Such smugness, arrogance ...such insufferable moral superiority.

[Ned]

What is the difference between "defeated" and "victory is no longer possible?" As the Germans on Nov. 11, 1918.

Surrender is surrender.

[Imran Siddiqui]

And then in that case, sometimes surrender can be good. Better to live to fight again another day than be exterminated .

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Ned
What is the difference between "defeated" and "victory is no longer possible?" As the Germans on Nov. 11, 1918.

Surrender is surrender.

How delightfully appropriate that you should choose the 20th century's most pointless, preventable, and utterly futile orgy of carnage as your term of reference for Iraq. In that scenario, though, we're not Germany. We're Russia, looking at the futility of it all and saying, "that's it, we've got our own problems, we're out of here."

But a better analogy (though still imperfect) would be the Korean War, which was the last time we came to the conclusion that pursuing military victory at all costs was sometimes a sucker's game. (And there, we had universal male conscription and a broad coalition of allies on our side).

[Drake Tungsten]

We also had ~47,000 more soldiers killed. Then again, America was a lot tougher back then...

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
We also had ~47,000 more soldiers killed. Then again, America was a lot tougher back then...

Right but right now we also have much better combat medical systems. In the Korean War we had 100Kish wounded and in Iraq 47K wounded, which isn't that big of a difference. A hell of a lot of those 47K would be dead with Korean War technology and a whole ****load of them have had horrific injuries that will leave them permanently disabled.

[MRT144]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


You forgot your mate Molly.

[Drake Tungsten]

According to Wikipedia, there are also 24 more countries who have contributed to the coalition forces in Iraq (41) than there were in Korea (17).

In the Korean War we had 100Kish wounded and in Iraq 47K wounded, which isn't that big of a difference.

A 112% difference isn't a big one?

edit: And that's accepting your number for US wounded in Iraq, which is double the amount listed by Wiki. It's a 355% difference using those numbers...

[Drake Tungsten]

Add the Washington Post to the increasingly long list of critics of the ISG report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/09/AR2006120900581.html

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
According to Wikipedia, there are also 24 more countries who have contributed to the coalition forces in Iraq (41) than there were in Korea (17).

In the Korean War we had 100Kish wounded and in Iraq 47K wounded, which isn't that big of a difference.

A 112% difference isn't a big one?

edit: And that's accepting your number for US wounded in Iraq, which is double the amount listed by Wiki. It's a 355% difference using those numbers...

Actually, 100k US military injured in Korea, where we had 1.75 million soldiers deployed over 3 years, vs. 22k wounded in Iraq, where we've delpoyed 500k soldiers in the last 3 years, is only a 29% difference in the ratio of injured/deployed. Factor in improvements in body armor, and the two conflicts don't look that different.

[Drake Tungsten]

Using your numbers, there's still a 376% difference in the number killed in Korea per deployed soldier vs the number killed in Iraq per deployed soldier. And a 71% difference in total casualties per deployed soldier.

edit: To put that in perspective, we would now have over 14,000 dead and around 28,500 wounded in Iraq at Korean War casualty/deployed soldier rates.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Using your numbers, there's still a 376% difference in the number killed in Korea per deployed soldier vs the number killed in Iraq per deployed soldier. And a 71% difference in total casualties per deployed soldier.

Well, your number is high for Korean deaths. The accepted number (I'm drawing from the Wiki article you cited) is 33k, not 47k (that one counts all military deaths during the Korean war, whether of not the soldier was ever deployed to Korea). That brings the total casualties per deployed soldier down to a 52% difference. But overall, you're right.

Still, given that military victory in Iraq seems to be impossible (short of massively increasing the size of our military, which is fine by me; I'm to old fro teh draft, and my daughter's too young), does that mean you think we should just stick around until the kill ratio approachs Korean War levels?

[Drake Tungsten]

My point was that the cost of the current war is low by historical standards. That being the case, justifying a pull-out from Iraq based on the "cost being too high" is either...

a) proof that the American public really has become casualty-phobic and lacking in the stomach for a fight, as many of our enemies claim

or b) bull****

I don't really know which is the case. I personally find arguments that the war's cost is too high to be unpersuasive, but I don't know how the majority of Americans truly feel on the issue. And there are, of course, other arguments for pulling out of Iraq that I find more compelling, depending on how firmly rooted they are in the hard to discern realities of the situation.

Still, given that military victory in Iraq seems to be impossible

A purely military victory in Iraq has always been impossible, given our goals there. However, our military may still be able to play a role in achieving the political/social victory needed for a positive outcome in Iraq.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
My point was that the cost of the current war is low by historical standards. That being the case, justifying a pull-out from Iraq based on the "cost being too high" is either...

a) proof that the American public really has become casualty-phobic and lacking in the stomach for a fight, as many of our enemies claim

or b) bull****

You left out (c) unwilling to expend more blood on a war of choice that increasingly seems both dubiously justified and poorly planned. It may not be that the cost of War is too high -- just that the cost of this war is to high.

But I suspect, as you seem to, that the real reason that people have turned against the war is that our stated goals seem unachievable. Americans in the end are pragmatists, the current Administration notwithstanding.

[Drake Tungsten]

You left out (c) unwilling to expend more blood on a war of choice that increasingly seems both dubiously justified and poorly planned. It may not be that the cost of War is too high -- just that the cost of this war is to high.

That's a reason for pulling out based on the justification of the war, not the cost. If you think the war was wrong to begin with, then any amount of cost is too much. This argument could have been (and was) made two years ago, when costs were much lower...

But I suspect, as you seem to, that the real reason that people have turned against the war is that our stated goals seem unachievable.

Emphasis added. Things may in fact be the way they seem at the moment, but I'm wary of buying into the media spin on events, given their track record and the fact that the Iraqis, the US military and the administration all seem to think that a continued American presence can indeed have some positive effect.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Add the Washington Post to the increasingly long list of critics of the ISG report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...120900581.html

It seems clear the Post is listening to the howling Israelis, and rightly so. Solving the long festering Palestinian issue as a "prerequist" to solving Iraq is beyond "pie in the sky." It demonstrates that the Report itself is founded in abject capitulationism. The commissioners must have known that their formula for success diplomatically is so far from achievable that choosing that path is doomed to a debacle.

We are left with a withdrawal without hope of a stable Iraq. That is the bottom line recommendation of the Iraq Report.