I want the US to lose the war in Iraq

http://www.newamericancentury.org/russia-20040928.htm

this one's good

Quote:

As citizens of the Euro-Atlantic community of democracies ...

who?

Looks like Putin's in their sights now.

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O.K., so far, i've advanced my anything but humble opinion that the exit strategy articulated by McG is unworkable because it is very likely that the Sunni Arabs will pull out of the election. And i've recognized that he has articulated in simple terms the basic formula for stability in the Iraqi polity, cooperation among the majority of the members of three groups--the Shi'ites, the Sunni Arabs and the Sunni Kurds.

I've also stated that it is my firm belief that this war has been very badly mismanaged in terms of the allocation of forces and from logistical ineptitude, which i have stated i believe to be a product of the incompetence of the Secretary of Defense, and perpetuated by his pig-headed refusal to acknowledge errors or recast his plan.

And, finally, i've stated something i've been saying for almost two years: that this is an illegal war, for which the special pleading of proximate threat of the use of W'soMD and involvement in the attacks on the World Trade Center were knowingly disingenuous contentions (not to say lies, which, of course, i've already said), diverting attention from the real causus belli, the furtherance of the PNAC agenda.

That's where i stand on this, and much of what i've said here today i've said, literally, for years.

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Revel, that wouldn't make it any less of an 'act of aggression' to shoot at our planes... but let's not quibble.

McGentrix wrote:

I am asking you to explain why you believe the US invaded Iraq.

Most other people, I wouldn't care because I know they'd say "Bush just wanted to get Iraq's oil" or "Cheney knew Haliburton needed money" or "Saddam threatened Bush's daddy".

But, I know you have a studied, well informed brain that sees beyond the kiddie pool of conspiracy theories into the deep end of the history pool.

What reasons will the historians give for the US invasion of Iraq?

I be interested in hearing this answer too.

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Read UP, O'Bill . . .

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Multi-Tasking, thanks!

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During the 1896 Republican National Convention, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (desparate to save his political career) and Henry Cabot Lodge made nice with the party bosses, and then went out and stumped hard for William McKinley. Lodge's reward was appointment to the Senate. Teddy expected something, too, and was just aching to get the job of Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Both McKinley and his handler, Marcus Hanna, were opposed to that appointment on the grounds that Roosevelt would start a war.

After McKinely was elected, Roosevelt called in enough markers, and pushed and cajoled enough to get the job. He, along with Lodge and many others favored an aggressive American foreign policy, and war with Spain or Japan, whichever would prove most convenient. One of their supporters was Captain Leonard Wood, a veteran of the Apache wars, and the President's personal physician.

McKinley would look at Wood on many days, and then inquire:

"Well, Leonard, have you and Theodore declared war yet?"

Wood would reply to the effect: "No, Mr. President, but we are hoping you will soon."

McKinley's memory can at least be viewed as honorable, in that he opposed war, and held out until he could no longer avoid it. Roosevelt got his war, and it only took him a little over a year.

Hmmm . . . now what could have brought that to mind?

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DrewDad wrote:

I suspect Asherman's take is closest to the truth: an attempt to set up a friendly, secular state in the Middle East. There could be numerous benefits - oil, military bases, terrorist flypaper, building contracts, etc.

This true goal did not match the stated goal, however.

And the administration was blinded by the idea of a short, victorious war.

Hmmm - the goal, according to Karen Kwiatkowski* in her article "The New Pentagon Papers" (these appear to be available withut paying here : http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/03/10/osp_moveon/ - yes, I know it is Move.on - and Salon is left-leaning - but her story is very interesting - and wortth reading, I think - especially re the distortion of intelligence to political agenda,- she believes it was distorted, rather than wrong - but anyhoo - here is what she said on the matter of why Iraq was invaded):

War is generally crafted and pursued for political reasons, but the reasons given to the Congress and to the American people for this one were inaccurate and so misleading as to be false. Moreover, they were false by design. Certainly, the neoconservatives never bothered to sell the rest of the country on the real reasons for occupation of Iraq -- more bases from which to flex U.S. muscle with Syria and Iran, and better positioning for the inevitable fall of the regional ruling sheikdoms. Maintaining OPEC on a dollar track and not a euro and fulfilling a half-baked imperial vision also played a role. These more accurate reasons for invading and occupying could have been argued on their merits -- an angry and aggressive U.S. population might indeed have supported the war and occupation for those reasons. But Americans didn't get the chance for an honest debate.

