Selling The War

rgraham666 said:

If you'll pardon an outsider's opnion.

9/11 did not especially surprise me. Also, I was quite certain the second I heard about it that Al Qaeda was behind it. I'm not even that plugged into the poli-sci world.

Americans were shocked and frightened by 9/11 because the real world intruded in the hermetic bubble that many live in. For many Americans, even those that pay attention, the rest of the world is 'somewhere out there' and doesn't really have anything to do with them.

They weren't prepared for it psychologically which made it a much bigger event than it was. Not to say it wasn't a huge event, but it was magnified by hitting America in a spot it wasn't expecting. I mean more people die in a month in car accidents than in the Towers. But Americans don't find that last statistic terrifying, because it's normal.

The Shrubbies had intended to invade Iraq for years. It was the first item on the agenda the first time a Bush appointed NSC convened. But they themselves admitted that 'barring an event like Pearl Harbor, it will be impossible to convince the American public of its necessity.'

9/11 occurred and the Shrubbies used that to sell the invasion of Iraq to the American electorate.

Which is what Bin Laden wanted. They were hoping to goad the West, especially the States, into striking at a nation with a mostly Islamic population. This would, he hoped, create a war similar to Afghanistan, which the Islamists won.

It worked too.

The Islamists and the neo-cons are now 'objective allies'. They need each other. The Islamists need the neo-cons to continue prosecuting their war so that the Islamists goal of bringing about the Umma of all Islamic believers under sharia law can be bought closer to fruition. The neo-cons need the Islamists so they can continue to pursue their goal of Pax Americana.

The rest of us, Muslim and Westerner alike, are stuck between them and wish they'd just fuck off.

Click to expand...

Reminds of 1984, in which all sides wanted to continue the 3-way World War, just to keep their subjects under their thumb. Except that here there are still people with enough sense to want to get out of that quagmire.

Invade a country that has housed terrorists who directly struck you: makes sense. Invade a country in the midst of a civil war and with the government already falling apart at the seams (Iraq), who hasn't bothered you because they can't afford: doesn't make sense. You punish aggressors; you don't imitate them.

SEVERUSMAX said:

Reminds of 1984, in which all sides wanted to continue the 3-way World War, just to keep their subjects under their thumb. Except that here there are still people with enough sense to want to get out of that quagmire.

Invade a country that has housed terrorists who directly struck you: makes sense. Invade a country in the midst of a civil war and with the government already falling apart at the seams (Iraq), who hasn't bothered you because they can't afford: doesn't make sense. You punish aggressors; you don't imitate them.

Click to expand...

The most interesting book I've read so far, Future Tense says that a world not too different from 1984 will occur if the U.S. doesn't pull out of Iraq soon.

The main reason behind the invasion of Iraq was to overthrow international law. So far, they haven't succeeded. But the other nations of the world are getting antsy.

Without a method of resolving international disputes, and with the primary reason for international law, that the sovereignty of a country is inviolate, gone, the world's nations will start forming alliances again. Politics, history and geography being what they are those alliances will be pretty easy to predict.

The problem is that this will be a return to before WWI. All it will take is a minor incident to set the alliances at war with one another. And this time all the combatants will have weapons of mass destruction.

There's a method for resolving international disputes?

Since when?

An Extraordinary Criticism from the CIA

Tyler Drumheller worked in high-level positions in the CIA under Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II. Former Chief of Clandestine Operations, he was Head of the European on 9/11/01 occurred and took part during the run-up to the war. He retired in 2005 and wrote a book about the run-up to the Iraq war called "On the Brink".

I've taken the trouble of scanning in a couple pages from the introduction to his book and reproducing them here because, frankly, I thought the degree of Drumheller's disgust and outrage were rather remarkable for an intelligence agent, people who are known for their silence and discretion. I've just started his book but I'm familiar with his story from another book I read, and in my opinion his anger's more than justified. The man was screwed royally and his information treated with contempt.

============

[Starts out speaking of the other presidents he's worked for, their plusses and minuses in dealing with the CIA and use of intelligence]

But never have I seen the manipulation of intelligence that has played out since the second President Bush took office. As chief of Europe and one of a handful of geographical division chiefs in the Directorate of Operations—the covert branch of the [Central Intelligence] Agency—I had a front-row seat from which to observe the unprecedented drive for intelligence justifying the Iraq War and for someone to blame for the September 11 attacks. One of [CIA Director George] Tenet's most experienced top deputies, I watched my staff being shot down in flames as they tried to put forward their view that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. I watched as politicians, using intelligence that was at best questionable, spoke passionately about the impending threat of nuclear attack by Iraq before we sent our men and women out to die in the Middle East. I railed inwardly at the stubbornness of this country's leadership as it ignored voice after voice that warned of the perils of an ill-prepared war in the Arab world. Eventually I had to accept that nothing we said or did was going to change the administration's collective mind. Saddam certainly deserved to be overthrown, but I hated the way the public was told there were only two choices—unleash "shock and awe" on the evildoer or face the risk of nuclear attack from a boat in New York Harbor or a missile over London and more mass graves in Iraq. I reveail details here that demonstrate that there was another option available to us, one that might have saved Amcrican and Iraqi lives and made the world safer instead of more dangerous, as I believe it now is. Now that I have retired, I am finally free to speak my mind in public.

While I could not include all the facts in these pages, you will find a missing piece of the story of the run-up to the war that will help explain why one ally in particular publicly opposed it so vehemently, despite being a country with which I have cooperated for years, with the enthusiastic support of our leadership. When I was called to testify before the Silberman-Robb Commission, which looked into intelligence failures for President Bush, I was questioned at length about this story, which relates to attempts by a close friend and colleague, who like other characters in this book, can only be identified by his first name, Bill, to make face-to-face contact with an Iraqi source to confirm his claim before the war that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. The tale of Bill's futile round-the-world odyssey, which I at the time foolishly believed might avert bloodshed but which fell like a tree in the forest in the rush to war, was not revealed explicitly in the commission's report. The commission believed that this issue fell outside their mandate, but it is an important story that should be told. Now you can read it for yourself...


--Tyler Drumheller, On The Brink, Carroll & Graf, 2006, pp 4-5

There is a thirty hour gap between Mab's last post and the previous post. Approx 2 pages of posts have disappeared. I've PM'd Manu.

In fact, they seem to have disappeared right at the point Roxanne brought Sam Harris into the equation.

Conspiracy theory or just plain old cock-up?

neonlyte said:

There is a thirty hour gap between Mab's last post and the previous post. Approx 2 pages of posts have disappeared. I've PM'd Manu.

In fact, they seem to have disappeared right at the point Roxanne brought Sam Harris into the equation.

Conspiracy theory or just plain old cock-up?

Click to expand...

Speak up, neon. Mr. Harris has until tomorrow night to turn over our voice samples to Homeland Security.

rgraham666 said:

The most interesting book I've read so far, Future Tense says that a world not too different from 1984 will occur if the U.S. doesn't pull out of Iraq soon.

The main reason behind the invasion of Iraq was to overthrow international law. So far, they haven't succeeded. But the other nations of the world are getting antsy.

Without a method of resolving international disputes, and with the primary reason for international law, that the sovereignty of a country is inviolate, gone, the world's nations will start forming alliances again. Politics, history and geography being what they are those alliances will be pretty easy to predict.

The problem is that this will be a return to before WWI. All it will take is a minor incident to set the alliances at war with one another. And this time all the combatants will have weapons of mass destruction.

Click to expand...

Notice Drumheller's mention of the rush to get the Shock & Awe going.

Back when Rumsfeld was redesigning the army, military wonks were talking about the new Army Lite, part of the Neo-Con's vision for the Imperial Presidency. They wanted Bush to be able to use force as a policy option, and that meant they needed a smaller, faster, deadlier, hi-tech force that could get in, get the job done, and get out before congress could get itself together and interfere. That was the idea and Iraq was to be the test case.

That's why they wanted to go and go now, and that's why there were no plans for reconstruction or occupation and why Rummy dug his heels in on force size. This was a demo-war and as such it was a brilliant success.

