Yes, Iraq Was a Mistake. ..
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth
BOOM!!! The Governor has it absolutely right. For many, many, many reasons.
Via: Memeorandum
Purveyor of Truth
BOOM!!! The Governor has it absolutely right. For many, many, many reasons.
- Dealing with a question that tripped up Jeb Bush, Ohio Gov. John Kasich says that the U.S. never should have gone to Iraq, knowing what we know now.
“There’s a lot of people who lost limbs and lives over there, OK?” the governor told The Dispatch yesterday. “But if the question is, if there were not weapons of mass destruction should we have gone, the answer would’ve been no.”
Why? “I wouldn’t have seen it as vital to national interests.” {Continue Reading}
Via: Memeorandum
Looks like Bush, albeit rather smugly, got it and said he would not have invaded.
ReplyDeleteWhy did it take so long for him to say so?
Apparently his finger wasn't wet enough for awhile and he therefore couldn't tell which way the wind was blowing.
DeleteTypical politician.
Hindsight is an amazing and wonderful thing. How many decisions have you made in your life that you would change if you had foresight knowledge.
ReplyDeleteHindsight is a good teacher if one listens. But we know the neo cons and MIC will pay no attention to lessons from past fiascoes.
DeleteFollow the money...
Skud, it isn't about hindsight. It's about learning from a mistake, as the "honorable H' apparently has.There is no way to go back and undo the war in Iraq, or its disastrous consequences.
DeleteThe question is, and the point, as I read it, of this post, was whether JEB learned anything. At first he said no. Then he said he misheard the question. Then he couldn't speculate. Now he understands the question, and can speculate and... no, he would not have invaded knowing "what we know now."
I would ask why JEB wasn't ready for this question. Who didn't know it was coming? It shows the same lack of political prep evident in Obama when he was caught flatfooted by the Jeremiah Wright issue.
I think you can google neo con and get a good idea... MIC, I assume is "Man in Charge" in RN Speak.
Skud... Military Industrial Complex...
DeleteSo are you saying follow the clinton's because that is where the money is. BJ and Algore were two of the worst governing by wind forecast that have ever existed. I am not sure what a neo con or MIC is so I cannot comment.
ReplyDeleteI was not in favor of the invasion but there were a lot of our incompetent politicians, sorry for the oxymoron, who voted for it. Now they have the hindsight and they are walking it back including the honorable H.
george W lied. There was no "mistake". Jeb lies too when he says Hillary would have ordered the invasion. He also lies when he says in retrospect he thinks it was a mistake. He'd have ordered the invasion even knowing what we know now. Remember that he was one of the signatories of the PNAC document. He's a neo con all the way. If he gets into the White House we may go to war with Iran.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Les is saying "follow the clintons because that is where the money is". He's saying (IMO) follow the MIC money... which points to the Republicans. If that is what he's saying then I agree.
Whether GWB knowingly lied or the intelligence was wrong I am not in a position to know; with certainty. Neither aRe you Dervish. Irrespective of this it was unwise to invade a foreign country that posed no threat to the USA.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct on follow the money Dervish. Although there are a lot of military contractors in democratic territory as well. Money is pretty fluid.
True, Les. The Dems feed the MIC at least as much as Republicans do.
Delete"In addition to $51 billion in war funding that’s already allocated, President Obama’s budget requests $561 billion for defense spending, which includes the biggest baseline Pentagon budget ever."
It's a problem that needs to be dealt with without the blinders and petty partisanship which wasn't present in this discussion until a couple of comments ago.
As far as campaign bribes go, it's 40 percent to Dems versus 60 percent to the Repubs. Obama may be attempting to give the Repubs what they want. He has a history of wrongly believing that if he appears to be trying to work with them they'll cut him some slack. Whatever the reason, however, I still think it's ridiculous.
DeleteIn any case, we all know which party has been pushing for rolling back the sequester cuts in regards to the military only.
BTW, I am in a position to know that gwb lied, being aware of the report the IAEA issued prior to the invasion. It said the inspectors did not find any WMD. It's pretty straightforward.
You're all dangerous isolationist hippies!
ReplyDeleteI think the main point behind RN's post should have been how just last week, Jethro tried to win points by aligning himself with Shrub, Cheney and the PNAC, and how today, he pathetically flip-flopped and back-pedalled after his staff read the polls and the word of the commentariat; as if he even had a snowball's chance in hell of winning in his own state.
That's one dynasty down the shitter.
I'm not sure we can call the Clinton thing a dynasty until Chelsea runs.
Boy, did Jeb ever step into the doo-doo on this one. And it was a question that he had to know was coming simply for his frigging name!
ReplyDeleteAnd it wasn't just Bush who messed up. Back in September of 2002, every member of the House and Senate was granted full access to the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq and WMD. It was a 92 page document and was fully loaded with doubts, ambiguities, and disagreements with Mr. Bush's assertions. The problem? Well, according to Thomas Ricks's stellar book, "Fiasco", not even a handful of these Congressman and Senators (48 lazy Republicans and 29 lazy Democrats) even bothered to read the 5-page summary of it. No sir, these individuals apparently didn't have the time nor the inclination. I mean, it was only war, right?
ReplyDeleteOn all accounts you're correct Will. Irrespective of party the Nation's Leadership purely and simply blew it.
ReplyDeleteReasoned criticism/argument such as this has changed my mind on this issue.
ReplyDelete(By the way, Will.... I guess Congress had to vote on the war to find out what was in it, right?)
And as bad as Gadaffi was, we probably should have stayed out of Libya, too.
ReplyDeleteAnd Afghanistan. We should have accepted the Taliban's offer to turn over OBL and not invaded.
ReplyDeleteWill: Back in September of 2002... [the NIE released to Congress] a 92 page document and was fully loaded with doubts, ambiguities, and disagreements with Mr. Bush's assertions...
Huh? According to Ricks "...a political document that made the case for war the NIE of October ‘02 succeeded brilliantly. As a professional intelligence product it was shameful. But it did its job, which wasn’t really to assess Iraqi weapons programs but to sell a war. ... That document did not accurately reflect the information available inside the intelligence community. (Source: Meet the Press interview with Thomas Ricks).
I did not read Ricks' book (I am presuming Will did?), but the excerpt I posted above (from an interview with Ricks) seems to completely refute Will's claim that the "document and was fully loaded with doubts, ambiguities, and disagreements with Mr. Bush's assertions". Or that Ricks' book says that. He said (during the interview) that the document is 100 percent the opposite of how Will characterizes it. I'd be interested in a response, but it doesn't look like Will is going to give one.
DeleteThe Taliban "offered" to basically free Bin Laden by turning him over to an extreme terrorist cabal called the OIC.
ReplyDeleteWhich would have been like handing Dylan Roof over to a Klan tribunal.