Posted by
Bill Lewis on Friday, December 01, 2006 4:35:21 PM
We can win or we can lose. That is where we are in the Iraq war today. To read the media or listen to liberal politicians, we are losing, losing, losing, and the sooner we accept that and get out, the better off we'll be.
We have around 2.5 million men and women in the military, and about 150,000 of them are in Iraq. If my calculator is correct, this means about six percent of our forces are there. I know that simply using raw numbers is misleading, but even if our numbers in Iraq were doubled or even tripled, it amounts to a small percentage of of military personnel.
The antiwar critiques contend we cannot win. They are suggesting that a country who fought and won two world wars is helpless against an insurgency of less than 100,000. For all our power and technology, we are being defeated by a ragtag band of guerillas.
Since we can't win, we might as well pull out. Bring the troops home, lick our wounds, and spin the loss somehow. But where does this leave us, and what happens next?
Imagine the joy and celebration in the Middle East as the extremists dance and frolic expressing their victory over the Great Satan. No matter how we spin it, we will have been humiliated. Our currency in that region and in much of the world will become worthless. Not only should our allies distrust any notion that we will support them, but our enemies will be emboldened as never before. Beating us means they are strong and we are weak. They will want more. Anyone who thinks that by leaving Iraq we solve a problem is delusional. By leaving Iraq we create a problem larger than we can even imagine.
Are we already defeated? Is this our new place in the world? It seems sad to think of us as the former super power and now irrelevant United States of America.