Your spin on the recent History of Iraq is a perverted distortion. I
think the Neo-Cons plans to take out Iraq, Iran, and North Korea were
written in granite well before President Bush was elected President in
2000. After President Bush was elected, the US was mislead at every
step of the way as the Neo-Con's plan unfolded. Before an attack on
Iraq would be possible, the Administration needed some justification it
could sell the American people, the Congress, the UN, and the World.
Whether the 9/11 attack was a part of the Neo-Cons plan, or just a
perfect opportunity, the Bush administration used it as a justification
for an attack on Iraq.
The American people, the Congress, and the World at large were whip up
into a fear frenzy by accusations that Iraq had WMD that posed a clear
and present imminent danger to the world. If the Administration had
been serious about getting to the bottom of Saddam Hussein's WMD, they
would have let the UN inspectors and intelligent agencies complete their
work, so the Administration and the World had the true picture of the
extent to which Iraq was a threat to anyone. At the very least the
Administration failed in not being patient and thorough enough to put
together a clearer evaluation of the Iraqi situation. At the worst the
administration conspired using 9/11 as a scare justification to attack Iraq.
Once the truth came out that the US had attack a paper trigger, (eg Iraq
had no WMD), the justification of it all became "Saddam was a Bad
person, and needed to be removed, because the world is a safer place
without him". Then came the civil disorder, rioting, lotting, IDEs,
kidnappings and beheadings, attacks among secretarial factions within
the country, death squads, and a threat of an all out civil war for
power over the country. The Bush administration decided to double up
their bet and take a gamble on the next hand of cards, so the mission
statement became "Democratization" of Iraq. Talk about mission creep!.
Of course if all had gone well, and Democratization of Iraq had
succeeded, Bush would have won yet another bet. If Democratization had
worked, even I would bow down and forgive all the prior missteps.
The Democratization of Iraq has not gone well, and I'm not sure now to
measure where it stands today, but the American people are beginning to
ask whether all the cost of the war in term of loss of American and
Iraqi military life, and the loss of Iraqi life from collateral damage,
the destruction of the countries infrastructure, the pain a suffering of
the Iraqi people, the financial burden to the American people and their
children and grand children are worth the high price that has been paid.
Regards,
LelandJ
Bob Calco wrote:
It must be nice to know you can change definitions and positions
whenever it suits you and you can always hide behind otherwise
well-meaning folks like Dominic when challenged.
But here goes anyway.
When the President declared "Mission Accomplished" to the military
back in 2003 it was the media and the Democrats who insisted we were
still in a "war", because the war mission was not yet accomplished
according to them. They--and this includes you, Ed--created the
"frame" that says the "war"'s objective was not accomplished, and
wouldn't be, until there was peace and a new stable government in
Iraq. And they ridiculed Bush for even suggesting we'd achieved
anything after the end of major combat operations.
Now that we have helped the Iraqis repel the sunni reactionaries and
Al Qaeda foreign terrorists (no thanks to your side, by the way) and
seen them through creating a new constitution and holding free
elections in the midst of sectarian challenges (over your objections
that democracy was clearly NOT something Iraqis or arabs generally
could handle), you NOW want to say we were actually "done" back when
Bush said the military accomplished their objective and since then we
are nothing more than reviled "occupiers".
And Rove invented the term "war" for political advantage? What
advantage? Have you looked at the polls? The term "war" was useful to
the LEFT, as long as there was the semblance of ongoing "combat,"
which the media helped portray every time an amateur roadside bomb
went off and killed a couple people, or some lunatic kidnapped a
civilian and video-taped the lobbing off of their head.
After all, how can you rally an "anti-war" coalition without a "war"
going on?
Now that they have their anti-war coalition swelled up to near
Woodstock proportions, and have gained some political traction for the
fall campaign, it's obvious to the meanest intelligence in retrospect
that we were done with the "war" back when Bush said we were done. So
now it's time for a new pejorative slogan to rally around. Apparently,
that word now is "occupation". (I note that the terrorists have been
using that term awhile---what took you guys so long to catch up?)
Why? Well, it's easy to be against "war" in the abstract, but it's
even easier to be against "occupation" (after all, who wants to be
ruled by occupiers?). Since it's obvious with the death of Zarqawi
that their former position that we were still in a "war" and killing
terrorists would only make a thousand more pop up out of the sand is
pure BS, we need now to shift our focus to the concept of military
"occupation" in the abstract rather than on the concrete achievements
both during the war and since, in the reconstruction and ongoing
efforts to help the new _democratic_ regime stabilize.
I can't believe the negative blinders. Back during the election when
our preferred candidates didn't win, it was glibly suggested that we'd
failed our "occupation" because we couldn't even competantly plant a
good puppet regime. As if that was our intent. Now that we've managed
to work successfully with the government that did win in the popular
election, and are already looking forward to scaling back our
operations in Iraq with the sorry state of the "insurgency" being
exposed for what it is after Zarqawi's demise, now it's time to paint
our soldiers as indefinite occupiers.
I just want to note for the record you just admitted Bush was right
when he declared "mission accomplished" and the "war" itself was every
bit the "cake-walk" you describe eloquently below. But to call us
"occupiers" in the usual sense of the term, in light of our
non-military achievements since the end of the "war", is well...
Cheap.
(Now I'm waiting for Ed's minions to start attacking me for even
thinking Ed was suggesting something improper, while Ed sits back,
browsing through commondreams.org for ideas about what nonsense to
post next ...)
- Bob
! -----Original Message-----
! From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
! [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Leafe
! Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2006 8:50 AM
! To: ProFox Mailing List
! Subject: [OT] There is no war in Iraq
!
! A bit of clarity on the proper use of language. There
! is no war in
! Iraq, and it is fallacious to keep calling it that. It is an
! occupation, and has been for over 3 years.
!
! <http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0619-22.htm>
!
! ( -or- http://tinyurl.com/jaaus )
!
! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
! Every time the media - or a Democrat - uses the phrase "War in Iraq"
! they are promoting one of Karl Rove's most potent Republican Party
! frames.
!
! There is no longer a war against Iraq.
!
! It ended in May of 2003, when George W. Bush stood below a "Mission
! Accomplished" sign aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and correctly
! declared that we had "victoriously" defeated the Iraqi army and
! overthrown their government.
!
! Our military machine is tremendously good at fighting wars - blowing
! up infrastructure, killing opposing armies, and toppling
! governments.
! We did that successfully in Iraq, in a matter of a few weeks. We
! destroyed their army, wiped out their air defenses, devastated their
! Republican Guard, seized their capitol, arrested their leaders, and
! took control of their government. We won the war. It's over.
!
! What we have now is an occupation of Iraq.
!
! The occupation began when the war ended, and continues to this day.
! According to our own Pentagon estimates, at least ninety five
! percent
! of those attacking our soldiers are Iraqi civilians who view
! themselves as anti-occupation fighters. And last week both the
! Defense Minister and the Vice President of Iraq asked us for a
! specific date on which the occupation would end.
! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
!
! -- Ed Leafe
! -- http://leafe.com
! -- http://dabodev.com
!
!
!
!
!
[excessive quoting removed by server]
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