This article originally provided by BuzzFlash
October 5, 2004
The New Right and Old Wrongs:
The Quagmire, A to Z
by Maureen Farrell
"Yet
we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future
generations to explain why." –Former U.S. Defense
Secretary Robert McNamara, on the Vietnam War, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of
Vietnam, 1995
"It's just wrong what we're doing. It's
morally wrong, it's politically wrong, it's economically
wrong." -- Robert McNamara, on the war in Iraq, the
Globe and Mail, Jan. 24, 2004
"If the Bush administration remains in power,
failure in Iraq is a virtual certainty." -- Retired Air
Force Col. and former military planner Mike Turner, Newsweek, Sept.
24, 2004
* * *
Now that Operation Iraqi Freedom has become Operation
American Quagmire, it’s remarkable how accurately a
spattering of journalists, citizens and whistleblowers saw
what was really going on beforehand -- a sizable feat
considering the media's perpetual airing of WMD and other
propaganda.
"There
is no evidence of weapons of mass destruction. You never
even get that idea floated in the mainstream media. If you
bring it up, they hate the messenger. You've ruined
everyone's good time," Janeane Garofalo said on the eve
of war, in an article on how the prewar "debate"
became a cartoon.
And though such flashes of insight are now relegated to
yesterday’s news (or tomorrow’s, considering CBS’
decision to postpone a story on the war rationale),
it’s important to understand the role hubris, incompetence
and deception played in all of this. And while reviewing
such things can be as painful as watching replays of that
ball going through Bill Buckner’s legs, we need to
consider what went wrong, as the consequences of continued
ignorance are far graver than any Bambino’s curse.
How did we get here? How were we so readily duped by
those who are, technically, supposed to be working for us?
With the election fast approaching, we better figure it out.
And with that in mind, here's an A to Z guide to help sort
through this mess:
A is for Agenda
March 2002: "Saddam
Hussein is not a threat to the U.S. . . The experts say
that Saddam doesn't have the capacity to manufacture weapons
of mass destruction (WMD) -- and even if he could and even
if he could somehow acquire that capacity, he certainly
doesn't have the capacity to deliver them. . . The whole
weapons inspection issue is really just a ruse. The real
agenda of the Bush administration is a regime change. . . It
has nothing to do with the U.N. or weapons inspectors or
even human rights."-- Former U.N. official Denis
Halliday, Salon.com, March 20, 2002 (a year before the start
of the war in Iraq).
Update: While prewar speculation about
the Bush
administration's real agenda was rampant, by the time
Colin Powell tried to sell the war to our allies, few were
buying. "We think the Iraqi people would be a lot
better off with a different leader, a different
regime," Powell said, mindful that "regime
change" violated
both allies' trust and international law. "But the
principal offense here is weapons of mass destruction, and
that's what this [U.N.] resolution is working on. . .All we
are interested in is getting rid of those
weapons of mass destruction," Powell fibbed.).
B is for the Beginning
Feb. 2003: "When George Bush was
running for president, he essentially went to school. And
various great and worthy men trooped down to Austin to teach
George Bush about the world. And by and large, they told him
that Iraq was unfinished, basically, but they had to be a
little careful about it because, of course, George Bush's
father was the one who hadn't finished the business. And if
George W. Bush was elected president, he may end up having
to do what his father didn't do or couldn't do and that is
killing off Saddam Hussein." – Newsweek
Asst. Managing Editor Evan Thomas, "The
War Behind Closed Doors," PBS Feb., 2003
Update: Though George W.'s dad had
accurately predicted that finishing the job would transform
the U.S. into "an
occupying power in a bitterly hostile land," the
younger Bush used 9/11 as a springboard to do just that. And
though Richard Clark was vilified for saying that plans
to attack Iraq began in the immediate aftermath of 9/11,
Clarke was eventually vindicated.
