Well great.

Well, now, when he said "No nation building," do you think he was saying it on his own behalf? Or are you holding him to the standard of September 10th because you want to be believe he was speaking for YOU?

Did anyone in the continental United States ever do a thing for anyone in Iraq? Did anyone elsewhere in the world, in the places which were and are counting on that oil (Hi, Nicole!), lift so much as a finger?

The problem wasn't that nation building doesn't work, the problem was that Americans wanted to continue living in the consumer paradise of the 1990's... And how's that working out for us?

No, this work is still ahead of us. We STILL need to bring that region into modernity, because we lost our erection during foreplay.

In point of fact, the work is more likely to be done —after another generation or two of wretchedness— by the Chindians, who need the oil more than we ever will.

I doubt that any of you who survive to see it happen will be any happier with that, either.Remember, when the Arab Spring happened, before our withdrawal from Iraq was anywhere near complete, even the Arab League was begging Obama to deal with Syria and Libya.

This is going to happen again, and again, and again. If there's a war happening on this planet, it's because America is letting it happen.

Other countries know it, American voters know it, and our own Presidents know it.... And none of these parties is comfortable with the responsibility.

You can weep like a girl about this if you want... Hold your breath, turn blue... But we WILL be doing it again.

Yes, let's blame Bush - everything, even shit happening under the Obama "regime" is Bush's fault.

Look, I'm no Obama fan, but my memory does go back to 2003. Charles, you sound like you're a Republican partisan. I'm neither -- neither a Democrat nor a Republican, meaning I blame Bush for plenty and blame Obama for plenty. Meaning I probably see straighter than those who have joined either team.

Ok, I feel bad about the weep like a girl thing. 'Weep like a ninny' would have covered it.

> at least he kept the lid on the
> religious nutters

Well, towards the end, he was taking things in a more religious direction... For ease of manipulation, not personal enthusiasm.

Besides, he threw children into plastic shredders. I mean, it wasn't a meaningfully better culture for not being able to give full attention to Islam.

We are 14 years into the next One Hundred Years War. That's true regardless of the party in power.
We need to gird our loins and fight it.

Americans are sick of war. I get that. But sometimes you have no choice but to fight. And, folks, the barbarians are at the gates, or soon will be.

Well, Amy, I neither as well. But, Obama and his team knew what they were "inheriting" from Bush and if they thought it wasn't fixable they shouldn't have taken the job.

Yea, so Bush made mistakes. So what?! What President doesn't?

The real issue is what are we (meaning Obama and team) going to do about it now? Other than go on The View or play a round of golf.

To continue to blame Bush several years AFTER he has left office does no good for anyone.

To continue to make excuses for Obama not doing something about the CURRENT situation does no good for anyone either.

Yes, it is terrible what is happening to Christians and others in that part of the world. But, what is Obama doing about it? Going off to another fund-raiser? Making jokes at the wrong time?

Blaming Bush for so many things is starting to become part of the leftists jargon like they continue to blame slavery for ills affecting the Black community today, even when those ills have nothing to do with slavery.

Yea, continue to blame Bush. Why not - nothing Obama does works anyway. (there does that sound enough like a Republican partisan for ya!)

Hey Nicole! You'll never guess who's asking the United States to, essentially, invade Russia!


> Yea, so Bush made mistakes. So what?! What
> President doesn't?

Look, I supported the war, but "So what?" doesn't speak to the magnitude of the responsibility, whether or not it was a mistake. No expenditure of American lives, treasure and consequences can be dismissed with a mere These things happen.... This was, specifically, not Grenada.

No SUCH expenditure etc

Whoops also, Ukraine, not Russia. But we'll see.

So no President should ever go on a Navy ship that performed its duties and congratulate the crew on a job well done. That's all Bush did. The media turned it into something different.

During my working career I was given a lot of shitty jobs that were created by others and that I had to muddle along to a conclusion. Kinda like life. Most of the women I dated had issues due to things in/beyond their control. My kids had issues due my mistakes. Kinda like life.

Successful people take life as it comes and enable/create an outcome that works for them. You can go to your grave saying "It was not my fault that ...", or you can move on and actually do something.

