Arabs will blame U.S. 'forever' if Iraq falls apart, critic says (Wilson)

[TacticalPeek]

Posted on Thu, Mar. 18, 2004

Arabs will blame U.S. `forever' if Iraq falls apart, critic says

By Laura Kurtzman
Mercury News


BERKELEY - Joseph Wilson, the former diplomat who clashed with the Bush administration over
its use of faulty intelligence to justify the war in Iraq, said Wednesday that the United States
would be blamed ``forever'' by the Arab world if it failed to create a functioning democracy in Iraq.

``The mess that's left over is our mess,'' Wilson said in a speech at the University of
California-Berkeley. ``We own it.''

Wilson, who spoke at a conference on media coverage of the war, said journalists failed to ask
hard questions about the administration's justifications for going to war, particularly Secretary of
State Colin Powell's speech to the U.N. Security Council in 2003, in which he said Iraq had
weapons of mass destruction and should be disarmed.

``Did anybody bother to go out and ask an inspector his interpretation of what Powell said?''
asked Wilson, who was deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad from 1988 to
1991. ``Did anybody go out and ask an expert on disarmament about the meaning of what
Powell said? If they did, I certainly didn't see it in any newspapers.''

Wilson said he spoke with a weapons inspector after Powell's speech and the inspector told him,
``Powell's got nothing.''

more
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/8215806.htm

[w4rma]

1. Yup. This is a total FUBAR. (n/t)

[metisnation]

16. Blame US

they are lucky we are not carpet bombing them, or is there something bigger beneath the surface. Weren't all the Hijackers from S.A.? What is Bush's tie with the royal saudi family?

[chookie]

2. Joe -- you tried to warn them

Joe Wilson was one of many knowledgeable people who warned the administration about the consequences of this war. A lot of experts weighted in with prudent advice.

Either they dismissed it, or they rejected it. In any case -- they *chose* to go into Iraq. It was a bad enough plan to begin with, but then they did so hastily, and ill-prepared.

It isn't right to make our men and women in uniform fight a pointless, unwinnable war. This adminstration has taken their noble instinct for personal sacrifice and used them as pawns.

I guess they think if they just keep throwing other peoples' money at it, it will work eventually.

The only thing worse than fighting a pointless unwinnable war is fighting one that is only going to make everything worse.

[a_random_joel]

3. Not to be stereotypical, but that region tends to hold grudges...

for a loooooooonnnnngggggg time.

Smooth move.

[belle]

8. Rilly.

Whereas we have the collective attention span of a --ooh, shiny thing! LET'S BLOW IT UP.

[Minstrel Boy]

4. The chaos is not an accident, it's by design.

A functioning, united Iraq is not in the long-term interests of neo-conservatives. They desire its dissolution into tribal vassal states. It's also a strategic goal of the Israeli right. Read Israeli journalist Oded Yinon, writing in 1982:

"The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target.... Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria.... Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi'ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north."
http://www.xymphora.blogspot.com/2004_03_01_xymphora_archive.html#107890022814891895

What looks to us like a disaster is, to the neo-conservative ideologue, a transitional stage to the redrawing of the map of the Middle East.

So when the bombs explode, seemingly without reason, be assured: there's one huge, bloody reason.

[Voltaire99]

6. Excellent post (n/t)

[bemildred]

7. Well, it's interesting that an effort seems to be underway

to destabilize Syria. I think that means we've given up on
maintaining control of a unitary Iraq with a puppet government.
Hence the effort to balkanize things, a unitary and strong
Iraq that is not under our control would certainly not justify
all the effort invested. The Kurds seem to be being used as a
wedge for that purpose. I am most interested in seeing how Syria
is going to react. A similar effort on the Iranian side would
seem like something to watch out for. One must wonder when
al Sistani will notice this and what his reaction will be also.

Needless to say, this all bears a certain resemblance to little
boys playing with matches.

[TahitiNut]

10. Exactly.

The neoconservative global corporatists yearn for feudalism and plantation economics. They're striving to roll back the political clock to the days before the Magna Carta. They have all the "compassionate conservatism" of Vlad the Impaler.

These people actually enjoy being hated. It's a power turn-on. The more hate the better. More guns. More bombs. Toy soldiers. "Collateral damage," after all, is about property, not lives, right? They thrive on it -- smirk, smirk!

[Jacobin]

11. Shhhhh, I don't think you can say that out loud in this country...

:-)

[54anickel]

12. Wow, this is interesting. So maybe that nutcase Mahathir wasn't

completely off the mark when calling for Muslims of the ME to unite and stop their in-fighting.

Not sticking up for Mahathir, but he occassionally does have a point. His fighting against the IMF during the Asian currency crisis did seem to payoff quite nicely for Malaysia.

With all that comes to light in the world these days sometimes I think we really need to take a good look and re-evaluate who the "bad guys" really are. Seems we get duped by the media quite a bit these days, don't know what to believe anymore.

[teryang]

13. Balkanizing southwest Asia

...is the continuance of American policies begun in the eighties when it began arming and equiping the mujahadeen fighters to tear central Asia apart. The strategy that armed, financed and trained the terrorists and allegedly resulted in 911 and the Madrid bombings continues unabated with consistent results.

Now Pakistan, a military dictatorship, major nuclear proliferator and exporter of violent terrorism is an official "ally" of the American militarist regime.

Say after the chimp, "the world is a safer place."

[Minstrel Boy]

15. Robert Fisk: "All This Talk Of Civil War, And Now This.... Coincidence?"

March 3:


Odd, isn't it? There never has been a civil war in Iraq. I have never heard a single word of animosity between Sunnis and Shias in Iraq.

Al-Qa'ida has never uttered a threat against Shias - even though al-Qa'ida is a Sunni-only organisation. Yet for weeks, the American occupation authorities have been warning us about civil war, have even produced a letter said to have been written by an al-Qa'ida operative, advocating a Sunni-Shia conflict. Normally sane journalists have enthusiastically taken up this theme. Civil war.

...

I think of the French OAS in Algeria in 1962, setting off bombs among France's Muslim Algerian community. I recall the desperate efforts of the French authorities to set Algerian Muslim against Algerian Muslim which led to half a million dead souls.

...

We are entering a dark and sinister period of Iraqi history. But an occupation authority which should regard civil war as the last prospect it ever wants to contemplate, keeps shouting "civil war" in our ears and I worry about that. Especially when the bombs make it real.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5805.htm

[maxsolomon]

5. if we turned iraq into rodeo drive they'd still hate us

america is going to have to be a fortress for the rest of our lives.

[Gin]

9. I wonder what's going to happen when the handover takes place...

I think all the different groups are laying low until then..and they will make their move..whatever that means remains to be seen.

I also think Al Sistani will be in charge. IMHO

[nicecakes]

14. Is there a limit to the number of fatwas and infidels in the queue stack?

Did they ever let that Rushdie author off the death hook for writing a book that offended their religion? People have limits to stupidity but their resolve has no bounds.

[struggle4progress]

17. kick

:kick:

[AlFrankenFan]

18. I don't blame 'em (no pun intended)

Since we destroyed their cities, killed their civilians, and basically just took over the place (not to mention the oil affairs...) hell ya, I'd never forgive us either!