The headline speaks for itself:
Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat
WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.
The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.
The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.
An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.
The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” said one American intelligence official.
To use the knuckle-chewing language that permeates rightwing commentary I could say that people who rooted for the Iraq war were rooting for America to lose in the war on terror. But I am not that stupid. I think that people who supported the Iraq war supported it for any of a thousand reasons, most of them perfectly well-intentioned. Some beileved in the 9/11 connection, not necessarily through any fault of their own but rather the intentionally manipulative language of Dick Cheney and similarly derelict leaders. Many bought the threat argument and some believed that invading Iraq very well could make the middle east a safer, freer place.
Those are fine motives. People who genuinely believed any of those things have every reason to feel disappointed and not, a priori, blame themselves for what has happened. In all seriousness nobody could have anticipated an operation as feckless and self-gratifyingly incompetent as Rumsfeld’s occupation authority. Recent books such as George Packer’s excellent and non-partisan Assassin’s Gate describe a vacuum of leadership that makes the most jaded cynic feel inadequate.
However, and despite every repulsive slur tossed at opponents of the Iraq war, most of us opposed the war because we felt that it would distract from the more pressing threat. When Iraq preparations started America had not yet finished its engagement with active elements of the people who attacked us, as shown by the reassignment of bin Laden’s personal Special Forces team to Iraq and his escape from Tora Bora. Some have called the new war a violation of international law, an intentional act of deception, whatever. I call it doing a half-assed job.
The people who called Iraq war opponents objectively pro-terrorist, anti-semitic (that came up frequently vis a vis the neocons), pro-Saddam and anti-American have not stopped and likely never will. Call it a voluntary stupid badge. Most who opposed the war did so because we thought that precisely what did happen, could happen, and in that case at least it gives me no pleasure whatsoever to be right.
Proud Liberal
Great post Tim and I too take no delight in being “right” about the Iraq war. The whole purpose of terrorism is to make the other side overreat and thereby get more people on your side as a result. Lets face it, Bin Laden so outsmarted Bush. The war in Iraq was the best thing we could have done for al Qaeda.
I am tempted to list all the bad things that have resulted from our invading Iraq but there really is no point. Those of us that know what a huge strategic blunder this war has been are well familiar with the disasterous consequences and those that are still big supporters of the Iraq disaster like MacBuckets will be unmoved by another recitation of what is becoming clearer ever day that passes.
History will not be kind to the boy president and his neocon advisers.
Carl
Go look up the chronology of these two events, please.
Tim F.
Timeline? Sure.
Iraq ate the hunt for bin Laden. If you seriously want to debate the historical record, go to town. It’s your credibility.
Mike
However, and despite every repulsive slur tossed at opponents of the Iraq war, most of us opposed the war because we felt that it would distract from the more pressing threat.
That’s exactly what always drove me crazy about the pro-war crowd. They simply refused to address the fact that the Iraq war would be a huge distraction from the fight against Al Qaeda. Instead, we got lectures from liberal hawks like Joe Lieberman and Peter Beinart and Tom Friedman about what a bad guy Saddam was and how we could transform the middle east and how we had to be serious about “The War”.
And for all their warnings against cutting and running from Iraq, they never seem bothered by Bush’s attempts to declare victory in Afghanistan and pull our few troops from that front.
Carl
A little more slowly, then.
The group hunting bin Laden in Afghanistan left in the fall of 2002. And bin Laden escaped Tora Bora for Pakistan when?
Or maybe we should just have sent the special ground forces directly into Pakistan. I’m sure Pakistan wouldn’t have minded. Heck, bring the tanks, too.
capelza
Tim, well done…
But did you mean to tag this with “War on Drugs”?
Though someone is obviously on drugs, or perhaps should be, am I missing something?
Carl
And Mike, speaking of historical revisionism, look up the troop numbers in Afghanistan. When did they drop drastically?
Start here.
Pb
Why the hell would Bush care about that, especially after 9/11? Remember that bit about how “if you harbor a terrorist, you are just as guilty as the terrorist”? We invaded Iraq instead, and we weren’t even going after bin Laden then.
Mike
Or maybe we should just have sent the special ground forces directly into Pakistan. I’m sure Pakistan wouldn’t have minded.
Isn’t that exactly what we did in Afghanistan, Carl? The Taliban was given notice that they’d be targeted if they protected bin Laden. They decided to protect him. That’s why we bombed their country and drove them from power.
Bush gave the world a strong and justifiable declaration that harboring Al Qaeda would result in war with the United States. Unfortunately, he wasn’t serious.
Carl
Okay, I see. A war with Pakistan would be okay, but not one with Iraq. For sure, an invasion of Pakistan would not have increased the anger of Islamists around the world.
Tim F.
Um, Pakistan certainly did grant the US hot pursuit rights for the purposes of hunting bin Laden. Even after the recent “truce” with the Taliban Pakistan reaffirmed that pledge. Thus making this:
…an uninformed appeal to incredulity.
Tim F.
BTW, let’s keep in mind that Carl undoubtedly plans to run this scarcely relevant sidetrack into the tens of comments.
So Carl, how do you feel knowing that multiple US agencies have concluded that Iraq set back the war on terror dramatically?
Pb
Carl,
It’s called “going after bin Laden”. You know, that thing Bush said he was going to do? “Dead or alive” ring a bell? Little did we know at the time that his master plan was to wait for Osama to get sick or die of old age.
Carl
“hot pursuit” has an exact meaning. The special forces left Afghanistan months after bin Laden’s escape, and you have no idea how far they went into Pakistan before that. We are still using drones in Pakistan airspace, but I doubt there are significant numbers of troops sneaking around over there.
BTW, what was the reaction on the left to that missile attack from a drone on a terrorist safe house in Pakistan?
Mike
And Mike, speaking of historical revisionism, look up the troop numbers in Afghanistan. When did they drop drastically?
The Bush administration has been trying to get NATO to take over Afghan operations for the last 3 years so that it can redeploy troops away from there to Iraq. The fact that they haven’t been able to isn’t for lack of trying.
It’s also noticeable that they’ve only ever committed a fraction of the troops to Afghanistan than they’ve had in Iraq.
Here are a few references
Rumsfeld: U.S. wants NATO to take over in Afghanistan (12/01/03) (AP)
Rumsfeld first floated the idea of having NATO taking over all military operations in Afghanistan in December, but until now it has remained in the background while NATO struggled to expand its Afghan peacekeeping effort. (10/13/04, AFP)
Rumsfeld acknowledged plans to reduce the number of American forces stationed in Afghanistan next year (9/22/05)
The planned withdrawal of around 2500 U.S. soldiers from Afghanistan is possible owing to the increased role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), said US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday. (12/22/05)
Carl
Don’t know. Only information we have is parts of a classified document filtered through anonymous officials and news writers with a large axe to grind. That’s the beauty of a classified leak…nobody can come back with a real response.
I suspect it’s more about stretching our limited resources than the response of the Islamists, but I’d like to see more.
I’m sure the Middle East would be calm and peaceful forever if Saddam were still in power, and his enemies in Iran were building atomic bombs. Too bad Bush wasn’t smart enough to kick the can down the road like his predecessors did.
Mike
Okay, I see. A war with Pakistan would be okay, but not one with Iraq.
A war with any country harboring Al Qaeda would be okay with me. Iraq was never in that category and the war on Iraq took away from the fight against the real enemy. (Which is pretty much Tim’s original point.)
clarke
Assuming Carl’s arguing in good faith and not getting paid for this dreck, it’s kinda sweet how he actually believes those talking points. I mean, Jesus, even the people who coined them know perfectly well we’re in an unwinnable, counterproductive cluster-eff.
Oh, and also? Whoever came up with the kick-the-can analogy obviously doesn’t know how it’s played.
VidaLoca
Fixed that one for you.
Proud Liberal
Carl… an amazing post. How many things can you get wrong in one post I don’t know but you must have set the record with that one. A few points:
.
hmmm… well, I guess we can expect that response. The LIBERAL media once again. The same paper of Judy Miller is twisting and selecting facts because they have an axe to grind. Lol.. ok. But… not that this will matter to you:
Carl once again:
No.. its not about “stetched resources” its about:
but, I know.. you want to read more.
More Carl:
actually, yeah. At least we would have 2,700 Americans alive that are now dead and another 20,000 without horrible disfiguring injuries. Do they matter to you at all Carl?
Carl yet again:
huh? how many more nuclear bombs have been built by North Korea since the Decider took power? Kick the can? Bush has perfected that. He even admitted that “future Presidents” will have to deal with Iraq.
