Round and Round we go...
Let's take another viewpoint on this. Let's assume the thread title is totally 100% correct and al the anti-US stuff in this thread is also totally, absolutely correct.
You have now successfully apportioned blame (for pretty much everyhting it seems)/
Now, it's your turn...
...to sort it all out.
What do you do?
Genuine question.
Excellent question... This is what we should be talking about...
Richard A Clarke author of Againts All Enemies has the right answers and is qualified to comment.
He has 30 years' experience in security and was the US National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism from 1998 until he resigned in March 2003. Many of his colleagues have also resigned, sickened by the Bush administration's failure to focus on getting Al Qa'ida.
On 25 January 2001, Clarke proposed 'urgently' a plan to eliminate Al Qa'ida, but the Bush government took no notice because it was fixated on Iraq. Clarke consistently pointed out to them that there had been no Iraqi-sponsored terrorism against the USA since 1993. (Last September, Bush at last admitted that there was 'no evidence that Iraq was involved in the September 11 attacks'.)
The day after, Clarke went to the White House expecting " to go back to a round of meetings examining what the next attacks could be, what our vulnerabilities were, what we could do about them in the short term. Instead, I walked into a series of discussions about Iraq. At first I was incredulous that we were talking about something other than getting al Qaeda. Then I realized with almost a sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were going to try to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq. Since the beginning of the administration, indeed well before, they had been pressing for a war with Iraq."
He writes, "Many thought that the Bush administration was doing a good job of fighting terrorism when, actually, the administration had squandered the opportunity to eliminate al Qaeda and instead strengthened our enemies by going off on a completely unnecessary tangent, the invasion of Iraq. A new al Qaeda has emerged and is growing stronger, in part because of our own actions and inactions. It is in many ways a tougher opponent than the original threat we faced before September 11 and we are not doing what is necessary to make America safer from that threat."
The war in Afghanistan should have been a rapid search-and-destroy mission by US troops on the ground against the terrorists. Instead, bin Laden, his deputy Ayman Zawahiri and Mullah Omar, the Taliban's leader, all escaped. The Taliban was not eliminated; they are rebuilding their forces.
Attacking Iraq made us all less secure and strengthened the radical Islamic terrorist movement. There were far more terrorist attacks in the thirty months since 9/11 than in the thirty months before it: there have been jihadist atrocities in Russia, Tunisia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Morocco, Turkey and other countries.
The US Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute concluded that the attack on Iraq was 'a strategic error of the first magnitude'. Clarke concludes, "Nothing America could have done would have provided al Qaeda and its new generation of cloned groups a better recruitment device than our unprovoked invasion of an oil-rich Arab country."
Chapter 11 - Right War, Wrong War - A short extract
"It did not have to be this way. We did not have to go after Iraq after September 11. Imagine an alternative scenario in which a President mobilized the country to deal with the fundamental problems revealed by the terrorist attacks.
What would a successful and comprehensive counterterrorism effort have looked like after September 11?
"It would have consisted of three key agenda items. First, the President would have engaged in a massive effort to eliminate our vulnerabilities to terrorism at home and strengthen homeland security. Second, he would have launched a concerted effort globally to counter the ideology of al Quaeda and the larger radical Islamic terrorist movement with a partnership to promote the real Islam, to win support for common American and Islamic values, and to shape an alternative to the populare fundamentalist approach. Third, he would ahve been active with key countries not just to round up terrorists, end the sanctuaries, dry up the money, but also to strengthen open governments and make it possible politically, economically, and socially for them to go after the roots of al Qaeda-like terrorism. (The priority countries are Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.) Nowhere on the list of things that should have been done after September 11 is invading Iraq. The things that we had to do would have required enormous attention and resources. they were not available because they were devoted to Iraq ..."
By -- Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies, p. 247 (Clarke, former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counterterrorism, served under four presidents, resigning from the George W. Bush administration in March, 2003.
I am in much the same opinion as Richard Clarke. The US has wasted squandered an opportunity. For all those people who don't believe in conspiracies, it's difficult to move away from them when you read this book. Clarke doesn't say it's a conspiracy but Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney not only wasn't interested in Terrorism or Al-Qaida but actively wanting to launch an immediate war with Iraq contrary to all evidence. And so evidence was fabricated imo.
Solution is:
1. Pull the troops out. Hand total control to Iraqis.
2. Get rid of puppet regime which will never be accepted by majority of Iraqis
3. Elect a federal government with proportional representation - new constitution and new leaders - 20% Kurd, 20% Sunni, 55% Shia, 5% other what ever the figures.
4. Open up construction of Iraq to all countries
5. Get the US to pay compensation for damage inflicted on Iraq
a. Assisting with humanitarian relief
b. Protecting natural resources and infrastructure
c. Facilitating the country's reconstruction and protection of its infrastructure and economy
d. Assisting with the establishment of key civilian services
e. Pay money to people who lost loved ones. If they can afford to pay $15,000 for Iraqis to leave they can pay $15,000 for them all to return.
ALL THE STUFF THEY DESTROYED
6. Proceeds from oil to be distributed according to popullation. Service and extraction of oil from Iraq to be opened up for tender to competitive bidder. None of this 70% for US oil company ****s.
Talk of Civil War is totally over done. Just as the Iraqis united in their winning of the Middle East football cup, they'll do so again to form their own country.
Then the US will have truly removed that evil stupid git Saddam from history and brought democracy to Iraq.
UN can play a big part in shaping this new system.
It's not effing rocket science. Is it.
With Iraqi oil price of oil will fall considerably. Coupled with peace and big regeneration in the area the whole region and globe will benefit from the stimulus to world trade, peace stability and reduced oil price.
Finally, US can devote it's energies and resources to catching and killing that ******* Osama bin-Ladin if he is not dead already. :idea:
