Unprepared For Peace by Senator Robert Byrd
August 26, 2003 9:27 AM   Subscribe

Unprepared for Peace in Iraq
Let us reject the blinders of isolationism, just as we refuse the crown of empire. Let us not dominate others with our power -- or betray them with our indifference. And let us have an American foreign policy that reflects American character. The modesty of true strength. The humility of real greatness.
Presidential Candidate George W Bush, 2000

Footnotes: March 26, 2003: U.S. Plans For Post-Conflict Iraq Receive Mixed Grade - CSIS Scorecard Cites Gaps, Shortcomings in Administration's Plans; March 2003: Plotting the Aftermath; August, 26, 2003: Do What It Takes in Iraq--and, on an ancillary note: WMD: Intelligence Without Brains
posted by y2karl (23 comments total)
 
[Insert dismissal of piece based on Byrd's KKK history here]
posted by goethean at 9:37 AM on August 26, 2003


Ah, an Iraq post. I was beginning to think they were an endangered species.
posted by jfuller at 9:39 AM on August 26, 2003


Mission Accomplished? More American troops have died since President Bush declared major combat operations over on May 1 than during the actual war, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.
posted by muckster at 10:00 AM on August 26, 2003


"MetaFilter: Bush Is Wrong! No Bush Is Wrong!"
posted by Shadowkeeper at 10:12 AM on August 26, 2003


Bush Is Wrong! No Bush Is Wrong!

Well, when the candidate says one thing and the president says the exact opposite, one of them is bound to be wrong...
posted by jpoulos at 10:18 AM on August 26, 2003


This thing with candidates saying one thing to get elected and then singing an entirely different tune once in office-- it's such an amazing an unique phenomenon of the Bush administration! I just can't believe it's never, ever happened before.
posted by xmutex at 10:32 AM on August 26, 2003


it's such an amazing an unique phenomenon of the Bush administration! I just can't believe it's never, ever happened before.

Who said it had to be unique? It's happening now, and with immense historical consequence. We'd be irresponsible citizens not to question it.... yes, at length, and yes, repeatedly.
posted by stonerose at 10:39 AM on August 26, 2003


...such an amazing an unique phenomenon of the Bush administration! I just can't believe it's never, ever happened before.

So I guess by the logic of xmutex, anything that has ever happened before should never be questioned, and should be allowed to continue happening over and over again, with no effort to keep it in check or limit the consequences? Hmm, yeah... that sounds like a good plan.
posted by spilon at 10:51 AM on August 26, 2003


Meanwhile, in Afghanistan: Afghan Taliban a Growing Menace to Stability
posted by homunculus at 10:56 AM on August 26, 2003


Y2karl, I know it's your signature and all, but those title attributes drive me insane. I want to read them. I do. But they disappear while you're reading them, and you have to jiggle the mouse to get them back again. VERY annoying.

sorry about the derail.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 10:57 AM on August 26, 2003


I hope the US Army is enjoying its current deployment tempo, by the way. If so, it's likely to get even more of a good thing.
posted by alumshubby at 11:03 AM on August 26, 2003


I think there are two sides to the situation on the ground in Iraq: Chaos and Calm Are 2 Realities for U.S. in Iraq. Ditto Afghanistan.
posted by gwint at 11:27 AM on August 26, 2003


Flanders - I did one of those far worse than that, and someone said - "When I run my mouse over all those links, It's like that scene from close encounters of the 3rd kind." and the coffee that spewed out of my mouth almost shorted out my computer.

Meanwhile............The Bush Administration's self described "Evil Cabal" ( hey, they have humor, I guess ) - consisting of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Bolton, yadda yadda (choose one, two, or more!):

1) Is collectively very dumb - unable to anticipate consequences more than 15 minutes into the future. Think - lack of planning, of executive function, as with that english laborer who became an early study in the developing science of neurology when he got a metal bar blasted through one of his frontal lobes in a bizarre accident, but survived for quite a while with a rather changed personality

2) Has been driven insane by ideology and the toxic fumes wafting from DC think tank factories, and truly did not perceive the obvious possibility of low grade guerrilla warfare and the use of terrorist tactics against the occupying US troops.

3) Had the intention, from the start, of setting up a US occupation of Iraq which would gradually destabilize, provoke an eruption of terrorism in Iraq, the Mideast and around the world, and slowly escalate into a theatre scale war involving US invasions and occupations of Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia - and the consequent control, by the US, of over 50% of the oil reserves in the World.

4) Is composed of malign, hideously repulsive aliens who will (one day soon) tear off their rubber masks and demand slavish obedience from their prostrate, servile human hordes whom they will periodically cull for slaughter - like cattle - for food export to an intergalactic version of "Trader Joes" or "Wild Oats" supermarkets (which will market the meat as "Free Ranging Human").

