Posted on 08/20/2014 8:45:20 AM PDT by yoe
Obama has turned a victory into a failure. Check it out:
I am constantly amazed at the tendency of some to use the perspective of hindsight to condemn decisions of those who did not possess the supernatural gift of predictive prophecy at the time they made their decisions.
So when a friend asked whether I believe that those who supported George W. Bush’s decision to attack Iraq should feel remorse, considering the chaos and genocide occurring there now, I said “no,” with some qualifications.
I believe that Bush and his team based their decision to invade Iraq on the best available intelligence (as to weapons of mass destruction) and a reasonable belief that Saddam Hussein fostered and supported terrorism — not to mention his serial violation of multiple U.N. resolutions — and thereby represented a threat to the national security interests of the United States and its allies.
Democrats, who initially supported the war for political reasons, later conveniently withdrew their support for political reasons and lied through their teeth about their former support and the facts leading to it. Through their relentless, vicious attacks on Bush, they systematically undermined the public’s confidence in the war and our ability to optimally wage it.
Should the Bush team have better anticipated the strength and resilience of the insurgency after our toppling of Saddam? I suppose so, but in this age of terrorism and asymmetrical war, I’d contend that such events are less predictable than they might have been before.
It is nearly impossible to fight any foreign war with so many fifth columnists firmly entrenched in congress, the media, the courts and, since 2009, the White House.
BS. The end of this was predictable from the beginning. Once Saddam was taken out, civil war in Irag was inevitable. It was a total screw up on the US part. I’m beginning to think the person in charge of US military strategy is Gen. Custer.
There was no victory, only a temporary cessation in the hostilities. Everything that has happened in Iraq since the invasion has been detrimental to the US. What a colossal waste of our troops and our resources.
I think a big mistake Bush made was trying to do victory on the cheap. Rumsfeld had a weird idea that you could just blaze on in, kick butt and get out.
I think we should all assume from here on out that war is more expensive and longer than you think it’s going to be. Also, a war should be an investment in a more or less permanent re-orientation of the relationship with the enemy, and its stabilization. Otherwise, the war is not really over.
Point is, Bush’s miscalculations a few years ago are truly negligible when compared with the effects of Obama’s military decisions.
Bush’s mistake was believing that the Arabs would embrace democracy.
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I disagree. If Bush had any sense, he would not have invaded Iraq in the first place. Anyone with the slightest acquaintance with history could have seen what would happen. It was bound to devolve into an occupation and guerilla war.
It was utter hubris and stupidity, and I’m sick and tired of politicians using the military as pawns in their grandiose dreams to create a New World Order. Every time I see one of those Wounded Warrior Project ads, I get furious all over again. What did these people suffer for? For Wolfowitz’s prediction that Iraq would be a cakewalk and its oil would pay for the whole thing? For some college age kids writing a new constitution for Iraq? Shame on the preening politicians and think-tank losers who led us into this mess. Now ISIS has all the weapons the US left behind. Bin Laden said he wanted to lure the US into the Middle East, and western leaders did exactly as he hoped they would.
Let’s look at the facts. We had forces in Iraq, it was fairly peaceful, Obama took them out, thousands have been murdered, and the worst terrorists since Mohammad himself will control much of Iraq. This is Obama’s fault. Whether or not we should have gone into Iraq doesn’t matter. Obama inherited it, and made it much worse, by design.
I agree. It’s often been said that “He is a dictator. But he’s OUR dictator.” Hussein caused stability in the region for decades. That’s why Bin Laden hated him. Maybe we should think about that saying “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Bin Laden being the enemy and Saddam being our friend.
Postmodernists cannot win wars. We are a postmodernist nation.
Don’t understand Obama’s decisions on Iraq?
In his own book,Obama stated,When the politics get dicey,I will always stand with the muslims
This was a stupid war from the start. The only goal was to remove Saddam and then the policy wonks thought they could remake the place into what they wanted it to be. Hubris. Unfortunately, the American people wanted a war against somebody after 9/11, so they got it. Waging war against a country is not how to go about fighting terrorists scattered all over the world.
And thanks to GWB’s war, thousands of Muslims came into our country as refugees, or as I like to call them, members of the Future Terrorists of America Club. It just amazes me that conservatives thought invading Iraq was a good idea.
“Bush’s mistake was believing that the Arabs would embrace democracy.”
This is the heart of the matter. Too many Americans believe in their hearts that other cultures would be just like us, if only given the chance.
Wilson was the first practitioner of that belief and failed miserably. But that belief gained steam by being seemingly seemed confirmed twice (Germany and Japan). But note, that only worked after overwhelming and unconditional victory. It has been the driving post WWII belief of our ruling class. And it has lead to our obsession with winning just enough to win hearts and minds. In other words, our ruling class missed the lesson from WWII—overwhelming victory leads to changed societies.
The accumulated evidence for that belief in non-western countries is now very weak. It may be that our earlier approach of finding a thug who will be our thug is the best way to protect American interests overseas—at least in the middle east, which appears ungovernable in a Western manner. Viewed that way, our mistake in Iraq was to insufficiently cozy up to Mubarak and Hussein and to withdraw our support from the Shah.
The alternative is overwhelming victory, something I think our ruling class and public would be unwilling to support until things get a lot worse.
“Let’s look at the facts. We had forces in Iraq, it was fairly peaceful, Obama took them out”
Yes and it was Obama who helped the Muslim Brotherhood obtain power in Egypt. The Egyptians were able to get rid of them. In Libya Obama got rid of Ghadaffi(sp)and the country is a mess. The weapons from Libya are now all over the Middle East. It is Obama who is trying to get rid of Assad in Syria and helped train the opponents. As it now turns out some of them are ISIS.
May? I think that horse has left the barn.
Bush was naive in thinking Democracy would flourish with the removal of Saddam. We should have no engaged in Iraq without a plan for protecting the Christian minorities. They need political asylum now.
All Bush did was go after a maniac with WMDs who was a threat to the U.S. homeland.
After that, the democrats politicized the war to death, like they always do. They lied, troops died.
Now we have this nut in the white house who can’t see farther than his next golf game. Taking our troops out of Iraq cleared the way for isis to make their move.
We all reap what the democrats sow.
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