Thursday, February 13, 2014

The One Criticism of Bush by the Progressives that I Actually DO Kind of Agree With

It's the one in which they say that the dude went into Iraq for political reasons. Not that I necessarily see it in quite the same sinister manner obviously but, yes, after 9/11, I do think that Mr. Bush wanted to do something big and, being that he thought that Iraq was going to be an easy undertaking (who, after all, would object to the removal of the one of the top 5-10 biggest killers of the 20th Century?), he figured, "Why the hell not and if it helps me politically (the fact that I'd be looking majorly tough against terrorism, etc.) I am more than OK with it."................................................................................Of course the problem with this line of reasoning is that it was as wrong as wrong could be. a) It wasn't easy in that apparently Mr. Bush didn't realize that Iraq was an ethnically diverse country with ancient scores to settle and zero experience with democracy and that Muslim folks in general just don't like being occupied. And b) there weren't any WMD (though, yes, I do entertain the possibility that some of the weapons were shipped over to Syria) in any regard.......................................................................................Now, this isn't to say that the deposing of Saddam was necessarily an incorrect thing to do (his counterbalancing of Iran, notwithstanding); his genocidal actions against the Kurds alone being sufficient. But you gotta be at least a little bit smart about it  the thing. The fact that the Bush administration totally de-Baathified the government and disbanded the military represented to me a huge lack of understanding of the region and a strategy the likes of which we've never really recovered from.......So, yeah, at least in this situation, Obama WAS given a lousy hand.

9 comments:

dmarks said...

A sound argument, other than (B) which I would amend to no new WMD, considering the piles of WMD actually found.

Not sure how much I agree with the the overall idea, but it is well argued. Politics drives so much.

Marcus said...

Will: We discussed this at some length..."Dubya" rec'd sketchy intelligence from the CIA. Foreign intelligence from France, Germany et.al. warned us the intelligence was fatally flawed. BushII had one source of intelligence that is consistently overlooked by critics...BushI. BushI knew we had supplied Iraq along with some European nations, dual purpose chemicals that could be used to create WMD. BushI also knew the USA tacitly backed Saddam with military hardware and lots of money as a counterbalance to Iran. I speculate BushII's decisions were manifestly influenced by what I stated

dmarks said...

By the way, my blog is back:

http://inaholdingpattern.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-truth-about-dervish.html

BB-Idaho said...

Murky beginnings; Hussain at one time was the enemy of our enemy .

BB-Idaho said...

"..Politics drives so much."
Indeed, and perhaps best exemplified by the White House Iraq group..chaired by Karl Rove.
"One example of the WHIG's functions and influence is the "escalation of rhetoric about the danger that Iraq posed to the U.S., including the introduction of the term 'mushroom cloud'".
A lot of people bought it.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Thank you, Marcus. I was going to mention that (and credit you) but was waiting to see if you would do it on your own. It's a very valid point and while it doesn't necessarily let President Bush off the hook, it underscores some of that murkiness mentioned by BB.............As you can probably tell, dmarks, my view on the Iraq War has modified somewhat. I've gone from being completely against it to now recognizing that Saddam in fact did have to go but that it would have been far better to have worked within the existing political framework (cutting a deal with Tariq Aziz and some of those individuals). That way we could have gotten rid of one of the worst war criminals in human history AND retained that counterweight against Iran (I'm basically pissing off both sides, in other words).

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

dmarks, how do I become an invited reader?

dmarks said...

Will, I sent the invitation to the email address you use.... You and a bunch of others got invited.

dmarks said...

Marcus said: ".."Dubya..."

Reading that in a serious comment is like reading something about Bill Clinton that starts out mentioning "Slick Willy":