I'm not sure what Obama considers a successful outcome is to anything. Maybe he gave a speech on it sometime and I missed it. Guess I should have gone to a fund raiser.

Agree totally w/you about the Muslim world.

We should have exacted our toll for the attacks on 9/11, including financial and energy production (destroy theirs - build ours), and moved on. (Putin would have loved us for that.)

The mind-set of occupation, if you are not going to totally destroy the current civilization and retain the land, was a mistake. No clue as to what Bush was thinking 'cause it certainly was not based on history of the region.

If it was the '70's when we needed the oil then maybe, but now?

If it was the '70's when we needed the oil then maybe, but now?

Posted by: Bob in Texas at July 20, 2014 10:40 AM

We still need the oil. And the world needs the oil. The US still only produces about 9 percent of the worlds total oil production, and less than a third of our consumption.

Iraq was not a stable place when the US invaded.
There had been a war with Iran, and they had invaded Kuwait, because they thought the US was going to let them get away with it.

The after Gulf War 1 sanctions didn't work because our European allies were undermining the oil for food program at every turn, and making a mint off of black market trades.

When the US fails to be the worlds policeman, there is no accountability, and no stability.

You end up with a hundred different conflicts, in fifty different countries, and airliners, and ships zig zagging around the oceans and the skies, at great cost and inefficiency to avoid being hijacked for ransom, or shot out of the skies.

Saying the US has no business being the world policeman is about as effective, and intelligent as saying bank robbers have no business robbing banks. It is a non sequitur.

The US still only produces about 9 percent of the worlds total oil production

Here's an article from October 2013 in the WSJ:

U.S. Is Overtaking Russia as Largest Oil-and-Gas Producer

U.S. energy output has been surging in recent years, a comeback fueled by shale-rock formations of oil and natural gas that was unimaginable a decade ago

[...]

U.S. imports of natural gas and crude oil have fallen 32% and 15%, respectively, in the past five years, narrowing the U.S. trade deficit

[...]

As of July, Saudi Arabia was pumping 11.7 million barrels a day, according to the IEA. Russia was second, at 10.8 million barrels, while the U.S. was third, at 10.3 million. Each of the three pumps more than twice the daily output of such major producers as Canada, Venezuela and Nigeria.

I think we just passed Saudi Arabia as the world's largest crude oil producer in July 2014.

" We are not the world's policeman."...Amy at 10:16

From 1939 to 1945, the world went to war with the winner becoming by default the world's policeman. The winner could have been Germany or Japan. But the winner was the U.S.A. ( with Russia coming in a close second ).

The last 55-60 years have been good for the world with the U.S. at the helm. Would anyone here have preferred Germany ? We were not perfect. Who ever is ?

Not only is the U.S. losing its power and world standing, it seems we are deliberately declining to accept the mantle of world leader. Our enemies understand this, sense weakness, and take advantage. Chaos is the result...and you are seeing chaos all over the world now. Expect that to be the new normal.

I think we just passed Saudi Arabia as the world's largest crude oil producer in July 2014.

Posted by: Jason S. at July 20, 2014 11:43 AM

A lot of countries produce oil. The world uses a great deal of oil.

It is also a misnomer to say that the US actually produces the oil. Oil produced on US held territory and ocean bottoms is produced by multi national corporations who have no obligation to sell that oil exclusively in the US.

When any portion of that oil supply is threatened through political instability or threats against safe transport, the price goes up.

So I just went through the Bush presidential library in Dallas last weekend. Fascinating, truly, and I would go through any presidential library if I were fortunate enough to access them. But my point is, that one thing it did was take me back to that day and the days after 9/11. And what I was struck by that I had forgotten, was how amazingly pissed off I was and a large portion of the American public. We needed to respond. We needed to do something. If we hadn't done something on a large scale, I seriously would respect him less as a president. I know it's not the best decision to make, but when all the facts are laid out again and you go back to those days of shock, bewilderment, and hurt - i'm telling you, that was a decision that I would say yes to again. Getting out of there having done some good for Iraq is it's own bag of bananas, but the world needed to see that you are not gonna attack us in our own country and us sit on our hands and do nothing, or just give you another economic sanction.

