Dubya "Very Pleased" with Iraq outcome.

[Tin Foil Timothy]

US President George W Bush believes the Iraq war has been successful and is "very pleased" with what is happening there, he said in a pre-recorded interview broadcast on a Japanese television network.

Including pre-invasion softening up sanctions more than 1 million have been killed. And he's pleased?

Saddam got hanged for his crimes. And what punishment will Bush ( and his cabal ) get?

 

[Tin Foil Timothy]

The clue is in the bolded bit above. Not that I'm saying all of the US's decisions were smart ones, but the simple fact is the greatest unnecessary loss of human life in our entire long history occurred because the cultured and enlightened nations of Europe refused to remove the leader of another country.

The USA's entire post WW2 foreign policy makes perfect sense framed from the point of view of "avoid another WW2 at any cost".

I've heard some lame excuses for the murderous and deceitful foreign policy of the US but that one takes the biscuit. I'm going to print it out and pin it to my wall as a reminder of how naive people can be.

I'm aghast that people really do believe all that propaganda that the US foreign policy is actually done to spread or preserve freedom and democracy. Never mind that the US has helped depose and assassinate democratically elected governments and installed dictators in their place who have systematically committed genocide.

There surely should be some kind of entrance exam before people are allowed to vote?

 

[davefoc]

You think people would pay more attention to what the man actually said, and less to what happened to be chosen as the backdrop.

Yes, that would be nice. From the first paragraph of Bush's speech:

Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.

source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/01/iraq/main551946.shtml

And ah yes, the story about how the sailors put the sign up and the White House had nothing to do with it:

Bush said in October that the White House had nothing to do with the banner; a spokesman later clarified that the ship’s crew asked for the sign and that the White House staff had it made by a private vendor. It was not clear who paid for the sign.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4760238/

And was this the same president who said less than three months later:

There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring them on,

source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-07-02-bush-iraq-troops_x.htm

Here's the deal. No amount of spinning, parsing, twisting or manipulation of what has gone on here is going to change the facts. The US was led by a corrupt, insecure, incurious and inept individual and the Iraqis have paid an enormous price for that mistake by the American voters. Attempting to put the best spin possible on every event to somehow save face for the failing of what seems to be your guy is not going to fix that. It isn't going to bring back the 4.5 trillion dollars that he pissed away that the country doesn't have. It isn't going to bring back a single dead soldier and it certainly isn't going to anything for the four million displaced Iraqis.

And it isn't going to do a damn thing for the Republican Party which has become marginalized as the home of religious nuts and the occasional hyper partisan who refuses to acknowledge the disaster that has been foisted on to the American people at the hands of this corrupt cynical party that has chosen cronyism, jingoistic militarism and divisive social issues as the means to establish their political base.

 

[JihadJane]

...(Applause) ... (Applause)... (Applause) ...

(Applause)... (Applause)...

Mission Accomplished? Doesn't sound like it.

Sounds like the cod-pieced bomber boy regurgitating all the familiar lies about al Qaeda, WMDs and the "War on Terror" along with the usual myths about US foreign policy being an heroic altruistic charity mission to bring peace, prosperity, democracy and freedom to the unenlightened by bombing them. In short, pure, unadulterated, shameless BS propaganda. (Applause)

It's shocking to see how many people still fall for this crap and refreshing to see that plenty don't.(Applause)

 

[applecorped]

Sounds like the cod-pieced bomber boy regurgitating all the familiar lies about al Qaeda, WMDs and the "War on Terror" along with the usual myths about US foreign policy being an heroic altruistic charity mission to bring peace, prosperity, democracy and freedom to the unenlightened by bombing them. In short, pure, unadulterated, shameless BS propaganda. (Applause)

It's shocking to see how many people still fall for this crap and refreshing to see that plenty don't.(Applause)

What are you looking at? And why?

 

[JihadJane]

What are you looking at? And why?

The President's brain.

And why?:rolleyes

It must be somewhere.

ETA: Seriously, the whole show was a piece of crude macho theatrics.

 

[CHF]

The Iraq war is a perfect example of what happens when a leader surrounds himself with ideologically-driven Yes-Men.

Chalabi, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz.....all said the same thing:

"We'll be greeted as liberators."

"We know where the WMDs are."

"Don't worry about that Sunni-Shia thing."

"The war will pay for itself."

"The insurgency is simply a bunch of Saddam loyalists, dead-enders, and is in its death throws anyway."

With this mentality you might as well invade with not enough troops, you might as well allow looting, and there's nothing to fear from throwing 500,000 military men out of work while you're at it.

 

[Dragoonster]

"I think the decision to remove Saddam Hussein was right," Bush told the Sunday Project program of the private Asahi network.

This is a bit of revisionist selection bias. "Removing Saddam Hussein" was only one of the reasons he gave to justify the war, and it wasn't the primary. Primary was WMDs, then the others skipped around in order as the administration made its case or revised it--saving the Iraqi people, removing a threat to Iraq's neighbors, enforcing a previous UN resolution, stopping a source of terrorism (and al qaeda specifically at several points), removing a madman dictator, bringing the fight to "them" rather than waiting, bringing freedom/democracy to the world/region, etc. etc.

The decision wasn't to "remove Saddam". It was to invade Iraq. And imo that's not just a difference in semantics--the decision was based on the entirety of all of the above justifications, not just "removing Saddam". As the primary justification fell, the reasons for the invasion were retroactively changed to freeing the Iraqis/removing the dictator.

