Bush Admits We Aren't Winning Iraq War

[Squeezer]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16275638/

President Bush acknowledged for the first time yesterday that the United States is not winning the war in Iraq and said he plans to expand the overall size of the "stressed" U.S. armed forces to meet the challenges of a long-term global struggle against terrorists.

As he searches for a new strategy for Iraq, Bush has adopted the formula advanced by his top military adviser to describe the situation. "We're not winning, we're not losing," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. The assessment was a striking reversal for a president who, days before the November elections, declared, "Absolutely, we're winning."

Sigh.

Hear that? It's George Orwell rolling in his grave at the sound of the double speak in the paragraph above. I also love Bush's genius strategy. "Derrrrr, we're not winning this war.....LETS SEND MORE PEOPLE TO THEIR DEATHS'"

only two more years.

[Kolar]

"...And the fundamental question is: Will Republicans and Democrats be able to work with the administration to assure our military and the American people that we will position our military so that it is ready and able to stay engaged in a long war?"

Playing politics. I wish the US Administration would at least try to do something different in Iraq and Afghanistan in the next 2 years instead of preparing to blame everything on the Democrats in 08. He really is the last neo-conservative.

[phata$$]

I'll see you in the draft.

[Subjugation]

I dunno. I just stopped paying attention to anything he says anymore, because it's always a bunch of nonsense/bullshit. Mission Accomplished, anyone? Or the most recent attempt at the Alabama Jedi Mind Trick---"this administration has never said stay the course". Uh, whatever you say.

[death row]

Bush is an idiot. No surprise that when people do impressions of him, they always make him sound like a total moron. He has no clue on what he's doing. One of the worse presidents of all-time, no doubt about it.

[Reaver]

The bottom line is that none of us are perfect, even the most logically proper thinking person will make the wrong decision sooner or later. When you keep this in mind and think about more people being involved in any one task, you only multiply the incorrect decisions in time. There isn't a single government system out there that is flawless, or even close to it in decision making. Why? Because in the simplest form of any government system, it always comes down to either many people making decisions or one person making a decision, and with both come mistakes. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not defending Bush's actions or words. I'm only pointing out that each government system has and will always have it's fallacies-- that doesn't mean we shouldn't aim high.

P.S. It was said from the beginning by experienced generals that in order to accomplish the task at hand, more troops would be required. We had far more troops involved for a smaller task, the Gulf War.

[Zerzera]

I'm only pointing out that each government system has and will always have it's fallacies-- that doesn't mean we shouldn't aim high.

Yeah, we have troops in Afghanistan

[Mantra-Slider]

Its a first step I guess

Do you remember this thread btw?
http://www.trenchwars.org/forums/showthread.php?t=10287

Where is the enforcer now? (who was he?)

[Ephemeral]

The scary part is that the Democrats could not find anyone to beat Bush in the last election. So what if no one has any ideas about addressing the issue? It's a lot easier to simply hurl criticism around without offering any solutions.

The worst thing that USA could do is leave Iraq. The second worst thing USA could do in stay in Iraq. Well over 80% of the violence is confined to 4 of the 18 Iraq provinces. Are we hearing about this in the news? No. The media's interest in this is what? The media is out there to make money. Period. And everyone knows that newspapers, t.v., news agencies, follow the standard "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality. There is nothing sensational about a news story that reports if things are going well. But it one Iraq blows himself up and takes out 20 other countrymen, that will be the lead news story for the day.

USA did not and will not win this war. Iraq did not and will not win this war. The terrorists did not and will not win this war.

The media and their sponsors have won this war. We (society) has supported them by increasing their circulation and viewership, which in turn makes them more money. We (society) has supported them by watching and buying into their 30 second sound bites instead of bothering to get all the facts. We (society) have sent yet another message to the media industry that we are more than happy to be spoon fed spin instead of objective and truthful information that allows us to make up our own minds.