C is for Chalabi
Jan. 2002: "The UN stopped using
[Ahmed] Chalabi's information as a basis for conducting
inspections once the tenuous nature of his sources and his
dubious motivations became clear. Unfortunately, the same
cannot be said for the mainstream US media. . . This media
coverage serves policy figures gunning for a wider war. . .
Rather than relying on information from dubious sources,
let's put all the facts on the table. The conclusions drawn
from such a debate could pull us back from the brink of an
unnecessary and costly war." – Scott Ritter, "Iraq:
The Phantom Threat," the Christian
Science Monitor, Jan. 23, 2002
Update: The 2000
GOP platform, which wagged a finger at the Clinton
administration for failing to coddle Chalabi's Iraqi
National Congress, foreshadowed the shortsightedness to
come. In time, Chalabi’s
disinformation wormed its way into the New York Times, into the Pentagon’s
Office of Special Plans, and possibly into
the President's heart and mind.
"CIA assessments are being put aside by the defense
department in favor of intelligence they are getting from
various Iraqi exiles," former CIA counterintelligence
chief Vincent Cannistraro told the Guardian
in Oct. 2002. "Machiavelli
warned princes against listening to exiles. Well, that
is what is happening now."
D is for Democracy:
April 2003: "Four days after the
Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Deputy Defense
Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz made a forceful case to
President Bush for expanding the war on terrorism to include
the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. . . . But
getting rid of Hussein was only part of the Wolfowitz
vision. With U.S. forces poised on the outskirts of Baghdad,
an even bigger, and in some ways more controversial,
challenge now awaits: creating a free, stable and democratic
Iraq that will serve as an inspiration to its neighbors. .
."I have never seen so much loose thinking about
democracy," countered [scholar] Thomas Carothers. .
."The idea that you can produce a democratic tidal wave
throughout the Arab world is a dangerous fantasy. What we
are ending up producing is incredible hatred." --
"For
Wolfowitz, a Vision May Be Realized," the Washington Post, April 7, 2003
Update: "Is
our democracy that fragile that it can be taken over so
quickly?" Seymour Hersh recently asked Jon Stewart,
referring to the neoconservative "Utopians" who
"took over the country, like coup." Saying that
"8 or 9 guys" truly believed that "democracy
would flow like water out of a fountain," Hersh
underscored the absurdity of subverting our own democratic
process to create democracy in Iraq -- a point driven home
by Wall Street Journal reporter Farna Fasshi's letter home
from Baghdad.
"I went to see an Iraqi scholar this week to talk to
him about elections here. . . ," she wrote. "He
said, 'President Bush wanted to turn Iraq into a democracy
that would be an example for the Middle East. Forget about
democracy, forget about being a model for the region, we
have to salvage Iraq before all is lost.'
"One
could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation,"
she added. "For those of us on the ground it's hard to
imagine what if any thing could salvage it from its violent
downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem
has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American
mistakes and it can't be put back into a bottle."
E is for Energy Task Force
July 2003: "Documents released
under America's Freedom of Information Act reveal that an
energy task force led by vice-president Dick Cheney was
examining Iraq's oil assets two years before the latest war
began. . . The 16 pages, dated March 2001, show maps of Iraq
oil fields, pipelines, refineries and terminals. .. . Mr.
Cheney has fought the release of the documents at every
stage." -- "Cheney
Had Iraq in Sights Two Years Ago," the Telegraph, July, 22, 2003
Update: "The good Lord didn't see
fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratic
regimes friendly to the United States," Dick Cheney
once said, condemning U.S. sanctions placed on Iraq, Iran
and other oil-rich countries. ("You've
got to go where the oil is," he advised, and, as
the Village Voice reminded, "Halliburton has continued
to do just that." )
But oil envy extends beyond the here and now. "Three
decades ago, in the throes of the energy crisis,
Washington's hawks conceived of a strategy for US control of
the Persian Gulf's oil," Mother
Jones reminded. "Now, with the same strategists
firmly in control of the White House, the
Bush administration is playing out their script for global
dominance."
