Thanks for the funniest post yet! Bush was a chicken hawk like Cheney and all of the other idiots calling us to go back and occupy Iraq again. Are you going to raise a war tax to do it this time, or is foreign intervention and killing of American soldiers valuable enough to go on the deficit when supporting American students is not?
When Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense, he was asked why Poppy Bush didn’t continue into Baghdad and take out Saddam Hussein. His answer was truly intelligent, based on facts: as soon as you do that, the glue holding the Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds will disintegrate, and we are unprepared to deal with the civil war that will certainly follow.
Someone evidently replaced his brain before 2003, though, and everyone forgot to remember the words of Smart Cheney.
This was bound to happen, regardless of our involvement.
I recommend “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” by Chandrssakian, a reporter for the Washington Post. The Emerald City was the green zone, and it details the incredible failings of the first year of occupation by the Coalition Provisional Authority (= Paul Bremer and his underlings). Beyond the bizarre details, like having Muslims serve their pork barbecue (and we hired Pakistanis to do this because we didn’t trust the Iraqis to serve us our food), and the very creation of the Green Zone (which said that we’re too good to live the way you do, so we are going to bring in a few city blocks of America, then wall it off so it divides the city in half), it documents the tremendous numbers of incorrect assumptions by the Bush administration and of Mr. Bremer and staff.
For example, one of Mr. Bremer’s tasks was to sell off the infrastructure to the highest bidder, privatizing any and all utilities. This will be found in your dictionary under the word: “Plunder”. He found no takers, as the infrastructure was failing. Saddam manipulated currency to enable him to employ almost everyone, but no one worked. As a result, the electric grid, water and sewer issues, and other parts of infrastructure were so antiquated and so poorly maintained that the only option was to tear it all down and rebuild it, which we were willing to do, but only in a half-assed way, and the civil war made sure that we lost two steps for every one we took forward.
After the occupation came the looting. We allowed this to happen. Donald Rumsfeld, when asked why we allowed it, said, “Freedom is untidy.”
Jails were emptied. Records were destroyed. Universities were vandalized; computers were taken, desks, file cabinets….copper wiring was pulled out of the walls.
Educated people and business owners fled the country. Doctors and professors either left or were killed.
There is no future in this country. We have left it a shambles, with no money, no education, and worse infrastructure than before the war (a lot of that was substandard “construction” as a result of no-bid contracts).
And some posters here think that the right answer is to go back there and teach those people a lesson.
We’ve helped them quite enough, I’m sure. There’s a reason why they wanted us to leave. And if we go wave our weapons at them again, there will be another recruiting wave for Al-Qaeda.
The Kurds can take care of themselves, as they have wanted to do all along. The Sunnis and Shia will fight until they’re all gone. What can we do to stop that? And why don’t other countries in the region, who are well populated with both Sunni and Shia, work to keep the region stable? You can’t help people who don’t want to be helped. And even if they did, they have made it clear that our kind of help is not what they want.
Women and children are being killed RIGHT NOW in the streets of the Congo, Nigeria, Darfur, Somalia, Thailand……We can’t save the whole world, but it makes sense that we should take care of the people who are in our own country.
The problems with illegal immigration have been going on for decades, and through several administrations, and no one has done anything about it. Who would have been able to expect that it would get out of hand?
The senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill last year. The house has done……nothing. Except to say that they have other ideas. Which they’ve done nothing about. But, when all else fails, it’s Obama’s fault.
Amazing how, if only Barack Obama would vanish from the earth, every problem facing our society would suddenly become solved.
Invading a country that did nothing to us, replacing their government, granted, not “user friendly”, but at least functional, after killing a bunch of civilians, and installing puppets we think we can control, who are hated by the people even worse than the former “despots”, and destroying not just their physical, but also military, police, and civil infrastructure, was just SO brilliant’.
First stupidity ’91, then we bombed intermittently ’til ’03, then WE went totally nuts! Yep, Republican administrations did SO much to win friends and influence folks in the Middle East and South Asia.
What would you have Obama do, send in more troops? You neocons never met a war you didn’t like, as long as you didn’t have to fight it. Where were you neocons when Dubya was sending troops into Iraq? Oh, right, you were up his pants leg, rubbing in delight.
HAR! Hong Kong is CHINA, and since the Brits turned it over, they’ve been smarter about Capitalism than anyone in today’s Republican Party! BTW: don’t chew gum in Singapore if you want to stay out of prison, yep, “freedom”.
Theodore E. Lind Premium Member almost 10 years ago
Mission accomplished!
echoraven almost 10 years ago
Soooo… did we ever get the girls back?
OmqR-IV.0 almost 10 years ago
I do believe that Varvel is saying another shockingly awesome treat is in order.
…because that worked very well last time round…
ARodney almost 10 years ago
Thanks for the funniest post yet! Bush was a chicken hawk like Cheney and all of the other idiots calling us to go back and occupy Iraq again. Are you going to raise a war tax to do it this time, or is foreign intervention and killing of American soldiers valuable enough to go on the deficit when supporting American students is not?
