Fourth time’s a charm: I would not have invaded Iraq knowing then what we know now, says Jeb Bush
posted at 3:21 pm on May 14, 2015 by Allahpundit
Lefty Josh Marshall wrote this morning that you know the debate over the Iraq war is over when hawkish GOP candidates like Rubio and Cruz are giving thumbs down to invading in an “if we knew then” scenario. If there was any doubt that that’s true, having Dubya’s kid brother add his own reluctant thumbs down, albeit after five days of intense pressure, removes the last shred.
“So here’s the deal,” Bush told an audience in Arizona, “if we’re all supposed to answer hypothetical questions, knowing what we know now, I would not have engaged. I would not have gone into Iraq. That’s not to say that the world is safer because Saddam Hussein is gone. It is significantly safer.“…
“That’s not to say that there was a courageous effort to bring about a surge that created stability in Iraq. All of that is true. And that is not to say that the men and women that have served in uniform and many others that went to Iraq to serve, they did so, they did so honorably. But, we’ve answered the question now, so now going forward, what’s the role of America going forward. Are we going to pull back now and be defeatists and pessimistic or are we going to engage in a way that creates a more peaceful and secure world. That is what 2016’s about.
“Not about 2000, not about 1992, not about 1980, but about the future. And I hope that you want leaders that are going to be forthright in their views that will express those views with compassion and conviction and do so so that there’s a clear understanding for America’s role in the world.”
That’s as close as we’ll ever get, I imagine, to Bush 43 calling Iraq a mistake. Dan Foster’s theory seems not implausible:
Guessing W. called his brother yesterday and told Jeb to throw him under the bus.
— Daniel Foster (@DanFosterType) May 14, 2015
If that’s true, it’ll remain a mystery why that call wasn’t placed months before Jeb launched his proto-candidacy, knowing that his take on Iraq could be make-or-break for his campaign. Surely the Bushes realized that, in the interest of returning to power, they’d have to give Jeb tons of slack in running away from the war. The fact that it took him nearly a week to get past this suggests he was actually on a short leash, which means either the family’s in denial about the state of public opinion or the consider it more important to protect Dubya’s legacy than to protect Jeb’s presidential chances. Not good for Bush 45 either way.
I doubt it was George W. alone who finally twisted Jeb’s arm, though. These quotes from Politico are revealing:
“It’s true we want to raise $100 million by the end of the month,” one Bush donor told Politico Magazine, refusing to speak on record for fear of appearing disloyal. “But if he doesn’t give a clear answer about something so simple and figure out how to deal with the issue of his brother, we’re going to have to spend every penny of that cleaning up his mess.”…
“The difference between [Romney’s] 47 percent remarks and what Jeb did is Jeb knew he was being recorded. He knew—or should have known—that this specific question was being asked, and he botched it,” said [another] Republican supporter. “It’s not dissimilar to his response in 1994 when he was asked what he would do for black people and he said ‘probably nothing.’ It was a sign that he can be too blunt, too testy and too arrogant.”
That’s dangerous stuff for a candidate as fragile as Jeb, who should be the prohibitive favorite given his money and name recognition but whose support could crack fairly easily among the donor class given their other options on the center-right. Sticking with Romney in 2012 was easy for them; who were they going to dump him for, Newt Gingrich? Sticking with Bush when you’ve got Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, and Chris Christie (and Mitt Romney?) to choose from is harder, especially when he can’t cough out a smooth answer to the one question everyone expects him to handle smoothly. It’s worth noting that his Iraq response this morning, admitting that he wouldn’t have invaded but that the world is safer without Saddam, closely tracks what Rubio’s said over the past month and a half. Both men seem to have settled on the hawkish compromise position that the war shouldn’t have happened given the bad WMD intel but it’s actually good for global security that it did — a lucky mistake, essentially. Maybe Jeb’s decided that he’d better follow Rubio’s lead on foreign policy from now on so that his donor base doesn’t end up with an extra reason to prefer the younger, more charismatic, more polished pol from Florida. Ace has been saying for weeks that Bush is overrated and could flame out Giuliani-style despite the pile of money he’s raised. I doubted that — until this week. I wonder how many Bush donors feel the same way.
