No Cause for Hypercaution

This article has certainly brought out the anti-war group. The real problem is that there is no counter-veiling argument available for the other side to respond with. For the 2008 presidential election I hope at least one elect-able candidate (sorry Mr. Paul) just admits it was a tragically stupid mistake and promises to get us out of Iraq quickly.

We spend 400 billion or more a year on military items and we will be as safe or safer the day we leave Iraq as we are today. The real way to support our boys in uniform is to get them out of Iraq pronto. Unfortunately the red state folks seem to be oblivious to this fact.

Mr. Gerson is delustional at bet. Remember this is the guy who invented axis of evil and the 16 words in State of the Union addres regarding Saddam securing yellowcake uranium which turned out to be false. He clearly states that he is prepared for more American deaths and injuries in a war that never shpoould have been fought. He also in substance stated that Coin Powell was correct on strategy, that Rumsfeld and his mobile force was wrong.

This person is just another one of the Bush whores trying to justify the the mess that we are in and will be for decades. Heroic Conservatism indeed, just another chickenhawk wrapping himself in the mantle of conservaism and wrapping himsel in the flag to be an apologist. This guy should be waterboarded until he admits his book is gibberish.

I couldn't disagree with you more.... If Bush and his advisors were in power during the Civil War we would still be fighting it today. At some point in time war (using military power) must end and civil law must be given a chance. The USA can not force our values and laws on Iraq or any other country. We have done what needed to be done with our military and now it is time to let Iraq's people decide thier fate. We could stay there for another 100 years and not settle this conflict for the people of Iraq. There is no leason to be learned here unless you believe the Civil War should still be raging with a North and South armies killing each other.

I couldn't disagree with these conclusions more... If Bush and his supporters were in charge during the Civil War, the North and South would still be fighting. At some point we stop military action and let the laws of the land prevail. We can not force our laws and values on people through the use of military action, we should already know that and this is why this war is now wrong on any level...

And suppose that, after a decade or two, ten thousand or so more American deaths and the expenditure of two or three trillion dollars, we do conquer the insurgency and establish a Democratic Iraq, what have we accomplished? Not a single thing worth mentioning. We have a small nation of 25 million practicing American style Democracy in the midst of an entire region united against it. A region where many of the states have been forced to become Islamic Republics by the process of democraticizing Iraq. A meaningless drop in the bucket of Islamic hatred achieved at enormous cost and as tenuous as a wisp of smoke. Even now after almost five years, there is not the slightest appearance of regime change in Iraq, unless you are stupid enough, self-serving enough and naive enough, like the US President, to believe that a puppet government set up to ligitimize an illegal and unnecessary invasion and occupation constitutes a viable government.

The only thing that can be accomplished by all the effort of the United States, all the sacrifice of its youth, all the waste from its Treasury and all the degredation of its honor in Iraq will be to create a thorn in the side of the Islamic fanatics who hate us already. This war was immoral, illegal and unnecessary and the successive elections were a total illusion, not a success as this person naively says. They performed their function to ligitimize the invasion and occupation but only in the eyes of the invaders, not in the eyes of the Iraqis or the world and certainly no better than the Vichey Government in France, the Quisling Government in Norway and the Japenese sponsered Phillipine Republic. Only a historically deprived indivdual would ever contend that the ethnic violence that has existed between the Arabs and the Kurds for 4000 years and the religious violence that has existed between the Shiits and the Sunnis for over 1500 years, can be done away with from outside the nation; and in an invasion by forces representing an utterly foreign and unacceptal culture and religion to the Iraqi people. The United States, in a rush to judgement and as an action dictated by total absorbtion in its own fears, completely misunderstood what they were getting into when they invaded Iraq (or perhaps they understood perfectly and our leaders just didn'r care because they didn't really know what to do after 9/11) and the result is what will be a decades long Iraq War and its aftermath.

In the meantime our leader can get the fools who constitute the American people to forget about Iraq by staging a new and bigger war against Iran. Americans are children who can be led about by the nose and made to endorse any action, however dangerous and vile, merely by being told "its for your security and safety." Never has such a powerfu;l nation reduced itself to a child like national psyche as has the United States in the last six years.

I find it obscene that Gerson thinks there's more than one lesson here. There is no lesson other than the obvious one -- it was a mistake. Bush is a mistake. Cheney is a mistake. Rice is a mistake. Our soldiers and the Iraqis have paid bitterly for OUR education and the price is not worth it. The lesson is estimated to cost 2.4 trillion dollars over ten years. Try explaining that to the kids who aren't going to get the best education, some of them because being uninsured left them too sick to learn.

'Fess up, now -- Andy Borowitz wrote this article, didn't he?

