I disagree with Randi about the Bush strategy on Iraq

[Armstead]

Randi Rhodes lost me yesterday when she said the US leaders want the chaos in Iraq on purpose.

Maybe I misunderstood her, but she was saying that the administration knew what a disaster Iraq would be, but that's what they wanted. She repeated that several times.

Maybe I misunderstand what she's saying, but I strongly disagree with that. If I am misinterpreting Randi's position, please tell me how. I listen to her often, and totally agree with her up to a point. But saying that they knew we'd be stuck in this mess and deliberatly want it is going too far into tin-hattishness, IMO.

The problem with Iraq, IMO, is not that Bush and his cohorts deliberatly took us into an unwinnable situation, and caused insoluable chaos in Iraq on purpose. I believe they simply Screwed the Pooch.

IMO we ought to take the PNAC Neo-Cons at their word. There is nothing mysterious about their agenda. They are quite open about their agenda and priorities -- including their association of advancing corporate power on a global scale.

I believe they are wrong, arrogent and naive, and too tied to corporate greed. But they are not stupid. And their beliefs are right there on the table,and should be dealt with on those terms.

They operated on a lot of shallow assumptions that sounded nice in theory but were totally wrong. They were arrogent in believeinbg that they knew better than all of the experts who warned them that they were opening a Pandora's Box that would be uncontrollable. They were also Machiuavellian in their use of phony evidence to "make the case" for war.

But i also believe they actually believed in the nonsense and wishful thinking they espouse. They really thought that we could go in, topple Sadaam and the Iraqi people would gratefully install a pro-western democratic government.

All of that alone is reason enough to oppose the war vehemently, and to reject everything it represents. However, I think it goes too far to imply that the US went in with the intention of creating the mess we're seeing today.

[hwmnbn]

1. maybe she meant that with continued violence...

B* can say there is justification for our miltary presence. They've planned to be there and are building 14 permanent bases.

[Armstead]

3. I think they figured the Iraqis would give us bases by right

That was one of their miscalculations.

I think they saw it as an opportunity to establish a permanent presence and base in the Middle East in the same way that we were granted bases in Europe after WW 2.

Instead, the continuing chaos only adds to the pressure to get out altogether....Anotehr example of Screwing the Pooch, I believe.

[Nite Owl]

2. I agree with her.

They spent years planning to get into Iraq, before the election they were planning to invade. These are not stupid people, there were Generals that told them that they needed far more troops and that this wouldn't work. Why no alternate plan? Why no Plan B then? They want the chaos, they want it to spread, they need the excuse to invade other countries in the regions. Perpetural war means more business and if we are at war unlikely to change parties as the dems 'aren't good at defense'. Even his own father warned that this very scenario would happen.

[Armstead]

5. If I were a Neo-Con....

I would have wanted to believe that we could go in, win a quick victory, set up a happy colony in Iraq, and be able to go about the business of making money without the distarctions of chaos and violence.

[BlueEyedSon]

9. Even if you didn't believe it, you would have to "sell" it that way.

:puke:

[Surya Gayatri]

16. Yeah, this is the PNAC kool-aid postition,

and is credible if you try on their 'thinking cap'. OTOH, I do agree with Randi up to a point in that disruption, chaos, and violence certainly have played into corporate hands. How better to avoid accountability than under cover of chaos?:tinfoilhat:

[BlueEyedSon]

4. The Bushies ran with the PNAC plan, but with some modifications

to suit their own agenda.

For example, the PNAC plan does not include (explicitly or otherwise) the acquisition/leveraging of political capital inside the US for the powers that be. It has been, however, a nice side benefit for the Bush regime and other republicans.

Look at the admission that Iraq is a "generational war." The Bushies did not make war effectively in Iraq, which the PNAC plan requites in order to move on to democratize the other "dominoes" in the region (not to mention a possible simultaneous war in NK).

It is undeniable that different factions have different prime motives for the Iraq war. Oil Cos wanted the Russian and French guys out. Jewish neocons saw Saddam as a powerful anti-Israel force to deal with. Etc, etc. (There are even people that believe Iraq is the right country in which to fight the "war on terror". :crazy: )

Cheney has so much to gain personally from chaos in the region through his ties to HAL/KBR, why wouldn't he want it that way?

It's just Randi's opinion, and no one can know for sure what these guys are REALLY thinking because they are so secretive. Based on the results in Iraq, I think there could be some truth to it. As the saying goes "if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail."

