"Remove the taliban from power" Partial sucess. The taliban just moved there base of operations south into Pakistan. Keep in mind that a U.S. outpost was almost over run by the taliban a few months ago. Since that attack you hear in media more troops "reinforcements" enroute to the afghan theater of war.
The taliban do not run the government anymore. The success was swift here. You are right they still try and mount a spring offensive every year. It has always been unsuccessful to date.
"Remove Saddam from power." Success concede that to you.
Thank you the success was very swift here.
"Neutralize Osma Bin Liden." Minimal Success, if OBL was really neutralzed their would be a decline in International soliders deaths in the Afghan theater. With in the past couple months more international soliders died from hostile fire in the Afghan theater than the Iraqi theater. OBL is still an inspiration to the fighters in the Afghan theater.
AQ takes pride in their media arm. They have claimed the number two is holed up with Bin Laden. They release a high quality video from him what seems like every three days. Why no video from Bin Laden rallying the troops or giving instructions? Why only very low quality audio tapes? His money has been seized, if alive he has been isolated, and most of his top leaders have been captured. In some ways this is much better than him being publicly killed. I would still rather see proof he is dead but he has been neutralized.
"Deny Saddam the ability to restart his WMD program." No sucess there. Your statement is Historical revisionism in the making. The motive for war in Iraq was Saddam already POSSESSED WMD's. Not restart the WMD program.
Saddam is dead he will not be developing nuclear weapons. See the Bush speech to the UN. He claimed Saddam was seeking to restart his nuclear program and actively seeking materials to aid him in this effort. Unless a ghost can do this it will not happen.
"Governments elected by the people of Afghanistan and Iraq." Partial Success." Because some of those people feel that their current government is puppets for the US motives and want change "About 35 Iraqi officials have been arrested at the interior ministry, some accused of planning a coup" http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKN1736078020081218
I was a small part of the first three free elections in Iraq in 35 years. This was a huge success. There was no US interference. A party ran on the platform to get the Americans out and only managed 2% of the vote.
"Minimize US military deaths" Partial sucess. The deaths is down from the peaks. Keep in mind the enemy could be playing possum and just going along with plans, waiting for the opportunity to strike.
You should compare these wars to wars of the past. This has been a huge success.
"Prevent more attacks on US soil" Presently that is a success. However that can change on a dime.
Yes it is a success. Thanks.
"Neutralize Al Queada" Minimial success. Everytime I read about some kind of terror attack in some other country from small bombs on buses in the UK, bombing of western hotels in Bali, Jakarta, etc. To guys with automatic rifles in India. That is not a neutralized Al-Qeda.
Lets see AQ is fleeing Iraq as fast as they can. They are coming down with the plague in their training camps. Their members are losing faith in their leadership from intercepted communications. Yes their influence has been neutralized.
What you claim as successful objectives met. I claim as minimial to partial success.
Of course that is your right but you asked why I think these wars have been very successful not the other way around.
This war on terror is going to end only in two ways. Either their will be peace through Diplomacy. Or peace through Genocide. I say Genocide because you have kill everybody who has same ideas or is sympathetic to the cause of your enemy. As long as your enmey has oxygen in the brain they will pass on the message of why they fight to other people "future fighters".
I cannot agree with that. Not that you care.
The time table excuse still doesnt fly. The point he was making is simple.
The point of the iraq war and the afghanistan war had objectives that HAVE STILL NOT BEEN MET.
In afghanistan, removing and eliminating the taliban was the objective...today, they are stronger than ever, now called the narco-taliban with the increase in poppy production.
Mission FAILED.
In Iraq, the objective was WMD and eliminating al-qaeda. As to WMD's, they never existed so it was easy to claim victory for this, as to al-qaeda, the 911 committee and the senate commitees proved they never existed in the first place in Iraq and as a bonus, had no ties to saddam hussien.
Mission FAILED.
In Iraq, we created a mess with bad planning and no leadership from the white house. Then, when it became a disaster, a new plan (the surge) had to be implemented to fix what we broke.
These are not successful wars. They are disasters that have cost the US taxpayers more in dollars than 911 caused in total.
Over 1 trillion spent in Iraq alone, more than was spent on another lost conflict (vietnam).
Anyone who calls these wars victories need to examine what victory is.
And if anyone wants to try and connect Iraq to 911 and say that by attacking them, our country has been safe is out of touch with reality.
Bush himself shows the failure of his wars in his goodbye speech the other night. Before the wars began, he used the name Osama Bin Laden in every other sentence, so did his administration.
They sold the war to america by saying that they were going to get OSAMA for 911. Everyone bought it. It was an easy sell. For months, they used his name over and over....
Yet, in his goodbye speech, he never made mention of OSAMA BIN LADEN 1 TIME!!
What happened? Funny how 6 years later, the name OSAMA BIN LADEN just disappeared from the war rhetoric.
I guess the world is safe from the #1 terrorist now that bush took on two countries with no ties to 911.
Get a clue people.
Not once did bush mention OSAMA BIN LADEN as a reason for either wars in his final speech.
This president was, is and will always be remembered as an idiot.
Jump on the bandwagon and tell me how wrong I am.Hey it's all in good fun.
I guess we can agree, to disagree.
Diplomacy with Hamas has not worked for 20+years. Several small scale war's have not worked with Hamas. The only option left is Genocide.