F is for Fear Mongering
Oct. 2002: "In spelling out the
dangers posed by terrorism, which may be defined as the use
of fear and violence to attain political ends, Mr. Bush used
fear and the threat of violence to promote his policy. Since
when has it been the proper function of an American
president to scare the children? -- Simon Tisdall,
"America's Great Misleader, " the Guardian, Oct. 8, 2002
Update: Remember duct tape silliness? Or
the Bush administration's oft-repeated mushroom cloud
chants? Or the way terror alerts and dirty bomb suspects
preempted other news? (See, Rowley, Colleen). Though the
media finally started questioning
the timing of such alerts, that didn't stop Dick Cheney
from insinuating that "we’ll
get hit again" should Kerry win the election. And
while "security moms" might be easily swayed by
such tactics, those duped into thinking Bush is the safest
bet might learn too late that their kids have a higher
chance of being drafted than of being iced by "Islamofascists."
G is for Guerilla War
Dec. 2002: "Iraqis I've talked to
at the top-most level say they envision sort of a
guerilla conflict in picking off American troops at street
corners, you know, launching terror attacks on different
units. . . any Iraqi you talk to here just doesn't
understand this talk about weapons of mass destruction. No
one that I've talked to believes that he [Saddam] has any
here. . . I don't think any Iraqi would object to weapons
inspectors poking in every corner if that meant avoiding
war. The average Iraqi, Chris, is expecting war." --
Peter Arnett, the Chris Matthews Show,
Dec. 7-8, 2002
Update: "Iraqis like to call this
mess 'the situation.' When asked 'how are things?' they
reply: 'the situation is very bad.". . . The situation,
basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. In four
days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad
alone," the Wall Street Journal's Farna Fasshi
revealed. Meanwhile, writing for Newsweek,
military-policy planner Mike Turner explained:
"If
Bush is reelected, there are only two possible outcomes in
Iraq:
- Four years from now, America will have 5,000 dead
servicemen and women and an untold number of dead Iraqis
at a cost of about $1 trillion, yet still be no closer
to success than we are right now, or
- The U.S. will be gone, and we will witness the birth
of a violent breeding ground for Shiite terrorists
posing a far greater threat to Americans than a
contained Saddam."
H is for History
March 2003: "From Napoleon's drive
into Egypt through Britain's rule of Iraq in the 1920s to
Israel's march into Lebanon in 1982, Middle East nations
have tempted conquerors only to send them reeling. . . Again
and again, Westerners have moved into the Mideast with
confidence that they can impose freedom and modernity
through military force. Along the way they have
miscalculated support for their invasions, both
internationally and in the lands they occupy. . . They have
been mired in occupations that last long after local support
has vanished. They have met with bloody uprisings and put
them down with brute force.. . Mr. Bush says this invasion
will be different. . . Napoleon proclaimed a similar new era
of equality and respect for 'true Muslims' as he marched
into Cairo in 1798, killing a thousand members of Egypt's
ruling caste. . . 'Peoples of Egypt, you will be told that I
have come to destroy your religion,' said Napoleon as he
entered Cairo. 'Do not believe it! Reply that I have come to
restore your rights!'" – "Mideast
Invasions Face Unexpected Peril," the Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2003
Update: In related historical news, the
people of Baghdad were treated to a similar proclamation, signed
by British General F.S. Maude on March 19, 1917, which
declared "our armies do not come into your cities and
lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators."
Before the war began, Boston University historian David
Fromkin made a simple observation. "We tend to overlook
a basic rule: that people prefer bad rule by their own kind
to good rule by somebody else," he told the Wall Street Journal. And now, as WSJ
reporter Fasshi candidly explained: "Iraqis say that at
thanks to America they got freedom in exchange for
insecurity. Guess what? They
say they'd take security over freedom any day, even if it
means having a dictator ruler. I heard an educated Iraqi
say today that if Saddam Hussein were allowed to run for
elections he would get the majority of the vote. This is
truly sad."
