Bush's War

So, who is to blame for all the deaths in Iraq? Let's mull this one over a bit, shall we?

 

Bush claims Saddam is a threat. Bush claims Saddam has WMDs. Bush claims Saddam has ties to Al Qaida. Bush and his administration promote questionable intelligence that supports their preconceptions and prejudices, and reject that which counters it.

 

Bush puts Rummy in charge of the war. Rummy fires general who says "we need more troops". Rummy says we can do more with less. Rummy says "lighter is better than armored". Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld say we'll be met with flower petals. They say the war will be entirely paid for by oil revenues. They say the reconstruction will be paid for entirely by oil revenues.

 

Bush says he's giving diplomacy a chance, but he's giving the world a middle finger. Powell says he's showing the Security Council evidence of Saddam's duplicity, but he shows them pictures of warehouses. Bush claims a coalition of the willing, that's really a coalition of the billing -- a mish-mash of third-world nations with token contributions. Only England offers tangible support.

 

Bush sends the troops into battle, claiming he had no choice. But Saddam had caved on every Bush demand (inspectors were allowed back in, his long-range missiles were being destroyed).

 

No WMDs are found. No ties with Al Qaida are found. No military capable of threatening Iraq's neighbors is found. Saddam's army collapses quickly and the country's defenders retreat into "insurgency" mode.

 

Bush declares mission accomplished. Bush taunts the insurgency. The insurgency kills our men and women. The commanders on the ground scream for more troops. They scream for armor. They scream for protected mess halls. Those screams fall on deaf ears.

 

More soldiers are killed. 1,320 Americans, 74 Britons, seven Bulgarians, one Dane, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Hungarian, 19 Italians, one Latvian, 16 Poles, one Salvadoran, three Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and nine Ukrainians. The wounded number in the five figures.

 

Nevermind the innocent Iraqis who have been "liberated" to death. And while we scream about Saddam's torture chambers, we create new ones of our own.

 

So thousands die, for a war built on false justifications, managed poorly, with underequipped, undermanned, and under-armored forces. And to add insult to injury, we've had to pay for this mess, to the tune of $200 billion.

 

So who sent our troops into Iraq on false pretenses? Who sent them in unarmored? Who refused to provide enough troops to stabilize the country effectively? Who taunted the Iraqi opposition with "bring 'em on"? Who approved the American-branded torture chambers? Who has rewarded the secretary of defense who has negligently ignored the armor shortage in Iraq?

 

And who keeps them there as they continue to die?

 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/22/114038/29

I find it incredibly boggling that people are now starting

to say Rummy fucked up as if he was acting alone.

If Rummy goes down it's only to protect Cheny and Bush.

mind bogglingly disgusting.

Bush is a lunatic and has destroyed Iraq even more than it was. But even though he is a despicable failure, the entire blame for Iraq’s misery should not be on his head. Bill Clinton’s missile strikes in the 1990s and his administration’s subterfuge and exploitation of the UN inspections as a way of getting to Saddam and killing him is also shameful. No, I don’t think Saddam was a great guy; He was crazy. But then again why did the U.S. support and defend him in the 1980s when he committed the worst atrocities? Isn’t this something we all should look into?

 

This whole Iraqi misadventure has taught me one thing: There is really no such thing as a free and decent country in this world. Every country for the most part is ran by arrogant and greedy people who are only out to gain as much for themselves as they can. Self-interest and self-aggrandizement is the eternal human catalyst. So let’s stop kidding ourselves about America or any other country for that matter being a land of “freedom” and a “peaceful nation.” These are just pretty labels meant to fool ignorant people to follow some questionable and ill-conceived cause,i.e. the war in Iraq. Anyone who thinks that the U.S. or any other country for that matter went into Iraq, a ran-down country which is mostly desert, just to free the people and bring “democracy” without expecting anything in return, is an ignorant idiot with no knowledge of world history. France and Germany didn’t send their soldiers into Iraq: why? Simply because doing so was contrary to their political and economic interests, not because they object to the war in Iraq just on moral grounds. There really are no good guys in this whole Iraqi mess, except the Iraqi people and those American soldiers who either refused to fight or ones who realized that what they have done is wrong and don’t want to be a part of the charade anymore...