[Armstead]

7. Good point about mixed motives

I believe that the determination by some to make money off Iraq undermined the military/political goals.

What we have is a mixed muddle of motives and different interest groups. But that lack of clairty falls under the heading of Screwing the Pooch in terms of leadership and "the vision thing."

[BlueEyedSon]

8. Now you're using your noodle!

[Armstead]

14. That's a very disturbing looking noodle

:scared:

[sam sarrha]

10. Cheney got 443,000+ shares of Haliburton stock when he left fot VP beyond

what he had to begin with.. and inquiring minds want to know how much he had before the 433,000+ was GIVEN..

does that sound like a F*cking BRIBE..!!!!

[wryter2000]

6. You could be right

However, there had to be some element of stupidity or they couldn't have effed everything up so badly. I mean...they did everything wrong, right down to using the old prison for their own abuses.

Either there's stupidity, or they did intentionally mean to cause chaos, imho.

As you say, I don't think it matters which is true.

[Armstead]

11. Depends on the meaning of "stupidity" I guess

You can come up with something that seems intelligent, but if it is based on flawed basic premises of ignorance, the real world results could be called stupidity.

There are reasons we historically have not done things that sound good in theory. Heck the world would be much better off without Kim il Crazy in Nortth Korea. But there are a lot of very good common-sense reasons we don't simply invade and topple him.

The neo-cons ignored similar common-sense reasons for not simply going in and toppling Sadaam. We're learning the hard way why we don't do these things everytime we get an itch up our butt.

[emulatorloo]

12. Somedays the chaos in Iraq feels like "Plan B" to me

So no parades and flowers, and things are going badly? Well then lets really mess it up --- no security, so that reconstruction can't happen (which would allow us to get out of Iraq), terrorists can flood over the borders, etc etc and we can continue decimating the US treasury, and making profits for our big donors.

[Sydnie]

13. I was listening to Randi yesterday too and what struck fear in me

and I will admit that it is very tin foil hattish, is when she said that we had done just what Osama had wanted. She was saying that Osama wanted us out of Saudi Arabia and we had done that. Then she said that Osama wanted a fundamentalist state in Iraq and we had given him that as well. Then my mind made the connection with the "fly paper theory" and well, I haven't been able to get it out of my mind since then. What if we had made a deal with Osama? What if, when blivet** says his famous line of "fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here" is more based in fact than we thought, code speak for the deal that they made with each other? I have always asked myself, when I hear him say that, just how they could KNOW that to be a fact ... where had the terrorist agreed to that deal. I have always thought that was a bullshit line. What if it isn't? What if they struck a bargain for control of Iraq in return for Osama leaving us alone here in the states? Isn't it strange that we have never ACTUALLY caught anyone of the leaders of the September 11th attacks, even though we have had ample opportunity to do so. How is it that we seem to always catch the "number 3" man yet never seem to get the top billed players? How come blivet** went from "dead or alive" to "don't think about him very much" without so much as a thought for the victims families here at home?

It all smells like yesterdays fish to me and I can't shake the feeling that the truth has been right under our noses and we have been looking for the most complicated answers because to believe what he is saying on it's face is just too much to bear.

What if all of this was part of a deal that they made in return for corporate greed? What if this is really part of the plan they cooked up with Osama in the first place? What if they have always been in bed with each other, Osama making 9/11 happen so they both can get what they want?

I know I am strapping it on very tight - :tinfoilhat: .

[Armstead]

15. That hat is too tight IMO

The interests and goals of Osama are too far from even the most cynical western corporate interests to have any kind of agreement like that.

The last thing either the neo-cons or the oil cartels want is to have a completely antagonistic diametrically opposed new global power -- especially one that would have control of the oil.

I think the simple explanation is that we Screwed the Pooch.

[Sydnie]

18. You could very well be right but

I just can't shake the feeling that deals were made to set things in motion in the beginning. They needed a "Pearl Harbor" and they got it. They wanted profits for their investments (oil, defense contracts) and they have gotten that as well. They may see it as a win-win. What they didn't count on was the response and reaction of the people in both countries.

I hope the strap on my :tinfoilhat: is too tight.

[Armstead]

21. Opportunism -- not deals

I don't think that means deals were made.

