How would you feel about a close friend, relative or whomever you're very close with kept a very devious secret from you? You have pressed them time and time again about that secret and the answer was just something to BS you with or they kept denying, denying and denying it from you. You may have believed their story only for a little bit because it seemed plausible. Then when you really think over and over again about the story they have gave you, something just don't add up. You figure out that something is just not right about the story your friend have gave you about the situation. You ask your friend to verify that story again and ask him or her whether or not those facts that were given are true and either he or she gives you those same facts or still gives you the denial about it. Until something happens and you are given the true story of what really happened. It turns out that it was a very horrible thing done by your friend and to cover it up a story was made up about it and series of lies upon lies were told to deceive and distract you from the true story. You can confront your friend about and he or she will probably 'fess up to up or be very defiant and still stick with the story he has told you. At that point you would stop being friends with him or her. You will never speak to your friend ever and avoid him or her like the plague. What would happen if you take that same story I've told but this time it was lying about situation to start a war and the all reasons to go to war was proven false. The people that perpetrated the war was still defiant and thought that the war was the best thing to do and not ashamed of it, very arrogant, or try to say that it didn't go the way it was supposed to go or was never punished for at all and still regarded by the media as one of the highly respected people on foreign policy regardless of their wrong-headed support for a devastating war. How would you feel about that person? Would you have serious contempt and disdain for them and wish something was done about it then about these people? Would you carry that same contempt for your friend in the earlier example if he or she has done that? I think I would have and I would constantly remind them every moment of their waking lives about the wrong they have done to the country. I would've remind Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz and every former Bush Administration official every minute of every day of the atrocity they have done even if not they didn't care about me reminding them about it. They should be but they wouldn't.
Ten years ago, on March 19, 2003, President George W. Bush has declared war on Iraq, an unarmed nation. His basis for going to war was that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that he would use against the U.S. Bush and others have convinced the American public and the world that Hussein using such weapons against the U.S. was very imminent and we had to act immediately. Not acting quickly to stop this threat was according to President Bush and others "the smoking gun will turn into a mushroom cloud". Well after about eight years of this stupid war America is suffering badly. This war has been a very costly mistake. We have spent over $2.2 trillion; more than 190,000 people have been killed. That 190,000 lives figure includes over 130,000 Iraqi citizens has been killed, 4,488 U.S. servicemen and women plus 3,400 military contractors this was according to a Brown University study. With the fact that there was NO WMD WAS FOUND!!!! . This war had pit Americans against each other. You have to include the disgusting uber "patriotism" and hate for those not supporting the war and our reputation in the world for pursing this clusterfuck of a war. It was a total waste!
Here on the VORB, throughout the years I have written about my strong dislike about this war. I have written extensively about the Bush Administration ruining our reputation in the world and how many of very intelligent Americans here have suffered immensely for their actions. I have watched many movies on the Iraq War just agreeing with many of us that suspected that how the war was wrongly perused. One recent documentary that was shown on MSNBC called Hubris, a documentary going greatly in depth about how Bush and others relied on very flimsy and very shoddy evidence to go to war regardless of the truth of what was really happening in Iraq. After watching the documentary I felt betrayed by my government. It confirmed what Bush and Cheney was really doing but that feeling of betrayal by our government to push for a war under a repulsive lie, yes a repulsive, repugnant lie was overwhelming. The thought that our soldiers, airmen, marines and sailors, all men and women, all of our friends and family died for a lie is very repugnant to me. It's very disgusting to me and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They died for a lie so Bush Administration cohorts can steal all the oil and make shitloads of money. Hell for their aggressive push the made a very great return a $2.2 trillion profit at our expense. The made that blood money and they are very arrogant about it, well at least Dick Cheney is. George W. Bush is very clueless and still feels that history will judge him well on it. Paul Wolfowitz seems to think that the Iraq war didn't go the way he wanted to go and as for Condoleezza Rice and others they think the Iraq War was the right thing to do regardless of the truth. General Colin Powell feels very repentant about it. He should be, because Powell went to the United Nations with props and computer animated drawings on "Saddam's chemical labs" to convince the world we should wage war on Iraq. It should not have happed in the first place.
It should have happened but it happened anyway. We have to deal with the problems and the major consequences, the horrible results, and the harsh reality of the Bush Administration's misadventure into Iraq. In the short run they have gotten away of it because of the missed opportunities to punish them for their actions back then. If we had pursued a trial and impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney about the war in Iraq almost if not all members of Congress both Democrats and Republicans would have been culpable for voting for a serious mistake. If President Barack Obama decided at one moment just to go back on this issue and focus on it just this once to make things right maybe, just maybe the people will a feel a sense of justice and atonement for those who were unnecessarily killed, wounded or mentally damaged by this senseless war. However for whatever reasons some members decided not to do the right thing based on the inconvenient truths of facing that reality or facing an inconvenient truth of the political reality I feel it was the coward's way out of things. As most of us do know that for politicians doing the right thing is asking them to leap out of a very tall building with a very thin net on the street in the belief that Superman will fly in and save them from falling to their deaths. Whatddya gonna do about it? Nothing! There is nothing you can't do. The politicians made their decisions on it. A least you can say that for the Democratic members of Congress like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have apologized for her mistake. Current Secretary of State John Kerry has apologized for his vote on it and Former Nebraska Senator and current Obama Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel recognize the Iraq War was the wrong war to fight and spoke out against it. For Chuck Hagel's former colleagues there is not so much repentance on their part. They still tow the party line that Iraq was best decision they have made and protected the country from further harm. They will have live that lie for the rest of their lives.
