Enough already with calling Iraq a “mistake”

By Meteor Blades

Someone said it again today. Invading Iraq was a mistake. Every time it gets said, I grind another layer of enamel off my teeth. Nancy Pelosi says it. John Kerry says it. Mikhail Gorbachev says it. Spain’s Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero says it. Even the occasional Republican says it. And recent polls indicate 55% to 59% of Americans think it.

Every one of them is wrong. Invading Iraq was no mistake. It was bloody treason. And the traitors still rule us instead of breaking rocks at Leavenworth.

They knowingly, willingly, unhesitatingly pronounced what they knew to be lies and marginalized, denigrated and smeared contrary-minded people, manipulated real evidence, concocted fake evidence, tricked an American population traumatized, fearful and furious about terrorism and sent young men and women off to a war at the tip of a bayonet named “9/11.”

A mistake is when you hammer your thumb instead of the nail. A mistake is when you choose c) instead of d) on the SAT. A mistake is when you put too much garlic in the minestrone. Invading Iraq was no damned mistake. And calling it a mistake is more than a mere slip of the tongue. It sets a precedent. Pretty soon, everybody will be saying invading Iraq was a mistake. And in 20 years, your grandkids will be studying out of textbooks that call it a mistake.

Instead of calling it what it really was. Sedition.

Over and over again for three years we’ve had our faces rubbed in the evidence. Yet, every day, someone calls this perfidious, murderous scheme a mistake. As if invading Iraq were a foreign policy mishap. Oopsy.

Stop it already. People do not commit treachery by mistake.

As we full well know, even before George W. Bush was scooted into office 5-to-4, the men he came to front for were already at work plotting their rationale for sinking deeper military and economic roots in the Middle East, petropolitics and neo-imperialist sophistry greedily intertwined. When they stepped into office, as Richard Clarke explained to us , terrorism gave them no worries. They blew off Clarke and they blew off Hart-Rudman with scarcely a fare-thee-well. Then, when they weren’t figuring out how to lower taxes on their pals and unravel the tattered social safety net, they focused - as Paul O’Neill informed us - on finding the right excuse to persuade the American people to go to war with Saddam Hussein as a prelude to going to war with some of his neighbors. In less than nine months, that excuse dropped into their laps in the form of Osama bin Laden’s kamikaze crews.

From that terrible day forward, Richard Cheney and his sidekick Donald Rumsfeld and their like-minded coterie of rogues engineered the invasion. They didn’t slip the U.S. into Iraq by mistake. Like the shrewd opportunists they have shone themselves to be in the business world, they saw the chance to carry out their invasion plan and they moved every obstacle - most especially the truth - out of their way to make it happen.

When they couldn’t get the CIA to give them the intelligence that would justify their moves they exerted pressure for a change of minds. They exaggerated, reinterpreted and rejiggered intelligence assessments. For icing they concocted their own.

Larry Wilkerson merely confirms what O’Neill and Clarke previously had told us: The traitors didn’t mistakenly stumble their way into invasion pushed along by world events; they created a cabal of renegades specifically to carry out the Project for a New America Century’s plans for hegemony, first stop - Baghdad. They didn’t carefully weigh options and evaluate the pros and cons and make error in judgment, the kind of wrong choice that could happen to anyone. They studiously ignored everyone who warned them against taking the action they had decided upon years before the World Trade Centers were turned to ashes and dust.

The traitors ignored Brent Scowcroft when he wrote in August 2002,
”Don’t Attack Saddam”. They ignored the Army War College when it warned of the perils of invasion and occupation in a February 2003 report, ”Reconstructing Iraq: Insights, Challenges, And Missions For Military Forces In A Post-Conflict Scenario”.

When their propaganda failed to measure up as a justification for expending American lives and treasure, they fabricated evidence. Aluminum tubes that experts said could in no way be used to help make nuclear weapons were turned into prima facie evidence of Saddam’s intent to do so. Documents that intelligence veterans said from the get-go were forged remained the basis for the traitors’ claims. With the straightest face he’d mustered since taking the oath of office, Dubyanocchio declared: “Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”

If the ousted Colin Powell can be believed, they sandbagged him into publicly providing the United Nations with information the traitors knew to be false.

