"Keep that faith, keep your courage, stick together, stay strong, do not yield, stand up, we're Americans and we'll never surrender..."

The opening line to McCain's first general election ad.  Ah, American's love their dichotomies.  Win not lose, Victory over surrender.  If only it were so black and white.  

In the general election, the Democratic nominee is going to need to reframe this argument.  Actually they should both be doing it now.  Beginning to pull the troops of Iraq and using avenues other than military force is not a retreat, nor a sign of defeat.  It is the path to a "victory," if there's even one to be had.  I don't think we'll be able to convince the hundreds of thousands of Americans out there that Iraq is not a win or lose situation, even though that's the reality of it.  Instead, we need to reframe the plan in Iraq as the only way to a "successful" end to this.  

(Please forgive me, I hate to use words such as victory and success in relation to such a complex situation, for it oversimplifies it to a ridiculous degree.  It is precisely what I have faulted our current administration for doing.  So I use these words only for a lack of better ones.)

45 candidates who will be running for Congress have laid out a detailed plan entitled, "A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq."  Unsurprisingly, it has gotten little press, at least to my eyes.  They raise two strategic questions, the first noting that there is no military route to success in Iraq: it has to be a combination of diplomatic, political, humanitarian and economic means.  But they make the point that "We must stop counter-productive military operations by U.S. occupation forces and end our military presence in Iraq."

We must remind America constantly that Petraeus himself said, over a year ago now, that "there is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq."  I think this is starting to take hold within the public.  But we need to make clear why, and demonstrate what the "counter-productive" operations are.  I stumbled across this today and found it to be an excellent example of this, a letter from a soldier currently in Iraq:

I agree that coming here was a big mistake for those reasons and others. As far as things on the ground, the outlook isn't much better. In my opinion, what everyone fails to realize is that this is not a counterinsurgency. If we wanted to stay in Iraq, then it would be a counterinsurgency. But it is clear that our goal is to turn over power and pull out. So, in building our strategic endstate, it's pointless to set goals that relate to our presence in Iraq. If the "insurgency" is a function of our being there, then it is not an insurgency in terms of our endstate. For example, if one of our goals is to stop IED attacks on US forces, that is pointless. When we leave, there will be no more IED attacks on us forces. So our endstate needs to be different. We need to ask "if we left tomorrow, what would happen in Iraq?" and from there, we need to determine which of those anticipated results are unacceptable to us. Then we must aim our efforts on making sure those unacceptable results do not occur.

When I look at the problem that way, it becomes almost impossible to find a purpose in what we do. Regardless of what we do, the Shia are going to take control. They have completely infiltrated all the security forces. The only kind of leader who could keep them in check was a tyrant like Saddam. And when the Shia take control, as soon as we leave, they are going to be as brutal as they like against the Sunni and there will be little we can do about it. That is what will happen whether we leave tomorrow or in ten years. As far as the foreign fighters, they will leave Iraq when we do. So what are we trying to accomplish here? Train the Iraqi forces? History shows that training forces in the Middle East can backfire. Any training we offer these people will find its way to our terrorist enemies.

Things are heating up as well. The Shia are getting more aggressive. We lost a man the other day and another was seriously wounded a week or so later. We're facing a high risk with very little potential payoff. We are able to make a difference at the local level. Some of the people are very kind and appreciate our help. That is the only positive thing I can see coming out of this.

We must force McCain to answer what he has not: "What is the definition of success in Iraq?" "How will we gauge that?"  "You say the surge is working, but was the goal of the surge not to provide 'space' for political progress?  What is your response to the recent statement by Petraeus that the Iraqis were not making sufficient progress politically?"


Via his own website, his plans for Iraq seem to demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of what so many others have recognized.  His solutions? 

A greater military commitment now is necessary if we are to achieve long-term success in Iraq.

This statement completely ignores what even the Commanding General in charge of Iraq has stated.  And I have seen no attempt at digging into this claim of his either.  What does he mean by this?  Does he plan on putting more troops into Iraq than those already there?  Does this mean keeping the level of troops there as they stand now?  And what exactly will the specific goals of any increased military presence be?  How will those play into the bigger picture of "success"?  

Another tenet of his Iraq proposal via his website:

Keep Senior Officers in Place

The Pentagon has adopted a policy of rotating our generals in and out of Iraq almost as frequently as the rotating of troops. John McCain believes this to be a deeply flawed practice. If these are, in fact, the best leaders for the task, they should remain on the job as long as possible. These generals and other senior officers with experience possess critical situational awareness and expertise necessary to prevail.

So can we ask then, do you intend to keep on military personnel who disagree with you?  Or will you continue to follow the policy of George Bush in removing those who hold a different view than yours despite their clear understanding of the situation?  Admiral Fallon, the most recent casualty of Bush logic, was removed because he expressed a view different than both McCain and Bush on Iran and the situation in the Middle East.  This man was one of the few voices of reason and understanding, and lost his job for it.  The Bush administration trashed the legitimacy of another respected military figure, Colin Powell, and when he began to criticize the intelligence agencies, call for intelligence reform, and note that there would be no WMD's found, he was fired.