I Play One On TV almost 10 years ago
When Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense, he was asked why Poppy Bush didn’t continue into Baghdad and take out Saddam Hussein. His answer was truly intelligent, based on facts: as soon as you do that, the glue holding the Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds will disintegrate, and we are unprepared to deal with the civil war that will certainly follow.
Someone evidently replaced his brain before 2003, though, and everyone forgot to remember the words of Smart Cheney.
This was bound to happen, regardless of our involvement.
I recommend “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” by Chandrssakian, a reporter for the Washington Post. The Emerald City was the green zone, and it details the incredible failings of the first year of occupation by the Coalition Provisional Authority (= Paul Bremer and his underlings). Beyond the bizarre details, like having Muslims serve their pork barbecue (and we hired Pakistanis to do this because we didn’t trust the Iraqis to serve us our food), and the very creation of the Green Zone (which said that we’re too good to live the way you do, so we are going to bring in a few city blocks of America, then wall it off so it divides the city in half), it documents the tremendous numbers of incorrect assumptions by the Bush administration and of Mr. Bremer and staff.
For example, one of Mr. Bremer’s tasks was to sell off the infrastructure to the highest bidder, privatizing any and all utilities. This will be found in your dictionary under the word: “Plunder”. He found no takers, as the infrastructure was failing. Saddam manipulated currency to enable him to employ almost everyone, but no one worked. As a result, the electric grid, water and sewer issues, and other parts of infrastructure were so antiquated and so poorly maintained that the only option was to tear it all down and rebuild it, which we were willing to do, but only in a half-assed way, and the civil war made sure that we lost two steps for every one we took forward.
After the occupation came the looting. We allowed this to happen. Donald Rumsfeld, when asked why we allowed it, said, “Freedom is untidy.”
Jails were emptied. Records were destroyed. Universities were vandalized; computers were taken, desks, file cabinets….copper wiring was pulled out of the walls.
Educated people and business owners fled the country. Doctors and professors either left or were killed.
There is no future in this country. We have left it a shambles, with no money, no education, and worse infrastructure than before the war (a lot of that was substandard “construction” as a result of no-bid contracts).
And some posters here think that the right answer is to go back there and teach those people a lesson.
We’ve helped them quite enough, I’m sure. There’s a reason why they wanted us to leave. And if we go wave our weapons at them again, there will be another recruiting wave for Al-Qaeda.
The Kurds can take care of themselves, as they have wanted to do all along. The Sunnis and Shia will fight until they’re all gone. What can we do to stop that? And why don’t other countries in the region, who are well populated with both Sunni and Shia, work to keep the region stable? You can’t help people who don’t want to be helped. And even if they did, they have made it clear that our kind of help is not what they want.
I Play One On TV almost 10 years ago
Women and children are being killed RIGHT NOW in the streets of the Congo, Nigeria, Darfur, Somalia, Thailand……We can’t save the whole world, but it makes sense that we should take care of the people who are in our own country.
The problems with illegal immigration have been going on for decades, and through several administrations, and no one has done anything about it. Who would have been able to expect that it would get out of hand?
The senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill last year. The house has done……nothing. Except to say that they have other ideas. Which they’ve done nothing about. But, when all else fails, it’s Obama’s fault.
Amazing how, if only Barack Obama would vanish from the earth, every problem facing our society would suddenly become solved.
Tempus Fugit Premium Member almost 10 years ago
The only time I’ll intentionally use this Ditto
moosemin almost 10 years ago
“Has anyone ever heard of the UN ?”
I cannot remember the United Nations taking the initiative since….I don’t know when!
TripleAxel almost 10 years ago
Well, it worked for President Obama so well before. What? It actually didn’t work at all? Huh.
Dtroutma almost 10 years ago
Invading a country that did nothing to us, replacing their government, granted, not “user friendly”, but at least functional, after killing a bunch of civilians, and installing puppets we think we can control, who are hated by the people even worse than the former “despots”, and destroying not just their physical, but also military, police, and civil infrastructure, was just SO brilliant’.
First stupidity ’91, then we bombed intermittently ’til ’03, then WE went totally nuts! Yep, Republican administrations did SO much to win friends and influence folks in the Middle East and South Asia.
Not the Smartest Man On the Planet -- Maybe Close Premium Member almost 10 years ago
What would you have Obama do, send in more troops? You neocons never met a war you didn’t like, as long as you didn’t have to fight it. Where were you neocons when Dubya was sending troops into Iraq? Oh, right, you were up his pants leg, rubbing in delight.
Dtroutma almost 10 years ago
HAR! Hong Kong is CHINA, and since the Brits turned it over, they’ve been smarter about Capitalism than anyone in today’s Republican Party! BTW: don’t chew gum in Singapore if you want to stay out of prison, yep, “freedom”.
Michael Peterson Premium Member almost 10 years ago
More dead American kids, dammit! It’s the only language we know!