“Oh, The Wayward Priorities”: If Republicans Hated War Like They Hate Obamacare, There Wouldn’t Be an Iraq Debacle
The Affordable Care Act might eventually be a terrible idea for the country. Perhaps, as Paul Broun (R-GA) once said, “Obamacare is going to destroy everything that we know as a nation.” Maybe Michelle Bachmann is right when she claimed, “I believe God is going to answer our prayers and we’ll be freed from the yoke of Obamacare.”In addition to GOP lawmakers making statements vehemently condemning the Affordable Care Act, they’ve tried over 35 times to repeal the law in Congress.
When it comes to big government healthcare programs, conservatives have likened the ACA to everything from communism to death panels. However, when it comes to war, the GOP doesn’t see Uncle Sam picking the pockets of citizens. The $4 to $6 trillion that the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars will cost taxpayers never evokes anger from the Tea Party. Rather, it’s funding someone else’s surgery that really gets conservatives furious. Sadly, if Republicans viewed healthcare programs in the same manner as they viewed war over a decade ago, we wouldn’t be in the gigantic debacle called Iraq.
Soon after the death of three thousand Americans on 9/11, Republicans worked vehemently to sell the Iraq War. In 2002, the same Bill Krystal who now bemoans Obamacare believed a war in Iraq “could have terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East.”In 2002, Vice President Cheney in a speech stated the “entire world knows beyond dispute that Saddam Hussein holds weapons of mass destruction in large quantities.”In early 2003, the Bush administration told the UN Security Council, “Either you’re with us or against us.”
Any opposition leading up to the Iraq War Resolution was met with political attacks and even Vietnam War heroes weren’t safe from Karl Rove and a united Republican Party. Rove and Rep. Saxby Chambliss led the charge against Senator Max Cleland and questioned his patriotism for criticizing the impending insurgent war in the Middle East. Chambliss attacked the triple amputee Vietnam Veteran “for breaking his oath to protect and defend the Constitution,” in addition to besmirching his character for having the audacity to be against the Iraq War Resolution. In order to better understand the mood of the time period, it’s important to note that Chambliss got a medical deferment from Vietnam because of a football injury to his knee and Rove has never joined the military.
When General Eric Shinseki advocated a far greater troop level before the invasion-closer to a number like 300,000 soldiers — he too was denigrated by Republicans. However, by 2007, even Lindsay Graham was quoted in a New York Times article as admitting Shinseki was right. As a result of invading and occupying a country as large as Iraq with an insufficient number of troops (in addition to a number of other mistakes), Bush announced a surge of troops in 2007. Essentially, this surge worked as a draft in that it prolonged tours of duty, keeping American soldiers in combat longer than in any other war in U.S. history. This prolonged time in battle directly led to the record number of PTSD cases as well as exacerbating the issue of suicide in the military.
The Iraq War Resolution passed with 215 House Republicans voting for it and 126 Democrats voting against the war. In the Senate, 48 out of 49 Republicans voted for it while 21 Democrats voted against going into Iraq. After the initial invasion, President Bush addressed the United Nations in late 2003 and declared America’s invasion a noble endeavor:
The regime of Saddam Hussein cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction. It used those weapons in acts of mass murder, and refused to account for them when confronted by the world… Across Iraq, life is being improved by liberty.
While the country was still in shock, President Bush spoke confidently about the reasons for U.S. involvement in Iraq.
In 2004, Donald Rumsfeld justified the rush to war (and the fact Humvees weren’t protected from IED’s with extra armor) by saying, “As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” In 2007, after a civil war between Shia and Sunni threatened to destroy Iraq, President Bush addressed the nation in a speech defending a surge in troop levels:
The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Changing his tune from 2003, and possibly forshadowing 2014, Bush advocated widening the war because “the consequences of failure are clear.”
Today, after all the monumental sacrifices made by American soldiers and their families, and with all the money spent nation building in Iraq, America has to contend with a new threat. Extremist militants named ISIS now have control of Fallujah (a one hour drive from Bagdad) and just recently conquered Mosul, one of Iraq’s largest cities and the home of two million people. Of course, the GOP is now changing the narrative from Bush’s speeches to a recent call for further military action in Iraq. Interestingly, no word yet has been heard from the Tea Party about the financial cost of further military action in Iraq.