Senators and Congressmen were lied into granting the President authority to take military action to protect the United States from a threat that the traitors knew didn’t exist.

When the weapons inspectors under Hans Blix couldn’t find anything, but asked for more time to look, they brushed him off and began pounding Baghdad and other Iraqi targets with a display of raw power they labeled, like ad writers for some ultimate cologne, “Shock and Awe.”

Every smidgen of this betrayal of the American people was purposely calculated, even if poorly planned and frequently incompetently handled. Just as invading Iraq was no mistake, the pretense that Bush hadn’t made his mind months before the invasion was no mistake. It was a calculated ploy to suggest falsely that the President and the ideological crocodiles in the White House gave two snaps about cooperating with the international community other than to camouflage their unalterable determination to stomp Iraq, plundering it under the guise of righteous magnanimity.

Just as the war was no mistake, torturing prisoners was no mistake. It was a deliberate, premeditated policy of international outlawry and inhumanity guided by legal arguments requested and approved by the man who soon got his reward, appointment as attorney general, and carried out on the direct orders of men like General Geoffrey Miller at the “suggestion” of Don Rumsfeld and under the command George Walker Bush.

It was no mistake that the vice president’s company collected billions in no-bid contracts and that the White House attempted to cover up massive over-charges by that company.

Just as planning for invasion, the concoction of evidence, the ignoring of counter-advice, and the lying to Congress, to the United Nations and to the American people were not mistakes, the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson was no slip of the tongue, but a conscious, purposeful and deliberate act. Nor did the traitors mistakenly smear Ambassador Joe Wilson – a smear which continues today. It was the intentional plot of men fearful of having their treacherous lies exposed.

Mistakes were definitely made. Three years ago, too many elected Democrats and too many other Americans believed the president and vice president of the United States to be honorable men. To be patriots. To have the best interests of Americans at heart. They believed them and they believed a megamedia that operated like government-owned megaphones instead of independent watch dogs. Those were gigantic mistakes.

I haven’t told you a single thing you haven’t heard dozens of times previously. And yet, every day, people who I am positive are as well or better acquainted than I with the facts I’ve outlined here say or write: “Invading Iraq was a mistake.”

Nooooooooooo!

Our leaders betrayed us and aided our enemies. They worked overtime to silence dissident voices. They deliberately took us into war under a cloak of deceit and the outcome, so far, is tens of thousands of dead soldiers and civilians, a weakened national security, a diplomatic catastrophe, a sullied American voice, a dwindling treasury and increased terrorism, with no end in sight.

Stop calling what they did a mistake.

Comments

[emptypockets]

Powerfully put.

"invading Iraq was a crime"?
"invading Iraq was an act of treason"?
"invading Iraq was a perfidious, murderous scheme"?

You're always good about coupling criticism to a better solution, MB. Give us something to hang our hats on.

[Chris Stefan]

Spot on, this isn't over until the necocon cabal is indicted for Treason, War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, Sedition, War Profiteering, Lying to Congress, and a host of other charges.

Recent rumors give some hope that certain members of the misadministration may find themselves in legal hot water over the Niger forgeries and the '16 words'. While it isn't enough it is a start.

[TenThousandThings]

For all of John Kerry's failures (I assume he is MB's "someone"), one area in which he is especially qualified to comment is making plans for an exit strategy in Iraq. His experience in the Vietnam war and in the exit-strategy debate after his return, gives him the sort of perspective on the topic that we need.

Yes, I'm still on his e-mail list, because I'm interested in what he is doing. Not because I support him in 2008. My feeling is if he had portrayed himself in a more true-to-life manner in 2004 he would have won. I believe it was a terrible mistake not to release his not-very-good undergraduate grades. He worked hard to become the man he is, a quality that would have contrasted neatly with you-know-who.