Originally posted by fatalist@Dec 23 2004, 11:34 PM

This whole Iraqi misadventure has taught me one thing: There is really no such thing as a free and decent country in this world.

Quoted post

 

This is something I've been very afraid of. As the cold war was fought over ideology this war is being fought over capital.

They seem to be doing good things in venezeula........

Regardless of whether things end the easy way or the hard way.... they have to end somehow. I would prefer the easy way. It looks as though we are going the way of Rome. Bush is Caligula. We shall fall victim of empirical overstretch if we cannot fix things from within.

The book "After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order (European Perspectives: a Series in Social Thought and Cultural Ctiticism)"

by Emmanuel Todd, C. Jon Delogu, Michael Lind

Details this. This author also predicted the fall of the soviet union in another book back in 1979. Still waiting to read it though. I got alot of books. Sheesh.

But from the trends I'm seeing we are breaking militarily and economically. Which breaks first and when only time will tell for sure. They could enact a draft to postpone a military breakdown.... but all this borrowing money from foreign lenders in order to finance our own unilateralistic hegomony is bound to fall through eventually.

Anyone know anything about Hubberts peak? I guess this is the Saudi Peak oil. With peak oil there.... lack of reliable oil from Iraq.... the given instability there which is preventing for the time being a military invasion of Iran.... we could be looking at global economic collapse. That would be crazy.

Sheesh... shit like this makes me want to start storing food in a bunker.

One of the worst mistake keeping him as president

 

lives or oil??.....hmmm The good president would pick oil just like ours....hmm

Originally posted by <KEY3>@Dec 23 2004, 03:07 PM

I find it incredibly boggling that people are now starting

to say Rummy fucked up as if he was acting alone.

If Rummy goes down it's only to protect Cheny and Bush.

Quoted post

Rummy is just an old man who forgot to take his medication, and Bush is just an ex presidents spoiled little "slow" boy. Dick Cheney is the only one remotely smart enough to be behind any of this.

Who knows, maybe in 2008 we can not have an idiot in there (if that's possible.)

Although I heard Jeb Bush is thinking of running then.

Jesus, could you imagine? BUSH III.

That is a very disturbing thought,It's like the Bushes were put on this planet to destroy it,which is pretty much what they are doing!

Oh, please. The war in Iraq is a war just like any other war. War is the continuation of politics by other means. Iraq is a strategic objective which is sitting on an ocean of petroleum. Saddam was a useful tool when he was fighting the Iranians. The Afghans were useful when they were fighting the Soviets. That was then. This is now.

You guys sort of like to pretend your hands aren't dirty in this whole deal, but the truth is that we all enjoy a degree of luxury accessible to very, very few people in the world. What, do you expect it to be free? It's not free.

 

In order for the West to live at this level of consumption, we must burn 75% of the world's energy. Is it good? I don't know, I guess so. You guys enjoy all the benefits of a modern industrial society just as much as the Bushes and the Clintons and the Rockefellers and the DuPonts and so on, just at a somewhat less luxurious level.

 

Eventually, we must face facts. And the facts are that to control Iraq's Sunni Triangle, we will have to leave it a wasteland. I predicted that the Marines would go into Fallujah and flatten the fucking place. They didn't quite flatten it, but I'm sure it wasn't because they were trying to save local landmarks, and I don't doubt for a second that they would be willing to go back again tomorrow and blast the shit out of every living thing in the whole place AGAIN until the Iraqi Sunnis WISE THE FUCK UP and stop shooting at Marine Corps ground patrols.