There was an interesting, depressing opinion article in the Washington Post over the July 4 weekend by a person who supposedly is the "longest continuously serving American official in Iraq, acting as a special assistant to five U.S. ambassadors".

Some of it might make ya "weep like a ninny" because you get the feeling it's a disaster over yonder.

In a meeting in Baghdad with a Petraeus-hosted delegation of Council on Foreign Relations members shortly after the 2010 elections, Maliki insisted that the vote had been rigged by the United States, Britain, the United Nations and Saudi Arabia. As we shuffled out of the prime minister’s suite, one stunned executive, the father of an American Marine, turned to me and asked, “American troops are dying to keep that son of a b---- in power?”

[...]

In short, Maliki’s one-man, one-Dawa-party Iraq looks a lot like Hussein’s one-man, one-Baath Party Iraq. But at least Hussein helped contain a strategic American enemy: Iran. And Washington didn’t spend $1 trillion propping him up. There is not much “democracy” left if one man and one party with close links to Iran control the judiciary, police, army, intelligence services, oil revenue, treasury and the central bank.

[...]

The crisis now gripping Iraq and the Middle East was not only predictable but predicted — and preventable. By looking the other way and unconditionally supporting and arming Maliki, President Obama has only lengthened and expanded the conflict that President Bush unwisely initiated. Iraq is now a failed state

> We have no business being in Iraq.

We have no business being out of it.

A country as wealthy, blessed and manipulative as ours, which has done so much (wellbefore anyone named Bush was in the White House) to forge Iraqi character and write Iraqi history, has no business shooting its nose in the air and saying Those little brown people aren't our responsibility.

We're in. And we're going to be in, no matter what.

This, specifically—

We are not the world's policeman

—is the language of a naive schoolgirl, one perhaps disposed to weeping, one who'll be surprised with many more opportunities for tears in the years ahead.

Even Barry Idiot Obama, the Peace Prize President, put the military in motion for Libya and Syria.

If the silly, ham-handed metaphor is applicable, could you go ahead and look at the headlines and history books and tell us WHEN? Like, ever?

It's not even trite. It can't even aspire to be reductive.

Y'know, Reagan used to do that all the time. He'd just announce these arbitrary rules, and then he'd pretend like he had to obey them and you should, too. The example from the Chris Matthews book: He's at an event getting his picture taken with some Dem leaders, and reporters start asking awkward questions... So he just looks at his watch and says "We don't answer questions after 6 pm!," and then he smiles. All they can do is take click their shutters.

Who SAYS we aren't "the world's policeman"?

What does that even mean?

Why doesn't the most powerful country in the world have constabulary responsibilities?

If America doesn't, who does? Are they living up to their duty?

Do we, the safest, not therefore benefit most from an orderly planet?





"World's policeman" is an embarrassing trope. People like it not for its explanatory power, but because two words are easier to remember than four, or eight, or a hundred words... The usually provisions for a political principle. "World's policeman" wouldn't fill out a fortune cookie.

We have no business being in Iraq.

This position assumes that had we not gone in a worse situation would not have arisen.

Let's not forget that Saddam Hussein was fomenting chaos throughout the Middle East, was sponsoring and encouraging suicide bombers, had already invaded two of his neighbors, and was making noise about not only having Weapons of Mass Destruction, but of using them as well.

This was not a situation in which passivity by the US was a guarantor of a satisfactory outcome.

Iraq actually had a nuclear weapons program. People are eager to forget that, and that the Israelis bombed it.

Remember "no nation-building"?

That position was Bush's pre-9/11 position. Bush ran on a platform of domestic reform - Social Security, education, welfare, etc. He did not run as a foreign policy candidate.

Bush didn't randomly decide to change his focus. 9/11 forced him to change his focus.

And his invasion of Iraq had lots of support in Congress (unlike Clinton and Obama, Bush actually went to Congress before committing American troops). Democrats and Republicans were both enthusiastic supporters. Later, when it turned out real war isn't like a television show, Democrats tried to revise their role in the run-up to the Iraq war with accusations of lies and sexed up intelligence reports.

