Gee, I'm so surprised!

[yendi]

As first linked by trillian42, ex-Bush boytoy Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill (not to be confused with the former Yankee and Red of the same name) admits that the administration had been planning on invading Iraq from the get-go.

What a shock. The invasion had nothing to do with 9/11 (no matter how many times Dick "I really really really have no financial interest in Haliburton, I just suck their executives' cocks for fun" Cheney says that Saddam was behind the events of that day). It had nothing to do with wanting to get rid of a bad man (there were, and still are, so many folks who are just as bad, if not worse). It had nothing to do with bringing democracy to a people who have been deprived of it (hello, China calling). It had to do with two things: Bush wanting revenge for his Daddy's election loss, and Bush, Cheney, et al wanting to help their industry buddies. Yeah, it did result in getting rid of a bad man, but that was, at best, a pleasant side-effect (and until at least ten years from now, we won't know if Iraq has really become a better place). Every fucking life lost in this war, whether American GI or Iraqi citizen (we'll give the anti-benefit of the doubt and assume that all Iraqi soldiers were loyal to Saddam and therefore supported him completely), was lost for these causes. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is either someone with something to lose (read: Cheney or one of his butt-buddies), or someone who's sticking their head in a five-gallon hole filled with ten gallons of shit to drown out the truth.

But hey, look, we're colonizing Mars! Nothing to see here. Move along.

Comments

[silme.livejournal.com]

Yep, life here on Earth is so scary we've got to ruin another planet... :(

[yendi]

Yeah, and I've seen Total Recall and B5. Folks on Mars aren't going to get treated any better.

[silme.livejournal.com]

And the economy is so good that NASA will get lots of money. :)

Sorry, I'm all for the space programme, but... Bad timing, what with the economy being so awful. Ian just exchanged some pounds yesterday since we're visiting the US next month. For £120, he received $211. Ouch. Good for us, bad for Americans.

In the meantime, will they pull out Osama bin Laden just prior to the election? ;)

[iresprite.livejournal.com]

If you watch Battleship Successor Nadesico, you'll see that Mars has a very interesting future.

[thermidor.livejournal.com]

That was really well said.

And sadly, so very true.

[yendi]

That was really well said.

Thanks!

And sadly, so very true.

Alas, I wish it wasn't. Wish it didn't need saying in the first place, too.

[snippy]

until at least ten years from now, we won't know if Iraq has really become a better place

I disagree with you here. Saddam would have killed thousands more people by now--far more people than we have killed in the war, far more than the number of US soldiers that have died. It's better *right now* than it was. It may not get any better than this, I'll grant you that. But the mass graves, that is over.

[yendi]

Yeah, at this very second, there's no despot killing folks. But the country's also not ruling itself yet. That's why I said to wait ten years. They may achieve democracy (or something approaching it), or they may have a coup because their infrastructure wasn't equipped to handle it. Or something else entirely may happen (like, say, an invastion from Iran). We can't know.

[snippy]

Ten years is a good time to re-assess. During the first year after WWII magazines and newspapers ran the same kind of "quagmire" articles we are seeing now--how Europe wanted us out, but wasn't able or ready to reconstitute itself (as individual countries) yet. How US soldiers were depressed and angry about still being there, and were still under attack from guerilla resistance fighters left over from the war.

I think it's pointless to try to impose a democratic republic on a culture that has none of the underlying philosophical support for it; but is the only alternative allowing yet another tribal government to arise? One that is dependent for its character on an individual, the leader of the tribe?

Islam interacts with tribalism in a self-reinforcing way that does not promote the kind of public life, society, rights, judicial system, that I want to live on the same planet with.

[terracinque.livejournal.com]

There were NO "guerilla resistance fighters left over from the war" in Germany or Japan after World War II. That's another Rummy lie. There wasn't any violence against Allied troops in either country, and no lives were lost to aggression from the occupees.

[snippy]

Gee, you were there? How about these stories, then?

Fables of the Reconstruction, from Berlin to Bagdad

Excerpt:
Six months before, the world had cheered as the statues of the dictator came crashing down. The Americans had seemed heroic. But now things were going very badly. The occupation was chaotic, the American soldiers were hated and they were facing threats from the surviving supporters of the dictator, whose whereabouts were uncertain.