Regardless, Kerry is in a good position to assess the military and political situation we face re: Iraq. What follows below are a few quotes from his speech at Georgetown, along with some comments. To get to the meat of what he is saying, you have to scroll down the the section titled, "The Kerry Plan: The Path Forward." He makes two points that are worth repeating here:

1. The Administration must immediately give ... a detailed plan for the transfer of military and police responsibilities on a sector by sector basis to Iraqis so the majority of our combat forces can be withdrawn.

The key here is "sector by sector." I believe this is Kerry the Vietnam veteran speaking. He was in Vietnam during a major American counter-offensive. After he left, Nixon's exit strategy of "accelerated Vietnamization" went into effect. That strategy failed. The lesson here is that there are no shortcuts to "Iraqization." Instead, it needs to be done in a firm, step-by-step manner, focused on turning over the sectors that are most easily secured and moving forward from there. We need to be training people for specific duties in specific places--assessing what is needed in a certain sector and then getting the people to to do the job and giving them the equipment they need to do it.

2. The real struggle in Iraq – Sunni versus Shiia – will only be settled by a political solution, and no political solution can be achieved when the antagonists can rely on the indefinite large scale presence of occupying American combat troops. ... Our military presence in vast and visible numbers has become part of the problem, not the solution. ... An open-ended declaration to stay ‘as long as it takes’ lets Iraqi factions maneuver for their own political advantage by making us stay as long as they want. ... It is essential to acknowledge that the insurgency will not be defeated unless our troop levels are drawn down. ...

The above speaks for itself. Kerry's best supporting quotation comes from Melvin Laird, Nixon's Secretary of Defense. The architect of the failed strategy of accelerated Vietnamization, he should know. Cheney and Rumsefeld must be forced to listen. The main point is this: we must find a way to make Iraqization work. There is no other option. Iraq can have a wonderful, brilliant constitution and even a viable elected government, but the reality is that it will all be for nothing if Iraqization fails in terms of "boots on the ground." The insurgency will overwhelm the government as soon as we pull out and Iraq will break apart.

One gets the sense that the Bush admistration's "plan" is to set up a government and then pull out. It won't work. We tried that in Vietnam, and it didn't work. The government we supported in South Vietnam was corrupt through and through. As soon as we began to pull out, the whole thing collapsed.

[DHinMI]

In the last week or so we had already had two outstanding overviews that stepped back from one or another aspect of what you rightly call the seditious actions of the administration that led us into a deliberate, criminal war in Iraq. RonK's Fitzmas, Wargate and Beyond: A Plea for Balance stepped back and placed the criminality of the administration into a wider context that included the western energy scandals, the budgetary offenses and other crimes not narrowly releated to Iraq. And KagroX's Just How Big is the Big Lie?--Redux examined Larry Wilkerson's LAT Op-ed as evidence of the Cheney Cabal's complete and deliberate subversion of the Constitution. Your piece fits with those two previous pieces, as well as emptywheel's intricate explication of so many of the individual acts that comprise the overall crimes related to Iraq and other foreign policy offenses as a thumbnail sketch of the utter criminality and seditiousness of the Cabal. You're right, we all know this stuff. But the last week, as we start to reach a climax before the likely indictments of many (but possibly not all) of the conspirators, has for me been a series of prose 2x4's to the forehead, as each of you has distilled the essence and scope of the cabal's criminality. Thank you all for making the criminality clearer and harder for us to avert our eyes from what has and continues to happen to our country and the world.

[Ron Brynaert]

Excellent essay.

[Monzie]

Brilliant overview!

[Mimikatz]

The War, as Meteor persuasively argues, was not a mistake on the part of BushCo. It was a deliberate act of hubris planned by men who were so sure that they were right that they refused to listen to anyone with a contrary point of view, and indeed their attack dogs called anyone who questioned their rationales for war traitors, appeasers and wimps. They were so sure that they were right that they allowed themselves to either be conned by Chalabi and his gang of deceivers and forgers (which makes them incompetent) or they used Chalabi's materials to con the American people (which makes them lairs).

We had an incurious president who couldn't be bothered to read the National Intelligence Estimate itself, let alone the footnotes and caveats in the appendices, and a National Security Advisor who hired other equally lazy or unskilled people to read for her.