Ok, one question, Carl you ARE Darrell right?
Darrell
How about the Afghanistan war? By the logic presented in that article, that war should have resulted in an increase in terrorism too. Both Afghanistan and Iraq had murderously oppressive governments which supported terrorism, so it stands to reason that the war in Afghanistan also helped create jihadists, right?
Can’t have it both ways, no matter how hard so many of you try.
Pb
I’m sure it did, but that’s not the question. The question is, did it worsen the terrorism threat. Jihadists are created, jihadists are killed, jihadists are displaced. Wars can help or hinder at different points in time.
Darrell, unfortunately the world is just not as simple as you are.
Tim F.
Your “logic” requires that Afghanistan be exactly the same as Iraq. Do you really believe that? I doubt it.
Darrell
Well, actions do speak louder than words. Remember the tens of thousands who protested in the streets with signs saying “America is real terrorist” and similar messages?
Just as many who supported the Iraq war did so with good intentions, many who opposed the war are not as honorable and patriotic as they claim to be.
Tim F.
I have never seen anybody get so flibbertigibbet about a protest sign. Rightwing protesters often hold up insane signs as well. That proves…that crazy people sometimes get ahold of posterboard and magic markers. And, gosh wouldn’t you know it, photographers often select the most extreme signs to get the maximum effect. I’m sure you know all this. And yet somehow these nobodies with signs manage to practically paralyze you with rage. Odd.
Darrell
My logic most definitely does NOT require that Afghanistan be exactly the same as Iraq for my point to be valid. How honest of you to suggest otherwise.
Carl
Vidaloca: The use of the plural of predecessors was not an accident. Reagan didn’t cover himself with glory in Lebanon either.
P.L. Tell ya what, can we get off Judith Miller and discuss the hundreds of OTHER people working for the NYT?
No, they aren’t the same. Afghanistan was ruled by the Islamist radical Taliban, and a strong sponsor and ally of al Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups. Iraq was ruled by a secular dictator who, according to every liberal I’ve talked to, was a mortal enemy of bin Laden and al Qaeda.
Now, “logically,” invading which country should have pissed off al Qaeda more? Or maybe that “mortal enemy” premise needs some work. If we hadn’t invaded Iraq, and just filled Islamic Afghanistan with American troops, you think Zarqawi and the others would have retired to go fishing? What would Iran be doing differently right now?
Darrell
Nothing remotely compared to the large scale moonbattery at leftist anti-war protests (often with thousands): “Bush = Hitler”, “America is the real terrorist”, “no blood for oil”, “Bush is a war criminal”, etc, etc, etc. Not even a close comparison. But thanks for playing!
ThymeZone
So do political tricksters. I’d figure that anyone holding a “Bush = Hitler” sign was working for Bush until it was proven otherwise.
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
The truth, of course, is often different from the way liberals portray it. Saddam WAS harboring terrorists. Zarqawi was in Iraq long before the war started, and Saddam had numerous contacts with him. Saddam had a link with Bin Laden, however murky it may seem to those “reality-based community” members unwilling to open their eyes and lend it credence.
If “Stupid” is the answer, “Liberal” was probably the question.
Yeah, they’d be fishing. Fishing for WMDs, in all likelihood.
Collaborating with Saddam on supplying Zarqawi with WMDs, I’d imagine. Our enemies hate us. Iran hates us even more than they hated Saddam, and they’ll stop at nothing to harm us.
One way or another, we’ve got to take Iran out of the picture.
capelza
Sigh…the break was nice, but I see it’s over…I think I’ll go bake a cake…
Cake or death?
Carl
I seriously doubt that. But as I pointed out earlier, with Iran pursuing WMD, and Saddam next door, “stability” was not in the cards.
Proud Liberal
the governement in afghanistan assited those that attacked up. Iraq had done nothign to us. One difference of many
EL
Here’s an interesting essay from the Christian Science Monitor, March of 2003. The author warns of how Muslims would react to an invasion of Iraq. From what I read at the time, many Muslims accepted that the Taliban had it coming, and that the US was justified in invading Afghanistan. When we invaded Iraq, they saw it as unjustified, and as proof we were after Muslims, period.
Darrell
Well, not withstanding that Iraq’s leader tried to assasinate a sitting US President and was violating it’s terms of surrender, how does that difference help answer this point:
The topic of this thread is that the invasion of Iraq ‘created’ more jihadists.. So it’s fair to point out that our actions in Afghanistan (which many antiwar leftists claim to support) must have similarly ‘created’ jihadists as well.
Pb
They might have a point there. But should we wait for a trial, or just waterboard him until he confesses?
EL
Carl, I think you’re missing the point. It’s not what pissed off al Qaeda, which was our sworn enemy no matter what. It’s what “pissed off” other Muslims who weren’t terribly interested in joining al Qaeda before the US invaded Iraq.
Now they are.
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
We’ll never know, and we’ll never have to know. Bush took Saddam out, and he’ll take out Iran next. Removing Iran from the cards will stabilize Iraq, remove a dangerous financier of international terrorism and WMD development, and bring the concepts of liberty and democracy to a nation which has known only repression and fear, whether it came couched as Islamic fundamentalism, royalist Fascism under the Shah, or Communist statism under Mossadegh.
We owe it to the people of Iran to liberate them. And we owe it to ourselves and to the principles which make America great. The same reasons for which we can never cut and run from Iraq, impel us to the liberation of Iran. Either we free Iran from tyranny, ending its threat of arming terrorists with WMDs; or we recede into the dustbin of history as swarms of terrorist insects sting us to death by a thousand cuts.
ThymeZone
Probably. So what? Unless you have some empirical evidence or references from history that a diffuse and loosely connected population of terrorists can be effectively deterred by waging wars of opportunity in foreign lands, there’s no reason not to think that your hypothetical unwanted consequence is not a good possibility, if not a liklihood. Is there?
Bruce Moomaw
May I point out that the strongest argument against the Iraqa War — which was initially justified using trumped-up evidence that Iraq was about to become a dangerous nuclear power — is that it has very seriously interfered with our ability to stop a REAL dangerous imminent nuclear power, namely Iran? But don’t take my word for it. Consider the words of that noted pinko Stanley Kurtz over at National Review:
“On the one hand, we are faced with a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, nuclear blackmail and terrorist chaos at the heart of the world’s Persian Gulf oil supply, and terrorist-planted nuclear weapons in America’s cities. On the other hand, we can choose an economically disruptive war with Iran that will alienate us from the world, push us to and beyond our military limits, and that even then may not even succeed. The by now stock phrase, ‘there are no good options’ doesn’t quite do justice to the awful choice we face.” Of course, we wouldn’t be in remotely as much danger of being “pushed to and beyond our military limits” if we hadn’t deliberately tied up the majority of our military in the Iraq snipe hunt, and a war against Iran wouldn’t “alienate us from the world” nearly as much if we hadn’t gotten caught red-handed lying our way into our last war. Which may, just possibly, explain why such noted radicals and peaceniks as George Will and Fareed Zakaria are beginning to use such rude terms as “deranged” and “obsessively delusional” to describe this administration’s attitude toward both the Iraq War and the general War On Megaterrorism.
Darrell
Got a cite/link for that Bruce? Because that quotation you posted looks doctored/forged.. Fake but accurate?
Carl
EL:
Okay, I’m really trying to follow this:
These “other Muslims” didn’t like Afghanistan, home of al Qaeda, and wouldn’t have minded our occupation of that country, but they loved Iraq, enemy of al Qaeda, and so they got really mad when Saddam was taken out and decided to join al Qaeda?
As an aside, the “we can’t deal with Iran because we’re tied up in Iraq” meme doesn’t work too well either if you follow it to its logical conclusion, unless you think that somehow invading Iran would be a “cakewalk,” that all the people would have hailed us as liberators, that there would be no insurgency and IEDs in Iran, that there would have been no “quagmire” in Iran, and that, of course, invading Iran would not have created more terrorists.
You people are tied in logical knots. The only really consistent position along these lines is to say that no Muslim nation should have been attacked in response to 9/11 for fear of inflaming the Muslim world.
Carl
Darrell:
There’s no fraud by Bruce. The Kurtz quote was just badly called out. If you look, you can see where the quote marks end at “awful choice we face.” He should have thrown a line feed in there.
