John Dean Says Iraq War Cannot Be Won

In an interview yesterday on WOAI San Antonio, John Dean, the Chairman of the Democratic Party, said that,

(the) idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong.

Dean went even further, comparing Iraq with Vietnam:

I've seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam. Everybody then kept saying, 'just another year, just stay the course, we'll have a victory.' Well, we didn't have a victory, and this policy cost the lives of an additional 25,000 troops because we were too stubborn to recognize what was happening.

He then added,

President Bush got rid of Saddam Hussein and that was a great thing, but that could have been done in a very different way. But now that we're there we need to figure out how to leave. 80% of Iraqis want us to leave, and it's their country.

My summary:

1. We are not winning in Iraq and will never win;
2. Therefore, the sooner we cut our losses and leave the better;
3. It was good to get rid of Saddam, but a military invasion was not necessary;
4. The sooner we leave the happier the Iraqi people will be.

My response:

1. What does "winning in Iraq" look like? Does Dean have a definition of this? If not, how can we know if winning is possible or not? Does he offer a definition? No. Has the Bush administration offered a definition of "winning in Iraq?" Yes. Is it acheivable? The administration says, "Yes." Does Dean disagree or disagree with the Bush administration's definition and prediction? We don't know. He won't comment on it. Does Dean offer any context to indicate what in the world he is talking about? No.

2. Let's see....Korea was an "unwinnable war." Actually, no one won and no one lost. It sort of was put on hold as a tie. If the United States had "redeployed" our troops two years earlier we could have saved many American and Korean lives. As a bonus, we would have had a unified Korea, too! Just like Iraq was unified before we invaded it! Think how many American lives could have been saved if we had not invaded Okinawa during WW II. We had pushed Japan back on every front....back beyond where they had been before WW II even started. We could have just called it quits right then, called it a victory (which it was) and just gone home. By doing this we could have avoided that atomic bomb mess, too. Dean's logic is unassailable!

3. Yep! Sanctions and inspections were working. Surely Saddam would have grown weary of them eventually and quit or retired or surrendered sooner or later, right? Or, perhaps Dean envisions a well-aimed missile from an unmanned Predator drone.....That would have shaken things up in Iraq! Maybe Uday and Qusay would have stepped up to take their Dad's place and chosen the United States and the rest of the free world as their ally! Hey, anything's possible! And the sad thing is we'll never know because we never tried.

4. Oops. One small detail overlooked here. The Iraqi government, made up of elected leaders from every race, sect and district in the country.....the only folks with any legitimacy to speak on behalf of the country.....want us to stay a while longer. When I was in the hospital years ago I desparately wanted to be somewhere else and wished that the nursing staff would leave me alone! If I had been asked some polling questions on the subject I would have said so. But, on the other hand, I probably would have died. What we want and what we need are not necessarily the same thing. A national leader who does not know the difference between wanting and needing something should not be a national leader.

My Conclusion:

1. As Party Chairman, John Dean represents and speaks on behalf of all Democrats.
2. John Dean is nuts and so is everything he says.
3. Therefore: ____________________ (you get to fill in the blank)