Exit question via Matt Lewis, remembering Jeb’s answer yesterday on this topic:
Was what Jeb conceded today a disservice to the troops?
— Matt Lewis (@mattklewis) May 14, 2015
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We have something going on now in this country that is reminicent of 1880-1917 Russia. Same kind of rabid atheists at work. Could not abide any longer O’Reilly just now. This is not about “poverty”. It is about idiots that think they want a left-wing “revolution” The scum lack intelligence or morality.
kenny on May 14, 2015 at 8:22 PM
Oh, so it’s Wikipedia’s fault that 10k people died violent deaths in Iraq, including thousands from bombings, and not GWB’s? Got it.
See, where I come from, it’s mighty bad form to question someone else’s sources,w ithout providing some of your own.
And yeah, the whole area has been such a mess that Saddam put people into woodchippers to keep order. And it is for such a reason that going in and expecting to democratize the Levant was an act of idiocy.
Really?? Well, according to Iraq Body Count’s database 10,268 people died violent deaths in Iraq in 2008. That is over a population of 30 million.
Put in perspective, for Chicago (one of the most violent cities in America), with a population of 3 million, to have the same violent death rate, they would have to have in excess of 1000 homicides a year. Which you have yourself have admitted they have not.
Apparently the math disagrees with your actuarial assessment.
Neither of whih was as high as the homicide rate for the whole of Iraq for 2008. Big ol’ bucket of fail, right there.
Were troops dying by the thousands in Korea and Germany keeping the peace between warring factions of Koreans and Germans??
Of course they weren’t. If they were, the American people would have demanded their removal. Just like they did in Iraq…
JohnGalt23 on May 14, 2015 at 9:25 PM
See above or learn some history somewhere else. Right now it is a glaring void in mommy and dad’s hard earned money.
kenny on May 14, 2015 at 9:56 PM
My apology in rereading what you wrote, maybe misinterpreted.
kenny on May 14, 2015 at 10:02 PM
BS.
Dr. ZhivBlago on May 15, 2015 at 12:38 AM
I don’t care what jebbyclown says, I’m not voting for this douchebag.
Andy__B on May 15, 2015 at 7:33 AM
What we know now has been colored by what we did then.
And, last I heard, the liberal mantra was “Bush lied, people died.” I don’t think that’s the case, but, with foresight in mind, don’t you think, Mr. Bush, that sounding chords in the liberal band is rather counter-productive?
unclesmrgol on May 15, 2015 at 9:19 AM
Bush wasn’t/isn’t even scratching at a right answer, even yet….He needs to bring up how Obungler fumbled away the whole great victory accomplished by our brave and great military. Valuable lesson learned…don’t go to war and then trust lib big talkers who when they spit, it dribbles down their chin. They caaaare so much and are such poseurs that they don’t want to use them except to deliver food and medical supplies.
bill glass on May 15, 2015 at 9:22 AM
I can’t believe how many words have been wasted this week about a ridiculous question concerning how Bush would handle Iraq in some fanciful alternative history timeline.
I. Just. Don’t. Care.
Chris of Rights on May 15, 2015 at 9:27 AM
George Bush and Dick Cheney have still not apologized for the Iraq War.
Hillary has apologized and admitted her vote was a mistake.
weedisgood on May 15, 2015 at 10:06 AM
Or…knowing what you know now you take out Hussein and then you follow the Rumsfield Plan for post-Saddam instead of the horrible Powell/Bremer plan. Rummy called for keeping the Iraqi army and bureaucracy on the payroll and immediately standing up an Iraqi-led government, putting in additional security forces instead of drawing down, and then doing a “Marshall” plan for infrastructure and jobs with an eye towards having a permanent presence for the next 10+ years. And knowing what we know now, Bush should have smacked Iran and Syria firmly when they were caught sending in terrorists and special ops forces to destabilize the new Iraqi government and cause mayhem.