So, yes, it was not a mistake on their part, and the problems we have faced ever since the invasion stem from their misguided and unachievable objectives, their refusal to plan for any contingency except sweets and flowers, and their installation of a bunch of idiots and innocents who tried to experiment with right wing ideology when the Iraqis needed water and electricity.

It was a mistake, however, as Gephardt said, for anyone in the Democratic Party and the press to trust BushCo, and a mistake for the American people to have trusted them.

But the act of going to war was not a case of pushing the wrong button or the button for the wrong country. It was deliberately if incompetently planned and sold to the American people in a carefully orchestrated campaign using the NYTimes and friendly Sunday journalists as well as attack dogs and dirty tricks to squelch the opposition.

The end result is to have made us weaker, less safe and less respected. As Kerry said, even if it isn't enough to get them indicted in a court of law, it is enough to have them condemned in the court of history.

[Jeanne Dolak]

Please don't ennoble Mr and Ms America and Congress as tricked victims of this idiotic war. They got what they deserved. How could anyone with duh two brain cells working have fallen for the transparent and ridiculous lies about Iraq being the next front in the war on terrorism? If America had stood up to Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld they might have backed off. Congress (with a few brave exceptions), proved themselves to be a hypocritical cowardly bunch of political opportunists. The big question is how do we get out of this mess now that the self-fulfilling prophecy has materialized? I certainly wouldn't trust anyone who voted for or backed the war in 2003 to do what's right now.

[Jerry Pesce]

This is the clearest summary of what has gone on in this country and the plain truth. What will be disappointing is to see some of these people walk away with out penalty or be pardoned before or after it all concludes. What is frightening is they are doing the same thing right now to justify the bombing and invasion of Syria. I hope Fitz reads this article.

[emptypockets]

I certainly wouldn't trust anyone who voted for or backed the war in 2003 to do what's right now.

Jeanne (if you haven't caught this already) -- this is what Cindy Sheehan has asserted about Hillary Clinton. "Was Critic Sets Her Sights on Mrs. Clinton" in NYTimes, and also blogged by somebody here

[Rabbel Rouzer]

HEAR! HEAR! Well Done!

"Gather the Villagers and Light the Torches! We're off to the Monster's House!" AHHHHHHHHHHH!

[The Oracle]

Good points.

What we are seeing is the difference between premeditated murder and involuntary manslaughter.

Bush, Cheney and the other neo-con scoundrels have committed premeditated murder in launching a preemptive, unprovoked war against Iraq. No accidental war involved. No oopsy. No mistake. Just premeditated murder.

Osama bin Laden did the same thing on 9/11...premeditated murder. No accidental terrorist attack. No oopsy. No mistake.

And Bush, Cheney and the other neo-con scoundrels abetted the 9/11 attacks, the premediated murder of thousands by bin Laden, when they downgraded the counterterrorism analysts in their neo-con government from primary to secondary positions. The neo-cons had other fish to fry (Iraq and Saddam Hussein) so the imminent threat presented by the radical, right-wing Osama bin Laden was put on the back burner.

And I just wonder how many "Michael Brown"-types were placed in critical counterterrorism positions in the months prior to 9/11? Doesn't the pathetic FEMA response to Hurricane Katrina sound exactly like the response of the Bush administration to the "hair-on-fire" warnings that occurred just prior to the 9/11 attacks? But just as what happened in the hurricane disaster, top officials (incompetent cronies) in the Bush administration just weren't listening...or had other priorities...or were concerned about where they were next going to eat lunch.

We are seeing the same pattern of criminal incompetence repeat over and over again in the Bush administration. And based on the Ron Suskind article from last year, the Bush administration doesn't make mistakes. Everything they do is premeditated. They are the "shapers" of history, while everyone else will be left behind and eating their dust. The dust of the dead. Rising up to choke everyone.

Yep, I'd say what Bush, Cheney and the neo-con scoundrels have done is commit premeditated murder. Hmmmm, maybe Al Franken was kidding less than I thought on Letterman the other night. But I think execution would be too merciful for the neo-con fools who started the Iraq war. Let's Gitmo-ize them instead. Shackled. Held incommunicado. Treated to the same kangaroo courts as they established for the detainees at Gitmo. Instant karma.