I is for intelligence
Oct. 2002: "Basically, cooked
information is working its way into high-level
pronouncements and there's a lot of unhappiness about it in
intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA,"
said Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former head of
counter-intelligence. . . Mr. Cannistraro said the flow of
intelligence to the top levels of the administration had
been deliberately skewed by hawks at the Pentagon." --
Julian Borger, "White
House 'Exaggerating Iraqi Threat'," the Guardian, Oct. 9, 2002
Update: In Sept. 2002, while describing how
babies in incubators helped sell the first Gulf War, the
Christian Science Monitor's
Tom Regan warned, "it serves us all well if we make
sure the reasons we go [to war] are legitimate ones, and not
ones cooked up. . . ", but alas, the folks at the Office
of Special Plans were already in the kitchen and were as
busy as Keebler elves.
This time, in lieu of discarded infants, discredited
nuclear hype helped scare people into supporting the war.
Last June, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern credited Judith
Miller's legendary "aluminum
tubes as centrifuge" front page New York Times story with helping
the President make his case to Congress and providing the
impetus for war. On Oct. 3, 2004, the New
York Times reported that this information had been debunked
in 2002.
J is for Jeffords
Oct. 2002: "I am very disturbed by
President Bush's determination that the threat from Iraq is
so severe and so immediate that we must rush to a military
solution. I do not see it that way. I have been briefed
several times by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, CIA Director
Tenet and other top Administration officials. I have
discussed this issue with the President. I
have heard nothing that convinces me that an immediate
preemptive military strike is necessary or that it would
further our interests in the long term. " – Sen. Jim
Jeffords, "Statement of Senator Jim Jeffords, Senate
Resolution Authorizing the Use of Force Against Iraq,"
Oct. 8, 2002
Update: Reciting a laundry list of
concerns, Sen. Jeffords would later say, "What makes
the actions of the Bush administration so troublesome is the
lack of honesty. It amounts, in the end, to a
pattern of deception and distortion."
K is for Kristol
March 2003: "Now that American
bombs could soon be falling on Iraq, [Bill] Kristol admits
to feeling ‘some sense of responsibility’ for pushing
for a war that will cost human lives. But, he said, he would
also feel responsible if ‘something terrible’ happened
because of U.S. inaction. Kristol expressed regret that so
many of America's traditional allies oppose military action
against Iraq, but said the United States has no choice. ‘I
think what we've learned over the last 10 years is that
America has to lead. Other countries won't act. They will
follow us, but they won't do it on their own,’ he said.
Kristol believes the United States will be ‘vindicated
when we discover the weapons of mass destruction and when we
liberate the people of Iraq.’ He predicts that many of the
allies who have been reluctant to join the war effort would
participate in efforts to rebuild and democratize
Iraq." – "The
Plan: Were Neo-Conservatives’ 1998 Memos a Blueprint for
Iraq War?," ABC News, March 10, 2003
Update: Bill Kristol proves time and
again that many of the myths about the neocons are true. In
fact, Kristol was laying the groundwork for war even before
G.W. Bush took office. "If Saddam had nuclear weapons
with missiles, which he
could well have in two or three years, are we going to
intervene in Kuwait next time?," he said in July, 2000.
L is for Lies
Sept. 2002: "This
administration is capable of any lie ... in order to
advance its war goal in Iraq. It is one of the reasons it
doesn't want to have UN weapons inspectors go back in,
because they might actually show that the probability of
Iraq having [threatening illicit weapons] is much lower than
they want us to believe." – An anonymous U.S.
government source, "In War, Some Facts Less
Factual," the Christian Science
Monitor, Sept. 6, 2002
Update: "These are all the same
people who were running it [the prewar propaganda] more than
10 years ago. They'll make up just about anything ... to get
their way," author John MacArthur said of Bush
retreads. And sure enough, after the smoke cleared, the U.K.
