"The war" in Iraq is not a "failure". The "surge" is not a "failure". Calling it such is a mistake. How can that be?
After all, the way the media describes what's going on in Iraq uses the scale which runs from "failure" to "success", "progress" to "not meeting the benchmarks".
This is completely and utterly wrong. With this framing, the Bushies will always win.
Why? Because think about what "success" in Iraq would mean. It would mean that the illegal rape of another nation, a war of aggression -- a war crime -- was a "success".
How do you succeed at rape? How do you succeed at a war crime?
See, as long as we say "we're failing" in Iraq, we are justifying the invasion and occupation. By that definition, it's something that we need to "succeed" at. We're Americans, and Americans don't fail. We figure out a way to succeed. And we're failures if we DON'T come up with a plan to "succeed".
That's the trap. The truth is simple: There is no way to succeed in Iraq. The very notion of "success" is an abomination.
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