Iraq was won the moment we started military operations against that country... which really was a continuous operation since the end of the Gulf War. The moment shock and awe happened, and the US military rolled into Iraq, we won. We won consistently, and soundly, throughout the Iraq operation.
I'm an Iraq War veteran, I combat deployed to Iraq as an infantryman. Based on my own first hand experiences, to include what we saw while we were there, I know for a FACT that the United States military won the Iraq War with a straight cut victory.
Wrong. Those of you that opposed George Bush wanted him to be wrong. You guys; however, were dead wrong.
Again, the "Mission Accomplished" sign on the ship wasn't intended to communicate for George Bush, and it wasn't intended to communicate for the United States military. It was intended to communicate for the ship displaying that banner.
I know. I was in the Navy before I joined the Army. The ships that I was on did the same thing. That banner was intended specifically for the family of the members of the crew, generally for the community surrounding that ship's home port, and loosely for the American public.
If you read the text of his speech he made that day he landed on the flight deck, you'd notice that nowhere in there does he proclaim that the Iraq War was over. He only said major combat operations were over, he never said anything about minor combat operations being over. He also described how it was going to be like over there... to include the "dangerous road ahead" and the fact that we weren't going to leave there until Iraq was stable. That's precisely what happened.
So, those who thought they "knew," quotation marks used strongly, that Bush was "wrong," quotation marks used strongly, simply didn't know what they were thinking... they just ran off with what liberal talking heads said, and allowed the liberal Kool-Aid to be forced down their throats... instead of doing the research necessary to actually know what was going on.
This is an example of a narrative that I'm hearing from liberal propagandists.
When the US military was in Iraq, the military leadership and the US Ambassador made damn sure that al Malaki formed an inclusive government. As the end of 2011 drew near, the Iraqis were becoming more willing to agree on a SOFA. President Obama deliberately didn't want to work with Iraq.
The result? The US military wasn't able to remain behind to put force behind the US Ambassador's will for Iraq to maintain an inclusive government. After the US military left, al Malaki started to arrest key members and to isolate the other groups in favor of his Shiite majority.
That didn't play out very well... it wouldn't have played out at all had Obama worked with the US military and with Iraq, and the Iraqi military would've been able to prevent the terrorists from spilling over.
You're not able to let Obama off the hook on this one. He had a chance to correct his mistakes when the Iraqis, and US organizations, started to raise the alarm about the terrorist groups forming and being able to spread into Iraq in the face of the decline of the quality of their security forces. Originally Posted by herfacechair
Strange, I did the opposite. Two years in the army before a career in the navy. I have said repeatedly that the banner came from the ship's Welfare and Rec fund (not the White House) and was to commemorate the end of the deployment but they will not listen even though my personal source was on the Lincoln at the time in the CPO mess.