I think that I am going to puke if I ever again hear the claim that we are "winning" the war in Iraq. I'd like to be tactful, but people who say things like this are IDIOTS, plain and simple.
The idea of "winning" a war is so...20th century. Yes, the Japanese signed an agreement in 1945 after we bombed the crap out of them, and this agreement ended a war. We "won." But the "war on terror" is not a war against a specific nation-state; it's not a war that we can "win" or "lose," strictly speaking. There will be no armistice agreement. It's not a war that has a precise beginning and end. In short, it's not a football game. (U.S. wins on a late field goal, 17-14! Hooray!)
Jeez, let's do a little "game analysis." This "win" has cost us half a trillion dollars. It has killed several thousand U.S. service people, and probably several hundred thousand Iraqis. It has probably re-invigorated those who would seek to employ "terror," both inside and outside of Iraq. It has seen us abuse prisoners, both in Iraq and at Guantanamo, in the name of "freedom," and make us appear no better than our "enemies." And--irony of all ironies--although it's now being called a war against "terrorism," it was never intended as such and is poorly designed to deal with the "real" terrorists, who were never in Iraq in the first place! And yet some people have the gall to suggest that we are "winning."
Wins and losses: our sports metaphors can imprison our brains. They can mislead us, in deep and important ways. We simply have to get past them if we are to understand what's going on in the world.
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