Why it is Imperative That We See it Through in Iraq!

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In the military we hear the term "lessons learned" a lot in training. In Desert Storm, "lessons learned" was why we filled our own sandbags instead of hiring locals to do it for us. It's why we rotated as units, instead of individuals... and it's why the president never let Congress try to run the war. There were lessons learned from Desert Storm also... at least they should have been learned... but apparently some in Congress are too cool to learn from the past. The lessons learned from Desert Storm were mostly about how it "ended" and the culture of Arab nations. Lesson 1) Arab culture doesn't consider seeking a "ceasefire" an honorable thing. As soon as the U.S. leaders of the Coalition entered into talks about stopping the war, they considered it conditions of surrender. Gen. Schwarzkopf made the statement that "I'm not here to discuss a ceasefire, I'm here to discuss terms of their surrender"... yet it was a ceasefire that was signed. Lesson 2) The first one to "redeploy" lost the war. After the ceasefire was signed, the U.S. led coalition did just that... we ceased firing. We then prepared our units to move out of occupied Iraq... Leaving Hussein and his regime intact. All the local papers celebrated Hussein's victory over the U.S. Lesson 3) He who laughs last, is the victor. When the next U.S. election came around, Prs. Bush Sr. was voted out, in favor of Prs. Clinton. Now, to us here in the US, we just saw that as a change of presidents. Clinton one the election. His victory over Bush had little to do with America's feelings about the war with Iraq... but all the Arab world saw, was even the people of the U.S. would rather see Hussein continue as the leader of Iraq, than Bush continue as their own president. It was widely considered a victory for Hussein. Lesson 4) If You Believe One, You call the Other a Liar. Hussein constantly whined for the UN to raise the amount of money he was able to make from selling oil. He said his people were starving, his cities were without electricity and running water, and it was all because of the sanctions. When Hussein whined about this, the U.S. and other nations showed Annan that he had plenty of money to build palaces and buy weapons... but Annan and others sided with Hussein and raised the limits... Another victory for Hussein over the West. Lesson 5) Whoever Gets to Be the Cat in "Cat and Mouse" wins. When the UNSCOM inspectors were not granted access to areas of Iraq on Hussein's orders... and UNSCOM inspectors complied, Hussein won. Lesson 6) If a woman is willing to cover her face out of respect for local customs, but not for her husband or nation... she respects Arabs and Islam more than her nation and even her own husband. It doesn't matter that American husbands don't expect such things from our wives... all they see is, even without them asking, the wife was willing to do this for them... but not for him. Today many Americans are showing the Arab world that we respect their ways more than we respect our own. We see a protest and defend the people's freedom of speech... they see that Americans are protesting George Bush, but not those fighting against him in Iraq... They see the protestors taking sides. They see members of the House and Senate demanding our troops come home... they see that as demanding we surrender in Iraq. They see that less than 20% of our voters bother voting... and they wonder why we lie about loving freedom. It is imperative that we see it through in Iraq because, we promised them we would. If we don't, then it means we couldn't... not that we just decided we shouldn't.