Tag Archives: Iraq War

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Cool it with 'We told you so'

Congressional Republicans, quite predictably, are now declaring “We told you so!” while insurgents storm Iraqi cities and threaten to launch an all-out civil war in a country once occupied and governed by the United States of America.

Let’s cool it a bit, ladies and gents.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/john-mccain-iraq-criticize-barack-obama-107780.html?hp=t3_3

Sunni Muslims — from the very same sect that gave us Saddam Hussein — have launched full-scale attacks on key Iraq cities. They’ve taken Mosul and Tikrit and are believed to be headed toward Baghdad. The Iraqi armed forces are trying to defend the cities, but so far with little success.

The Iraqis are asking President Obama to supply air power to strike hard at the insurgents. Republicans are demanding it, too. That might be a good option for the president to employ if we can bring enough air power to bear.

Republicans opposed the president’s withdrawal from Iraq, contending that the country wasn’t yet ready to defend itself fully against terrorists and insurgents.

Thus, they’re yelling it loudly that they were right and Obama was wrong.

Sen. John McCain — who never met a war he didn’t want the United States to fight — has demanded the resignation of the president’s entire national security team, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Let’s look back, though.

* Was it prudent to launch a war against Iraq in the first place back in March 2003, when President Bush declared to the world that Saddam had chemical weapons and was going to develop nukes to launch against Israel? It turned out he had neither.

* Did the Republican president misread more than a decade ago the Iraqis’ ability to transition from totalitarianism to democratic rule when they had no history ever of living in freedom and liberty?

* Remember when Vice President Cheney said we’d be greeted as “liberators” and not “occupiers” when we invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein? It didn’t happen. The war continued for years afterward, costing us more than 4,000 young American lives.

* And aren’t Americans just sick and tired of war? Don’t public opinion surveys tell us over and over that we no longer have the stomach for wars with no end?

The Iraq War went bad from the get-go. President Bush made a colossal mistake in linking Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks and that, I submit, is what we are reaping today.

So … the current president ought to order air strikes at the insurgents and try to put down the attacks without the use of ground forces. We’ve got plenty of ordnance we can drop on the bad guys.

As for the carping and chest-thumping on Capitol Hill, how about speaking with one voice and letting that voice belong to the commander in chief, who’s got to make the tough calls?

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Thornberry preps for center stage

In what might be the least surprising critique of President Obama’s decision to accelerate the drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry has begun taking the first baby steps from the back bench to the center stage of American foreign policy debate.

Thornberry, the 13th Congressional District representative since 1995, said the president’s decision is too much too quickly. Imagine my surprise: a Republican congressional committee chairman in waiting second-guessing the Democratic commander in chief.

Lawmaker: Obama’s ‘heart really isn’t in it’

Thornberry made his remarks to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank full of Obama critics. He was preaching the choir, of course, which is what Democratic and Republican politicians always do. They look for friendly audiences where their applause lines will get the loudest response.

I am left to wonder whether Thornberry — the likely next chairman of the House Armed Services Committee — thinks it’s always prudent to deploy American forces into every battlefield that erupts. Barack Obama reiterated this week that the U.S. military remains the strongest in world history, but that it need not be deployed as the “hammer” to pound down every crisis “nail.”

As the president said today in his commencement speech to West Point cadets, the United States stands ready to use force only when it is in our national interest. Of course, that won’t satisfy the armchair hawks on Capitol Hill who cannot quite grasp the idea that sometimes diplomacy and seeking to build international coalitions is more suitable than charging in all alone.

The Iraq War? Remember how we were told we’d be greeted as “liberators” when we plowed across the border in March 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein? It didn’t quite work out that way.

Well, Thornberry likely will cruise to re-election this November against a token Democratic foe. He’s been in the Capitol Hill background for his entire congressional career. When Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon, R-Calif., retires at the end of the year, he’ll likely hand the gavel over to Thornberry, the panel’s vice chairman.

I’m hoping for a bit more bipartisanship from the new chairman. We’ll likely not get it.

Still, I’ll await with interest Chairman Thornberry’s entrance onto center stage.

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West questions Duckworth's 'loyalty'

Allen West served a single term in the U.S. House of Representatives before losing his bid for re-election in 2012.

Yet, the Republican keeps making waves. I wish he’d keep his trap shut.

