How Does Bush Define "winning" A War? Didnt we already win?

[mikeyboy63 0]

How exactly does Bush or anyone else define winning a war?It seems that they won't declare victory until each Iraqi, without exception, declares their love and total obedience to the Bush Administration. We started a war with this country for no reason, bombing thousands of buildings and homes, killing over 100,000 civilians in an attempt to kill one man and we missed him. Even Al Qaeda kept quiet for the first year since they also despised Saddam Hussien (for being too westernized), but when America was clearly in Iraq indefinitely, Al Qaeda finally said enough is enough.Back in Mohammed's time, Arabs worried about the young, powerful Christian empires of Europe marching down into the Arab World, conquering Arab tribes one by one until all Arab lands would be lost to Europeans. Mohammed was deeply concerned about this, and warned Arab tribes that they needed to unite in order to defend their lands from Western Crusaders. This is why Islam is sworn to defend their lands from Crusaders, to kill Christian and Jewish armies, out of fear that they would be overrun.In over 1400 years, Mohammed's fears have proven correct. Time and again dating back to the Roman occupation of Canaan during Jesus' time, to the Turk's 500 year occupation of much of the middle east, and separate occupations by the French and Britain, Arabs (Muslims) have been fighting for the right to self government. Now, the United States and NATO create the United Nations, and use it as a tool to grab some of the best arable land in the Middle East, Canaan once again. They called it Israel, and millions of white Europeans migrated their, stealing Arab lands. When the Arabs fought back, Israel defended itself admirably, but stole more land, including all Palestinian land, and refuse to free the millions of Palestinians still living there under the Israeli boot.So clearly, as the mother of European Israel, or South Europe, the USA is despised by much of the Arab World. For Bush to believe that all Arabs, including all Iraqis, will accept US military forces (Christian Crusaders) in Iraq is a pipe dream and Bush has always known this. No nation of real men would ever accept a foreign occupier. Americans certainly wouldn't. So, what is Bush's definition of victory? If we leave Iraq with 10 extremists shooting at us, did we lose? What if only one Arab is shooting at us? Under what curcumstances can we leave Iraq and declare victory?

[Striker9 0]

Hey Mikey, it seems that you kinda understand the situation over here in the middle east but not yet perfectly. First of all, Prophet Mohammed never called for Jihad (defending our land) against "Christians and Jews"; Jihad is defending our land and religion against ANY invader. In Islam, Christians and Jews are our fellow brothers and sisters since we all belong to the same heavenly message that preaches to the worshiping of the all mighty God: Allah. So it's not like Muslims are against Christians and Jews, that's totally untrue. It's just a matter of self-defense. Our natural right is to defend ourselves against anyone that tries to invade and occupy our land, whether it's the Americans, the Germans, the Israeli's, the Japanese, the Chinese or whatever! It doesn't matter who the invader is, we'll always be standing still fighting for our freedom and our rights. Now let me talk about the Iraqi invasion. Bush made up an excuse that in Iraq there are mass destruction weapons that threaten the security of the region and the whole world. But aren't there more than 200 nuclear bombs inside Israel as well? Don't these nuclear bombs threaten the security of the region and the whole world? This clearly shows the hypocrisy of George Bush and his government! Well, okay Saddam was a tyrant and I was happy that he was killed because he's done some horrible things to his people. But why in the hell would you cause all this mess in Iraq and kill more than 100,000 civilians?! Doesn't that make the American army even worse than Saddam?! The truth is that the Americans are after the oil and that's it! Anyone that claims other than that is nothing but a liar! So you really think that you've won the war? In what way do you consider yourselves victorious? By killing Saddam after his army backed down on him (since they hated him in the first place)? Well, you've only made the Iraqi's a favor, you didn't defeat them! But the thing is that you got yourselves into a mess you cannot come out from! more than 3500 American soldiers have been killed, billions have been spent on this war, the whole middle east turned against you (I mean the people, not the traitors who call themselves kings and rulers)... so is that victory? Or maybe stealing the Iraqi oil is victory? Let's just face it, USA lost another war just like it lost all the other wars America got into!Talking about extremists, who do you think is the main reason for extremism? Isn't it George Bush and his government?! Didn't the Americans fund and support Al-Qaeda back in the 1980's? Didn't they fund and support Saddam in his war against Iran? Don't you see that everywhere there are American troops, extremists are there too? I live in Lebanon and last year there was a war between the Lebanese Army and Fateh Al Islam (Extremists that are related to Al-Qaeda) because those extremists claimed that they are fighting the Americans after they intervened in every single detail of our political affairs! Why don't they just back off and leave us live in peace? Do the Americans have to stick their noses everywhere? I believe they better mind their own business cuz they've got enough problems to deal with. PERIOD!P.S: when I say Americans, I mean the American government and not the people, cuz I know that the majority of the American population is totally against what the government is doing.