Here's her bio - btw.
[*Karen Kwiatkowski
From Disinfopedia
Karen Kwiatkowski, a specialist on the Middle East and "a recently retired USAF lieutenant colonel, who spent her final four and a half years in uniform working at the Pentagon," worked "from May 2002 through February 2003 in the office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Near East/South Asia and Special Plans" at the Department of Defense. [1] (http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski29.html) [2] (http://216.109.117.135/search/cache?p=+Karen+Kwiatkowski&ei=UTF-8&url=5M5K8Lo42LcJ:www.azstarnet.com/star/Sun/30803kwiatkowski.html) Since retiring, she has become a noted critic of the U.S. government's involvement in Iraq.

[edit]Biography
Colonel Kwiatkowski has an MA in Government from Harvard and a MS in Science Management from the University of Alaska. She is currently candidate for a PhD in World Politics at Catholic University; her thesis is on overt and covert war in Angola, titled A Case Study of the Implementation of the Reagan Doctrine.

She began her military career in 1978. As a second lieutenant, she served at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska, providing logistical support to missions along the Chinese and Russian coasts. She served in Spain and Italy, and was then assigned to the National Security Agency, eventually becoming a speechwriter for the agency's director. After leaving the NSA, she became an an analyst on sub-Saharan Africa policy for the Pentagon. From May, 2002 to February, 2003, she served in the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia directorate (NESA).[3] (http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2004/9/21Kwiatkowski.html) While at NESA, she wrote a series of anonymous articles, "Insider Notes from the Pentagon", that appeared on the website of David Hackworth.[4] (http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski28.html)

Kwiatkowski left NESA in February, 2003 and retired from the Air Force the following month. In April, 2003, she began writing a series of articles for the libertarian website LewRockwell.com. In June of that year, she published an article in the Ohio Beacon Journal, "Career Officer Does Eye-Opening Stint Inside Pentagon" [5] (http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Kwiatkowski-Pentagon-Kinght-Ridder31jul03.htm), which attracted additional notice. Since February, 2004, she has written a biweekly column, "Without Reservations", for the website Military Week.

Colonel Kwiatkowski is primarily noted for openly and publicly denouncing what she sees as a corrupting political influence on the course of military intelligence leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Her most comprehensive writings on this subject appeared in a series of articles in The American Conservative magazine in December, 2003 and in a March, 2004 article on Salon.com. In the latter piece, titled "The New Pentagon Papers", she wrote:

I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president.
Kwiatkowski exposed how a clique of officers led by retired Navy Captain Bill Luti, assistant secretary of defense for NESA, and former aid of Dick Cheney when the later was Secretary of Defense, took control of the military intelligence, and how the "Office of Special Plans" (OSP) grew and eventually turned into a censorship and disinformation organism controlling the NESA.[6] (http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0310-09.htm)

Following the American Conservative and Salon articles, Kwiatkowski began to receive criticism from several conservative sources that supported President Bush's policies. Michael Rubin of the National Review argued that she had exaggerated her knowledge of the OSP's workings and that she had ties to Lyndon LaRouche[7] (http://www.nationalreview.com/rubin/rubin200405180836.asp). U.S. Senator John Kyl criticized her in a speech on the Senate floor [8] (http://rpc.senate.gov/_files/iraq%20pentagon%20csis%20speech.pdf). On a Fox News program, host John Gibson and former Republican National Committee communications director Clifford May described her as an anarchist[9] (http://www.defenddemocracy.org/in_the_media/in_the_media_show.htm?doc_id=215712). Kwiatkowski responded, saying, among other points, that she had never supported or dealt with LaRouche [10] (http://www.nathancallahan.com/kwiatletter.html).

In addition to her writings, Colonel Kwiatkowski has appeared as a commentator in the documentaries Hijacking Catastrophe and Honor Betrayed. She has been a registered member of the U.S. Libertarian Party since 1994 and spoke at the party's national convention in 2004.[11] (http://www.lp.org/lpnews/0406/convention-speaker.html) She currently lives with her family in the Shenandoah Valley and works part-time as a farmer. ]
]

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ehBeth wrote:

http://www.newamericancentury.org/russia-20040928.htm

this one's good

Quote:
As citizens of the Euro-Atlantic community of democracies ...

who?

Looks like Putin's in their sights now.

That's a most interesting link and letter, one that I'd agree with, too. If that's where the Bush foreign policy is going, more power to it.

But although it's (reproduced?) on the PNAC website I have trouble believing it is a PNAC letter - I mean, considering some of the signatories!

There's Madeleine Albright, Joe Biden, Richard C. Holbrooke and Ivo Daalder (former Howard Dean advisor); there's Massimo D'Alema (leader of the Italian postcommunist party), Cem Ozdemir (prominent German Green MP), Glenys Kinnock (MEP for the British Labour Party and wife of its former leader, back when it wasnt "New" yet), Timothy Garton Ash (champion of Central-European liberalism), Bronislaw Geremek and Adam Michnik, Polish social-liberals, Vaclav Havel ...