Independent chronicled "20
Lies About the War," while Christopher Scheer
listed "Ten
Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq."
M is for Media
Dec. 2002: "Last week brought yet
another terrifying headline from an American newspaper: 'US
suspects al-Qaida got nerve agent from Iraqis'. . . This
particular story was more tempting than many because it
carried, as the American military would say, a multiple
warhead. It not only suggested that Iraq - contrary to its
recent declaration - does possess chemical weapons but,
additionally, that it has close links with al-Qaida. . . One
day, perhaps, one of these scare stories may turn out to be
true - but don't hold your breath waiting for it." –
Brian Whitaker, "The
Papers That Cried Wolf," the Guardian,
Dec. 16, 2002
Update: In the war's wake, everyone from
op-ed
writers to American
icons commented on how ill-served we were by the U.S.
press -- a practice that continues as the government
goes to extremes to censor news out of Iraq.
But Denis Halliday's assessment rings particularly true.
"American foreign policy is not understood by the vast
majority of American people," he said. "And that
this is due to a media that in this country is suppressed by
Washington and by the owners of this media, who often tend
to be corporate
entities close to the [White House] and very often are arms
manufacturers with a vested interest in chaos [in] the
Middle East."
N is for Neoconservatives
Sept. 2002: "The neoconservatives
around George Bush are crazy. They actually believe the
United States can run about the world, overthrowing
governments by force and establishing democracies in their
place. . . This crowd has the gall to sneer at people trying
to keep the United States out of war as being 'appeasers,'
if not traitors. They act as if it were brave for a fat,
pale-skinned journalist or commentator to advocate war that
will be fought by other people's sons and daughters. It is
the worst kind of moral cowardice to be for war if you
yourself are not going to participate in the fighting."
– Charley Reese, "Neoconservatives
are Crazy," Sept. 27, 2002
Update: Others have argued that it’s
crazy to call the neocons crazy.
O is for O'Reilly
March, 2003: [BILL] O'REILLY: If you are
wrong [about the war in Iraq]… and if the United States -
and they will, this is going to happen - goes in, liberates
Iraq [with] people in the street, American flags, hugging
our soldiers… you gonna apologize to George W. Bush?
[JANEANE] GAROFALO: I
would be so willing to say, ‘I'm sorry’. I hope to
God that I can be made a buffoon of, that people will say,
‘You were wrong. You were a fatalist’. And I will go to
the White House on my knees on cut glass and say, ‘Hey,
you and Thomas Friedman were right… I shouldn't have
doubted you.’ - "The Pulse," FOX News, March 6,
2003
Update: O'Reilly is still wrong.
P is for Project for a New American Century
Feb. 2003: "The Project for the New
American Century, or PNAC, is a Washington-based think tank
created in 1997.. . In what way does PNAC stand above the
other groups that would set American foreign policy if they
could? Two events brought PNAC into the mainstream of
American government: the disputed election of George W.
Bush, and the attacks of September 11th. . . Iraq is but the
beginning, a pretense for a wider conflict. Donald Kagan, a
central member of PNAC, sees America establishing permanent
military bases in Iraq after the war. . . The American
people, anxiously awaiting some sort of exit plan after
America defeats Iraq, will see too late that no exit is
planned." - William Rivers Pitt, "Of Gods and
Mortals and Empire," Truthout.org, Feb. 21, 2003
Update: In his bittersweet piece, "Farewell,
America," British journalist Ed Vulliamy described
the inner workings of the Project for a New American
Century. "It is incumbent upon journalists, I think, to
distrust conspiracy theories. But the problem with the
conspiracy theory of the machine that lifted George 'Dubya'
Bush to high office is that it never lets you down," he
wrote, before discussing PNAC's cast of characters
("[Dick] Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, James
Woolsey, Douglas Feith") and the anticipated 'new Pearl
Harbor' that brought their dream to fruition.
