren't really saying anything substantially different unless one delves into pointless semantic nitpicking yet that other guy was, in your estimation, "wrong" and fidoism was 100% correct even tho there wasn't enough difference between their two stances to warrant one person being completely wrong and other being completely right. It really came off as if you disagreed with that guy when you didn't really disagree with him at all. Well, not if you agree with fidoism. But like I said, I really don't want to get into a semantics argument over this. I'm just answering your question. GreySeal9

[QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"][QUOTE="surrealnumber5"] replied to you about ron paul if you did not get a chance to see itsurrealnumber5

The problem is I was the first guy and I explained to Ninja several times the criteria I was using which was the war with Iraq being over for some time. So the US couldn't have lost the actual war with Iraq. I'm not sure who you think was the first guy but I clarified my post several times and he still argued. And since I haven't changed my stance....there can be no contradiction.LJS9502_basic

[QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"]The problem is I was the first guy and I explained to Ninja several times the criteria I was using which was the war with Iraq being over for some time. So the US couldn't have lost the actual war with Iraq. I'm not sure who you think was the first guy but I clarified my post several times and he still argued. And since I haven't changed my stance....there can be no contradiction.GreySeal9

[QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"]You don't affect my sleep either way. But you shouldn't make assumptions if you didn't follow the conversation. For the record...I did not engage ninja. He quoted my post. And he didn't understand it either.GreySeal9

[QUOTE="GreySeal9"][QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"]You don't affect my sleep either way. But you shouldn't make assumptions if you didn't follow the conversation. For the record...I did not engage ninja. He quoted my post. And he didn't understand it either.Frame_Dragger

I think LJS got massively owned by Ninja here. I congratulate Ninja for showing so much patience.kuraimen

[QUOTE="kuraimen"]I think LJS got massively owned by Ninja here. I congratulate Ninja for showing so much patience.LJS9502_basic

I'm sure the Iraqis will miss the suffering caused by the U.S. over the last 20 years, through sanctions and bombings and in general destroying their cities and infrastructures. Reading some of you posters thinking the Iraq war was a good idea when it removed Saddam, while ignoring the fact that more people have died in Iraq after the "Mission Accomplished" stunt was pulled, than under 30 years of Saddam's rule is just mind boggling. I'm sure a lot of you are ready to swallow the juice when the Iran war propaganda is in full effect.m25105

[QUOTE="Ninja-Hippo"][QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"] That would be 100% correct....LJS9502_basic

[QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"][QUOTE="Ninja-Hippo"] And now to highlight just how amazing you are, let's look at the original post: 'Correction, the invasion ended a long time ago, the war is ongoing, or was ongoing uintil the US left. The Invasion was successful in it's objectives, but has the occupation been a success? only time will tell' THAT SAYS THE EXACT SAME THING. fidosim

And considering how Al Qaeda is vastly weakened (to the point they're resorting to new methods to get recruitment up) and Osama is dead and the US is pulling out now in a time of relative peace, I'd say they won.

[QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"][QUOTE="Ninja-Hippo"] And now to highlight just how amazing you are, let's look at the original post: 'Correction, the invasion ended a long time ago, the war is ongoing, or was ongoing uintil the US left. The Invasion was successful in it's objectives, but has the occupation been a success? only time will tell' THAT SAYS THE EXACT SAME THING. fidosim

I'm sure the Iraqis will miss the suffering caused by the U.S. over the last 20 years, through sanctions and bombings and in general destroying their cities and infrastructures. Reading some of you posters thinking the Iraq war was a good idea when it removed Saddam, while ignoring the fact that more people have died in Iraq after the "Mission Accomplished" stunt was pulled, than under 30 years of Saddam's rule is just mind boggling. I'm sure a lot of you are ready to swallow the juice when the Iran war propaganda is in full effect.m25105

[QUOTE="fidosim"][QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"] The war in Iraq ended in 2003....absolutely 100% correct.LJS9502_basic

I played a game of "Risk" and won.

/thread.

/war.

/the world in 2012.

I win.

