“Once you got to Iraq and took it over, and took down [the] government, then what are you going to put in its place? … If you take down the central government of Iraq you can easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off — part of it the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of eastern Iraq the Iranians would like to claim … in the north you’ve got the Kurds. If the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It’s a quagmire…”
So said Dick Cheney in 1994, explaining why a US-led coalition did not occupy Iraq during the first Gulf War.
Cheney of course failed to heed his own advice as vice-president under George W. Bush. We’re continuing to pay the price for that disastrous misjudgement. And worse, now we’re about to repeat it. No wonder regional powers like Turkey and Saudi Arabia have minimal interest in joining us.
So, tell me again, what is ‘different’ about going to war this time?
I just heard on ABC radio this morning that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were murdered, and millions displaced, during the first Iraq war. (Not to mention similar stats in Afghanistan). So what has changed?
We have ignored the hellhole that Syria has become for three+ years. I don’t get it!
In the end, there will have to be a diplomatic/political solution, so why don’t we have a go at that first?
Blowing up the extreme IS jihardists will only mean millions more will replace them in a few months or years. Plus more civilians will be killed, just because they happen to be in the areas where IS fighters are operational.
Crazy stuff!!
Sure seems crazy. The world seems to have lost its way. But perhaps that is nothing new. Lunatic times come and go. Just spent 2 weeks cycling in Austria, visited Mauthausen etc. It’s only 60 years since Hitler. Terribly sad that so many are still in dire straits.
Yes, and I wonder how much cash Haliburton and their main man, Dick Cheney, have made out of the more or less constant warfare?
Hell 🙁
yeah this was used on the Daily Show by Jon Stewart in his segment You don’t know Dick. In this case, following the disastrous Iraq invasion, his conclusion was “Even Dick doesn’t know Dick”