Fourteen
slated "enduring bases" later, however, it is
not wholly accurate to call PNAC a conspiracy, as
conspiracies, by definition, are shadowy and hidden. "I
think it's the worst kept secret in Washington. That
everybody - everybody I talk to in Washington has known and fully
knows what their agenda was and what they were trying to
do," Gen. Anthony Zinni said.
Q is for Quagmire
Aug. 2002: "Americans have a great
stake in containing Saddam Hussein's aggressive instincts
and deterring his use of weapons of mass destruction. But we
have nothing to justify occupying Iraq and staying there as
long as necessary to remake it in our image. The U.S.
government is going to realize that reality sooner or later.
Better to do so before we jump into the quagmire." –
Steve Chapman, "The
War in Iraq, and the Aftermath," Townhall.com, Aug.
5, 2002
Update: George Bush' s call for a humble
foreign policy aside, in 2000, Condoleezza Rice warned
against the kind of policies PNAC advocated, saying that
acting as the world's policeman would "degrade
capabilities" and "bog
soldiers down in peacekeeping roles." Echoing
Norman Schwarzkopf's concerns that the U.S. would become a
"dinosaur
in the tar pit," Dick Cheney also warned that
taking our Saddam would lead to "tar
baby" troubles. Meanwhile, Colin Powell issued
similarly prescient statements. Given this, how can Sen.
Teddy Kennedy's recent depiction of Iraq as a
"quagmire" be considered a case of liberal
hand-wringing?
R is for Reruns
March 2003: "Daniel Ellsberg, who
in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers,
on Tuesday called on government officials to leak documents
to Congress and the press showing the Bush administration is
lying in building its case against Saddam Hussein. . . .
"Don't wait until the bombs start falling,"
Ellsberg said. . . . "If you know the public is being
lied to and you have documents to prove it, go to Congress
and go to the press." -- "Pentagon
Papers Leaker Seeks Leaks on Iraq," UPI, March 11,
2003
Update: "Surely there are officials
in the present administration who recognize that the United
States has been misled into a war in Iraq, but who have so
far kept their silence - as I long did about the war in
Vietnam. To them I have a personal message: don't repeat my
mistakes. Don't wait until more troops are sent, and
thousands more have died, before telling truths that could
end a war and save lives. Do what I wish I had done in 1964:
go to the press, to Congress, and document your
claims."-- Daniel Ellsberg, "Truths
Worth Telling," the New York
Times, Sept. 28, 2004
S is for Saudis
Dec. 2001: "Many of the same
American corporate executives who have reaped millions of
dollars from arms and oil deals with the Saudi monarchy have
served or currently serve at the highest levels of U.S.
government, public records show. . . . Nowhere is the
revolving U.S.-Saudi money wheel more evident than within
President Bush's own coterie of foreign policy advisers,
starting with the president's father, George H.W. Bush. At
the same time that the elder Bush counsels his son on the
ongoing war on terrorism, the former president remains a
senior adviser to the Washington D.C.-based Carlyle Group.
That influential investment bank has deep connections to the
Saudi royal family as well as financial interests in U.S.
defense firms hired by the kingdom to equip and train the
Saudi military." -- "Bush
Advisers Cashed in on Saudi Gravy Train," The Boston Herald, Dec. 11, 2001
Update: 28
censored pages notwithstanding, in a Jan. 2004 Los Angeles Times editorial, former
Nixon strategist warned, "Between now and the November
election, it's crucial that Americans come to understand how
four
generations of the current president's family have embroiled
the United States in the Middle East through CIA
connections, arms shipments, rogue banks, inherited war
policies and personal financial links."
T is for Tactics
1989: "If the president goes to the
American people and wraps himself in the American flag and
lets Congress wrap itself in the white flag of surrender,
the president will win.... The American people had never
heard of Grenada. There was no reason why they should have.
