What ISIS Gains Mean for Iraq....

[homersapien 11,352]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/24/isis-ramadi-palmyra-iraq_n_7427680.html

Nice summation of the politics. But I find it almost comical. Better than crying I suppose.

[cptau 169]

The French and British should come back and fix this mess they started at the end of WWI. We should go home.

Original proposal by the French and British

What was done.

If it wasn't for the crazies and the Sunni's not having access to much oil or any access to the sea, the region should look something like this.

[AURaptor 1,121]

What gets me is how the USA has been knee deep in this region, trying to stamp out a fire which started thanks in great part to the French and British. Sure, they've been along for the ride, more the Brits , it seems, but we've had to take the lead role in all this mess.

Why isn't that brought up more ?

[AUUSN 823]

This is a great book and provides a great history. It's all about the oil.

[autigeremt 6,565]

Petroleum drives the world....and will for at least another century.

[TexasTiger 12,800]

What gets me is how the USA has been knee deep in this region, trying to stamp out a fire which started thanks in great part to the French and British. Sure, they've been along for the ride, more the Brits , it seems, but we've had to take the lead role in all this mess.

Why isn't that brought up more ?

We CHOSE to.

[homersapien 11,352]

http://www.salon.com...to_cover_it_up/

They’re all still lying about Iraq: The real story about the biggest blunder in American history — and the right wing’s obsessive need to cover it up

The road to Iraq began in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall. That event marked the end of the Cold War, which had shaped an American generation.....

When the USSR began to spin apart in 1989, the unraveling of the Cold War left these Movement Conservatives adrift..... No longer was America a superpower; it was again just one nation among many, unable to dictate the behavior of weaker nations.

The return to a multilateral world entailed a return to an awareness of complexity, in contrast to the simplistic divisions of the Cold War. President George H. W. Bush responded to this complexity by refusing to gloat as smaller nations left the USSR, then ended the Gulf War as soon as Iraqi forces had withdrawn from Kuwait, rather than pushing forward and taking control of Iraq itself. If President Bush’s prudence worried Movement Conservatives, they were horrified by what seemed to them the weakness and confusion of the Clinton years. America seemed impotent as Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Haiti shattered.

Movement Conservatives refused to recognize that what they saw as weakness and incoherence was an international adjustment to the realities of the same sort of multilateral world that had existed before the peculiar moment of the Cold War had divided the world between two superpowers and the third-world nations trying to carve out their own destinies within that division. This was not the world Movement Conservatives knew. They wanted back the world they had controlled. In a declaration of principles, they explained that they wanted an end to “incoherent policies” and called for a government that would “shape circumstances before crises emerge.” They demanded a “Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity.”

In 1997, a group of Movement Conservatives set out to resurrect the Cold War moment that had made America supreme. In that year, political commentators William Kristol and Robert Kagan launched the Project for the New American Century. Its statement of principles called for dramatically increased defense spending to implement a strategic vision that would “shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests.” America must “challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values,” and “promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad.” America had a responsibility, the signatories to the statement said. The nation must “accept responsibility for America’s unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.” Dick Cheney, Francis Fukuyama, Norman Podhoretz, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz were among the original signers of the document. So was Jeb Bush.

The next year, members of PNAC urged President Clinton to launch a “determined program to change the regime in Baghdad.” Saddam Hussein had developed biological and chemical weapons, they said, with which he could destabilize the entire Middle East. He could threaten American troops, Israel, moderate Arab states, and “a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil.” Iraq, they said, was “ripe for a broad-based insurrection.” When Clinton bombed Iraq in late 1998 rather than launching an invasion, PNAC and its supporters, like Senate Majority leader Trent Lott and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, insisted he was weak.

When George W. Bush became president, 10 of the 18 men who had signed a letter urging Clinton to take out Saddam Hussein went to work in his administration. Donald Rumsfeld became defense secretary; Paul Wolfowitz was the assistant defense secretary. John Bolton became an undersecretary of state. Dick Cheney, an original PNAC supporter, became vice president.