"The mind-set of occupation, if you are not going to totally destroy the current civilization and retain the land, was a mistake. "

I think part of that was the huge gains that were being made in precision weapons at the time. There was a belief that we could (1) fight a kinder, gentler war in which precision strikes would take out all the bad guys while leaving the civilian population untouched, and (2) consequently they would gratefully rally to our side. Without even considering whether point (2) was realistic, we can see what went wrong with that: precision weapons are great for the kinds of tactical strikes that they are designed for, where you need guaranteed one-shot-one-hit accuracy on high-value targets (e.g., air defense installations). But in a large-scale operation, they are too expensive and can't be manufactured fast enough to keep supply levels up. And, as of yet, they aren't much help in house-to-house fighting. And, they don't defeat human-shield tactics without backing from leadership that's willing to take the heat, which we don't have.

The mind-set of occupation, if you are not going to totally destroy the current civilization and retain the land, was a mistake.

I think part of that was the huge gains that were being made in precision weapons at the time. There was a belief that we could (1) fight a kinder, gentler war in which precision strikes would take out all the bad guys while leaving the civilian population untouched, and (2) consequently they would gratefully rally to our side.

~ Posted by: Cousin Dave at July 21, 2014 7:41 AM

Precision weapons also don't degrade civilian morale. It's one thing to watch your army fold like a cheap tent while your life doesn't change. It's another to suffer deprivation, bombings, and mass civilian casualties. Your appetite for resistance to the occupation will be much lower when you've been beaten up in advance of the occupying forces.

Also, in our occupation, we stressed that we were not there to change anything or remake Iraqi society. We stressed to our soldiers that the beliefs and customs of the indigenous people were to be respected to the point that our own beliefs and customs were subordinated to those.

Unlike the British who forced the Raj to bow to its will, the Allies who de-Nazified Germany, or the Americans who re-shaped Japanese society so completely that it is almost a different society than it was in 1941, the occupation of Iraq tripped over its own feet apologizing for itself.

Occupying armies are brutal, mean, and thuggish - no matter who's doing the occupying. We tried to "nice" occupiers and it blew up in our faces.

"Occupying armies are brutal, mean, and thuggish - no matter who's doing the occupying. We tried to 'nice' occupiers and it blew up in our faces."

Sure did. I think everyone was having visions at the time of after D-Day when the French denizens of the small town cheered on the American forces as they arrived to liberate the town from the Nazis. What they forget was that de Gaulle arrived shortly after, and we all know how that turned out.

Had a friend in the occupation forces in Germany. The street presence was the Constabulary, all of whom had to be six feet tall or more. By this time, having lost two devastating wars, the average German surviving wasn't as tall as might have been the case. So it was psywar to overawe on a conscious and unconscious level. Even the uniforms were designed--details too detailed--to intimidate on a visceral level.
You ought to see the Capra film for occupation forces.

"Saying the US has no business being the world policeman is about as effective, and intelligent as saying bank robbers have no business robbing banks. It is a non sequitur."

Exactly. Bank robbers should be robbing banks, all the time, and all you anti-bank-robber Bush-blamers can just suck on that!

Occupying armies are brutal, mean, and thuggish - no matter who's doing the occupying. We tried to "nice" occupiers and it blew up in our faces.

Posted by: Conan the Grammarian at July 21, 2014 8:02 AM

Actually I think an American occupation anywhere at any time has been preferred.

The Japanese knew what the Russians or the Chinese would have done to them.

If you think the Russians were not far more brutal than the Americans were, a good primer is this book.

http://www.amazon.com/Woman-Berlin-Eight-Weeks-Conquered/dp/0312426119/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405971174&sr=1-1&keywords=a+woman+in+berlin

If you think the Russians were not far more brutal than the Americans were, a good primer is this book.

All occupying armies are, by definition, "brutal, mean, and thuggish." They have to be to impose a new paradigm on what was until then a sovereign civilization. The degree of brutality will, of course, be different according to the occupiers and their objectives.

