“…up through the ground come a bubbling crude - oil that is, black gold, Texas tea.”
It was the government of the United States that invaded Iraq. Lesson: government is usually bad, and the bigger it gets, the worse it is.
I don’t buy that as little governments are as prone to go to war as big ones. I wouldn’t say Sweden has less of a government than Germany or Japan but I don’t recall the Swedes starting too many wars.
Ah! It’s not a question if you can prove they have one; it’s a question of whether you can prove they don’t. They’ve had a nuclear program since the 1950s, including enrichment facilities that were operating in secret for years. I sincerely doubt their ability to deliver a ballistic warhead, but wouldn’t bet a plug nickle that they couldn’t set one off in their own backyard. There’s enough doubt about whether they’ve got a nuclear weapon to make them invasion proof. We knew Iraq had none, and that’s what made them patsies.
No lessons, absolutely none. All of the lessons others have stated here I feel many had a good enough understanding of before the Iraq war, and stated those opinions vociferously. However, we were not listened to because those in power wanted to do what they wanted to do.
So perhaps the lesson is not about the size of the government but about the size of the military. An otherwise peaceful country that has a large military will start itching to use it. A non-peaceful country without a large military will build it up to further its ends. A peaceful country with a small military will stay peaceful.
As for oil as a motive, that doesn’t seem viable to me. There was no particular problem with the oil supply at the time, and we haven’t taken oil from Iraq (we might have bought oil from them but it was oil we could have bought elsewhere for the same price). No, the common wisdom at the time still works for me: Cheney pushed for the war for the money he and his cronies would make out of it; Bush went along and also had interests of his own - improving his reputation with a successful military adventure, and one-upping his father. Sadly but nor surprisingly for him, he failed on both counts.
No nukes, but Bill Door’s principle was still correct. Iraq was invaded NOT because it was a threat, but for precisely the opposite reason. Of the three so-called “evil” regimes, Iraq was the least of a threat; for the purpose of demonstrating Bush power and resolve at home and abroad, Iraq was the easiest target to take down.
Nothing. It all played out about as well as I expected.
I think the only part I didn’t expect was that the US would begin to torture people and that it would be allowed to persist for a reasonably decent amount of time despite the clear illegality.
Oh, I’m not disagreeing, just saying that his theory wrt nuclear arms is wrong. Even the North Koreans didn’t test a nuclear weapon until 2006, but I’d be willing to speculate that they might have had something in 2003…Iraq and Iran? Not so much. But that wasn’t why we didn’t attack North Korea (i.e. because we were threatened by their atomic bomz), nor why we didn’t attack Iran.
Personally, I think it was a confluence of things that put Iraq in the cross hairs, including the fact that Iraq was still on the average US citizens radar, that they were a known threat (or at least that Iraq had been on the nightly news as a blustering ‘threat’ all through the Clinton presidency wrt Saddam bluster and scuffles over the no-fly zone and Kurds and such), and that the public could be riled up against them fairly easily…while Iran and North Korea weren’t really on most peoples radar and would have been tougher nuts to crack in any case.
Don’t dismantle the bureaucracy.
The US government is the most aggressive and foolish force in the world.
The American military should be a laughingstock. It is filled top to bottom with dishonorable men and fools.
Nobody in government is held accountable for lies and mass murder, and most will retain their influence and status in politics and society at large.
Boys will be boys, especially if they have an ego. Ever met a politician who didn’t?
If you’re a small boy with a toy truck or two, you wreck what havoc you can.
If you’re a larger boy, your trucks are larger and more numerous – entire armies, even – and the havoc you can wreck is much greater.
The advantage of the gulf war was that we did not destroy any governments. We merely reestablished a very recent border - one thing our military can sometimes accomplish.
The real lesson is that we’re total crap at “nation building” - for several reasons that kill the very idea.
And, there are various correlaries relating to what kind of solution we will even tolerate.
Republican politicians are utterly morally bankrupt and given the opportunity will sell out the interests of both the american people and the world at large for personal profit and misguided ideology.
Yes, I realize I should have noticed this earlier, but I wasn’t really paying attention until Bush’s little war hammered it home.
Pretty much. I learned those lessons as a teenager, during the Vietnam war. Anyone who did not see Ken Burns’ recent PBS documentary on that war should watch it. Especially if you were too young to remember or experience the Vietnam War. It’s heartbreaking.
You know, I’d have argued with you a few years ago, but after Trump…yeah, you might be right.
Yep. It really hit home when it was my students who were rolling into Baghdad. Haven’t had a lick of respect or toleration for Republicans since.
It’s all about oil, money, and it’s gonna be that way for a long time. No matter WHO’S in the White House.
The main lesson I learned from that war was that if Republican presidents start wars, the Republican electorate will be enthusiastic about it, and then if the Democratic president continues the war that was started, somehow all the conflict is his fault, and then when the Republican candidate says he’s against the war, suddenly all the Republicans will say they’re also against the war.
On the eve of the Iraq war, I participated in anti-war demonstrations which were, to the best of my knowledge, the largest ever seen in my country.
Polling conducted at the time showed only 25% of the public supported going into any war without a UN mandate.
The government of the time gave absolutely zero fucks about the opinions of a bunch of hippy peaceniks because hey, it’s not like we were going to vote for the (right-wing) Coalition anyway so they might as well do what they liked.
I learned: protests are for the birds. You have to vote the bastards out.