Only eight months after Bush took office, 9/11 offered an opening to effect the new American foreign policy PNAC members so desperately wanted. The al-Qaeda terrorists who launched the attacks were from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. But as soon as he heard of the carnage, Rumsfeld asked his aides to see if there was enough evidence to “hit” Saddam Hussein as well as Osama bin Laden. When it turned out there was not, the administration created it, cherry-picking evidence or even falsifying it to justify a war in Iraq. So convinced were they that their worldview was right, they refused to acknowledge reality.

Twelve years later, the war has cost more than $2 trillion and 4,500 American lives. Tens of thousands of American soldiers have been wounded. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died and more than two million have become refugees. The vacuum left by the collapse of Saddam Hussein strengthened Iran and created the conditions for the rise of ISL. By any standard, the Iraq War was an error of colossal proportions. But Movement Conservatives cannot surrender the idea of a Manichean world in which they rule America and America rules the world.

Rather than recognizing that their misguided attempt to recreate a bifurcated world in which America is preeminent created disaster in Iraq, Movement Conservatives are blaming the Iraq crisis on everyone else. Mistakes were made. David Brooks infamously spun his own righteous support for the war as a mistake based on bad intelligence, implying that the problems with the Iraq War can be laid directly at the feet of our intelligence agencies. This argument has been demolished by observers and participants both, from Greg Sargent to Paul Krugman to former Senator Bob Graham, D-Fla., who served as chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the crucial time before the invasion. They point out that the intelligence the Bush administration presented about WMDs was misleading, at best. The job of blaming bad intelligence got harder on Tuesday night, when on “Hardball,” Bush’s CIA briefer Michael Morell said that administration officials had lied about the intelligence the CIA had presented to them. “I think they were trying to make a stronger case for the war,” Morell said.

With that avenue of excuse closing, Republicans turned to blaming President Obama for the debacle in Iraq. “I blame President Obama for the mess in Iraq and Syria, not President Bush,” said presidential hopeful Sen. Lindsey Graham on Monday. Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal agreed that the problems in Iraq were not “because of President Bush’s strength, but rather have come about because of President Obama’s weakness.” Thursday, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton agreed that the problems in Iraq came from Obama’s weak foreign policy. And William Kristol insisted that the war in Iraq was a success until President Obama “threw it all away.”

Their argument is clear: there was nothing wrong with their program. The problem was that others failed to execute it properly.....

[Mims44 1,864]

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it - It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.

[quietfan 233]

http://www.salon.com...to_cover_it_up/

They’re all still lying about Iraq: The real story about the biggest blunder in American history — and the right wing’s obsessive need to cover it up

The road to Iraq began in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall. That event marked the end of the Cold War, which had shaped an American generation.....

When the USSR began to spin apart in 1989, the unraveling of the Cold War left these Movement Conservatives adrift..... No longer was America a superpower; it was again just one nation among many, unable to dictate the behavior of weaker nations.

The return to a multilateral world entailed a return to an awareness of complexity, in contrast to the simplistic divisions of the Cold War. President George H. W. Bush responded to this complexity by refusing to gloat as smaller nations left the USSR, then ended the Gulf War as soon as Iraqi forces had withdrawn from Kuwait, rather than pushing forward and taking control of Iraq itself. If President Bush’s prudence worried Movement Conservatives, they were horrified by what seemed to them the weakness and confusion of the Clinton years. America seemed impotent as Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Haiti shattered.

Movement Conservatives refused to recognize that what they saw as weakness and incoherence was an international adjustment to the realities of the same sort of multilateral world that had existed before the peculiar moment of the Cold War had divided the world between two superpowers and the third-world nations trying to carve out their own destinies within that division. This was not the world Movement Conservatives knew. They wanted back the world they had controlled. In a declaration of principles, they explained that they wanted an end to “incoherent policies” and called for a government that would “shape circumstances before crises emerge.” They demanded a “Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity.”

In 1997, a group of Movement Conservatives set out to resurrect the Cold War moment that had made America supreme. In that year, political commentators William Kristol and Robert Kagan launched the Project for the New American Century. Its statement of principles called for dramatically increased defense spending to implement a strategic vision that would “shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests.” America must “challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values,” and “promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad.” America had a responsibility, the signatories to the statement said. The nation must “accept responsibility for America’s unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.” Dick Cheney, Francis Fukuyama, Norman Podhoretz, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz were among the original signers of the document. So was Jeb Bush.