The reason we gave for the intervention--the risk to
American medical students there--was phony but the reaction
of the American people was absolutely and overwhelmingly
favorable. They had no idea what was going on, but they
backed the president. They always will." -- Irving
Kristol, "The Fettered Presidency," 1989
Update: Staged
statue topplings and "lucky
finds" aside, Seymour Hersh addressed the notion
that deception
is necessary to achieve one’s political ends.
U is for UAVs
Oct. 2002: "In making his case on
Monday, Mr. Bush made a startling claim that the Iraqi
regime was developing drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs),
which "could be used to disperse chemical or biological
weapons across broad areas". "We're concerned that
Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions
targeting the United States," he warned.
US military experts confirmed that Iraq had been
converting eastern European trainer jets, known as L-29s,
into drones, but said that with a maximum range of a few
hundred miles they were no threat to targets in the US.
"It doesn't make any sense to me if he meant United
States territory," said Stephen Baker, a retired US
navy rear admiral who assesses Iraqi military capabilities
at the Washington-based Center for Defense
Information." -- Julian Borger, "White
House Exaggerating Iraqi Threat," the Guardian, Oct. 9, 2002
Update: Reaffirming why more
Americans turned to the Guardian
and the Web for news on Iraq, the Philadelphia
Inquirer’s Dick Polman yawned at Bush's whoppers on
Iraq's phantom nuclear capabilities and its miracle UAVs.
"But if most Americans seem unconcerned, presidential
biographer Robert Dallek suggests a reason why: "We
won. The war was brief, with few casualties. We rid the
world of Saddam Hussein, with speed and efficiency, so whatever
Bush said to make that happen doesn't seem so important."
1,000 casualties later, wouldn't it have been nice to
have had a mainstream media that took its watchdog
responsibilities more seriously?
V is for Veterans
March 2003: "We call upon you, the
active duty and reservists, to follow your conscience and do
the right thing. In the last Gulf War, as troops, we were
ordered to murder from a safe distance. . . We remember the
road to Basra -- the Highway of Death -- where we were
ordered to kill fleeing Iraqis. We bulldozed trenches,
burying people alive. The use of depleted uranium weapons
left the battlefields radioactive.. . One in four Gulf War
veterans is [now] disabled. . . If you choose to participate
in the invasion of Iraq you will be part of an occupying
army. Do you know what it is like to look into the eyes of a
people that hate you to your core? " -- "A Veterans' Call to
Conscience," in an open letter to U.S. troops, on
the eve of war in Iraq"
Update: According to a recent study in
the New England Journal of Medicine
"many of our troops in Iraq are struggling" with
"roughly
one in six" of all soldiers and Marines showing
"signs of distress — ranging from anxiety, all
the way to full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder."
The Daily News has reported that soldiers are returning from
Iraq "poisoned"
by depleted uranium and, as USA
Today reported, more veterans are seeing parallels
between the War in Iraq and Vietnam.
W is for Wisdom
Oct. 2002: "[A] growing number of
military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats
in [Bush’s] own government privately have deep misgivings
about the administration's double-time march toward war.
These officials charge that administration hawks have
exaggerated evidence of the threat that Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein poses -- including distorting his links to the al
Qaeda terrorist network -- have overstated the extent of
international support for attacking Iraq and have down
played the potential repercussions of a new war in the
Middle East.
They charge that the administration squelches dissenting
views and that intelligence analysts are under intense
pressure to produce reports supporting the White House's
argument that Hussein poses such an immediate threat to the
United States that pre-emptive military action is
necessary." – "A
Growing Number in Government Have Misgivings About Iraq
Policy," the Baltimore Sun,
Oct. 8, 2002
Update: "The U.S. occupation of
Iraq is a debacle not because the government did no planning
but because a vast amount of expert planning was willfully
ignored by the people in charge." -- James Fallows,
"Blind
Into Baghdad," The Atlantic
Monthly, Jan./Feb. 2004
X is for Xenophobia
Feb. 2003: "The "petulant
prima donna of realpolitik" is leading the "axis
of weasels", in "a chorus of cowards". It is
an unholy alliance of "wimps" and ingrates which
includes one country that is little more than a
"mini-me minion", another that is in league with
Cuba and Libya, with a bunch of "cheese-eating
surrender monkeys" at the helm. Welcome to Europe, as
viewed through the eyes of American commentators and
newspapers yesterday, as Euro-bashing,
and particularly anti-French sentiment, reached new heights.
