Quote:
Originally Posted by DaddyHalbucks
We were lucky to have a fine man like Rumsfeld at the defense department helm for so long.
He is right, people don't understand the Iraq war. They don't understand the complexities of the sectarian violence and the nuances of nation building. The public has a very short attention span. The public's timetable and expectations are unrealistic. Breathing freedom into the Middle East is a long term project. It will take decades, at a minimum.
|
He is right, people dont understand the Iraq war, including the people in charge of it
. I thought we learned this lesson in Vietnam when McNamara admitted the biggest mistake was that we did not understand the history of Vietnam.
Heres a quote from President Harry S. Truman's statement on the fundamentals of American foreign policy.
"We shall refuse to recognize any government imposed upon any nation by the force of any foreign power. In some cases it may be impossible to prevent forceful imposition of such a government. But the United States will not recognize any such government."
So, when the US decides to launch a plan of regime change in a foreign country I suppose this doesnt apply, right? And of course that is 100% ok because we do it in the name of Jesus, right?
Now what President Truman had in mind was that we would not recognize any communist governments imposed upon nations by force, but its ok for us to rebuild a country with a history and a culture we dont know the first thing about?
You dont "breathe freedom into the middle east" by putting new leaders in place as you choose. That just causes more problems, look at Iran for example.
I'll tell you why Rummy resigned. See, now that we have a Democratic majority in the house and the senate I imagine there will be all types of investigations, and whenever there is investigations where there are shady things to be uncovered there has to be a fall guy, and of course the fall guy either has to resign before the shit hits the fan, or while the shit is hitting the fan. Rummy is that fall guy!
I'll add that I'm not one of those people who think we should pull out of Iraq 100% overnight, but I am pissed that the whole thing started in the first place.