It says something about a political party when a health care law is the end of the world, but an insurgent war is something worthy of attacking even a triple amputee war veteran to defend. If only one could go back in time and tie in an amnesty clause or a nationalized healthcare law to the Iraq War Resolution, then maybe GOP lawmakers wouldn’t have worked so hard to send the United States into the Iraq debacle. The truth is that the ACA, even if it falls short of its promises, won’t do nearly as much damage to this country as the Iraq War. Analyzing the GOP’s reaction to both will give you a good idea of its priorities.
By: H. A. Goodman, The Huffington Post Blog, June 15, 2014
“A Clairvoyant Invader”: Did George W. Bush Foresee What’s Happening In Iraq?
In their rush to blame the escalating violence in Iraq on President Obama, Republican critics brush off any suggestion that his predecessor may also be to blame, offering up some version of “Oh yeah, Democrats always want to blame Bush, but Obama has been in office for more than five years.”
As annoying as that theme may be (there is in fact a direct correlation between current events and Mr. Bush’s decision to destroy the Iraqi government, military, courts and police force and do too little, too late to rebuild them), the latest talking point on the right is even more irritating and absurd.
Mr. Bush, this line of “reasoning” goes, was prescient. He foresaw the unraveling of Iraq if the United States pulled out its military prematurely. As Igor Volsky reported this morning on Think Progress, Fox News obligingly explained “how the president who first invaded the country was also the region’s most clairvoyant analyst.” According to this narrative, Mr. Bush “pretty much laid this out as it is happening,” way back in July 2007.
Mr. Bush did say there would be more violence if the United States left too early. But he let military commanders set the timetable (as was reasonable) and military commanders suggested the end of 2011. Mr. Bush began the drawdown in September of 2008, at the tail end of his presidency.
After Mr. Obama took office the following January, he urged Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to sign an agreement allowing America troops to stay on longer than Jan. 1, 2012. But those talks fell through and the military recommended withdrawing as scheduled.
In 2011, Defense Secretary Robert Gates (a Republican who served under both Bushes) said Iraq would face security problems after a U.S. withdrawal. But, he pointed out, “it’s a sovereign country. And we will abide by the agreement, unless the Iraqis ask us to have additional people there.”
The Iraqis did not ask, and U.S forces withdrew. Mr. Obama did his best to clean up a huge mess left by his predecessor (and Iraq was far from the only one). To heap all the blame on him now is partisan hackery.
By: Andrew Rosenthal, Taking Note, Editorial Page Editors Blog, The New York Times, June 16, 2014
“The Brutal Neoconservative Legacy In Iraq”: Empowering And Strengthening The Worst Elements In The Entire Middle East
When we take stock of American policy in Iraq and its effects over the last decade, reasonable and humane people tend to focus on the devastating toll in blood, treasure and reputation. Hundreds of thousands dead, even more injured, families torn apart, trillions of dollars burned and bombed away, priceless artifacts destroyed, and America’s moral standing in the world severely diminished.
The less sophisticated neoconservative responses are to simply deny the truth or the importance of these losses, or to somehow blame them on political opponents who either actively opposed the invasion or were dragged into tepid support of it under threat of jingoistic political attacks in a country rabid for revenge against “the perpetrators.”
The more intellectual neoconservative answer has been to minimize the immediate losses while focusing on the ultimate legacy of the invasion from a bird’s eye view. They argue that removing Saddam Hussein from power will have been the right decision in the long run, that a free and democratic Iraq will ultimately be an ally of the West and an invaluable geopolitical prize, serving as a bulwark against extremism. It’s a dispassionate dodge, but one that has always been hard to fully discredit because of the very “we’ll have to wait and see” nature of the argument.
But over a decade after the invasion and with Iraq seemingly entering a disastrous sectarian civil war, it seems abundantly clear that whatever the long-term effects of the invasion may be, the near to mid-term result has been to empower Shi’ite theocrats in Iran, and to radicalize Sunni factions in Iraq. As of this writing, Sunni extremist groups expressly intent on establishing a global caliphate are threatening to overrun Baghdad. The corrupt Shi’ite government of Nouri Al-Maliki is counting on and receiving support from the Ayatollahs in Iran.
Neither of these developments have even a silver lining behind them. The hold of the theocratic regime in Iran has been weakening under popular protest over the last many years; its best hope of holding onto power over time has been to direct the anger of its citizens outward against the West. The efficacy of that appeal has been waning–but a newly engaged threat from Sunnis right across the border will almost certainly strengthen hardline rule in Tehran.
