The Iraq War Is a Cake-Walk

Me

[Dominic Harr]

In a month of fighting on Iwo Jima, we had over 6,000 dead, 25,000 wounded.

And that was a victory.

And now, many Americans consider 2,500 dead/20,000 wounded over several years to be a loss!?

The only hope for victory the enemy has is American public opinion. We've won all the battles. We kill more of them than they kill of us. We hold most of the territory.

Yet I even see Rs calling this a 'failed' war, and suggesting we can't win.

[Dominic Harr]

Please forgive me for the vanity, but I'm very interested in this issue. I'm always fascinated when 'conventional wisdom' is flat-out-wrong. 'Group-think' just fascinates me.

The issue seems so easy to win in a debate. Every single time I chat with someone on the issue, they end up agreeing with me.

[george76]

Support The Troops, Vote Republican

[Former MSM Viewer]

Dont forget the 9000 KIA in one day at Normandy

[.cnI redruM]

Please send this to Ralph Peters. He is the latest and greatest victim of Paul Craig Roberts syndrome.

[Dominic Harr]

Dont forget the 9000 KIA in one day at Normandy

Outstanding point. Thanks. I just saw 'Flags of our Fathers' so I was thinking about Iwo Jima, but your point is even more illustrative.

How is it suddenly 2,500 dead over years is a 'disaster'?

[nicko]

I know a few folks who wouldn't call their time in Iraq a cake walk...

[Danae]

Viewed on the wide table of history, the War in Iraq and in Afghanistan are BY FAR the least bloody and most utterly overwhelming military campaigns in the history of history.

[Brilliant]

The kill ratio in Afghanistan is 100 to 1 in our favor, yet the libs say we are losing.

[aruanan]

The Iraq War Is a Cake-Walk

Remember, the war in Iraq has been over for quite some time. Saddam's army was defeated. What's going on now is in the same place, but it's not the same conflict.

[2banana]

Subject: Iraq versus Washington

If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theatre of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2,112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.

The firearm death rate in Washington, D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000 for the same period. That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in the U.S. Capitol, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq.

Conclusion: The U.S. should pull out of Washington immediately.

[Alberta's Child]

That was a different world, dude.

You might also point out that the U.S. eventually dropped two atomic bombs on the enemy in that specific example.

Since that ain't gonna happen anytime soon in Iraq, your point is -- well, pointless.

[AppyPappy]

For example, 2,300 murdered in California in 2003.

Iraq isn't a cakewalk but we lost 3,200 in ONE DAY in 2001.

[KarlInOhio]

Dont forget the 9000 KIA in one day at Normandy

About 9,000 casualties on D-Day including around 3,000 killed.

[Dominic Harr]

I know a few folks who wouldn't call their time in Iraq a cake walk...

Compared to Omaha beach? Or Iwo Jima?

I don't believe you.

[Dominic Harr]

What's going on now is in the same place, but it's not the same conflict.

Much like WWI and WWII were really the same conflict, I don't think history will agree with you -- in my opinion.

[NYleatherneck]

Cake walk ???

[KarlInOhio]

You're mixing up a monthly rate / 100,000 in Iraq with a yearly rate in DC. Also, a lot (maybe most) of the deaths of our troops in Iraq are from explosives rather than gunfire.

[Dominic Harr]

That was a different world, dude.

Right -- a world in which the people had been thru *real* hard times, a previous major war (WWI) and a great depression.

Now, people have had it so easy, that they are ignorant of 'real' bad times, of a 'real' military disaster.

Our troubles always consume us, no matter how minor those troubles are. It's human nature.

[Dominic Harr]

Cake walk ???

Compared to a Iwo Jima? Or Normandy? Or WWI? Or the Civil War?

Yes.

[taxed2death]

....ask some soldier sitting in a Vet hospital with no arms and legs pissing out of a tube if Iraq has been a cake walk.

Opinions differ.

At the very least...it's a bad choice of words.