So, folks what do we did we learn from this experience 10 years out from the start of this war?
1. Let's make damn sure that if we are declaring war we have hard evidence to back it up!
2. Let's not rush to war so fast. We have to do other things like inspections and sanctions and give it a chance to really work before just pushing for war.
3. The media must, must and must ask the very tough questions of those pushing war.
I don't care how much they bitch about the "lamestream media" or "liberal media" is meddling with their war plans like the Scooby Doo Gang. Those tough questions have to be asked regardless! I do realize that our media here is very compromised and very few reports may not have the balls to ask those tough questions of the politician's sabre-rattling (A daily hobby of chicken hawks!) but it must be done. Suck it up Wolf Blitzer, David Gregory, Luke Russert, Chuck Todd and others Reporters are support to ask hard question with the 5 W's (Who, What ,When, Where and Why and also How) then report it not act like stenographers for Republicans. (A man can't dream can't he?)
4. Let's not be dismissive of those see a war is wrong for whatever reason they feel.
Those that were against the run-up to the war countless celebrities such as filmmaker Michael Moore, members of Congress that voted against the war and others were ridiculed as "cowards" and as unpatriotic for their opposition. I have to admit I felt that way too. I couldn't understand why they were against it. To me going after a bad man like Saddam Hussein seemed like the right thing to do. To me it was possible that he would have gotten WMD and attacked us. I speak as a New Yorker that has survived the 9/11 attacks. At that time I was unable to go to class on that day because my college, my alma mater, The Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) was blocks away from the World Trade Center. Eleven people from BMCC died on 9/11 and with the war in Afghanistan with the hopes that we would get Osama bin Laden and put Al Qaeda on its knees waiting to be crushed. I truly believed our government that they had the sufficient evidence to go to war. I really thought Saddam was truly preventing UN inspectors from doing the inspections and hiding WMD somewhere in Iraq. I really thought that if nothing was done, we would all be killed. I wouldn't think that the government would just lie to us blatantly, or change their rationales for war when confronted with their lies and lie to us again about it. Despite the lies, those that were opposed to it were ridiculed in the press because the press was obviously cheering for war! I believed that they want us to be harmed by those terrorists. I wrote something about them at that time saying that they never understood the reasons given to us and placing us in harm's way for their opposition. I felt they were idiots for opposing it and realize that we were under attack. But those who opposed it were very right and I was very wrong.
After the obnoxious "Mission Accomplished " stunt Bush have pulled declaring "major combat operations have ended in Iraq" and our troops dying left and right and dropping like flies with the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were ever found I was very wrong. I was wrong for my feelings about those who opposed this war. For that I am very sorry it. I apologize because what you have seen as the reasons of going to war did not add up to you and you felt that attacking an unarmed nation was not the right thing to do. You guys saw through that and I did not. I felt betrayed by my government lying to us about a war we did not have to go. I would never think that the government, specifically the Bush Government would lie blatantly and deliberately to the American public for their greed. We should be able to allow debate in this country pro and con about life changing events like war.
5. Have some kind of plan of getting to the objective and account for anything that may arise and a plan to get out if things goes south.
It was a mess for the 8 years we were there in Iraq. The Bush Administration's assumptions about the war were wrong. Saying that the war will be a "cakewalk"; or staying there for "6 days, 6 weeks or 6 months according to Mr. "Known unknowns" Rumsfeld were complete bullshit. The cakewalk turned into a quagmire. Let's remember that folks! It was so bad that when Fox News decided not to talk about it ever even they were the first ones cheerleading for it. When the Iraq War went very south we were fighting with insurgents and terrorists that were setting up shop in Iraq because we were there. Getting out seemed impossible and Bush and Company decided to wash their hands with it and leave to the next guy to solve. President Obama kept his promise to end the war in Iraq the most responsible way and has ended it well be it was a disaster from the start because those wanting the war wanted it to go forever.
Despite the missed opportunities and righting this atrocity what do we do about the story of Iraq? The architects of the war are very busy rewriting and revising history so they cannot be seen as doing the wrong thing. We have to tell the story of the Iraq War, the whole true story to our children and grandchildren to be told to generations in the future. So that they learn and understand what really happed not the revised and sanitized for your protection by the war perpetrators. We have get in each war perpetrator's face and remind them of the damage they have done to the country. Remind them nearly 5,000 servicemen and women died and countless thousands of our bright men and women wounded all for a lie. Remind Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Richard Pearle, Paul Wolfowitz, George W. Bush and others of the $2.2 trillion "profit "they have made at our expense. Remind those people daily about that. Each of them may feel arrogant that history may judge them greatly on their efforts to stop a terrible dictator who should be dealt with sooner or later. There are many of the above people that may take the arrogant route that they did the right thing. No matter how they feel there a little tiny thing inside them if they bother listening to called their conscience making them feel insecure for lying to the American people and they are very concerned that history and rightly so will judge them very harshly for the costly mistakes they have made because they have lied to all of us!
