[Rhodes22-list] Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif/Let the games begin.

[stan]

DC for president, Brad for VP, Rummy for Sec of State and Ed for our UN 
rep - Bill can write up all the quotes and get it on the talk shows and 
Phil, Herb and Hank can run the services.   A real balanced ticket.  Ron can 
be Henry K.

and I can retire in peace.

stan

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <DCLewis1 at aol.com>
To: <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2006 3:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif/Let the games begin.



Herb:

Re your statement “ If we lose this war, it will only be because of leaving
before we win.”, that’s true of any foreign war isn’t it?  And of course it
doesn’t preclude the possibility that we might never win, right?  Whenever 
we
leave, if we’d just stayed a little longer we might have won, right?   The
issue then is whether it’s worth the pain and cost.  Now you would  think 
that
had been sorted out before we went in - but clearly that wasn’t the  case
because the Administration was certifiably clueless about the pain and 
cost, and
even the end goals, so we have to sort it out anew because they didn’t  even
begin to do their homework.  Frankly, I resent having to do that after  the
fact; but that’s the way it is, right?

But OK we’re there,  let’s win.  What does “win” mean to  you?  We started
out to get rid of their WMD, but there weren’t any so  that’s done.
Actually, that’s a “win”, right?  Another goal was to  get rid of Saddam; 
well he’s
not gone yet, but he may be going unless he's  re-elected President, so that’s
another “win”.  The “goal d’jure” now is to  establish Iraq as “an oasis
of democracy in the middle east” - where did that  goal come from?   Who 
ever
decide to make Iraq “an oasis of democracy  in the middle east”?  Is that
practical over the short or long term, and  why do we want to spend 
thousands of
lives and hundreds of billions of dollars  to achieve that nebulous goal? 
Did
the Congress authorize going to war in  order to establish Iraq as an oasis 
of
democracy in the middle east?  Who  besides the neocon purists have signed 
up
to that idea of win?   Do we  really have to completely buy the version of
win the political purists spring on  us?  Maybe we (the nation, not the 
neocons)
should negotiate, define, and  understand exactly why we’re in Iraq and the
criteria for getting out ( if it  was just WMD we ought to be out today) - 
that’
s the job of the Congress, not the  press release office of the President.
If we do that, I suspect the end  state vision of establishing Iraq as “an
oasis of democracy in the middle east”  will probably go out the door and 
winning
might become a lot more  feasible.  For example, an alternative end state
might be whatever  government(s) that works that can provide for the common
defense and ensure  domestic tranquility - and if partitioning gets it done 
with
tribal warlords  running each partition, that's what it takes and we'd have 
been
gone a year  ago.

My point is, if everyone doesn't know exactly what “win” means, it can be
real hard or real easy to win, and the definition of win can morph 
repeatedly,
as it has.  We may never win the war in Iraq, because the end state just
keeps changing.

Dave
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