Proud Liberal
Carl straining to understand the very simple:
let me try to explain. There are over a BILLION muslims. Very very few of them are extreme radicals like OBL. The were agaisnt what OBL did. They saw that as an act of war. They saw America going into Afghanistan to go after the people that bombed us as justified. As rational. So.. our war in Afghanistan should not have created any more enemies that we already had.
now… contrast that with Iraq. yes, everyone agrees that Saddam was a bad boy but he had NO justification to go into a Muslim country to exert Regime Change. They had NOT attacked us. There was NO WMD. They were NOT a threat to us. Ergo.. the invasion is viewed by the Arab world as being unjustified. This will cause some.. repeat some.. to be so mad as to wish to strap a bomb on their back and blow us up. They see daily on their TV screens Arabs just like them, Muslims just like them being killed as a result of this war that we chose.
What you guys on the right don’t seem to understand is that we are not fighting some static army, or some state. We are fighting an ideology. Everything we have done has make the radical ideology of bin Laden MORE appealing to the Muslim population not less. And when you have a poll of one BILLION Muslims.. every miscalucation like this creates thousands of sworn ememies willing to give their life to kill you and me. We are less safe as a result.
The war in Iraq will go down in history as one of the biggest foreign affairs blunders ever. A strategic mistake of immense proportions.
(p.s. excuse my misspellings and typos, was in a rush and no time for editing)
EL
Carl,
They may have liked Afghanistan better, but many saw it as reasonable we would hit back after 9/11. They saw no such reason for us to invade Iraq. Hence leading certain people to feel that al Qaeda was right all along when they said the US was against all Muslims.
And I haven’t been talking about Iran.
Zifnab
I think the great crisis in all of this revolves around the “There are only two options” false delima. Either we invade Iran or we let them get a nuke. Either we leave Iraq in the next 24 hours or we don’t leave until the job is done. Either we torture prisoners or we get hit with another 9/11.
Each and every one a false delima.
Firstly, its worth noting that Iran is projected to obtain an actual functional nuclear weapon sometime around 2009-2011. Much like the social security “crisis”, the Iranian nuclear “crisis” is on a much longer fuse than the White House would like you to believe. The idea that we need to invade Iran right this instant is – aside from being questionably necessary – incredibly rash and impulsive.
Secondly, keep in mind that there is one thing Iran wants more than nukes, and that is respect. After the 1979 revolution, many countries wouldn’t even acknowledge that the new government existed. Now Iran is demanding, and obtaining, sit-down diplomatic meetings with the better part of Western Europe. Like a petulant child acting out for attention, perhaps Iran is already getting the public attention and notoriety it wants. We won’t know unless we actively engage them diplomatically. And that means sending in not-John-Bolton. The Bush White House has been clinically retarded when it comes to choosing its diplomats, so its no surprise their diplomatic option so often fails. Bring in some new fresh faces, or better yet some old vetted ones. It can’t hurt.
ThymeZone
No, the only consistent position along any lines is that no nation should be attacked unless there is a clear and present threat that can only be abated by doing so, and there is no other alternative.
That was not the clear case in Afghanistan, and even if it had been, the only objective there that fit the test was Al Qaeda and OBL. We know what happened to them … they got away. Mission not accomplished. Nothing that happened there probably made us safer in the short run, and the long term results are not yet in.
That was clearly not the case in Iraq, and the long term results there are not yet in, and aren’t looking very promising at this juncture.
I have no particular fear of the Muslim world, but that doesn’t lead me to think that I can confront its radical elements at gunpoint and force them to be what I want them to be. Nor am I foolish enough to think that acting out that kind of delusion is going to contribute to my safety either in the short term or the long term. Nor do I think that diluting my military readiness for that kind of activity is a smart thing to do. Nor do I think that draining my political and economic resources in order to prop up that kind of activity is a wise thing to do. Nor do I think that alienating the allies we’ve husbanded since World War II in the course of such behavior is a prudent thing for me to do.
In short, the entire Bush doctrine and the deluded strategies it has given us are failures, and have made us less safe for a variety of reasons.
Carl
Proud Liberal and EL:
I think you’re projecting your own views onto the Muslims.
I don’t recall any real outpouring of support from Muslim nations during our invasion of Afghanistan, and I remember a lot of protests, including major ones in Pakistan and other Muslim nations. Go back and look at the news of the time.
mrmobi
Gruppenfuhrer Darrell, how are things in the Fourth Reich?
I’ve got to ask you guys who are advocating for reducing Iran to cinders, what about the country that really has nuclear weapons, North Korea?
It’s not really acceptable for them to have them, is it? Aren’t they part of some “axis?”
I love how you guys always ask, what’s the Democratic Plan? But, really, what’s your plan? More bombs? Nuclear bombs? When does it end? When does it involve a real strategy, and not just strategery?
If this really is World War III, why not come clean with all of America and admit that your plan is to exterminate whomever doesn’t fit your narrow definition of “ally?” Of course, there will be collateral damage, but they are probably all terrorists anyway. Some of them might even be just 8 or 9 years old, some pregnant, aw hell, just kill ’em all right? It’s the only way to be sure.
Come on, have some balls for a change admit that your solution is that “final” one. You’re really quite sickening, Darrell, and it’s god-damned unpleasant to have you back. I fart in your general direction.
mrmobi
On the other hand, it’s god-damned GOOD to have you back ppG…. ThymeZone.
Oh, and shorter Darrell, MUST KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL.
Carl
Oh, well. No problem then. I’m sure the situation will be much easier to deal with once they have a working bomb.
Pb
That’s what I call the North Korea approach.
Carl
The Great Delusion
srv
You have to be a complete retard. Let’s see. We went to war with Afghanistan in 2001. Exactly what of any importance did the fabled Mr. Z do in Afghanistan in the intervening 15 months before we invaded Iraq? What stopped him from being a jihadi all that time in Afghanistan?
Flip flop. How many personalities do you have?
Where are these mythical WMD’s Iran was pursuing before 2001? The clerics have been in power since the 1970’s. Why weren’t they trying to destabalize Iraq with a nuclear threat in the 80’s? Or 1991? Or 92 – or any f*ing year that GW wasn’t in power?
ThymeZone
I’ve wired your money to the usual location :^|
srv
That’s the difference between us and your ilk. You are cowards and bedwetters. We aren’t terrified by Osama and a handful of radicals. You would ruin everything America stands for because you have a deranged set of values.
Tim F.
Darrell, Darrell, Darrell, always with the accusations of dishonesty. I could call it your personal fetish. Let’s look at what you said:
You propose that the Iraq war cannot possibly have a different outcome than the Afghanistan war because…why? It sounds like you are saying that the two wars are basically the same so the outcome must be the same. If I misinterpreted you then by all means, fill in whatever it is that you meant to say.
A brief analogy, bear with me. As a biologist I could draw a very long bulleted list that would make you appear precisely identical to a banana slug. You have the same neurons, more or less (don’t take that the wrong way, so do I), you have almost precisely identical ribosomes, you duplicate DNA identically and your mitochondrial energy pathways work in exactly the same way. The list goes on for a while. And yet, somehow, you are not a banana slug. If I dumped a shaker of salt on you it would probably not kill you. Irritate you maybe, but you would not shrivel into a ball and dehydrate.
It might be easier to think of Iraq and Afghanistan as you and a banana slug. Looked at from a certain way they are almost precisely the same, yet picking a fight with each has remarkably different consequences.
Tim F.
Has it occurred to you that you might notice the protesters who make you angry more than the ones who don’t? For example, the rightwing blogs that you read probably won’t run pics of the signs calling for liberal deaths. I bet that the answer is no.
Pb
srv,
More on that here:
Tim F.
That sounds like an appeal to incredulity again. Everybody has their preferred fallacies, Carl.
In fact the strategic benefit to Iran is fairly well known. Let’s look at the basic fact that Saddam and Iran’s grand Ayatollah were not quite the best of friends, as you may know. Iraqi PM al-Maliki and Iranian president Ahmedinejad, on the other hand, are. That’s one border that Iran doesn’t need to worry about any longer. And, gosh, a whole lot of oil territories that migrated into Iran’s sphere of influence. But hey, nobody cares about oil these days. I hear that smart money is in real estate. Plus the US army might have posed a more credible threat back when we had an army.
As for Zarqawi, you forget that Bush had three opportunities to make him go away and passed. I hear he had a war to sell, and zapping Zarqawi would eliminate a (later debunked) terrorist connection. So what would Zarqawi be doing? Other than fertilizing grass, quite likely sulking in irrelevance. You seem to forget that our Afghan war was widely supported even in the middle east (the Taliban were not highly regarded, except possibly by Palestinians who had their own axe to grind), not the sort of thing to stimulate generations of new terrorists.