The next year, members of PNAC urged President Clinton to launch a “determined program to change the regime in Baghdad.” Saddam Hussein had developed biological and chemical weapons, they said, with which he could destabilize the entire Middle East. He could threaten American troops, Israel, moderate Arab states, and “a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil.” Iraq, they said, was “ripe for a broad-based insurrection.” When Clinton bombed Iraq in late 1998 rather than launching an invasion, PNAC and its supporters, like Senate Majority leader Trent Lott and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, insisted he was weak.

When George W. Bush became president, 10 of the 18 men who had signed a letter urging Clinton to take out Saddam Hussein went to work in his administration. Donald Rumsfeld became defense secretary; Paul Wolfowitz was the assistant defense secretary. John Bolton became an undersecretary of state. Dick Cheney, an original PNAC supporter, became vice president.

Only eight months after Bush took office, 9/11 offered an opening to effect the new American foreign policy PNAC members so desperately wanted. The al-Qaeda terrorists who launched the attacks were from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. But as soon as he heard of the carnage, Rumsfeld asked his aides to see if there was enough evidence to “hit” Saddam Hussein as well as Osama bin Laden. When it turned out there was not, the administration created it, cherry-picking evidence or even falsifying it to justify a war in Iraq. So convinced were they that their worldview was right, they refused to acknowledge reality.

Twelve years later, the war has cost more than $2 trillion and 4,500 American lives. Tens of thousands of American soldiers have been wounded. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died and more than two million have become refugees. The vacuum left by the collapse of Saddam Hussein strengthened Iran and created the conditions for the rise of ISL. By any standard, the Iraq War was an error of colossal proportions. But Movement Conservatives cannot surrender the idea of a Manichean world in which they rule America and America rules the world.

Rather than recognizing that their misguided attempt to recreate a bifurcated world in which America is preeminent created disaster in Iraq, Movement Conservatives are blaming the Iraq crisis on everyone else. Mistakes were made. David Brooks infamously spun his own righteous support for the war as a mistake based on bad intelligence, implying that the problems with the Iraq War can be laid directly at the feet of our intelligence agencies. This argument has been demolished by observers and participants both, from Greg Sargent to Paul Krugman to former Senator Bob Graham, D-Fla., who served as chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the crucial time before the invasion. They point out that the intelligence the Bush administration presented about WMDs was misleading, at best. The job of blaming bad intelligence got harder on Tuesday night, when on “Hardball,” Bush’s CIA briefer Michael Morell said that administration officials had lied about the intelligence the CIA had presented to them. “I think they were trying to make a stronger case for the war,” Morell said.

With that avenue of excuse closing, Republicans turned to blaming President Obama for the debacle in Iraq. “I blame President Obama for the mess in Iraq and Syria, not President Bush,” said presidential hopeful Sen. Lindsey Graham on Monday. Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal agreed that the problems in Iraq were not “because of President Bush’s strength, but rather have come about because of President Obama’s weakness.” Thursday, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton agreed that the problems in Iraq came from Obama’s weak foreign policy. And William Kristol insisted that the war in Iraq was a success until President Obama “threw it all away.”

Their argument is clear: there was nothing wrong with their program. The problem was that others failed to execute it properly.....

Good read. Thanks!

I've never understood why President Bush, the son, with many of the very same advisers, chose to do the two things his father wisely avoided after Desert Storm: 1) Create a power vacuum in Iraq, and 2) make the U.S. look like an aggressive, occupying power in the minds of many in the region.

[cooltigger21 0]

http://www.salon.com...to_cover_it_up/

They’re all still lying about Iraq: The real story about the biggest blunder in American history — and the right wing’s obsessive need to cover it up

The road to Iraq began in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall. That event marked the end of the Cold War, which had shaped an American generation.....

When the USSR began to spin apart in 1989, the unraveling of the Cold War left these Movement Conservatives adrift..... No longer was America a superpower; it was again just one nation among many, unable to dictate the behavior of weaker nations.

The return to a multilateral world entailed a return to an awareness of complexity, in contrast to the simplistic divisions of the Cold War. President George H. W. Bush responded to this complexity by refusing to gloat as smaller nations left the USSR, then ended the Gulf War as soon as Iraqi forces had withdrawn from Kuwait, rather than pushing forward and taking control of Iraq itself. If President Bush’s prudence worried Movement Conservatives, they were horrified by what seemed to them the weakness and confusion of the Clinton years. America seemed impotent as Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Haiti shattered.

