I really wasn't saying all that. I stupidly predicted to my friends that this would be over in 8 weeks and that the prospects were 50/50 that things would go ok after that. I did have my suspicions that the story they were selling was bullshit. Particularly because of Joseph Wilson's disclosures and the very thin evidence of connections between Al Qaeda and Saddam, coupled with the fact so many of the neo-cons had been writing and talking about using Iraq as a jumping off spot for "liberating" the Middle East. So, I never thought it was wise to "liberate" the Iraqis from Saddam.
You are correct that, before the invasion, many people predicted that this would end poorly. Some for ideological reasons, others because of their deep understanding of the region. Frankly, I think it would have been difficult to have really known what the outcome was going to be. And that really is my point. You don't put your hand in a hornet's nest without being goddam sure it is worth the trouble. Clearly, (read Sy Hersh's pieces in the New Yorker on Cheney stovepiping intelligence) the Whitehouse was manipulating the press for reasons other than national security. They wanted to pursue a radical agenda of reshaping the world through American Neo-Imperialism. This not a secret. They wrote openly about it for years. Well, it was a very bad idea and we're paying for it. [/b]
Just not as dearly as the folks getting killed, maimed, orphaned and all the Iraqis who are left behind to pick up the pieces when the invaders go home.
I really wasn't saying all that. I stupidly predicted to my friends that this would be over in 8 weeks and that the prospects were 50/50 that things would go ok after that. I did have my suspicions that the story they were selling was bullshit. Particularly because of Joseph Wilson's disclosures and the very thin evidence of connections between Al Qaeda and Saddam, coupled with the fact so many of the neo-cons had been writing and talking about using Iraq as a jumping off spot for "liberating" the Middle East. So, I never thought it was wise to "liberate" the Iraqis from Saddam.
You are correct that, before the invasion, many people predicted that this would end poorly. Some for ideological reasons, others because of their deep understanding of the region. Frankly, I think it would have been difficult to have really known what the outcome was going to be. And that really is my point. You don't put your hand in a hornet's nest without being goddam sure it is worth the trouble. Clearly, (read Sy Hersh's pieces in the New Yorker on Cheney stovepiping intelligence) the Whitehouse was manipulating the press for reasons other than national security. They wanted to pursue a radical agenda of reshaping the world through American Neo-Imperialism. This not a secret. They wrote openly about it for years. Well, it was a very bad idea and we're paying for it.
I really wasn't saying all that. I stupidly predicted to my friends that this would be over in 8 weeks and that the prospects were 50/50 that things would go ok after that. I did have my suspicions that the story they were selling was bullshit. Particularly because of Joseph Wilson's disclosures and the very thin evidence of connections between Al Qaeda and Saddam, coupled with the fact so many of the neo-cons had been writing and talking about using Iraq as a jumping off spot for "liberating" the Middle East. So, I never thought it was wise to "liberate" the Iraqis from Saddam.
You are correct that, before the invasion, many people predicted that this would end poorly. Some for ideological reasons, others because of their deep understanding of the region. Frankly, I think it would have been difficult to have really known what the outcome was going to be. And that really is my point. You don't put your hand in a hornet's nest without being goddam sure it is worth the trouble. Clearly, (read Sy Hersh's pieces in the New Yorker on Cheney stovepiping intelligence) the Whitehouse was manipulating the press for reasons other than national security. They wanted to pursue a radical agenda of reshaping the world through American Neo-Imperialism. This not a secret. They wrote openly about it for years. Well, it was a very bad idea and we're paying for it. [/b]
Just not as dearly as the folks getting killed, maimed, orphaned and all the Iraqis who are left behind to pick up the pieces when the invaders go home.
I really wasn't saying all that. I stupidly predicted to my friends that this would be over in 8 weeks and that the prospects were 50/50 that things would go ok after that. I did have my suspicions that the story they were selling was bullshit. Particularly because of Joseph Wilson's disclosures and the very thin evidence of connections between Al Qaeda and Saddam, coupled with the fact so many of the neo-cons had been writing and talking about using Iraq as a jumping off spot for "liberating" the Middle East. So, I never thought it was wise to "liberate" the Iraqis from Saddam.