Proud Liberal
The Washington Post now has an article on the National Intelligence Estimate that puts the disastrous consequences of the Iraq debacle in even starker terms:
Sorry Carl but I’ll take the analysis of the eleven or so intelligence agencies that put together the National Intelligence Estimate over yours. No offense of course.
srv
Oh, and since there was no insurgency, and Mr. Z was responsible for all the attacks on American troops, the Bush failure to eliminate him earlier resulted in the deaths of over 2000 troops.
But this is the President of Accountability, right?
EL
I have looked at the news, and I remember it well. Your post has a fallacy – that Muslim nations must either show us “an outpouring of support” or they are all ready to join al Qaeda. Yes, there was opposition, but nowhere near the amount or quality of what happened when we invaded Iraq. And there were some moderate imams who saw the invasion of Afghanistan as self-defense and tried to calm things down after Afghanistan. Needless to say, they stopped after the invasion of Iraq. It has nothing to do with what I’m projecting, and much to do with facts I heard and read.
I think those who argue like you are projecting – what you want to be true must be true, American force is always good, etc.
Bottom line is that I don’t appreciate people questioning my patriotism and calling me coward, when a casual acquaintance with history would have told those who set this up what a mess it was going to be.
Carl
Proud Liberal:
You guys are all over the map. Let me just keep it simple:
If we had never invaded Iraq, we would be just as hated for Afghanistan, just as threatened, and the NIE you quote would be saying the same thing, only with “Afghanistan” substituted for “Iraq.”
Main difference now is the Middle East is down two tyrannies instead of just one.
Richard 23
Damn Darrell. Play another song we haven’t heard. You just keep reaching down for your lamest hits. We’ve heard it. No more links to the same two pictures of “the left’s” protesters. It’s fucking dishonest of you to do so. Reread this thread to see how unhinged you really are.
Daniel DiRito
The problem, as I view it, is that virtually all the actions of this President in the region are fomenting instability and hostility that may soon reach a point of no return. Even worse, the efforts of this administration are failing to create a wedge between extremist leaders and their populations. On the contrary, the language used by this administration, coupled with the perception that the U.S. is engaged in unwarranted and ideological aggression, has served to push otherwise moderate populations into alignment with radical governments and extremist organizations.
As I attempt to grasp the magnitude of allowing this President unfettered authority between now and the end of his second term, I can’t help but wonder what it would take to dissuade a man with his level of certainty and conviction from undertaking the actions that will facilitate the ideations he seems convinced have been presented to him through a mix of fate and faith.
History may well record this chapter as a period of unparalleled extremism. Worse yet, the United States may well be viewed as the primary force in facilitating that eventuality. George Bush, when asked about his legacy, seems content to respond that while he can’t predict the future he believes his actions will prove to be pivotal. He may well be correct but, in this instance, I would suggest he recall the expression, “Be careful what you wish for”.
Read more here:
http://www.thoughttheater.com
ThymeZone
That’s a slogan. But it’s not connected to the reality under discussion here.
The Middle East is not safer, and I am not safer. Those are realities. The so-called “War on Terror” is not about ridding the world of tyrannies. There are always going to be tyrannies. And by going about this in the wrong way, the misguided war is failing to accomplish its purpose, which is to make me safer.
For that, the people waging this wrongheaded war deserve to be fired, and the effort redirected to things that will in fact keep me safer.
Tsulagi
Well, the bold action admin will definitely do something about that. Maybe like the annual State Dept. Terrorism Report they’ll eliminate those silly negative reports that don’t confirm the truthiness. At least edit the NIE so it contains the happy news. Those damn hate-America
MSM reportersintelligence analysts. I thought we’d gotten rid of all those critical thinkers by now. Do a CPA fix, get Geraldo over to HR to begin hiring.srv
We’re all over the map? First you admit nobody opposed Afghanistan, hardly anyone in the ME cared what we did there, and somehow all of us were going to wimp out if we hadn’t gone into Iraq? I was going to go from a Afghan war supporter to a rabid Bush-hater peacenik?
Man, what a world you must live in. I suppose you think all those hippies in the 60’s first supported Vietnam, and then went all wishy-washy. But we’re not like you. We don’t flip flop all over in fear and change our rationales every few months. We wanted the Taliban exterminated and we wanted Osama’s head on a platter. Sadly, GW has failed on both accounts, but not because of us.
You guys will never learn to stop declaring victory before the battle is over. We’ve lost Pakistan now, and because of that, we’re going to loose Afghanistan in the long run. And in the end, Iraq won’t exist, and Al-Sadr and post-2003 encouraged Iranian friends will create a new tyranny in the south to complement the future Sunni tyranny in the middle.
Bruce Moomaw
Darrell, I thought you understood that Kurtz’s quote ended where I put the double quotation marks — you do know that’s a standard practice? — and that the remainder of that paragraph was my own additional commentary on what he said. My apologies for jumping to the premature conclusion that you can read. Now, can you actually provide any reply to my argument?
Carl actually does attempt a reply: “As an aside, the ‘we can’t deal with Iran because we’re tied up in Iraq’ meme doesn’t work too well either if you follow it to its logical conclusion, unless you think that somehow invading Iran would be a ‘cakewalk,’ that all the people would have hailed us as liberators, that there would be no insurgency and IEDs in Iran, that there would have been no ‘quagmire’ in Iran, and that, of course, invading Iran would not have created more terrorists.”
No, Virginia, I’ve never assumed any of those things for a second. But then, I represent something of a third force in this debate — I happen to think that preventing nuclear proliferation among further dictatorships or shaky states is by an overwhelming margin the most important anti-terrorist action that civilized states can possibly take (for what should be obvious reasons), and that preventing Iran from acquiring the Bomb is thus infinitely more important than either fucking around unproductively in Iraq OR chasing a Bombless Bin Laden endlessly around and around Afghanistan and Pakistan (much as I’d like to get my hands on the SOB personally).
IF Saddam had been on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons — which was the primary reason given by Bush for launching the war in the first place, and which turned out to have been deliberately trumped up — THEN the invasion of Iraq would obviously have been fully justified for that reason alone, even if we did totally screw up the aftermath. Which was why, when the war started, I DID support it — like the other liberal Iraq hawks, I never dreamed that those supposed grownups Cheney and Rumsfeld would manage to so delude themselves that the war would be a Cakewalk (and an appropriate opening for the equally cakewalky overthrow of the Syrian and Iranian governments) that they would be willing to lie through their teeth about Saddam’s supposed imminent acquisition of the Bomb. Surprise! They were. And now see the results of their combination of stupidity and mendacity.
Any actions we take against Iran should be limited to destroying its nuclear program — period — without our further exhausting ourselves with cretinous attempts to bomb its people into loving the West. But, lo and behold, we now hear persistent rumors (and not just from Seymour Hersh) that our governing geniuses are seriously considering trying to do just that AGAIN, even if it dilutes our military ability to actually destroy their nuclear program.
And even if Iran wasn’t in any danger of acquiring the Bomb? First things first. Gary Berntsen, the CIA chief in Afghanistan in charge of the hunt for Bin Laden at the time, says flatly in “Jawbreaker” that Tommy Franks and Rumsfeld literally let him slip through our fingers at Tora Bora by refusing to provide the US troops necessary to finish closing the trap — apparently because Rummy was too concerned with preparing those troops for future deployment to Iraq instead. (We will probably never get another crack at him; we don’t dare make too many strikes into Pakistan itself, given the fact that it’s a state that already has a dozen nukes — soon to rise to 50-100, thanks to that uranium enrichment factory whose existence the White House recently got caught trying to conceal from Congress — and which is teetering precariously on the very brink of a takeover by al Qaeda sympathizers, which we don’t dare provoke it into.)
And on that last subject: even if there was no danger of Iran acquiring the Bomb, the fact that our troops are tied up in Iraq also totally cripples our ability to cope with any sudden military crisis produced by the fact that both Pakistan and North Korea DO have the Bomb. Heckuva job, George! Iraq was NOT our top priority; it was our third or fourth — maybe our fifth. And if the Bushites hadn’t been idiotic enough to swallow the Cakewalk theory — and dishonest enough to be willing to lie to Congress and the voters to get them to go along — they themselves would unquestionably agree. Which is why I think of this as the Cornelius Fudge Administration (anyone who’s read the Harry Potter books will understand the reference).
Bruce Moomaw
“Two tyrannies down”? The ability of some Bushophiles to delude themselves will neer cease to amaze me. The entire goddamn 2/3 of Iraq, with its extrmely important oilfields, is about to become a pro-Shiite tyranny closely allied with Iran (its incumbent Prime Minister, the LEAST anti-American figure we could dredge up for the job, is a co-founder of Hezbollah, and the Daily Telegraph reports that even Ayatollah Sistani has now officially given up trying to keep al-Sadr from taking control of Shiite Iraq). The Sunni section is an embittered flock of people rapidly moving toward an alliance with al-Qaida. We may — if we’re clever — salvage Kurdish Iraq, but then we had that BEFORE the war. (And I would not at all put it past the Bushites to lose that as well.)
