On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 17:05:04 -0800, C J Campbell wrote:


"Thomas Borchert" wrote in message
... | John,
|
| Have you been following the news lately, at all? |
| Are you trying to make a point?
|
|
| Yes. The point: If what's happening in Iraq is "winning a war", then
the | definitions of "winning" must have changed dramatically since I
last | checked.
|
|
Are you suggesting that Saddam is winning the war? Then you have an even
stranger definition of 'winning.'

It looks to me like no one is winning this war.

Saddam certainly lost. His supporters and military lost. The people in
Iraq who opposed the regime will quite likely be crushed again once the US
leaves and the Bathists have even more free rein than they have now. So
they too will probably eventually lose.

The concept of a UN able to solve major international crisis certainly
lost.

If there were WMD, they seem to have gone underground, quite possibly into
the hands of al Qaeda, which would make the US less safe than before the
invasion.

If there were no WMD (which is what most of the world outside the US now
believes), then the US has lost a huge amount of credibility, and even
fewer countries will be willing to come running next time the US cries
"Wolf".

The US taxpayer has certainly lost. There is little hope of other
countries picking up the bill for what they consider a war that was
started under false pretenses.

The only people who are wining are those who delight in having even more
people mad enough at the US that they can convert them into terrorists.
This war surely created many thousands more prospective terrorists. This
is the greatest recruiting campaign al Qaeda ever dreamed of, all funded
by the US taxpayer.

The US military certainly won the "offical" war, but the peace seems to be
slipping through their fingers. The whole point of the exercise was to
make the US safer, and that does not seem likely now.



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