Post-Traumatic Iraq Syndrome

"We," as in "America" lost the moment we illegally invaded. The NEOCONs, however, have not lost. They've created their rightwing Utopia of a nation fully privatized (short of privatizing the Iraqi oil, which has fallen upon stumbling blocks...i.e. OPEC and the oil industry). Iraq is the grand creation of truly insane merchants of private industry, and everything has gone extremely well for them, other than the fact that the public just doesn't seem to appreciate their grand efforts, for some reason.

Behold, the true neocon economic vision for America lies in Iraq.

We're not leaving Iraq. We're not building 14 permanent military bases and the world's largest embassy there so that we can just walk away. We're there forever. Get used to it.

Prepared? I've known this for years. Bush never had a plan for, nor even an intention of, leaving Iraq.

You know - the more people killed in these things . . . the higher the hue and cry seems to be that it can't be 'for nothing' . . . . which seems to give some people a vested interest in going in undermanned, underequipped and without an exit strategy . . . . ya' think?

Regards,
Doyle I <~~~~~

Near the end of this very enlightened discussion, it was mentioned that public policy decisions should not be made in isolation based upon emotional responses to crisis situations.

Based on what was written by William Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz and openly supported by Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush and other members of the 'Project for a New American Century' before, during and after September 11, it seems clear that the actions of this administration were not an emotional response to a national crisis. In published articles from before September 11, these key decision makers openly stated that a national crisis would likely be needed to galvanize popular support for the U.S. military action in the Middle East which they championed.

I would agree that the American public, caught in the midst of the horror of 9/11, made rash and emotional political decisions based on misleading information and a well crafted disinformation campaign. It has taken a long time for the American people to admit that they may have been wrong, especially since any doubt has been quickly labeled as unpatriotic or an insult to the brave troops who are caught up in this mess.

I think history will prove that this was a premeditated war based on political ideology and strategic positioning. This was not a passionate response to a national tragedy. Treating it as such prevents us from addressing the root causes of this horrible period in our collective history.

Thanks

Tom, you led listeners to the notion that basing foreign policy on emotional factors was the problem leading to defeat in Iraq. I would note that the heart of the problem is not emotion, but ideology. The Project for the New American Century simply created out of whole cloth an approach to the American role in the world that was pure ideology: some would say, pure fantasy. I would say pure hocum. We are reaping the devastating result of a lot of wishful thinking. This sort of thing is not new to the extreme right wing. It can easily be found in the numerous hagiographies of Ronald Reagan, particularly in his so-called defeat of Communism. I am hoping that our drubbing in Iraq will begin to unmask the folly of projects and white papers like the New American Century. Postwar America's challenge will be to create an environment of fact based discourse on international issues. We will have a long road to make up for the folly of this misbegotten foreign policy.

UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!! AS OF 8-31-08 WE WON!! Amazing what a difference a year can make. Sorry to disapoint you all.