[gnocchi]

Excellent, excellent essay. However, while destroying one myth, you continue to perpetuate another: the 9/11 attacks did not just "drop in the laps" of the neocons. One cannot discuss BushCo's intention to go to war without simultaneously casting suspicion on the unbelievable convenience of a perfect Pearl Harbor "just happening" 9 months after they took office.

If we believe that this administration is sufficiently immoral to lie a country into war, we have to also consider the possiblity that they played a part in the event that gave them their much-needed causus belli. After all, what's 3,000 dead when you're planning to kill another 100k?

[TCinLA]

Another roundhouse left straight to the bulls-eye, MB. As another poster has noted, you and the others here have done excellent work of late putting all the crimes of this revolutionary fascist regime into the larger context and demonstrating that these are indeed premeditated crimes, not "mistakes."

Keep it up.

TCinLA

[space]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is a load of bullshit.

You want Pelosi and Kerry to accuse Bush of treason? Are you out of your mind?

Grasp hold of reality, sir. Accusing a sitting President of treason is a serious matter. Unless you have some serious f-ing evidence to back it up, you don't go there. So far, that evidence is lacking. Yes, we all suspect that persons in Bush's administration forged the yellowcake docs. But until you can prove it, publicly ranting about Bush's treaon makes one look as unhinged as a KKKlinton-bashing FReeper, circa 1999.

Instead of asking Democrats to commit political suicide by making accusations that they can't back up, why don't you simply ask them to do the due dilligence that might provide the evidence to substantiate your claims.

For example, instead of calling Bush a "lying, war-mongering, traitor," as many in the blogosphere are wont to do, we should be asking Dems to continue to demand the NSA intercepts regarding John Bolton. We should be demanding investigations into the forgeries. We should be demanding an investigation into what the British knew about WMD and Kelly's "suicide". We should be demanding an investigation into Ahmed Chalabi's leaks to Iran.

I could say that you are like a teen-ager who wants to screw without any foreplay. But instead I'll say that you are like a prosecutor who wants a jury to return a verdict of guilty before he has presented a case.

[cs]

I'm angry, to, MB, but I can accept that opposition leaders tread carefully in the language they use. After all, the thing we are trying to preserve/rescue here is our constitutional system of rule of law. We cannot preserve what we don't practice and we only contribute to its demise if we do as they do and apply criminal labels before the evidence is tried.

I am inspired by those who are demonstrating their commitment to the strength and worthiness of constitutional governance by holding to its precepts. by determinedly wielding them to protect and defend us from these massive assaults from within.

[mparker]

"You want Pelosi and Kerry to accuse Bush of treason?

Yes,PLEASE! Why not? I would greatly appreciate anyone in our Government who speaks out and risks their political lives for the greater good of my Country. That alone would be enough to receive my vote in a Presidential election. I would also extend that desire for a greater good to your Country and Iraq and the Soldiers and Citizens of all involved as well as those countries America is presently preparing to attack. Who exactly forged these documents remains to be determined. The documents were forged and were used with this knowledge to create the false case for war. This is in itself evidence of a President determined to attack Iraq for empire with the facts being fixed around that goal. As an American it is not usually a term I would use but in this case "Bloody treason" is entirely appropriate. It may be dangerous but it is not crazy to speak out against tyranny.

PS...Please send us more of your fine George Galloway's. We could really use them now. I love that guy.

[Stephen Thurtell]

It goes without saying that the Iraq war was no mistake, but then, neither was Vietnam (Gulf of Tonkin fiction); WWII (Japan was consciously forced to attack due to embargoes on essential products - oil, etc.), or let's go way back through the fog of history; something that Americans find difficult; the Spanish American War ("Remember the Maine" another fiction - it blew up due to faulty design and Spanish sailors helped pull survivors out of the water). This is capitalism and this is how it works. In the interests of a handful of people wars are fought by telling big lies and relying on backward ideas such as racism, patriotism, etc. to whip up pro-war fever. I'm sorry, I forgot the war to end all wars, the first world war, which the Bolsheviks, in publishing the secret Sykes-Picot Treaty, revealed to be a war to carve up the middle east and gain access to the newly coveted oil. Sound familiar?