I never said the Russians would have been a better occupying army. The Russians were indeed brutal occupiers of Germany - taking an especially violent revenge on German women.

Preferred we may have been over the Red Army, but we were not saints. By the end of the war US military forces were using captured German soldiers as forced labor, skirting the Geneva Conventions by declaring them to be something other than prisoners of war.

Most of the American soldiers in the occupying forces were new, inexperienced soldiers (less disciplined and eager to show how tough they were) - the experienced ones were either discharged or sent to the Pacific in anticipation of the invasion of Japan.

Civilian food supplies were tight (only enough for about 70% of the population), so the soldiers used their plentiful rations to seduce the local women (they called it "frau bait").

The children resulting from such unions were especially hard hit since child support was considered "aiding the enemy" and was forbidden.

Fears of an insurrection (the "werewolves") inspired fairly harsh policing policies. Many elements (including personnel) of the old Nazi police regime were repurposed for the occupation.

The difference, of course, is that we created a sovereign West Germany while the Russians created an impoverished satellite state.

We tried to create a sovereign Iraq. The Iraq Obama pulled us out of had an elected government, a functioning police force, and a well-trained military. It had also, unfortunately, elected a paranoid idiot as Prime Minister.

As soon as the US troops were no longer around, Maliki, who feared a coup, put his cronies in charge of the police and military. Those cronies put their cronies in positions of power and began looting the place.

Forces that had been mixed Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish were subsequently dominated by Sunni friendly to Maliki's clan who began using those forces to oppress rival clans (especially the Shia).

". It had also, unfortunately, elected a paranoid idiot as Prime Minister."

I guess Iraq and the US have quite a bit in common.

When looking at occupying armies, the standard is not perfection. It is always the alternative.

The Iraq Obama pulled us out of had an elected government, a functioning police force, and a well-trained military

President Bush signed the Status of Forces Agreement in 2008 which called for American troops to leave by 2011, didn't he? The Iraqis were itching to run their own affairs after the surge brought the Iranian backed radical Shite slums to its knees and after the Sunnis fought back al Qaeda in what they called " The Awakening".

So the agreement was that American troops would leave Iraqi cities by the end of 2009 and leave the Iraqi nation by 2011? Isn't that how it went? Did Obama have the power to cancel the agreement?

President Bush signed the Status of Forces Agreement in 2008 which called for American troops to leave by 2011, didn't he? -- Jason S. at July 21, 2014 5:18 PM

The way it was written is that the U.S. would keep a small training/intel cadre of about 4-5K. When Obama was pulling them out he only wanted to leave about 800 there. Maliki said that wasn't enough so just leave.

That's what happened.

"Maliki said that wasn't enough so just leave."

Well, I guess Maliki was in a tough spot because he was also under a lot of pressure to get all US troops out of Iraq. Even when SOFA was signed, Iraqis were complaining that US would be there until 2011.

"Forces that had been mixed Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish were subsequently dominated by Sunni friendly to Maliki's clan who began using those forces to oppress rival clans (especially the Shia)"

I think Maliki comes from a devout Shiite family. That's been a flaw because he has purged the military and gov't of capable Sunni and Kurd generals and representatives. Some observers think that Maliki is now under Iranian influence.

Our best hope is with the Kurds, it seems. That's where the refugees from Mosul have fled -- and to listen to US troops who have done tours in Mosul, many speak highly of the their visits to the Kurdish region. They were treated with much respect, and marveled at the Kurdish modern society.

Jason, I think you're right. I think I flipped the Sunni-Shia situation. Nonetheless, Maliki's mishandling of the relatively stable situation we left him has given us the current Iraq chaos.

Maliki was concerned about a coup and that paranoia drove his decisions. Looking at his concerns and how he handled the situation, I wonder if we wouldn't have been better off with the less-optimal solution of splitting Iraq into three countries.

"Less optimal" because the three countries would have been smaller and less able to defend themselves from their rapacious neighbors, in addition to having fewer resources (human and natural) to build upon. However, the internal divisions of the three would have been less fractious.

Unfortunately, hindsight in this case is not 20/20.