Article

2015-05-16 -Short Attention Span Theater-

Scott Walker on Iraq: 'Knowing What We Know Now, We Should Not Have Gone In.'

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Posted by Besoeker 2015-05-16 02:53|| || Front Page|| [14 views ] Top

#1 Hind sight is 20/20. But since we did go in, many people would still be alive if Hussein Obama had not ordered a retreat.

Posted by Ebbomosh Hupemp2664 2015-05-16 04:16|| 2015-05-16 04:16|| Front Page Top

#2 The more I hear from this man, the more I like him.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2015-05-16 05:45|| 2015-05-16 05:45|| Front Page Top

#3 ...Now if only someone will tell us what we should have done instead.

Mike

Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2015-05-16 07:07|| 2015-05-16 07:07|| Front Page Top

#4 What would have been the alternative?

Maintaining the no-fly zones & sanctions indefinitely?

Withdrawal and lifting the sanctions and thereby unleashing Saddam (who would have swiftly bought nukes from North Korea)?

Something else?

Bush did try an alternative approach with Gaddafi and that didn't turn out well.

Posted by Elmerert Hupens2660 2015-05-16 07:16|| 2015-05-16 07:16|| Front Page Top

#5 Bush's Libya turned out great -- for us. Daffy was defanged and was minding (more or less) his own business. That was 2004 an he saw the writing on the wall.

It was Champ that upset what Bush had done, there as elsewhere, whereupon Daffy learned just how much his people hated him.

Posted by Steve White 2015-05-16 07:34|| 2015-05-16 07:34|| Front Page Top

#6 The problem was, that after dealing with Saddam, trying to install a 'democracy' (now isn't that a joke from the Beltway that issues fiats on a daily basis micromanaging our lives and economy while ignoring the framework of the Constitution) instead of putting someone in charge of the place (or places after a partition - can you say three state solution?).

Posted by Procopius2k 2015-05-16 08:17|| 2015-05-16 08:17|| Front Page Top

#7 Why do that not ask this question "with what you know now would you pull the troops out of Iraq early and allow ISIS to rise up in the Middle East"

Or "did we lose the war in Afghanistan? If so why?"
Or "would you allow Iran to have nukes"........

Posted by airandee 2015-05-16 08:44|| 2015-05-16 08:44|| Front Page Top

#8 ...but none of those questions validates the 'awe and majesty' of the MSM (particularly when the intent is to cover their own actions to make it a failure).

Posted by Procopius2k 2015-05-16 08:47|| 2015-05-16 08:47|| Front Page Top

#9 Everyone seems to forget the context when discussing this topic.

The WTC had just been leveled, AlQ was, apparently, paling around with Saddam (remember the training base near Baghdad?) there were creditable reports that Saddam had WMDs in some quantity.....now what was GWB supposed to do?

I disagreed at the time with a few of the details but not the general idea.

"Knowing what we know now..." exactly WHAT do we know now that would have changed the game then?

Did we find those truck convoys that went to Syria to be full of Humus?

Posted by AlanC 2015-05-16 08:49|| 2015-05-16 08:49|| Front Page Top

#10 Part of me says we ought to just take out some of these Mideast countries because we can and it would be a humanitarian act for the world, then another part of me says the same thing.

Posted by JohnQC 2015-05-16 10:56|| 2015-05-16 10:56|| Front Page Top

#11 Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Abraham Lincoln

Posted by Millard Fillmore1859 2015-05-16 11:01|| 2015-05-16 11:01|| Front Page Top

#12 Wrong Answer!

Posted by Fat Bob Spease9575 2015-05-16 12:06|| 2015-05-16 12:06|| Front Page Top

#13 What we know now is that Seventh Century barbarians are incapable of democracy. If nothing else the so called Arab Spring proved that once and for all. Whether or not we should have taken out Saddam is another question. I certainly don't have any sympathy for him. But then I think it would have been better to take out the Soddies and the Paks. Just don't go in there thinking we're gonna set up a Western style democracy. Bounce the rubble a few times and let the survivors figure it out.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2015-05-16 12:42|| 2015-05-16 12:42|| Front Page Top

#14 break shit and leave - no nation building

Moral: If you can't be a good example, then be a horrible lesson

Posted by Frank G 2015-05-16 12:47|| 2015-05-16 12:47|| Front Page Top

#15 Well, anyway, here's what he said:

"Any president would have likely taken the same action President Bush did with the information he had, even Hillary Clinton voted for it, but knowing what we know now, we should not have gone into Iraq. President Bush deserves enormous credit for ordering the surge, a courageous move that worked.

"Unfortunately, President Obama and Secretary Clinton hastily withdrew our troops, threw away the gains of the surge, and embarked on a broader policy of pivoting away from the Middle East and leading from behind that has created chaos in the region."

