Why Ask Why (Downing Street documents)

[Plaid Adder]

This is for Scotty McClellan, who apparently thinks we don't need to find out why we really went to war, because all that is "in the past" (just like Jeff Gannon's career as a prostitute) and we need to move forward:

Friends, no matter what you thought then or think now about whether we should have invaded in Iraq, it's clear to all but the most ideologically blinded that whatever our objectives were, we're not achieving them. Unless, that is, our objectives were to turn Iraq into a chaotic war zone, create a burgeoning violent opposition that we don't seem to know how to defeat, and increase financial, military, and political support for Al Qaeda while making it far easier for them to kill Americans than it would ever otherwise have been.

OK, so if that's what you really wanted out of this war, then good for you, you've got it. If you were hoping for something different, well, then at the moment, this war is a gigantic problem, and it's going to have to be solved. And if you ever want an effective solution, then you have to understand the problem. Now the crowd in charge in Washington right now appears not to believe that; but I'm sure that at some point in your life you have had to solve a problem of some kind, and you didn't do it just by smacking whatever it was over the head a few times. Which is basically what Bush's Iraq strategy seems to be, at this point.

The way in which America got into this war is part of the problem. It has everything to do with why the war has become as big a disaster as it is. And you can see that in the Downing Street documents, which keep coming back to a few main themes:

* Nobody in Washington is planning for the post-invasion phase.

* Washington seems to believe that the purpose of 'intelligence' is to justify the action that has already been decided upon, instead of actually assessing the real situation.

* Our dealings with the U.N. are being undertaken as a means of covering our collective legal a(r)s(e)s, rather than with a view to preventing the conflict.

I said it before, I'll say it again: intentions matter because they affect results. If Downing Street's assessment of the mood in Washington was correct, then the 'threat' Saddam Hussein allegedly posed to America never really existed, and preventing him from making good on it was never part of Bush's agenda. In other words, Bush did not go to war in order to protect America. According to the Downing Street documents, Bush went to war because he wanted "regime change"--in other words, for someone else to be running Iraq.

And if you look at the results, "regime change" is actually the only goal this invasion has achieved.

America is not safer; in fact, it's more of a target for world hatred than it was before. The Iraqi people are not free, unless by "free" you mean "free of housing, functioning electricity, jobs, money, and the security of knowing you will live to see another dawn." Democracy has not been established there; even if you consider the current transitional government democratically elected, they are not independent of the foreign power that supports them, and they do not have a firm enough handle on the country to be considered a stable and functioning government. The only goal this invasion has achieved is the one Downing Street identified as Bush's real motivation: the removal of Saddam Hussein.

So. All right. Nothing we can do now about how we got into this mess. But if we want to get out of it, then we are going to need some people in charge whose intentions are to serve and protect America from the real dangers it faces. If the Downing Street perception of Bush and crew is accurate, then protecting America is not this administration's top priority. And so as long as they are running the war, that will not be the first objective they achieve.

That's why we need to find out what really happened. Because if the DSM is right about how we got into this war, then Bush and his crew will never be willing or able to get us out of it. They've already got what they wanted out of this invasion. They don't have to care what happens next.

The past affects the future, people. That's why it matters.

:banghead:

The Plaid Adder

[BlueEyedSon]

1. Clinton's BJ was in the past too, by the time they were bustin' on 'im!

[knowbody0]

2. akuna matada

aint gonna fly

[Karenina]

3. So what's the deal with the code

you tried to use? Damn these new-fangled machines sometimes! Never mind, you don't need it no way. Da chilluns taught me how to post an image. Got BUNCHES in the cyber-cellar but I think these two sum it up...

[Plaid Adder]

6. For some reason,

in DU forum posts they use square brackets for HTML tags, whereas I was taught, back in the days of stone tools and bearskins, to use the pointy brackets that look like this:

< >

I have gone back and fixed it now.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[Karenina]

8. Old dogs like me...

New tricks like this... :kick:

[patrice]

4. Wake up almost every day and hear 5, 23, 17, 50 DEAD and Wounded

It is so obvious - BUSH KILLS - Almost none of this was necessary, or if it had to happen, it could have been done right and thus SAVED THOUSANDS of LIVES.

1700 US Dead, 12,000 wounded, Iraqis? 30,000 dead? 50,000 wounded? for OIL and American domestic politics. Obscene.

[BlueEyedSon]

5. BTW the real reasons were/are

1. Secure the oil for US interests, at the very least make it unavailable to others.

2. Take out Saddam, he wanted to trade oil for EUROS.

3. Start an endless "Global War On Terror" which has nonspecific, shifting goals.

4. Establish a LARGE military presence - many permanent bases - in the region, but outside of Saudi Arabia.

5. Create political capital/allegiance to Bush (as a "war president") to help him ram through his legislation. As an example, the tax cuts which rewarded his wealthy patrons.

6. Loot the treasury, channeling the cash to the mega-rich and corporate interest via no-bid war-profiteering contracts. Use the deficit as rational to cut education/infrastructure/social/PBS programs.

(did I miss anything?)

Mission Accomplished!

[Karenina]

7. Here's another...