Posted on 06/17/2014 8:18:57 AM PDT by pabianice
Like clockwork, the Republican noise machine is blaming Barack Obama for the crisis in Iraq. And like clockwork, they’ve got everything wrong again.
The man to blame for what’s happening in Iraq is not President Obama — it’s President Bush.
Contrary to Tony Blair’s latest protestations, the U.S./U.K. invasion of Iraq — under deliberately fraudulent pretenses – had a great deal to do with enabling the current emergence of a Sunni terrorist military power in Iraq, but it goes much deeper than that. The recent success of ISIS — the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — is exactly what Osama bin Laden had hoped that the 9/11 attacks would lead to. And thanks to Bush’s spectacularly foolish responses, bin Laden’s dream has come true.
Before 9/11, bin Laden was a terrorist and could only dream of becoming the “holy warrior” he imagined himself to be. When Bush chose to respond to 9/11 as an act of war, rather than a crime, he gave bin Laden the gift he had always wanted, just by conferring that status.
First, by invading Afghanistan, Bush validated bin Laden’s claim that what was happening was a religious war between Islam and the Christian West. Then, by invading Iraq and deposing his most prominent ideological foe, Saddam Hussein, Bush gave bin Laden a second gift—a much stronger position of influence throughout the region.
But the invasion also fractured Iraq’s tenuous factional stability, and was followed by a whole series of bad decisions making matters even worse. on their own.
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
Good one.
In addition, this piece from 2008, prior to the election, still has not sunk in yet in the US, to its detriment, re the centrality of what is at the core of all things ...ISLAMIC, and it is not G. Bush!
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/10/melanie-phillips-obama-adopts-the-agenda-of-the-jihadists#
Once you claim credit for a situation and say it is your greatest accomplishment during an election year, you pretty much own it from that point forward.
We should have let Saddam go on take over Kuwait and then let him roll down over Saudi Arabia and take out the despicable Royal Family and destroy the Wahhabi Muslim Sect that controls that country and let the chips fall.
Saudi Arabia has financed a lot of Terrorism world wide with the Oil Money we have paid them.
Everything in that region is a lose lose deal for us. Let those people kill each other and be done with it. We can't police that area and I would say we have made things a lot worse by trying to.
Well, he did dismiss my suggestion that he simply nuke Baghdad instead of invading it.
All this dancing around an no one has mentioned the FIRST opening shot in the hostilities between the USA and Saddam’s Iraq.
USS STARK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Stark_incident
Yes Cindy.
Whatever you say.
I blame Christopher Columbus. If he didn’t discover the New World, it would have remained an environmentally friendly Native American paradise and the evil, Capitalist, war-mongering United States never would have been founded. And the people of Iraq would be living in peace and happiness under their dear leader, Saddam, today.
Whew, that was close. Almost thought Marxism was partially to blame.
Pray America wakes up
Think about it.
What have we gained?
gave cash payments to families of suicide bombers
sorry just saw #6
good list
The real blame for this terrorist mob goes to...the terrorist mob.
However, if anyone insists on blaming an American president, at least blame the right one - Jimmy Carter.
All of this radical Islam terror stuff can be traced back to Jimmy Carter being weak, weak, weak, against the Iranians in 1979-80. Carter should have crushed them then and there.
In this most recent event, it was a MAJOR mistake by Obama to not to leave behind a US force behind.
IF these vermin (like probably all of Salon’s spittlists) survive the coming collapse of America, they will have to be sent for six if America is ever to rise again as a we the people Republic. The media is currently the enemy within, spewing the lies of the oligarchs as if sharing truth with pitiful fools. Disgusting
Bush won the war. Obama lost the peace.
Salon is garbage.
Of course, the fact that the House had previously scheduled impeachment hearings during those four had nothing to do with Clinton's decision.
On December 16, 1998, on the eve of the scheduled House vote on his impeachment, Bill Clinton launched a surprise bombing attack on Baghdad. As justification for this exploit, he cited the urgent threat that Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction posed to America, and the need for immediate action. Almost immediately, the House Democrats held a caucus and emerged calling for a delay in the impeachment proceedings. House minority leader Dick Gephardt made a statement: "We obviously should pass a resolution by saying that we stand behind the troops. I would hope that we do not take up impeachment until the hostilities have completely ended."
Conveniently, a delay so near the end of the House term would have caused the vote to be taken up in the next session – when the newly elected House membership would be seated with more Democratic representation, thereby improving Clinton’s chances of dodging impeachment.
The Republicans did, in fact, agree to delay the hearings, but only for a day or two. Amazingly, Clinton ended the bombing raid after only 70 hours -- once it became clear that in spite of the brief delay, the vote would still be held in the current session.
Once the bombing stopped, Clinton touted the effectiveness and importance of the mission. As reported by ABC News : “We have inflicted significant damage on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programs, on the command structures that direct and protect that capability, and on his military and security infrastructure,” he said. Defense secretary William Cohen echoed the point: “We estimate that Saddam's missile program has been set back by at least a year.”
Whether or not one buys Clinton’s assessment of that mission, it is difficult to believe that its timing was so critical that it required commencement virtually at the moment the House was scheduled to vote on the impeachment. I think the most reasonable conclusion is that Clinton cynically deployed US military assets and placed military personnel in harm’s way for purely political reasons.
I like reading history, and while history doesn’t so much repeat, human nature never changes and we see the same patterns of conduct over and over again.
I believe the world is headed for war. A very bad, destructive war that will not have a good outcome for the United States. And when the history of this war is written by Chinese historians documenting how they won the war and dominated the world, they will write about how the Americans selected the worst leader they possibly could. They will write about how his complete lack of leadership allowed the world to spin out of control and into a war, and in fact his policies guaranteed it would happen.
Our children are going to have a tough time trying to rebuild our country from the rubble. The first thing they’ll need to do is forget about all the liberal environmental/gay rights/welfare nonsense.
Hey numbnuts, in what way was that NOT an act of war?
Liberals are insane.
Lest we forget Columbus had two parents. Hardly blameless.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.