My View of Iraq

I would consider myself a pretty normal guy. I love football, good food, fishing, spending time with my family and reading. Other things interest me as well. I used to be a news and politics junkie but have had to trade that off as my life got busier.

One of the things that I like about Chicago Boyz is the fact that this blog has such an interesting cast of characters from so many different areas of society. We have academics, scientists, attorneys, and on the list goes. Everyone who blogs here is an expert in something. I am an expert in the distribution of heating and air conditioning parts and equipment. That is my business.

My business takes up a lot of my time. I generally work about 70 hours a week or more but usually no more than 80. I usually get up in the wee hours and get more done before 7am than I do the rest of the day. After that I have to deal with customers, employees, and other things.

My time for news, unfortunately, is extremely limited. Most of what I get I hear on the way to and from work, in the form of cable news simulcasted on XM radio. That amounts to about 45 minutes per day. I also read the local paper and browse a few online sites during the day. Being in the HVAC business, I consider browsing Bloomberg and the WSJ part of my work day as I need to know what is going on in commodity markets and the rest of the world, at least in general, to be able to make informed decisions in my marketplace.

This long, boring introduction to my life was necessary because I would like to dive into the Iraq war for a bit, from the point of view of a busy thirty something family guy. I will make it quick.

Looks like we are winning.

Wish I had more to add, but my life won’t allow it. I simply don’t have time to read blogs, analyze reports from the field, or digest every bit of information coming out of there. I am no expert on this type of war, and barely know our objectives. Most of the time I spend on the war is in sending care packages to guys who I have never met (booyah to my boys – you know who you are) who are over there busting their asses so I can go to work every day and feel safer over here knowing that there are fewer and fewer of these crazed lunatics that want to behead me because I am…well…going to work and being a good American.

I haven’t heard the Dems whining or bitching about the deal for a long time on my simulcasts. Blood usually leads most news reports and I have not heard about a bomb blowing up in Iraq or a crazed lunatic chopping heads off for a very long time.

I heard the other day that the New York Times, who I won’t link or ever patronize until they give up the Walter Duranty Pulitzer, wrote an article that said that things in Baghdad are looking brighter. Now THAT tells me something. People are coming back. Stores are opening up. Al Queda is on the run. I like this. I hope our guys over there keep kicking the shit out of our enemies and are merciless in doing so.

This will probably help Republicans in the upcoming elections.

I hope the trend continues. Next up, the presidential election breakdown.

18 thoughts on “My View of Iraq”

  1. I’m guardedly hopefull about the turn around in Iraq…. success will be fleeting though as long as the Islamic Republic in Iran is still operative. The Clerics and Mullahs must go, they have fundamental eschatological reasons for ensuring Iraq turns out to be a completely catastrophe.

    Do we have the will and courage to do what is needed? I fear we don’t.

  2. There is no “winning ” in Iraq till there is a political victory–reconciliation–and a settlement about oil revenues. And of course the withdrawal of 135 thousand American troops who keep getting rotated. We are “winning” in and around Baghdad because we have cleaned out the American military to send there and cleaned out the budget, driving us into a huge deficit.But then a modes betterment of couse immediately begets itrades about the Democrats and the “:left.” In fact, 70% of the American public now wants us out of Iraq. And in Afghanistan? Taleban back and opium crop biggest since ever recorded.
    I know we will have won when we get our national guard returned home. And I will be the first to applaud and dance with joy.

  3. “This will probably help Republicans in the upcoming elections.”

    You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.

    One tenet of American politics is that you can turn out the vote if you make enough people mad. The last election, regardless of the post election spin, was about corruption. Enough of the “sit at homes” got feed up and went to the polls. Expansive corruption goes deep against a general consensus of what is American.

    So too does stabbing our boys in the back. The Democrats are replaying their Copperhead role they mastered during the Civil War. If the Republicans want to be loved and play nice, they’re really not interested in power. So, why should we bother to get up off our hinnies and show up election day? If the Republicans hold the Democrats responsible for their stupid political tricks and hammer them unrelentingly till election day, they’ll get enough Americans angry enough to be in that voting booth.

  4. Glad I can be counted on. Tell me then, when will the troops come home and when will benchmarks be met to serve notice that Iraq is now on its own and a true democracy. Easy to call me names but how long are we there and how long do you think we will be there. And answer without name calling and innuendo, if, as I trust, you have some school degrees. Are your views unprogrammed from the various spokespeople from the White House? If you or your kid or your nephew got to Iraq early on and was on his thrid tour of duty, would you be so cavalier about how well things are going?