EasyEight on May 15, 2015 at 10:31 AM
And instead I would have…
And if the answer is little or nothing like the 8 years of Clinton, then why are we even bothering with even more unenforced “diplomacy”?
rhombus on May 15, 2015 at 11:41 AM
JohnGalt23 on May 14, 2015 at 9:25 PM
Got it, huh? OK, We can do it this way if you wish…
1) Even by your figures violence was sharply down in 2008.
2) It’s no ones fault but the terrorists who were setting off car bombs to get the weak sisters among us to cut and run from the mission and turn over the country to the islamists.
3) What is it with supposed “libertarians” who can sound perfectly rational on limited government and individual liberties yet invariably wind up blaming the United States for 1400 years of islamist savagery? (can I still use that word?)
So I shouldn’t question alternet and “democracy now!”? (Sources used on the wiki iraq war…) So where is it that you hail from?
That was one aspect of the mission, at the time we were still reeling from the 9/11 attacks and wanted to give the jihadists a convenient place to die that wasn’t going to destroy one of our skylines. The idea that we could have left behind a quasi democracy, something with a level of representation that was greater than what they had was certainly not unreasonable.
Again, Iraqbodycount counts things like traffic accidents as “excess deaths” but EVEN STILL look at the numbers for 2008-2011, after the country was pacified and before we left. That, and the fact that we achieved our military objectives spells victory no matter how you want to spin it. It only became a defeat when we tossed it all away.
Chicago = 2.8 million (2,800,000) (Source: United States Census Bureau) at 513 violent deaths (Source: Chicago Tribune) .0183%
Iraq = 33 million(33,000,000) (World Bank) at 6,400 deaths (Brookings/ DoD/GOI/Press)
.0193%…. So for a difference of .01% you advocate that we turn the whole thing over to ISIS. Note that Chicago’s crime rate in previous years would have put it over the top.
By .01%… So because islamist terrorists slaughtered each other and anyone else they could kill off at a rate of .01% greater than one of our major cities to get people like you to declare that all is lost you reward them by giving the an oil producing country in the center of the middle east that will metastasize, spread throughout the region and afford these who want to attack us a safe haven in which to do so, Even knowing that violence was down sharply, you endorse the cutting and running and handing the country over to the same despicable monsters who constantly attack civilization, including the USA on 9/11. And that’s somehow smart.
They weren’t dying in the thousands in Iraq when we walked away, or the hundreds, or the dozens… . Germany and Korea were partitioned so yes, they were warring factions. We were facing a threat even more serious (until the islamists get atomic bombs) but we didn’t just walk away in a petulant tantrum and hand everything off to the enemy.
Aren’t you precious, speaking for the American people. The American people were for the war at the time of invasion according to opinion polls and I don’t recall any such poll being taken about handing Iraq over to ISIS. Regardless, “popularity” doesn’t make “right”, or “smart”. It’s leadership that’s supposed to chose that path, not some Jr. High school notion of popularity. What the American people demanded is an affirmative action promoted community organizer so the American people could do some moral preening about how non racist we are. The completely irresponsible conclusion to our mission in Iraq was a by-product of the completely irresponsible identity politics elections, not because the mission was lost.
V7_Sport on May 15, 2015 at 11:45 AM
Cripes, There’s a comment in moderation, (I used too many links)…stay tuned… The cliffs notes version is that JohnGalt23 wrong, irrational, craven and probably doing the bidding of the devil. It’s pretty comprehensive.
V7_Sport on May 15, 2015 at 12:00 PM
Whew, we got that settled.
jake49 on May 15, 2015 at 12:06 PM
“If I had known before I knew I knew when I didn’t know after I did know I would nor have known all the facts.”
MaiDee on May 15, 2015 at 12:21 PM
Meanwhile, Iraq’s second largest city has fallen to ISIS.
de rigueur on May 15, 2015 at 12:25 PM
But you didn’t know then what you know now so saying you would not have is totally irrelevant.
But, what you are saying, Jeb, is what you say know now is not consistent with the facts. If the truth is admitted then there would still be a good reason for getting rid of Saddam.
