The United States is mulling further intervention in Iraq as government forces flee Al Qaeda-linked insurgents and the country appears teetering on chaos. While the Administration is not ready to commit boots on the grounds, we may be moving toward a further influx of hundreds of millions or billions in military aid and even air strikes. As ISIS insurgents are seizing U.S. weaponry, the U.S. has already started to flood the country a new massive shipment of new free weapons.
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant or ISIS is on a roll and nearing the capital. It is an al-qaeda linked terrorist group following the Wahhabi movement, the extreme religious view advanced by our ally Saudi Arabia.
So let’s take stock. We replaced a dictator based on lies in a massive invasion ordered by George W. Bush. We then spent over $2 trillion (the cost is over $4 trillion when you include Afghanistan). Both President Bush and President Obama continued to pour hundreds of billions of dollars in the country despite massive corruption and billions that simply disappeared. At the same time we have been cutting back on our own educational, environmental, scientific, and social programs due to a lack of money. Consider what $4 trillion would have done.
More importantly, we have lost some 4,486 U.S. service members between 2003 and 2012. Thousands have been wounded, many with lifelong disabilities. Our leaders continued to pour troops into the country because no one wanted to admit that the war was a mistake or that we were losing to Islamic insurgents. We continued to lose people and spend trillions in the belief that we could reverse centuries of sectarian and social strife.
In the meantime, we became increasingly hated by many Iraqis and we opened the country not to Saddamists but Al Qaeda forces who moved into the area as an opportunity to fight America and take over large parts of the country. They are now seizing advanced US weaponry so we are again arming extremists. Now to make our disaster complete we not only have Al Qaeda taking control of areas but Iran has now reportedly sent in troops to fuel the Shiite/Sunni violence. It is offering as many as 10,000 Iranian troops.
It is another example of the economic principle of “path dependence”: we have so much invested that we cannot change course. So once again, we will open up our coffers until the last helicopter leaves from the roof from the Green Zone.
[music]
And its one, two, three, what’re we fightin for?
Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn!
Next stop is Viet Nam!
And its five, six, seven, open up the Pearly Gates.
Aint no time to wonder why,
Whopee! We’re all gonna die.
-Country Joe and the Fish
Let Israel handle the situation. It is their neighborhood. They have a connection to the outcome. I say give Israel the Trillion of Dollars, there will be less stolen from the United States and they will get the job done right. And send disgraced Texas magistrate Trey Loftin there to mediate.
Reblogged this on Johnsono ne'Blog'as.
John
Did someone say Rachel MAD COW???
She is disrespectful.
===================================
you’re just pissed because she has twice your IQ and gets more women.
Supposedly Maddow is in a committed relationship with a woman whose lawn she used to mow, literally.
Reblogged this on saboteur365 and commented:
Common sense would say that those in the Middle East region cannot be forced to accept a form of government and a culture they do not like and do not want, Western style egalitarianism and so-called democracy. Israel is the prime beneficiary of the breakup of Iraq, which will result from this chaos. If I didn’t know better, I would say that Israel conspires to create these situations. Well, actually I do know better. Bush and Obama, two of Israel’s favorite lapdogs. Sit! Woof! Woof!
Appended to comment at June 13, 2014 at 9:50 pm
After the regime change, the Duelfer Report corroborated that Iraq was in broad violation of its weapons obligations. For example, a clandestine program was active within the Iraqi intelligence services.
Any of those violations alone validates OIF.
The IIS was – of course – Saddam’s regime organ that worked with terrorists, handled Saddam’s in-house black ops, repressed the Iraqi people, and was famously notorious for all of the above. Although a military/battlefield amount of WMD stocks was not found in the post-war investigation despite Saddam’s failure to account for a large amount of WMD, a terrorist attack requires a smaller amount of materials than used by the military on the battlefield, an amount within the capability of the IIS.
Professor Turley, if you have not done so yet, I encourage you to review the Duelfer Report. The picture it paints of Saddam’s violations and the failure of the ‘containment’ suggests that the regime change was none too soon.
While politically controversial, Operation Iraqi Freedom was right on the law and justified on the policy.
Eric, I retrieved your comment at 12:06 (discarding a duplicate).
I suppose the bottom line is the use and sale of weapons. Consumed quicker than drugs so higher in profit. Does this make me proud to be in a ‘democracy’ ?…not really. We get to discuss more than the Chinese but we’re not listened to by our government any more than they are.