IMO, they saw further attacks as inevitable and had planned to take advantage of it as an excuse to push the neo-con agenda, including an eventual attack on Sadaam. But I think they thought it would eitehr be something overseas -- like anotehr embassy bombing -- or something smaller in the US.

They were planning to ramp it up more gradually based on the common assumptions that most people had in the 90's of a more "contained" conflict.

But they got caught with their shorts down by the scale of 9-11. And therefore, overreacted and didn't think things through.

[BlueEyedSon]

20. The Bushes and the Bin Ladens have been biz partners for 30 years.

Bin Laden gave George 9/11, which was just what he (George) wanted. And in return.....

[Sydnie]

23. That's what I'm talking about

Sometimes things are more simple than you suspect.

I used to be a magicians assistant years ago. We hated doing childrens shows because, no matter how well we baffled the adults that were with them, the kids could always tell us just how the tricks were done.

Adults wrack their brains thinking about how the magician did what he did. They come up with very elaborate ways to do what they think they saw him do. But ask a child how it was done, quite often they can tell you exactly how it was done. They don't think of things in such complicated ways. Maybe we need to take a lesson and start looking at things in the most simplistic ways too.

They have been in business for years together. Their friends have been in business for years with each other too. Who says they can't still be?

edited to add - Wasn't there a Bin Laden at the same meeting with poppy the morning of 9/11 and wasn't that a defense company that Bin Laden was invested in too?

[Armstead]

26. I guess we just see the simple obvious answer differently

I see the simple answer being that they got arrogent and overreached and found themselves in over their head.

Unfortunately their lack of foresight has dragged us down with them.

[charlie]

17. I disagree with both of you

I don't think they believed their stated "remove Saddam and democracy will bloom" bullshit, nor are they surprised at the chaos that's resulted. They're indifferent. Their agenda is huge and will take a monstrous level of commitment to realize. 911 and Dubya was a window of opportunity, but it's not wide enough to fully accomodate their plans. That's why they're still ramping up a full court press on Iran, even while public fatigue for this insanity is passing the tipping point.

The idea is to embroil the US in as many intractible incursions into the Arab world as possible, so their ilk can still influence policy long after Dubya's administrations (or even after Republican dominance). We'll be in, we'll still have to deal with their follies.

[Surya Gayatri]

19. Yeah, I fear you're right

Their ambitions can't be contained within the borders of Iraq. Constant and eternal warfare could well be their ultimate goal. Shades of 1984. Only snag? The sheeple seem to be coming out of their 9/11 induced hypnotic trance...

[Armstead]

22. I don;t think "they " are that stupid

If you want long-lasting influence and control, you need successes. You have a small success to gain influence, build on it, etc.

You don't create a bunch of disasters on purpose.

The mysterious "they" would have been able to advance their agenda if Iraq had been the short painless victory it was sold as. But the more it drags on, and the worse it gets, that undermines the ability of its proponents to maintain their influence.

That's why I think, no matter how cynical one might get, they bit off more than they could chew.

I realize this is not a perfect democracy, but I have enough faith that enough Americans are smart enough -- including enougb people with power -- that a policy of endless defeats is not a winning strategy.

[charlie]

24. I don't

There's an article I'll try to hunt up for you, from the Washington Monthly by Josh Marshall. He interviewed a number of the key architects of the Iraq fiasco a half year or so before the invasion, and of course asked them, what if the friendly reception as liberators didn't occur? The counter from every one of them was to merely retort, what if it did occur? That was it. Post-invasion Iraq was an empty blank. Not just empty space, but someplace they would not allow interlopers into their vision to venture.

Again, that they're ramping up the pitch for Iran, while eliding over the disasters in Iraq with mindshare marketing, is a pretty good indication that what's going on in Iraq doesn't ruffle them. Not being able to extend the front to Iran will. You can see that they're anxious to get a hot war with the mullahs going before backlash over Iraq stymies them.

[Armstead]

25. It's the "wishful thinking" strategy

It's the same strategy Bush is using now. "If I want it to be so, it will be so."

I think the idea that chaos in Iraq is part of some diabolically deliberate long-range strategy is giving them too much credit.

Among otehr things, there are a lot of smarter ways to get what they want, if that was their aim through covert action, etc. Hecl, if they were just interested in oil, they could have bought off Sadaam so he'd send it our way.

That's not to eliminate greed and otehr motives from the mix. But I believe they realoly did expecte Iraq to be an easy conquest that would rally support for their agenda and enable further adventures in Iran, etc.