No Cause for Hypercaution

Gerson has learned the wrong lessons. That the invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law, and that Iraq had never attacked the US, have a great deal to do with how that war is perceived. That Gerson cites countries where the US supported death squads, such as El Salvador and East Timor, as fine examples of the "success" of suppressing a legitimate local insurgency shows just how skewed his analysis is.

The most important lesson to be learned from Iraq? Policy must be based on honesty. The Bush administration's war plans for Iraq began when Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith were appointed to positions in the administration--long before inauguration day 2001. Long before 9/11, before Powell's speech to the U.N. The debate on the war has been based on false assumptions from the very beginning, and so the American people have been robbed of the chance to have an honest debate. As long as our leaders refuse to respect us and trust us with the truth, we are doomed to fail.

Here's a lesson: how about we invade the right stinkin' country next time. Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaeda or the attacks on 9/11. Meanwhile, those who truly are responsible have gotten away with it scot-free: www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com. It's no coincidence that a majority of the suicide bombers attacking our troops in Iraq come from the exact same country as the 9/11 hijackers.

Here's a lesson: how about we invade the right stinkin' country next time. Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaeda or the attacks on 9/11. Meanwhile, those who truly are responsible have gotten away with it scot-free: www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com. It's no coincidence that a majority of the suicide bombers attacking our troops in Iraq come from the exact same country as the 9/11 hijackers.

Things started to go wrong immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Bush elder, a little soft on the "vision" thing, failed to grasp the vacuum created as the opportunity to create a new world order based on security and rule-of-law for everyone. This would entail beginning the process of scoping out world government (not the UN!), but a real govt. shaped on Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian ideals of accountability, checks and balances, honesty, and participation. Rather, Bush senior sat on his laurels and basked naively in the "sole remaining superpower" aura, blissfully unaware that such unchecked US dominance would breed resentment and insecurity, and invite a counter-US global coalition. At the root of the Bush mediocracy is the inability to see that a world government is the most effective way to share power and American principles, and to reign in the insecurity, militarization and economic upheaval that a globe without effective government is doomed to endure.

It is amazing that you putt all the comments as they come. This is heroic example for the meda. You know how much almost all MSNBC columnnist are scared of public comments they never put peoples comments on their site without censoring out the critical ones. Only favourable or mild comments to take credit for fake open policy are allowed.

what mr Gerson glosses over is the single biggest catastrophe of the Iraq decision and one that had me supporting the Iraqi invasion over angry debates with some of my friends. My argument was that the administration would never take the chance of destroying America's global credibility and force complete certainty on future threats, unless they were 200% sure about Iraqi WMD. They screwed future POTUSes.

It appears we have one more lesson to re-learn: the exit strategy. Seems like after Korea, Vietnam, et al . . . we'd lose the domino theory dogma - whether we are trying to prevent one or initiate one. Let the Mesopotamians self-determine. And it looks like that will occur about 15 minutes after we declare victory and leave.

The author makes the same old tired arguments in favor of this President??s war policies. That is, the preemptive intervention in and of itself is necessary to America??s foreign policy. It??s interesting that this flies in the face of 50 years of suceesful Cold War containment of the Soviet Union and of the succesful containment of Saddam Hussein over ten years after the first Gulf War. The problem here is a lack of imagination and nuance in the Bush adminstrations application of of preemptive action. The policy was badly planned, arrogantly applied and ignored a vast array of expert guidance on the how to sucessfully carry it out. The author ignores these inconvenient truths in his discussion of recent history. America has acted preemptively in the past in various circumstances. The difference is that those interventions (Kosovo, Panama, Grenada, to name a few) were better thought out, with goals and aftermath clearly delineated and consequently were far more succesfull.

Appalling. What a second rate mind. As ignorant of American history and the real principles that make us the people we are as he is about iraqui history. No,attacking Iraq does equal 'might as well be there as anywhere else' I should reason with the particulars of his arguement but I am simply sickened with the shoddiness of his understanding or lack there of. He's also a walking example of why we need a professional cadre in government to prevent this lervel of sheer ignorance in so called advisors..

The real problem is that despite the 2006 election no one is giving us voters a real choice as to leave Iraq ASAP.. Have we forgotten the reason to be in Vietnam in the 60s? We fight them in Vietnam or they will be floating sampans under the Golden Gate Bridge soon. Do we remember that 9/11 was caused by box knives and criminals who learned to fly 767s level under our own noses and not by Iraqi radicals?

Our Generals are always getting prepared for the last war. Will another aircraft carrier group help us flush out the 9/11 group or will the Osprey VTOL help us calm the Al Quida threat. The true problem is that the military industrial complex hasn???t figured out yet how to make money helping protect us from the terrorist threat that still exists in the world.

The real problem is that despite the 2006 election no one is giving us voters a real choice as to leave Iraq ASAP.. Have we forgotten the reason to be in Vietnam in the 60s? We fight them in Vietnam or they will be floating sampans under the Golden Gate Bridge soon. Do we remember that 9/11 was caused by box knives and criminals who learned to fly 767s level under our own noses and not by Iraqi radicals?

Our Generals are always getting prepared for the last war. Will another aircraft carrier group help us flush out the 9/11 group or will the Osprey VTOL help us calm the Al Quida threat. The true problem is that the military industrial complex hasn???t figured out yet how to make money helping protect us from the terrorist threat that still exists in the world.

We need " Healtcare,Not W arfare,..

John Le Carre's famous character George Smiley in Discussing his KGB couterpart says "It is the fanatiic's inability to moderate that always in the end brings him down". George Bush and his statement " he will not waver" to his apologist Gerson brings that comment home. It is sad for this country that we have suffered and will suffer for this Fanaticism.

Iraq is not a war. It is an opposed occupation scheme. Nation-building is not a conservative act. Employing the "noble lie" for the good of the American people, to the American people must be criminally prosecuted. Attacking and occupying sovereign nations based on the notion that they may one day be capable of hurting us must be absolutely impermissible. Using Fear as a tool of governance is a BIG RED FLAG to a free society. Iraq is a manifestation of what went wrong with America, internally. Neoconservatism is a dead man walking, thank God.

The reasons listed for staying in Iraq certainly sound noble. My question is, how can we possibly pay for it? Congress has been asked for $200 billion for this year, that's $4 billion a week! If we spent even $1 billion a week on one of the many problems facing us here at home how long would it take to find cures for diseases, improve our infrastructure, clean our water and air, or reform insurance and medical care? Can we afford $4 billion a week, and for how long?

This is the kind of thinking that has cost the lives of so many in a
useless spree of bloodshed, and finally you seek to profit from
the senseless pain by putting words in a book to justify the insanity,
lies, and shame of this enterprise. The only good from this is now
history will know who you are and how much harm you have helped
inflict on innocent people. You say you love democracy yet you have
done so much to destroy it. Hypocrisy is your name.