How Bush botched the war (rant alert!)

[ginnyinWI]

I know this is a bit late, but watched last week's Frontline tonight--called "Rumsfeld's War" and a few more things have fallen into place for me. An excellent show. I'd like to summarize what I've learned in my own words:

During the planning phase for the Iraq war there were two sides:
1) The Colin Powell faction, made up of military guys who had gone through the Vietnam war, and learned the hard way how to conduct a war. They had stayed in the military, and just spent 20-some years rebuilding the military after that war, and produced the Powell Doctrine, a set of principles and code of conduct for any future wars so that we would never have another Vietnam-type war. To add to this side's credibility, Powell had conducted Desert Storm (1991) using his Doctrine, and it was pretty much a success. Key elements of the Powell Doctrine were: have a defined mission, have the American peoples' support, have enough troops, and have an exit strategy. (HMMM sounds like John Kerry here too)

Then there was:
2) The civilian leadership, made up of Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney and Bush (probably a few more) who held to the Neocon view that you could run a war on the cheap, with fewer troops and using a lot of high-tech weaponry. They thought little of the need to plan for after Baghdad fell. No real experience and a lot of untested ideology.

The two sides came head to head, with Scowcroft and Powell arguing for moderation and for using several hundred thousand troops, and the Neocons wanting to rush into a war with 50,000 troops (they later compromised on 140,000). So what does Bush do? He goes on vacation! And lets Cheney and Rummy fight it out with Powell and Scowcroft.

Long story made short: Bush and Cheney side with Rummy and the Neocons and against the seasoned Vietnam vets. Why? Old resentments between Powell and Cheney from the 1970s when Powell was head of the Joint Chiefs. Cheney and Rummy had been in the Ford administration together as Chief of Staff and Sec. of Defense, respectively, with the military in a power struggle against them,then, too. Cheney was consistently rude to Powell during those years. Right or wrong, he still wanted to "win" the power struggle.

So you can say that this whole disasterous war can be traced back to Cheney's ego and personal resentments toward Colin Powell, which made him not want to listen to Powell and go for Rummy's very flawed plan. They chose a plan dreamed up by a bunch of ideologues which hadn't been tested. Pure hubris.

Sure, there is probably a lot more to it than this, but little things like this have turned history on a dime before. And how many people have died because of this bunch of power-mad fools? They were in their own little echo chamber and wouldn't listen to outside voices, even those of the top brass in the military! And now Rummy goes around saying, "well, war is tough" and things like that--it makes me so mad! :grr: It's not that, you idiot, it's you! It's you who caused this war to turn out to be such a mess! You could have listened to seasoned experts, but NO. The finest military minds in the world, but NO, you had to have your own little plan and try to prove to the world how smart you were. Little boys with war games, that's all you bunch are, playing with real human lives.

[LittleClarkie]

1. Cheney's resentment can also be traced to Desert Storm

where he felt like second banana behind the heroic Powell. Was it Powell the General then and Cheney the Sec. of Defense?

At least Bush's dad had the sense to follow Powell and not Cheney. As John said in the first debate, Dubya should have listened to Poppy.

This is also why Kerry keeps trying to up the number of troops. I wish people would understand that.

[TayTay]

2. History will look askance at this Admin

It's the hubris that these guys exhibited that gets to me. They had one unified principle in going to war; we are divinely right and anyone who opposes us is almost evilly wrong. (The moral absolutes they employ is nauseating.) As we now know through the Paul O'Neill book, the Bushies wanted to go to war in Iraq right from the getgo and they used the tragic deaths of thousands of Americans as an excuse to fulfill this goal. I cannot think of a more harsh or stupid or coldhearted thing to say about them. They used the senseless and horrific deaths of that many Americans as a prop for going to war. There is no spot hot enough in hell to put such disgusting and vile human beings as the Torturer-in-Chief and his morally challenged minions.

The entire buildup to the Iraq War was based on intentional lies and fraud. They lied to Congress (and in our recent IWR threads we have explored this and why Kerry voted for the damned thing and so forth) and to the American people intentionally in order to test out their neocon theories about America becoming the dominating power in the 21st century. They completely disregarded the collective wisdom of our intelligence agencies and of experts in fighting terrorism in order to advance their grand theories of American conquest and dominion. And they have f*cked up royally.

There have been numerous books that have come out indicating exactly how the Bushies f*cked this up. Read Hersh 'Chain of Command' for another extremely depressing look at how we got to Abu Ghraib and how that horrific misuse of power will damage the reputation of the American nation for decades to come. And now these pea-brained mental mdgets are training their myopic vision on Iran, a country that probably does have nukes and Gawd help us if they truly do decide to invade this country in June, because that just might trigger WWIII. Bastards. Short-sighted, corrupt, putrid purveyors of senseless slaughter. (Can you tell I don't like these people at all?)

Kerry was right in the NYTimes interview last fall. There is a better way to fight global terrorism. This would include talking to other nations, like those in Europe who face a burgeoning Muslim population and increasing threats of violence and working with them to neutralize a great deal of the problem. Cut the terrorists off at the knees by attacking those who are funding them. And bitch-slap the Arabic regimes who have a ruthless hold on power in their own countries and deny their own people both freedom and democracy. That might actually help. It might also actually get the sympathy of the world on the American side. But this blind, howling mad idiot of a President can't even do that. I despise the man and I despise what he has done to Iraq and to it's people. History will not be kind to this horrible, morally-vacant cruel and deeply stupid man.

[ginnyinWI]

3. you're right in every word of your post!

Well put. What struck me from the Frontline is how Bush/Cheney were at a fork in the road and chose Rummy over Powell. I can't imagine why they thought Rummy would know more about running a war. Criminally negligent if you ask me.

It helps explain to me JK's IWR vote. I think he had some confidence that Powell's voice would be listened to, at least in part. And Powell knew his stuff. So if they HAD to invade, at least it would be done with some intelligent plan. But no, the mental midgets prevailed.

Now the chimp is in Europe impersonating a head of state. He's doing what JK said we should do, except he's two years too late, and is a lousy diplomat. What Europe wants to hear is a sincere apology, but from what I've heard (and I have been avoiding doing that) he is in so many words telling Europe to just "get over it". That is not diplomacy.

[elshiva]

4. Bush and Cheney are complete incompentents.

I wouldn't trust them with my dry cleaning, much less a war. Why the hell didn't more people see how incompetent they are? Why the fucking hell didn't they elect someone who actually knows something about war, say like...um...Kerry?