So far, Bush and Cheney have competently fulfilled at least two out of five Iraq war goals.

[JackRiddler]

Some General Eaton just made news by criticizing the "war-fighting competence" of Bush and Cheney. This is a spectacularly misleading question to raise, though it comes as no surprise from a Pentagon general.

Would it have been better if the US deployed 800,000 troops to Iraq, invaded only after bombing for months instead of days, and killed a couple of million people?

I suspect that if this had resulted in a fully pacified Iraq a few years later, Gen. Eaton and a certain kind of Democrat would no longer see a problem.

In fact, there is no doubt in Gen. Eaton's case: in 2003 and 2004 he served in the aggressive war in Iraq as one of the designers of the new Iraqi military (which the US organized after summarily dismissing the entire old Iraqi military). These forces have been involved since then in the sectarian bloodbath.

Thus, Eaton is himself one of the primary war criminals in the Iraq attack.

The historically and politically important issue is that Bush and Cheney headed a criminal regime that planned and launched a war of aggression, attacking a country that posed no threat and had never attacked the United States.

To enable this international war crime, they constructed outrageous and obvious lies for use in a full-scale propaganda attack on their own people. In this they gained full cooperation from the US corporate media and from approximately half of the elected Democratic politicians, whose assent prior to the war was indispensable.

That this war was then waged "incompetently" is strictly a secondary matter.

Actually, the Bush regime fulfilled at least one war goal:

1) To create vast profits for the Bush-Cheney clientele among private military contractors like Halliburton, Blackwater-Xe and the rest.

Presumably the war also was a net positive in effecting a second goal:

2) To aid the reelection of George W. Bush

In the longer run, however, the war now appears to be failing on the most important goal of all:

3) To gain permanent control over Iraqi oil profits.

The jury is still out on the following, related goals:

4) To keep the Arab Middle East in a state of balkanization, sectarian conflict and powerlessness (classic imperial divide and conquer).

5) To establish permanent large US bases in the center of the Arab world, for potential use in the service of divide and conquer (which also helps to keep up profits for the military industrial complex, as in pt. 1).

I hear US troops are supposed to all be out of Iraq in 2011. Rather unbelievable, but we can hope, right?

Of course, our general isn't talking about the actual war goals, so he isn't discussing whether these were handled competently or not.

Rather, he's maintaining a false pretense that wars are about winning militarily, or perhaps genuinely believes the war planners placed priority on protecting the troops recruited under false pretenses and exploited by the military machine.

Where was this Gen. Eaton in 2002 and 2003, by the way? Did I miss his statement in opposition to the Bush regime's announcements of the impending war of aggression?

[barbtries]

1. at first i thought it was about the oil

but after seeing over the years who gained from the war, i realized it was number 1 as noted. the primary goal was to redirect wealth into the hands of the few, and they did. obscene.

[JackRiddler]

2. This ground is well-covered in Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine (recommended!)

War is always a racket, as Smedley Butler would say. The need to legitimate and feed the military-industrial complex will always require the occasional full-scale war. But the battlefield will be sought where it makes the most sense in terms of some geostrategic plan. (That itself may be flawed, but so what? The geostrategists get their thinktank checks anyway.) Canada could potentially yield a lot of plunder, but they can't justify it yet. Iraq's oil and geostrategic position meant a lot of support for war from interests beyond the MIC.

[noise]

3. The shock has not worn off

One crisis after another. Some people get upset when the media focuses on something like the balloon story. As if the important news coverage is above board.

[Ozymanithrax]

4. In 1987, Iraq attacked the USS Stark killing 37 people...

So, they did attack the US at one time. You comment should be edited to take that into account. It was claimed to be an accident, but was really in retaliation for Reagan's Contra affair when he sold weapons to Iran and the Contra's.

Actually, Iraq was going to start selling oil in Euro's instead of dollars, an economic move that was a danger to the US, at least our economy, and could be considered an act of war. (No one in the Bush administration was honest enough to claim that on the Authorization to Use Force.)