  5. It is sad that Dan’s pretty simple post immediately gets tagged by this guy. It is not like Dan was on a rant or something. This is why we generally stay away from politics or “troll bait” like this on LITGM, but every once in a while we have to say what is on our mind.

    Does he think he is helping the world?

    Let’s just pretend we met him once and then we summed up everything he said with the word “Penguin”. Then his phoned-in comment on the post could just be “Penguin” and I’d have at least the positive image of that bird in my head.

  6. If this war is lost, the Americans and the Iraqis lose. If this war is won, the Iraqis win. I’m willing to settle for that. If post-war Iraq is no more friendly or dangerous than France after 1945 or Greece after 1949, that will be acceptable. Maybe they can learn not to hate their countrymen. They don’t have to love us.

  7. To Joseph Hill – don’t waste your time arguing with these people. Chicago Boyz is a pretty rational site, but they just never got it about the adventure in Iraq. Go vote your conscience,even though politics stinks. Being right is its own reward.

  8. Regarding Iraq, When all you got to offer is the SAME DARN talking points that the Left have been using since the 04 election, then why even bother? Do you think that people havent heard the litany of grievances over and over and over by now?

    Not only have the Left NOT updated the script they are completely silent on how to handle all the other challenges out there in Jihadland that need addressing. Plus seem completely uninterested in learning new info and incorporating it into their thoat processes

    Do Leftists even discuss the threat of Islam amoungst themselves? I get the impression no.

    So you got nothing but boring rhetoric about the past, politically-calculated statements about the present, and nothing about the future..

    Like Don asks.. why waste your time.

    (Yes I am generalizing…. Joe Lieberman is one of the few on the Left who refreshingly is not like what i described at all)

  9. Don – honestly, I don’t mind people like Joseph Hill commenting if they can stay on point and are respectful. While he is respectful most of the time, staying on point seems to be a bit of a challenge for him. He asked if my “views were unprogrammed from the various spokespeople from the White House”. This tells me that he didn’t read the post and isn’t really interested in commenting on it, rather simply wants to blather.

    This comment thread didn’t really go where I wanted it to go, but sometimes that happens on the intertubes.

  10. Again, more name calling. I note the “past” (hey, the post aboive talks about temporal connections) because it is a part of the present. Joe Lieberman is hardly a leftist! In fact, I have known him some time since he was attorney genral in myh state beore he became a senator and in the arms and hands of the insurance industry and his wife a lobby lady for the drug industry.

    Now we find out that the White House had indeed programmed its spokesman and he repeated the nonsense as truth, something now being retracted in his forthcoming book.

    Simply put: if we are doing well–and I do believe as do you that in and around Baghdad we are–then when will the benchmarks–all 18–be met? and our troops come home? Challenge: write a comment or a post without once using invective.

  11. You know, Joseph Hill, winning means different things to different people. What were President Bush’s objectives on entering the war? Many of those goals were holdovers from the Gulf war. The UN demanded that Iraq no longer be a threat to its neighbors. Mission accomplished. That Iraq would no longer manufacture and use WMD on people. Mission accomplished. That Saddam would end spending money on terrorists, Palaces and UN officials. Mission accomplished. There were other goals which were added later such as creating a representative government and a free economy. Those goals are still pending. Our troops remain while that is in doubt.

    One thing that I’ve noticed about liberals is they forget that doing good takes time. The other is that when goals have been accomplished by Republican administrations, they get swept under the rug rather than celebrated. And some new demand is made before victory can be achieved. Somehow, good enough is never good enough. The goalposts of victory are always being shifted. We are far beyond the original goals.

    Will our troops come home? Yes, they will next year. Why? Because we have put into place a military force that can protect Iraq.

    Will all our troops come home? No. Why? Because Syria and Iran remains a threat, I expect to see 40 to 60 thousand troops remain there indefinitely — like Germany after WWII.

    Will the oil money go to the Iraqi people? Who knows? That is not up to us. If the Iraqi government decides otherwise then it is no American’s business.

    And the money that we have spent on the Iraqi war is not throwing us into a recession. We get those from deficit financing every four to eight year. I’ve been expecting one for the last year and a half. The economy’s strength keeps surprising me. You can blame that on the Federal Reserve System. Social Security drives that more than the war does.

    The point is that we have many things to be thankful about in Iraq. It was far better to kill al Qaeda fighters in Iraq than in America or Europe. Will the Democrats be thankful of the good that comes from having a free economy in the Mideast? I don’t think so.

    They are too busy digging up the old goalposts.

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