REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

A personal challenge to the right on Iraq

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Saturday, March 23, 2013 10:50
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Saturday, March 23, 2013 8:27 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Bear with me. The author of the following article is most interested in the mentality behind the madness that was the war in Iraq, and his remarks on same can be found at the link provided. But the part I'm quoting is the point I'm making; that the madness in Washington can "create" a war out of virtually nothing.
Quote:

In the summer of 2002, during the lead up to the Iraq War, a White House official expressed displeasure about with article written by journalist Ron Suskind in Esquire. He asserted people like Suskind were trapped ”in what we call the reality-based community,” which the official defined as people who ”believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.”

Suskind murmured something about enlightenment principles grounded in scientific empiricism, but the official cut him off, saying, ”That’s not the way the world really works anymore…We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” [emphasis added by author].

This is a revealing statement about the mentality in the Bush White House prior to the Iraq War.

Think about it: in effect, the official is claiming the mind of a decider, who is tasked with making decisions to cope with the constraints of the real world, has the power to create a new reality over and over again. Therefore the decider need not be worried about matching his actions against those constraints, or even observing those constraints, before making his decisions.

Arrogant? To be sure. Unusual inside the Beltway? Not really, based on my experience in the Pentagon. But this outlook also reflects an incredibly stupid and dangerous way to orient one’s decision cycle to events in the real world.

It is trite to say that madness occurs when the mind governing decisions and actions becomes systemically disconnected from the real world.

But in the Versailles on the Potomac, where madness has risen to a high art form, reinforced by pseudo science, ideology, and greed, all neatly packaged in compelling PowerPoint briefings, transformative visions, and amplified by an adoring mainstream media, it is difficult to know what the real world really is.

Now, with this working appreciation of Madness in mind, let’s put these abstract ideas into action with regard to the America’s Iraq debacle.

Job One, gathering the data has just been made much easier. I urge you to read carefully The Iraq War Ten Years After: Declassified Documents Show Failed Intelligence, Policy Ad Hockery, and Propaganda-Driven Decision Making and the links to the official documents it cites. This compilation of official documents illustrates the “information” that was used by U.S. decision makers to justify (to themselves and others) and to plan the run up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. These documents have been made accessible to anyone with an internet connection by invaluable National Security Archive of George Washington University.

After spending trillions of dollars, killing hundreds of thousands of (approaching perhaps a million) Iraqis, suffering over 4,000 US combat-related deaths, and tens of thousands of wounded and stressed-out veterans — not to mention placing a huge indelible stain on our national honor — interested readers can use this archive to take a tour down memory lane to understand the evolving Orientation that led to the Iraq horror story. http://nation.time.com/2013/03/22/iraq-invasion-anniversary-inside-the
-deciders-head/
]
The article in the National Security Archive referenced above was just released at the ten-year anniversary, and lays out quite clearly in detail and with declassified documents that "the U.S. invasion of Iraq turned out to be a textbook case of flawed assumptions, wrong-headed intelligence, propaganda manipulation, and administrative ad hockery".

I challenge anyone who still harbors the belief that the Iraq war was anything but a lie, a redirection of the emotions surrounding 9/11 to a target virtually unrelated to that attack, for reasons which had nothing to do with the welfare or security of the American people.

Anyone willing to take up that challenge will have to refute the material provided by the declassified documents presented by the National Security Archive at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB418/

Excerpts I challenge anyone to disprove:
Quote:

A bullet-pointed set of notes discussed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command, in late 2001 shows the Pentagon already diverting focus and energy from the Afghan campaign less than three months after the U.S. and its allies entered that country.
Quote:

George Bush wanted military action to be justified by linking Iraq to terrorism and WMD; to that end "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy,"
Quote:

A full-bore public relations campaign underway at the same time ramped up a climate of anticipation and even fear, with Vice President Cheney telling U.S. military veterans that the U.S. would need to use "every tool" for a threat lurking in more than 60 countries, declaring flatly that Iraq was actively pursuing offensive nuclear weapons, possessed weapons of mass destruction, and was planning their use against friends of America and the U.S. itself.
Quote:

The PR blitz won enthusiastic support from many.... Perhaps most aggressive was the famous neoconservative Iraq lobby, whose Project for a New American Century had begun campaigning for U.S. direct military action against Iraq in the 1990s.
Quote:

The documents show that misconceptions about Iraq were useful to the Bush administration as enablers for the decision to invade.... The administration had high hopes for Iraq's oil resources, as myriad planning documents show. Among other expectations, the oil sector was to be back in operation within a few months and with its revenues the Iraqi people were expected to pay for their country's own invasion and reconstruction under U.S. authority.