TerryW on May 15, 2015 at 12:43 PM
You mean Bush and Cheney actually believed in what they were doing and are committed to it whereas Hillary lied about Bush lying to her and gave a politically expedient “apology”.
Or maybe you’ve forgot about Hillary’s own little Iraq repeat in Libya?
Ha ha ha.
gwelf on May 15, 2015 at 1:52 PM
Well, Hillary would certainly like for us to.
de rigueur on May 15, 2015 at 2:09 PM
As “The Great One” so accurately proclaims: “the dumbest of the Bushes”.
trs on May 15, 2015 at 9:23 PM
And yet still not as safe, given even the best assumptions (which I note you gave yourself), as such a garden paradise as Chicago.
Unlike the claims you tried to make earlier. Which paints you as a fool or a liar.
Congratulations.
Really?? Let’s look at those numbers provided by Brookings(?? And I’m supposed to be ashamed at using Wikipedia?).
You mean chaos and sectarian strife were part of our military objectives??
Your fantasy now seems to make more sense, somehow.
No. Because an entire nation had at least, if not much greater a rate of violence than Chicago, I can easily say, however, that the idea that that nation is somehow “pacified” is ridiculous. As in worthy of ridicule.
I endorse never having gone in there in the first place, and kicking the electoral arse of anyone foolish enough not to recognize that doing so was a massive failure. Everything else, you just made up in your head.
But just so we’re clear, it wasn’t JohnGalt23, or Barack Obama, that wanted out of Iraq. It was the American people, by an overwhelming margin.
Wow, East and West Germany were at war?? That’s amazing!! I never heard it.
Of course, you can provide some headlines from the period, of the declaration of war from the Bundestag, right?
‘Bout as precious as you, blithely ignoring the will of the American people, and blaming everyone but the leader of the GOP for his own failures.
The American people were so badly split on use of force in Iraq, even when the war propaganda mill was in full operation, that there were nationwide protests against it. You have that tyoe of opposition you have to consider the possibility that your political position is untenable.
Which it ended up being for the GOP, in case I need remind you, even given the topic of this thread.
Spoken by someone who clearly enjoys losing elections…
JohnGalt23 on May 15, 2015 at 9:52 PM
JohnGalt23 on May 15, 2015 at 9:52 PM
In 2008….by .01%… A statistically insignificant number. Were you whining about the poor, long suffering people in Chi town back then or is this just a cudgel to swing at Bush?
Iraq was was safer than 2008 Chicago in 2003, 2002, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, etc. Better turn it over to the terrorists.
Aaaah yes, the butthurt. The claim should have read it was safer to be an American in Iraq then it was to be an American in Chicago. Look at the figures I gave you and extrapolate.
Among other things.
Again, look at the figures. (Even by the Iraq body count) There had been a lid put on it by the US armed forces. It didn’t fall apart until after Obama deliberately let it fall apart by leaving without a SOFA agreement. .
In 2008… it went down and leveled off from there. And as I’ve shown, the rate of violence in Chicago was higher in previous years, should we give that to ISIS as well? How about Detroit? (too late?)
Indeed, you say that over and over… but you can’t argue with the stats. It was pacified until we walked away from it.
So you are fine with cutting the limb out from under the troops because you didn’t favor it from the start. Isn’t that kind of s#itty? Isn’t that short sighted? All to say you told us so? Good work, because of your ego and Bush derangement you have made common cause with ISIS.
To be sure, reasonable minds can disagree as to whether the invasion was a good idea, especially in hindsight. Walking away from the government we set up and handing over large swaths of territory to the islamist terrorists was just stupid.
Well then, what’s the point of talking to you if you don’t know about the cold war?
Once upon a time there was this thing called the Berlin Wall… Nevermind.
Show me the poll that We The People endorsed turning Iraq over to ISIS. You just might find one on Wikipedia…
Seventy-Two Percent of Americans Support War Against Iraq, Bush approval up 13 points to 71% The Washingtoin post had a 79% approval rating for the invasion on 1, May 2003. What we are now is divided.