[QUOTE="BossPerson"]

[QUOTE="Harisemo"]

that wasn't the objective

LJS9502_basic

Wait guys....what? Rebuilding a stable Iraq was not one of our objectives? Of course it was. What the heck was Paul Bremer and the CPA there for? Why did we stay for so long after Saddam and the regime was gone, trying to get elections going and people out to vote?

"On March 20, the United States began its military campaign against Iraq. The self-stated goal of this action is to remove the current Iraqi government and replace it with a U.S.-friendly regime. Washington has also expressed its desire to occupy Iraq until the Middle Eastern state is stable enough for self-government."

Sorry, GS won't let me link. Creating a stable and democratic Iraq was our goal. Saddam was an impediment to that goal.

well lets see:

-Saddam is gone

-We made sure that there werent WMD's to be on the safe side

[QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"][QUOTE="fidosim"] The war AGAINST Iraq ended in '03. The War IN Iraq, which pitted the US-supported government against sectarian militias and Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, continued. fidosim

[QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"][QUOTE="BossPerson"]well that was the perceived objective

MirkoS77

Wait guys....what? Rebuilding a stable Iraq was not one of our objectives? Of course it was. What the heck was Paul Bremer and the CPA there for? Why did we stay for so long after Saddam and the regime was gone, trying to get elections going and people out to vote?

"On March 20, the United States began its military campaign against Iraq. The self-stated goal of this action is to remove the current Iraqi government and replace it with a U.S.-friendly regime. Washington has also expressed its desire to occupy Iraq until the Middle Eastern state is stable enough for self-government."

Sorry, GS won't let me link. Creating a stable and democratic Iraq was our goal. Saddam was an impediment to that goal.

335 posts ?

Militarily not a failure.

Just pointless and waste of treasury.

What did regime change do for us?

If anything we did Iraqis a favor in return for disservice to our own people.

Militarily not a failure.

Just pointless and waste of treasury.

What did regime change do for us?

If anything we did Iraqis a favor in return for disservice to our own people.

LazySloth718

this idea that leaving ever means you lose is silly, i guess by to days standards there has never been an offencive victor in war.

[QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"]

[QUOTE="Ninja-Hippo"] What nonsense. Are you seriously buying that 'non-combat troops' nonsense? EVERY soldier is a combat soldier. The war in Iraq has been ongoing from day one til the day we left. Iraqis and Coalition troops died in FIREFIGHTS every. single. day. Ninja-Hippo

I suppose I'm arguing from the standpoint that even if it was a war or not, the U.S wasn't there to fight it....

Loses? No.

Won? Depends on what you consider winning. Toppling the regime of Saddam? Yeah we did that. However our government, in all of its wisdom, didn't realize what kind of unstable mess this would bring. Unlike Afghanistan, who hasn't had a strong centralized government in decades, Iraq was held together by a very oppressive ruling party. We took that out and didn't expect the country to implode like it did. It took until 2007 until the government fully understood what situation Iraq as in and did something about it with a massive surge of troops.

For better or worse the regime is gone. The amount of civilian casualties sustained were unacceptable and I don't think the commanding officers were punished for the terrible mismanagement of soldiers in the field. Their terrible handling of the situation led to even further resistance by the people of Iraq and made it even worse there.

I agree with toppling the regime, I don't agree with how it was handled.

For those who don't know, we were more worried about our own casualties than civilian casualties so we pushed into Baghdad and "liberated" them in 21 days. This rush lead to a lot of terrible and costly mistakes. It was an example of a government's red tap interfering with military operations. If you're going to send military into a region, the plan should be well thought out from beginning to end with the ability to adapt the situation changes and be prepared to take losses. We sent the military in but we didn't want to take losses nor did we want to accept responsibility for the consequences of our actions.

well lets see:

-Saddam is gone

-We made sure that there werent WMD's to be on the safe side

Neo-ganon

and on the other hand ...

well lets see:

-Saddam is gone

-We made sure that there werent WMD's to be on the safe side

Neo-ganon

[QUOTE="Neo-ganon"]

well lets see:

-Saddam is gone

-We made sure that there werent WMD's to be on the safe side

shinian

It wasn't just to destroy WMDs, it was also to topple Saddam. Though WMDs were a huge concern given the history of the country. We also had good intel on their mobile chemical weapon sites moving towards Syria.

