How does the war affect you?

I think the people who started this war in Iraq are glad when the nation is able to forget about it. They've made such a mess of it.

It's so hard to compare this war with World War II. In December 1941, our enemies were obvious and our cause was just. These days, most people have trouble drawing a clear line between being attacked on Sept. 11 and the current occupation of Iraq. The majority of the U.S. doesn't support this war and many realize that we went there for the wrong reasons.

I believe the wrong question is being asked.

Instead of asking what the civilians are sacrificing why not ask what the Military Industrial Complex companies are sacrificing? It sure isn't profits.

We are traveling the wrong way down the street but the driver is too proud and too stupid to admit the mistake and turn around.

"Sorry honey, we're on the left side of the expressway, and while turning around may avoid further problems, it would be a sign of weakness... so we press on because we're not about to cut and run!" How stupid is that?

God Bless and keep every family who sends someone off to serve those ill-conceived orders (including my own). That's their job and they do a darn fine job doing what they are asked to do. The problem is really the orders themselves, not those asked to carry them out.

I agree we were sent to war for the wrong reasons, that we were misled and downright lied to. But now that we are there we have to finish the job. It would be a mistake to leave too soon. We wouldn't want the madman running Iran to take over Iraq, too.

I support the troops.

MJB,

There are plenty of madmen running countries. Many countries would characterize our leader as a madman. That does not give them the right to invade us. One country's 'madman' is another country's 'hero'. Staying longer just builds more resentment against the U.S. for their future generations to grow up and want to take revenge for what we've done to their country and loved ones there. It will never be 'over' until we finally decide to back out of it. The only other alternative is to do the unthinkable and kill everyone there who does not like us in their country. Take your pick.

I wrestle with this issue every minute of the day (plus those sleepless nights) because my son just started his second deployment. He is a machine gunner on top of a Humvee (101st Airborne). One week down, 67 to go.

Sue Dibblee...God be with you and your son.

I truly find it difficult to understand the short sightedness of so many people. Rudolph, our enemies, the Islamic fanatics, are extremely obvious except they choose to fight without uniforms and hide behind women and children. If you see no enemy I must ask in just what world have you been living for the past twenty years? The UN Security Council imposed its’ first of TWELVE comprehensive economic sanctions against Iraq in August of 1990. Given the actions of Saddam Hussein, the WORLD believed Iraq had in their possession weapons of mass destruction. Saddam continued to give both money and aid to Islamic fanatics while flaunting his presumed powers against the IAEA inspectors. It was this attitude and the belief communicated to the WORLD about the development of nuclear weapons that created the final provocation.

Also Rudolph, if you have indeed been watching the Ken Burns documentary then you know that no war goes as planned. I believe it was General George Patton that said that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. Did you note how many thousands of lives were lost unnecessarily during WW II because of either poor planning or excellent reaction by the enemy? Am I happy with everything that has occurred in Iraq, no, but I’m neither in that theater nor entrusted with leading our forces and will leave it to those that are.

Joe, have you spent any time reading about the Islamic fanatic methodology? Are you aware of their activities virtually around the World? If we put on rose-colored glasses do you think the Islamic fanatics will go away? Perhaps we should just bury our heads in the sand and just wait until they “give up’ on their jihad and realize that it’s not a good idea to insure that the world worship Allah. Perhaps you’re of the mind to sit down and have tea with them and then they’ll understand that killing children, bombing civilians, and their intent on eliminating Israel from the map is not a real good idea. By the way, the Military Industrial Complex does not operate in a vacuum.

The World’s intelligence gatherers agreed that Saddam posed a threat, not just those of the United States. Do you believe that the WORLD lied to us MJB? You can attempt to criticize our presence in Iraq, but you cannot do so with our efforts in the Middle East. I am thankful that there is finally a leader that understands the implications of allowing the leaders in this area to continue unchallenged. Have you noted the renewed concern and call for increased sanctions against Iran of the French and other European Countries?

Do you really believe that the leaders of Iran and Syria will stop their support of terrorist groups? Do you really think that the countries of Middle East will just reach a Kumbaya moment all by themselves? Joe, I really believe that you have been drinking too much Kool-Aid and should try just a little optimism. We don’t have to kill everybody to effect change and order: I ultimately believe in the people of Iraq.

I think about our warriors every day. Sue, God Bless you and your son. I wish your son and all the others engaged God speed.

Jim Strnad
U.S. Navy Retired

When I had said "In December 1941, our enemies were obvious," I was making a comparison to Iraq in 2007. During the current occupation, our enemies are a complicated mix of Sunni insurgents, Shiite death squads linked to the Iraqi government, Shias backed by Iran, Shias loyal to Moqtada al Sadr, foreign fighters, criminal gangs, Saddam loyalists, Al Qaeda types, etc. People in the Pentagon often acknowledge that they don't know who exactly the enemy is.

Yes, Mr. Strnad, I see the larger picture -- that we are fighting Islamic extremists around the world and terrorist ideologies that seek to do us harm. I supported the invasion of Afghanistan and think we still should do more to bag Osama bin Laden. Criticizing the decision to start the Iraq war and criticizing its conduct is not the same as advocating surrender to the terrorists.

In 2003, there was some doubt in the U.S. intelligence community about Iraq's WMD -- the public, and Congress, never heard about those doubts. We all agree now that there were no WMDs. To fall back on the line that "the world's intelligence gatherers agreed that Saddam posed a threat" is a feeble excuse and doesn't alter the fact that we were wrong. Saddam posed no threat to us.