HA! No, someone who knows what a Republic and leadership are. Good to see that you are happy that you won the 2008 presidential election. Good to see that you wanted Obama.
V7_Sport on May 15, 2015 at 11:33 PM
Again, post in moderation, wait for it.
V7_Sport on May 15, 2015 at 11:33 PM
JohnGalt23 on May 15, 2015 at 9:52 PM
In 2008….by .01%… A statistically insignificant number. Were you whining about the poor, long suffering people in Chi town back then or is this just a cudgel to swing at Bush?
Iraq was was safer than 2008 Chicago in 2003, 2002, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, etc. Better turn it over to the terrorists.
Aaaah yes, the butthurt. The claim should have read it was safer to be an American in Iraq then it was to be an American in Chicago. Look at the figures I gave you and extrapolate.
Among other things.
Again, look at the figures. (Even by the Iraq body count) There had been a lid put on it by the US armed forces. It didn’t fall apart until after Obama deliberately let it fall apart by leaving without a SOFA agreement. .
In 2008… it went down and leveled off from there. And as I’ve shown, the rate of violence in Chicago was higher in previous years, should we give that to ISIS as well? How about Detroit? (too late?)
V7_Sport on May 16, 2015 at 12:45 AM
…Continued
Indeed, you say that over and over… but you can’t argue with the stats. It was when we walked away from it.
So you are fine with cutting the limb out from under the troops because you didn’t favor it from the start. Isn’t that kind of s#itty? Isn’t that short sighted? All to say you told us so? Good work, because of your ego and Bush derangement you have made common cause with ISIS.
To be sure, reasonable minds can disagree as to whether the invasion was a good idea, especially in hindsight. Walking away from the government we set up and handing over large swaths of territory to the islamist terrorists was just stupid.
Well then, what’s the point of talking to you if you don’t know about the cold war?
Once upon a time there was this thing called the Berlin Wall… Nevermind.
Show me the poll that We The People endorsed turning Iraq over to ISIS. You just might find one on Wikipedia…
V7_Sport on May 16, 2015 at 12:45 AM
…Continued
Seventy-Two Percent of Americans Support War Against Iraq, Bush approval up 13 points to 71% The Washingtoin post had a 79% approval rating for the invasion on 1, May 2003. What we are now is divided.
HA! No, someone who knows what a Republic and leadership are. Good to see that you are happy that you won the 2008 presidential election. Good to see that you wanted Obama.
V7_Sport on May 16, 2015 at 12:47 AM
No. Better to leave it in the hands of a secular dictator, if for no other reason than it was safer then than it is today.
Well, that and we’d still have the couple of trillion we spent on it, and 4000 less dead soldiers.
Uh huh. Goalposts shift much?
You got busted, by the math, and now you are scrambling to save face. How Obama-like of you.
Again, look at a nation with a murder rate at least that of Chicago, nationwide. And you try to tell me that it is “pacified” with a straight face?
And you wonder why the GOP lost in 2006-2008?? Wake up!!
Yeah. The last year Bush was in office. Are you prepared to give Obama credit for the “pacification” of Iraq? Because I am not.
But as I said, some of us like losing elections more than others.
Why not? You tried arguing that Iraq was safer in 2008 than Chicago, even though (as you even admitted) the stats disagreed with that assessment. Either you lied, or you were grossly misinformed, and the stats bear that out.
How precious of you, speaking for the troops now. All you need to do is claim the dead cry out for victory, and you will be fully standing on coffins to make your political voice heard.
The troops I know who served over there would also just have been happy to never have to go.
Funny, there was no ISIS when Hussein was in power. Whose policies led to ISIS, again? And who warned y’all that just that type of thing might occur?
Y’all didn’t listen the first time. Clearly you need reminding, so it doesn’t happen again.
Nowhere near as stupid as getting involved in that hornet’s nest in the first place.
From someone who likely supports building such a wall on our southern border, that is just a bit comical. Would that mean we are at war with Mexico?