Movement Conservatives refused to recognize that what they saw as weakness and incoherence was an international adjustment to the realities of the same sort of multilateral world that had existed before the peculiar moment of the Cold War had divided the world between two superpowers and the third-world nations trying to carve out their own destinies within that division. This was not the world Movement Conservatives knew. They wanted back the world they had controlled. In a declaration of principles, they explained that they wanted an end to “incoherent policies” and called for a government that would “shape circumstances before crises emerge.” They demanded a “Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity.”

In 1997, a group of Movement Conservatives set out to resurrect the Cold War moment that had made America supreme. In that year, political commentators William Kristol and Robert Kagan launched the Project for the New American Century. Its statement of principles called for dramatically increased defense spending to implement a strategic vision that would “shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests.” America must “challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values,” and “promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad.” America had a responsibility, the signatories to the statement said. The nation must “accept responsibility for America’s unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.” Dick Cheney, Francis Fukuyama, Norman Podhoretz, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz were among the original signers of the document. So was Jeb Bush.

The next year, members of PNAC urged President Clinton to launch a “determined program to change the regime in Baghdad.” Saddam Hussein had developed biological and chemical weapons, they said, with which he could destabilize the entire Middle East. He could threaten American troops, Israel, moderate Arab states, and “a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil.” Iraq, they said, was “ripe for a broad-based insurrection.” When Clinton bombed Iraq in late 1998 rather than launching an invasion, PNAC and its supporters, like Senate Majority leader Trent Lott and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, insisted he was weak.

When George W. Bush became president, 10 of the 18 men who had signed a letter urging Clinton to take out Saddam Hussein went to work in his administration. Donald Rumsfeld became defense secretary; Paul Wolfowitz was the assistant defense secretary. John Bolton became an undersecretary of state. Dick Cheney, an original PNAC supporter, became vice president.

Only eight months after Bush took office, 9/11 offered an opening to effect the new American foreign policy PNAC members so desperately wanted. The al-Qaeda terrorists who launched the attacks were from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. But as soon as he heard of the carnage, Rumsfeld asked his aides to see if there was enough evidence to “hit” Saddam Hussein as well as Osama bin Laden. When it turned out there was not, the administration created it, cherry-picking evidence or even falsifying it to justify a war in Iraq. So convinced were they that their worldview was right, they refused to acknowledge reality.

Twelve years later, the war has cost more than $2 trillion and 4,500 American lives. Tens of thousands of American soldiers have been wounded. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died and more than two million have become refugees. The vacuum left by the collapse of Saddam Hussein strengthened Iran and created the conditions for the rise of ISL. By any standard, the Iraq War was an error of colossal proportions. But Movement Conservatives cannot surrender the idea of a Manichean world in which they rule America and America rules the world.

Rather than recognizing that their misguided attempt to recreate a bifurcated world in which America is preeminent created disaster in Iraq, Movement Conservatives are blaming the Iraq crisis on everyone else. Mistakes were made. David Brooks infamously spun his own righteous support for the war as a mistake based on bad intelligence, implying that the problems with the Iraq War can be laid directly at the feet of our intelligence agencies. This argument has been demolished by observers and participants both, from Greg Sargent to Paul Krugman to former Senator Bob Graham, D-Fla., who served as chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the crucial time before the invasion. They point out that the intelligence the Bush administration presented about WMDs was misleading, at best. The job of blaming bad intelligence got harder on Tuesday night, when on “Hardball,” Bush’s CIA briefer Michael Morell said that administration officials had lied about the intelligence the CIA had presented to them. “I think they were trying to make a stronger case for the war,” Morell said.

With that avenue of excuse closing, Republicans turned to blaming President Obama for the debacle in Iraq. “I blame President Obama for the mess in Iraq and Syria, not President Bush,” said presidential hopeful Sen. Lindsey Graham on Monday. Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal agreed that the problems in Iraq were not “because of President Bush’s strength, but rather have come about because of President Obama’s weakness.” Thursday, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton agreed that the problems in Iraq came from Obama’s weak foreign policy. And William Kristol insisted that the war in Iraq was a success until President Obama “threw it all away.”

