Gates: Iraq outcome 'will always be clouded by how it began'

[kpete]

Source: McClatchy

Gates: Iraq outcome 'will always be clouded by how it began'

By Nancy A. Youssef and Sahar Issa | McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military Wednesday marked the end of its combat mission in Iraq amid a series of conflicting messages that underscored the mixed feelings many here, both American and Iraqi, have toward a seven-and-a-half-year effort that cost tens of thousands of lives but left the political outcome undecided.

"The problem with this war for, I think, many Americans is that the premise on which we justified going to war proved not to be valid, that is Saddam having weapons of mass destruction," Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters as he hopped from one stripped-down U.S. military base to another greeting American troops.

"So when you start from that standpoint, then figuring out in retrospect how you deal with the war — even if the outcome is a good one from the standpoint of the United States — it will always be clouded by how it began."

Iraqis, too, expressed ambivalence about the U.S. declaration that combat operations now would be giving way to "partnering efforts" led by Iraqis and would lead to the complete withdrawal of the remaining 50,000 American troops by the end of 2011.



Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/09/01/99997/gates-iraq-outcome-will-always.html#ixzz0yNW0Q9wm

[leveymg]

1. How, possibly, is "the outcome a good one for the United States," Mr. Secretary?

Certainly for the balance sheets of a lot of military contractors, but who else benefited?

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. Halliburton and the other oil related industries

and the people who will run the power, water, gas, companies.
The whole plan was to destroy the infrastructure, then makes zillions rebuilding it, control the oil, and to subjugate the citizens.
Who do have have a history of not liking that much.
When the last drop of oil is drained from the sands of the ME, assuming no other treasures are left to steal,
the US will move on, leaving behind foreign ownership and a lot of military bases to contain China.
THAT has been Brzezinski's plan all along, and it is working nicely.

“…the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold (page 124),” and “America’s global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Euraisian continent is sustained…
A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions..…most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil (page 30-31).”
The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives ..... Zbigniew Brzezinski,1997

Look up who this guy is...he has been controlling foreign policy since before he was Carter's foreign adviser.
He is a Trilateral Commission founder and Council of Foreign Relations figurehead, etc.
One of his sons works at Booz Allen Hamilton,
another son served on President Clinton's National Security Council as an expert on Russia and Southeastern Europe, his daughter is a television reporter at MSNBC.
Interesting, huh?

Never mind watching who sits behind the desk in the Oval Office.
Watch who stands behind the curtains in that office.

[saigon68]

10. It is, --Was and ---Contiues to be a -----Cluster Fuck

[Ticonderoga]

12. His daughter is a television bobblehead

who works frantically each and every day to give credence to anyone who ever penned a blonde airhead joke.

[w4rma]

17. Brzezinski was an outspoken critic of the Iraq invasion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Brzezinski

[leveymg]

18. True, but, he was intellectual architect of al-Qaeda , the Taliban, and "Russia's Vietnam",

which became our Afghanistan. He had a lot of making up to do.

[No Elephants]

24. Not only that, but he sired Mika, of Morning Joe.

[dixiegrrrrl]

22. What he said publicly and what he does behind the scenes are different.

I tend to watch what people do.
Case in point: our current WH office holder.

[onehandle]

2. It began when Bush stole the Presidency.

That's what should be in the history books.

[SpiralHawk]

3. "Smirk." - Xcommander AWOL (R)

[SpiralHawk]

5. "Sneer." - xVP Dickie 'Five-Military-Deferments' Cheney (R)

[BlueMTexpat]

6. IMO, the foundations for the second War in Iraq were laid with

Bush I's invasion in 1991. Bush I overruled Cheney then about going to Baghdad (a VERY wise decision). Cheney neither forgave nor forgot. Then Saddam infamously had Bush I's face designed in marble on the floor so that he could walk across it - a supreme insult, although one that certainly didn't harm anyone physically. Tool (Bush II), like his mother (very like Palin in that she never forgets a real or perceived insult and exacts retribution to the extent possible), couldn't let that pass. Cheney saw a renewed opportunity - plus a chance to increase Halliburton's profits - in getting himself chosen as Tool's running mate. When Tool and his sycophants literally stole the Presidency in 2000, it was a foregone conclusion that Iraq was right in the crosshairs and that *Co would seize any opportunity - the earlier the better - to strike.