But as I recall, that wall wasn’t put up to keep Germans from forming sectarian mobs and detonating explosives. Once again headlines of declaration of war from the Bundestag, if you please.
NBC-WSJ poll Dec. 11-14, 2009
JohnGalt23 on May 16, 2015 at 10:57 AM
Frankensteinhead?
Sherman1864 on May 16, 2015 at 12:05 PM
JohnGalt23 on May 16, 2015 at 10:57 AM
Despite the fact that he was funding suicide bombers, evading sanctions, trying to erode our currency and shooting at us in the no fly zone. Actually shooting at ME in the no fly zone.
The point is, it happened. Now what? Do you deliberately squander what those 4,491 lives and that trillion dollars were spent on? In some petulant tantrum to blame Bush? Your answer is “yes” so please don’t bring up American lives lost as if you give a s#it.
1)So you acknowledge that it was safer to be an American in Iraq than it was to be an American in Chicago.
2)It depends on what year we are looking at for the Iraqis. Either way, its still stupid to turn the whole thing over to Iran and Isis. What part of that can’t you comprehend?
So that . 01% somehow makes turning Iraq over to ISIS a smart move. No, it doesn’t. And again:
Were you whining about the poor, long suffering people in Chi town back then or is this just a cudgel to swing at Bush?
Iraq was was safer than 2008 Chicago in 2003, 2002, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, etc. Better turn it over to the terrorists.
Are you really this small? .01%…. You are, aren’t you?
Yes. Are the US troops responsible for EVERY violent death in Iraq? Was there crime before we got there? Were there people murdered in Iraq before the invasion? Think it through if you can. There were people murdered in Switzerland Last year, does that mean that the country isn’t essentially at peace? Regardless, until you can address this….
The GOP lost because the country thought it would be fun to have a black man, that way we weren’t racist… The GOP lost because of a large population of decadent morons who would rather watch Bruce Jenner pretend to be a woman than the evening news. That and the third party cultist idiots who can’t figure out that we don’t live in a parliamentary system and the Mobys who screwed with them.
I think you will find a general level of anger at the idea that what our military fought and worked for was just tossed away by the civilian leadership among the military had you ever bothered to ask.
And all you need to do is spit on the veterans at the airport and waive the ISIS flag as you have made common cause with the enemy, all the way from your rec-room.
The question is, are they happy about turning over everything that they fought for to the enemy, deliberately, after the fight was won? Who are all these “troops” that you know?
There has been the equivalent under many different names for 1400 years all over the middle east.
ابو القاسم محمد ابن عبد الله ابن عبد المطلب ابن هاشم
Seeing as you are a little turd who is fine with propagandizing for the islamist terrorists so your precius little ego can say “I told you so” I doubt that you will be exerting much influence outside your ron paul fanboy echo chamber chat rooms. Fire does melt steel by the way.
But we got involved. That made your little tantrum moot. We did get involved ad we did win the thing. It;s disgusting that any American would be fine with snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory just to say “I told you so” .
LOL, Right out of Ron Paul’s sick mouth. Building a wall to keep people out is different than building a wall to keep people in, idiot.
That doesn’t mean that there weren’t russian tanks, soldiers, aircraft and nuclear missiles behind it pointed at us. We didn’t run away from that.
Read a history book.
Big ol’ bucket of fail, right there. I don’t see anything about the American public being fine with turning the country over to ISIS and the Iranian Quds Force. And who warned y’all that just that type of thing might occur?
V7_Sport on May 16, 2015 at 2:51 PM
Goddamned auto refresh…
JohnGalt23 on May 16, 2015 at 3:37 PM
Israel problem. Not US problem.
UN sanctions weren’t they. Regardless of my low opinion of the UN, they took those sanctions so seriously, they didn’t order an invasion, did they?
If the UN didn’t take their own sanctions seriously, why exactly should I?
You know what really erodes a currency? Putting a multi-trillion war on the credit card, and having your central bank print money to cover it.
Sorry to hear, flyboy. But nobody saw fit to invade and overthrow and occupy the first eleven years he did it.
With good freaking reasons, too. Which have become perfectly obvious.