Their argument is clear: there was nothing wrong with their program. The problem was that others failed to execute it properly.....

Good read. Thanks!

I've never understood why President Bush, the son, with many of the very same advisers, chose to do the two things his father wisely avoided after Desert Storm: 1) Create a power vacuum in Iraq, and 2) make the U.S. look like an aggressive, occupying power in the minds of many in the region.

He believed that we'd be welcome as liberators. He thought he could turn Iraq into a democratic ally. It was all very well intended but naive. The truth is that these people have no real concept of self government and that establishing it would require a long term commitment that we were not ready to give.

[homersapien 11,352]

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it - It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.

attribution?

[homersapien 11,352]

http://www.salon.com...to_cover_it_up/

They’re all still lying about Iraq: The real story about the biggest blunder in American history — and the right wing’s obsessive need to cover it up

The road to Iraq began in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall. That event marked the end of the Cold War, which had shaped an American generation.....

When the USSR began to spin apart in 1989, the unraveling of the Cold War left these Movement Conservatives adrift..... No longer was America a superpower; it was again just one nation among many, unable to dictate the behavior of weaker nations.

The return to a multilateral world entailed a return to an awareness of complexity, in contrast to the simplistic divisions of the Cold War. President George H. W. Bush responded to this complexity by refusing to gloat as smaller nations left the USSR, then ended the Gulf War as soon as Iraqi forces had withdrawn from Kuwait, rather than pushing forward and taking control of Iraq itself. If President Bush’s prudence worried Movement Conservatives, they were horrified by what seemed to them the weakness and confusion of the Clinton years. America seemed impotent as Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Haiti shattered.

Movement Conservatives refused to recognize that what they saw as weakness and incoherence was an international adjustment to the realities of the same sort of multilateral world that had existed before the peculiar moment of the Cold War had divided the world between two superpowers and the third-world nations trying to carve out their own destinies within that division. This was not the world Movement Conservatives knew. They wanted back the world they had controlled. In a declaration of principles, they explained that they wanted an end to “incoherent policies” and called for a government that would “shape circumstances before crises emerge.” They demanded a “Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity.”

In 1997, a group of Movement Conservatives set out to resurrect the Cold War moment that had made America supreme. In that year, political commentators William Kristol and Robert Kagan launched the Project for the New American Century. Its statement of principles called for dramatically increased defense spending to implement a strategic vision that would “shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests.” America must “challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values,” and “promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad.” America had a responsibility, the signatories to the statement said. The nation must “accept responsibility for America’s unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.” Dick Cheney, Francis Fukuyama, Norman Podhoretz, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz were among the original signers of the document. So was Jeb Bush.

The next year, members of PNAC urged President Clinton to launch a “determined program to change the regime in Baghdad.” Saddam Hussein had developed biological and chemical weapons, they said, with which he could destabilize the entire Middle East. He could threaten American troops, Israel, moderate Arab states, and “a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil.” Iraq, they said, was “ripe for a broad-based insurrection.” When Clinton bombed Iraq in late 1998 rather than launching an invasion, PNAC and its supporters, like Senate Majority leader Trent Lott and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, insisted he was weak.

When George W. Bush became president, 10 of the 18 men who had signed a letter urging Clinton to take out Saddam Hussein went to work in his administration. Donald Rumsfeld became defense secretary; Paul Wolfowitz was the assistant defense secretary. John Bolton became an undersecretary of state. Dick Cheney, an original PNAC supporter, became vice president.

Only eight months after Bush took office, 9/11 offered an opening to effect the new American foreign policy PNAC members so desperately wanted. The al-Qaeda terrorists who launched the attacks were from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. But as soon as he heard of the carnage, Rumsfeld asked his aides to see if there was enough evidence to “hit” Saddam Hussein as well as Osama bin Laden. When it turned out there was not, the administration created it, cherry-picking evidence or even falsifying it to justify a war in Iraq. So convinced were they that their worldview was right, they refused to acknowledge reality.