Washington seemed unwilling to pay the enormous bill for reconstruction, and the president didn't appear to have any kind of workable plan to manage the transition to democracy. European allies, distrustful of the arrogant American outlook, were wary of co-operating. To many, it looked like the victory had been betrayed, since the American values of democracy, equality and well-being seemed unlikely ever to emerge.

That's how it looked in Germany in November, 1945.
[...]
Six months after V-E Day, The New York Times reported that Germany was awash in "unrest and lawlessness." More than a million "displaced persons" roamed the country, many of them subsisting on criminal activities. The heavy-handed presence of American soldiers was deeply resented by many Germans, especially young men, who had come to believe that the G.I.s were stealing their women.

There were still a lot of rogue Nazis causing trouble. It took months for British investigators to determine that Adolf Hitler had killed himself, and many thought his hand could be detected behind the crime and violence. Worse, the attacks on soldiers, General Dwight D. Eisenhower warned, revealed a deeper resentment of the occupation: "The sentiments below them may provide popular rallying points for activities which might grow into organized resistance directed against the occupation forces."

That sounds pretty much like what we've got to me, and it happened after World War II. And it wasn't just Europe.

Team sets out to find Japanese troops still fighting the war

Excerpt:
A TEAM of negotiators and former soldiers from Tokyo has been sent to the jungles of the Philippines to try to bring home soldiers of Japan’s Imperial Army who are still fighting the Second World War.

The team is to investigate reports of former soldiers living in the mountains and jungles of Luzon nearly 60 years after the war ended.
[...]
One of the veterans, Yoshihiko Terashima, 82, continued the fight against the United States for five years after the official surrender, according to his son, Kazuhiko.


Sounds like a quagmire to me. But it seems to have worked out eventually.

[silme.livejournal.com]

I take it you're an Iraqi and are reporting from the country?

[silme.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that was rude. I listen too much to (via radio) and read too much of Salaam Pax.

Yes, Hussein was a despot. But why now? Why not years ago? Why did the US prop him up and sell him WMD? Why now did we have to go after him?

I just see it as too much of a bluff. Where's Osama bin Laden, eh? :)

But then I'm cynical and read too much John Pilger (lovely article in this week's New Statesman) and watch too many episodes of Panorama as well. :)

[snippy]

Why now...because the president wanted to. Does that make it less right? Do bad motives poison good results?

[silme.livejournal.com]

I'm not seeing the logic. If the president wants to blow up the world, then that's okay also?

I'm not sure how good the results are. Yes, the mass graves are over. For now. But who will replace Hussein? The Americans built up Hussein and gave him the power to create those mass graves in the first place. Who's the next dictator we'll go after?

The Taliban is re-gaining strength in Afghanistan. And what are we doing about it? Not much.

[snippy]

It depends on why he wants to blow up the world. I doubt there is an end that I would find to justify that means, but it's still possible that there is one.

Who will replace Hussein? I don't know. What would be best? To appoint someone we know, and give him support in changing how public life is conducted in Iraq? To educate and encourage toward a socially liberal constitutional government? To withdraw now and let them find their own way, unguided by us but possibly dominated by interests inimical to those of the US? (I realize it's not unclear which approach I favor.)

[silme.livejournal.com]

I just worry it will be someone we choose solely because that person will protect American oil interests...

[snippy]

I think that's a reasonable assumption. Looking out for American oil interests doesn't necessarily preclude promoting a useful government structure for Iraqis, but it does seem less likely.

[silme.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

And besides, Americans have such cheap fuel... Every time I'm in the US and am pumping fuel in the hire car, people look at me funny. I speak with the correct accent, but I say outlandish things, such as "this is so cheap!" :)

[dwivian]

Everyone has cheap fuel. Not everyone fails to tax it as much as the 'merkins do. I'm not so sure I approve of that, but that's because I see the problem of the impending failure of the oil system, and the necessary starvation of billions of people that will result.

So, it makes sense that the US government (no matter who is in power) would want to protect oil interests.