No. The point is it was moronic to do in the first place, for reasons Dick Cheney himself gave for not going to Baghdad in ’91. You either commit your troops there for an indefinite occupation (which we all know the american people won;t stand for), or you create a power vacuum into which the most extreme and most violent people are likely to take power.
Good call, Dick. Sorry your 21st Century equivalent didn;t listen to his 20th Century counterpart…
JohnGalt23 on May 16, 2015 at 3:45 PM
They were squandered the moment we made the decision to try to democratize the place. It would have been one thing to go in, flatten Baghdad, and install a puppet regime with enough money and guns and latitude to do what needed to be done to maintain order. It still would have been stupid, but not monstrously so.
But we can’t do that now, can we? So, yeah the whole idea, from the get-go, was dumber than dumb, and for reasons that opponents of the war tried to say at the time.
I’m not certain of that, either. But I am certain it was safer to not be in Iraq, than to be in Iraq.
And what part of the argument, including the very title of this thread, don’t you get that the very reason we are at this point with ISIS, and to some extent Iran, is because we took out a secular dictator that not only acted as an effective check on Iran, but also fed people like ISIS into woodchippers…?!
JohnGalt23 on May 16, 2015 at 3:53 PM
No. I’m quite sure Iraqi cities had crime, just like Chicago. Even after the invasion/occupation.
But what I’m pretty sure they didn’t have was IED’s killing 10k of them a year.
See, the welfare of the people in Chicago, by virtue of their shared citizenship with me, are my concern. The welfare of the Iraqi people, not so much.
But their safety aside, there was approaching zero chance prior to our invasion of Iraq of a radical Islamic state taking root in Iraq. That wass good for the people of Chicago, and for all of America.
Now, in the wake of the invasion of Iraq, the rise of an Islamic state is looking more and more likely.
If the content of Switzerland’s constitution and legislature was being decided on the basis of who can detonate more IED’s and get away with it, yeah… I’d be questioning their pacific nature.
I guess that’s off limits if it is the result of a Bush-led invasion, though…
JohnGalt23 on May 16, 2015 at 4:02 PM
Bull shiite. I was on the ground in 2006 and 2008, trying to elect Republicans. And there was one reason we saw for the shift in that time period; the war. The crash didn’t help. But there was anger at the GOP,and that anger was a direct result of a war built on propaganda and the resultant failure.
Your disdain for your fellow citizens, and their capacity for self-governance, is duly noted.
Not sure which third party you claim cost the GOP power. But whatever party it was, I bet they were unhappy with the war also.
Most people were.
And I think you wil find substantial opinion within the ranks of being perfectly happy if we had never made the mistake of invading the Levant in the first place…
JohnGalt23 on May 16, 2015 at 4:09 PM
Bull Shiite, on toast!! Both Assad and Hussein were secular dictators, who fed people like ISIS into woodchippers. And then we turned the entire Iraqi officer corps into outlaws, who were more than willing to turn ISIS into something capable of forming a state.
Bravo, George W!! Bravo, indeed, sir!
Well, having actually opposed this invasion, I am kinda in a position to say “I told you so”.
And it’s one thing to have gotten it wrong the first time around; the propaganda machine is often deafening. But those who can’t, after all the evidence, after seeing what some of us told you was likely to happen, actually happen, come around to admit “Yeah. It was a mistake. I know that now”? Those people are fools, and I want them to have nothing to do with the levers of political power in this nation.
We got involved, and it was a gigantic mistake, and the American people know it. And they voted accordingly.
That made defeat a foregone conclusion…
JohnGalt23 on May 16, 2015 at 4:20 PM
It’s nature’s way of telling you that you are a verbose blowhard.
After 9/11 most of learned that islamic terrorism was civilizations problem. Now I realize that most of you paul nuts think that it was an inside job and the Mossad was responsible and this might explain your craven reasoning for never standing up to it, but the rest of us have to deal with reality.
evading sanctions
They were US sanctions administered through the UN. I know you paul nuts object to this but we used to be a superpower and could exert influence over such things.
