VICTORY in IRAQ DAY, Nov. 22, 2008 - THE WAR IS WON!!!
VICTORY in Iraq Day, November 22, 2008
THE WAR IS WON...
OUR TROOPS HAVE ACHIEVED VICTORY!!!
CELEBRATE
We won. The Iraq War is over.
I declare November 22, 2008 to be "Victory in Iraq Day." (Hereafter known as "VI Day.")
The moment has come to acknowledge the obvious. To overtly declare a fact that has already been true for quite some time now. Let me repeat:
Saturday, November 22, 2008 is the day of that celebration: Victory in Iraq Day.
Observations and statistics agree: The fighting has ceased, the war is over
If we won, why are there troops still in Iraq?
If the Iraq War is over, why do we still occasionally hear reports of violence or casualties?
What counts as "being at war"?
But where's the official announcement?
Call for submissions and designs
Words, terms and phrases you may want to incorporate into your design include:
Victory in Iraq Day
November 22, 2008
Victory in Iraq
VI Day
...and anything else you think might be appropriate! I'd like to see banners that say simply "Victory in Iraq," and others that include the date; and other smaller graphics that could fit on a blog sidebar.
Send all submissions to:
Victory in Iraq Day
November 22, 2008
We won. The Iraq War is over.
I declare November 22, 2008 to be "Victory in Iraq Day." (Hereafter known as "VI Day.")
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By every measure, The United States and coalition forces have
conclusively defeated all enemies in Iraq, pacified the country,
deposed the previous regime, successfully helped to establish a new
functioning democratic government, and suppressed any lingering
insurgencies. The war has come to an end. And we won.
What more indication do you need? An announcement from the outgoing
Bush administration? It's not gonna happen. An announcement from the
incoming Obama administration? That's really not gonna happen. A declaration of victory by the media? Please. Don't make me laugh. A concession of surrender by what few remaining insurgents remain in hiding? Forget about it.
The moment has come to acknowledge the obvious. To overtly declare a fact that has already been true for quite some time now. Let me repeat:
And since there will never be a ticker-tape parade down Fifth Avenue in New York for our troops, it's up to us, the people, to arrange a virtual ticker-tape parade. An online victory celebration.
WE WON THE WAR IN IRAQ
Saturday, November 22, 2008 is the day of that celebration: Victory in Iraq Day.
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What do you need to do to participate? Simple. Just
make a post on your blog on Saturday, November 22, announcing that the
war is over, and declaring that day to be Victory in Iraq Day. That's it.
If you want to write a short post (or a long essay) analyzing the
nature of our victory or cheering the troops for a job well done,
great; but if you just want to make a simple announcement of the
victory, that's fine as well. Anything will do. Just come and join the
celebration to mark the day.
Keep reading below to find: evidence that the war is over (for the
doubters); an historical discussion of previous postwar occupations and
guerrilla violence; a list of blogs which have already joined the VI
Day movement; free banners and graphics for you to download and put on
your blog, if you so choose; and an invitation to submit your own
"victory graphics" for posting here.
(If you would like to comment on VI Day, you can do so here. [UPDATE: Comments can now be posted successfully. Previously, comments did not appear properly. If you left a comment earlier that disappeared, please try again.])
Observations and statistics agree: The fighting has ceased, the war is over
I have felt for many months that we had already won the war, but I was spurred to action by this report from Michael Yon:
This post at the Mudville Gazette confirmed my conclusions."THE WAR IS OVER AND WE WON:" Michael Yon just phoned from Baghdad, and reports that things are much better than he had expected, and he had expected things to be good. "There's nothing going on. I'm with the 10th Mountain Division, and about half of the guys I'm with haven't fired their weapons on this tour and they've been here eight months. And the place we're at, South Baghdad, used to be one of the worst places in Iraq. And now there's nothing going on. I've been walking my feet off and haven't seen anything."
On the political front in Iraq, victory has broken out as well. On Sunday, November 16, Iraq's cabinet approved a security agreement with the U.S.
which top analysts and pundits are saying is the closest we'll ever get
to a bureaucratic declaration of victory and of the war's end. Hugh Hewitt, for example, says:
The News & Observer newspaper came to the same conclusion three months ago, and many of the points are still valid:The Battle For Iraq Has Been Won. Will The President-elect Preserve The Victory?
Yesterday's vote by the Iraqi cabinet to approve a status of forces agreement confirms what most reasonable people had concluded this summer --that the battle for Iraq is over and the country is stable and secure even though its enemies remain in small enclaves within the country and across the border in Iran. It has taken five years and come at a high cost in American lives lost and in thousands of wounded soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.