West has implied that a decorated — and seriously wounded — Iraq War veteran might be more loyal to the “Democrat Party” than she is to her country by agreeing to serve on a House select committee charged with examining the Benghazi controversy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/22/allen-west-tammy-duckworth_n_5375138.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

He’s talking about Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who lost both of her legs while flying a helicopter for the Army during the Iraq War. Her ship was hit in 2004 by a rocket-propelled grenade. Duckworth received the Purple Heart as a result of her injuries.

“I just don’t know where her loyalties lie,” West said in a radio interview. “You know, for her to be a veteran, a wounded warrior for the United States Army, she should know this is not the right thing,” he said. “And hopefully … she’ll remember the oath of office she took as an Army officer and not the allegiance I guess she believes she has to the liberal progressives of the Democrat Party.”

Good grief.

Congressional Democrats have said the select committee hearings on Benghazi are a sham. Duckworth is one of five Democrats named to the panel. Her office pledges that she’ll take her responsibilities on the committee seriously, which all 12 committee members from both parties have vowed to do.

Allen West’s comments about Duckworth’s “loyalties” should be scorned and condemned.

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Cheney makes my head spin

My head is spinning.

I just caught up with former Vice President Dick Cheney’s interview on “Face the Nation” in which he ridicules the Obama administration’s efforts to manage the crisis in Ukraine.

President Obama is weak, indecisive, he’s lost the confidence of our allies, he’s wrong to take military options off the table — those are just some of the things Vice President Cheney offered in his assessment of Obama’s handling of the crisis.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/03/09/cheney_no_question_putin_thinks_obama_is_weak.html

I want to declare that Dick Cheney has no credibility — none whatsoever — on matters relating to managing international crises. How he can assert the things he does blows my ever-lovin’ mind.

Let us remember that Dick Cheney was in the Situation Room when President George W. Bush decided to go to war with Iraq in 2003. Cheney had declared time and again publicly that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein possessed chemical weapons and that he would use them on our allies in the Middle East. Cheney made the case for war, argued that the United States had to invade a nation, topple a sovereign government, rebuild a nation, and create a more democratic society where none ever had existed. We would be seen as “liberators, not occupiers,” he said.

Well, Mr. Vice President, it didn’t quite work out that way.

The weapons were nowhere to be found. We toppled the government and installed one more to our liking. The war went on even after Saddam Hussein had been hanged. We lost more than 4,000 American lives.

Let us also remember that Saddam Hussein played no role at all in the 9/11 attacks. Our “allies” in Saudi Arabia are far more complicit in that heinous and dastardly act than the Iraqis. Why didn’t we topple that government, too, Mr. Vice President?

It’s almost laughable how Cheney glossed over the U.S. response to the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, saying that it occurred near the end of the Bush administration and as the Obama administration was preparing to take over. What’s the implication, Mr. Vice President? Might you be suggesting that Russia’s brass felt more comfortable invading Georgia as President Bush was about to leave office?

The Bush administration was as powerless to stop the Georgia incursion single-handedly as the Obama administration is now with the crisis in Ukraine.

My next task is to get my head to stop spinning.

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Former president takes up cudgel for vets

My goodness, we have come so far as a country in lifting awareness of the needs of our military veterans.

Take the latest initiative headed by former President George W. Bush.

The 43rd president talked today on ABC’s “This Week” with correspondent Martha Raddatz about a effort he has launched through his presidential library in Dallas in conjunction with Syracuse University.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/02/president-george-w-bush-fights-to-take-disorder-out-of-ptsd/

His intention is to help veterans returning from combat reintegrate into civilian life. The former president told Raddatz about the “military-civilian divide.” Civilians, said the president, don’t understand all that veterans have endured fighting for their country.

He talked of the emotion he feels when he is in the presence of these heroes, many of them he sent into combat during his two terms as president.

How far has the nation come? Many, many figurative miles.

We can go back to the Vietnam War. Did returning veterans get this kind of attention when they returned from that conflict? Hardly. They were ignored and often scorned. No need to rehash that sorry episode.

It all began to change when the Persian Gulf War vets returned home from that brief, but intense, conflict in 1991. Then came the 9/11 attacks, which led to the war we have been fighting against al-Qaida in Afghanistan and the Iraq War.

Bush wants to remove the “D” from the PTSD label. Post traumatic stress isn’t a “disorder,” said the president. It is a condition that requires the nation’s attention.