A most amazing list of signatories by the way - it includes a veritable who's who of the intellectual elite of Central and Eastern Europe! <bows>

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The PNAC website puts some recent/current events into an interesting context. Worth poking around in.

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Oh I am. I am. Have been for a while now.

Man, those things bear watching.

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When Putin began jailing people who spoke out against him, a lot of people took notice. I think it's a good thing--and an undeniably strong gesture of repudiation to Putin--that it was written.

Does anyone here disagree with the content? With the message?

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I would imagine that Putin could care a less about getting a letter from a group in the US.

Using words like, "soon return to a democratic and pro-Western path" to me just seems a little high blown. It reminds me of sermons, "return to the straight and narrow path of righteousness.."

He is troublesome if what you say is true and I have no reason to doubt it.

What I am wondering is why Bush didn't see how troublesome Putin was when he was looking into his soul.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6729524/site/newsweek/

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Revel--

Maybe you should look at the signatories.

It was signed by a very diverse group of people in positions of power and influence around the world.

And, it means much more than it said.

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revel wrote:

I would imagine that Putin could care a less about getting a letter from a group in the US.

Have you looked at the signatories at all, Revel? (Or at my post above, for that matter?) Ex-president of the Czech Republic, Ex-president and Speaker of Parliament of Lithuania, former Swedish Prime Minister and UN envoy to the Balkans, former Danish Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, former Estonian Prime Minister, Italian opposition leader, former Polish minister of Foreign Affairs, former Estonian Foreign Minister, co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières and former French Health Minister, chief editor of the most important Polish newspaper, former Slovak ambassador, several current and former Members of European Parliament and a host of prominent writers and academics (representing mostly the "'89 generation") ... doesnt sound like just "a group in the US" to me ...

It's kinda impressive also because its such a cross-representation of the political spectre - Kouchner, D'Alema are socialists (former communists in fact), Ozdemir is a Green, but on the other hand there's Bildt and Landsbergis, who are strident conservatives, Laar is a conservative too ... and there's a bunch of liberals (both left- and right-leaning) in between.

revel wrote:

Using words like, "soon return to a democratic and pro-Western path" to me just seems a little high blown. It reminds me of sermons, "return to the straight and narrow path of righteousness.."

Thats what you get with open letters by an international range of diplomats and politicians - its gotta be diplomatic. A Moveon.org type flaming appeal wont do much good here.

revel wrote:

What I am wondering is why Bush didn't see how troublesome Putin was when he was looking into his soul.

Good point.

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if those people signed a letter in the project for a new american century and align themselves with people like wolfowitz and cheney then that to me says it all about their credibilty regardless of who they are or where they are from.

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Well, even a broken clock is right every twelve hours.

Putin has been worrying the hell out of anyone who has been watching him for a long time - that is why all that silly soul crap was more than just pathetic and ridiculous.

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revel wrote:

if those people signed a letter in the project for a new american century and align themselves with people like wolfowitz and cheney then that to me says it all about their credibilty regardless of who they are or where they are from.

Perhaps you need to read the document AND research who those people are. I can't believe Nimh's take isn't sufficient for you to reassess your stance. Your "Blame America First" inclination is totally inappropriate here. Laughably so.

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revel wrote:

if those people signed a letter in the project for a new american century and align themselves with people like wolfowitz and cheney then that to me says it all about their credibilty regardless of who they are or where they are from.

Thats as shameful a thing as I've heard your average conservative poster on this board say. It's definitely as stupid as any conservative's "if they're supported by Soros I dont need to know none about 'em, they must be wrong."

This list includes dissidents who fought against communist totalitarianism and had to pay for it dearly. They include some of the cream of the crop of Central Europe's writers, intellectuals. They also include "Old Europe" socialists, greens, liberals. They include men who served in high positions in UN operations in Bosnia, Kosovo. And you don't give a ****? You don't care whom all these Europeans are, what their backgrounds are, their motivations, their expertise - not even what their actual point was, in this letter? All you give a whit about is how they fit into the petty black-and-white schemes of your domestic politics, as if nothing in the world beyond that matters?

I've often railed at the conservatives here with their French-baiting and stereotyped contempt for all things European. But liberals, as you aptly prove, can apparently be just as prone to a narrow-minded indifference to anything beyond the tribalities of their own domestic politics - to pride, even, of their ignorance of any such thing. Phooey.

(Not to mention the whole thing being completely irrelevent, seeing how we'd already concluded here that it was probably not actually a PNAC letter, just a letter the PNAC chose to reproduce on its site...)

<shakes head>

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Er - I have to say it - "what he said".....

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Talking the revel's 'logic' , nimh criticised IMHO very correctly, I could change my views about Wolfowitz and Cheney ... when they join such an illustre cadre .....

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I want the US to lose the war in Iraq

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