This will be my ONLY post on the Iraq war, not because I don't think it is important, but I'm NOT going to be a news site. I will not post everything that happens around the world unless it is related to a post topic I'm ranting about. Besides that, I think many other blogs and websites will cover the Iraq war much better than I.
Let me just say that I opposed the war since before it started, basically I'm apparently psychic because I knew that the claims of the Bush Administration about WMDs and Chemical/Biological Weapons in Saddam's possession was a bunch of Bullshit. This is basically the latest in a long line of wars of dominance that the United States participate in on some pretense that isn't related to reality, but rather is a lie.
I could give at least two examples of this, the Maine incident, which, thanks to Randolph Hearst, lead to the Spanish-American war, and the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which precipitated the Vietnam war. One war was quick and lead to the United States attaining a further expansion as a global empire, the other was an attempt at the same thing, but it failed.
The United States thought it learned from the mistakes of Britain and previous empires, the fact is, maintaining an overseas empire is expensive. We spun off some of our colonial territories when it was obvious that keeping a proxy government was cheaper than leaving it as a territory. Iraq, I believe, is yet another attempt at this, for, to be honest, we have a terrible time controlling proxies through subterfuge, and a war in Iraq would at least allow us a pretense to maintain a permanent military presence in that country.
The problem, of course, are the Iraqis, who don't want to be a proxy of the United States, an extension of American power in the region. We started a war of aggression, and that lead to an occupation of the nation of Iraq. We may hear that Iraq has a government that is independent of the United States, but let's not kid ourselves, they do not hold power in that nation, no more than a hostage has power even if he's allowed to go to the bathroom anytime he wants.
The question, of course, is whether the war is partisan, I would say it is, simply because the Republicans did dominate all 3 branches of government at the time the war started. Bush appointed or chose key members of PNAC to be members of his administration. This is fact, and can't be disputed, and PNAC themselves has been lobbying for an Iraq invasion since the late 1990s. Would a Democrat have done the same thing? I strongly doubt it, for Clinton didn't, and while I have my criticisms of Clinton, this isn't one of them.
Simply put, this is a Republican war, a Bush war, and blame should be put squarely on his and their shoulders. I don't dismiss those Democrats in Congress who voted for the IWR, however, we must heed the words of Harry S Truman and say: "The buck stops here."
As far as solutions to the quagmire that is costing us Billions of dollars a year and the lives of thousands of troops and Iraqis, in addition to the amount of ruin that has occurred. I propose a solution that is rather simple, if hard to swallow. What America must do is own up to its mistake, and cede control of the area to a truly international force, and pay any reparations for rebuilding a country we destroyed, and to pay the U.N. or NATO for keeping troops in the region for stability purposes.
This would cost us a shitload of money, but not that much more than what we already paid, in blood and cash, and we can at least remove the blood from the equation. A truly international peacekeeping force should be there for the sole purpose of allowing a stable, truly independent government to form in Iraq, regardless of the form that government takes.
Let me just say that I opposed the war since before it started, basically I'm apparently psychic because I knew that the claims of the Bush Administration about WMDs and Chemical/Biological Weapons in Saddam's possession was a bunch of Bullshit. This is basically the latest in a long line of wars of dominance that the United States participate in on some pretense that isn't related to reality, but rather is a lie.
I could give at least two examples of this, the Maine incident, which, thanks to Randolph Hearst, lead to the Spanish-American war, and the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which precipitated the Vietnam war. One war was quick and lead to the United States attaining a further expansion as a global empire, the other was an attempt at the same thing, but it failed.
The United States thought it learned from the mistakes of Britain and previous empires, the fact is, maintaining an overseas empire is expensive. We spun off some of our colonial territories when it was obvious that keeping a proxy government was cheaper than leaving it as a territory. Iraq, I believe, is yet another attempt at this, for, to be honest, we have a terrible time controlling proxies through subterfuge, and a war in Iraq would at least allow us a pretense to maintain a permanent military presence in that country.
The problem, of course, are the Iraqis, who don't want to be a proxy of the United States, an extension of American power in the region. We started a war of aggression, and that lead to an occupation of the nation of Iraq. We may hear that Iraq has a government that is independent of the United States, but let's not kid ourselves, they do not hold power in that nation, no more than a hostage has power even if he's allowed to go to the bathroom anytime he wants.
The question, of course, is whether the war is partisan, I would say it is, simply because the Republicans did dominate all 3 branches of government at the time the war started. Bush appointed or chose key members of PNAC to be members of his administration. This is fact, and can't be disputed, and PNAC themselves has been lobbying for an Iraq invasion since the late 1990s. Would a Democrat have done the same thing? I strongly doubt it, for Clinton didn't, and while I have my criticisms of Clinton, this isn't one of them.
Simply put, this is a Republican war, a Bush war, and blame should be put squarely on his and their shoulders. I don't dismiss those Democrats in Congress who voted for the IWR, however, we must heed the words of Harry S Truman and say: "The buck stops here."
As far as solutions to the quagmire that is costing us Billions of dollars a year and the lives of thousands of troops and Iraqis, in addition to the amount of ruin that has occurred. I propose a solution that is rather simple, if hard to swallow. What America must do is own up to its mistake, and cede control of the area to a truly international force, and pay any reparations for rebuilding a country we destroyed, and to pay the U.N. or NATO for keeping troops in the region for stability purposes.
This would cost us a shitload of money, but not that much more than what we already paid, in blood and cash, and we can at least remove the blood from the equation. A truly international peacekeeping force should be there for the sole purpose of allowing a stable, truly independent government to form in Iraq, regardless of the form that government takes.
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