Twelve years later, the war has cost more than $2 trillion and 4,500 American lives. Tens of thousands of American soldiers have been wounded. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died and more than two million have become refugees. The vacuum left by the collapse of Saddam Hussein strengthened Iran and created the conditions for the rise of ISL. By any standard, the Iraq War was an error of colossal proportions. But Movement Conservatives cannot surrender the idea of a Manichean world in which they rule America and America rules the world.

Rather than recognizing that their misguided attempt to recreate a bifurcated world in which America is preeminent created disaster in Iraq, Movement Conservatives are blaming the Iraq crisis on everyone else. Mistakes were made. David Brooks infamously spun his own righteous support for the war as a mistake based on bad intelligence, implying that the problems with the Iraq War can be laid directly at the feet of our intelligence agencies. This argument has been demolished by observers and participants both, from Greg Sargent to Paul Krugman to former Senator Bob Graham, D-Fla., who served as chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the crucial time before the invasion. They point out that the intelligence the Bush administration presented about WMDs was misleading, at best. The job of blaming bad intelligence got harder on Tuesday night, when on “Hardball,” Bush’s CIA briefer Michael Morell said that administration officials had lied about the intelligence the CIA had presented to them. “I think they were trying to make a stronger case for the war,” Morell said.

With that avenue of excuse closing, Republicans turned to blaming President Obama for the debacle in Iraq. “I blame President Obama for the mess in Iraq and Syria, not President Bush,” said presidential hopeful Sen. Lindsey Graham on Monday. Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal agreed that the problems in Iraq were not “because of President Bush’s strength, but rather have come about because of President Obama’s weakness.” Thursday, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton agreed that the problems in Iraq came from Obama’s weak foreign policy. And William Kristol insisted that the war in Iraq was a success until President Obama “threw it all away.”

Their argument is clear: there was nothing wrong with their program. The problem was that others failed to execute it properly.....

Good read. Thanks!

I've never understood why President Bush, the son, with many of the very same advisers, chose to do the two things his father wisely avoided after Desert Storm: 1) Create a power vacuum in Iraq, and 2) make the U.S. look like an aggressive, occupying power in the minds of many in the region.

He believed that we'd be welcome as liberators. He thought he could turn Iraq into a democratic ally. It was all very well intended but naive. The truth is that these people have no real concept of self government and that establishing it would require a long term commitment that we were not ready to give.

I can't ignore such a rare thing as agreeing with you.

The elder Bush was a wise "old" man.

[quietfan 233]

I've never understood why President Bush, the son, with many of the very same advisers, chose to do the two things his father wisely avoided after Desert Storm: 1) Create a power vacuum in Iraq, and 2) make the U.S. look like an aggressive, occupying power in the minds of many in the region.

He believed that we'd be welcome as liberators. He thought he could turn Iraq into a democratic ally. It was all very well intended but naive. The truth is that these people have no real concept of self government and that establishing it would require a long term commitment that we were not ready to give.

I understand that's what Bush II thought, or was told by advisers like Cheney and Rumsfeld. My point is why didn't Bush I get the same message from pretty much the same people? We could certainly have achieved regime change just as easily in 1991 if we wished, probably easier since we had just destroyed Saddam's army and had the forces in place to take Baghdad if we wished. What changed between 1991 and 2003, the minds of our leaders or the attitudes of the Iraqi people? What made regime change dangerous and unwise in 1991, but smart and presumably easy in 2003? ( 9/11 doesn't count, because Saddam had nothing to do with that.)

I do believe father acted more wisely than son. I think Bush 1 handled Desert Shield/Storm very wisely: 1) Identify an obvious injustice that all can clearly recognize (Iraq's invasion of Kuwait), 2) Form a real coalition, including most moderate Arab states, with the approval/support of most civilized nations, 3) State specific achievable goals (Free Kuwait and remove Saddam's ability to threaten his neighbors), 3) Appoint smart commanders in the field, give them what they need, and don't micromanage, and 4) Withdraw when you have achieved your goals, leaving forces only in countries where they are invited and welcome.

My only complaint about the handling of Desert Storm was encouraging the Shia and Kurd factions to revolt afterward, then letting Saddam use his helicopters in the No-Fly zone to crush their revolutions.

[autigeremt 6,565]

Bush I had an agrreement in place with the Arab nations and he honored it. That's why we stopped the drive to Bagdad.