Bush does not deserve credit for challenging the dictatorships of the Middle East. He selectively ignores the repressive regimes of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others that sell us cheap oil.

I'll tell you another difference between today and World War II: Bush is no FDR. Even if FDR hadn't been living with polio, he never would have put on a flight suit and played pretend aviator on the deck of a U.S. aircraft carrier. FDR never created a policy to pre-emptively attack a country that didn't attack us. And FDR never would have dreamed of telling our enemies "bring them on."

Jim, I respect your career and your point of view and thank you for your service to our country.

I don't believe radical fundamentalists just pick up a map and say let's target the US for no reason at all. There have been years of oppression and pillaging by those countries whom have been targeted. There are countries who have never done such things who do not have the current problem of terrorism. It's a cause/effect, action/reaction formula. The only way out of that formula which is a cycle of violence is to remove oneself from it.

The jihadists gain power because we give them something to point to and play right into their psychological work-over on their people.

They say we're there to come kill Muslims, and what do we do? We go over there and kill muslims. They say we're going to kill women and children and what happens? We kill women and children too. Purposeful or not, it's happening. So, the young ones who see their family and friends get killed are left with hatred for us. Who plays on that anger? The Jihadists. Our actions are MAKING them new recruits each and every day we stay over there and kill people. Give them no concrete thing to point to to blame their problems on and they are a bag of hot air. True Muslims don't want their brand of bile, but will take it when they turn out to be correct because we've done exactly what they said we were going to do to their land and people. You can blame the non-combatant deaths on the insurgents hiding amongst them but we're the ones shooting in after them accepting the collateral damage as 'acceptable' enough to engage. Our soldiers were ordered to be in that crappy position to have to make that choice, unfortunately.

At the core of their desire is to rebuild an Islamic state much like they had with the Ottoman Empire. We don't like that idea and influence the region to make it more favorable to obtain the natural resources. I'm sorry, but we are part of the problem whether or not we want to admit to it. I'm not saying it's a good idea that they do it, there's enough governments there already that won't let it happen. We don't need to keep sticking out stick into the hornet's nest and then complain when we get stung.

I respect your service and career, but I believe we are looking at the same problem from 2 different angles.

My family too shares the same branch of service, by the way.
(Beat Army!)

If you believe in the people of Iraq, then let them be to work out their own destiny for themselves. Making them 'choose' what we want them to do isn't a choice or a freedom at all.

On a final thought: If China plopped its military in this country we would not welcome them with flowers and dancing in the streets and we would not line up like the British did in the Revolutionary War to fight them 'fairly'. We did not even do it back then. We would be doing the EXACT SAME THINGS and probably more to repel our invaders as they are doing for theirs.

Some here might welcome the Chinese military coming here for regime change. I can also guarantee you that groups here would label those people traitors and even kill them for supporting the invaders. Again, how is that any different? We would not roll over and just accept their new rule and re-structuring of our economy and social order and I find it amazing that people expect another country's citizens to just accept ours.

I’d like to help out Mr. Strnad with his famous quotes. The maxim that “no battle plan survives contact with the enemy” belongs to Field Marshall Helmuth von Moltke (b. 10-26-1800, d. 4-24-1891). He was chief of staff of the Prussian army in his day, and wrote famously (famously enough to still be quotable today, anyway) on military strategy. He was a student/protégé of the even more famous Clausewitz.

My concern is that Mr. Strnad’s misuse of the quote goes beyond mere mis-attribution, to a more common and fundamental mistake. He is using the quote to justify poor results based on poor planning, when the originator of the quote intended the opposite. In brief, Moltke’s key contribution to the art of war strategy was to reframe war strategy as a process. Moltke regarded proper war plans as a decision tree (well before modern computer programming made such ideas obvious) and emphasized that prior proper planning (surely, a veteran is familiar with the seven Ps) for all possible contingencies was essential for good results. Prior proper planning is essential to the ultimate success of the campaign because a limited, inflexible, non-contingent plan will fall prey to the reality that “no battle plan survives contact with the enemy”. To cop out poor performance with a reference to that quote is to admit to the failure of the comprehensive contingent planning that Moltke insisted was essential for success.

Unlike WWII, the Iraq War was a war of choice. (I won’t even get into the conflation of waging war on a secular regime that repressed religious fundamentalists with our completely separate conflict with the religious fundamentalists that regime repressed. Suffice it to say that separating the apples from the oranges dramatically reduces the sense of urgency involved.) There is precious little excuse for the lack of prior proper planning to address the entirely possible and predictable contingent events that have led us to the position that we’re in today in Iraq. References to Moltke only underscore the precise nature of the failure of leadership, as a failure of prior proper planning.

Here’s another quote, which I think is appropriate to the topic starter’s conflation of the subject of watching a war documentary on TV and supporting the troops (as if they were in any way related):

“In great empires the people who live in the capital, and in the provinces remote from the scene of action, feel, many of them, scarce any inconveniency from the war; but enjoy, at their ease, the amusement of reading in the newspapers the exploits of their own fleets and armies. To them this amusement compensates the small difference between the taxes which they pay on account of the war, and those which they had been accustomed to pay in time of peace. They are commonly dissatisfied with the return of peace, which puts an end to their amusement, and to a thousand visionary hopes of conquest and national glory from a longer continuance of the war.”

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

Even Adam Smith couldn’t predict that politicians would invent a means for waging war without taxes, but no one’s perfect. Despite this flaw, the quote excellently illustrates, I believe, the difference between cheering for victories while enjoying life on the safe side of sacrifice and supporting the troops.

Phil O. Soph,

Here's a quote: "Get a job!"