Mr Gerson doesn't have any business teaching anybody lessons. Shame on Newsweek for giving this lapdog a platform to communicate this nonsense! Let me suggest that Mr. Gerson get a job selling aluminum siding. He might have better success selling that than this tripe!

The war in Iraq began as a rational war to display the US might to the area and world. Iraq was a weak country with a hated ruler. Iraq was also a thorn in the foot of Israel and Israel wanted to be free to work their own "peace" on the Palestinians. Why we went to war is clear if you consider who championed the war and their alligences. The same people who brought us the Iraq war now want to go to war with Iran. But, Iran is not the "push over" that Iraq was or was suppose to be. The mighty US has used up its military and could spread "shock and awe" in bombing Iran but could not take or hold the ground.

The war in Iraq began as a rational war to display the US might to the area and world. Iraq was a weak country with a hated ruler. Iraq was also a thorn in the foot of Israel and Israel wanted to be free to work their own "peace" on the Palestinians. Why we went to war is clear if you consider who championed the war and their alligences. The same people who brought us the Iraq war now want to go to war with Iran. But, Iran is not the "push over" that Iraq was or was suppose to be. The mighty US has used up its military and could spread "shock and awe" in bombing Iran but could not take or hold the ground.

The war in Iraq began as a rational war to display the US might to the area and world. Iraq was a weak country with a hated ruler. Iraq was also a thorn in the foot of Israel and Israel wanted to be free to work their own "peace" on the Palestinians. Why we went to war is clear if you consider who championed the war and their alligences. The same people who brought us the Iraq war now want to go to war with Iran. But, Iran is not the "push over" that Iraq was or was suppose to be. The mighty US has used up its military and could spread "shock and awe" in bombing Iran but could not take or hold the ground.

Let's get real. Most of the American people do not support this war. If most of the American people had to watch their college-aged children go to war and return in body bags or if they actually had to pay higher taxes to fight the war, it would be over in a couple of months.

The lesson to learn about Iraq? War is not a game. People die. War should not be fought because a couple of old farts hold a grudge or because it benefits the defense industry or because it might win somebody an election.

Gerson and his ilk are irrelevant cowards who were too dishonest to actually tell the truth about why this war was necessary or how the war has been going these last few years.

Any money Gerson or the other neocons make off the war is blood money, IMHO.

Let's get real. Most of the American people do not support this war. If most of the American people had to watch their college-aged children go to war and return in body bags or if they actually had to pay higher taxes to fight the war, it would be over in a couple of months.

The lesson to learn about Iraq? War is not a game. People die. War should not be fought because a couple of old farts hold a grudge or because it benefits the defense industry or because it might win somebody an election.

Gerson and his ilk are irrelevant cowards who were too dishonest to actually tell the truth about why this war was necessary or how the war has been going these last few years.

Any money Gerson or the other neocons make off the war is blood money, IMHO.

A former speech writer for Bush, it's no wonder Gerson is spouting the same neocon rhetoric that got us into the Iraq mess in the first place. As for "overlearning the lessons of caution," Congress and Bush administration haven't learned caution, let alone "overlearned" it--their build up of Iran as the new threat to America is proof of this. Gerson and his ilk are interested only in nation building (regime change), which is unconstitutional, not to mention against international law. Neocons: force-feeding their ideology down the throat of the world.

A Bush apologist disguised as a thoughtful analyst. Shame on Newsweek for publishing this drivel.

What a lame account. Iraq is not composed of a single people, who have longed to be a single nation state while Sadaam held them hostage. Iraq is composed of three peoples, who have been forced into a single nation by the map makers after WWI. These people don't really get along, have fundemental problems going back more than a thousand years, and were pitted against each other under Sadaam's rule. What kind of arogance made us think we could turn this into a democracy? The fact that it is not a peace democracy is not a reflection on the Middle East's inability to embrace democracy, its a reflection of the fact that these three peoples don't really want to be in the same country together. Did we learn nothing from the Balkaans? Yugoslavia was allowed to split into several countries which have become much more peacful since they are no longer forced to share power with peoples they dont trust. I suppose oil is the reason we have tried to keep the pieces together.

The only real lesson learned was that the Iraq war was totally unnecassary.

He's doing nothing but justifying past mistakes. The threat to national security posed by Iraq was minimal, pumped up with lies to make it seem credible. Attempting to tar opponents to the war in Iraq as racists is poor form, and it doesn't even address most war opponents' motives. Questions about the morality of invading another country under false pretenses are ignored, as well. The real lesson we need to learn from the Iraq war is to always question the motives of your government; anyone who slavishly follows a political leader based on patriotism is a slave, not an American.