The radical Sunni threat from ISIS and its allies is even more dangerous, and was precipitated directly by the invasion. Whatever Saddam Hussein’s crimes may have been (and they were many), his regime was not ardently theocratic. Indeed, under Hussein Sunnis in Iraq avoided much of the radicalization that befell fellow sectarians in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and elsewhere. With Saddam gone and a corrupt and unresponsive Shi’ite regime in his place, Iraq has suddenly become a ground zero for Sunni extremism.
That’s a very ugly legacy for neoconservatives to face. Not only were they directly responsible for the horrific loss of life and treasure during and after the invasion, they are also responsible for empowering and strengthening some of the worst elements in the entire Middle East. It’s not pretty from any perspective.
By: David Atkins, Washington Monthly Political Animal, June 15, 2014
“Who Lost Iraq?”: The Iraqis Did, With An Assist From George W. Bush
It is becoming increasingly likely that Iraq has reached a turning point. The forces hostile to the government have grown stronger, better equipped and more organized. And having now secured arms, ammunition and hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from their takeover of Mosul — Iraq’s second-largest city — they will build on these strengths. Inevitably, in Washington, the question has surfaced: Who lost Iraq?
Whenever the United States has asked this question — as it did with China in the 1950s or Vietnam in the 1970s — the most important point to remember is: The local rulers did. The Chinese nationalists and the South Vietnamese government were corrupt, inefficient and weak, unable to be inclusive and unwilling to fight with the dedication of their opponents. The same story is true of Iraq, only much more so. The first answer to the question is: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki lost Iraq.
The prime minister and his ruling party have behaved like thugs, excluding the Sunnis from power, using the army, police forces and militias to terrorize their opponents. The insurgency the Maliki government faces today was utterly predictable because, in fact, it happened before. From 2003 onward, Iraq faced a Sunni insurgency that was finally tamped down by Gen. David Petraeus, who said explicitly at the time that the core element of his strategy was political, bringing Sunni tribes and militias into the fold. The surge’s success, he often noted, bought time for a real power-sharing deal in Iraq that would bring the Sunnis into the structure of the government.
A senior official closely involved with Iraq in the Bush administration told me, “Not only did Maliki not try to do broad power-sharing, he reneged on all the deals that had been made, stopped paying the Sunni tribes and militias, and started persecuting key Sunni officials.” Among those targeted were the vice president of Iraq and its finance minister.
But how did Maliki come to be prime minister of Iraq? He was the product of a series of momentous decisions made by the Bush administration. Having invaded Iraq with a small force — what the expert Tom Ricks called “the worst war plan in American history” — the administration needed to find local allies. It quickly decided to destroy Iraq’s Sunni ruling establishment and empower the hard-line Shiite religious parties that had opposed Saddam Hussein. This meant that a structure of Sunni power that had been in the area for centuries collapsed. These moves — to disband the army, dismantle the bureaucracy and purge Sunnis in general — might have been more consequential than the invasion itself.
The turmoil in the Middle East is often called a sectarian war. But really it is better described as “the Sunni revolt.” Across the region, from Iraq to Syria, one sees armed Sunni gangs that have decided to take on the non-Sunni forces that, in their view, oppress them. The Bush administration often justified its actions by pointing out that the Shiites are the majority in Iraq and so they had to rule. But the truth is that the borders of these lands are porous, and while the Shiites are numerous in Iraq — Maliki’s party actually won a plurality, not a majority — they are a tiny minority in the Middle East as a whole. It is outside support — from places as varied as Saudi Arabia and Turkey — that sustains the Sunni revolt.
If the Bush administration deserves a fair share of blame for “losing Iraq,” what about the Obama administration and its decision to withdraw American forces from the country by the end of 2011? I would have preferred to see a small American force in Iraq to try to prevent the country’s collapse. But let’s remember why this force is not there. Maliki refused to provide the guarantees that every other country in the world that hosts U.S. forces offers. Some commentators have blamed the Obama administration for negotiating badly or halfheartedly and perhaps this is true. But here’s what a senior Iraqi politician told me in the days when the U.S. withdrawal was being discussed: “It will not happen. Maliki cannot allow American troops to stay on. Iran has made very clear to Maliki that its No. 1 demand is that there be no American troops remaining in Iraq. And Maliki owes them.” He reminded me that Maliki spent 24 years in exile, most of them in Tehran and Damascus, and his party was funded by Iran for most of its existence. And in fact, Maliki’s government has followed policies that have been pro-Iranian and pro-Syrian.