It is, however, a crucial victory in the war against Islamist extremism and for stability in the Middle East.
Somebody has to write this. The United States has won the war in Iraq.
I'm compelled to proclaim victory because, these days, winning wars has become politically incorrect in Western societies. So much so that some political leaders opposed to the war refuse to recognize the definition of victory or to utter the word.
More than five years after the invasion, I still come across people who say they don't know what victory in Iraq means. That's on purpose. Feigning ignorance allows them to deny the obvious political and military progress that has been made and continues to be made each day.
The truth is, President Bush has been consistent in defining victory. Bottom line, it's leaving behind a functional and democratic Iraq capable of defending itself from internal and external threats. Iraq is on an irreversible path to meeting those goals.
...
There is no doubt that much work needs to be done in Iraq, particularly in political and cultural reconciliation. But for all the moaning about Parliament's failure to reach political benchmarks, Iraqis have achieved more political unity in their country than our Congress has in ours. A peaceful and stable Iraq is no longer in question. It's only a matter of time.
So the next time I come across an Iraqi War veteran, I'll not only thank him or her for their sacrifice in defending my freedom, I'll also offer congratulations for winning a war.
The
full article (see the link) outlines many convincing facts about the
state of victory in Iraq. The only thing missing is announcing the date
of the war's end. Which this post rectifies.
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If you don't want to rely on anecdotal evidence or political analysis, carefully study the official casualty statistics for U.S. troops in Iraq (see the chart to the right) and you will notice that they have reached extremely
low levels, so low that they no longer even come close to rising to the
level of "war"; it is now more dangerous to walk the streets of most
major American cities than it is to be stationed in Iraq. For example,
Chicago, just a single city in the United States, all by itself experienced twice as many shootings and killings of Americans as did the entire nation of Iraq over recent months:
125 Shot Dead In Chicago Over Summer
Total Is About Double The U.S. Troop Death Toll In IraqCHICAGO (CBS) -- An estimated 125 people were shot and killed over the summer. That's nearly double the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq over the same time period.
What
more need be said? Of course every death and injury of a U.S. soldier
is a tragedy and I would wish to see a long string of zeros on that
chart over the upcoming months. But being stationed in a nation and a
region that has a long history of hostility to the U.S. and an equally
long history of violence means that our troops will always face
some danger there. Yet "danger" does not equal "war." Whatever
lingering violence still exists is Iraq is now nothing more than a
series of disconnected terrorist attacks, which have become completely
ineffectual in changing the hearts and minds of the populace, or
re-igniting another civil war.
Columnist Ed Morrissey on November 19 points to another kind of benchmark
which indicates the war's end: the fact that the Iraqi government in
now engaging in infrastructure building projects that would only be
possibly in peacetime:
Who gets to decide when it's over?Victory in Iraq: The Baghdad Metro
Eighteen months ago, the capital of Iraq worried more about whether it would survive than traffic control. Now that victory over terrorism and sectarian violence has all but arrived, Baghdad has big plans for its future.
...
Iraq needs to fix its sewer and electrical services before attempting anything on this scale, but the plan demonstrates an optimism about the future that has erupted in its capital. They're already planning a traditional surface-level commuter train to help alleviate car traffic, which has grown overnight into a major headache. Roads and bridges closed due to violence have reopened, and people are once again on the move as Baghdad returns to life.
...
Representative governments have to deliver on their promises. That accounts for at least part of the optimism seen in Iraq, and for the sudden outbreak of big dreaming by Iraqis. They have their future in their own hands for the first time in decades, and the sudden liberation has fueled their imaginations. This, indeed, is what victory looks like.
Indeed, everywhere you look, someone has highlighted yet another detail
which, cumulatively, demonstrate that "peace has broken out all over"
Iraq.
Each person has their own criteria as to when the war was won: Some say
we won the war long ago when we defeated the Iraqi Army in three weeks.
Some say we won when the Iraqi government tried and executed Saddam
Hussein. Some say we won when Iraqis voted democratically to elect
their own leaders. Some say we won when we established control over the
entirety of the country last year, eliminating the last remaining
insurgent strongholds. Some say we won six months ago when the last
remaining organized resistance evaporated.
On the other hand, there are those who are saying (in response to
this essay) that we have not reached that magical benchmark. The Iraqi
parliament may have passed the security agreement solidifying Iraq's
post-war stability, but some people say we should wait until the U.S.
Senate approves it before we declare victory. Others say that the war
won't be won until casualty levels literally drop to zero. Other say we
haven't won until all troops are gone from the country. Others wait in
vain for an official announcement.