You are correct that, before the invasion, many people predicted that this would end poorly. Some for ideological reasons, others because of their deep understanding of the region. Frankly, I think it would have been difficult to have really known what the outcome was going to be. And that really is my point. You don't put your hand in a hornet's nest without being goddam sure it is worth the trouble. Clearly, (read Sy Hersh's pieces in the New Yorker on Cheney stovepiping intelligence) the Whitehouse was manipulating the press for reasons other than national security. They wanted to pursue a radical agenda of reshaping the world through American Neo-Imperialism. This not a secret. They wrote openly about it for years. Well, it was a very bad idea and we're paying for it. [/b]
Just not as dearly as the folks getting killed, maimed, orphaned and all the Iraqis who are left behind to pick up the pieces when the invaders go home.
A lot of those getting killed and maimed are us.
Us and them.
A lot of people from all over the world.
That's why I didn't specify.
We're not communicating too well this week, you and I.
I probably should have been more clear, Bassie, that I was referring to all of the casaulties of this war. You are so right on about the cost to the Iraqi people. In the mean time 13,000 wounded and near 2,000 dead in America. My head hurts.
Half if not more of the $1.27 billion spent by the Iraqi defense ministry has vanished due to corruption. All of the Iraqi defense military officials in charge of the budget were appointed by the Coalition Provisional Authority under Paul Bremer, and there were 20 US officials working alongside them. Yet, half of the money was used for kickbacks, stolen or used on useless equipment according to a study on the period when the U.S. turned over control of the country to Iraqis in 2004.
8/20/05
Washington Post
Shiite and Kurdish militias, who are often part of the Iraqi security forces have carried out a series of abductions, assassinations and other acts of intimidation in northern and southern Iraq to create zones of influence for their respective sectarian groups.
In Basra Shiite militias have assassinated Sunnis and competiting Shiite groups. Many times the militias wear police uniforms.
In the north, Kurds have set up 5 secret detention centers where they have rounded up Sunnis, Turkmens and other minorities in raids. They have also beaten and threatened government officials who are not pro-Kurdish.
8/22/05
New York Times
As Iraqi delegates are trying to compromisein order to finish the Constitution, the New York Times notes that Shiites and Kurds have shut out the Sunni delegates. The paper notes that the Shiites and Kurds will consider the Sunnis' views, but won't really compromise to get them to agree to the document. This despite the fact that observers agree that Sunnis need to be made part of the process to quell the insurgency.
"Waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool said to push on," warned an anti-Vietnam war song those many years ago. The McGovern presidential campaign, in those days, which I know something about, is widely viewed as a cause for the decline of the Democratic Party, a gateway through which a new conservative era entered.
Like the cat that jumped on a hot stove and thereafter wouldn't jump on any stove, hot or cold, today's Democratic leaders didn't want to make that mistake again. Many supported the Iraq war resolution and -- as the Big Muddy is rising yet again -- now find themselves tongue-tied or trying to trump a war president by calling for deployment of more troops. Thus does good money follow bad and bad politics get even worse.
Gravestones of fallen Americans at Arlington National Cemetery. (J. Scott Applewhite -- AP) History will deal with George W. Bush and the neoconservatives who misled a mighty nation into a flawed war that is draining the finest military in the world, diverting Guard and reserve forces that should be on the front line of homeland defense, shredding international alliances that prevailed in two world wars and the Cold War, accumulating staggering deficits, misdirecting revenue from education to rebuilding Iraqi buildings we've blown up, and weakening America's national security.
But what will history say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes on? My generation of Democrats jumped on the hot stove of Vietnam and now, with its members in positions of responsibility, it is afraid of jumping on any political stove. In their leaders, the American people look for strength, determination and self-confidence, but they also look for courage, wisdom, judgment and, in times of moral crisis, the willingness to say: "I was wrong."
To stay silent during such a crisis, and particularly to harbor the thought that the administration's misfortune is the Democrats' fortune, is cowardly. In 2008 I want a leader who is willing now to say: "I made a mistake, and for my mistake I am going to Iraq and accompanying the next planeload of flag-draped coffins back to Dover Air Force Base. And I am going to ask forgiveness for my mistake from every parent who will talk to me."
Further, this leader should say: "I am now going to give a series of speeches across the country documenting how the administration did not tell the American people the truth, why this war is making our country more vulnerable and less secure, how we can drive a wedge between Iraqi insurgents and outside jihadists and leave Iraq for the Iraqis to govern, how we can repair the damage done to our military, what we and our allies can do to dry up the jihadists' swamp, and what dramatic steps we must take to become energy-secure and prevent Gulf Wars III, IV and so on."
