5 posts tagged “iraq”
I think there is a huge misconception that needs to be addressed. Everyone thinks that Iraq had WMDs and posed a threat to the USA. This was false of course. What we've learned recently is that when Saddam was interrogated he said he didn't have the resources to make WMDs but he wanted the world to think he had them, which is why he kept out weapons inspectors. Why would he do this? Iran is Iraq's biggest enemy, remember who was fighting whom in the 1980s. Saddam claimed he wanted to keep Iran at bay, to keep them from attacking for revenge from the last war.
But America thinks everything is about us. We think Saddam wanted WMDs to use on us. Why? Why would he want to attack the strongest country in the world when he was crippled? Doesn't make sense.
Turning to Iran, I heard someone say that if we didn't go to Iraq that Iraq and Iran would have worked together on a bomb to attack us. WTF? These two countries are mortal enemies. Hell, don't they realize that our biggest problems in Iraq are from Iranians stirring up trouble in that State? Why would they work together when they hate each other? Because we think everything is about us. Iran canceled their weapons program in 2003, when Saddam was no longer a threat. They were preparing for Saddam again. Remember, Saddam used WMDs (we provided mind you) against Iran in the '80s.
But somehow everything is about us, and that's why we've been making a huge stink out of it. I keep hearing people say, "With Iran's history of kidnapping Americans." Again, WTF? One time, and only as a bargaining chip to bring back the dictator we supported so they could bring him to justice. We were protecting him.
We need to get over our ego. I remember a friend I met in Poland who was an Englishman living in Scotland. He said when he thinks of the US he is sad. He says he can't judge because Britain was the Empire and now we are. His nation has been what we are, so it would be hypocritical to judge us. He says we'll learn sometime and be humbled. Every evil person in the world isn't out to get the USA.
On April 10, 2003, President George W. Bush game a speech in which he said:
First I want to draw attention to the fact that the United States has been an aggressive country, acting militarily in South America and the Middle East over the last several decades. We do also have weapons of mass destruction, in fact we have more than the rest of the world has all put together, and the Bush administration is seeking to expand funding to improve and upgrade the nuclear arsenal.The goals of our coalition are clear and limited. We will end a brutal regime, whose aggression and weapons of mass destruction make it a unique threat to the world. Coalition forces will help maintain law and order, so that Iraqis can live in security. We will respect your great religious traditions, whose principles of equality and compassion are essential to Iraq’s future. We will help you build a peaceful and representative government that protects the rights of all citizens. And then our military forces will leave. Iraq will go forward as a unified, independent and sovereign nation that has regained a respected place in the world.
Second, Bush clearly says we will remove our military when Iraq has a representative government. They have one, we all saw the purple fingers. Time to go.
A recent internal Pentagon investigation just found that intel was purposely manipulated to mislead the Department of Defense (DOD) in order to go to war with Iraq. The Pentagon kept pressing for links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, which have subsequently found to be false. The Pentagon concluded that the action was inappropriate but legal.
How exactly is lying to the country, causing tens of thousands of human deaths, not criminal?
This year we (the USA) established the Iraq Study Group, a ten-person bipartisan panel consisting of five Republicans and five Democrats who had held posts such as Supreme Court Justice, Secretary of State, US Attorney General, White House Chief of Staff, and US Secretary of Defense. This commission's job was to assess the condition in Iraq and make recommendations to policy regarding Iraq. Among other things, this panel recommended a phased withdraw of troops and open dialog with Syria and Iran. While this group was conducting their study a growing sentiment in our Capitol on all sides of the issues, and among the Military leaders, that we did have to start getting our troops out of Iraq. This of course has been the belief of a majority of the rest of the world's population. Support for the Iraq occupation dropped to an all time low below 30% here in the States. Even the Secretary of Defense that Bush himself appointed after Rumsfeld resigned, Robert Gates, served on the Iraq Study Group and only resigned the group after he was nominated for his current position.
After the commission's findings were publicized, George W. Bush said he would listen to all his advisers and formulate a plan to "win the war" in Iraq. Leaks have been coming out of the White House saying Bush's plan is "Surge and Escalate," which will bring an additional 20,000 troops to Iraq. This goes against the advice of the military leaders here, the Iraq leaders there, and pretty much every expert in policy.
This is a disastrous plan. The "US Invasion" of Iraq has been seen as a "US Occupation" and sending in more troops when a wide majority of Iraqis want us to leave will only solidify this belief. The entire Middle East region is afraid we'll have a permanent military presence in Iraq, and adding to this belief may "escalate" in a way quite unintended. The only people who think this is a good idea are the Washington neo-cons who thought every idea Bush had was a good one only to see it fail miserably in a foreign policy disaster. We're losing face all over the world and every decision we make only adds to this distrust.
We do need to open dialog with the neighboring states in the Middle East. These places are not nationalistic like western countries are, they're tribal, they're religious, and these things extend beyond borders. Everything in the Middle East is intertwined. In a recent Iran election, results showed anti-Ahmadinejad vote. The people of Iran have showed they're not in support of the hard-line President that is the thorn in Bush's heal. Recently, Flynt Leverett wrote an op-ed in the New York Times (which the White House censored even after the CIA cleared it) pressing how important it is for this President to not miss the opportunity to fix relations with the most powerful nation-state in the Middle East before it's too late. I agree. We can't afford to let our relationship smelt.
And the Democrats can't really do anything about this either because they've only got control of the war chest, not the troops, and if they cut funding the neo-cons will say how the Dems are weak on terror and how they want to put the troops in vulnerable positions without enough body armor and bullets. So basically living in the States is currently like living under a heavy cloud with nothign we can do except wait out the last two years of this administration. It's depressing.
I was thinking about when Dick Cheney said (source):
What the Democrats are suggesting, basically, about a withdrawal -- you can call it redeployment, whatever you want to call it. Basically, it in effect validates the terrorists' strategy. You've got to remember that the Osama bin Laden-types, the al Qaeda-types, the Zarqawi-types that have been active in Iraq are betting that ultimately they can break the United States' will. There's no way they can defeat us militarily. Their whole strategy, if you look at what bin Laden's been saying for 10 years, is they believe they can, in fact, force us to quit, that ultimately we'll get tired of the fight, that we don't have the stomach for a long, tough battle and that we'll pack it in and go home.
A few thoughts here:
This administration makes it sound like everyone is a terrorist that doesn't want America to be in Iraq. This comes from their confusing the war on terror and the Iraq war. They say if we pull out of Iraq, we'll be fighting terrorists here. Of course the fighting in Iraq is not against the USA (mostly). The Iraqis are fighting each other because there are so many factions (Sunni, Shiite, Kurd, etc) fighting for control. there are terrorists fighting the Iraqi government because they see it as a US puppet govt. attacks on US targets has been slowing down, and our troops' deaths are coming from actions we're taking.
"Validating the terrorist strategy" by pulling out or redeploying means the terrorists are looking for us to leave the region. Most people in the Middle East want us out of the region as well, so they're supporting the terrorist strategy!
"Breaking the United States' will" to do what? Fight? We’re fighting because the terrorists don't want us to fight? We’re fighting to show them we have a strong will to fight?
Cheney says Bin Laden and the others "believe they can, in fact, force us to quit." and what if we do quit? Then the terrorists win because there is no more war? No more senseless death? No more hostility?
Cheney makes it sound like we're fighting for pride. We’ve got the guts to fight, and keep on fighting. It’s pointless. Fighting because someone else doesn't want you to is adolescent.
I guess they're right when they say we won't lose this one because we've already lost it. If terrorists want to fight us so much, why do we satisfy their desires?
