lets-retire said:
I think the fact there were zero American deaths/injuries is as clear as it can be that comparing these two conflicts is invalid. We have dozens of American deaths every month if not weeks in Iraq, and it's 4 years after Saddam's regime fell. In fact, your quote above gives additional reasons why comparing these two wars is invalid - in this war we are responsible for the whole country, not one quarter of it. Take into account that Germans had western notions of combat (as do we) were a homogeneous populous (unlike Iraq with an ethnic and tribal split 3-4 ways fomenting civil war)...the list goes on and on.
The administration has been re-writing history to drum up support for this protracted war, and I think it undermines their case. I think pointing out the slaughter that would ensue once we left is a much stronger argument. The question will be if we are in fact preventing or prolonging. I've read reports that Shias and Sunnis are wanting to get a civil war over with and settle it once and for all. Just recently a news report documented a mixed ethnicity suburb of Baghdad where kids were playing soccer in an empty field between apartment buildings. Two cars drove up and armed men got out and opened fire. When they were done, 9 children lay dead. The neighborhood went mad and everyone grabbed their AK's and began shooting at their neighbors houses. The dead and wounded children lay out in the field for hours before it was safe to get them.
How do you combat people willing to sacrifice life like that? It reminds me of VC going to villages in the south and chopping arms off kids who received vaccinations from American doctors. We can debate issues from our perspective, but I think we have such different world views, we may be incapable of executing a solution that works because the only ones are unfathomable to us.