[Zerzera]

I don't care, there is no one in Iraq I care about. When I happen to see those bloody bites on the news I normally just switch channels.
I don't think anyone in America cares about the people dying there either, so why do they care about that news?
The only thing I am interested in is the politics. I wonder why a country like America wants to start a war in a country somewhere in the middle east.
You could say that Iraq started, but then I ask myself why a country like Iraq would want to start.
When you live in a country there is no real reason for you, as person, to have anything to do with another country unless it's your neighboring countries.
So where does the hate in a few of those countries come from?
Any arrogant American would say that it's because of jealousy, but the only reason America got their prosperity is that they could get so many recourses outside their country. It generated debt, but that's basically fictive.
People in those countries must probably pay the price, they don't use these recourses, they sell them.
But who sells those recourses, and who benefits from it? A dictator like Saddam Hussein assures that only his elite gets the money, and keeps the people down.
I reckon America benefits from dictators in oil-countries, so why would they attack a country to tumble over someone like Saddam Hussein?
It's not because the people of America wanted this war, if Bush hadn't started about Iraq the moment he was elected, no one had cared.

[Ephemeral]

I don't care, there is no one in Iraq I care about. When I happen to see those bloody bites on the news I normally just switch channels.
I don't think anyone in America cares about the people dying there either, so why do they care about that news?
The only thing I am interested in is the politics. I wonder why a country like America wants to start a war in a country somewhere in the middle east.
You could say that Iraq started, but then I ask myself why a country like Iraq would want to start.
When you live in a country there is no real reason for you, as person, to have anything to do with another country unless it's your neighboring countries.
So where does the hate in a few of those countries come from?
Any arrogant American would say that it's because of jealousy, but the only reason America got their prosperity is that they could get so many recourses outside their country. It generated debt, but that's basically fictive.
People in those countries must probably pay the price, they don't use these recourses, they sell them.
But who sells those recourses, and who benefits from it? A dictator like Saddam Hussein assures that only his elite gets the money, and keeps the people down.
I reckon America benefits from dictators in oil-countries, so why would they attack a country to tumble over someone like Saddam Hussein?
It's not because the people of America wanted this war, if Bush hadn't started about Iraq the moment he was elected, no one had cared.

Have you heard of World War 2? And if the rest of the world did not give a shit, where would it have ended up? Apathy is not usually considered an acceptable solution.

USA did not benefit from the Iraq war. Gas prices are as high as they have ever been. Americans have died. The war debt is huge.

People (in all countries) did care about Hussein. The UN cared, which is why it passed resolutions to try to make things better in Iraq. Environmentalists cared that Hussein dumped more oil into the sea than the Exxon disaster did. Human rights people cared that Hussein was committing genocide. The situation was that even through everyone agreed that he was a threat to the world in many ways, few had any solutions. Obviously everyone knew that USA going in to get rid of this guy was not the ideal solution. But world and UN pressure clearly was not working at all. Were there other possible solutions? If so, what were they?

Perhaps some day you might own a nice piece of property with a bold stream running through it. You and your kids enjoy the stream, use it for fishing and recreation. Then one day, some neighbor upstream starts dumping insecticide and other poisons in the stream. Would you still be apathetic and believe that we should simply ignore what our neighbors do?

Everyone is concerned over global warming. Point is at the 'world' level, what our neighbors do is important.

[EnFlAmE]

O yeah the USA is totaly worried about global warning, so much even that they don't follow the rules of the kyoto convention.

[Ephemeral]

O yeah the USA is totaly worried about global warning, so much even that they don't follow the rules of the kyoto convention.

Oh yeah, make a sweeping generalization for 300 million people.

And FYI, the USA has neither ratified nor withdrawn from the Kyoto protocol but rather is trying to leverage it's approval to get changes in the way it is worded. For example, China is currently completely exempt yet is ranked as the second largest producer of greenhouse gases (and will overtake USA as largest in 2007). India, a fairly large producer, was also exempt.

[Epinephrine]

Have you heard of World War 2? And if the rest of the world did not give a shit, where would it have ended up? Apathy is not usually considered an acceptable solution.

But no one did care about World War II until their own country was ATTACKED. America didn't declare war on Germany until UBoats started sinking American ships. America didn't declare war on Japan until Pearl Harbor. I don't see your point.

[gran guerrero]

it's technically not a war, seeing as congress never declared it a war...