 

There are only three Iraqi provinces that are out of control. Most likely the best of all solutions is to surround the Sunni Triangle with heavy armored divisions and send in the Kurds. I bet they don't give a flying fuck if the the U.N. squeals to high heaven about genocide. The Kurds hate the fuck out of the Sunnis, and given the opportunity, they would cheerfully kill every last Sunni in Iraq.

 

It's not as if the Sunnis don't know the score. They need to get with the program before we just let the Kurds have their ass.

 

If they were smart, they would stop shooting at the U.S. and coalition forces, and ACCEPT the fact that there is going to be a free and fair election, and that since they are a minority, they are going to LOSE POWER OVER IRAQ. The Shiites will win. The power split will go Shiites, Kurds, Sunnis. The Sunnis won't like it. "Oh well." They have a choice--either stop the terrorist insurgency, or be eliminated en toto. Once the election results are in, and there is a legitimate elected government in Iraq, the Iraqi Civil War will begin, and the Sunnis that survive it will accept the authority of the Iraqi government. Then we can pack our shit up and go home and let the Shiites hunt down the remaining insurgents all by themselves.

 

There it is, fellas--"Democracy in Action."

Ever the man of controversy aren't we Kabar?

Well while I can admire the fact that at least you admit this is about oil, if there were any justice in the world, you would be guilty of, if not conspiracy, criminal negligence.

And genocide on the Sunnis? Come on man. You really think this will solve the problem? Sunnis may be a minority in Iraq but they are the majority in the moslem world. The middle east would be in flames... it would be WW3. Other muslims would be thinking, "Who's next? Us?". Indiscriminate killing is NEVER a good idea. And it's not good on troop morale either.

How many of those people are foreign fighters? I dunno, alot. This war is already global.... but there is now only one main front.... in iraq.

It's not going to be won with violence as I've said all along. It can only be won by addressing the legitimate grievances of the muslim people. If we continue to lash out blindly at phantoms who are often seen as freedom fighters, we are only making the problem much larger and worse.

But since Bush is not even a statesman, I doubt he could do what is needed to remedy this situation. But the problem is he is not even trying with his "don't mess with texas" machismo. Fucking idiot.

I have no clue about how we can improve things in Iraq. I don’t have a single idea for how we can un-shit the bed, and I don’t hold out much hope that this whole bed-shitting episode is ever going to be brought to a lemony-fresh conclusion. I do, however, know who shit the bed, and have some sense of how frequently he shits there. Let’s stop shitting for a start.

As i stateted before.. this war was all lies.. it was and still is about OIL.

 

I also dont like when people call our soldiers murderers and such shit. People are responsible for the wars and its the soldiers job to fight them. No one asked to be thrown into IRAQ.

There is only one way to fix the mess. WE build bases away from the cities.. to not show any presance..and let the iraquis (SHITTES) deal with the threat. Many of you dont understand the religious aspect of this.. which is very important... there could be a civil war in no time in iraq... but thats the only thing we can do... for every insurgent killed 2 replace him. Intel suggest there are about 200k part time insurgents in Iraq.

How about we leave?

That cant be done. Us invading iraq was an "investment" in their oil, if we were to jsut leave our investment would be gone and we would never make back the money which we lost. If we stay there we will.... Also if we were to leave the Sunnis And Shittes would have a civil war in the matter of days.

Originally posted by bobthebuilder@Jan 10 2005, 07:56 AM

There is only one way to fix the mess. WE build bases away from the cities.. to not show any presance..and let the iraquis (SHITTES) deal with the threat. Many of you dont understand the religious aspect of this.. which is very important... there could be a civil war in no time in iraq... but thats the only thing we can do... for every insurgent killed 2 replace him. Intel suggest there are about 200k part time insurgents in Iraq.

Quoted post

what the fuck do you expect, the US are not liberators they are an invading force who are raping and pillaging a sovereign nation. the insurgents are in fact "Freedom Fighters", iraqis fighting to rid the country of invading hostile forces. You have to accept that america and the "coalition of the willing" are the bad guys here.