There is no consensus. And there never will be. Still, the cut-off point between "war" and "not war" has to be drawn somewhere,
and if we don't draw the line ourselves, I guarantee it will NEVER be
drawn. Because the Left and the media want to make sure that even ten
years from now, when perhaps one US soldier is killed per year in an
otherwise completely stable Iraq, that still won't qualify as
"victory." Because their overarching goal is to to make sure that the
war goes down in history as a defeat, no matter what.
My opinion is: This is as good a time to declare victory as we're ever going to get. All
signs point to "Yes." If you don't agree, that's perfectly fine, you
can ignore this essay. But if you think this is long overdue, then
climb on board.
If we won, why are there troops still in Iraq?
Does
our victory mean that I advocate the immediate withdrawal of all troops
from Iraq? No. Wars may be won but postwar occupations generally don't
end crisply and cleanly like that. Troops often stay around to rebuild
or to maintain the peace for years, even decades. Hell, the United
States still has several military bases and many troops "occupying" Japan and Germany who have been there continuously since the end of World War II in 1945. We have two major Air Bases in Korea leftover from the Korean War. The Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba is a remnant of the Spanish-American War and has been there for over a century; the U.S. military also "occupied" the Philippines at Subic Bay for nearly a hundred years as a result of the Spanish-American War. More recently we continue to have a presence in Bosnia at Tuzla Air Base
as a consequence of our role in the Bosnian War of the 1990s. What all
this means is that it is standard practice in the aftermath of nearly every overseas war in which the U.S. participates for us to keep some troops there on a permanent or semi-permanent basis.
Do I advocate that the domestic government of Iraq continue to assume
more and more of a role in its own defense and internal security? Most
definitely yes. Do I wish to see U.S. troops going on fewer and fewer
patrols and handing over more and more duties to the Iraqi army as time
goes by? Yes. Do I wish that there would never be another suicide
bombing in Iraq by demented jihadists seeking futilely to destabilize
the country? Of course. Do I wish that there would never be another act
of violence in Iraq? Naturally. But these things take time. So, even
though the war is over, American troops are likely to stay on the
ground in Iraqi bases in some capacity for quite some time -- months,
years, possibly even decades if circumstances warrant.
But yes, eventually many troops will have to start coming home one
way or the other. I am not opposed to an incremental "drawdown" of
forces as responsibilities diminish -- which has already started to
happen under the Bush administration and will likely continue under an
Obama administration. What I do
oppose is a reckless immediate evacuation of all American troops in
Iraq as some sort of political "reward" from Obama to his antiwar
supporters. That would send the wrong message to Islamic extremists
around the world that the Americans were somehow "driven from Iraq,"
which would not actually be the case. Even if we did leave Iraq
entirely, it would be in victory, not as a retreat.
Since our troops did in fact win the war, they ought to
have a victory parade or national celebration upon returning. But I
suspect that, as has been happening up until now, the troops will just
drift home mostly unannounced and uncelebrated when their "tours" are
over. Which is the very reason why we need to declare a Victory in Iraq
Day.
If the Iraq War is over, why do we still occasionally hear reports of violence or casualties?
A
common misperception of warfare is that when a war is "won," all
fighting immediately stops, and that all members of the losing side
passively lay down their arms and surrender. While that does happen on
occasion, much more frequently the fighting continues as a low-level
guerrilla war or insurgency for years afterwards by the diminishing
die-hard loyalists of the losing side. Even wars with crushing
conclusive victories and official declarations of surrender saw
continued fighting long after those wars were officially "over." After
World War II, which was won as conclusively as any war was ever won,
some Germans refused to acknowledge defeat and continued to operate as guerrilla assassins and saboteurs. Anti-Semitic massacres in Europe continued into 1946 long after the Nazis had been defeated. In the Pacific Theater, Japanese "holdouts"
on various islands kept up their battle posts against the Americans for
years and years after Japan surrendered, some well into the 1970s.
After the American Civil War ended in 1865, several pro-slavery guerrilla terrorist organizations and groups of individuals
continued fighting against the Union for more than a decade. The same
is true of many other wars. It especially happens in modern "police
actions" (such as the Iraq War) which have no actual formal
"Declaration of War" and thus no official moment of surrender or ending
point. (Remember that the United States has not actually declared war on anyone since 1942.)
So, just because there are still occasional suicide bombings (which are
becoming rarer and rarer with every passing month) and occasional
sniper attacks or IED explosions (also becoming increasingly rare),
that doesn't indicate that "the war is still being fought." It just
means that there are a handful of die-hard extremists who refuse to
give up -- which is exactly what happens after most wars. The last
remaining pro-Saddam, pro-jihad or pro-Iran holdouts in Iraq are no
different than any other post-war holdouts, and just because there are
still a few left doesn't mean that the war is still happening, any more
than the existence of the Japanese holdouts meant that WWII continued
after 1945. Wars end, whether or not every single extremist or die-hard
acknowledges it and lays down his weapons.
