if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803
“Something Happened”
by Lee
Gripe Boy, in the comments to this post.
At the time I was amazed that we didn’t march into Baghdad to get Saddam. However, I was young and ignorant. I clearly see the reasoning now.
I couldn’t agree more. It’s supremely ironic that the main reason I supported the war in Iraq—my trust of Dick Cheney’s competence—turned out to be the thing which brought the whole thing crashing down on our heads. I was in the Navy during the Gulf War, and like every other person in uniform I wanted to push through to Baghdad and finish the job. I was young, dumb, and full of cum, as the expression goes, and I voted Perot in 1992 specifically as a protest vote against Bush for not finishing the Gulf War.
Look at the Cheney of just a few years ago. I mean, the man knows what the fuck he’s talking about. He’s not stupid, he’s not being lead around by the nose. He’s got a hell of a head on his shoulders. As I said earlier today, I was so pleased when the inexperienced Bush chose the master Cheney as his VP. “Cheney knows what the hell he’s doing, he’s not going to let Bush go galavanting off on some adventure half-cocked.” I respected Cheney immensely, so when he started saying that Iraq had WMD, that we specifically knew exactly where they were, that trust caused me to implicitly support him. I figured that if Cheney said they were there, then they would be. And if Cheney said they could occupy this country, then they could. I mean, this was Dick Goddamn Fucking Cheney, the man of steel. Surely he’d never send us into harm’s way without a solid plan to get in, get the job done, and get out.
Wrong. Oh so very wrong.
So basically I got suckered. We all did. How Cheney the realist from that video became Cheney the delusional authoritarian we see today is simply a mystery to me. This is one that historians are going to be talking about for generations. Check out Scott Horton in Harper’s.
Last winter, making arrangements for a law of armed conflict conference I was putting together with some friends from West Point and Princeton, I had a lunch with one of the former SACEURs (Supreme Allied Commander Europe) I was hoping to bring in as a keynote speaker. He started talking about Dick Cheney. “I read the statement that Brent Scowcroft made, where he said ‘I don’t recognize this Dick Cheney’ and thought ‘how true.’ I also knew and worked with Dick Cheney for years. He was alert, serious, sober and cautious. And nothing at all like this man who sits in the White House today. It’s enough to get one thinking about the ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers.’ Something happened.”
Something happened, all right, and we’re going to be paying for it for decades.
Comments
The only current or former member of this administration that never had even a moment of wavering support from me was Colin Powell.
When he jumped ship, I had a strong suspicious that it was because the ship was going down and that the rest of the boys were oblivious to it.
He’s been forgotten in most of this, but I would just like to take a moment to point out his foresight.
I can’t imagine that he’s happy to be right, in this instance.
The only current or former member of this administration that never had even a moment of wavering support from me was Colin Powell.
When he jumped ship, I had a strong suspicious that it was because the ship was going down and that the rest of the boys were oblivious to it.
I think that was one of the first real signs for me, too. When Powell went to the UN and gave faulty info we all wrote it off as, well, that’s just the nature of intel. But then we find out that the administration sandbagged Powell, literally withholding evidence from him that might have lead him to a conclusion other than one the administration was seeking. So they sent this man who has spent his lifetime serving his country and, with malice aforethought, sent him to the UN to make a case that they knew was untrue (or at least had a damn good suspicion that it could have been untrue).
I think that was the first crack in the edifice for me.
So basically I got suckered. We all did.
Not all of us, Lee. Not by a long shot.
Anyone who did their homework on Bush, pre-1999, SHOULD have seen this coming. I’ve been saying it since 2000.
Not all of us got suckered. But we’re certainly all going to pay the price for a generation, at least.
Sorry, Lee. I didn’t read to the end of the post before posting.
Didn’t realize you had written the same final sentence, almost.
Anyone who did their homework on Bush, pre-1999, SHOULD have seen this coming. I’ve been saying it since 2000.
You saw 9-11 coming?
You saw 9-11 coming?
This confusion of 9/11 with Iraq is exactly what has got us in this pigfuck in the first place. Saddam, while he was a ruthless dictator, was also more or less a SECULAR ruthless dictator. He was not a Muslim fundie by any stretch of the imagination. He may have played to the crowd once in a while, but he and Al-Qaeda distrusted each other and while there might be some evidence of communication between the two there’s certainly no evidence of any coordination. Iraq was a secular society under Saddam.
Iraq shouldn’t be properly viewed as part of the GWOT, or at the very least not against a global war on Islamists. In that sense we took a calculated risk, namely that we could topple a secular, tyrannical society and replace it with a secular, democratic society. We lost that bet, and now we have what is more or less uncontrolled anarchy, and our best case scenario is probably some sort of religious state ruled by a strongman who isn’t overtly hostile to us.
