Is the war in Iraq to difficult for us to understand?

Answer 1

No it is very easy to understand. It is just too difficult for our moronic leaders to understand.

Answer 2

Oh yes!!

I am currently reading Bob Woodward's new book, State of Denial. Woodward writes that there were many mistakes made by the American military administrators.

I had always wondered why Rumsfeld was so adamant that there were not more troops needed in Iraq. It seemed rather like a guy starting a new business and refusing a larger start-up supply of money (which should logically literally NEVER happen!). Woodward's book is a detailed indictment of Rumsfeld. It is very interesting that within weeks of Woodward's famous book being published the newspapers of the several armed services called for Rumsfeld's dismissal. Some of the editors must have read Woodward's book! It seems just too coincidental.

Rumsfeld believed in a smaller, tighter military, more mobile to meet the demands of a changing international environment. He believed that the Iraqis would be defeated with a force less than half of that used to defeat Saddam Hussein in 1991. Well, he was right in this respect: it did take a smaller number of American troops to get to Baghdad and topple the tyrannical regime (in April 2003). But Rumsfeld kept his low troop levels instead of arranging for a massive American presence of between 500,000 and 600,000 military personnel. The troop totals were kept at around 170,000 in the aftermath of the war phase. Also, Rumsfeld was a party to the decision to completely disband the Iraqi military, which made its reconstitution much more difficult and caused poverty and hardship among perhaps 150,000 former Iraqi soldiers and their families. The Americans were blamed for this. Looting and social disorder followed the invasion of Iraq in March and April of 2003. The social upheval left people feeling like there was simply no law. There was no one around to apprehend murderers. The Iraqi Interior Ministry had also been disbanded and thousands of police were left unemployed also. This chaos is what started the burgeoning of lawlessness in mid- and late 2003. Once the situation was left lawless, it has been impossible to reclaim, because the people's minds have been so warped by the tyrant's oppressive violence for a quarter of a century. People actually see violence as a legitimate political tool, because the tyrannical regime taught them that.

And all the terrorist and insurgent elements now need to do is to start a civil war; they don't even need to defeat the Americans anymore. All they need to produce is a civil war and the Americans will, of course, have to leave. There is no way for the Americans to stop a full-scale civil war: they could only, in such a situation, reluctantly step out of the cross-fire. Actually, it has been a civil war for over a year now, but the U.S. president has done everything he could to downplay the conflict and the violence there and pretend that all this was merely temporary. But it is, finally, a civil war. At some point the troops will have to leave. It is a sad reality. Truly sad, for literally everybody!

Answer 3

It depends on one's level of knowledge in regards to Middle Eastern history; particularly the division between the Sunnis and Shi' ia. If someone is ignorant to the role Iraq has played in history over the last 1300 years, then yes, it is probably not easy to fully understand what is going on in Iraq.

U.S. involvement in Iraq would also be hard to understand if one has not followed U.S. foreign policy since WWII; with special consideration to the key players behind U.S. policy.

It is a lot more complicated than Saddam, oil, terrorism, and Iran. It is my belief that these all play a small part in a much bigger picture.

Answer 4

Well if you think as highly of yourself as Don Rumsfeld does then yes. He pretty much wants everyone to believe this since his own personal failure as a Sec of Def. was predicated on the belief that his intention was to win the war. The plan however never even entertained the idea of victory, rather it was about dragging out the conflict for as long as humanly possible and divert the once full coffers of our govenment into the hands of his buddies. He did an admirable job of that. It's just too bad that all those soldiers and marines had to die in the robbery. Guess they'll just have to deal with being a comma in historical terms.

Answer 5

I think any war is difficult for the general population to understand because for the sake of strategy, and the safety of the troops, they are not going to reveal everything to the lay citizen. It doesn't help that there was faulty information relied upon to help support our attack on Iraq (although there were plenty of other reasons), which has caused increased doubts in the minds of Americans. Once doubt is in one's mind they have difficulty opening their minds.

Answer 6

The war we are waging in Iraq against the Islamic terrorists is whole new type of warfare.

The Secretary of Defence, the high ranking Generals, our Representatives and no one else can base their "expert" advice on any past experiences or events - they can only try to analyze the situation and give their best expert opinions as to the policies and strategy which might work best.
That being said, you can bet the farm that its difficult for us laymen to understand.

Answer 7

I still don't get the United States' business in Iraq.

Answer 8

Iraq can be equated in one way to the protestant/catholic clashings in ireland/northern Ireland (IRA), the muslim/christian conflicts in the former yugoslavia etc. such is the shi'ite/sunni clashing in Iraq now.....add to the mix the Americans trying to "AHEM" convert the country into a democracy, and in a very, very basic nutshell, there you have it......notice 9/11 has/had NOTHING to do with it!

Answer 9

Even simple things are hard to understand, if you look closely enough. The war has had many different things to look at, but we (the public) have seen only some of what is going on. Thus, we get the gist of what is going on, but not the full picture, which leads to disagreements.

Answer 10

Simple: it has now turned to civil war, and blaming it on terrorists doesn't explain the hatred Sunnis feel against Shiites.
This war can't be won, because neither side wants to be second in control.
Bush is too stupid to get it.

Answer 11

No, the US just invaded. Nothing difficult to understand about that