As for Afghanistan: the Administration has poured so much of our military resources into trying to delay the collapse that the Taliban has now retaken the entire southern third of the country, and is reportedly preparing a march on Kabul. We’ll have to work damned hard to salvage even THAT.
You want to quarrel with this? Take it up with (for instance) George Will, who recently referred in his Post column to “the fake and disintegrating nation of Iraq” and to the fact that “this administration seems frantic to repel everything except delusion”, as indicated by “its continuing insistence that the war in Iraq is central to the war on Moslem terrorism.”
Bruce Moomaw
Clarification of one sentence: “As for Afghanistan: the Administration has poured so much of our LIMITED military resources into trying to delay the collapse OF IRAQ that the Taliban has now retaken the entire southern third of the country…”
Tsulagi
Don’t need a spy agency to tell you that.
We’re hit on 9/11 and the American public gives the Bush admin a blank check to get the perps. We’re in AF in October. According to Bob Woodard’s book, Plan of Attack (authorized and supported by the Bush admin), by Thanksgiving Bush is pressing Rumsfeld for plans to do Iraq now.
Rummy passes that to Tommy Franks telling him to get it done. By end of November, Franks, his staff, and others are busy doing just that. By end of December, bin Laden slips out of Tora Bora on his way to Pakistan. Al Qaeda members and others including Zarqawi also leave AF.
By July of the following year, after Franks has already offered to resign due to months of incessant micromanaging by Rumsfeld and other PNAC alumni in the Pentagon, Bush secretly authorizes $700 million to be spent from an Afghan supplemental for preparations to invade Iraq. That would have been a crime when we had a Constitution. Later in 2002, civilian Pentagon leadership dismiss the likelihood of an effective insurgency developing in Iraq as suggested by $250m Iraq wargaming.
Bush takes the blank check given by the American public and shoots his wad in Iraq in March 2003. We’re now dealing with the abortion three and a half years later. Through monumental incompetence and consistent stupidity, we’ve given Iran a friendly failed state to give it more security and possibly future wealth, and for Osama and like-minded buddies a world-class terrorist training facility. George doesn’t forget his friends.
And the common Iraqi, well if they happen to be detained for questioning they can hope for new sharp drill bits instead of well-worn used ones. To dismiss those in Iraq who might complain freedom is messy, maybe our brave patriot warriors here can prepare a Black & Decker cookbook for them. DeWalt for the gourmets.
This is the administration that wants you to vote for them on the basis of national security since apparently even they concede they’ve fucked up everything else. Only the lobotomized would do so.
rachel
“Cornelius Fudge Administration?” XD
How apt! :-(
p.lukasiak
END THE TROLL AMNESTY NOW!!!!!
srv
You don’t prevent proliferation by threatening regimes w/o nukes. You only push them to pursue them asap. NK and Iran have learned the lesson of Iraq. The survival of their regimes requires having nukes now.
Condi’s nightmares brought to reality, by stupid foreign policies.
Person of Choler
Well, surprise me. Start fighting terrorists and they fight back.
I suppose the intelligence geniuses behind the report would have noticed in 1942 that America’s entering the war caused the Japanese and Germans to increase troop callups.
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
Why don’t we ever hear about the regimes that aren’t developing nukes right now?
Tim F.
Talk about a meme that never dies. Please describe in what way invading Iraq equates with fighting anti-American terrorists.
Eural
That one’s easy – because Bush says so – “Bring ’em on!Bring ’em on!”
Proud Liberal
Slightly off topic but I just watched Bill Clinton bitch slap Chris Wallace all over the Fox set. My, that was enjoyable. Dems…take note – passion. FIGHT for what you believe. Get fuckin angry once in while. People pay attention to someone that has REAL passion. Stop sticking your finger up in the air to test the wind. Didn/t you learn from Kerry? A war hero being attacked as a coward from the chickenhawk crowd and the doesn’t get angry? Hey, most Americans say to themselves, if he isn’t going to fight for his own honor how can I expect him to fight for me.
Kudos Bill Clinton, once again you show why you are the best Dem politician to come around in a long long time.
Mac Buckets
“I tried and I failed!” Not much of a bitchslap. Clinton came off looking like a fool, and it didn’t have to be that way. He could’ve explained rationally what his policy goals were at the time, but instead he went with the red-faced “Special Olympics” defense. Not his best effort.
The Other Steve
Thank you for the Fox News spin perspective on the interview.
But I think the rest of us are quite capable of watching it ourselves and coming to our own conclusions.
Side question: Do you think you’ll ever be capable of rational independent thinking, or are you just going to have your lips sewn to Bush’s ass?
The Other Steve
I was watching this when my girlfriend came in the room. She watched Bill a little bit, and then asked why is he so angry?
I explained that the Republicans are trying to blame him for not getting Osama bin Laden and causing 9/11 to happen. Her response was “Huh? Bush was President when 9/11 happened. Are they so desperate to find someone else to blame?”
She’s quite perceptive. And unlike Mac Buckets, she is not enthralled with cowards and fools.
Paddy O'Shea
Bushie’s family vanity war in Iraq has worsened our situation in the war on terror?
Wow, I wonder what they’ll say next. Maybe that the real winner in the Iraq debacle are the mullahs in Iran?
Maybe not. Can’t put out too much reality. It’s not what most people are interested in.
The Other Steve
Iraq would be like…
The Japanese hit Pearl Harbor, the Germans declare war on us the next day.
And we decide to invade Argentina.
ThymeZone
Well, that does it. Nobody here will be voting for him again.
Tsulagi
That’s the standard Bush protocol and port for data I/O among the believers.
Mike
If we had never invaded Iraq, we would be just as hated for Afghanistan, just as threatened, and the NIE you quote would be saying the same thing, only with “Afghanistan” substituted for “Iraq.”
It’s amazing to me how confused you are on this issue, Carl. We had overwhelming support for our actions in Afghanistan, both in America and in the world, because it was a pointed reaction to a deliberate assault on our home country. Even the Arab world accepted this fact. The lesson was simple, don’t bite the big guy or he’ll kick your ass.
Virtually no-one in the Muslim world (or even most of the West) believed that Iraq was a real threat to the U.S. We went because we wanted to and once we were done there we started making plans to attack Syria and Iran. Some of the neoconservatives even started banging the drum against Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It was essentially a declaration of war on the whole Muslim world whether they threatened us or not.
Tsulagi
I just watched a clip of that Wallace/Clinton interview. It was a smackdown.
Imagine that, a president not sitting down with a fluffer blowing kisses and answering gotcha attempts truthfully, coherently, and in English. Thank God the Republicans changed all that nonsense in the new millennium.
Maybe in response to show the differences between 42 and 43, Fox can set up another impromptu chat with the troops in Iraq. Shouldn’t take Bush more than three months to learn his lines.
BrianM
Yeah, and who did they call up? People like my father (four brothers already in the army, sole support of his sisters and his widowed mother). People who were not zealots, who mostly wanted to stay alive until the end. (Especially after they realized the war was lost, which – according to my father – was by 1943.)
And he and his fellow sailors hoped that they’d be captured by the Americans, because we were widely known as the good guys. And, in due time, holed up in a cave near Marseilles, he and his fellows surrendered in good order. Their belief was largely repaid (except for one bad camp commander who let his men go too far in the Abu Ghraib direction but was soon replaced by a decent man).
(Indeed, after the war, the Americans behaved well enough that when my family visited a tiny little town in Germany sometime around 1965, they were so excited at having Americans back that we had a little ceremony with the mayor.)
Things were quite different in the East. I don’t know what happened before my uncle surrendered to the Red Army, but I bet people fought harder to avoid capture, because the Red Army had quite the reputation. Well deserved: my uncle didn’t even know WWII was over until 1950, and he came home broken.
The idea that people’s behavior isn’t affected by what they hear we Americans do to people just like them is just idiotic.
ThymeZone
I also think it was rope-a-dope. Clinton is the smartest and most controlled politician on earth. I believe that he staged a tantrum to take attention away from the Bush Great War on Terra Theater that the Rovites are producing these days. I think he knows when the be a lightning rod and when to be Mister Cool. I think he did exactly what he wanted to do, and did it perfectly.