 

[IchabodPlain]

This is a bit of revisionist selection bias. "Removing Saddam Hussein" was only one of the reasons he gave to justify the war, and it wasn't the primary.

Saddam was the primary reason for invasion, though you're correct about the revolving door of rationalizations. Every justification runs through him.

Primary was WMDs, then the others skipped around in order as the administration made its case or revised it

Why were we worried about WMD's in Iraq?

--saving the Iraqi people

From who?

removing a threat to Iraq's neighbors

Who is the threat?

enforcing a previous UN resolution

Why was that resolution passed?

stopping a source of terrorism

Who is the source of terrorism you refer to?

removing a madman dictator

Who is?

 

[BirdStrike]

As far as I am concerned, removing Saddam wasn't that bad of an idea.... Most people, including most people I discuss such matters with on this forum, refuse to think strategically, and won't look beyond the short term. DR

That is how I see it as well. Good thing Saddam and his two sick sons - who would have replaced him - are gone. We will not see the benefits of this messy event for 20 years, maybe more. But ultimately I feel Iraq will be better off in the long run without Saddam, and his clinically psychopathic sons Usay and Qusay.

 

[ponderingturtle]

A friend of mine was the Navigator on Abraham Lincoln. He was there that day. He is still disgusted with what the media and Bush's political opponents have done with that photo op. (IMO, he ought to reserve some of the disdain for Bush's PR clowns.) That banner wasn't about the end of the war. That banner was about the Lincoln doing the mission, which was done in spades. From an old CNN article:


It isn't every day that the President drops by your ship to pass on a "job well done." The crew appreciated it. Ray's observation is that some prize arseholes have taken their day, and pissed on it.

DR

It was never their day though, it was intended to provide those photo's, and it succeeded.

It might have come back to haunt the people who planned it, but on the whole it had nothing to do with the crew at all.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Mission Accomplished? Doesn't sound like it.

Pictures speak louder than words though. The Regan administration thanked a news outlet that put together a montoge that showed all the hypocritical photo ops that they had set up, and used words to explain why it was hypocritical. The Regan administration thanked them for the good publicity.

 

[ponderingturtle]

That is how I see it as well. Good thing Saddam and his two sick sons - who would have replaced him - are gone. We will not see the benefits of this messy event for 20 years, maybe more. But ultimately I feel Iraq will be better off in the long run without Saddam, and his clinically psychopathic sons Usay and Qusay.

Look at all the good it did for Iran as well.

 

[billydkid]

Even if Iraq had become a paradise it hard to imagine that it could have been worth the cost in terms of hundreds of thousands or millions of lives lost or ruined none of which takes into account the monetary cost to this country or fuel it threw onto the fire of fundamentalist Muslim hatred for the west.

 

[BirdStrike]

Look at all the good it did for Iran as well.

What happened in Iran does not negate the fact that Iraq will be better off without Saddam, and his clinically psychopathic sons Usay and Qusay.

Had Iraq been eventually turned over to Usay or Qusay then the people of Iraq would have thought Saddam was Mother Teresa. I mean really, if Usay and Qusay were left to run things the women they plucked off the street to rape would literally jam the plastic shredders they used to dispose of thier bodies.

The problem now is the power vacuum the war created, and the centuries-old rivalry between Sunnis and Shiites. While other powers - see: Iran - are trying to exploit the vacuum. Which - in my opinion - are two very important things that should have been thought about by Bush and Co. before the war was green lit in the first place.

I wish I knew the answer, so I could fix things there. But the people of Iraq have to work it out, for it is their country, and ultimately their problem to fix.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

What happened in Iran does not negate the fact that Iraq will be better off without Saddam, and his clinically psychopathic sons Usay and Qusay.

You keep repeating this 'clinically psychopathic' thing. Both brothers were actually deemed clinically psychopathic? I understand one was highly unhinged, but both of them?

 

[Undesired Walrus]

Most people, including most people I discuss such matters with on this forum, refuse to think strategically, and won't look beyond the short term.

What is a strategic victory in your opinion? Is there a limit on the amount of suffering that can be permitted in the short term in order for a long term solution to be achieved?

Not baiting, just asking.

 

[BirdStrike]

You keep repeating this 'clinically psychopathic' thing. Both brothers were actually deemed clinically psychopathic? I understand one was highly unhinged, but both of them?

I have no document which I can refer you to which gives a clinical diagnosis of Uday or Qusay. All I can say is that I have read what both sons did, anyone can Google it.

And in my books their combined atrocities could only be comitted by folks who are psychopathic.

 

[Crowlogic]

The point so many have missed about Saddam is that he loved power. He loved being in power. Dictators both want to retain power and need to retain power. The need to retain power is in the interest of self preservation.

Saddam was a nasty character but consider this. The sanctions we placed on him were slowly bankrupting and starving him.

After 911 if we had offered him something along the lines as follows..."Now see here Saddam we've had our differences and its come down to some unpleasant circumstances but things just changed. You're about the only leader in your region that operates in a secular modality that the West understands. So if you straighten up and fly right the time is perfect to redeem yourself."

Saddam wanted to stay in power and was grooming his son/sons to take over. I suspect he would have relished the idea of becoming a player for reason (such as reason is with politics) on the world stage. Sure he was a rat but keep a rat fat and stroke a rats ego and you've got a rat doing your bidding. He was worth more alive and in power!

 

[Undesired Walrus]

The greatest problem coming out of the Iraq War is for Blair, who made the catastrophic mistake of stating only days before the invasion that Saddam could remain in power if he gave up his WMD's. As far as I recall, Bush made no such statement.