Sincerely, Timur Alhimenkov.

http://www.womensboots.com

Quick question- how many suicide bombings happened in Germany and Japan after WWII?

I love how “students of military history” compare very, very different wars to arrive at their prepackaged conclusions (the US needs to continue stupid occupations regardless of consequences, because, um, if we leave we are surrendering, you traitorous dirty fucking hippie).

The occupation is a proximate cause of Iraq’s instability, by giving militants easy propaganda to recruit with plus endless opportunities for innocents to be killed by mistakes (and yes, they do happen in war). We couldn’t keep our troops and the surrounding populations safe in Saudi Arabia, a fairly effective police state. The idea that somehow we’re going to have a 50+ year occupation in Iraq that isn’t going to be bloody and destabilizing is fantasy. Thank God the Iraqis are telling us to get the fuck out, per the recently negotiated SOFA, because once THEY are the ones handling their polity and having a legitimate monopoly on state-sanctioned violence, they might have a fighting chance.

Again- the correct comparison is to things like Lebanon. Which is still a problem, but not the complete clusterfuck it was when the Israelis occupied it in the 1980’s. The bonus is that we don’t share a border with Iraq, so at least we won’t have the Iraqi version of Hezbollah lobbing a rocket at us every so often. We’ll have problems coming out of there, for sure, but thankfully they will be less than the Israeli problems on their border.

“Rob, you seem to have little grasp of the actual situation on the ground in Iraq – likely from reliance on media sources like msnbc and the like.”

Yeah, how dare the traditional media report bomobings? We should be celebrating the fact that we have ALWAYS been victorious over Euras-I mean, Iraq.

“Visit some milblogs – by people who actually have sand in their boots – then see if your naivete retains its luster.”

Perhaps you should talk to my friends who’ve served, and explain to them why their experiences are trumped by your milblogs, if you’re handing out gratuitous advice.

“Better yet, get sand in your own boots.”

Yeah, that “civilian control of the military” thing? Forget about it. My job is to write checks and mindlessly cheer when we celebrate our land war Eastasia, unless I’m willing to sign up.

As for naivete… read some Chalmers Johnson (I spent the summer doing that, with Robert Kagan and Michael Scherer to boot). I submit it’s the “the US is a force for good, and how dare you say otherwise, your traitorous hater” folks that are naïve. All the libertarian/conservative skepticism regarding government as a means of perfecting human relations seems to slip out of some people’s ears when it comes to matters of war, and they become as insensible to reality as a hard-core Marxist, and end up doing things like declaring “victory” when the carnage levels in Iraq are simply appalling rather than catastrophic.

See, MY reading of military history is that it’s pretty frequent that war is not always a permanent solution (see: WWI and WWII, aka WWI, Let’s Get It Right This Time, or the multiple instances of Israeli occupations of Lebanon). Hell, the Kosovars are STILL fucked up from a 600+ year old war. But what do you expect from a government program?

Visit some milblogs – by people who actually have sand in their boots – then see if your naivete retains its luster.

Better yet, get sand in your own boots.
This nation has too many armchair generals already.

BTW, as for the “sold to Americans” thing, consider this:
In war, the enemy gets a vote in the outcome, too.

I for one never believed that this war would be cost-free, because I am a student of military history. Nevertheless, I supported it, since wars aren’t about balance sheets, they’re about what’s important enough to fight for.

That being said, we are about as “victorious” in Iraq as the Israelis have been “victorious” in Lebanon, or King Pyrrhus’s “victory” against the Romans. There are going to be big problems and significant costs issuing from the Middle East for years to come as a result of this war, and it behooves us to be significantly more thoughtful about the use of American arms in the future. We were sold this war as having little cost to the American people, and that’s definitely not how it turned out.