My challenge: Prove any of the above to be wrong.

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Saturday, March 23, 2013 8:39 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



Yeah, I'm not gonna waste my time re-fighting this issue, but I will say this...

The idea of 'containment' of Saddam was a colossal failure. It wasn't working, he was only biding his time, and the UN was actively taking $ under the table when it was suppose to be upholding its own resolutions. The food for oil scam was one of , if not THE biggest debacle in world history. And no one was held accountable for any of it.

So, we could have continued on, as is, and achieved absolutely nothing.

OR...

We could have invaded, taken Saddam down, stayed a year, two tops, and come home.

We did half of that, and then the same old BS politics that screwed us in 'nam came back to bite us , why ? Because D.C. is a bureaucratic monster that absolutely canNOT do things the smart way. Ever.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Saturday, March 23, 2013 9:03 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT


The attitude of that unnamed government official is worst than arrogant, it's tyrannical and dictatorial. Amazing-- real tyranny from the right, far more costly and affecting than any suggested, interpreted, hypothetical "tyranny" by Obama, but it's him they're scared of.

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Saturday, March 23, 2013 9:12 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
The attitude of that unnamed government official is worst than arrogant, it's tyrannical and dictatorial. Amazing-- real tyranny from the right, far more costly and affecting than any suggested, interpreted, hypothetical "tyranny" by Obama, but it's him they're scared of.



You're flat out delusional. It's not even close to how tyrannical Obama is to Bush. The Iraq war was voted on, in bi-partisan fashion, and not merely rammed through Congress, by 1 party, and the other voting entirely against it.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Saturday, March 23, 2013 9:27 AM

JONGSSTRAW


I wasn't for an attack on Iraq until I heard this speech on 10/10/2002. These are the highlights. The full 19 minute speech is on you tube.


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Saturday, March 23, 2013 9:37 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



Hillary's own " husband " and President , Bill, made it official US policy to over throw Saddam.

The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 is a United States Congressional statement of policy calling for regime change in Iraq.[1][2] It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton, and states that it is the policy of the United States to support democratic movements within Iraq. The Act was cited in October 2002 to argue for the authorization of military force against the Iraqi government.

The bill was sponsored by Representative Benjamin A. Gilman (Republican, NY-20) and co-sponsored by Representative Christopher Cox (Republican, CA-47). The bill was introduced as H.R. 4655 on September 29, 1998. The House of Representatives passed the bill 360 - 38 on October 5, and the Senate passed it with unanimous consent two days later. President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act into law on October 31, 1998.[3]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Liberation_Act


Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Saturday, March 23, 2013 9:40 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


The Iraq War wasn't voted on. There is no declaration of war that you can cite.



But you're right about one thing: the invasion of Iraq proves that DC is a monster, and does things the wrong way. Especially when you let idiot conservatives try to run things. They run on the platform that government doesn't work, and then they prove it once they get elected.



"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero

"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012

Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"

Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."

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Saturday, March 23, 2013 9:44 AM

JONGSSTRAW


Yeah, don't want to blame the whole Iraq War on Hillary because that would not be completely accurate. Lots of other Democrats, like John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, & Al Gore falsely scared America into that war.



They smiled in your face, then they did about-face, those backstabbers, baaaaackstabbers!

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Saturday, March 23, 2013 10:50 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by Kwicko:
The Iraq War wasn't voted on. There is no declaration of war that you can cite.



Yeah, it was.

The Iraq Resolution or the Iraq War Resolution (formally the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002,[1] Pub.L. 107–243, 116 Stat. 1498, enacted October 16, 2002, H.J.Res. 114) is a joint resolution passed by the United States Congress in October 2002 as Public Law No: 107-243, authorizing military action against Iraq.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution

Whine over semantics all you want, if it makes you feel any better.

Quote:



But you're right about one thing: the invasion of Iraq proves that DC is a monster, and does things the wrong way. Especially when you let idiot conservatives try to run things. They run on the platform that government doesn't work, and then they prove it once they get elected.



Conservatives weren't in power when the war started, and they didn't run the war. Bush did.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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