[Vision2020] George W Told the Nation

[Ted Moffett]

All-

http://www.newamericancentury.org/

As Sunil and I pondered years ago (it's hard to believe that the invasion
was in 2003?), as was laid out explicitly in the neo-con think tank the "The
Project For A New American Century," the invasion of Iraq involved pursuing
long term strategic interests in the whole region, confining Iran or
achieving regime change there being one of the main goals of this
imperialist endeavor. Iran is viewed by many as the greatest long term
Islamic Fundamentalist regime threat.  Iraq was just a stepping stone in
this effort, and Iraq's oil reserves, though huge, are much smaller than the
rest of the Middle East's combined.  Our military in Iraq offers a
presence to secure oil resources all over the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia
still listed as the most oil rich nation on Earth.  And our intention was to
build permanent military bases in Iraq.  I believe we will still have
military bases in Iraq in 50 years.

What is amazing, is that I think some of the neo-cons really believed their
own idealistic ideology about spreading democracy in the Middle East via the
invasion of Iraq.  With all the effort to point out the terror and
oppression of the Saddam regime, some forget that Iraq was more secular and
westernized than many other nations in the Middle East, certainly more than
US ally Saudi Arabia and US enemy Iran. This might have led to a mistaken
assumption Iraq was ready for a western style democracy, if only Saddam was
gone, a democracy that would seed the Middle East with democratic
movements.  The secularization and westernization of Iraq was also one
reason Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were at odds.  Bin Laden regarded Saddam as a
corrupt leader betraying the Islamic religion.  This is one reason Al Qaeda
was not given haven in Iraq under Saddam!  How ironic that the link between
Bin Laden, 9/11 and Saddam was made repeatedly.

Part of the problem with the invasion of Iraq was that there were numerous
goals promoted by numerous interests, but there was not a coherent long term
plan that coordinated all these goals in a realistic manner.

Some wanted a dictator over thrown to promote human rights, most probably
believed the propaganda about Iraq WMD and their immanent threat to the USA
(Bush and Condi's ominous "mushroom cloud over America" repeated over and
over before the invasion), others wanted to focus on encircling or
invading Iran (we already took Afghanistan on Iran's other side) and
protecting Israel in the process, others wanted to protect Middle East oil,
others wanted lucrative contracts apart from oil (Halliburton), others were
hoping Armageddon was closer, and the book of Revelations would be fulfilled
with a huge war in the Middle East involving Israel, heralding the second
coming (don't laugh at this motivation given the huge Christian Right
support for Bush.  Many actually believe these prophecies).  Some
probably pursued all these goals at once.  And then we had Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld and his insistence that we could tame Iraq with a limited troop
presence, when some of the best military minds were claiming we'd need
400,000 troops to secure the country.

So now we have a troop surge that is still limited given the number of
troops some military minds have insisted is needed to fully stop the
insurgency.  It seems we either go all the way or get out.  Start the draft
and put 400,000 troops in Iraq, if we are serious about fighting this war.
Otherwise...

In saying this I am not expressing support for the initial invasion.

Ted Moffett

On 7/15/07, Sunil Ramalingam <sunilramalingam at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Paul,
>
> Given the construction of the biggest US embassy anywhere and long-term
> military bases, I think the mission is to remain in Iraq for the long
> haul,
> with more control over their oil reserves than would be possible under
> Hussein.  That's not a mission I support or think that we should see
> through.
>
> Sunil
>
>
> >From: Paul Rumelhart < godshatter at yahoo.com>
> >To: Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com>
> >CC: Moscow Vision 2020 <vision2020 at moscow.com >,        Mark Solomon
> ><msolomon at moscow.com>
> >Subject: Re: [Vision2020] George W Told the Nation
> >Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 13:50:21 -0700
> >
> >What was "the mission", anyway?  I've never been very clear on that.  I
> >don't know how to judge whether we have accomplished "the mission",
> without
> >knowing what it is.  What were the goals that needed achieving?  Where is
> >the list so I can mark them off and see how we are doing?
> >
> >We do have to be very careful how we leave, given that we've created a
> >situation that is untenable.  I, for one, don't feel we need to be there
> >just to avoid being perceived as not following through.  Do we want yet
> >more to die just to save face?  My opinion on that would be different if
> I
> >didn't think that this was a ploy to get back at Saddam and get Iraqi oil
> >all under the guise of "preventing terrorism".
> >
> >Paul
> >
>
>
> =======================================================
> List services made available by First Step Internet,
> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>                http://www.fsr.net
>          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> =======================================================
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20070717/78dbd452/attachment-0001.html