Mike
preventing Iran from acquiring the Bomb is thus infinitely more important than either fucking around unproductively in Iraq OR chasing a Bombless Bin Laden endlessly around and around Afghanistan and Pakistan
The problem is that Pakistan itself has the bomb. Its be caught selling nuclear weapons secrets to other other dictatorships and a large portion of the the public and the military currently support bin Ladin and the Taliban.
In other words, bin Ladin could be closer to getting a nuke than Iran is and he’s far more likely to use them if he gets them. Pakistan could easily be overtaken by the fundamentalist radicals. Musharraf has nearly been assassinated several times now and we have no guarantee that the next leader will be pro American. What do you think the Bush policy will be in that eventuality?
ThymeZone
War on Islamofascistanis?
Zifnab
Strange, we have no garantee that this leader will be pro-American. As Pakistan currently has WMDs and isn’t sitting on any oil, my prediction would be for Bush policy to quietly ignore Pakistan and hope anyone who doesn’t gets the least amount of media possible.
VidaLoca
Mac,
huh? He explained what his policy goals were, explained the contstraints he was operating under, and took responsibililty for failing to achieve the goals. Furthermore, by explaining the political context in which Wallace was posing the question, he had Wallace back on his heels and eager to change the subject by the end of the interview. Wallace tried to play him, and he ended up playing Wallace. I’m not a big Clinton fan but I will bet that it will be a while before Wallace or Fox News look to tangle with him again.
Also — by simply taking responsibility for failing to succeed at getting OBL, and not saying one word more on that topic w/r/t Bush’s efforts — Clinton highlights Bush’s failure, with more time, more money, more troops, and more public support, to accomplish anything more. All the Clinton bashing in the world will not change the fact that there’s six years of history between him and President “I don’t care about Osama” Bush.
ThymeZone
If you get a half hour, MSNBC features streaming video of Meet the Press in its entirety, the first half of which is one on one with Bill Clinton.
In case you wonder what an intelligent, thoughtful president might look and sound like, somebody who can see past the self-serving, self-justifying horseshit of the Bush administration and see the world as it is, this is it. It’s easy to forget just how terrible George Bush really is until you hear what an alternative might sound like. By the way, you can get the same sort of contrast by listening to Bush’s father, who also sounds like a real president.
Proud Liberal
a piece of driftwood sounds more presidential than the moron we currently having playing president.
silflayhraka
One good thing about the internet is that you can type with your mouth full.
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
Invade Syria?
ThymeZone
With a rented army?
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
That’s what Custer Battle et al are for. Mercenary armies bought on Chinese credit- that’s what’s made America great since time immemorial.
And don’t forget Poland!
The Other Steve
Pet Rock for President!
chopper
man, the ability of people to utterly deny reality is amazing. george bush could call up these people personally, say ‘i fucked up and iraq has made terrorism worse’ and they’d honestly come up with the theory that he’d been replaced by a robot hillary clinton put together in her basement.
hence the attempts to tie afghanistan and iraq together as if what happens in the first should logically follow in the second. right, sure. we had major worldwide support for attacking al qaeda in afghanistan, even within the mid east. iraq on the other hand is looked at within the mid east as an imperialist invasion due to the fact that it was no threat whatsoever to us. apples and oranges with regards to terrorist recruitment.
BlogReeder
I agree with Carl on this story. Proud liberal forgot to emphasize the correct part of his blockquote:
What are these guys doing discussing this with the NY times? Tim F. always talks about reliable sources. All you have to do is look at other stories Mark mazzetti has written. One story he even uses scare quotes around Bush’s description of the CIA’s vital role to the White House. Huh?
skip
What a relief to note that the same Abe Shulksy is vetting the intel on Iran.
Flowers and sweets.
Sojourner
Putting their country’s well-being ahead of the Bush administration’s lies?
BlogReeder
You use Clinton as an example and then call Bush self-serving???
Sojourner
I just saw the clip of Clinton shredding Chris Wallace. I had forgotten what it was like to watch the President of the United States and not feel embarassed. This is a guy who has the intelligence and breadth of knowledge to truly serve as the leader of the free world.
How far this country has fallen.
BlogReeder
Since Clinton was brought up by Thymezone, I found an old story about the Iraq bombing during the Clinton administration lest we forget about the WMDs that Iraq didn’t have. It also points out how cooperative Saddam would be with inspectors.
ThymeZone
Anyone who wants to can watch the MTP segment and judge for himself. No need to take my word for it.
Try to imagine George Bush having that conversation… or even understanding half of what Clinton was talking about.
As for Bush, the man cannot open his mouth about anything without self-justification. He is widely despised for it.
But, think whatever you want, BlogSpoofer. Makes no difference to me.
Sojourner
What year was it that Clinton started the war with Iraq?
Funny. Saddam didn’t throw the inspectors out. Bush did.
srv
Oh, you mean Desert Fox, the same bombing y’all called wag-the-dog? Here’s what the Conservative Caucus had to say:
Desert Fox and Wag-the-Dog
I love the ending:
Flip, meet flop. It isn’t that Darrell likes Pie, y’all like your cake and eat it too.
The Other Steve
Which, of course, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Hussein had WMDs!
That is, until Clinton warned Hussein ahead of time that Bush was gonna invade, and he hid them under the floorboards of his closet.
That bastard!
Sojourner
srv:
I can’t believe they left this page up!
Amazing.
The Other Steve
Blogreeder – Are you in a contest with Mac Buckets to prove who has his lips sewn on tighter to Bush’s ass?
I mean, why on earth would you spout Republican propaganda, instead of using your noggin and coming up with something original and intelligent?
srv
It really is embarrassing. If anything, the party of Buckley has gone from nuance to parroting the dear leader. Pretty soon, they’ll be down to two syllables. Four sylabbles like “Saddam Lover” have just gotten too complicated for them.
mrmobi
ThymeZone, I watched that interview with Bubba. I’ve got to say, with all his faults, it’s a real pleasure to watch a politician with a real command of the facts and the ability to think critically.
All of you here know how little regard I have for Chimpy McFlightSuit. After watching this interview, he looks like a cardboard cutout next to someone like the former President.
BlogReeder, you can go on all you want about Bubba and how he failed to get Bin Laden. Unlike your faux president, he admits his inadequacy in that matter. You can’t say anything that changes the fact that your guy did NOTHING about Bin Laden for the nine months before 9/11 that he was POTUS (despite numerous warnings), and then turned what should have been a wake up call against a vicious and un-principled enemy into a political talking point designed to help him grab more power. 9/11 happened on his watch, not Clinton’s, and nothing you can say changes that. Incompetence, greed and corruption are the defining characteristics of the Party of Torture, so get used to being called out as the scurillous authoritarian swine that you are.
Democrats are going to start the process of taking back America in November, and putting the thieves and real traitors behind bars, where they belong.
Shame on you and all in the Party of Torture. You make anyone with a conscience ashamed to be an American, and your frat-boy President makes a mockery of the Presidency.
BlogReeder
Blogreeder – Are you in a contest with Mac Buckets to prove who has his lips sewn on tighter to Bush’s ass?
Not at all. I agree with some of you that say Clinton was a better speaker than Bush. He was. I can also believe that he was slick, too. When Bush makes a speech, it takes me about 2 minutes to turn it off and wait for the printed version.
ThymeZone
I’m saying that Clinton has more to say, not that he is a “better speaker.”
Zifnab
I don’t think anyone will ever accuse Clinton of not being a politician. He certainly had a legacy to defend and an opinion to uphold and he was certainly more elequent about it than our current President.
And Bush is rarely at a loss for words these days. But most of them involve repeating the phrase “don’t you understand the terrorists want to kill us” ad nausium. Why do the terrorists seem particularly ardent about killing us on even numbered calander years?
ThymeZone
Odd.
The Other Steve
I was referring to your penchant for gracing us with the party line, rather than offering anything in the form of independent thought.
Just seems kind of pointless.
Proud Liberal
blogreader:
Why is it secret? It sounds as if the report just analyzes the effect the Iraq war has had on Islamic fundamentalism. Doesn’t sound like any super secret sources and methods would be disclosed. Doesn’t the American public have the RIGHT to know the effect of our policies. How can a democracy function without relevant and important information.
this administration has no problem leaking classified information (see Judy Miller, Valerie Plame, OBL is dead) when it suits their purposes and they make secret nearly everything that would give the American public a true picture of what is going on in this country. Or even who Dick Cheney met with when he was developing energy policy.
Brave, patriotic Americans that care more for our great country than they do for the Republican party are not going to allow this government to hide the truth from its citizens. I applaud them. You should to. Unless of course you prefer remaining in the dark like some scared little ostrich.
