The objective seems to be changing, slightly, at least the description changes.
First it was riding Iraq of WMD, and elminating the safehaven for Al-Qi-KillsR-US-Da, and enforce UN resolutions. We were spending a few billion a year on maintaining the security of region by keeping a carrier in the gulf and basically keeping the situation unchanged from 1992 on.
Then it became mission accomplished/complete, lets go home, or onto the next theatre of operations. Plans to leave, i.e. take the vast majority of troops, have never been developed before the invasion and certainly at this point, when Saddam was on the run, and that statue came down, it seemed like it might be over rather soon, i.e. a year or two.
But it isn't and wasn't so, the current administration has had and has continued to have an over-optimistic view of the situation from the begining. So then the goal became find Saddam and the loyalists give up. Meanwhile create an environmental situation where the terrorists can't thrive, i.e. no more daily insurgency attacks, no more daily carnage for the tv audience, also improve the quality of life for Iraqi's beyond pre-war levels. Single-nationly pretty much, stand up the entire service sector of the cities and rebuild an economy of the country so that when a government is elected it has something to run.
Well, that's great, we have an elected Iraqi government, while we're doing the security and they're blaming us for the lack of security. I'm not sure when our job became the nation building B.S. we weren't sold on to get into this theatre but this war becomes less just day by day. The people who need to stand up for their country are the Iraqi's. They need to take charge, they need to do the killing of the insurgents, the peacemaking, the political deals. They need to be in control so we can get out. It's no longer about improving their lives as well as it shouldn't be. That should be their job. We've thrown more money at this problem that could have been spent fortifying our borders, targeting Al-Qi-KillsRUS-Da via special operations, quieter, will fewer casualties, and this is a painful lesson learned for future American Presidents as well as
They were real shy and quiet about making this war about the "oil" before-hand fooling a lot of people, the majority, me too, but now it's clear the intention of engaging Iraq rather then North Korea in a denial of WMD war was about the oil and the threat, and it's an opportunity cost that may just severely harm us in the future.
Very similar to the continued use of internal combustion engines and harsh effort to elminate any type of serious competition of to them in our daily lives.
Where we are today is, higher gas prices, Duh never saw that coming right? Thousands of soldiers dead, a country with an ineffective governement dictating their security woes to us because they are incapable of defending themselves 3 years into this war. The contractors and subcontractors and sub-sub contractors of the war effort have bilked the government out of billions at the very best time (early on) because of no-bid contracts, and there is no clear solution to the problem we created, no clear exit timetable, no clear exit strategy. Oh no this war won't be like Nam, nope, we're winning.
Sure the casuality rate is lower, our technological superiority is greater, but the goals are out of alignment with the situation and with the achievability of the situation. The time to leave was 6 months after the invasion, get the Iraqi's setup on the voting and the checks coming for 5-10 years but leave it to them to solve the security and rebuilding of the economy. Unfortunately to leave now would be more disaster but at what cost to stay? Virtually no change in the situation in the near future. So were just going to accept the losses as acceptable? Nobody is going to come up with a grand plan to win the war?
I got a plan, lets leave, call it cut and run if you want, lets stop throwing money at Iraq, lets let them figure out their problems on their own. Let's stop wasting money on how to get gas from $3.00 a gallon to $2.25, lets abandon the pure gasoline as the fuel for E85, lets dump the internal combustion engine as soon as an alternate becomes as cheap, lets force the companies that build these things to pay a pollution and gas tax on the vehicle, yeah lets put them out of business, trade those jobs for financial and nation indepedence and security.
Or we can continue to just go with the status quo. Whatever.