[AURaptor 1,121]

Necons believe that since democracies don't go to war with each other, that trying to develop democracy in the middle east would be a viable means of trying to tamp down the violence in that region. Only democracy didn't take there.

And the only cover up regarding Iraq has come from the Left, and the Left wing media, on matters concerning what's been found regarding WMD. In a word - lots. Much of what Bush told , he believed, even though it may have been wrong. But not all of it. And a lot more we WEREN'T told but is every bit as bad, the MSM runs from. To push the narrative of that crap homie posted, from Salon, a Left wing rag if ever there was one.

W was more right than anyone will ever admit, even if colossal blunders were made during and after the war.

[Mims44 1,864]

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it - It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.

attribution?

The whole US v USSR thing made me think of it.

[homersapien 11,352]

Necons believe that since democracies don't go to war with each other, that trying to develop democracy in the middle east would be a viable means of trying to tamp down the violence in that region. Only democracy didn't take there.

And the only cover up regarding Iraq has come from the Left, and the Left wing media, on matters concerning what's been found regarding WMD. In a word - lots. Much of what Bush told , he believed, even though it may have been wrong. But not all of it. And a lot more we WEREN'T told but is every bit as bad, the MSM runs from. To push the narrative of that crap homie posted, from Salon, a Left wing rag if ever there was one.

W was more right than anyone will ever admit, even if colossal blunders were made during and after the war.

Yeah the "MSM" covered up the evidence than justified the war. :-\

Just goes to show, some people are capable of believing anything.

[icanthearyou 4,462]

Necons believe that since democracies don't go to war with each other, that trying to develop democracy in the middle east would be a viable means of trying to tamp down the violence in that region. Only democracy didn't take there.

And the only cover up regarding Iraq has come from the Left, and the Left wing media, on matters concerning what's been found regarding WMD. In a word - lots. Much of what Bush told , he believed, even though it may have been wrong. But not all of it. And a lot more we WEREN'T told but is every bit as bad, the MSM runs from. To push the narrative of that crap homie posted, from Salon, a Left wing rag if ever there was one.

W was more right than anyone will ever admit, even if colossal blunders were made during and after the war.

The dead and maimed, the debt, and the destabilization of the region say otherwise. Only partisan fools cling to supporting the obvious failures of our invasion. And, with an election coming, even they are having trouble with that rhetoric.

[icanthearyou 4,462]

Necons believe that since democracies don't go to war with each other, that trying to develop democracy in the middle east would be a viable means of trying to tamp down the violence in that region. Only democracy didn't take there.

And the only cover up regarding Iraq has come from the Left, and the Left wing media, on matters concerning what's been found regarding WMD. In a word - lots. Much of what Bush told , he believed, even though it may have been wrong. But not all of it. And a lot more we WEREN'T told but is every bit as bad, the MSM runs from. To push the narrative of that crap homie posted, from Salon, a Left wing rag if ever there was one.

W was more right than anyone will ever admit, even if colossal blunders were made during and after the war.

Yeah the "MSM" covered up the evidence than justified the war. :-\

Just goes to show, some people are capable of believing anything Rush Limbaugh tells them to believe.

[homersapien 11,352]

Necons believe that since democracies don't go to war with each other, that trying to develop democracy in the middle east would be a viable means of trying to tamp down the violence in that region. Only democracy didn't take there.

And the only cover up regarding Iraq has come from the Left, and the Left wing media, on matters concerning what's been found regarding WMD. In a word - lots. Much of what Bush told , he believed, even though it may have been wrong. But not all of it. And a lot more we WEREN'T told but is every bit as bad, the MSM runs from. To push the narrative of that crap homie posted, from Salon, a Left wing rag if ever there was one.

W was more right than anyone will ever admit, even if colossal blunders were made during and after the war.

Yeah the "MSM" covered up the evidence than justified the war. :-\

Just goes to show, some people are capable of believing anything Rush Limbaugh tells them to believe.

Maybe the historians will eventually get to the real truth all of the media effectively hid and we'll have to revise our opinion of the war. :-\

[homersapien 11,352]

.....To push the narrative of that crap homie posted, from Salon, a Left wing rag if ever there was one.

Says the guy who thinks the media covered up the actual truth of the war....

How about picking out a specific sentence from that narrative that you consider "crap" Raptor?