[mparker]

I'm an American and I don't find history difficult. And yes, It does sound familiar. Most of what was stated above would be impossible to find in any US high shool history books but I'm beyond high school and I choose what I read and I happen to love history. I agree with your assessment of the wars of the past. I do not agree with your opinion that Capitalism must work by the means of war. When it does past or present it is a crime of the worst sort. The United States was doing quite well before this mess and could have easily gone on without killing hundreds of thousands of people with decent leadership and policies that respect and protect humanity.

[Goddatunda]

There is currently a petition online calling for a recall election to remove Dubya from office. While not putting any of these assholes in jail where they belong,
a vote of no confidence and a recall election would be damning and humiliating, and , most importantly, would rid us of the whole cancerous administration.

Unfortunately, I've been smoking too much crack lately . . .

[Ed Hanson]

Very well said, sir. Very well said.

[beq]

Thank you.

[Ed Drone]

Remember the lack of documentary evidence about Bush's Vietnam-era "service record?" This, penned at that time, is still apt today:

Inadvertently Destroyed

Air Force archives (inadvertently destroyed)
A thousand GI’s (inadvertently destroyed)

Good, clean air (inadvertently destroyed)
Medicare (inadvertently destroyed)

Forest lands (inadvertently destroyed)
Iraqi sands (inadvertently destroyed)

Third world health (inadvertently destroyed)
Our nation’s wealth (inadvertently destroyed)

Honest science (inadvertently destroyed)
Self-reliance (inadvertently destroyed)

Trustworthiness, cooperation,
The clean, good name of this great nation,

The Bill of Rights, a million jobs,
Integrity – we’ve all been robbed!

This is my message, and now I’ve sent it –
Inadvertent, Hell! They damned well meant it!

Copyright ©2004 Ed Drone & Bob Clayton

[hornet]

Brilliant and necessary. Sedition: exactly.

[Meteor Blades]

space, I call the Iraq Attack treason. I didn't suggest that Pelosi or Kerry or any other elected Democrat call it treason. I only asked that they stop calling it a mistake.

[zinfandel]

Personally, I'd be really happy if Congressional representatives could just bring themselves to say "intentional deception."

As in, it wasn't a mistake; BushCo intentionally deceived the American people.

Intention is the difference between Murder 1 and Manslaughter.

It communicates the seriousness of the situation without having to meet the legal definition of a crime (like treason or sedition), and it doesn't call on international courts, which are not credible to a lot of people in the country.

Intentional deception makes it personal: everybody hates being lied to, even wingnuts. And all the Reps and Sens who voted for the war could jump on the bandwagon: we were deceived.

From there, it's a short step to impeachment, in a rational world. Even in the irrational world of the past 10 years, it's a possibility: Clinton was impeached for lying; so should Bush be.

In the surreality of today, though, I'd settle for those two words: "intentional deception."

[fitzlove]

TREASONGATE: NIGER DOCUMENT FRAUD -- Wilson And Plame May Be On Fitzgerald's Radar For Treason Related To The Niger Document Conspiracy.

by Citizen Spook

also by CS

TREASONGATE: The Felony Murder Rule

[Andrea]

I don't agree with you at all. The war is neither a mistake nor is it sedition. I am almost one hundred percent positive that on 9/11 you felt that revenge was necessary for the dreadful deed that was inflicted on our country. In fact, if I remember correctly, everyone was mad and ready for a fight.

[Dennis Revell]

Fitzlove -

- You're a moron.

Iraq, Hussein had NOTHING, that's NOTHING to do with 9/11, had NO, that's NO links with Al Qaeda - except perhaps that OBL, like the Ayatollah Khomeini of bygone days called for Hussein's overthrow.

That you would apparently not know this indicates that you're living in the same cave as OBL. Correction - OBL,if he's still alive (as opposed to being maintained to wave as stick of fear to keep the American Sheople in line) almost certainly knows more about what is going on than you do.