Should be, "Knowing what we think we know now..."

Walker doesn't have access to the inside scoop. Yet.

Posted by KBK 2015-05-16 13:28|| 2015-05-16 13:28|| Front Page Top

#16 I think Dave D. nailed it back in 2006:

#69 On the topic of "options"...

I figure that for at least the next 2-1/2 years we're committed to the "liberation and reform" option in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that's as it should be; it's something we simply must try, and try as best we can, if for no other reason than to be able to say honestly, "we really did try to show the Islamic world a better way, and we gave it everything we had." And I don't see this administration abandoning that commitment, not even in the face of another mass-casualty terrorist attack.

But I don't see us extending that effort anywhere else but where we're already making it. Not even under GWB, and certainly not under any possible successor-- Republican or Democrat. After watching the wringer Bush has been put through the last four years, can you imagine ANY future American president making the political decision to undertake yet another "long, hard slog" like Iraq, in yet another Muslim country? I can't.

So as best I can figure, once Bush leaves office, the Bush Doctrine is effectively dead. The "nation building" part of it most certainly will be, and the "pre-emption" part of it may be as well, particularly if he is replaced by a Democrat.

And if Bush's successor has to deal with another 9/11-style mass-casualty terrorist attack-- or even worse, such as a terrorist nuke going off in Lower Manhattan-- what option(s) will he choose?

I hope we don't have to find out. I really don't.

Check out his comment #38 as well, and the rest of the thread, which is well worth rereading.

As for knowing then what we know now... until there is a way to go back in time and do things differently, the entire question is onanistic in intent and outcome.

Posted by trailing wife 2015-05-16 14:10|| 2015-05-16 14:10|| Front Page Top

#17 Funny how little my thoughts have evolved in almost 10 years.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2015-05-16 15:15|| 2015-05-16 15:15|| Front Page Top

#18 The best way I could put it, which the fainting couch class would deliberatelyisconstrue andangle in their quest for offence...

Knowing what I know now about the American mandarinate, I would not have voted to invade Iraq, or Afghanistan... Or Morocco, or Sicily, or Italy or Normandy...

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2015-05-16 15:45|| 2015-05-16 15:45|| Front Page Top

#19 Nimble, ditto.

Of course we should have gone in, nothing we've learned since has changed that.

Nation building? Democracy building? That sucked then and still does.

Frank G has it correct. In other words Wash, Rinse and Repeat as necessary. I believed that then and still do. The only "viable" option is colonialism and I doubt that would work, don't you?

Posted by AlanC 2015-05-16 16:07|| 2015-05-16 16:07|| Front Page Top

#20 Think back to the Shad of Iran, and how all this would be different if we had not let him be deposed while Jimmuh Karter fretted and bollocked the whole thing, and instead had another guy lined up for when the Shad went toes up.

Posted by NoMoreBS 2015-05-16 16:48|| 2015-05-16 16:48|| Front Page Top

#21 #20 Think back to the Shad of Iran,...

I dunno. There was always something fishy about that guy.

Posted by SteveS 2015-05-16 18:00|| 2015-05-16 18:00|| Front Page Top

#22 The war was very educational.

In Vietnam the Russians supported the locals and the US tried to fight the war instead of making the locals do it. Bad plan America.

In Afghanistan the US supported the locals while the Red Army tried to fight the war instead of making the locals fight it. Bad plan Russia.

In post-911 Afghanistan the US supported the locals to a smashing victory. We had a light footprint initially and all worked well. Good plan America. Yeah.

Then in Iraq we went in and took over the war, and in Afghanistan we ramped up and took over all the fighting. We had locals sitting around while we fought to secure their countries which made them ripe for believing the propaganda that we were conquerers (propaganda from both Al Queda and the American left). Bad, bad move.

The whole thing is terribly predictable. Let the locals do the fighting. Support them as necessary.

Posted by rjschwarz 2015-05-16 23:11|| 2015-05-16 23:11|| Front Page Top

23:39 CrazyFool
23:11 rjschwarz
20:31 Bangkok Billy
20:04 Uluper Shaigum6436
19:57 Uluper Shaigum6436
19:52 Uluper Shaigum6436
18:00 SteveS
17:35 BrerRabbit
17:17 g(r)omgoru
16:48 NoMoreBS
16:30 Zhang Fei
16:30 Raj
16:27 JohnQC
16:25 Zhang Fei
16:24 JohnQC
16:23 JohnQC
16:23 Zhang Fei
16:08 Old Patriot
16:07 AlanC
16:07 SteveS
16:06 Old Patriot
16:00 JohnQC
15:53 Hupesh Ebbusomp5266
15:45 Thing From Snowy Mountain