Can you not see why people are angry and Bush and his apologists? Because after all this time you still think that the war is a good idea - you just haven't learned your damn lesson. Some time in the future, another idiot like Bush will come around, he'll spout the same crap and you lackeys will once again swallow it up. Pathetic.
Can you not see why people are angry and Bush and his apologists? Because after all this time you still think that the war is a good idea - you just haven't learned your damn lesson. Some time in the future, another idiot like Bush will come around, he'll spout the same crap and you lackeys will once again swallow it up. Pathetic.
Don Vito Corleone
Elite
- Feb 10, 2000
- 30,029
- 66
- 91
In a sense, yes, specifically in that the whole PNAC neoconservative concept does not include any vision for a postwar plan. Remember - Rumsfeld, in the prewar planning for OIF, threatened to fire anyone who even brought up the subject of how we would control postwar Iraq.
These are bright men who cooked up and implemented what is essentially, literally an imperialist plan for the middle east, with Israel and the US running the whole show in that part of the world. The plan was written down before President Bush took office, and years before OIF. The very idea is patently ridiculous (one should be wary of any political think tank that includes Dan Quayle as a signatory), but Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith and company wouldn't be deterred. Since then, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and coalition forces have paid with their lives, and US taxpayers have paid hundreds of billions of dollars to prove that the whole idea was retarded to begin with. The ONLY people I know firsthand who still believe any of the PNAC BS (even many of the PNAC signatories have since repudiated it) are strongly pro-Israeli and would support any action by the US, no matter how self-defeating, that would help Israel.
q]So what is your point of view? That they are screwing this up on purpose? [/quote]
John, there are other possibilities, that fit the evidence; in particular, that they simply have a different agenda which is going just fine.
It's hard to make sense of some actions until you know the agenda behind them. For example, the republicans playing parliamentary games extending a vote all night after they lost and twisting arms on the floor with bribes and threats may be difficult to understand until you realize they were repaying their biggest donor with $150B in profit from taxes.
You would have a hard time making any sense of the whole Congress making a priority, and the president cutting short a vacation for the first time and signing a bill at midnight, over the concern for one woman in a coma (when he'd approved legislation allowing such people to have care terminated as governor), unless you understood that the behavior was part of the political care and feeding of their base, to create an election issue intended to get the bas out voting for them, even though the bad press didn't go as they wanted and it hurt them.
You have a lot beneath the surface on the Iraq issue, just as you did when the US support Saddam invading Iran in the 80's, greatly weakening both our "enemies". While the president made the entire issue WMD as a pretext, it wasn't the real agenda. Even Paul Wolfowitz admitted it was selected for PR to get people united for "bureaucratic reasons".
They're not 'screwing it up on purpose' any more than Frist 'screwed up his remote diagnosis of Terry Schiavo on purpose'. You have to read books by the right experts - try Robert Fisk, or "Assassin's Gate", or "Fiasco" for a start - to get more background on what's happening. Without that, you can't make a lot of sense.
The war has already served some purposes of Bush, from letting him be a 'war president that was required politically for him to win re-election, to vast military spending which not only has some direct benefits but also starves democrats' programs. But the larger understanding is simply a combination of the ideological agena of the PNAC group for US world power in the coming decades at the point of a gun, with the overthrow of Saddam a main stepping stone, along with the utter incompetence of Bush and his circle.
John, there are other possibilities, that fit the evidence; in particular, that they simply have a different agenda which is going just fine.
It's hard to make sense of some actions until you know the agenda behind them. For example, the republicans playing parliamentary games extending a vote all night after they lost and twisting arms on the floor with bribes and threats may be difficult to understand until you realize they were repaying their biggest donor with $150B in profit from taxes.
You would have a hard time making any sense of the whole Congress making a priority, and the president cutting short a vacation for the first time and signing a bill at midnight, over the concern for one woman in a coma (when he'd approved legislation allowing such people to have care terminated as governor), unless you understood that the behavior was part of the political care and feeding of their base, to create an election issue intended to get the bas out voting for them, even though the bad press didn't go as they wanted and it hurt them.
You have a lot beneath the surface on the Iraq issue, just as you did when the US support Saddam invading Iran in the 80's, greatly weakening both our "enemies". While the president made the entire issue WMD as a pretext, it wasn't the real agenda. Even Paul Wolfowitz admitted it was selected for PR to get people united for "bureaucratic reasons".
They're not 'screwing it up on purpose' any more than Frist 'screwed up his remote diagnosis of Terry Schiavo on purpose'. You have to read books by the right experts - try Robert Fisk, or "Assassin's Gate", or "Fiasco" for a start - to get more background on what's happening. Without that, you can't make a lot of sense.