Yes, and just how well are things going in that beaker of liberal society coming along?? Did we not add enough of this or that yet?? The pompous nature of the above defense that has no rational connection to anything but the think tank that spawned it is the reason why we are in a total spiral. We are failing at just about every turn diplomatically, and it ain’t hard to see why.
Darren Smith,
I thought comments weren’t posting due to a connection or computer problem. If I’ve been filling up your queue, I apologize.
Is there a rhyme or reason for comments that post immediately v comments that get swallowed? I can’t tell the difference between my comments that go up right away and the ones that disappear.
Eric,
You don’t have to worry about a queue building up it’s not a big deal for us to go in to retrieve the comments, it only takes about a minute, provided they were slurped up by the spam filter or moderation.
Most of us do not comprehend the mysterious ways of the WordPress Vortex of Doom, as we aren’t privy to its algorithm. I can say it is better to have it a little on the crabby side since the website receives on average between 1,500 and 4,000 pieces of spam per day. This would clog up the comments badly with all sorts of ads for junk nobody needs.
So don’t worry we’ll try to help as best we can.
Did someone say Rachel MAD COW???
She is disrespectful.
We should pack, the ‘Dumbass in Chief’ George W. Bush… and his horse, and send them both to Iraq, on the earliest jet. Maybe ‘Dumbass’ could paint us a few pictures of the failure of his, ‘brainless’, disastrous policies…… Or at least do us a favor by getting shot!
It’s a proven fact! The United States of America, is the DUMBEST country on the Planet!
INFPs tend to value personal considerations above objective criteria. When making decisions, they often give more weight to social implications than to logic.
Loyal to the people and causes important to them, INFPs can quickly spot opportunities to implement their ideals.
INTPs tend to value objective criteria above personal preference. When making decisions, they generally give more weight to logic than to social considerations.
Perhaps if the INFP spent a little more time THINKING and a lot less time FEELING loyal to a particular cause, he’d wake up, stop lying to himself and others while realizing that the administration of George W. Bush defrauded the country into war.
From http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2014/05/operation-iraqi-freedom-faq.html
Q: The reasons for OIF seemed to change. Was OIF about WMD or democracy?
A: OIF was about both. The issues of Iraq’s WMD and regime change in Iraq were tied together. There was a bundle of reasons in the body of US laws and UNSC resolutions on Iraq. The short answer to ‘Why?’ is ‘All of the above’.
The regime change mandate in the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act was based on Clinton’s conclusion that achieving Iraq’s compliance on all of its obligations, weapons and non-weapons related, would require regime change either with a rehabilitated Saddam or Saddam removed from power. The source of the “clear and present danger” was not Iraq’s WMD, but rather the intrinsic nature of Saddam’s regime. Iraq’s WMD was a symptom only, albeit a very dangerous symptom, of the cancer afflicting Iraq: Saddam, unreconstructed.
When Saddam failed to comply volitionally, the objectives set by President Clinton to resolve the Saddam problem were achieved by OIF: Iraq in compliance, Iraq at peace with its neighbors and the international community, and Iraq internally reformed with regime change.
For America the liberal hegemonic leader of the free world, the regime change that brought Iraq into compliance meant shepherding post-Saddam Iraq to a pluralistic liberal society, commonly called democracy.
jonathanturley: “We replaced a dictator based on lies in a massive invasion ordered by George W. Bush.”
Professor Turley, it’s clear you have fundamentally misunderstood the 1991-2003 US-led Iraq enforcement.
The US role was enforcing Iraq’s compliance with its obligations under the Gulf War ceasefire and UNSC resolutions.
Here’s the key you’ve missed: Iraq’s guilt was established at the outset of the ceasefire (which Saddam then continuously compounded). The entire burden of proof was on Saddam to cure Iraq’s guilt by proving Iraq’s full compliance.
The ceasefire of the Gulf War was contingent on Saddam curing Iraq’s guilt, ie, disarmament along with a host of non-weapons obligations. If Saddam fully complied, then the war was over. If Saddam fell short of proving full compliance, then the ceasefire was breached, Iraq’s guilt was presumed, and the “clear and present danger” (Clinton) was imputed.
In 1998, Operation Desert Fox was triggered by Saddam’s failure to pass the “testing [of] Iraq’s cooperation” (Clinton) with UNSCOM. In 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom was triggered by Saddam’s failure to pass Iraq’s compliance test with UNMOVIC.
That Saddam was in breach of Iraq’s ceasefire obligations at the decision point for OIF is undisputed – UNMOVIC’s reporting is rife with Iraq’s violations.