The point is, 9/11 didn’t force Bush and Cheney down this path, they chose it, and the proof that it was chosen was in the fact that they cherry-picked the intel to make it look like Iraq was a threat. They already had their hypothesis and then set about finding the data to prove it.
Look, if you want to make the argument that it was a worthy attempt, then go for it. A friendly Democracy in the Middle East would have been a wonderful thing. But don’t throw 9/11 at this and expect it to stick, I think that we’re (thankfully) far enough away from 9/11 to be able to see that Iraq and 9/11 are two different stories.
Iraq shouldn’t be properly viewed as part of the GWOT, or at the very least not against a global war on Islamists.
Iraq IS part of the GWOT. That is undeniable; what is debatable is whether or not it was essential for launching the invasion of Iraq. Based on the pre-war concerns that Saddam intended to acquire nuclear weapons and provide them to terrorist organizations, I say it was. You may disagree, but we are fighting Islamic terrorists in Iraq now. Therefore, the Iraq War is part of the War on Terror.
But don’t throw 9/11 at this and expect it to stick, I think that we’re (thankfully) far enough away from 9/11 to be able to see that Iraq and 9/11 are two different stories.
There is no proof that Iraq was involved in 9/11, that’s true. I thought it was awful that Saddam celebrated it, but that isn’t cause for war on its own. Nevertheless, the issue of state-sponsored terrorism and the danger of rogue regimes providing WMDs to Islamic terrorists is not going to go away and we will eventually have to deal with it again in the future. Should regimes that provide material support to terrorist organizations that could kill tens of thousands of people be removed with military force? That was the question going into Iraq and I still think it’s a valid one.
Saddam, while he was a ruthless dictator, was also more or less a SECULAR ruthless dictator
I almost let that part go without comment. It doesn’t make any difference if Saddam was a secular dictator or not. If he was willing to protect and use Islamic fundamentalists to accomplish his policies, then he is a sponsor of terrorism. Why is this so complicated? When fighting Iraq in the Gulf War, we (a constitutional republic) allied ourselves with theocratic monarchies, brutal dictatorships, and socialist democracies to complete our mission. We (being a representative democracy founded on Judeo-Christian principles and Enlightenment philosophy) also assisted Islamic mujahideen in expelling the Soviets from Afghanistan by providing weaponry, money, and intelligence.
It’s naive to assume that nations and NGOs with common goals don’t work toward them just on the basis of philosophical differences. If you really believe that, you would have to believe that FDR (a Christian)would never ally himself with Stalin (an atheist).
Exactly why is the U.S. deployed in Iraq, according to you?
Fine.
Let’s stop mincing words.
We’re in Iraq because Muslims have stated over and over and over that their only goal is to kill all non-Muslims.
After 9/11, we started taking them at their word, and since we didn’t want to be killed, our only choice was to start killing Muslims before they killed us.
Iraq had Muslims in it, so it was as good a place to start as any. In fact, better than most, because it was in the heart of Muslim country, and having troops there gives us a credible force-projection threat throughout the entire putrid, corrupt, murderous Muslim region. It’s easier to kill Muslims in other countries from Iraq than it is from Kuwait.
And now Muslims have two choices:
They can reform their vicious, degenerate religion so that it allows for peaceful co-existence with other religions and - after embracing this enlightened, live-and-let-live philosophy whole-heartedly - they can become productive members of the civilized world, much like post-WWII Germany and Japan.
OR
They can be exterminated like vermin.
All the rest of this crap about WMD’s, and mass graves, and liberation, and oil fields, and insurgents is just so much political window-dressing. America is fighting for its life against an insidious, deadly ideology. The people who cling to that sick, 7th-century belief system must either change their minds or be killed.
I wish with all my heart that we had enough manpower to conquer every damn last Muslim nation on earth and root this virus out once and for all, but we don’t. So we’ll start in Iraq, dragging these barbarians kicking and screaming into the 21st century. After that, hopefully the rest of the Muslim world will get the point. If not, there will be further examples, nation by nation, until they do.
Then, when the Muslim world is either civilized or dead, the war will be over.
I hope that answers your question.
A post from http://www.imao.us/ sums it up pretty well I think.
We (being a representative democracy founded on Judeo-Christian principles and Enlightenment philosophy) also assisted Islamic mujahideen in expelling the Soviets from Afghanistan by providing weaponry, money, and intelligence.
Yes, and look at all the wonderful things that led to.
Yes, and look at all the wonderful things that led to.
Do you mean short term, or long term? Sarcastic or literal?
In the short term, it led to a bleeding of Soviet funds by the drawn out war and a painful blow to them during the Cold War which helped bring about their eventual collapse.
