I think that describes the actions of someone who was in the military and went into Iraq following orders.
It does not describe the actions of someone who started a private mercenary company in order to make money. Which is a generous interpretation, since Prince has also been accused of holding a religious belief in killing Muslims.
Whatever you say about Bush and Cheney’s motives—and there’s much to say—they are not Prince’s motives. His motives, and responsibility, are his own.
No, those made perverse sense. The US was desperate to be seen doing something, anything for the sake of retribution in the wake of 9/11, it would have fabricated an excuse to invade so-and-so country regardless of Cheney's graft. The financial motivation was a convenient byproduct of the geopolitical motivation. But in this case, the financial motivation would be in direct opposition to the geopolitical motivation.
"Everyone knew George W. Bush was going to invade Iraq because Saddam had threatened to kill his father. He was going to finish the job daddy had failed to complete."
I suspect it was lobbying from AIPAC and from defense contractors that led the US into Iraq. Probably not personal vendettas by one man, even George Bush.
Bush tried to make it sound like Saddam hired the al Qaeda, that they were some sort of mercenaries for hire. If anything, they were murdering drug and crime lords for violating the Muslim ethics code, which makes them sort of anti-hero (and yes, I feel icky saying that). They wanted Saddam for the reason that he was torturing Muslims to death for fun.
I'm completely for Saddam being dead, but the American people deserve better than to be lied to, and so does Ron Paul.
> "President Bush said to all of us: 'I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did."
Because George W. Bush had daddy issues (both of the “you tried to kill my” and “by outdoing I can escape the shadow of my” forms) and Dick Cheney (and the whole PNAC crew in the Bush Administration) had oil issues (of the “we must control it” form), all of which distracted from the war on terror.
"Even though we are in the fourth year after the events of September 11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the real causes. And thus, the reasons are still there for a repeat of what occurred.
...
All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.
This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat."
A lot of people ascribe malice to him, but it’s clear as day that he was in over his head with the entire project. Basically 0 of his goals have been achieved 17 years in.
So I would say that while the appearance of competent war games was there, it was a charade.
Karl Rove: Andy and I are there with the president. The president gets this call from Cheney—we didn’t know who it was at the time, we just knew the phone rang. He said “yes,” then there was a pause as he listened. Then another “yes.” You had an unreal sense of time that whole day. I don’t know whether it was 10 seconds or two minutes. Then he said, “You have my authorization.” Then he listens for a while longer. He closes off the conversation. He turns to us and says that he’s just authorized the shoot-down of hijacked airliners.
It strongly implies that it was a covert action by the US or its allies to cut him off from the world. When it was actually just his hosts getting tired of his shit.
> So, its not exactly a mystery where he got the idea he could just invade neighboring countries with no consequences.
IIRC, an apparently poorly considered
remark by US Ambassador to Iraq April
Glaspie on the US position on Saddam's
dispute with Kuwait was a biggie.
The joke, and maybe the truth, about
the Dick Cheney remark that there was
"no doubt" Saddam had weapons of mass
destruction was that, of course he
had such weapons (poison gas) and
of course we knew he had them because
we "still had the receipts" from
when we sold that gas to him.
Of course we wanted Saddam to use
that gas against Iran.
IMHO it now appears that Dick Cheney,
the neo-cons, etc., had an idea about
the world and, especially, Iraq:
(1) Saddam was a bad guy. So,
push on him, and if he doesn't
obey, then invade him.
We pushed; Saddam didn't obey;
W and Co. invaded him in
Gulf War II.
(2) Then part of the idea was W's
statement "The Iraqi people are
perfectly capable of governing
themselves.". So, with such
thinking, the US rushed to set
up a government -- democratic,
constitutional, parliamentary,
secular.
Apparently the US expectation was
that quickly the US would leave and
Iraq would be liberated,
free, relatively independent,
peaceful, prosperous from the oil,
and a buddy of the US.
Then a reality check set in: Oops,
nope. Instead we learned what
Saddam had warned us about, that
we would have one heck of a time
holding Iraq together. Saddam,
with Stalinist techniques, had
held Iraq together, but without
Saddam what we did there just
let the place come apart.
Apart? Nearly every street thug,
gang leader, ambitious politician
or cleric, international opportunist,
etc. saw the fertile ground and
started up. Soon there was the
insurgency, i.e., something
between just chaos and a civil war.
A big trigger? One of the first things the US
administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer,
did was to disband Saddam's army.
Hmm .... That army had ballpark
7 million men. Let's see:
IIRC, Iraq had ballpark 35 million
people so 17.5 million males.
So, the 7 million men was
essentially all the men of military
age in the country -- all of them.
Hmm.
So, right away Bremer just put
all 7 million
on the streets, broke. Uh, maybe
we might have thought a little about
just why Saddam had those 7 million
men in his army? Maybe mostly to
keep them under his control and off
the streets?
In particular, as the army was
disbanded, Saddam's huge weapons
supplies were left unguarded, then
stolen, then used in the insurgency,
e.g., as roadside bombs that
killed/injured a lot of US soldiers.
The main reason for the insurgency?
There are three
main populations in Iraq,
Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. They
all hate each other.
At least the Sunnis and Shiites
have been at war with each other
for over 1000 years.
And now, Iraq is essentially partitioned
into Kurd, Sunni, and Shiite areas.
The Shiites have Baghdad and
south and east from there
to Iran, the Persian Gulf,
Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
The Sunnis have the area north
and west of Baghdad and
extending into northern Syria,
and that Sunni area is mostly
under the control of fundamentalist,
medieval, brutal, angry, hostile,
ambitious
ISIS.
The Kurds have their areas, mostly on
both sides of the border of
Turkey.
Iran? Shiite.
Saudi Arabia? Sunni.
Assad in Syria? A branch of Shiite.
The rebels in Syria? Sunni.
The civil war in Syria? Apparently
just another chapter of the
1000+ year old Sunni-Shiite war.
What's different since 100 years ago?
There used to
be a lot of desert and not
much money or many people --
few people, poor, separated.
Now with the oil money, the desert
is still there but there is
lots of money and many more people.
So, the old Sunni-Shiite
war can draw lots more blood.
So, that's what W, Cheney, the
neo-cons, Wolfowitz,
and Bremer took the US into.
They were going to dump Saddam, set up
a secular democracy friendly with the
the US, and leave, all quickly.
Lots of thugs quickly saw the
fatal flaws, but W and Co. didn't.
So, the US spent lots of precious
US blood and treasure chasing
the dreams of Cheney, W, etc.
Lesson? If the US wants to play
a role in a swamp, then it needs
to understand the reptiles --
snakes, alligators, etc. Else,
can get bitten by the snakes and
alligators.
It does not describe the actions of someone who started a private mercenary company in order to make money. Which is a generous interpretation, since Prince has also been accused of holding a religious belief in killing Muslims.
Whatever you say about Bush and Cheney’s motives—and there’s much to say—they are not Prince’s motives. His motives, and responsibility, are his own.
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