It seems that lately the controversy over the possibility of laying out a time line for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq is dominating the news again. Many tired of the war are pushing very hard for a defined exit strategy while the president stands fast to a position that setting and defined withdrawal date is ’setting a date for failure’. I think to some extent, this kind of wording from the president gets to the heart of what puzzles me so much about the war.
Saying that we would be setting a date for failure implies that there is a possibility of victory. And this is the conventional thinking about war… that there must be victor and a loser. Is this really the case or is there a problem with our consciousness as it relates to modern warfare. No matter what had ever happened in Iraq, would we have ‘won’? And if so, who exactly would have ‘lost’? It seems to me that when we went to war as a nation against the state of Iraq, we were aimed at one particular objective… removal of weapons capable of “mass destruction” from the hands of a state with a government considered to be highly dangerous and irrational. Therefore, we were targeting a specific objective I thought, not “winning” a war against Iraq. There really is no victor and no loser in the traditional sense it seems.
However, if we must maintain the current state of thought that in a “war” there must be a party that experiences victory, then lets take a shot at defining victory in our current situation. The war, at least I was told, was a war on terror… not a war on Iraq. Therefore, the idea of “winning” in Iraq is irrelevant. So when I think about what it would mean to achieve a victory in the war on terror, I think that victory would be a situation where young Muslim men around the world are either no longer interested in or no longer able to kill American civilians. Please correct me if you disagree that would be a “victory” in the war on terror. Now, there are young Muslim men in nearly every country on the planet, including ours, so is it really viable to say there will ever be a situation where said individuals would be UNABLE to kill American civilians? I would say no. Now then, by following this logic (which you may or may not buy into) that would leave the one real “victory” in the war being a situation where these people no longer have a desire to kill us.
While I have no idea how to accomplish victory defined in this way, one thing does seem clear to me. The war in Iraq is causing exactly the opposite, totally counter-productive to the objective. So, I am confused as to how continuing to swat at the hornets nest exactly prevents us from ’setting a time line for failure’.
It is also important to consider the argument that the execution of military actions is making it harder for terror cells (who I thought were the real enemy) to operate on a large scale around the world. I think this argument is entirely accurate, although since it is widely known the leaders of said cells are in Afghanistan and Pakistan (and definitely no where near Iraq), it would seem to me we are staying the course in the wrong damn country.
Long story short, I am no expert on the situation in Iraq… but how my president is defining victory is a complete mystery to me I guess.