[newgeezer]

I wonder if the issue isn't the number of casualties, but what and how long it will take to defeat the enemy and win this unconventional war.

[NYleatherneck]

Funny... I've never found people shooting at me to be a cake walk. Next time I'm down in Virginia visiting old friends, I'll ask them what they think.

Semper Fi,
NYleatherneck

[Waco]

Arabs have killed more arabs than we have. They don't care who they harm.

[Dominic Harr]

....ask some soldier sitting in a Vet hospital with no arms and legs pissing out of a tube if Iraq has been a cake walk.

Ask that person, "Compared to the trench battles in WWI, did you have it easy in Iraq?"

[Ditto]

The 3 month long Battle of Okinawa, (March - June, 1945) saw American losses at over 72,000 of whom 12,500 were killed or missing, over twice the number killed at Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal combined. Several thousand soldiers who died indirectly (from wounds and other causes), at a later date, are not included.

About a third of the civilian population of the island were killed (approx 150,000 and about 100,000 Japanese soldiers killed and 7,000 captured. Some of the soldiers committed seppuku or simply blew themselves up with grenades. Some of the civilians, having been convinced by Japanese propaganda that the Americans were barbarians who committed horrible atrocities, killed their families and themselves to avoid capture.

[edsheppa]

The issue seems so easy to win in a debate. Every single time I chat with someone on the issue, they end up agreeing with me

Yeah, I imagine it's pretty easy to convince 7th graders this Iraq War bears a lot of similarity to WWII.

[Dominic Harr]

Next time I'm down in Virginia visiting old friends, I'll ask them what they think.

It's a matter of perspective.

Ask them, compared to Verdun in WWI, is this a cake walk?

We've lost such perspective, I'm so amused.

[Red6]

You're completely correct in your views.

It's "all" about perceptions at this point.

Even the nation building is coming along at a pace that is without parallel. How long has it been? 3 years and we are seeing a new Iraqi Army, Constitution, elections, judicial system, operating courts, Police, Saddam is caught, AQ's #1 man is dead, a new currency is in use, real wages have near doubled, infrastructure is largely repaired and oil is flowing.

If you say something long enough, "It's a quagmire", "miserable failure", "another Vietnam", some will believe it. Truth is, viewed from a historical perspective, Germany, France, or South Korea took LONGER to recover after the wars. Germany didn't have a currency until later, their first Army stood up in 1952 (seven years after the war ended), it took longer for them to have a Constitution, their first elections........ It's all about "perceptions".

If people expect that we should have all the infrastructure in Iraq repaired within 3 months of the war, despite Baghdad being a city of 5.6 million and all having A/C in a nation where it gets to 122F, then achieving this in 1.5 years is a failure, even if it was a logistical and engineering marvel! Again, it's a percieved failure.

[SMARTY]

"Yet I even see Rs calling this a 'failed' war, and suggesting we can't win."

You are too right to remark on this. I just finished reading "The Burma Road" by D. Webster and though I read Stilwell's bio earlier, this was truly a grim account and a detailed and exhaustive rendering of everything British/American/Indian/Chinese/Chindits and others had to endure and to accomplish in that theater. I still cannot believe humans are capable of such silent and unheralded sacrifice... but it was done. The exact same effort with nothing like the loss in men and materiel is taking place now in the WOT and American Liberals cannot see far enough past their own noses to understand it for the monumental and history making military and foreign policy accomplishment that it is.

[NYleatherneck]

I guess perspective is relative at Arlington.

Semper Fi,
NYleatherneck

[Dominic Harr]

Yeah, I imagine it's pretty easy to convince 7th graders this Iraq War bears a lot of similarity to WWII.

It is, actually. It's very easy to point out the obvious.

I have had a lot of success with my kids and their friends.

There's no arguing it.

This war, compared to others, is a cake walk.

[Chief_Joe]

How is it suddenly 2,500 dead over years is a 'disaster'?

