News today that Osama bin Laden thought that Iraq was a good spot to build an Al-Qaeda sub-branch. President Bush noted this in a speech he gave to a Coast Guard Academy, and that Al-Qaeda was the number one threat to Iraq and the United States. Of course, bin Laden apparently only started sniffing around the place in 2005, two years after the United States invaded.
And for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis either being ethnically cleansed, terrorised by bombs and sectarian militias, and generally wishing Saddam was back in charge, I am sure it is a great relief to them to think that the mainland United States is also terrorised by what is going on in their country.
Now, for your listening pleasure, the top five stupidity hits of Operation Iraqi Freedom -
5. With us, or against us. This little ditty can be taken either for Iraq or the wider war on terror, but the basic meaning was that the United States, in the form of the White House Administration, was the sole arbiter of what was fashionable in the world. After their respective non and nein over the Iraq war however, I don't see the Marines ready to invade Paris or Berlin.
4. Stuff happens. Ah, Donald Rumsfeld, how we miss ye. Taken together with his now more senior colleague, Condi Rice at State, Robert Gates almost sounds like a realist. The stuff happens jibe was said the few days after US troops had gotten to Baghdad, the Saddam government was collapsing and/or on the run, and a lot of stuff was being looted. Too bad stuff far worse than 'just' looting has kept on happening ever since.
3. Mission accomplished. Well, major combat operations are over, apparently, in May 2003. At that stage 140 American troops had been killed. Now the total is confirmed at 3425, not counting the coalition, foreign contractor or Iraqi casualties. Less Mission Accomplished than let's play out my Top Gun fantasy of landing on an aircraft carrier - boy it must be cool to be president some days.
2. Freedom on the march. Wasn't one of the various reasons given to the public for this war, that it would get rid of an evil dictator and usher in democracy to the Arab Middle East? Yes, that still has a snowball's chance in hell of happening. The Sunnis don't like not being in power any more, the Shias don't want to give any of their democratic power up, the Kurds just want to break away from the rest of the country, but Turkey will never let them. It is seriously fucked up.
1. Weapons of Mass Destruction. Wow. Like the phrase WorkChoices in Australia, you hardly ever hear this from officials nowadays. Fifteen minutes from deploying missiles that could at least hit Western Europe, was the British claim. I think it was discovered that the Brits 'sexed up' that intelligence dossier, and the weapons expert who leaked that information was hounded over the whole thing and commited suicide.
Even though there was a similar episode in Washington about uranium to Iraq from Africa, and the Vice Presidential Chief of Staff got convicted of perjury, at least no one topped themselves over it - yet. Lucky the White House doesn't play basketball, their interpretation of slam dunk is obviously way off.
And poor Colin Powell - rock star looks, for a military man, successful war in 1991, lends a bit of liberal credibility to the neo-cons in the Bush Administration, both before and after 9/11, and even gives the US military a credible doctrine - massive force for a clear and present danger - and what does Rummy go and do? Downsizes all wars, at least from the American side. And gets Powell to make the, in hindsight, most cringeworthy speech made at the United Nations since the Soviets tried to bluster over missiles in Cuba.
Okay, so I haven't actually seen many UN speeches, but that one out of the movie Thirteen Days looked pretty incompetent from the Russian side LOL. And then it turns out that Saddam was so fearful of being caught out with chemical weapons that he had flushed his last bottle of bleach down the Baghdadi sewers.
Not even going to go into the whole Saddam had a hand in 9/11, diverting resources from a somewhat successful campaign in Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, Iran and Turkey keeping their eyes on the prize as the West thinks of backing out, the jihadists being given a new cause to hate America and the rest of us in the West. Yep, it's pretty well fucked up.
Would four years of sanctions on Iraq with Saddam still in charge have been worse than this?
And for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis either being ethnically cleansed, terrorised by bombs and sectarian militias, and generally wishing Saddam was back in charge, I am sure it is a great relief to them to think that the mainland United States is also terrorised by what is going on in their country.
Now, for your listening pleasure, the top five stupidity hits of Operation Iraqi Freedom -
5. With us, or against us. This little ditty can be taken either for Iraq or the wider war on terror, but the basic meaning was that the United States, in the form of the White House Administration, was the sole arbiter of what was fashionable in the world. After their respective non and nein over the Iraq war however, I don't see the Marines ready to invade Paris or Berlin.
4. Stuff happens. Ah, Donald Rumsfeld, how we miss ye. Taken together with his now more senior colleague, Condi Rice at State, Robert Gates almost sounds like a realist. The stuff happens jibe was said the few days after US troops had gotten to Baghdad, the Saddam government was collapsing and/or on the run, and a lot of stuff was being looted. Too bad stuff far worse than 'just' looting has kept on happening ever since.
3. Mission accomplished. Well, major combat operations are over, apparently, in May 2003. At that stage 140 American troops had been killed. Now the total is confirmed at 3425, not counting the coalition, foreign contractor or Iraqi casualties. Less Mission Accomplished than let's play out my Top Gun fantasy of landing on an aircraft carrier - boy it must be cool to be president some days.
2. Freedom on the march. Wasn't one of the various reasons given to the public for this war, that it would get rid of an evil dictator and usher in democracy to the Arab Middle East? Yes, that still has a snowball's chance in hell of happening. The Sunnis don't like not being in power any more, the Shias don't want to give any of their democratic power up, the Kurds just want to break away from the rest of the country, but Turkey will never let them. It is seriously fucked up.
1. Weapons of Mass Destruction. Wow. Like the phrase WorkChoices in Australia, you hardly ever hear this from officials nowadays. Fifteen minutes from deploying missiles that could at least hit Western Europe, was the British claim. I think it was discovered that the Brits 'sexed up' that intelligence dossier, and the weapons expert who leaked that information was hounded over the whole thing and commited suicide.
Even though there was a similar episode in Washington about uranium to Iraq from Africa, and the Vice Presidential Chief of Staff got convicted of perjury, at least no one topped themselves over it - yet. Lucky the White House doesn't play basketball, their interpretation of slam dunk is obviously way off.
And poor Colin Powell - rock star looks, for a military man, successful war in 1991, lends a bit of liberal credibility to the neo-cons in the Bush Administration, both before and after 9/11, and even gives the US military a credible doctrine - massive force for a clear and present danger - and what does Rummy go and do? Downsizes all wars, at least from the American side. And gets Powell to make the, in hindsight, most cringeworthy speech made at the United Nations since the Soviets tried to bluster over missiles in Cuba.
Okay, so I haven't actually seen many UN speeches, but that one out of the movie Thirteen Days looked pretty incompetent from the Russian side LOL. And then it turns out that Saddam was so fearful of being caught out with chemical weapons that he had flushed his last bottle of bleach down the Baghdadi sewers.
Not even going to go into the whole Saddam had a hand in 9/11, diverting resources from a somewhat successful campaign in Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, Iran and Turkey keeping their eyes on the prize as the West thinks of backing out, the jihadists being given a new cause to hate America and the rest of us in the West. Yep, it's pretty well fucked up.
Would four years of sanctions on Iraq with Saddam still in charge have been worse than this?
No comments:
Post a Comment