Americans hate to lose.  Baseball, basketball, football, video games, and wars.  Defeat, surrender, failure.  Win, Triumph, Success.  

Last month, PEW found that 48% of Americans thought the military situation in Iraq was going well.  An equal number thought the opposite.  49% support bringing the troops home, and 47% support keeping troops in Iraq "until the situation is stabilized."

Obama frequently says, "We have to change the mind-set that got us into this war."  He's right.  We also have to change the mind-set that views the wars of today as victory/loss, triumph/failure.  The war in Iraq holds no comparisons to the wars of past centuries.  War is no longer waged by opposing sides lining up on fields and shooting to see who can stand longer.  And yet many still operate under the same mind-set that defined victory then.  
We have to change oversimplified and idiotic views like this, that continue to assert we are 'winning'; and views like this that state "defeat is unthinkable."  Chuck Hagel has recently expressed the need to stop thinking about war in such simplistic terms.  He's spot on, and I hope he continues to shout it from roof tops.  

I wonder sometimes if all this win/lose, never surrender talk is the psychological reparations of a generation who still laments the outcome of Vietnam.  It sometimes seems to be no more than an expression that say, "We can't lose two big wars in a row!"  In fact articles like this, which headline with "No More Vietnams: This time, let's finish the job" only serve to reinforce that view.  

Historians often revisit the story of Vietnam, in trying to understand "where we went wrong."  Many parallels have been drawn between the war in Iraq and the one in Vietnam, and surely, just as many people have tried to refute those parallels.  As with all historical analogies, it isn't an exact one, but to refute any comparison because of some differences simply is not logical.  I stumbled across this piece from American Thinker, "Why Vietnam was Lost."  Certain parts struck me.

The enemy in Vietnam, whose leader Ho Chi Minh stated early on, 'You can kill ten of my men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.' This determination was never seen for what it was until it was too late. Like the Japanese at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the only way to defeat the enemy, it was belatedly understood, was to slaughter every last one of them. This was not something we were prepared to do.

It really seems no different than those in Iraq who believe that by dying they are heros, sacrifices for some greater cause.  How can you effectively combat that without killing every one of them?  Is that ever even possible?  

Douglas MacArthur famously said that in war, 'There is no substitute for victory.' He also warned Kennedy not to fight a land war in Asia. Vietnam was lost because it was a war fought under terms that would not permit victory. The critical lesson of Vietnam is that any nation can lose a war it is not prepared to win. In the modern age you must have the will to win any war you fight, even if it means using immoral and unacceptable means. This is a hard thing to say, but nonetheless true.  It is a lesson that must be taught, reiterated, and understood —— for it is why, even with all our imposing power and overwhelming technical superiority, we need to be extremely wary of any call to arms. History teaches that America will not, 'pay any price, and bear any burden.' We are truly our own most threatening and lethal enemy.

The veterans of Vietnam deserve the thanks and honor of this nation. They did not win a war. They did do their duty. Let us honor them by understanding the truth of what happened. And sustain our appreciation by promising to never again pledge our blood and treasure to a cause we are not willing to win.

I won't even comment on this, I think it speaks volumes for itself.

Hillary Clinton has repeatedly made the case for pulling out troops because we are in a war "we can't win."  She's not wrong.  But it's a dangerous case to make to a country that hates to lose.  The sane argument can and should be made by both Democratic candidates: by reframing the war, by reframing the definition of victory, and by rationally explaining why and how to all 300 some million of us who can,  I can only hope, listen to reason.  

If we cannot do this, by the time we get to November one of the biggest divisions will be over the war.  I know that all the media keeps telling us the economy is the "biggest" issue, and no doubt it is.  But the media's love of lists and scales has created a false assumption: that we cannot have more than one issue that is of the utmost importance to us.  If we cannot do this, the GOP will quickly and deftly paint the Democrats as "waving the white flag," "giving up," "backing down," "throwing in the towel," "emboldening the enemy," and whatever other ridiculous notions they can find.  They will seek to underscore their claims with every picture they can find of Senator McCain as a soldier and POW, and will be quick to point out that the Democratic nominee has no military experience.  

These are already being invoked.  If we're not careful, it's an idea that will creep into the American psyche and it will be difficult to overturn.  If you need proof of this, just see McCain's latest ads, here, here, and here. And here. We might mock them, but they are well put together and chock-full of vivid imagery.  Meanwhile, we're harping about superdelegates and convention rules.  The Democrats, and I mean all the Democrats, from us on the boards to the members of the House to the Presidential candidates themselves need to begin to show the American public that we need to re-define how we think about Iraq, that the path that needs to be taken isn't a clear choice between winning and losing.