 

all this nonsense about free and fair elections in iraq, all the political parties have been set up by the US, and are headed by iraqi expatriots.

Originally posted by Nekro@Jan 10 2005, 07:34 AM

I have no clue about how we can improve things in Iraq. I don’t have a single idea for how we can un-shit the bed, and I don’t hold out much hope that this whole bed-shitting episode is ever going to be brought to a lemony-fresh conclusion. I do, however, know who shit the bed, and have some sense of how frequently he shits there. Let’s stop shitting for a start.

Quoted post

also this is the most fucking awesome analogy.

Originally posted by Nekro@Jan 9 2005, 04:34 PM

I have no clue about how we can improve things in Iraq. I don’t have a single idea for how we can un-shit the bed, and I don’t hold out much hope that this whole bed-shitting episode is ever going to be brought to a lemony-fresh conclusion. I do, however, know who shit the bed, and have some sense of how frequently he shits there. Let’s stop shitting for a start.

Quoted post

We could change the sheets if only the replacement hadn't lost... Motherfucker knows who he is.

Originally posted by KaBar2@Jan 8 2005, 08:06 AM

Oh, please. The war in Iraq is a war just like any other war. War is the continuation of politics by other means. Iraq is a strategic objective which is sitting on an ocean of petroleum. Saddam was a useful tool when he was fighting the Iranians. The Afghans were useful when they were fighting the Soviets. That was then. This is now.

You guys sort of like to pretend your hands aren't dirty in this whole deal, but the truth is that we all enjoy a degree of luxury accessible to very, very few people in the world. What, do you expect it to be free? It's not free.

 

In order for the West to live at this level of consumption, we must burn 75% of the world's energy. Is it good? I don't know, I guess so. You guys enjoy all the benefits of a modern industrial society just as much as the Bushes and the Clintons and the Rockefellers and the DuPonts and so on, just at a somewhat less luxurious level.

 

Eventually, we must face facts. And the facts are that to control Iraq's Sunni Triangle, we will have to leave it a wasteland. I predicted that the Marines would go into Fallujah and flatten the fucking place. They didn't quite flatten it, but I'm sure it wasn't because they were trying to save local landmarks, and I don't doubt for a second that they would be willing to go back again tomorrow and blast the shit out of every living thing in the whole place AGAIN until the Iraqi Sunnis WISE THE FUCK UP and stop shooting at Marine Corps ground patrols.

 

There are only three Iraqi provinces that are out of control. Most likely the best of all solutions is to surround the Sunni Triangle with heavy armored divisions and send in the Kurds. I bet they don't give a flying fuck if the the U.N. squeals to high heaven about genocide. The Kurds hate the fuck out of the Sunnis, and given the opportunity, they would cheerfully kill every last Sunni in Iraq.

 

It's not as if the Sunnis don't know the score. They need to get with the program before we just let the Kurds have their ass.

 

If they were smart, they would stop shooting at the U.S. and coalition forces, and ACCEPT the fact that there is going to be a free and fair election, and that since they are a minority, they are going to LOSE POWER OVER IRAQ. The Shiites will win. The power split will go Shiites, Kurds, Sunnis. The Sunnis won't like it. "Oh well." They have a choice--either stop the terrorist insurgency, or be eliminated en toto. Once the election results are in, and there is a legitimate elected government in Iraq, the Iraqi Civil War will begin, and the Sunnis that survive it will accept the authority of the Iraqi government. Then we can pack our shit up and go home and let the Shiites hunt down the remaining insurgents all by themselves.

 

There it is, fellas--"Democracy in Action."

Quoted post

 

 

no doubt, there IS a war going on right now, and sure there weremany backroom, unethical dealings, but what the fuck do you expect? that happened in every war, its the nature of war. jesus christ i swear im going to punch another protestor in the face if they get in mine shouting they're slogans and shit. fuck em, WWI was caused by the Black Hand's attempted coup d'etat a man was assasinated. WWII Japanese, Ukranian, Polish and Russians were detained in canada and the us for no crimes being commited.