Iraq was not a benign country, having fought the longest conventional war in the twentieth century with Iran and invaded Kuwait, initiating the first Gulf War. Long sanctions left them incapable of defending themselves against an attack the US.

Eaton is not a war criminal, having neither been charge nor indicted. Though Bush and Cheney have opened themselves to charges of war crimes with the use of torture, they managed to get UN and Congressional approval for the invasion, making the war legal under International and US law. The UN would have to adopt a resolution, and we wouldn't let them do that. The International Court could make such a statement, but they haven't weighed in. I wish someone would actually charge them, but that won't happen in the US under any administration. Perhaps Spain or one of the other countries that take seriously their right to charge war criminals form any country will do us the honors one day.

From my understanding, we will retain some troops in Iraq after 2011, somewhat like our presence in Germany 64+ years after the end of WWII.

I think the rest of your comment is fairly sound.

[JackRiddler]

5. The US military said the Iraqi attack on the USS Stark in 1987 was an accident!

At the time US was practicing various interventions in the Iran-Iraq Gulf war, partly to protect the oil flow, but primarily on behalf of Iraq. The US was supplying Baghdad with weapons, financing and indispensable satellite photography that helped the Saddam Hussein regime survive a series of Iranian "final offensives." The arms sales to Iran were a minor sideline by comparison. So unless you can provide some actual evidence for your insupportable assertion, I'll have to say I don't believe it. Also, the Stark was 16 years before 2003, and not cited as an example of Iraqi aggression at the time of the 2003 invasion, therefore irrelevant to this discussion.

I think the Iraqi switch to euros in November 2000 was absolutely of interest to the Bush regime war planners. Nevertheless, they had determined that they would invade Iraq even before the 2000 election, and I doubt it would have made a difference to their plans, although they may have taken it as the "final straw" or "shot across the bow." Saddam made the switch in the context of the air around him growing increasingly thin, understanding that US aggression was becoming inevitable.

"Iraq was not a benign country" = irrelevant.

We can make a case that someone has committed war crimes even if they have not yet been charged or indicted (in fact, the accusation necessarily comes before charges). Any high US military officer in Iraq in the 2003-2004 period would qualify, especially one who was involved in overseeing the training of the Iraqi government death squads.

Congressional approval for the Iraq war was not an exculpation of Bush and Cheney, but, on the contrary, an indictment of those Congress members who thus made themselves party to a war of aggression. They also ceded (I believe unconstitutionally) their exclusive authority to declare war.

The UN did not approve the Iraq war! How can you even say that?! (The US claimed authority under earlier UN resolutions, but the UN itself did not agree with these interpretations.)

The UN did agree to participate in the occupation, after US forces were there. Big difference. Furthermore, a UN decision doesn't absolve anyone of crimes, if these were committed.

[Ozymanithrax]

6. At the time, Saddam was our friend.

I was in the military at the time, we knew why he did it. I knew people who died on the Stark.

You are right that a UN decision doesn't absolve anyone. However, on the issue of aggressive warfare, it does. Our invasion was legally sanctioned by the UN and approved by the US congress, making it legal under the law. I await some group with the power to adjudicate on that issue, but until one does, then the term "alleged" should be used. Now, where there were serious war crimes is in the use of torture and the treatment of prisoners. Please show me an official UN act by the Security Council, or an official statement by the UN, or an official act by the World Court in the Hague. Without those, these accusations are worthless.

I am not disagreeing that the Bush administration lied to take us to war, only in the fact that anyone anywhere has officially taken the US to task over that invasion. Once allegations of falsehood in the request of authorization to use force came up, the Congress should have investigated. Ive seen the evidence, and it is clear to me that Bush and Cheney could have been impeached. But neither Republicans nor Democrats cared to do that. The empire must be maintained at all costs.

[JackRiddler]

7. The UN did not sanction the invasion of Iraq!

If you wish to argue otherwise, please point to a UN resolution prior to March 20, 2003 that you believe provides such a sanction.

[timeforpeace]

8. Since they've been gone almost a year, who are the "vast profits" going to now? Same folks?

[JackRiddler]

9. Who do you mean by "they"?

[JackRiddler]

10. kick