PNAC the Dick-DUBYAship

of

Washingtons' Madcow Disease! (WMD)

Which other country is unravelling by those same dictates, along with mine?

Or is it simply that Americans approve of the Project for a New American Centuty and the dictates of Bush, Cheney, Rove, Wolfowitz, Negroponte and Bolton?

Those years against every Iraqi citizen on the other side of the "NO FLY ZONE", the other side of the Kuwaiti slant oil drilling projects into IRAQI Territory.

Like a good CAWBOY, starve 'em out' they don't even read "The Book".

The years we deprived them ALL, every man woman and Iraqi child of FREEDOM, LIBERTY and JUSTICE.

Those years the United States Government made the very same oath made to the American Indian Tribes of this Continent.

We let the brutality of Sadaam continue, even sending Donnie Rummy to shake Sadaams' hand and assist in the Sattelite Positioning of his Iranian adversaries---that other EVIL EMPIRE, the one Ronald RayGUN saved from the hands of President Jimmie Carter. By what means was that accomplishes? Wanna take a Regan Helicopter Ride anyone? Or "here's sand in your face", take that.

What if the Iraqis had gradually evolved subtle passive means of resisting Saddam and what if Saddam eventually got bored with putting them down? What if international pressure had gotten to him and what if carefully crafted appeals had eaten away at his internal defenses and made him loosen his grip?

What if the Iraqi people had learned to cooperate with one another across sectarian lines well enough to rise up one day and give him the boot?

All the things we'll never know because of this tragic, rash decsion based on a lie about WMDs and an unfounded belief that we could go in and do all their hard work for them and they'd appreciate it so much, they'd learn to coexist in a Western-style democracy overnight.

This is a crucial article that could only have been written by someone who's been on the ground all this time. Americans would do well to slow down for a spell, and internalize the things written here. America's history and future in Iraq, through the eyes of its citizens - not pundits.

If you're an American, your thoughts may return home. You may search your memory for a voice in mainstream politics articulating a coherent, sound, foreign policy that precludes shoving our noses, whether military or UN-backed/commercial, into the business of weaker countries. Can you identify one?

Be careful what you wish for. It's fascinating to consider Peter Beinart's book, "The Good Fight: Why Liberals - and Only Liberals - Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again". By recounting the original vision Truman had for the UN, one which seeded acceptance of US movements abroad through consensus, Beinart articulates a unifying theory of foreign policy that sounds both welcome, yet strange to our ears. Surely no Democrat has been breaking through the media bubble with such a central theme! What's really odd, though, is that Beinart is joined in this panel discussion by none other than neocon proponent William Kristol who praises the book (amidst myriad non-essential nits), and declares Beinart an inadvertant neocon. He does so, because as swagger-free as the ideas in Beinart's book are, they still involve an active exercise of foreign influence. (watch it at http://www.booktv.org/feature/index.asp?segid=7278&schedID=427)

Read Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man". It's Roosevelts (a grandchild in an important, little known case, not the Presidents) and McNamaras and military industrial complex finger-wagging Quakers like Eisenhower who gave the Flywheel of industrial imperialism it initial shoves in the '50's, '60's and '70's. Sure, the current Administration has given it the Big Mo needed to become quite difficult to stop, but they didn't 'start the fire'.

It's a mistake to think Democrats would neccessarily have kept us out of Iraq post 9-11. Some may have, but most may only have done it less lawlessly. As another commenter notes, the current slate of neocons in power had long ago whet the appetites of powerful energy and construction contract candidates about Iraq. The national argument swings like some sort of loose cannon (gee, isn't that a word we reserve for Ross Perot types?) from the setting of exit dates - not occupation exit dates; war exit dates - to rights that many gays don't even want, to immigration, to 'why the Times disobeyed the Administration' rather than 'why the Administration withheld the same request of the Wall Street Journal', ad nauseum maximus. But the Flywheel is spinning, greased by a US Congressional re-election rate that happens to be matched by --- why, waddya know --- none other than Saddam Hussein's re-election mandate - some 98%, up from 86% in 1920. Hmmmph!

Anyhow, thank you Mr. Rosen.

Heaven help America to pause and consider the real world affects, and the harrowing, fear-fueled bi-partisan momentum of our imperialism. What are we doing to alarm our countrymen of its specter?

The fireworks are over. Happy day after Independence Day, America!

Rosen makes an important effort to connect the existence of evidential documents he found to the moving stories of misery the brutalized Iraqi people have endured under Saddam, and now must live to tell about a new, equally dark time.

It also appears the US forces and BushCo want nothing to do with being totally accountable to the rules of engagement (or for that matter, winning the Iraqi people's trust). They will do a better job covering their own asses as they continue their campaign of terror. In 2023, there won't be any treasure troves of documents dating back to 2003 proving what the US truly did. Post 'shock and awe', the graves will all be properly installed, publicly announced—and it won't be any Americans fault if the right historians have their say in text books. Sectarian violence, thuggish gangs, and insurgents can always be blamed. It's doubtful a courtroom will ever help bring justice to our own tyrants and the expendable crop of careless young men and women they sent to do their bidding.

What I find to be so transcendent in Rosens's piece, and ultimately an equalizer between Saddam and BushCo, is that 20 years from now, the stories of the Iraqi people will continue to be told with the same grief and nightmarish elements. However, the difference is, the Iraqi people now have zero chance of changing their country. There is not one party to evict. There's not one leader with one set of statues to tear down. The breading ground for a constant fight for power has been laid perfectly. Iraq will be some helpful real-life analogy to an existential belief of ultimate struggle and endless suffering. You'll just have to go there I suppose. Americans won't have to know about it if they keep their TV's tuned to the RIGHT station. Maybe in 20 years, a writer like Rosen will have reason enough to simply state: Iraq is worse off...no contest. But maybe he should have answered the question now or maybe Salon should have found someone that could. Either way, a two-paragraph-wrap-up addressing the actual issue is a cop-out. "Fear" isn't equal, Rosen. That’s effectively a draw that the GOP would love to concede if they had to. "We didn't make it worse! And Saddam's out of Power!" Unless you want to live in that world where there must not be a clear reality in Iraq—then you're playing into the hands of NeoCons.