Question #2 for all Candidates

Do you support a victory in Iraq?

A simple yes or no will do.

Thanks!

Can you please define what you yourself see as a victory. If you want a clear cut "yes" or "no" than you need to have explained this properly. A victory to you might be different to someone else.

That is not a question that could be answered without first defining, for the purposes of this question, victory. Annihilation of Iraq? Iraq and Iran? The Sunnis over the Shia? Big oil makes enormous profits and the price of gas in this country drops .25 a gallon?

Each candidates' standard for victory may be quite different, and a simple "yes" or "no" will be woefully inadequate.

My socialist friend beat me to it.

[edit on 26-2-2007 by befoiled]

OK So far we have 2 typical political responses.

Anyone else?

You're confusing "political" with "thoughtful." Iraq is way more complicated than a yes or a no. Our president made the same mistake in that country.

No they are educated responses.

Do you mean: Won as in, we went in to make sure Saddam did not have WMD?
Won as in to remove him as leader?
Won as in the destruction of Middle Eastern Terrorists?

I could think of 10 more cases.

Let me make it a little more simple.

Do you support a U.S. Victory in Iraq, OR do you support a U.S. defeat?

Choose one or the other!

Right now, the Shias and the Sunnis seem intent on having a war. The Sunnis were in power for quite a few years and now the Shias have weapons.

This is a part of the world where blood feuds are still common.

I think that the US underestimated how long it will take to get the situation in Iraq stable.

I also think that if the civil war heats up, the US should let them fight for a while and try to establish a peace.

If the US were to pull out of Iraq today would the US have been defeated?

Or would the US have decieded that it has spent enough time, money and lives in this country and that the local residents need to invest their time, money and lives.

Your argument is too simplistic.

I don't really understand why there is fighting going on. Our president doesn't rely on intelligence and relied on false intelligence to get us into this war. So all I have to say is that we should take as much damage control as we can and we should let them at each other to establish peace. Or chaos. If you want references to the chaos that I am referring to you need to look at what happened after we left Vietnam from the Vietnam war. Basically-- millions of lives were lost.

The other candidates raise a good question of what you would define as a victory. I'm going to ask that you further clarify just to be sure that we're all on the same page.

However if I'm correct in assuming that by victory you mean that Iraq becomes a stable and successful democracy with as few casualties as possible then yes I do support a US victory in Iraq.

RRconservative you still haven't defined what a US victory in Iraq consists of so I am unable to answer your question.

YES!

(does this count as a one liner?)

No really, I agree you need to define. I want victory, but there are different kinds of victory, a military, social, economic, diplomatic or a mixture of any of them add some take some, seeee it IS a complicated issue.

But sure, I want V for Iraq!

No need to over analyze.

If you want victory for the US in Iraq. Say So.

If you want defeat for the US in Iraq. Say So.


This is the problem that affects politicians. They are asked a direct question, and instead of answering it, they go into spin mode.

I was hoping it would be a little different here.

It's just asking for clarification about a question, nothing spinful about that.

Because really, a victory could mean a lot of things. One man's victory could be the nuking of all the middle east while another man's victory could be something like giving a high school education to all Iraqi's.

I have to agree with everyone else, you need to define what you mean
by victory.

Considering that everyone, candidates and non-candidates alike have
said the same thing, I really think you should listen.


Personally, I plan a 5-7 year pullout, while focusing more on defence
and training the Iraqis to do the job themselves.

You have been asked a direct question. "What is victory to you"
Why don't you answer the question? Im sure the answer is in Rush's newletter somewhere.

I see victory as building a strong democracy for the people of Iraq. Terrorism and violence need to brought under control and stopped, but we need the help of the Iraqi's for that. I do want to see victory in Iraq, in theory we already have it by removing Saddam, but we have one final victory we need to achieve.

Yes, however let me explain.

As far as our primary objective in Iraq went we were there to do the following...

1. Find wepons of mass destruction.

2. Topple Sadam Hussein.

We now know that there was never any wepons of mass destruction in Iraq, this was found through flawed intelegence. Our primary objective in this war was based on misleading reports that cost this country a lot of credibility around the world.

Sadam Hussein is now dead, we have achieved this victory in Iraq and now it is time for us to withdraw from the region to allow the Iraqi people to govern themselves as they see fit. Yes this probably would lead to a civil war within Iraq but if that is the will of the Iraqi people, then we should allow them to find what they deem to be a suitable peace for themselves.

I beleive that our continued presence in Iraq is in fact causing more instability in the region. If Iraq wants its freedom we should allow them to have the choice to either fight for it amongst themselves or to come to a peacefull resolution for themselves by themselves.

As previously answered on my platform thread:



This will be a victory for our troops, their families and every American taxpayer.

[edit on 27-2-2007 by df1]