At stake is not just the leadership of the Democratic Party and the nation but our nation's honor, our nobility and our principles. Franklin D. Roosevelt established a national community based on social justice. Harry Truman created international networks that repaired the damage of World War II and defeated communism. John F. Kennedy recaptured the ideal of the republic and the sense of civic duty. To expect to enter this pantheon, the next Democratic leader must now undertake all three tasks.
But this cannot be done while the water is rising in the Big Muddy of the Middle East. No Democrat, especially one now silent, should expect election by default. The public trust must be earned, and speaking clearly, candidly and forcefully now about the mess in Iraq is the place to begin.
The real defeatists today are not those protesting the war. The real defeatists are those in power and their silent supporters in the opposition party who are reduced to repeating "Stay the course" even when the course, whatever it now is, is light years away from the one originally undertaken. The truth is we're way off course. We've stumbled into a hornet's nest. We've weakened ourselves at home and in the world. We are less secure today than before this war began.
Iraqi terrorist group shoots at and misses U.S. warship off coast of Jordan and lobs missiles at Israel?
During the summer the CIA released a report saying that Iraq has become the new Afghanistan of the Muslim world except its worse because Islamists in Iraq are getting on the job training in fighting whereas in Afghanistan, Islamists just trained in camps. The CIA report theorized that Iraq was creating a whole new generation of Islamic terrorists that would use their training against U.S. interests across the Muslim world.
2 separate studies by Israel and Saudi Arabia also found that Iraq was creating a new generation of militant Arab Islamists. In interviews of foreign fighters in Iraq both studies found that almost all of them had no radical connections before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but had been radicalized because of the U.S.'s actions.
Well in the middle of August an Iraqi terrorist group made up of Egyptians, Syrians and Iraqis travelled to Jordan and shot and missed a U.S. warship, and lobbed 2 missles into Israel which wounded a taxi driver. This is the first report of Iraqi groups travelling outside of Iraq to attack U.S. and Israel.
According to Bush we're fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here. That's really working as London and now Jordan prove.
To follow up on that, here's a report by the BBC from 8/23/05
Islamists from Iraq have travelled to Afghanistan and are trying to encourage Afghans to adopt tactics used in Iraq against U.S. and Afghan forces there including kidnappings and suicide bombings. According to the BBC the Iraq based militants have showed video tapes of their tactics in Iraq to Afghans and are trying to recruit a new generation of fighters in Afghanistan to battle the U.S. and Afghan government.
Comments
Just not as dearly as the folks getting killed, maimed, orphaned and all the Iraqis who are left behind to pick up the pieces when the invaders go home.
Sorry to put words in your mouth.
A lot of those getting killed and maimed are us.
Us and them.
A lot of people from all over the world.
That's why I didn't specify.
We're not communicating too well this week, you and I.
8/22/05
London Guardian
Half if not more of the $1.27 billion spent by the Iraqi defense ministry has vanished due to corruption. All of the Iraqi defense military officials in charge of the budget were appointed by the Coalition Provisional Authority under Paul Bremer, and there were 20 US officials working alongside them. Yet, half of the money was used for kickbacks, stolen or used on useless equipment according to a study on the period when the U.S. turned over control of the country to Iraqis in 2004.
8/20/05
Washington Post
Shiite and Kurdish militias, who are often part of the Iraqi security forces have carried out a series of abductions, assassinations and other acts of intimidation in northern and southern Iraq to create zones of influence for their respective sectarian groups.
In Basra Shiite militias have assassinated Sunnis and competiting Shiite groups. Many times the militias wear police uniforms.
In the north, Kurds have set up 5 secret detention centers where they have rounded up Sunnis, Turkmens and other minorities in raids. They have also beaten and threatened government officials who are not pro-Kurdish.
8/22/05
New York Times
As Iraqi delegates are trying to compromisein order to finish the Constitution, the New York Times notes that Shiites and Kurds have shut out the Sunni delegates. The paper notes that the Shiites and Kurds will consider the Sunnis' views, but won't really compromise to get them to agree to the document. This despite the fact that observers agree that Sunnis need to be made part of the process to quell the insurgency.
Who Will Say 'No More'?
By Gary Hart
Wednesday, August 24, 2005; Page A15
"Waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool said to push on," warned an anti-Vietnam war song those many years ago. The McGovern presidential campaign, in those days, which I know something about, is widely viewed as a cause for the decline of the Democratic Party, a gateway through which a new conservative era entered.