In the long term, it enabled those same jihadi soldiers with the tools to eventually turn their resources upon us. It isn’t a completely unreasonable stretch to find the roots of 9/11 in those actions.
Iraq IS part of the GWOT.
I think the confusion is that skeptical was debating the “then” vs. the “now”. I think you are correct in suggesting that Iraq is part of the GWOT “now” because there are AQ jahadis behind every burned out truck. However, I think it’s equally correct to suggest that those jihadis were not in Iraq before we destabilized it “then”.
So, what we have is a small logic paradox, whereas our mission in Iraq (fighting dangerous terrorists) only exists because of our entrance into Iraq to begin with. Therefore, the rationalization for our entrance into Iraq is one of hindsight because the conditions that it suggests did not exist *when* we entered Iraq. We created those conditions by our own actions, indirectly of course.
Phrased differently, if we had known (and I’m not insinuating anything here) that the intel regarding Saddams “stockpiles” was bogus and had avoided our entrance into Iraq in 2003, we would not be fighting AQ in Iraq in 2007.
Some argue that, instead, we would be fighting them here which may or may not be true, but which does nothing to change the fact that we created the current conditions in Iraq by our own hands and actions.
That is the “then”. The “now”, of course, is that we don’t have enough Deloreans to fix things back in 2003 so, yes, we now must fight the GWOT in Iraq in 2007.
Para -
Nice Threadjack.
You can’t defend your position, so you change the subject.
Typical.
Back to the subject: What did happen to Cheney? When i see him on television, he seems disconnected to reality… saying things that are flat out lies, and nobody calls him on it. I guess he scares the talking heads?
Here’s a Daily Show example of an early Cheney bold-faced lie.
I’m thinkin’ Dick Cheney is senile. Either that or he really is a lying snake.
Para -
Nice Threadjack.
You can’t defend your position, so you change the subject.
Typical.
Exactly what is my position on this subject GADMAN? I don’t believe I’ve stated one.
I was just curious that you were warning of this situation with Bush before it happened.
Oh, and how am I changing the subject by riffing on YOUR comment?
Para -
9/11 had NOTHING to do with the post. Yet, like many on the right who can’t argue a cogent position, you trot it out as an answer to anything and everything.
In 1999, I was warning EVERYONE that Bush was a complete fuck up who had ruined everything he’d ever touched as an adult. His father’s friends had bailed him out of ever single endeavor he’d ever been involved in after he screwed it up. I was anti-Bush before it was cool. Mostly because I have relatives in Dallas, Austin and Plano, and knew all about Dubya.
Seriously, look at his resume some day. It’s staggering to me that this fuckwad fooled enough people to get elected. Twice. It’s more staggering to me that after 7 years, there are idiots still supporting him. Why? Why on earth would anyone still support this guy? I don’t get that level of denial or stupidity.
The one thing people respond to as a “success” in his career is the Texas Rangers. His biggest contributions to that fiasco was enriching himself to the tune of $15M, while also getting rid of their biggest playing asset - Sammy Sosa - and guaranteeing all that revenue to the Chicago Cubs during the great home run chase in 1997.
Your turn, douchebag. Or will you just say “9/11, 9/11, 9/11”?
Bring it.
Seriously, look at his resume some day. It’s staggering to me that this fuckwad fooled enough people to get elected. Twice.
I’ll tell you what got me. (This is in addition to my post the other day on this subject.) Bush was a popular governor in TX. My folks liked him, everyone they knew liked him. There was even a gay couple down the street, lifelong Democrats, and they liked him so much that both of them voted for his reelection. So while I was living out here I’d hear good things about Bush.
I was originally a McCain guy but I got on the Bush bandwagon after McCain’s campaign ate the dick. I mean, who the hell was I going to support, Al Gore? Besides, times were good. The USSR was gone. The 90s were relatively peaceful, the economy was good, the tech revolution was underway. Bush seemed harmless enough.
Man, have I ever learned my fucking lesson.
Lee -
At least you have the balls (and integrity) to say “I was fooled. My Bad. I fucked up.”
You, John Cole, Sullivan, and several others have been honest to realize you were had. Others, like Drummy, the clowns at RedState, Powerline, HughHewitt, Dan Reihl, etc, refuse to believe that Bush has been anything other than a perfect president.
ARGH!!!!!
Link
Cheney knew Iraq was going to be a complete disaster but went along with the idea anyway for some reason. This guy needs to be prosecuted on behalf of every single dead and injured soldier.
Next entry: Ramadi
Previous entry: Helping Harley
I think for Dick it was about being loyal to his boss, and seeing the opportunity to turn the Vice Presidency into his own little power base. He was not initially a politician, but couldn’t resist the role once he became one.