Man, millons of Germans were displaced by the Allies in WWII (and also after WWII, come to that). Guess that means we lost that one too.

Drat, we lose no matter what.

“Capture Bin Laden and other senior Al Qaeda members – you know, the guys that actually planned and financed 9-11″

Guess that means we lost the Revolutionary War and WWI because we failed to capture King George and Kaiser Wilhelm.

As a matter of fact, by that standard we lost just about every war we ever fought.

That’s humbling.

It’s a great idea if you want to smash the Baathist state and kill terrorists.

Works for me.

First of all, I have a majority of the country on my side, not the select groups you mentioned. Close to 70% of the country still believes we should change our Iraqi policy and find a way to get out troops out of there. I guess a majority of the country turned into far-left liberals while you weren’t looking.

I did refute your point. I demonstrated that your definition of winning is simply a list of those things that Bush has actually (or you mistaken believe) accomplished. You ignore all of the problems that have not been adequately addressed or resolved. I know where you got your idea – Bush has been redefining success ever since we invaded Iraq in the same way. First it was to rid the world of a dangerous dictator with WMDs. Then it changed to spreading democracy. Then it changed to a country that can defend, sustain and govern itself. Now Bush doesn’t even care if the Iraqi government meets any of the benchmarks that Bush himself established as the whole purpose for the surge.

Your comparison between the US Congress and the Iraqi government misses one slightly important distinction – our soldiers are dying and our country is paying billions of dollars a month while the Iraqi government ignores our pleas to reconcile in some manner and form some type of functioning government! Can you explain to me why as a supposed conservative you have no problem with wasting American soldiers lives and our tax dollars for another country whose political leadership could care less about it?

Your comment that capturing Bin Laden and the senior Al Qaeda leadership is no longer important blows my mind. Did you forget that they were the ones who orchestrated the 9-11 attacks? Did you not read the latest NIE that concluded that Al Qaeda has reconstituted itself in Pakistan and has roughly the same capability as it had pre 9-11? It concluded that Al-Qaeda has “protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability” and that it possesses “safehaven in the Pakistani Federal Administered Tribal Areas.” If you don’t care about the leadership of the terrorist group that actually attacked our homeland, why the hell are you worried about terrorism at all?

As for your evidence that the Iraq War was a good idea, it is priceless. I thought all of those terrorist were there in the first place – isn’t that one of the reasons we went to war? I also don’t understand how tens of thousands of terrorist flooding into Iraq demonstrates that it was a good idea. They flooded into Iraq because they wanted to create chaos and pin our military down there for years. Isn’t it pretty clear that they have been successful at least up until now? Did you not know that this is precisely what Bin Laden was trying to achieve with 9-11 – his writings consistently talk about luring the US into a quagmire in the Middle East and turning the muslim world against the west. I’m also guessing that you have no problem with Iran’s increased power in the region (did you forget that we used to give Saddam military aid in order to serve as a counter-balance to Iran’s growing power?) and the fact that Iraq is now governed by Shite groups with close ties to Tehran. I guess we’ll just fix that problem with another poorly planned and managed invasion and occupation.

There are plenty of legitimate points of disagreement about how to fix Iraq. Whether or not the Iraq war was a good idea, we are there now. When, how and whether we remove our troops is a legitimate issue of discussion. But to suggest that we are winning in Iraq simply by redefining it as the meager things we have already accomplished is irresponsible.

Your ad hominem calling someone who has served a “cheerleader” is case in point of what has been discussed here and elsewhere all along: the cheerleaders for defeat do not give a crap about those who serve other than to make them rhetorical suicide bombers for their own political ends.

Oh and one of the criteria for winning has not happened?

Those who’ve been around here for a while know what I think about how the war has been conducted. The difference is, my alternatives did not, and do not include surrendering to the enemy for any reason.

I’m sick to death of hearing about the problems facing the elected government of Iraq. When our own government, that hasn’t the excuse of trying to return to a sane world after 30 years of a brutal dictatorship, begins to function properly, I’ll listen. And when the leaders of our government don’t consistently and continually give the infant Iraqi government cause to think that they are going to be thrown to the wolves, I’ll listen. Otherwise, shut up.

And by the way, jaybird, you are behind in the news or you wouldn’t have put out half of your statements. In the military, we used to say that the situation was overtaken by events. Your situation has been overtaken by events, son.

One last word, because I’m sick to death of hearing this particular complaint: pre-war electricity in Baghdad was what it was because the power was diverted from the rest of the country, which was forced to do without. If things haven’t improved quickly enough in this area, how about blaming those who have constantly sabotaged the infrastructure?