Sunday, February 27, 2011

Gates Agrees, Bush's Wars Were Nuts

By Robert Parry
February 27, 2011

When Defense Secretary Robert Gates told West Point cadets that you’d have to be crazy to commit U.S. troops to wars like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, media commentators quickly detected a slap at his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, who oversaw those conflicts.

Read on.

7 comments:

rosemerry said...

Millions of ordinary citizens all over the world knew the stories of WMD were fake. The cruel US/UK sanctions on Iraq meant it had not even food, clean water, medicines, shrouds to wrap the dead. How "journalists" could behave like this in a free country strains belief. Now Bill Keller is destroying Julian Assange after using his leaks to make money, and after redacting the stories again into lies.
"Paper of reference"? To whom??

Anonymous said...

Why don't we get the truth out Parry? Why don't YOU mention the CIAs involvement in the LIES or miscommunications involving WMDs? Let's go back to Clinton's Admin. It was during his admin that all the facts from the CIA came to light. Saddam was already convicted by Clinton and his demo co-horts but....not believed by the Repubs who would not allow Clinton to go to war. Remember? Get your facts straight. You write nothing but LIES, just like the CIA ruled by the demos. I hope you lose everything, just like your liberals are doing now.

Anonymous said...

long live the conservative mantra.

Peter Loeb said...

ATROCITY AND SOVEREIGNTY

A week ago last Thursday to the
day (2/18/11), the United States
vetoed a resolution in the UN
Security Council condemning Israel
for its war crimes. For detail,
see "Multiple Realities" by
Professor Lawrence Davidson here
in CONSORTIUMNEWS.

Only one week later in an address
to the National Memorial Holocaust
Museum in Washington, DC (2/24)11, the Vice President of the United States proclaimed:

"...when a state engages in
atrocity, it forfeits its sovereignty..."

The US had just joined all the other members of the UN Security
Council 15-0 in condemning Libya.

Every other member of the Security
Council voted yes condmening Israel and supporting international law. The US alone voted no.

Now the world is to forget this earlier vote and accept the US
as a savior of international law
and "democracy" and "freedom".

Muslims need not apply. [ Large segments of many of these nations long oppressed by Israel and the US
are indeed Muslim. They are not
all the same. Not any more than
Italians---or Jews---or Poles---
are all the same. But any Muslim
control which is significant is
definitely NOT "on the table" as
they say in Washington ]

Forget about the ATROCITIES which
may have involved Israel or the
US. Forget about whether or not
those committing such ATROCITIES
might forfeit their SOVEREIGNTY.

Just forget it! Forget the facts!

Just believe the fabrications that
are being carefully fed to you.

NOTE: The above does NOT indicate
which governments of which countries ought to rule. Not at all. Just bear in mind that some that commit ATROCITIES (such as Israel and the US) consistently avoid being held to the same rules.

email:peterloeb@yahoo.com

James Anderson Merritt said...

Your basic point is solid -- why keep clueless drivers behind the wheel when they keep steering the vehicle into a ditch? -- but remember that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were solidly bipartisan affairs. The people who were right about both of these adventures were the long-time Libertarians (not the neoconservative Johnnies-come-lately who falsely claimed to be libertarians).

Real Libertarians understand that war is the health of the state, and is to be avoided unless simply unavoidable -- use other, peaceful methods to spread peace and democracy around the world. Real Libertarians recommended that Osama bin Laden be hunted and treated as an international criminal, not a "terr-ist" or an enemy in war. Real Libertarians were horrified at the invasion of Iraq and at the sanctions used against Iraq in the run-up to the invasion. Real Libertarians warned that the measures used to fight "terr-ists" would soon be turned on our own people -- that liberty and prosperity at home would be primary casualties in our elective wars. Real Libertarians were shouted down, vilified, and marginalized for voicing their views and warnings. But now that the hawks have been shown wrong on virtually every important point concerning these military adventures, and Real Libertarians have been shown right, are the latter getting any chance to sit in the driver's seat? Are Libertarians rising to prominence in media, or being elected to office in numbers that would allow them to prevent such debacles in the future? It sure doesn't seem so from here. Despite being right FOR YEARS, Libertarians are still actively mocked and ignored, mostly, I think, by opinion drovers and politicians who are in fear of losing their positions of influence and power, a consequence that both you and I seem to agree they richly deserve. We'll see.

Anonymous said...

Of course, the people who were right about Iraq tended to get fired like Robert Scheer. I can't believe Peter Fucking Beinart has a job.

Peaceful_idiot said...

No consequences? I beg to differ. There will be consequences, but they have transferred the burden from their shoulders to mine: the shoulders of one of hundreds of millions nameless, faceless Peasants of the Empire.

Hubris, meet Nemesis. Lets hope she takes it easy on me, after all, I'm just an ignorant peasant, how was I supposed to know?