Like the cat that jumped on a hot stove and thereafter wouldn't jump on any stove, hot or cold, today's Democratic leaders didn't want to make that mistake again. Many supported the Iraq war resolution and -- as the Big Muddy is rising yet again -- now find themselves tongue-tied or trying to trump a war president by calling for deployment of more troops. Thus does good money follow bad and bad politics get even worse.
Gravestones of fallen Americans at Arlington National Cemetery. (J. Scott Applewhite -- AP)
History will deal with George W. Bush and the neoconservatives who misled a mighty nation into a flawed war that is draining the finest military in the world, diverting Guard and reserve forces that should be on the front line of homeland defense, shredding international alliances that prevailed in two world wars and the Cold War, accumulating staggering deficits, misdirecting revenue from education to rebuilding Iraqi buildings we've blown up, and weakening America's national security.
But what will history say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes on? My generation of Democrats jumped on the hot stove of Vietnam and now, with its members in positions of responsibility, it is afraid of jumping on any political stove. In their leaders, the American people look for strength, determination and self-confidence, but they also look for courage, wisdom, judgment and, in times of moral crisis, the willingness to say: "I was wrong."
To stay silent during such a crisis, and particularly to harbor the thought that the administration's misfortune is the Democrats' fortune, is cowardly. In 2008 I want a leader who is willing now to say: "I made a mistake, and for my mistake I am going to Iraq and accompanying the next planeload of flag-draped coffins back to Dover Air Force Base. And I am going to ask forgiveness for my mistake from every parent who will talk to me."
Further, this leader should say: "I am now going to give a series of speeches across the country documenting how the administration did not tell the American people the truth, why this war is making our country more vulnerable and less secure, how we can drive a wedge between Iraqi insurgents and outside jihadists and leave Iraq for the Iraqis to govern, how we can repair the damage done to our military, what we and our allies can do to dry up the jihadists' swamp, and what dramatic steps we must take to become energy-secure and prevent Gulf Wars III, IV and so on."
At stake is not just the leadership of the Democratic Party and the nation but our nation's honor, our nobility and our principles. Franklin D. Roosevelt established a national community based on social justice. Harry Truman created international networks that repaired the damage of World War II and defeated communism. John F. Kennedy recaptured the ideal of the republic and the sense of civic duty. To expect to enter this pantheon, the next Democratic leader must now undertake all three tasks.
But this cannot be done while the water is rising in the Big Muddy of the Middle East. No Democrat, especially one now silent, should expect election by default. The public trust must be earned, and speaking clearly, candidly and forcefully now about the mess in Iraq is the place to begin.
The real defeatists today are not those protesting the war. The real defeatists are those in power and their silent supporters in the opposition party who are reduced to repeating "Stay the course" even when the course, whatever it now is, is light years away from the one originally undertaken. The truth is we're way off course. We've stumbled into a hornet's nest. We've weakened ourselves at home and in the world. We are less secure today than before this war began.
Who now has the courage to say this?
Iraqi terrorist group shoots at and misses U.S. warship off coast of Jordan and lobs missiles at Israel?
During the summer the CIA released a report saying that Iraq has become the new Afghanistan of the Muslim world except its worse because Islamists in Iraq are getting on the job training in fighting whereas in Afghanistan, Islamists just trained in camps. The CIA report theorized that Iraq was creating a whole new generation of Islamic terrorists that would use their training against U.S. interests across the Muslim world.
2 separate studies by Israel and Saudi Arabia also found that Iraq was creating a new generation of militant Arab Islamists. In interviews of foreign fighters in Iraq both studies found that almost all of them had no radical connections before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but had been radicalized because of the U.S.'s actions.
Well in the middle of August an Iraqi terrorist group made up of Egyptians, Syrians and Iraqis travelled to Jordan and shot and missed a U.S. warship, and lobbed 2 missles into Israel which wounded a taxi driver. This is the first report of Iraqi groups travelling outside of Iraq to attack U.S. and Israel.
According to Bush we're fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here. That's really working as London and now Jordan prove.
Islamists from Iraq have travelled to Afghanistan and are trying to encourage Afghans to adopt tactics used in Iraq against U.S. and Afghan forces there including kidnappings and suicide bombings. According to the BBC the Iraq based militants have showed video tapes of their tactics in Iraq to Afghans and are trying to recruit a new generation of fighters in Afghanistan to battle the U.S. and Afghan government.