Definitions...

[sleigh]

don_fitch replied to my entry yesterday regarding the "surge" in Iraq. He mentioned that "We didn't break it (Iraq) in the sense one breaks a machine, we broke it in the sense of dropping the eggs on a stone floor, so 'repair' is not an applicable word."

An apt comparison, I think. But it got me thinking that, gee, maybe the problem for King George is that he's just chosen the wrong definition and is stubbornly keeping to it.

Here's what I replied to Don (cleaned up a little):

We can "win" nearly any war we start -- if we define "win" as "pound on them until their infrastructure breaks and their government collapses." We have military technology and power that is second to none. We can rain missiles on a country from hundreds of miles away or precision-bomb them from planes they won't be able to touch. We can bring in ground troops, tanks, and support vehicles that few countries can match.

What we can't do is march in with enough troops and money to occupy and rebuild afterward (and impose a democracy on them whether they want it or not) -- not with our current troop levels and economy. You need WWII troop levels to do that.

Maybe we're just defining "win" the wrong way. As soon as we toppled the Saddam regime, we should have said "OK, we won! Have fun putting putting your new government together, and make sure it's one we like or we'll be back!" Then we should have immediately declared victory and left.

That wouldn't be right, but we would have 'won' then. Mission accomplished.

Comments

Re: Augmentation....

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Yes, as in "breast..." :-)