[silme.livejournal.com]

The Americans barely tax it. I used to pay the equivalent of $4.50 a gallon for fuel (I'm an American ex-pat in the UK). Since the dollar has taken such a dive, I pay more in dollars now. Hong Kong has 100% tax. Of course, they also have fantastic public transport. (I've ridden on it. And my husband has worked on it as well. :)

The idea over here is to tax it so much it will get people out of their cars. Not working. Now, of course, they're looking at other ways to get money out of people regarding driving. Some are very interesting...

That said, the American (merkins are something very different :) government could be spending its resources investigating alternative sources of energy, but then that wouldn't profit certain folks in the administration. :( I remember -- during either the Reagan administration or the first Bush one -- I honestly can't remember which now -- when Congress was trying to increase the average mpg cars sold in the US must obtain by 2000. It was nixed by the prez. That average seems so low... (I was driving a Honda Civic then and getting 50 mpg on the highway minimum. My husband used to own a diesel Vauxhall (Chevy) estate (wagon); it achieved over 50 mpg, but you don't see cars like that in the US. I now drive a little VW Lupo -- great mileage, but it's not even sold in the US. I read something about VW didn't think they could market a car in US that achieved over 60 mpg on the highway...

Or having better and more reliable public transportation outside of the Northeast Corridor. Details. :)

[mfree.livejournal.com]

*ahem* Let me not let you forget where quite a lot of Hussein's money and chemical/biological weapons came from... the United States.

[snippy]

I've never understood this argument. If we set him up, doesn't that make it even more right that we took him down? Sure, we waited too long, but it strikes me as the ultimate in responsible adult behavior to correct one's mistakes.

Would you rather that the government went around fucking up and never making amends?

[mfree.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but we (meaning Reagan and Bush) should never have set him up in the first place.

It seems to me the government already goes around fucking up and never making amends, or worse, making those affected by the mistakes "disappear"...

[snippy]

And now what? You can't go back, and have Reagan and Bush not set him up in the first place.

Is it better to fail to act, or to try to clean up the mess we made?

Would you tolerate in your personal life someone who kept saying "I'm sorry, I know it's my fault, and for that reason I can't help you make the situation better" for long?

[mfree.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'd let them make the situation better, sure. Then I'd get them the hell away from me so they can't land me in another fucked-up situation ever again.

[snippy]

I agree with that. And I think it's also a great philosophy to use when choosing my government. Vote them out!

[silme.livejournal.com]

Hey, I never voted for the current US government! I allowed three weeks for my absentee ballot to reach the US via air mail. It did arrive on time, I learned.

Must fill out the paperwork to vote in the Colorado primary...

[silme.livejournal.com]

And what current regimes are the US government supporting that will need to be pulled down soon? We tend to set up so many of them and then have them explode in our faces, alas.

[snippy]

Good point; maybe we shouldn't be setting up regimes. (Of course.)

What do we do instead? Once we've gone in and removed some bonehead that we supported years ago, and discovered our mistake, and fixed it. Withdraw?

[silme.livejournal.com]

Of course we shouldn't be setting them up. Nor should we knock down ones we don't like. (I'm thinking Allende here.)

The problem as I see it is that the situation in Iraq isn't any better now for the average Iraqi. For some, it's worse. Yes, they can speak out, but they don't have jobs, elecricity, etc. It's such a muddle.

In ten years, we should discuss this again. :)

But then I was watching the news on Channel 4 tonight, with interviews with various American intelligence experts about how they told Bush there wasn't any evidence of WMDs in Iraq, but he used that as an excuse to go after Saddam. One man (I'm forgetting his name now) joked about how the American public (and the British, but more of us protested :) was told (by Bush) that Iraq had to be invaded because of WMDs (mushroom clouds and all that were threatened), that there were links with al-Quaeda and because Hussein was a bad person. The latter was the only one correct, he said with a sad grin.

I am glad to hear that some Americans in high places are questioning. Sometimes from over here, it seems as if most Americans are going along blindly. Blair may be in lots of trouble once the Hutton report comes out... He's already in trouble with the Labour backbenchers. Who knows? I wonder how well Bush and Brown get along! ;)

[snippy]

various American intelligence experts about how they told Bush there wasn't any evidence of WMDs in Iraq,

They've been lying for a long time, then, because Clinton admitted just last week that he was convinced Saddam had WMDs.