 

jesus christ if i hear another "No war for oil" slogan im going to freak out. the war is on, deal with it.

and you know what? its not even as though the iraqis want peace. they're not good people, those extremists, not at all. and i do believe that they are evil and that yes they are terrorists. anyone who disagrees needs to get his head read. i mean seriously, taking civilans who aren't involved in the war, and who are mainly unarmed, and keeping them in cages and then cutting off they're heads in front of the world in a most painful way are not nice people deserving of the freedoms of regular citizens. they need to be taken out. end of story. and im not even a republican and i believe this.

 

and its not all bush, look behind the scenes. those ones are the people im worried about

what exactly is your problem with these people omar? let's hear it, please.

i don't know, maybe we should parachute you into fallujah so you

can land on a napalmed pile of poor crispy dead people whose only crime was

being unfortunate enough to have a US supported dictator running their sad

lives.

 

kabar, how come you haven't pulled out your guns with your militia buddies

and headed for washington yet?

it seems to me for all your postulating about the threat of fascism and how willing

you are to stand up for your right to own a pistol(is that all you are willing to

fight for?) you don't seem very concerned with the slow creep of it happening right before your eyes? your support for this war(and by default the gang of thugs running it) is in a very real sense support for the very thing you claim you own guns for..your country went to war essentially the way a totalitarian state would have. no?

you act as if the only way for us to stay alive over on this continent is to keep our excellent record of killing poor people in mass numbers on other continents perpetual. that's

brilliant. i mean it's really working. even i can admit there is some legitimacy in this, but the legitimacy is so thin and cynical..whatever the case, it's still fucking stupid becuz it engineers the inevitability of blowback and a continuation of deadly grievances (among a plethora of other equally troubling grand policies).

what a brilliant plan for americans, and by now, westerners in general.

 

_______

 

for a broader understanding of what this war, and future wars are about(you can't seriously say it's just about oil), read some of the extreme theories of thomas barnett. this guy is engineering the ultimate panoptic death system.

*edit-'people' being anti war people and regular iraqi's.

KABAR2...bout time i find sum1 as myself on this whole war shit..peace, i gota go destroy the "those who oppose war" thread

dude, you're full of gems..

you're pro war, but you write 'peace'..

excellent man..

Originally posted by omar@Jan 12 2005, 02:44 PM

and you know what? its not even as though the iraqis want peace. they're not good people, those extremists, not at all. and i do believe that they are evil and that yes they are terrorists. anyone who disagrees needs to get his head read. i mean seriously, taking civilans who aren't involved in the war, and who are mainly unarmed, and keeping them in cages and then cutting off they're heads in front of the world in a most painful way are not nice people deserving of the freedoms of regular citizens. they need to be taken out. end of story. and im not even a republican and i believe this.

 

and its not all bush, look behind the scenes. those ones are the people im worried about

Quoted post

So basically you're saying that just because someone happens to have been born in Iraq that they're an extremist?

And if by civilians being killed you mean those contractors who are there to take advantage of this war for financial gain, I think you would be the one to get his head out of his ass.

I'm not saying these people deserved to have their heads chopped off in front of video cameras.

And also, it's funny that your screen name is omar (a middle eastern name), and yet you are saying shit like "Yeah man blow these fuckin towelheads up".

 

Now in no way do I agree with anything the iraqi extremists do, there are innocent people who are caught in all of this just trying to stay alive.

i normally disagree with kabar, and i hate Bush, but kabar hit the nail on the head with his first paragraph.

 

BUSH'S WAR FOR OIL WAS ONLY TO MEET THE U.S. DEMAND FOR EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION. If you disagree with the war, why do you consume so much?

 

stupid americans

if you are pro war, stfu and go to war, then see if you are still pro war when you come back.