Attacking the US petro dollar wouldn’t be a problem then…
It doesn’t sound like you are too sorry, it sounds like you don’t give a s#it about anything other than your own little bruised ego and your convenience.
NO, THAT IS NOT THE POINT. We were there. We went there with the approval of the American public who, by your election metric, voted to keep us there by giving Bush a second term. We had achieved our objectives, handed over largely pacified country to the Iraqis and then deliberately abandoned the mission so that it would fail.
Like the American people took to the streets to demand our troops leave Germany, Japan, South Korea, Italy, the Philippines, Panama, Cuba, and now Afghanistan etc, etc… Because the American public would never, EVER stand for leaving our troops behind in a country that we were trying to keep stable.
Looks like you chose door #2.
LOL, you fit right in with the kos kids.
What part of “they didn’t have that when we turned the country over” do you not get? What part of this can’t you wrap your little Ronulan brain around?
Have you expressed nearly the outrage on poor, suffering fellow citizens in Chicago or Detroit, etc than you have that we were fighting islamist terrorism in Iraq? Provide some links to that. Lets see where you have expressed solidarity with the animals shooting each other in Chicago like you have with the animals blowing up pet markets in Baghdad.
And? ???? What would they have been doing if they weren’t fighting us in Iraq?
Only because we abandoned the mission to deliberately snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. See how that works yet?
Negotiation by other means.
More Bush derangement than a 13 year old sandinista…. Grow up.
V7_Sport on May 16, 2015 at 6:10 PM
Heh…
I was on the ground as well and yes, it was the crash, the economy and the novelty of electing the “first black man”. That and the base was disgusted with the GOP nominee. Either way, and you are being deliberately obtuse about this: You don’t hand over a pacified country over to ISIS to score a few political points by hanging the los around Bush’s neck like a millstone. That’s immoral. It’s treasonous.
Note away. We have become obsessed with trivialities and decadent to the point of indolence. The grabbers are outnumbering the producers, law is contingent on race and bad behavior is routinely rewarded and good routinely punished. Note that well. Better yet, try to refute it.
Because you speak for them now, too. Why would they be unhappy since we had won the thing.
Seeing as you don’t know squat about it and have acknowledged that you couldn’t have made it in the cub scouts you might want to confine your proclamations to something that you have some small idea of which you are talking about.
Yay, much like the cold war I guess you never have heard of the battle of Vienna or the Armenian Genocide or Muhammad Ahmad of the Sudan or Saladin at Hattin or the “tragedy of Andalusia” and on and on… Whelp, the islamists have. Your ignorance enables them.
Great to see that your Bush derangement is greater than your will to not be subjugated by islamist terrorists.
Again, grow up.
Who cares what you opposed? We went in, after that the only acceptable outcome should have been victory. Yet you are such a tiny person that you would rather deliberately lose and stand on the bodies of your countrymen that you pretend to care about and say “I told you so” Not impressed.
So you got your wish: You got Obama. The American people voted to go to war in Iraq in the first place and voted to keep Bush in office after he ordered it. Obama promised to bring the war to a “responsible end”. He lied and you must have believed it.
V7_Sport on May 16, 2015 at 6:36 PM
How about a similar question for Hillary, such as: Would Hillary have supported Roe v. Wade in 1973 if she knew then that it would result in 60 million lost lives and that even 40 years later it would still deeply divide the country?
RJL on May 16, 2015 at 6:47 PM
Why isn’t the MSM mentioning Jeb Bush’s recently announced insane support for Puerto Rico statehood. Puerto Rico is and has been an economic disaster and a high crime island on which we dump ever more billions in aid. Any territory requesting statehood should be able to show they would be an great asset, not a liability. Or am I too old fashioned?
Chessplayer on May 16, 2015 at 8:06 PM
Knowing what we know now, Bush is a terrible candidate. This performance is all part of that demonstration.
virgo on May 17, 2015 at 10:43 AM
Goodness, what a difficult puppy to house train.
bour3 on May 17, 2015 at 3:30 PM
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