[mikeyboy63 0]

Hey striker,I sometimes forget that this forum is international. I should point out a few things for users out of the USA:In the USA, we're being told that Islam is evil because Mohammed says to kill Christians and Jews, even specifying to cut off their heads. I'm saying that Mohammed wanted Arabs to defend their land against ALL INVADERS, but he mentioned Christians and Jews because Islam is based upon Judeo/Chirstianity and so the early Muslims had much respect and admiration for Jews and Christians. In other words, he was concerned that Arabs might not fight against the people of the book, so he was INCLUDING them as potential enemies, giving his people permission to defend their lands agsinst all crusaders INCLUDING Jews and Christians. And yes, Jihad is defense, not offense. Americans are being told that Jihad is to kill Americans and Jews. No mention that Jihad is defensive only.We Americans are also being told to support the Iraq War, since leaving equals losing. But this is why I ask what is victory? Bush said we were going there to remove Saddam. Saddam was removed. Why didn't we leave? At that time, we would have left victorious. I'm really saying that Bush lied. The war wasn't to remove Saddam. It was for:Oil CompaniesIsraeli securityThreatening and possibly attacking IranThreatening and possibly attacking SyriaAlso, Americans do NOT know how their govt. interferes in foreign govts. Hard to believe, but it's true. They think our govt. rarely does anything wrong and doesn't understand why people hate our govt. You know what would be great? If people around the world posted their reasons for hating the US govt. Americans would be shocked to see all the instances of US interference in other countries' affairs. Our govt. props up so many dictators, then US companies are awarded long term contracts to drill and dig for valuable resources in those countries while their people starve. The local dictator is given massive weapons to prevent the people from revolting against their US puppet govts.

[DGalgin 0]

I think you are both missing the ball here. The United States entered Iraq with the information that there were weapons of mass destruction; this has said to be false. Although there is no proof of weapons of mass destruction, there is a precedent and an implication that they were there. When the US Marines and Army, captured different Iraqi military posts, many times they found gas masks and MOPP gear ([Mission Oriented Protective Posture] is a military term used to describe protective gear, to be used in a toxic environment, i.e., during a chemical, biological, or nuclear strike. Gear much like what the soldiers, both American and British wore when entering into Iraq. There would be no need for defending soldiers to carry this unless their government meaning Saddam was going to slime the liberating armies. The clearest precedent for the use of chemical weapons came from their prior use, Ali Hassan Abd al-Majid al-Tikritieh, more popularly known as Chemical Ali, used mustard gas, sarin, tabun and VX against Kurdish targets, in his own country. With the precedent of the use of weapons of mass destruction and the prevention of allowing UN Inspectors to do thier job, brought on UN Resolution 1441, allowing and putting UN Inspectors back into Iraq after they had been expelled. There was much debate over the use of military force to uphold Resolution 1441, any while many countries were against the invasion of Iraq still many were for it. United States - The US felt that Resolution 1441 called for the immediate, total unilateral disarmament of Iraq. Language in Resolution 1441 recalled that the use of "all means necessary" was still authorized and in effect from UN Resolution 678, and therefore maintained that if Iraq failed to comply with the "one final chance to comply" provision of resolution 1441, then military action would be the result. United Kingdom - Within the United Nations Security Council, the United Kingdom was the primary supporter of the US plan to invade Iraq. The British Prime Minister Tony Blair, publicly and vigorously supported US policy on Iraq.Bulgaria - Bulgaria suggested that it would support the use of military force to disarm Iraq, even without UN backing.Spain - Spain supported the US's position on Iraq and supported the use of force to disarm Iraq, even without UN approval. Now there were many who were adamant against war in Iraq, including France and Germany, and Mexico, which flipped its opinion right as the war started even though Resolution 1441 and Resolution 678 did allow the use of military action if Iraq didn?t meet the standards set by the UN Resolutions. The nature of the attack and the thoughts behind it are the reason that the US went into Iraq. France did not have two of its largest building in Paris flown into by Islamic extremists, nor did Germany and Mexico. The US suffered the attack and had 2998 of its citizens killed. The reaction was the war in Afghanistan, which can easily be seen as a legitimate attack directly at terrorism, while Iraq doesn?t fall into this category, the war was warranted by the action of Saddam Hussein and by the Resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council. Victory in Iraq is not making everyone happy with the US and pledging their support, victory is handing over a country that can be run by the democratic elected government and defended by the soldiers of the Iraq army. The easiest way to tell where the tied is going is to look at the death toll. The troop surge while unpopular to many worked. Deaths of US service men are down, the lowest since that start of the war. This is because more and more patrols are lead by the Iraqi Military, not US soldiers. Slowly, but in a positive direction the Iraqi government and its people will be able to take control and lead their country into prosperity. The hatred of this war is not unlike Vietnam or even World War Two, at the start of Vietnam many supported the actions that the US took in protecting the freedoms of South Vietnam, the same as in Korea, the difference is as wars continue, and lasts longer, public opinion typically shifts away from supporting the action. The same is true during WWII; before the final planned attack and finish of the Pacific Theatre the public at home in the US was calling to have its boys back. This same dilemma faces the US service men today, they can?t be blamed. Soldiers don?t make the policy, they just enforce it. When a US soldier goes to war it is because the government sends him there not because they want to go there. If you don?t like the war fine, you have the right to that opinion, same as the people of Iraq now are allowed opinions, but don?t blame the soldiers. Respect them for they do a job you wouldn?t and a job that is important even in a war you may not support. It is the soldier, not the poet, who gives us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the reporter, who gives us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who gives us freedom to protest. It is the soldier who serves beneath the flag, who salutes the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives the demonstrator the right to burn the flag.