Why don't we fight in Iraq to win ?

Question

I am not a kill em all gung ho kind of guy but as I recall the last 2 wars where we won big time and changed the face and course of mankind were World War I and II. Then Korea, Vitnam, and now Iraq with no win situations what gives?

Since we are there could we not fight a war like we had in the past to win.

I know civilian casualties and war atrocities are things to avoid but this is a war right?

I personally would like to see all service persons come home or even better to never have gone but since we are there now why not fight like we mean it and win?

"To win what" is a common response below...

TO GAIN CONTROL OF THE SITUATION and establish a stable way of life in the region through military action as we did in previous World Wars.

Answer 1

Our troops are having to play by the rules, when no one else is. How CAN we win like that? Everyone is so worried about being politically correct. We have a military for a reason, and when they can't do their job like they need to, then it leaves them sitting ducks. It's time that they be allowed to take off the gloves and give the terrorists a taste of their own medicine.

Answer 2

The surface considerations alone are problematic. When the US military occupied Germany at the end of WWII, they had a figure for occupation, a ratio that must be maintained between occupiers and the occupied, to ensure that the ones providing security could maintain adequate coverage. I don't rightly recall the exact figure, but it was in the neighborhood of 1:70. We haven't a third of that in place in Iraq. What we've had to resort to doing is moving forces around to put out fires in all the assorted restive areas, so the insurgents move around as well and fill in the vacuum of the place our teams just left. To have the proper amount of coverage, we'd have to increase the size of our standing military, especially the shooters, threefold. Remember, the US Army alone at the end of 1945 was over 8 million. We are not fighting a standing army belonging to a Westphalian-style nation state, with clear uniforms and destructible military capital. Half the people causing the violence aren't even stated Jihadis, they're gangs and thugs taking advantage of the Wild West atmosphere to extort and kidnap, and accepting Wahabist coin to do the odd shooting or other scallywag behavior. We're not trying to bludgeon this version of Iraq into the dust; ostensibly we're trying to build the first Arab democracy. We can't simply drop a MOAB on Al Adhamiya every time an IED is encountered there. I freely admit that large mistakes have been made there, mistakes that are being detailed right now by that one senior ex-minister of the CPA. I'm certainly not a fan of Georgie and Rummy. But understand that most journalists are filing their posts from the Green Zone, and when it's bad out there, they really don't know how bad, and when it's good, they have no perception of how good. They're selling a product, and if it bleeds, it leads. It's been leading alot lately. If anyone is hoping for some sort of cathartic and emotionally satisfactory finish line to cross, don't hope too hard.

Answer 3

Its more complicated then that. You might want to start by trying to understand that this war has changed a Great deal. We took Saddam but now the country is unstable. They have a civil war going on of there own. We had one also but we just had to fight it out for ourselves. There is so much more involvement besides Iraq. Iran is right next door also fueling the fire. Right now its mostly about Sunni and Shiites. Honestly there is not much we can do there right now besides try to keep everything at bay. we cannot win if its not even our fight. If you have noticed there are much more targeting with bombs and death of Iraqis then Americans.
This is all about them now. Oh we have our underlying purpose for being there. As things are we could be there indefinitely. There has always been tension between the Sunni and Shiites. If we come home now or 10 years from now there could still be civil war breaking out. They need to get together and resolve this but it does not look good. We are involved neighboring countries are involved and no one will let the country fight it out for themselves. I think the best thing we could do is move all of our troops to the boarder areas to stop the influx of people going in and out of the country and let them work it out on there own.

Answer 4

Alright dude... put down the Halo control council and listen. No one ever wins in war. There are loosers and there are bigger loosers. Also you do not get bonus points for kills and more kills do not accumulate into victory and there is no capture the flag and bring it to your base type of deal either. So wake up and realize that there is no end to this war because human stupidity is endless.

To add to this point. This "war" is no longer about US vs. Iraq. I don't think that it actually ever was about US vs. Iraq. What's happening now is outside countries like Iran, Afganistan, etc... are sending troops in for practice. Terrorist troops are getting better at fighting against us, because they're fighting against us. The only way we will "succeed" in this mindless killing madness is if we neutralize the entire middle east. So who's with me? ---- Echo, Echo, Echo. Don't even dream of this happening. There are only 2 countries even remotely ready for this (US, Israel), but the middle east is big, very big. WW2 was only a success not when 1 country was defeated, but when all the countries forming the Axis power were defeated. The other difference is that we're not dealing with Catholics of WW2 who have the same "on the outside" moral beliefs as us. These are fundamentalist muslims who do not value life on earth. They want us dead... and are willing to sacrafice their own families and themeselves to get us dead. WW2 was survival of the fittest, while this is just plain maddness. These people have been fighting among themselves like this for milleniums. so war is normality, not peace. What makes you think we can change that?

Answer 5

There is no win/win situation in Iraq, how will we know when we have won? Why are we even over there? The only people that will profit are the ones that will be getting rich to rebuild the country after the war.

Answer 6

Because most Americans aren't for a draft, the last two wars we 'won' was because of a massive conscription - where even the priveleged sons of America were put in the line of fire.

I'd like to see Bush's daughters in uniform, that will be the day I support the war.

Answer 7

Well, I see your point, the dang democrats think that Iraq would be fine if we weren't in it, but I say that it's just too late to back down now. I mean, right after Saddam was captured we could've gotten out but didn't, now we gotta finish what we started. We didn't do this for oil, if we did it for oil, we'd be bombing the heck out of the Saudi's and gas would be under $3 a gallon. The fact that we announced to the fricken WORLD that Iraq had WMDs just gave them time to hide them or get rid of them so we would think they didn't have any. Well, the people who are bombing themselves seem to be WMDs, the bombs that they use on cars seem to cause a lot of destruction. Should we get out? Yeah, can we? No, it's too late we're already screwed too deep to pull out now.

Answer 8

This war, UNLIKE both World Wars, is a war of aggression on the US part, and it should withdraw (not win, withdraw) immediately.

Answer 9

well thanks to the brilliant strategy of our chief in commander
there is not much we can do in this war I believe we going to
withdraw and in few years we go back to fight Iraq war 3
in order to finish the job we supposte do finish now

you will see

Answer 10

i wish that the troops would come home but bush is too much of an idiot to do what is good for this country