"Rewriting history is a detestable practice, the War in Iraq is all Bill Clinton's fault anyhow."
Hey, Bob, can I call you Bob? I'll be happy to buy you an M-16, a box of ammo and a plane ticket to Baghdad, like many of our soldiers over there you're on your own for Body Armor. Once you land, you're on your own though. I hear the cab ride from the airport is an unqualified bitch. While enroute to the Green Zone, please reflect on how the improved Islamic Republic of Iraq will be a better ally to the US, as well as being less repressive than Saddam and more open to Western Influence.
A one-thousand word essay on the inclusion of the new governments acceptance of Womens Rights, the rights of its minority citizens who practice a different form of Islam and the benefits of Sharia Law for poorly educated citizens would be nice.
I guess that it would be really, really nice to hear from you, one of the "leading thinkers" in US Foreign Policy why after decades of the US supporting dictators globally, including Saddam Hussein, it became necessary to go to war in Iraq and overthrow him. Are we targeting Islam Karmiov next, he's a putative "ally", but also a "really bad man" in the mold of Saddam, boils opponents alive, I hear. Or why, in our own hemisphere did we not invade Chile, Pinochet was a "really bad man" too...
On September 11, 1973, the military, led by Pinochet, stormed the presidential palace and seized power from president Allende, who was found dead soon after. A junta headed by Pinochet was established, which immediately suspended the constitution, dissolved Congress, imposed strict censorship, proscribed the leftist parties that had constituted Allende's Popular Unity coalition, and halted all political activity. In addition, it embarked on a campaign of terror against leftist elements in the country. As a result, approximately 3,000 Chileans were executed or disappeared, more than 27,000[2] were imprisoned or tortured, and many were exiled and received abroad as political refugees.
In fact our government has been broadly implicated in the downfall of Allende and the support of Pinochet, so how do you rewrite our history of those events to make up for the relative "badness" of Saddam and the "goodness" of Pinochet. Others? Ferdinand Marcos and Mobutu Sese Seko are just a few examples.
But bottom line, and your buddy the Once-and-Future Alcoholic spilled it the other day was Oil. It was always about the oil. In your fevered Neo-Con dreams, you envisioned a walk-through because you figured the brown folk wouldn't fight, they laid down for the first invasion, there was no reason to think differently this time. A closer reading of their history Bob would have shown that occupations there have not been successful, and never would be, certainly by a non-Arabic speaking mass of "infidels" no matter how noble their intent.
It's one thing to show up with a gun, and another to show up with a gun, a reason and a plan. The 1600 Crew did the former, eschewing the latter because all the Chickenhawks were convinced that in a land they didn't understand, a gun could rule and a plan could follow and no reason had to be given.
Nice job. Enjoy the ride from the airport.
posted by Jo Fish on 09.12.05 at 12:56 PM
Comments:
The most lamentable aspect of this is that America's leading thinkers on foreign policy are people like Robert Kagan.
And to have the temerity to compare himself and his neo-cronies to Pericles.
He even uses the standard Rovewellian trick: accuse your opponents of rewriting history even as you rewrite it yourself.
To answer your rhetorical questions, Pinochet et al. never invaded their neighbors (Saddam did-twice) and never used WMD against them (Saddam gassed Iranians and Kurds and admitted to having 8,000 litres of VX gas at the end of the first Gulf War).
Saddam was a Hitler-in-waiting, waiting for the wimpy UN to finally give up on enforcing its own resolutions. He was waiting for the Loony Left in the US to gain power so the nation would lose its spine. ...
... and Saddam's thuggish sons, by all measures more cruel and sadistic than he, were waiting for Saddam to die so they could take power.
posted by: bean on 09.12.05 at 02:29 PM [permalink]
Bean, let's face facts. It was your beloved party that prepped up these jerks, including Saddam. Don't give "We're there freeing people" crap as that was NEVER a reason given for invasion. It was a, so far, failed attempt to control mideast oil. It has always been about oil. And just why don't the Arabs like us? It sure wasn't because of me personally. I suspect it had alot more to do with American big business and American policy supporting American big business. Can you point to any other Americans that could have caused this rift? (In your answer please keep it to people they actually had contact with....)
Pinochet------let's see an American citizen was assassinated in D.C. by Chilean thugs and General Rene Schneider, who resisted the coup and Pinochet, was assassinated, I believe, in Argentina. Seems to violate basic understandings of sovereignty and international law. A thug is a thug. I thought we were in Iraq to promote democracy. Get it straight!!!!!!
posted by: Mike in Fresno on 09.12.05 at 09:16 PM [permalink]