What counts as "being at war"?
Many
other countries have ongoing issues with rebels, insurgents,
guerrillas, or whatever you want to call them; simmering civil unrest.
But we do not consider those countries to be at war, even though their
situations are not really any different than, and are in some cases
even worse than, the situation now in Iraq. Tell me: Do you consider
Mexico to be at war? Yet they have an ongoing insurgency by Zapatistas in the state of Chiapas. The Philippines? They've been grappling with an Islamic insurgency for decades. Is Thailand at war? Millions of tourists don't seem to think so, but a violent rebellion by Muslim separatists in the southern provinces sometimes produces more casualties than there are in Iraq. India? They're not at war -- are they?
Turkey, Sri Lanka, Colombia: The list could go on and on. In each case,
the country in question is not considered to be "at war," yet it
endures simmering insurgencies and/or terrorist violence that in some
cases exceeds that now found in Iraq. If these countries are not
considered by anyone to be "at war" -- which they are not -- then
neither is Iraq.
But where's the official announcement?
The
only reason that the war has not been declared "over" is that the
media, which was generally opposed to the war and opposed to any of
President Bush's policies, doesn't want to give him and his supporters
the satisfaction of having been right. The media wants U.S. troops to
return home, but only on condition that they do so with their tails
between their legs in defeat -- not as victorious liberators, which
would invalidate five years of subtle and not-so-subtle anti-war
propaganda on the part of the left-leaning media. The Bush
administration for its part has not declared victory for two probable
reasons: first, because they fear that by so doing they would only
increase the call by the media and liberal Democrats to "bring the
troops home now"; and also by so doing they might invite some
last-ditch spectacular terror attack by the few remaining jihadists in
order to embarrass the administration. And the incoming Obama
administration will certainly never announce victory, since Obama spent
over a year campaigning for the Democratic primary as the anti-war
candidate. So both sides refuse to say the war is over. Even though it is, in fact, over.
It is up to the American people to declare victory. Which is exactly what we are doing right now.
There never will be an "official" announcement from the government or the media, so you can stop waiting for it.
This is the official announcement.
Join the VI Day movement!
Do you agree with the concept behind VI Day? Then post a VI Day entry on your blog.
Once you've posted it, email me the link! And I will post a link back to your blog here on this page.
Make sure to make at least two different postings: Make one now to announce your support of VI Day and to spread the word ahead of time; and make another one on November 22 itself, to celebrate!
(Blogs of all political orientations are invited to join: Even if
you're a progressive blogger and only want to announce an end to the
war as a way to accelerate the homecoming home all troops, you are
welcome to link to and/or mention VI Day too.)
One last note: If anyone is planning to hold a "meatspace" (i.e.
real world) party or celebration to mark VI Day, send me the details
and I will post them here as well.
Here is the official list of blogs that have so far agreed to mark VI Day on November 22, 2008:
Victory in Iraq Day: Participating Blogs
(Update: I've been inundated with emails and links, far more than I
can handle! The list of blogs you see here is incomplete; the full list
totals well into the hundreds. I will do my best to add as many as I
can over the upcoming days.)
Call for submissions and designs
Are you good at creating graphics? Want to participate? This is an open
call to all designers and artists who would like to create buttons,
banners or other graphics and widgets for people to announce Victory in
Iraq Day on their blogs and Web sites. I'm no graphic designer myself,
so I'll post outstanding submissions here for everyone to download.
Words, terms and phrases you may want to incorporate into your design include:
Victory in Iraq Day
November 22, 2008
Victory in Iraq
VI Day
...and anything else you think might be appropriate! I'd like to see banners that say simply "Victory in Iraq," and others that include the date; and other smaller graphics that could fit on a blog sidebar.
Send all submissions to:
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Comments
Actually this is wonderful that we got to get the truth out online before the msm started reporting on this. The msm would, will put their liberal, lying, twisted slant on this report and turn it into something ugly. So....I thank God that we get to announce this in it's full truth first.
Friend me on America c2c. I've gotten a lot of people interested and signed up there as well. I think they love the fact that flaming liberals aren't welcomed nor allowed.
In this case we need to pay attention to what Pakistani government does, not what they say.
Hey, out of curiosity, do you know why the Soviet Union went to war with Afghanistan? The reason I ask is because I do not know that history, and I've wondered if jihadi's were the draw for that war.