The war has already served some purposes of Bush, from letting him be a 'war president that was required politically for him to win re-election, to vast military spending which not only has some direct benefits but also starves democrats' programs. But the larger understanding is simply a combination of the ideological agena of the PNAC group for US world power in the coming decades at the point of a gun, with the overthrow of Saddam a main stepping stone, along with the utter incompetence of Bush and his circle.
LunarRay
Diamond Member
- Mar 2, 2003
- 9,993
- 1
- 76
The premise for the most recent Iraqi war that you believe was a good idea in the first place continues to be what? It was the WMD/Delivery Systems and the exigent circumstance of their use in 45 day against the US and its interests or have you concluded that that was a lie and the real reason was??? ...
Are you sure about their best and getting it right.... I think what is going on now is consistent with the agenda that we don't understand yet? These men there in Washington are brilliant... the lot of them are beyond brilliant... these folks know what they are doing.. but we don't.... that is how I see it..
Ya know... sometimes the most obsurd testimony uttered... seemingly with out any possible basis turns out to be the most truthful... Don't toss any bit out because it don't fit... in fact, build a bridge from that bit.. see where it goes... what are the possible destinations.... some scare the heck out of me... but they are possible..
It is highly likely that victory in the sense you are describing is impossible. Iraq is a country that was invented by the British after WWI out of three distinct groups that historically have not gotton along. In other words, the British chose the borders to suit their own reasons.
More importantly, people who live in Iraq are loyal to their local leaders and tribes. They are loyal to men like Al-Sadr and Sistani. A central government will never have legitamacy in the eyes of Iraqis. In the US, political groups are not armed and agree to abide by decisions of the governmental process. In Iraq, the militias will not stand down and bow to the decisions of the political process. Keep in mind that democracy as we know it threatens many values held dear by Iraqis, and if they ever come to accept it, it will have to be on their own terms.
The only way the US had even a chance to win in the traditional sense would be to have invaded and occupied with many more troops than we did. After that we would have had to get involved in a massive nation building process. The problem is that this process is way outside the capability of the US military as it is currently constituted and outside the ability of the US to pay for.
That they don't care and therefore keep allowing incompetents to run this thing. Plus, Bush appointed the incompetents to begin with and CONTINUED to use them after 1, 2, 3, etc failings.
JEDIYoda
Lifer
- Jul 13, 2005
- 33,981
- 3,318
- 126
JD has a point....Wait, in any thread that ProfJohn starts that shows individuals that are there supporting the war, it is dismissed by everyone because "its just their opinion" and "its obviously propoganda". So what is it, are you only going to believe the people that support your agenda?
whats good for one is good for all......you can`t criticize prof John and then claim that your threads are more truthful or from real people...as opposed to ProfJohn!!
JEDIYoda
Lifer
- Jul 13, 2005
- 33,981
- 3,318
- 126
dude what planet have you been living on???
You don`t need to authenticate a book...thats too funny......
in all fairness rofl....nothings fair....
People like you would criticize prof Hohn for posting anything supporting the war...yet you embrace with a fundamentalist christians zeal anything opposing the war....sad...
Thump553
Lifer
- Jun 2, 2000
- 12,681
- 2,431
- 126
I read the book about six months ago. The author claims to be an Iraqi female, mid-20's, highly educated (part of Iraqi IT industry before the war) but also part of a large family all living together. It was an excellent read, highly reccommended. I have done nothing to verify it's authenticity, I believe it is authentic for several reasons:
1) The book is chock full of incidental details of daily Iraqi life (both before and after the war) in Baghdad, too many and too obscure (to Western sources) to have originated from a Western source.
2) The book passes my personal test that it is actually one person's thinking viewpoint, and not merely a reflection of a pundit's viewpoint. Like us normal people, it blows hot and cold on various issues, depending on what is happening that day. For example, if the author and her family has not had cooking oil for several days, or if she has to stay up an additional eight hours to post her blog because of the lack of electricity, those frustations show through. It lacks the monochromatic viewpoint, tone and selection of topics you would find in a typical pundit's book (see Ann Coulter, Al Franken for obvious examples). As the author discusses, her extended family included many Shiaa and Sunnis (through intermarriage) before the war, as did many of her neighbors.
Obviously, given the nature of reprisal killings and torture in present day Iraq, the book (and I imagine the blog also) does not contain much in the way of personally identifiable information-like where she worked, background, etc. To me that's totally understandable.
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