5) Are actually all advanced Mistubishi android prototypes controlled by the Auto, Oil, Coal, Chemical, and Pharmaceutical industries - as the real humans have been stealthily killed off and replaced by perfectly programmed machines who merely execute the behavioral subroutines installed on their hard drives by faceless corporate programmers!
posted by troutfishing at 11:32 AM on August 26, 2003


This thing with candidates saying one thing to get elected and then singing an entirely different tune once in office-- it's such an amazing an unique phenomenon of the Bush administration! I just can't believe it's never, ever happened before.

the question remains, when will we cease to acknowledge the truth of this folly with wryly shaking heads and begin to depose and imprison at hard labor those who engage in it?
posted by quonsar at 11:38 AM on August 26, 2003


6) A wrinkle on #5, actually: Are secret, fervent believers that Global Warming is quite real and that it is too late to do anything about it, as the Gulf Stream starts to shut down and threatens to touch off a massive, catastrophic climate disaster as immense storms howl down out of the Arctic to blast the US and Earth's northern realms, and chaos descends over the planet..........But we'll be warm and toasty in the sudden cold - too bad for France and Europe, ho ho ho - we'll have all the oil!

Bwahahahaha!.....Bwahahahaha!..... Bwahahahaha!

posted by troutfishing at 11:42 AM on August 26, 2003


7) Bush is the Kwisatz Haderach, born into this world to bring the jihad that will cleanse and intermingle the human genetic mystery. No word if that makes Barbara Bush a Reverend Mother.

</dork>
posted by solistrato at 11:50 AM on August 26, 2003


quonsar - steal a loaf of bread, get 30 years on a chain gang in Mississippi. Steal $875,000 from your failing oil exploration firm, get elected President!

"The Big Guy, he's OK. Maybe if I suck up to him, and get close, and he really likes me, I'll be him one day! (to paraphrase the words of the late Carl Sagan, in "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors", putting words to the instinctually driven deferential sucking-up behavior ( on the part of chimps and many other tribally organized hominids ) towards the tribal leader - who nonetheless occaisonally erupts in acts of random viciousness or even murderous violence. )
posted by troutfishing at 11:54 AM on August 26, 2003


7) Bush is the Kwisatz Haderach, born into this world to bring the jihad that will cleanse and intermingle the human genetic mystery. No word if that makes Barbara Bush a Reverend Mother.

By far the best political analysis I've seen this week. I was wondering what was up with his eyes.
posted by COBRA! at 11:57 AM on August 26, 2003


solistrato - But the Kwisatz Haderach had style! He was cool!

GW Bush, on the other hand, is a somewhat rough, foul beast.....( cue WB Yeats, The Second Coming )

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre,
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand......"


[ * cue - medium tempo roll, kettle drum - "Boom boom boom boom! cue - enter horn - Da, da da DA! DA! - drums - Boom boom boom boom ........... * ]
posted by troutfishing at 12:02 PM on August 26, 2003


#3 is the correct choice. They call it Creative Destruction.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 12:16 PM on August 26, 2003


Flanders - I did one of those far worse than that, and someone said...

Hey, that was me. Good times. But technically, that was just about the number of links within the post. Flanders is talking about the mouseover pop-ups.

I have nothing to add to the numbered list of potential explanations except, of course, for the obligatory

8) Profit!
posted by soyjoy at 1:14 PM on August 26, 2003


After eight years of Bill Clinton, many military officers breathed a sigh of relief when George W. Bush was named president. I was in that plurality. At one time, I would have believed the administration's accusations of anti-Americanism against anyone who questioned the integrity and good faith of President Bush, Vice President Cheney or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

However, while working from May 2002 through February in the Pentagon, I observed the environment in which decisions about postwar Iraq were made. Those observations changed everything...

Shortly before my retirement I read a secretary of state cable answering a long list of questions from a Middle Eastern country regarding U.S. planning for the aftermath in Iraq. The answers had been heavily crafted by the Pentagon, and to me, they were remarkably inadequate, given the late stage of the game. I suggested to my boss that if this was as good as it got, some folks in the Pentagon might be sitting beside Saddam in the war crimes tribunals.

Saddam is not yet sitting before a war crimes tribunal. Nor have the key decision-makers in the Pentagon been forced to account for the odd set of circumstances that placed us as a long-term occupying force in the world's nastiest rat's nest, without a nation-building plan, without significant international support and without an exit plan.

None may ever be required to answer their accusers, thanks to this administration's military as well as publicity machine, and the disgraceful political compromises already made by most of the Congress.


Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski (ret.)
Formerly serving with
Office of the Secretary of Defense's Under Secretariat for Policy
Near East Bureau
posted by y2karl at 3:23 PM on August 26, 2003


Why I hate George W. Bush.
posted by goethean at 4:32 PM on August 26, 2003


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