[amokk]

Like that, what, 1998 interview with Clinton about the inspectors where he said Saddam did have WMDs and that something needed to be done about it?

Yeah, this all has been going on longer than 2000 so laying it all as some revenge scheme for Bush I can't ever really pass the test.

I still think if Gore would have become president we'd have invaded Iraq a lot sooner than we did, since there were polls that supported doing it after 9/11, regardless of evidence of any links or not.

[silme.livejournal.com]

Didn't you guys hear the latest reason why there we haven't found anything -- except for what the Danish team just found? It made the front pages here, and the papers really played with those headlines; they had some fun with them. Hussein himself was fooled into thinking there were still WMD ready to activate. Long story -- I could send you the URL.

I don't approve of some things Clinton did either -- and I'm not talking about Monica. :)

[snippy]

I haven't seen any articles about that, but it is something I've wondered about. So yes, please post or email the URL. It would explain so many weird things.

[silme.livejournal.com]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1112467,00.html

[snippy]

That really is a useful theory; it explains both Saddam's bluster and the administration's conviction that there were still viable WMDs to find.

[silme.livejournal.com]

Isn't it? We laughed and laughed. We figured the headline writer had fun. :)

[snippy]

New response because I've found new information--new to me, that is. What do you think of these arguments?

The U.S. Relationship With Saddam--Fantasy vs. Reality

excerpt (links omitted, see original article):

Did we help to arm Saddam? Not really, while some U.S. arms sales were made to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war, U.S. conventional arms sales pale in comparison to those of other countries, particularly those of the U.S.S.R., France and China. Did the U.S. aid Saddam in his unsuccessful attempts to develop nuclear weapons? No, that would be our faithful allies the French. (And, coincidently then-prime minister now French president Jaques Chirac.) Surely then the U.S. must have sold Saddam his chemical weapons right? Sorry, no. There's not much data to suggest that the U.S. knowingly sold any chemical weapons to Saddam although two U.S. companies (one Iraqi owned and both now defunct) apparently did so in violation of U.S. export controls. Indeed, the most recent evidence seems to point to Germany (both East and West) as the main source of Iraqi chemical weapons production and knowledge. Prior reports have tended to focus on the U.S.S.R. as the source of Iraq's chemical weapons.

[...]

How do the U.S. activities vis-à-vis Iraq as exhaustively detailed in the National Security Archive amount to our creating Saddam? Particularly in comparison to those other countries like France, Germany and the U.S.S.R. who actually provided Saddam with significant weaponry? (And whose approval we were supposed to seek prior to removing Saddam.) There is a real world out there beyond the pages of leftist journals and the faculty lounge and that real world sometimes demands that we shake hands with some pretty disagreeable characters. Notice I said "shake hands", not "get into bed." It is simply a huge stretch to suggest that the U.S. relationship with Saddam was special or that Iraq enjoyed a favored position with the U.S. in comparison to some other Middle Eastern countries.

[aussie-nyc.livejournal.com]

If only the other Paul O'Neill would go on 60 Minutes to slag off Steinbrenner...

Seriously, well put. I can't think of anything to add.

[thejunebug.livejournal.com]

But hey, look, we're colonizing Mars! Nothing to see here. Move along.

*laughter* I adore you. Will you marry me?

[unwilly.livejournal.com]

Sadly I disagree.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/unwilly/145330.html

Well, not on the Mars part. I want to go to Mars rather badly, but I see no way NASA can pull it off, or where the money will come from. So, Mars is a big smokescreen, but it is for covering up Bush's domestic crisis, not the foreign one.

[amokk]

And every radio news report I've heard about this also mentions that plans to remove Saddam go back to 1997-1998, with Clinton. It's nothing new.

I don't see why everything always has to be linked back and somehow "proves" that everything is only about "revenge for daddy" and "getting my oil buddies quick cash".

Then again, most ad hominem attacks don't use a lot of proof. ;)