President Bush has made quite an effort to stay out of the partisan political battles that have raged since he left the White House in 2009. This battle, though, is worth his time and effort.

I am glad he is willing to fight it on behalf of our veterans.

This veteran thanks you, Mr. President.

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10 combat tours are more than enough

President Obama introduced the nation Tuesday night to a young Army Ranger, Sergeant First Class Cory Remsburg, who is recovering from grievous wounds he suffered when a roadside bomb exploded in Afghanistan.

But then the president said something that took my breath away. He said SFC Remsburg was injured on his 10th tour of duty in the war zone.

Tenth tour!

Think about this for a moment. We are sending young men and women repeatedly into harm’s way. Is this how it’s supposed to be? Is this how a nation is supposed to buy into a conflict when we depend on so few of these brave warriors that we have to keep sending them back into battle?

Cory Remsburg suffered near-fatal wounds. As was quite evident at the State of the Union speech Tuesday, while he has come a long from where he was, he has a long and difficult road ahead.

A member of my own family, a young cousin, also is in the Army. She, too, has answered the call multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan. She’s still serving our country and I’m so very proud of her.

Still, I cannot help but wonder whether we’re asking too much of these young Americans. I feel to compelled to bring up something that has next to zero political support, but I cannot get the image of SFC Remsburg out of my mind.

Mandatory military service would be one way to spread the burden to more young Americans, just as we did during all our wars until near the end of the Vietnam War. The draft became wildly unpopular back then mostly because of the deferments that were granted to those who had connections, leaving the war-zone experience to those who didn’t qualify for any of the deferments that were available.

The only way conscription could work — if hell were to freeze over and we would bring it back — would be to eliminate all deferments except for those who were physically unable to serve in the military.

Cory Remsburg came within an inch of his life of paying the ultimate price, as have so many others who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ten combat tours is far more than enough to ask any brave American warrior.

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Health care rollout no ‘mission accomplished’

ABC News correspondent Jon Karl sought to pin White House spokesman Jay Carney down on whether the tinkering of the once-crashed health care website produced a “mission accomplished” moment.

Carney didn’t take the bait.

Nor should he.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/12/02/abcs_jon_karl_to_carney_is_it_mission_accomplished_for_obamacare_website.html

The reference, of course, is to the famous photo op of President George W. Bush landing aboard the aircraft carrier in 2003 after the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been captured. Then the president stood before the world — and in front of a banner hung across the conning tower of the carrier — that declared “Mission Accomplished.”

It turned out the mission was far from accomplished. Many more Americans would die in battle before the Iraq War came to an end. Anyone with half a memory of that event knows the folly of declaring victory too quickly.

I’m quite sure the current president, Barack Obama, is aware as well.

The Affordable Care Act rollout was a disaster for the White House. The computer program meant to handle all those applications for health insurance crashed and burned. The White House took it down. Health officials throughout the administration began feeling intense pressure. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius could have done an honorable thing by resigning, given that it all happened on her watch. She has stayed.

The healthcare.gov website has been updated, tweaked, nipped-and-tucked and is working a lot better than before. Is it perfect? Has the administration accomplished its mission? No on both counts.

But the administration is making strides, which is about as good as it can get when you take on such a huge enterprise as trying to fix a broken health care system.

The mission is not accomplished — at least not yet.

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Politics means ‘lying’ takes on broader context

My American Heritage dictionary defines the term “lie” thusly: “a false statement deliberately presented as true.”

That’s a commonly accepted description of a lie. Someone has to knowingly say something that is false.

Well, in politics, lying takes on a different sort of meaning.

Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick “Prince of Darkness” Cheney, said just the other day that President Barack Obama lied when he made grand promises about the Affordable Care Act.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/190496-liz-cheney-no-question-obama-lied-about-o-care

“No question” that he lied, said Cheney. What’s more, the former VP’s daughter has accused Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming — whose seat Cheney wants to take from the incumbent — of enabling the president to lie about the ACA.

I won’t get into whether Enzi enabled anything.

I am puzzled, though, why we allow politicians to use terms like “liar” and “lie” when the universe could contain all kinds of reasons for untruthful statements.

Yes, the president said anyone could keep their health plans if they wanted to do so once the ACA kicked in. It didn’t happen; millions of Americans had their policies canceled, forcing the president to announce this past week that insurers could keep policies in force for another year.

