AMERICA IN IRAQ - A "NO WIN" WAR

If there is a "No Win" situation in war, it occurs when one warring party lives in the war zone and has nothing to lose but lives and it's a "no choice war," and the other warring party is an outsider sticking its nose in where it doesn't belong and by its presence, forces the natives to fight.

The United States initiated and fought such a war in Viet Nam. In the 20th century, wars of independence by "colonies" were such wars. Think, "Algeria and France," and other national wars of independence as examples. So long as foreign troops occupy land held dear by citizens, there will be never ending conflict. The United States, undeterred by its Viet Nam experience and in the unsubstantiated belief that it "paid" to take over Iraq's oil fields, created a causus belli out of whole cloth, sold it to the American people and a small number of other nation confederates, and marched into Iraq as into quick sand.

Now, in November of 2008, that war is being fought on the electoral turf of America. John McCain pounds his campaign lectern and states that if Barack Obama is elected president, the United States will lose the war in Iraq, and that he alone knows how to win that war. Obama's retort hits the easy mark by asking where has McCain been with this profound knowledge for the past five years and why did he not share his knowledge with his president.

Obviously, there is no possible victory in such a war as this quagmire. It is a classic "No Win" war that will serve West Point instructors well in coming years as the paradigm of a war that should never be fought by the United States on foreign soil. The Iraq war will serve to teach strategy and tactics for a defensive war should America ever be attacked by an invading force - an unlikely scenario in the foreseeable future.

Extrication is the word and the goal for the next president. Extrication of all foreign forces now in Iraq who went there as allies of the United States.

American presence in Iraq is based on falsehoods perpetrated by the leaders of the country. The nefarious and illegal actions of president George W. Bush and vice-president Richard Cheney should lead to immediate imprisonment, trial, and guilty verdict, and a death penalty for their murders of American soldiers and the murders of all the dead of Iraq.