. ." -- "Wimps, Weasels and Monkeys - the US Media
View of 'Perfidious France,'" the Guardian, Feb. 11, 2003
Update: After a Bush advisor anonymously
told the New York Times that
Sen. John Kerry "looks French," Rush
Limbaugh et al picked up the xenophobic ball.
Y is for Yearning
Aug. 2003: 'The generosity of this once
great country (of which I am now a product) is being obscured
by a political fervor derived from something akin to the
parody of the Communist manifesto that was around in the
Sixties - 'What's yours is mine, and what's mine's my own.'
I see a 'dauphin' in the White House while powerful figures
range in the background, making resource theft a way of
life... Meantime, I will stew in the poisonous atmosphere
Karl Rove slides under my door each morning. I'll write a
song or two, turn up the volume and bury my dead." --
John Cale, the Velvet Underground, quoted in the Guardian/Observer, "Farewell
America," Aug. 14, 2003
Update: "God
almighty! Is this the same planet I'd taken off from?"
-- Yusuf Islam, "Something Bad Had Begun: The former
Cat Stevens says he hasn't changed but the U.S. has,"
the LA Times, Sept. 28, 2004
Z is for Zinni
Aug. 2002: "Retired Marine Gen.
Anthony Zinni. . . said a war to bring down Iraqi strongman
Saddam Hussein would have numerous undesirable side effects.
. . Zinni took a shot at the hawks, noting their lack of
military experience. He ticked off several prominent
military men who have expressed reservations about the war:.
. .``It's pretty interesting that all the generals see it
the same way,'' he said, ``and all the others who have never
fired a shot and are hot to go to war see it another way.''
-- "Gen.
Zinni Says War With Iraq Is Unwise," the Tampa Tribune, Aug. 24, 2002
Update: "In the lead up to the Iraq
war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true
dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at
worse, lying, incompetence and corruption." -- Gen.
Anthony Zinni, Battle Ready, 2004.
A Vietnam veteran, Zinni also sees parallels
between Iraq and Vietnam. "We heard the garbage and
the lies," he told a group of Marine Corps officers.
"We saw the sacrifice, and we swore never again would
we allow it to happen. . . And I ask you, is it happening
again?"
Despite Donald Rumsfeld's
denials, former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert
McNamara says, yes, it is. Citing Washington's inability
to understand Iraqi culture, and, as a consequence, to
foresee guerrilla war, he says that dismissal of allies'
concerns was yet another mistake. "And if we can't
persuade other nations with comparable values and comparable
interests of the merit of our course, we should reconsider
the course, and very likely change it," he said,
echoing Zinni's assessment that "the course is headed
over Niagara Falls."
Niagara Falls? Vietnam? It looks like the new right has made
the same old mistakes, and has taken some disastrous wrong
turns in the process.
Things are so bad, in fact, that retired Air Force
colonel and former military planner Mike Turner says that if
Bush stays in the White House, we will, in all probability,
lose this war. "This
war is an exercise in colossal stupidity and hubris
which has now cost more than 1,000 American military
lives," he wrote. "And now, in a supreme act of
truly breathtaking gall, this administration insists the
only way to fix Iraq is to leave in power the very ones who
created the nightmare."
"It's one thing to be certain, but you can be
certain and be wrong," John Kerry said during last
week's debate.
What will the future hold? In a month's time, we'll know.
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