In War: Resolution

Claremont Review of Books ^ | December 10, 2007 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Diogenesis]

[Ulysse]

How these clueless flip-flopers can be taken seriously?
How can one vote for them?
They are so laughable without any contact with reallity.
Writting the history instead of watching it when it is going on under their eyes and when US SOLDIERS,boys and girls,are making it with iraqis.It’s a huge job!

Too big,too great for those little players.And it’s not all about Iraq but the whole Middle-East and more

[TYVets]

Al Gore the Jimmy Carter of past vice presidents.

[iopscusa]

Thanks Billorites for another great VDH post!
War is always frought with mistakes but in hindsight the worst have occurred before GWB was CIC! The (left)leadership of this country has responsibilty for
devil’s bargains far more morally suspect than going into Iraq such as “General George Patton and others lamented that World War II had broken out over saving the free peoples of Eastern Europe—only to end with the Yalta accords ensuring their enslavement by an erstwhile American ally whose military we had supplied lavishly”

[Bahbah]

An excellent article.

[fortheDeclaration]

Yet if as a nation we instead believe that we cannot abide error, or that we cannot win due to necessary military, moral, humanitarian, financial, or geopolitical constraints, then we should not ask our young soldiers to continue to try.

That is the key statement in the article.

Is our goal destroying Islamic terrorism or creating a new world order?

[phs3]

ping

[PISANO]

A great history lesson. A wonderfully brutal depiction of the myriad errors made in ALL wars and a candid, spot on depiction of our laid back, leisure culture that believes WAR is a nintendo game and COMMITTMENT is something that can be replaced by the RESET button.

[beebuster2000]

vdhbtt

[y6162]

When the history of the Iraq War is written, it will be noted that the turning point came when the Sunni insurgents rejected Al Qaeda after three years of insurgency. The Anbar Awakening could not be planned. Thanks to Al Qaeda’s brutality, victory became possible.

No matter what happens in the future, Iraq will not become a part of the Islamic caliphate. US policy achieved three evolving goals, the removal of Saddam, creation of a terrorist free buffer state and the strategic defeat of Al Qaeda.

All the rest is just Monday morning quarterbacking.

[Flintlock]

Yep.
The SECOND biggest mistake was responding to 12/7/41, too.

[vbmoneyspender]

Al Qaeda’s goal is to recreate the Caliphate. Our goal is to prevent them from achieving their goal. We have done that by turning the heart of the Caliphate into a Shiite-based democracy.

[billorites]

"what loses wars are not the inevitable mistakes, but the failure to correct them in time and the defeatism and depression (because errors occurred at all) that we allow to paralyze us."

What VDH fails to mention is that element of political class who perceive our defeat in the WOT as working somehow to their advantage.

[fortheDeclaration]

What VDH fails to mention is that element of political class who perceive our defeat in the WOT as working somehow to their advantage.

Very true and also the political class who perceive our not winning but continual fighting as their political advantage as well.

[fortheDeclaration]

Al Qaeda’s goal is to recreate the Caliphate. Our goal is to prevent them from achieving their goal. We have done that by turning the heart of the Caliphate into a Shiite-based democracy.

No democracy will survive unless it is built on the foundation for respect for individual and property rights.

No Islamic nation has that since Islam doesn't teach it.

[vbmoneyspender]

No democracy will survive unless it is built on the foundation for respect for individual and property rights.

On a comparative basis, which nation do you think was further along in their respect for individual rights, the United States three years after its constitution was ratified or Iraq three years after its constitution was ratified?

[fortheDeclaration]

On a comparative basis, which nation do you think was further along in their respect for individual rights, the United States three years after its constitution was ratified or Iraq three years after its constitution was ratified?

Are you kidding me?

This nation was built on Biblical principles of self-government and individualism.

Islam rejects both.

[vbmoneyspender]

We had slavery for the first hundred years of our country’s existence and Jim Crow for the next hundred years. Given that Iraq has started off with no slavery, no Plessy vs. Ferguson type segregation and with every citizen, including women, having the right to vote, I would say that the Iraq citizenry are doing fairly well in grasping the important particulars of democracy.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

We ain't as good as we once was.

American statesmen need to provide constant explanations to a public not well versed in history—not mere assertions—of what misfortunes to expect when they take the nation to war.

We have damn few statemen, and damn little stomach for misfortune. Didn't the Democrats and ANSWER and the UN and the Euroweenies tell us what bad things were going to happen back in 2003?

our morale is as important as our material advantages

Even more important, but our morale is under constant attack by oppositional elements within our own society who share short-term goals with the Far Enemy. Too many of my fellow citizens seek to accelerate America’s retreat from global hegemony and would punish those who stand in their way if they could for politically incorrect thought. This is not a conflict resolvable by Regular Strategic Communicators and Information Operators, nor should it be. They have polite fictions to maintain. This is a Domestic Internal Defense mission that only those political operatives and Civilian Irregular Information Operators sympathetic to American Exceptionalism can accomplish.