It's a disaster when there's no need for the 2500+ to be dead. I'm sorry, but your condescending remark is no different than Kerry's in my opinion. Rumfeld's policies and actions towards the military are more reflective of Kerry elitism than support for the troops.

[SAR_Bill]

Cake walk? Why aren't you over there enjoying the cake?
Is Kerry ghost writing your text?

[Dominic Harr]

I guess perspective is relative at Arlington.

Are you saying that if any soldiers die, it equals a military disaster?

Would you agree that, compared to the battle of Okinawa, this war has been very low-cost?

[SF Republican]

We kill more of them than they kill of us. I think THEY kill more of them than they kill of us.

[John Lenin]

Did Jon Carry give you the title to this thread? Kinda dumb if you ask me.

[SoldierDad]

Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. We lost in Viet Nam not because our military suffered defeat, but because of the political war waged here at home. We stand to yet again lose a political war, and by extension the military one as well, if these loud mouths continue providing aid and comfort to our enemies. Our troops, given the ability and time, will win this fight. God Bless each and every one of them.

[EternalVigilance]

Abortionists will brutally, with malice aforethought, kill more Americans TODAY than were killed on 9-11 or in the entire Afghan and Iraq Wars combined.

[cccp_hater]

The Japanese and Nazi military's dwarfed anything Iraq had in place post Gulf War. Comparing asymetrical warfare with symetrical warfare can be a bit misleading. Defeating the Japanese empire militarily is quite different than fighting an enemy with no clear command structure. In fact, even determining who the enemy is can be a difficult proposition when sectarian violence accounts for a large percentage of the fighting and no one wears uniforms to identify who they are fighting for.

[EternalVigilance]

Oh, and by the way, they will kill that many tomorrow, and the next day, and the next and the next...until we put a stop to it.

[Dominic Harr]

It's a disaster when there's no need for the 2500+ to be dead.

!?

It's a bridgehead against the terrorists. A 'target of opportunity'.

We picked the time and place for the battle, chose ground we want to fight on.

We took the battle *to* the enemy, and have now not been attacked on our soil in years.

The Iraq war is a cause celeb for the terrorists. They all want to go fight there. This is a *brilliant* and successful strategy.

[NYleatherneck]

Nope... I'm saying that Central Park in the fall is a cake walk, patrolling Fallujah is most definately not.

[Dominic Harr]

Why aren't you over there enjoying the cake?

I'm too old, now.

I was in the Tx Army Nat'l Guard, many years ago. I would have had to go to Iraq, had I been younger.

And I would have.

Do you agree that in Iraq, the death rate is low, compared to past wars?

[Dominic Harr]

Oh, and by the way, they will kill that many tomorrow, and the next day, and the next and the next...until we put a stop to it.

Would you agree that compared to the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Viet Nam -- this is a very low-bodycount war?

[Dominic Harr]

Nope... I'm saying that Central Park in the fall is a cake walk, patrolling Fallujah is most definately not.

Compared to assaulting the German trenches at Verdun, is patrolling Fallujah a cake walk?

[SAR_Bill]

The term "cake walk" for dead and maimed American soldiers is the issue, not comparisons with previous wars. If I give you some email addresses of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, spouses and children of the dead, would you be so kind as to write them and tell them their loved-ones died in a "cake walk?"

[NYleatherneck]

Can't say... Wasn't at Verdun.

Semper Fi,
NYleatherneck

[Danae]

Completely true.

[nicko]

ah, so there you have it...frankly, I could give a shit less if you "believe me" or not...I did not compare anything to anything...I simply said what I said...maybe you've been in combat, maybe not...I would tend to think you're in the latter group...maybe you'd like to post your service record so my friends can hold up their "cake walk" time in Iraq to yours...

[Dominic Harr]

Did Jon Carry give you the title to this thread? Kinda dumb if you ask me.

Compared to landing on Omaha beach, is this war in Iraq a cake-walk?