...that winning the War and "mission accomplished" are two different things. The Iraq War was against the Iraqi State and was won almost immediately.

This is a matter of framing, semantics and terminology. We don't know what their "mission" or "ultimate goal" really was. They may not even know. They have ever defined it very well and the mission has creeped all over the damn place from day one. It was a mission or goal devised by people (PNAC) who have never commanded troops on the ground. And although I agree with your point, it doesn't excuse them or make them right. In point of fact, "war" or "total war" in the Clausewitzian sense has not been fought since WWII and you should be damn glad of that. These days it is referred to as high intensity or low intensity conflict. Insurgency and counter-insurgency are traditionally low intensity conflict, unless you decide to quell a nationalist insurgency by genocide. Then it's genocide, or ethnic cleansing. We are at war, (conflict) even if they called it a "police action".

So in a begrudging way I have to admit they are right. In reality we are not at war now and haven't been for 4 years. The "Mission," however, was to establish democracy in Iraq.

Look up mission creep. And they have puposefully conflated all the issues and goals here, so it's their own damn fault. In point of fact, we defeated the Iraqi army on the battlefield, but we lost "the war" when we invaded Iraq for no good reason with no good plan.

Milt Bearden (CIA) can explain it to you...

Wrong War, Wrong Time

...[I]t is worth recalling that in the past century, no nation that has started a major war has ended up winning it. Moreover, in the last 50 years, no nationalist-based insurgency against a foreign occupation has lost — a lesson that I learned personally when, beginning in 1986, I found myself in Pakistan, managing the CIA effort to aid Afghan resistance fighters battling Soviet troops.

This point is best illustrated by looking at the wars the Cold War enemies waged by proxy in Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan.

When the North Koreans attacked South Korea in June 1950, the United States found itself at war. From the outset, the North Koreans received aid from China and combat advisers from the Soviet Union. But all external players in that war — the United States, the Soviet Union, the Chinese Communists — understood that direct confrontation between them was to be avoided. When President Harry Truman's commander in Korea, General Douglas MacArthur, decided to go against the new "rules" by calling for air strikes against China in 1951, Truman refused, concerned that such action could bring the Soviet Union into the war. When MacArthur publicly criticized the president's decision, Truman fired him. America lost more than 40,000 dead in Korea in a proxy war with the Soviet Union and China.

The same rules applied in Southeast Asia, where the supply lines to the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong had their origins in China and the Soviet Union. Despite the fact that there was a Soviet or Chinese hand in American casualties, Washington never seriously considered striking back at either nation. America lost more than 58,000 killed in Vietnam in its continuing proxy battle with China and the Soviet Union.

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, the tables were turned. President Jimmy Carter ordered the CIA to provide assistance to the Afghan resistance, who were fighting Soviet forces with little more than their trusty Enfield rifles. The CIA organized a coalition that included Britain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the People's Republic of China — yes, the Chinese were only too happy this time around to provide the ordnance to kill Soviet troops instead of Americans. Literally every AK-47 round, mortar round, rocket-propelled grenade, or anti-aircraft missile fired at the Soviet forces passed through CIA's pipeline. (Nevertheless, the Soviets — aside from a few sneering threats by KGB officers I ran across in Pakistan — never seriously considered striking back at the external supporters of the Afghan resistance.)

In 1989, the Soviets gave up and withdrew from Afghanistan. They lost over 15,000 troops killed. Two years later their empire was gone.

The rules of proxy warfare that were developed during these conflicts point to another lesson, perhaps the ultimate one regarding America's rising confrontation with Iran: If there has to be war, better let the other side start it.

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/files/wrong_war_wrong_time.htm

Outing bebop-o

You're Thomas Pynchon, aren't you?

...Really Wanda Tinasky and that's just a pseudonym for Professor Irwin Corey.

It's true the Viking is not a hi-perfomance fighter AC. It is a full fledged multi-role combat jet AC. It carries all types of munitions when not in use as an overhead mission tanker.