Just for the sake of some corrections to this thread. Iraq war was NOT a formally declared war. There have been only 5 formally declared wars by congress and those are the War of 1812, Mexican-American War, Spanish-American War, World War 1, and World War 2. Iraq "War" was officially just declared a military engagement or conflict as some term it. It was NEVER an officially declared formal war. The Iraq War was officially split into two parts. Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn. Nothing ended when the Iraqi government was overthrown. Operation Iraqi Freedom was STAGE ONE of the conflict and began on March 20, 2003 and was not officially over until September 1, 2010. At that point Operation New Dawn took over which was the troop draw down. Operation New Dawn concluded December 15, 2011. The last troop however left on December 18, 2011.

Iraq "War" (also called War in Iraq, Occupation of Iraq, and the Second Gulf War) - March 20, 2003/December 15, 2011

1. Operation Iraqi Freedom - March 20, 2003/September 1, 2010
2. Operation New Dawn - September 1, 2010/December 15, 2011

That is the OFFICIAL time-line and explanation that the United States government uses and will continue to use. It was never a formal declared war just because it has war in it's name. The United States government only lists it as a military conflict PERIOD, end of story.

[QUOTE="shinian"][QUOTE="Neo-ganon"]

well lets see:

-Saddam is gone

-We made sure that there werent WMD's to be on the safe side

Wasdie

It wasn't just to destroy WMDs, it was also to topple Saddam. Though WMDs were a huge concern given the history of the country. We also had good intel on their mobile chemical weapon sites moving towards Syria.

[QUOTE="shinian"][QUOTE="Neo-ganon"]

well lets see:

-Saddam is gone

-We made sure that there werent WMD's to be on the safe side

Wasdie

It wasn't just to destroy WMDs, it was also to topple Saddam. Though WMDs were a huge concern given the history of the country. We also had good intel on their mobile chemical weapon sites moving towards Syria.

Unfortunately there was also bad intel on the Iraqi/Al Qaeda connection, the Niger yellowcake purchases, and essentially everything Ahmed Chalabi said was a lie.

yeah the whole mission was a failure, they need to just knock the whole place to rubble every ten years and get the hell out.

if you are making bricks out of dung and straw your whole life it leaves little time for bomb making.

[QUOTE="worlock77"]

[QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"]It's called a war because that is what people understand. It really is that simple. Guess what? Both Korea and Viet Nam are called wars...they had guns and bombs and yet neither was actually a war. Congress HAS to declare war. Period.LJS9502_basic

Go tell a combat veteran who's been in Iraq for much of the past decade that when he was shooting and being shot at that he wasn't actually at war, technically speaking, period.

That was the invasion, and that was against a tinpot middle-easternmilitary with no air force. Meanwhile US and it's allies have been fighting the Iraq War for the past eight years

Just for the sake of some corrections to this thread. Iraq war was NOT a formally declared war. There have been only 5 formally declared wars by congress and those are the War of 1812, Mexican-American War, Spanish-American War, World War 1, and World War 2. Iraq "War" was officially just declared a military engagement or conflict as some term it. It was NEVER an officially declared formal war. The Iraq War was officially split into two parts. Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn. Nothing ended when the Iraqi government was overthrown. Operation Iraqi Freedom was STAGE ONE of the conflict and began on March 20, 2003 and was not officially over until September 1, 2010. At that point Operation New Dawn took over which was the troop draw down. Operation New Dawn concluded December 15, 2011. The last troop however left on December 18, 2011.

Iraq "War" (also called War in Iraq, Occupation of Iraq, and the Second Gulf War) - March 20, 2003/December 15, 2011

1. Operation Iraqi Freedom - March 20, 2003/September 1, 2010
2. Operation New Dawn - September 1, 2010/December 15, 2011

That is the OFFICIAL time-line and explanation that the United States government uses and will continue to use. It was never a formal declared war just because it has war in it's name. The United States government only lists it as a military conflict PERIOD, end of story.

ttobba07

Oh good. I was worried this issue was still up in the air after the several page semantics fest. Thanks for clearing it up.