The sad truth is that Iraq is in the shape it is today in
because of what the US has already done.
Iraq is in bad shape, being
torn apart by sectarian violence,
and it is going to get worse before it gets better – if it ever gets
better. The sad truth – because we as a nation are culpable – is that
there is nothing the United States can do now can make it better. The
sad truth is that Iraq is in the shape it is today in because of what
America has already done.
How, we must ask ourselves now, is how will doing again what we did before undo what we did before?
The shrub’s criminal invasion in 2003
threw Iraq into chaos and his junta had no clear plans beyond
toppling Saddam Hussein – unless you count plundering the country for
all it was worth. That mission was accomplished very well.
We did not win there; indeed, we were lucky to get
out after a decade of senseless fighting. Our purpose was ignoble from
the beginning and the memory of the Iraq War does America no honor. And
the wingnuts want to go back and do it again-
forever, if necessary.
Pat Robertson, in blaming the shrub for Iraq the other day, has shown himself to be more intelligent (or at least more honest) than,
- Karl Rove, who in 2011 claimed it wasn’t the shrub who wanted to invade Iraq, that Congress pushed him into it;
- or Dick Cheney, who just the other day blamed Obama for misdeeds he knows perfectly well attach themselves to the administration of which he was a part;
- or Donald Rumsfeld, who has tried to glorify the shrub’s misdeeds;
- or William Kristol, who blamed Obama for the shrub’s signed agreement to pull out of Iraq.
Because somehow, in the wingnut warped mind, invading Iraq wasn’t the problem; leaving Iraq was.
Robertson, on the other hand, was correct in
pointing out that the shrub is alone responsible for the current
condition of Iraq. It doesn’t matter if the shrub was a puppet or a puppet
master. It was his watch and he was commander-in-chief.
Robertson gave it to the shrub with both metaphorical barrels. Monday, on the 700 Club, Robertson said, “it was a great mistake to go in there.”
To sell the American people on Weapons of Mass Destruction, it was a lot of nonsense and we were sold a bill of goods.
And,
We should have never
gone into that country. As bad as Saddam Hussein was, he held those
warring factions in check and he contained those radical Islamists.
Don’t be too quick to give Pat a pat on the back,
however. Robertson is being less than forthcoming about his own support
for the shrub during the war. As
Media Matters reports,
“On the December 7 [2005] edition of christian
Broadcasting Network’s The 700 Club, host Pat Robertson, founder of the christian cabal of America, said Democratic criticism of the Iraq
war ‘amounts to treason’ and that ‘carping criticism … just doesn’t cut
it’”:
ROBERTSON: We’ve won
the war already, and for the Democrats to say we can’t win it — what
kind of a statement is that? And furthermore, one of the fundamental
principles we have in America is that the president is the commander in
chief of the armed forces and attempts to undermine the commander in
chief during time of war amounts to treason. I know we have an
opportunity to express our points of view, but there is a time when
we’re engaged in a combat situation that carping criticism against the
commander in chief just doesn’t cut it. And I think that yes, we have
freedom of speech — of course we do — but this has gone over the top and
I think the Republicans are — well, they’ve taken advantage.
I guess the truth cuts it though, doesn’t it Pat, not that you’ll apologize now.
Then there is Glenn Beck of all people, who, if he
did not exactly apologize, admitted those treasonous liberals were right
all along.
Tuesday on his radio show,
Beck said,
“From the beginning, most people on the left were against going into
Iraq. I wasn’t…. Liberals, you were right. We shouldn’t have.”
You have to look long and hard to find other wingnuts who will even admit the shrub
existed, let alone started the Iraq War – and on
pretexts as flimsy as Hitler used to invade Poland in 1939.
Beck went on to say,
Not one more life. Not
one more life. Not one more dollar, not one more airplane, not one more
bullet, not one more Marine, not one more arm or leg or eye. Not one
more. This must end now. Now can’t we come together on that?
The facts are clear and they are beyond dispute, though not beyond the inevitable repugican obfuscation and dishonesty.
Coalition forces invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003. This was the grotesquely-named Operation Iraqi Freedom (timeline
here), grotesque because what it was in reality was “Operation wingnutsGet Rich Quick.”
The shrub said at the time that “”helping Iraqis achieve a
united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment”
but the only sustained commitment made was to plunder the Iraqi people.
Of
course, then on May 1, 2003, he announced “Mission Accomplished,” which
fails to explain the events of the past 11 years. In fact, the mission
was so
not accomplished that seven years later, in September 2010, it became Operation New Dawn.
Most particularly the shrub’s alleged success in Iraq fails to explain the recent upswing in violence and the rise of
Hussein loyalists and ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. There is a dispute over acronym (see
here)
but no dispute at all that ISIS/ISIL is the worst thing to happen to
Iraq since the shrub and his wingnut carpetbagging friends.
Those responsible are undeniably and unarguably war
criminals according to International law the United States once
supported. And they want to go back to Iraq, and the media is more than
willing to entertain their views on the bizarre premise that people who
have shown they don’t know how to do something are the people to ask for
advice.
As reported Tuesday – and this will sound familiar to you since we did this already in 2003:
Basically, Kristol
wants a bunch of US troops to go into Iraq to get into the middle of a
civil war with no clear enemy or directive. In other words, create a
bigger mess than it already is, and leave American blood on Iraqi soil.
And it worked so well last time! Ten years of war,
without Obama’s 2008 win, could as easily have been 20. For wingnutss –
and for the mainstream media – it is 2003 all over again. No clear
enemy. No clear directive.
Harry Reid says that all we need to hear from Dick Cheney is an apology
for Iraq. That goes also for , Dthe shrubonald Rumsfeld and the
rest of their wingnut friends, and it goes double for the mainstream
media, which has with malice aforethought perpetuated their lies for the
past decade and is more than eager to do so again.