Proud Liberal
Hey… all of you Connecticut voters, lets remember what Senator Lieberman had said when Howard Dean suggested that the killing of Saddam Hussein has not made American’s safer:
errrr….. WRONG.
Does someone that was this wrong on one of the most critical issues facing this country deserve to be re-elected?
chopper
i love the story of desert fox. cause it shows how a real president handles an iraq with WMDs.
back in 1998, inspectors had found and destroyed tons of real WMD. but saddam was being really cagey with inspectors, not letting them check out everything.
so clinton got pissed, pulled them all out, targeted over a hundred suspected WMD sites and bombed the ever-lovin’ shit out of them.
fast forward to 2003, and hans blix stating 1) iraq is generally complying with inspections, 2) we’ve found all of jack and shit (and jack is a year-old bottle of mayo in some dude’s fridge) and 3) we need more time to be complete.
no evidence of any WMDs, but we invade anyways.
what do we take from this? we never found any of saddam’s WMDs because clinton destroyed them all back in 98. without losing a single american life. without a ground war, without spending untold hundreds of billions of dollars.
and when he did all that, he was accused by republicans of trying to distract the country from his own personal legal problems.
more proof that the dude could never win with you guys.
Mac Buckets
Revisionist history is fun.
Faux News
Excellent point! I believe the country formerly known as “Burma” has been well contained from developing nukes.
:thumbs up!:
chopper
it isn’t revisionist history, it’s common sense.
we knew WMDs were there in 1998 since UN inspectors saw them and were destroying some of them.
then we bombed WMD sites. then there were no WMDs.
if you’re so knowledgeale about saddam’s weapons, where did they go? what’s your theory? syria? the WMD fairy came and took them all?
ThymeZone
What’s remarkable is that someone who defends a war ginned up to respond to a threat that didn’t exist …. wants to troll this thread with wisecracks about “revisionist history.”
As if “what happened to the WMDs” is a relevant question now. Here’s the relevant question: Why did we have to get sucked into a five-year-plus war and destabilize the most dangerous region on earth and throw away the blood and treasure of our country to find out that the WMDs weren’t there? Why did we have to rush to have a vote on the AUMF in time for elections in 2002? Why did we need to rush the inspectors out of Iraq and rush into the ill-advised war? Why was our pretense for war so fragile a construction that the White House had to focus its energies, not on the war on terror, but on a war on Americans Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, two highly regarded public servants, in order to throw a smokescreen over the discussion and distract the public? Why were the enemies of Bush’s policies getting more attention than the real enemies of America?
Only a couple of weeks ago, the lunatics in the White House were telling you that questioning the bizarro logic of Bush’s “war on terror” meant that you were “confused” and guilty of “unacceptable” thinking … and now they are trying to tell you that the NIE is not to be believed, either.
Yeah, let’s snark about “revisionist history.” Let’s deflect yet another thread away from the obvious truth and talk about the right’s favorite jackalope.
Tim F.
Blogreeder,
The rest of your comment largely misses the point since confirmation from twelve independent sources, including experts inside and outside the Bush administration, hardly equals a Judy Miller Curveball hackjob. Critics of this report will have to do better than claiming that somebody just made it up. Three of the nation’s four major dailies have run with this so it seems vanishingly unlikely that the details are anything other than what they appear.
However, this question is very good. Who has a right to leak classified information? In my opinion, nobody. Across the board I believe that if leak classified information then you should be prepared to go to jail for it. If you did the nation a service by leaking then you should go to jail and feel good about yourself. In my view this is the only intellectually coherent way that one can look at the thorny crossroads of ethics and law.
Mac Buckets
No, it’s the “post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy — pretty much the opposite of common sense. By your logic, the Mayans “proved” that turtles caused the tides.
Suffice it to say that neither Clinton himself nor the Duelfer Report thinks your little fantasy is true, and your last post was so full of historical errors that it would take far longer than I wish to spend to correct them. Not that the ever-ironic Clinton-worshippers here would listen, anyway.
Mac Buckets
I think you’re the only documented troll here, right? And I will go on pointing out revisionist history when it’s applicable, and you’ll either have to say I’m right (which I am), prove how I’m wrong (which you can’t) or just shut up.
To claim that I somehow have no right to point out chop’s inaccuracy is hilariously dishonest. Glad to see you’re back in stride, Troll-king.
The Other Steve
The only thing which is ironic is that you continue to fail to show any independent thought, while berating everybody else.
Perhaps you could give us more detail upon this revisionist history claim, considering you are our esteemed expert in the field.
The Other Steve
It would help further the discussion if you’d actually support your claims with facts.
Mac Buckets
You’re right — NIEs always contain absolute truths that all American should accept them without reservations. NIEs are the next closest thing we have to sacred texts, and should never be scrutinized. The truths they offer are stark and blinding to the eyes of the non-believer!
NIE, October 2002:
Mac Buckets
Yeah, that would be the irony of which I speak. I’m the only one making this point, and I’m the one incapable of independent thought. Irony…too…rich.
If this is such un-independent thought I’m laying down here, why do you need more detail, TOS? Don’t you know it by heart, already?
I’ve detailed this so many times at BJ on this topic, and it’s largely pearls before swine. Just look up “post hoc ergo propter hoc” before you leap to chopper’s defense.
That’s some tasty irony, too, but I’m really full right now! Maybe by lunchtime I can stomach some more.
ThymeZone
Then you’ll be writing the White House and asking them why, if NIE’s aren’t to be taken seriously, they had to rush out the inspectors and start a war in such a big hurry four years ago? Or if consideration, further inspection and debate over them is called for, why we didn’t have time for those things four years ago?
Or, try a different approach: If the majority of the American people, and the NIE, agree that our policy and actions aren’t making us safer, and the people and the NIE are just silly and flawed, then who should we trust? The folks in the White House who have been consistently wrong about Iraq for at least twenty years, spanning three presidents?
Come back and tell us what you found out.
ThymeZone
Your logic supporting the idea that the war in Iraq is actually making us safer is eagerly awaited.
Is it, or is it not?
RSA
I’ve read that while an NIE usually takes six months to prepare, the 2002 NIE was produced in two weeks (according to The Nation, at least–take that as you will).
Mac Buckets
I haven’t heard that anyone at the White House isn’t taking the NIE seriously. You have? Again, you seem to cherry-pick whether you believe NIEs or not based on who they hurt politically — an empty standard, if you ask me.
The Other Steve
I just thought it’d be nice if, you know… You actually had to support your claims.
Right, because you know… We’re just all a bunch of uneducated swine here simply because we don’t have our lips sewn to Bush’s ass.
Are you even capable of having a reasonable intelligent discussion without resorting to ad hominem personal insults?
The Other Steve
Wow, Mac is projecting his failures again.
ThymeZone
Sorry, you must think you are talking to somebody else.
I suggested time and inspections in 2002 and early 2003. My position on the subject has always been consistent.
If a layman in Arizona can figure out that there is something wrong with the conflicting and near-nonsensical set of “facts” being floated by the gamers, and suggest taking more time to get it right, and then turn out to be right … you have to wonder why the people in government can’t be that cautious and thereby save the country from a huge mistake? Right?
Correction, I have to wonder. Obviously, you don’t.
It’s the Bush team that cherry picked, rushed into a clusterfuck, and now want you to support their bad decision without question. Not me. But of course, those fellas are much more likeable than I am, so if I were you, I’d stick with them. They are doing fine by you so far.
Mac Buckets
I said, no more irony before lunch!
Mac Buckets
So did you find anyone in the White House saying they don’t take the NIE seriously?
ThymeZone
Sorry, your troll is over for today.
Mac Buckets
I don’t troll. Trolls get banned.
Sojourner
The more interesting question is why is the report classified? Why should the American people be prevented from learning about these conclusions even if it makes the Bushies (again) look incompetent?
Mac Buckets
Is it really that hard to understand? Simple — because we can’t tell the American people what we know without telling the foreign terrorists what we know.
John D.
Most likely, because there are references to sources in the document.
Secret is stamped onto almost any intelligence report, for that very reason. It’s vanishingly unlikely that the conclusions quoted were the reason for the classification.
Sojourner
Do you seriously think they’re going to change their behavior because of this report? They already believe they’re winning!!! Duh.
We don’t have to see the whole report. But we sure as shit have a right to know which agencies performed the study and what their conclusions were.