Washington is debating whether airstrikes or training forces would be more effective, but its real problem is much larger and is a decade in the making. In Iraq, it is defending the indefensible.
By: Fareed Zakaria, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, June 12, 2014
“The GWB Created Sectarian Hornets’ Nest”: Only Two Words For Neo-Con Critics Of Obama Iraq Policy, “Brazen Chutzpah”
It takes completely brazen chutzpah for Neo-Con Republicans like John McCain to criticize President Obama’s policies in Iraq — especially as Iraq once again falls into sectarian civil war.
These are precisely the people who kicked open the sectarian hornets’ nest in 2003 when they invaded Iraq and unleashed years of civil war that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of refugees.
Of course the current Iraqi government bears a great deal of the responsibility for the current breakdown in security. As Fareed Zakaria wrote in Friday’s Washington Post:
The prime minister and his ruling party have behaved like thugs, excluding the Sunnis from power, using the army, police forces and militias to terrorize their opponents.
The Sunni insurrection that began in 2003 was finally tamped down by General David Petraeus when he engineered power-sharing arrangements between the Shiites and key elements of the Sunni community. Prime Minister Maliki has systematically abrogated many of those deals, reneged on commitments and created the conditions where Sunni insurgents have real sympathy among many in the Sunni population.
That is why the Obama Administration has insisted that increases in U.S. military assistance be conditioned on major changes that help create a political system inclusive of all of the elements in Iraqi society.
Remember that Maliki came to power as a result of the decisions of the Neo-Cons in the Bush Administration who intentionally dismantled all vestiges of Sunni power — including the Iraqi Army and bureaucracy — shortly after the invasion.
And, most importantly, the invasion that unleashed the sectarian civil war was sold to the American people as a quest to eliminate Sadam Hussein’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction — and as a means of destroying his non-existent links to Al Qaeda.
How ironic that the Neo-Con invasion itself created the conditions that allowed Al Qaeda-inspired organizations like Al Qaeda in Iraq — and now the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS) — to become viable forces in the country.
Now, Neo-Cons like McCain are calling on the President to “bring back” the Bush team “who knew how to win.” Unbelievable. The people who led us into the Iraq War have no business even commenting on foreign policy — much less managing it. In fact, any self-respecting television network should simply ignore anything they have to say, since they led us into the worst foreign policy disaster in half a century.
The Iraq War will ultimately cost the American taxpayers trillions of dollars. It caused the collapse of our international reputation. It costs hundreds of thousands of lives — including 4.500 American soldiers, and it wounded and maimed hundreds of thousands more. And the Iraq War unleashed simmering sectarian conflicts that had existed for centuries throughout the Middle East.
Now those sectarian conflicts have spilled over into an awful civil war in Syria and are part and parcel of international tensions throughout the region. And these “geniuses” should be brought back to manage Iraq policy?
Oh, they say, President Obama should have been a tougher negotiator when it came to maintaining a residual force of training personnel in Iraq. But that ignores that the Maliki government refused to agree to conditions that every other country in the world provides for Americans who are stationed on their soil. The fact is that Maliki did not want American troops to remain in Iraq because he is entirely beholden to the Iranians who did not want any residual American troops in Iraq.
But that, of course, is beside the point where most Americans are concerned. The vast majority of Americans didn’t want to maintain a residual force of American troops in Iraq either. They wanted to end America’s involvement in the Iraq War — and do not want American troops to be sent back to Iraq or any other war in the Middle East.
In fact, Republican attacks on President Obama because he “didn’t finish the job” in Iraq run head-long into the buzz saw of American public opinion. It is completely out of touch with the views of ordinary Americans.
The main reason why President Obama is now faced with having to do everything he can to help stabilize the situation in Iraq — short of sending back American troops — is that the Republican Neo-Con gang kicked over the sectarian hornets’ nest with their pointless invasion and macho military adventurism in the first place.
Remember President Bush’s “mission accomplished” on the carrier deck back on May 1, 2003. That was over a decade ago. The mission was “accomplished” only if the goal was to destabilize the Middle East, cost America trillions of our treasure and kill and maim hundreds of thousands of human beings.
The people who conceived and executed the invasion of Iraq don’t deserve to be given the authority to run a lemonade stand, much less U.S. foreign policy.
And personally, the only thing I want to hear from any of them is an apology.
By: Robert Creamer, The Huffington Post Blog, June 14, 2014
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