Pardon the verbal parsing, but for Cheney — who’s an underdog in her campaign to beat Enzi — to suggest that Obama “lied” is to become a mind-reader. She knows without a doubt, she says, that the president lied — which is to say he deliberately stood before the nation and said something he knew to be untrue.

Just maybe the president believed what he said at the time to be true. If someone says something in good faith — believing they are telling the truth — does that make them bad-faced liars?

Here’s an example that might hit Liz Cheney right in the gut.

Her dad told us that the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Those WMD became the basis for us launching a full-scale war against Iraq in March 2003. Our troops stormed into Baghdad, captured Saddam, scoured the country from top to bottom looking for those WMD.

They weren’t there.

Did Daddy Cheney tell a lie? I’m guessing his daughter Liz would say “no.” Some of us likely would beg to differ. Hey, that’s politics.

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That was some vets’ ‘reunion’

I have just come home from a reunion of sorts.

I didn’t know anyone else there, but it seemed like we were all brothers and sisters. An Amarillo restaurant treated veterans and active-duty military personnel to free meals tonight in honor of Veterans Day. My wife, Kathy, told me about it this morning. We decided to go, given that I’m an Army veteran. I thought it was a nice gesture on Golden Corral’s part to give us a free meal.

To be honest, I wasn’t quite prepared for what we saw when we got there.

The line was backed up to the door. We walked in. A gentleman was handing out stickers that said “I Served.” He asked Kathy, “Are you a veteran?” She pointed back to me and said, “He is.” I reached for my wallet to produce my Veterans Administration identification card to prove my veteran status. “I don’t need it,” the man said. “I believe you.”

I looked up and down the lengthy line that twisted back from the serving area. All these men and a few women were wearing military gear of some fashion: t-shirts inscribed with some branch of the service; ball caps denoting Vietnam War veterans, Iraq War and Afghanistan War veterans, vets from the various armed forces. I noticed a couple of quite elderly gentlemen I guessed to be either Korean War or World War II veterans.

One young former Marine wore a t-shirt that said: “Marines: Making it safe for the Army.” I wanted to remind the young man about a saying we had in Vietnam, which was that “The Army did all the fighting, the Marines got all the glory, and the Navy and the Air Force got all the money.”

I chose not to possibly spoil the moment.

I heard couples exchanging histories with each other. Where did you serve? When? Did you go to such-and-such?

Perhaps the most interesting veteran was a Vietnam War Marine adorned in his dress blues. He was a corporal. His uniform jacket had all the requisite Vietnam War ribbons on it. I was amazed he could still get into his uniform. Good for him.

It was quite a party tonight at the Golden Corral, which was one of several eating establishments in Amarillo that honored our veterans.

I want to thank them all and not just for tonight’s gesture of good will and generosity.

They deserve thanks for echoing the nation’s renewed spirit of gratitude for those who answered the call to duty. America didn’t always honor its vets in this manner. Vietnam veterans know what I mean.

Thank you for making us feel special.

 

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‘No doubt’ about chemical weapons

I’m hearing it already, the talk that compares the impending strike against Syria to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq and the faulty intelligence — some call it outright lying about it — that supposedly justified the toppling of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Let’s hold on a minute.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said this week there is no doubt, none, that Syrian government forces gassed civilians, including infants. President Obama says that he has no intention of getting into a ground war, that he would use airstrikes only to punish Syria for using the chemical weapons in violation of “international norms.”

http://news.msn.com/us/white-house-to-congress-no-doubt-on-syria-chemical-weapons

How does that differ from a decade ago? Well, the Bush administration said it had intelligence confirming that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons. President Bush’s military high command assembled an invasion force to enter the country, to occupy it and to get rid of the weapons. It turned out the weapons didn’t exist. U.S. forces eventually found Hussein hiding in a “spiderhole.” He was tried for crimes against humanity in an Iraqi court and hanged. But we stayed on, and on, and on — fighting to gain control of the country before handing it over to the Iraqi government.

It’s good to ask: Does anyone really believe the Obama administration, knowing what happened when it was learned that the intelligence gathered before the Iraq War was so bad, that it’s going to repeat that horrible mistake this time around? Is it going to risk the most intense worldwide condemnation imaginable if it isn’t certain that Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad’s forces used the chemicals on innocent civilians? I hardly think so.

The Iraq War was launched on false pretenses. The Syrian strikes — if they come — are certain to be based on much stronger evidence than we ever gathered before marching headlong into Iraq.