RSA
Mac Buckets wrote:
Mac, you’re the one who raised a comparison with the October, 2002, NIE report. The CIA released an unclassified version of that report in the same month of October, 2002. It’s not unreasonable to expect a similarly unclassified version for the April, 2006, NIE, given that it’s been several months. What’s the difference between these two cases? The Bushies were talking up the 2002 NIE everywhere. It’s laughable to think that they’ve suddenly become more cautious.
Redleg
Hey Assholeformerknownas…
Why don’t you let Bush finish the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan before you have in start one in Iran. Our military is stretched kind of thin and the freedoms that monkeys like you have promised to the Iraqis and Afghanis just hasn’t blossomed.
Unless you’re planning on enlisting in the armed forces.
Redleg
Mac Buckets,
Don’t you think the terrorists already know the war in Irag has stirred up a hornets nest among the radicals? Duh.
Mac Buckets
My link said the October 2002 NIE excerpts weren’t declassified for ten months (July 2003). So at that rate, it would be February 2007 for a declassified version of the April 2006 NIE. Of course, since there’s an election, Democrats in the spy agencies will no doubt have leaked the parts that might damage Republicans by late October.
Mac Buckets
And, to be fair, vice versa.
BlogReeder
Who has a right to leak classified information? In my opinion, nobody.
That seems reasonable. Classified information should be secret. Eventually this gets declassified, doesn’t it? We can all talk out it then.
John D.
Well, the conclusions were pretty much spelled out in the article sourced by the leak, and this quote from the article pretty much states who generated it:
Couple that with the reports from global terrorism experts that Islamist terrorism is spreading, and I don’t have much reason to doubt the conclusions. I’d like to see an unclassified, redacted version of the NIE, though, since I’d like to see some hard data to confirm.
chopper
that’s about the dumbest comparison i’ve ever heard.
so you believe what clinton says now? i’ll take actual evidence over what a politician says on MTP any day.
humor me. are you saying there weren’t WMDs in iraq before desert fox? are you saying that the bombing didn’t happen? are you saying that WMDs were there afterwords? if so, where did they go? where is your actual evidence that they were there after desert fox?
i’ll ask again, mac, since you haven’t answered yet – where did the WMDs go?
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
Vote GOP this November, to ensure that nations like Burma and Zimbabwe and Venezuela remain nuke-free.
Because otherwise, the “smoking gun” could be a mushroom cloud.
BlogReeder
i’ll ask again, mac, since you haven’t answered yet – where did the WMDs go?
Where do you think they went? Please give two scenarios. The first; that he had them and then he didn’t. The second; he didn’t have them then explain what he used against the Kurds. As a bonus, explain why he just didn’t cooperate with all the U.N. resolutions.
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
Don’t worry, we’ll be nuking Iran. No ground troops will be involved, and the pressure will be reduced on our boys in Iraq. Without the Iranian influence on the conflict, Iraq will soon be pacified. Although, if Syria continues to give us any trouble, sending in some Poles and some mercenaries may be necessary.
I’m far more valuable to the cause of American greatness right here, on the blogosphere. Someone has to keep the Internet safe from terrorism. I am a decorated combat vet of the flame wars, the War on Christmas, the War on Easter, and, in high school, I very briefly served in the trenches of Gwar.
Ridicule my contributions to America all you want, but the fact remains that without bloggers like me fighting the war for patriotism on the homefront in 2002-2003, our soldiers in Iraq might not be over there now, fighting for freedom and defending Baghdad and New York alike from the threat of terrorism.
chopper
i’ll give you one – he had them, then clinton destroyed them. or at least so many that the entire setup was crippled and any left over just rotted away.
the kurds were gassed long before 1998.
1) because he’s a dick
2) because he needed to put forth an image of toughness
hell, lots of countries don’t cooperate with UN resolutions. some are our allies. that means nothing.
RSA
My source was the National Security Archive, which says there were three releases. I meant this one:
It has problems, certainly, such as CIA people having said they were pressured by Cheney’s office, but there was apparently something out there almost immediately. So why don’t we have anything since April of this year?
RSA
I love how conservatives justify the Iraq invasion, in part, by referring to UN resolutions, and in the next breath are perfectly happy to say that the UN should be abolished as being irrelevant to world politics. So which is it?
BlogReeder
I love how conservatives justify the Iraq invasion, in part, by referring to UN resolutions,
I thought that was one of the many reasons Bush used to justify the Invasion.
chopper
i’m just waiting for someone to invade israel based on their continued lack of cooperation with UN resolutions. i’m sure that’ll go over great with conservatives.
chopper
it was. unfortunately, nobody told him that UN resolutions are enforced by the UN, not the US.
then again, he was only one letter off, which isn’t bad for this administration.
Redleg
Assholeformerlyknownas…
That’s satire, right?
BlogReeder
i’m just waiting for someone to invade israel based on their continued lack of cooperation with UN resolutions.
This site points to this story explaining the differences between the types of resolutions against Israel and Iraq. The relevant part:
chopper
nice cite, good info to know.
can you also point out the part of the UN charter that allows enforcement of UN resolutions against its will by states such as the US?
The Other Steve
As everybody knows, you can’t trust the UN. They let Hugo Chavez speak. Do you trust Hugo Chavez?
So we just find it batshit bizarre to see Bush declaring the UN as the overseer of this country’s national security policy.
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
Well, probably. But the Iranians won’t think it’s very funny.
Mac Buckets
Today’s WSJ (password required) also asks the WH to declassify the entire NIE immediately, to get the whole story out, rather than just the bits the leakers want to release for their own purposes. Apparently, there is less raw intel data in there to scrub than I thought.
Mac Buckets
Look up “post hoc ergo propter hoc” sometime. Your argument about Desert Fox is a textbook example. You can’t just dismiss it by saying it’s stupid — that’s not an argument.
Short answer: According to the Duelfer Report, they were never there in any significant quantity after the first Gulf War. So Clinton bombed nothing (and not much of nothing, to boot, but that’s one of the many inaccuracies in your understanding of Desert Fox that I don’t have the time to correct).
chopper
quote
i understand that duelfer had a point to make, but 690 tons of chemical weapons and tens of thousands of filled CW munitions is not ‘nothing’. and that was only what UNSCOM was able to supervise, given that saddam wouldn’t let them into many sites by the time the inspectors were pulled out and the bombings began.
to be honest, i’m surprised that duelfer made such an error in his report, given that the UNSCOM data was right there. i’m not surprised at all that you missed it, though.
chopper
also, from UNSCOM:
‘large quantities’ sure doesn’t sound like ‘nothing’ to me.
so WMDs were there before 1998, but UNSCOM was only allowed into some of the sites to observe and destroy them. the rest was unaccounted for, so clinton bombed those suspected sites (i’m sure the reason why hussein refused to let the UN into those sites was because there was nothing there at all. right.)
and after that, no WMDs left at all.
RSA
Good for the WSJ in calling for the NIE to be declassified. I have to laugh at their take on this, however:
Excerpts or interpretations of material in the NIE “conveniently coincide” with criticisms of the war, so it’s wise to be skeptical. Where the hell were they in 2002, when the administration’s spin on the NIE coincidentally and conveniently matched their ambitions for invading Iraq? Can you imagine the editorial board of the WSJ changing its mind about the wisdom of invading Iraq if the NIE turns out to say what the leaks imply?
Mac Buckets
Duelfer noted the destruction of CW materials by the UN after the 1991 war.
The last discovery of WMD “agents” was in June 1994. What were destroyed after 1994 were equipment and precursors (which, funnily enough, the anti-Bush crowd doesn’t mind if Saddam had in 2003!). So, sure, it was “in the past six years,” but it was four-and-a-half years before Clinton bombed that the last agents had been found and destroyed.
To suggest that Iraq still had substantial stocks of WMD in December 1998 runs counter to UN evidence and the official report.
chopper
but the tagging and destruction you speak of was only at those sites that saddam gave the UN access to. do you honestly believe that the sites he refused to allow entry to had absolutely nothing at all in them? i think that kind of assumption strains credibility. i’d think if those sites had nothing at all, saddam would have let inspectors in there and not in the ones with actual munitions. he’s an asshole, be he’s not stupid.
there is no UN evidence that counters my assertion. the UN stated that there was a lot of WMDs that were left unaccounted for, and they couldn’t get access to all the suspected sites from saddam. so actually, suggesting that iraq still had stocks in 98 jibes with the UN evidence.
as to the official report, it can only make assumptions (like me) since those sites were bombed into bits. however, as i said, given the WMDs that UNSCOM flat-out stated were unaccounted for i would think it strains credibility to assume that the later-bombed sites were completely empty of WMD. otherwise, what happened to the weapons the UNSCOM team stated were still unaccounted for?