Had they been able to get out as easily as they went in, Bush would have had a means for imposing a little Pax Americana-style justice wherever he wanted in the world without ever having to worry about congress's okay or oversight - South America, Africa, Asia. It would have been a truly imperial-style presidency, which is what they wanted.

Actually Doc, Afghanistan was the first place they tried the new Army. And as a bit of a military wonk I'll say it worked well. I almost feel sorry for the Taliban as they were absolutely helpless against the smart weapons much of the doctrine is centered around.

It worked pretty well in Iraq too. As Dyer put it, "it was like beating a baby up with a baseball bat."

Unfortunately, in both cases, the Shrubbies forgot that a great deal happens after the shooting stops. And what happens after the shooting stops is more important than the shooting.

rgraham666 said:

The most interesting book I've read so far, Future Tense says that a world not too different from 1984 will occur if the U.S. doesn't pull out of Iraq soon.

The main reason behind the invasion of Iraq was to overthrow international law. So far, they haven't succeeded. But the other nations of the world are getting antsy.

Without a method of resolving international disputes, and with the primary reason for international law, that the sovereignty of a country is inviolate, gone, the world's nations will start forming alliances again. Politics, history and geography being what they are those alliances will be pretty easy to predict.

The problem is that this will be a return to before WWI. All it will take is a minor incident to set the alliances at war with one another. And this time all the combatants will have weapons of mass destruction.

Click to expand...

Bush was arrogant enough to believe that he could impose a New World Order that was unilateral. He truly did want a militantly Christian America to go on a crusade that didn't need to refer to the "godless Europeans and Canadians". He represents a world-view with which I am intimately familiar, having been brought up with it (and since repudiated it). It is one that is best exemplified by Pat Robertson's New World Order book. It's a paranoid mindset that views the UN as a Satanic cabal of secular humanists that wants to establish a one-world socialist state. That's the reasoning here. You can't reason with such a mentality. You have to just expose it for the blatant hysteria that it is.

Oil

I'm feeling totally and entirely stupid. Sometimes you just get your head in such a weird shape that facts just fly right by it.

Ever since this Iraq thing started, whenever anyone said we went there for the oil, I dimissed it, and I'm not sure why. I suppose the idea of the Pax Bushiana was just so much more fascinating, and because it was hard to believe the sheer blatancy and chutzpah of such a bare-knuckled boarding-house grab.

Then today I heard some stuff that made me reconsider. Cheney's in Iraq, supposedly just having a look-see, but he's really putting the pressure on al-Maliki to keep the government of Iraq from taking a nice 2-month vacation this summer. A vacation wouldn't sit well with America with US soldiers being killed trying to keep the vacationing government in power, and also, if they take a vacation, they'll miss a crucial vote coming up on what to do with Iraq's oil.

I didn't know this, but without Iraqi oil, American oil companies only have a 10 years' reserve left. Then they're out of oil and out of business.

Now, they're not looking to steal the oil, but they are lookiing to sign a 30 year exclusive agreement to buy it, and the Iraqi parliament is supposed to sign their end of the deal by May 31. This hasn't had a lot of publicity (for obvious reasons), but you can read about it here and here.

The Iraqis aren't happy about this. It benefits the Shias and screws the Sunnis and Kurds and nudges the country further towards break-up into three independent regions. The only people who do seem to be in favor of it are the Bush Administration and the Oil Industry.

I guess another reason I never believed we went in there for the oil is that we've never really taken much oil out. Check this out. It's fom the second reference above:

In the run-up to the April 2003 war in Iraq, the Bush administration predicted that within five years Iraq would be producing 6 billion barrels of oil per day, more than enough to pay for its reconstruction. Verrastro says the White House failed to account for the devastated state of Iraq’s pumps and pipes, due to years of neglect, mismanagement, and financial stress caused by sanctions. He estimates that Iraqi oil production, currently around 2 million barrels per day, will not reach 4 million barrels per day until 2010. Production shortages over the past few years are mostly due to poor maintenance, corruption within the oil ministry, and a lack of security that has fueled smuggling and sabotage.

I did the math. They're producing 3.33% of what we estimated they'd be producing.