Unlike most of our elected Dem representatives - or latter-day converts in the MSM, etc. - many of us were paying attention all along.

The ONLY good thing about the US's lack of success in Afghanistan and Iraq is that Iran was clearly next in line to go. It still is. If the Repubs ever get back into power, and especially at the WH level, the invasion of Iran will be as much a foregone conclusion as the invasion of Iraq ever was. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[UpInArms]

8. along with PNAC's white paper of September 2000 -

Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century

signed by every huge piece of shit since time began

Elliott Abrams    Gary Bauer    William J. Bennett    Jeb Bush

Dick Cheney    Eliot A. Cohen    Midge Decter    Paula Dobriansky    Steve Forbes

Aaron Friedberg    Francis Fukuyama    Frank Gaffney    Fred C. Ikle

Donald Kagan    Zalmay Khalilzad    I. Lewis Libby    Norman Podhoretz

Dan Quayle    Peter W. Rodman    Stephen P. Rosen    Henry S. Rowen

Donald Rumsfeld    Vin Weber    George Weigel    Paul Wolfowitz

[No Elephants]

25. Ah, PNAC, soulmate of the DLC

2003 invasion of Iraq
The DLC gave strong support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Prior to the war, Will Marshall co-signed a letter to President Bush from the Project for the New American Century endorsing military action against Saddam Hussein. During the 2004 Primary campaign the DLC attacked Presidential candidate Howard Dean as an out-of-touch liberal because of Dean's anti-war stance. The DLC dismissed other critics of the Iraq invasion such as filmmaker Michael Moore as members of the "loony left"<12>.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council

[UpInArms]

28. uia - a self-professed permanent member of the "loony left"

eom

[BeFree]

19. Yep

And the first bush decided not to invade Iraq because of the problems it would cause.

And so, idiot son had to prove poppy right.

Hanging them would help.

After a fair and judicial trial, of course. Or how 'bout Gitmotizing them?

[No Elephants]

23. Get with the program. We're looking only forward now. For Bushco, anyway.

[Cirque du So-What]

4. I believe history will show that the US and other western nations

committed a blunder of epic proportions by invading & occupying Iraq under false pretenses - making millions of enemies in the process. As a result, the west will be reaping the whirlwind for untold generations.

[mike_c]

7. crime against humanity = cloud?

Gates is a tool of the empire.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

11. April Glaspie is cloudy?

Didn't this mess start after she told Saddam that the U.S. would not react if Iraq invaded Kuwait? A little white lie, and we've been at war in Iraq since 1991.

WMD was just an excuse for a re-escalation of a simmering conflict.

:hi:

[Ozymanithrax]

13. Well now that is an understatement. n/t

[burnsei sensei]

14. The premise of the war was decided in 1996,

the outcome has yet to happen.
The war is clouded with the pall of ERROR!
IT WAS ERROR!

[ixion]

15. It began with lies, false pretenses and obfuscation, and then escalated to war crimes

and it continues ever thus today.

[harun]

16. In other words he still has no problem with this war. Good thing his

boss does.

[No Elephants]

27. Obama drew down Iraq combat troops on Bush's schedule. And appointed Gates and Petraeus.

[rock]

20. and how it continued

and how it ended. And what happened after that. So many clouds.

[Octafish]

21. It was a lie.

So, call me a "Truther" for it.

[No Elephants]

26. Arrogant beyond all belief:

"Asked if it had all been worth it, Gates suggested it was too early to judge.

"It really requires a historian's perspective in terms of what happens here in the long run," he said. "I think that where we are today that our men and women in uniform believe we have accomplished something that makes the sacrifice and the bloodshed not to have been in vain. How it all weighs in the balance over time remains to be seen."


Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/09/01/99997/gates-iraq-outcome-will-always.html#ixzz0yPPX97Km


I'd bet my arm he means Western sacrifices and Western historians--as if Republican and Democratic historians ever agree on anything anymore. And Texas gets to decide how ALL our school history books read anyway.