(Note: While the Bush administration cited properly to Iraq’s noncompliance, I agree that the pre-war intelligence was misrepresented as “evidence”. The pre-war intelligence should have been represented as ‘indicators’, which is the normal role of intelligence. Judged as indicators rather than “evidence”, the pre-war intelligence did point in the right direction. Keep in mind that because Iraq’s guilt was established, the entire burden of proof was on Saddam to cure Iraq’s guilt, and the triggering test was Iraq’s compliance, ‘proof’ was not a required element for enforcement. If the US had presented no ‘proof’, the enforcement procedure would have been the same. Indeed, Clinton cited entirely to Iraq’s noncompliance for Operation Desert Fox.)
“Here’s the key you’ve missed: Iraq’s guilt was established at the outset of the ceasefire (which Saddam then continuously compounded). The entire burden of proof was on Saddam to cure Iraq’s guilt by proving Iraq’s full compliance.”
We did not miss it. It is just irrelevant to the question of whether it made any sense to go to war, whether the aftermath of war would be better or worse, or whether they lied because they could not make a compelling case – there was no compelling case to be made.
Sometimes it is easy to find justification to go to war. That does not mean that any reasonable person would do it.
There are still neo-cons out there who think all we have to do is scrape off the top 5,000 or 10,000 of the elites and then we can impose political and social structures much like our own; and create allies and trading partners.
What naive, incompetent rubbish. Somewhere out there, Bolton is still telling dictators to take a number.
If the road to peace in the middle east runs through Baghdad, would some one please check the GPS again.
bfm – whether it makes sense or not is a judgment call. Clearly you do not think it make sense. Clearly, Bush and a bunch of other countries thought it did.
‘ Clearly, Bush and a bunch of other countries thought it did.’
…Bush thought it did. I ought to rest my case right there.
So whats the verdict. In retrospect does it really look like we can scrape off the top few thousand of the elites and impose western political and social institutions to create an ally and trading partner – or – does it look like there might be some complexity not fully appreciated by our magnificent neo-con leaders?
Any body care to make the argument that sectarian strife is only a remote possibility?
bfm – you have to get past the idea that Bush was a neo-con. He was neither neo or con.
” you have to get past the idea that Bush was a neo-con. He was neither neo or con.”
I think Bush is a pretty good amateur painter of the type you frequently see in retirement villages. Beyond that I am not too sure.
But from the wiki entry on Neo conservatism:
“Prominent neoconservatives in the Bush administration included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle, and Paul Bremer.”
I realize wiki may be questionable. However that short list seems completely consistent with my recollection of news reports from the time of the early Bush administration. There were many others both in the administration, and outside the administration acting as opinion makers – cheer leaders for the ideas and policies of the administration.
I am pretty sure I heard Bolton in his own words state that it would only be a short period of time before we reformed 5 or 6 other countries much the same way we reformed Iraq. Seven countries in 7 years. What a magnificent record!
Do I really have to dig out the people who were making statements that reforming middle eastern countries was as easy as booting the elites out of power and putting our people in charge – much like an erector set or substituting parts in a home computer?
You have a back ground in education. Perhaps we should have our own little project in recent intellectual history and trace ideas from ‘Project for the New American Century’ to their implementation in the Bush administration. It might be interesting to chart career moves from academia to ‘Project for the New American Century’ to the administration and back again.
btm – personally, I blame it all on the Illuminati. You will notice even the very slippery Wikipedia did not accuse Bush of being a neo-con.
Bob,Esq,
Re 50 USC 1541, PL 102-1 and PL 107-243 are statutory authorizations.
PL 107-243:
The 1991-2003 Iraq enforcement was authorized by its own statutes.
However, keep in mind that the policy area encompassing “statutory authorization” has greatly expanded since the US became a leading world power in the 20th and 21st centuries. At times, generalized, standing authorities have been utilized for military deployment.
To wit, http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2012/05/Regime-Change-in-Iraq-from-Clinton-to-Bush.html
Eric,
Just one of the things standing between history as you desperately want to remember it and history as it actually happened is…
50 USC 1541
Nick…what you say about the Christian elements in the Iraqi fiasco is probably right, although I doubt in Iraq they had much power per se. My conversations with my Lebanese neighbors imply the same thing amongst Lebanese, and there the Christians did have power. No matter what, keeping track of who hates who in the ME these days is a full time job. We cannot continue to be stupid as I believe were, late in Libya, early on in Syria. Alliances there are not the stuff westerners can grasp.
send some old obsolete stuff. iran needs spare parts for the equipment they bought under the shah.