Not a difficult task, apparently.

You suggest it's OK that were some unspeakable outrage to be committed against you by your neighbour, who happens to be out when you choose to exact your revenge, that you then exact that revenge on an entirely different person - perhaps his next door neighbour.

Anyway, you and your lot have managed to Mass Murder 100,000 or so Iraqis, so cry on your own time about the now relatively paltry death toll on 9/11.

Nor should you express any surprise that the sympathy shared by much of the World as a result of 9/11 has evaporated completely in the red-hot fires of the War Crimes, Torture, Mass Murder and deceptions of the unwarranted and illegal Iraq invasion and occupation.

Apart from all that, there really isn't much in Meteor Blades article that any bright kid with Internet access couldn't have figured out BEFORE the invasion:

http://www.webspawner.com/users/pmslies/index.html

- including the illegality.

- including the propensity to commit War Crimes and Treason - war crimes were committed in GW I - particularly by General Barry McCaffrey, now a sometime GURU on MSNBC. He should have been tried and executed.

- including handing out of "no bid" juicy contracts for well-connected companies.

- etc.

The MAIN conclusion of the Nuremberg Tribunal, stated by the American chief judge, no less, was that the waging of unprovoked war was itself the ultimate War Crime (I believe the phrase he used was "paramount War Crime") - of course, all further War-Crimes and deaths are a result of this initial and fundamentally EVIL act.

As such each and every order, and each instance of it as it reverberates down the chain of command, in furtherance of the Iraq outrage was, is, and will be illegal. US troops are under an obligation to disobey illegal orders - also enshrined, I believe, in their own UCMJs.

The only legal order it is either legal to issue or legal to obey in that horror would be:

"Pack your bags lads, you're going home"

Obeying ANY OTHER ORDER makes each and every level of the heirarchy, top to bottom, War Criminals and Mass-Murderers.

[Dennis Revell]

OK, Apologies due to Fitzlove, apparently.

You have them.

ANDREA, YOU'RE A MORON ... rest as posted previously.

Hey, genius webmaster, what gave you the idea to group a previous poster's details within the same lines occupied by the next post?

[Phil White]

I did a control F search of the top document on this thread for:

Israel
Sharon
Wolfowitz
Richard (as in (Perel?)
neocon
neo-con
AIPAC
Rove
Libby (as in scooter)
Likud
Krystol (as in Bill)
David Frum
Jew
Jewish

I got no hits.
Message, the war is about oil, about anytihg but Israel's security.

The secondary message is that none of the adminisrations Jewish neo-cons have their finger prints on it.

I notice that the author used a pseudonym.

Any body wanna guess what kinda name he might have?
Jayhawk the paleo-con

[Dennis Revell]

Well, Phil, I think I see the point you're trying to make, but I think it's a bit much to expect that a short article seeking to make a specific point related to largely mainstream re-writing of the history of the Iraq outrage: "Iraq was no mistake", would contain ALL aspects of the tangled web they weaved.

The fact that Perle advised LIKUD to sabotage the Oslo Agreement, and advised Netanyahu to be far more belligerent than he was towards the Palestinians (no easy feat - for him to be MORE belligerent) is covered elsewhere.

I can't remember, but I doubt if you'd find a reference to Israel, Likud and several other of the terms you mentioned in any of my various meanderings (click on my name below for link) on this subject. That doesn't mean that I wasn't aware of Israel's great enthusiasm for the Iraq "project", including involvement in the massaging of intelligence and issuance of false reports.

And I'm sure the Israeli Govt. is just tickled pink that the US/UK forces in Iraq have seen fit to largely adopt the Jack-Boot tactics of their own IDF.

[Dennis Revell]

Gee, you Americans surely are big on the censorship thing. No worries for your Govt. then. They don't need strictures (although they seem to be coming) like in the former USSR; your just all great at self-censorship:

http://web.archive.org/web/20061116064119/http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2005/10/enough_already_.html

Worthy of FOX "News", I would say.

Splendi show, well done.