The first Bush team didn’t do it because his international coalition had only signed on to roll Saddam back, not topple him. Time has not exactly stood still in the interim; oil for food allowed Saddam to consolidate his dictatorial grip on power by giving him control of virtually everything that came into and out of the country. By the time sanctions came to an end, as they were about to do, the idea that he was being successfully contained (at a cost in viciousness and death that dwarfs anything we’ve seen to date), would have been exposed as the convenient political fiction it has always been. As for planning, if you could point me to all the wars that went as planned and took less time and money then predicted, I might be willing to entertain your second point.

When is Columbia going to invite UBL?

Since the morning of 9/11 in NYC, I’ve been hoping we would kill UBL. Since we can’t, I do watch his video tapes and am glad our CIA watches them too.

It is all about dialogue, isn’t it???

GINGRICH SLAMS NY TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD’S PLAN TO HAVE LUNCH WITH AHMADINEJAD AT FOUR SEASONS HOTEL IN NYC… DEVELOPING…

Wait, isn’t like half of the Times’s editorial board queer? In Iran, they would be hanged and/or stoned, right?

…because we’d have taken Saddam out of the picture more than a decade ago.

The Bush41 team considered it and decided against it.

“All of a sudden you’ve got a battle you’re fighting in a major built-up city, a lot of civilians are around, significant limitations on our ability to use our most effective technologies and techniques…Once we had rounded him up and gotten rid of his government, then the question is what do you put in its place? You know, you then have accepted the responsibility for governing Iraq.”—Dick Cheney 1992

Paul Wolfowitz was the most vocal dissenting voice from the Cheney position in 1992. Over the course of a decade Cheney’s position moved closer to Wolfowitz’s. There are two considerations here:
1.) Did it make sense to topple Saddam in either 1991 or 2003?
2.) Given that the team that decided against it in 1991 decided to do it in 2003, shouldn’t they have better game-planned for the contingencies?

“If we had taken some time, as a country, to learn more about Iraq since the Gulf War our troops would be better off today….”

…because we’d have taken Saddam out of the picture more than a decade ago.

Jeanne Kirkpatrick, then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and a graduate of Columbia’s Barnard College had to decline her invitation to speak on campus because of left wing protests that threatened to disrupt the event if she spoke.

They Kirkpatrick protesters were wrong then. The more free speech the better. The more opportunities people have to hear Ahmadenijad and to challenge him, the better our democracy will be able to support action against Iran, if needed.

If we had taken some time, as a country, to learn more about Iraq since the Gulf War our troops would be better off today.

Who were the special interest groups, and what were their demands, and which groups were for Ahmadenijad’s visit and speech, and who were against it.

I would especially like to know why apparent decisions made were so quickly unmade, and remade again.

So who caved in and why?

Via FloppingAces

In September 1986, I began graduate study at SAIS. Shortly thereafter, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and a graduate of Columbia’s Barnard College had to decline her invitation to speak on campus because of left wing protests that threatened to disrupt the event if she spoke.

Twenty years later, In October, 2006, we saw how leftists at Columbia rioted to shut down the event where the border security group “Minutemen” were speaking. For a reminder, see this brief video of the riot that ensued.

Iran under the leadership of radicals like Ahamdinejad is directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans.

No doubt, the same left wing fascists who brazenly shut down free speech from “controversial speakers of different views” will embrace the appearance of the lunatic Ahmadinejad.

Via Powerline

From Death By 1,000 Paper Cuts, on Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York:

In a world of perfect karma, Ahmadinejad would be captured by American “students” and held hostage for over a year, paraded before TV cameras and threatened almost daily with death.
The “international community” would be OK with this as long as we didn’t send him to Guantanamo Bay.

Via Mark Steyn on The Corner.

dedalus on September 20, 2007 at 11:10 PM

A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.
— Baltasar Gracian

Nelsa on September 20, 2007 at 11:03 PM

To equate Bush to Chamberlain would be ridiculous, but that is not what I did. I said that they were both very naive. Chamberlain thinking that he could mollify and manipulate Hitler and Bush thinking that he could “nation build” in Iraq with much better and much sooner results than he has had.

Yes, both very naive for sure.

As far as China and Russia are concerned, they will pounce at any and every sign of weakness.

My Chinese friends are mostly interested in economic growth. Rather than seeing the U.S. as weak they see the recent use of U.S. military power as something that worries them, and makes them supportive of a strong China.

First of all, we ARE the fairest and most benevolent superpower that has ever existed–EVER!

I agree with the above statement. We did a good job picking up after Britain lost its empire, and the Soviets were never more than a corrupt dictatorship with nuclear weapons.

Chamberlain was foolish to actually believe Hitler and was an ineffective war premier. I don’t know that it is clear, though, that he could have just gone in guns-a-blazing much before 1939.

Nevertheless, my point isn’t to appease Iran but rather to dialog. Kind of a “keep your friends close and enemies closer” or as Tony Soprano would say “Revenge is like serving up cold cuts”.

Chamberlain’s fault was not that he was fair and benevolent, but rather that he, like George W. Bush, was very naive.

MB4 on September 20, 2007 at 10:37 PM

To equate Bush to Chamberlain is ridiculous. Bush used preemptive military measures. Chamberlain was an appeaser…

Nelsa on September 20, 2007 at 10:30 PM

Chamberlain’s fault was not that he was fair and benevolent, but rather that he, like George W. Bush, was very naive.

The ability of the United States to continue its run as the lone global super power is correlated with its ability to convince the rest of the world that it is a fair and benevolent power. To the extent we don’t we will more quickly see the rise of China and Russia as challengers to our dominance.

dedalus on September 20, 2007 at 10:23 PM

This is just wrong on so many levels.

First of all, we ARE the fairest and most benevolent superpower that has ever existed–EVER! What we need to do is stop letting all these two-bit tyrannies boss us around. We need to flex our muscles once in a while.

As far as China and Russia are concerned, they will pounce at any and every sign of weakness. Do you need to be reminded what happened when we pulled our support from South VietNam?

I’m not advocating that we go around blowing up countries, but it’s about time we started using some of our “power” and stop letting these punks walk all over us.

The ability of the United States to continue its run as the lone global super power is correlated with its ability to convince the rest of the world that it is a fair and benevolent power. To the extent we don’t we will more quickly see the rise of China and Russia as challengers to our dominance.

dedalus on September 20, 2007 at 10:23 PM

That worked well for Neville Chamberland did’nt it?