Hell Freezes over. Glenn Beck admits: Liberals got Iraq right

[Orignal Earl]

Do you usually deflect so quickly or do you sometimes wait a few pages in before such awkward embarrassments? :thumbsup:

edit- oops wrong thread lol

 

[Vic]

It was never really about any of that either.

It was about "better, smarter, wiser men" who believed they knew how to change the world into the image that they thought was better, smarter and wiser. Oil, jobs and all that would take care of itself once America had rightfully established itself as the planetary Alpha. Not only would America show that its might was unsurpassed but also that it possessed a social and moral supremacy that could elevate and transform a hostile and alien country like Iraq.

Honestly, it's pretty much the plot line to a lot of mediocre science fiction, right down to the 'downfall by hubris' outcome.

Imagine if Iraq had turned out as planned. Our military swept aside the Iraqis in weeks, toppled the government and made us the kingmakers of an entire country. If, as benevolent rulers, we had transformed Iraq into a liberal Western bastion of democracy in the Middle East it would have shown how clearly the superiority of American ideals over the backwardness of the surrounding countries. The dictators and kings of the Middle East would have to justify how Iraq could exist as a modern progressive nation while they maintained their grip on power. Iraq was the seed of modernity that America could plant in the Middle East.

Now the arrogance required to say that with a straight face is staggering, but that is what the architects of the Iraq War really believed. It is little different than the big thoughts that "better, smarter, wiser men" on both sides of the wall thought during the Cold War. Why 2003 America would accomplish in Iraq what 1979 Russians could not accomplish in Afghanistan, 1964 America could not accomplish in Vietnam or 1940s UK could not accomplish in India is beyond me. But the idea of cultural terraforming isn't exactly a new idea. But it has pretty much always been a bad one.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

 

[Matt1970]

Matt is so far right, he has no idea where the middle is anymore

Just because the left in this country isn't exactly pushing for what you would consider a Liberal utopia doesn't mean they aren't still left.

 

[ajskydiver]

It was never really about any of that either.

It was about "better, smarter, wiser men" who believed they knew how to change the world into the image that they thought was better, smarter and wiser. <snip> Now the arrogance required to say that with a straight face is staggering, but that is what the architects of the Iraq War really believed. It is little different than the big thoughts that "better, smarter, wiser men" on both sides of the wall thought during the Cold War. Why 2003 America would accomplish in Iraq what 1979 Russians could not accomplish in Afghanistan, 1964 America could not accomplish in Vietnam or 1940s UK could not accomplish in India is beyond me. But the idea of cultural terraforming isn't exactly a new idea. But it has pretty much always been a bad one.

It's always about the money and those in the position to profit the most.

Here are quotes from D.Cheney from the 90's (and you can see him say essentially the same thing here starting at 3:18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey9tExYbjm8)

"I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we we're going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we'd have had to hunt him down. And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place. What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or Ba'athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable? I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the President got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq."

At the Washington Institute's Soref Symposium, April 29, 1991 [1]

"And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.... Once we had rounded him up and gotten rid of his government, then the question is what do you put in its place? You know, you then have accepted the responsibility for governing Iraq."

August 1992, at the Discovery Institute in Seattle [2] [3]

Can you think of a reason why the early 90's Cheney as SecDef said the above and then pushed so hard, as VP, to go into Iraq?

Do you know when Cheney got involved with Halliburton?

I would think this information would be 100% known to people on these forums yet it doesn't seem to be.

Follow the money.

 

[Daverino]

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

More or less, yes.

Was invading Iraq a monumentally stupid idea that history had shown was monumentally stupid when tried in other places? Yes.

Did people make a lot of money off of the downfall and subsequent chaos in Iraq. Sure.

Was there a secret economic cabal was pulling the strings behind the scenes? No.