The Neocons' Nine Spectacular Mistakes

The Neocons' Nine Spectacular Mistakes

They claim to be hard-headed realists who see more clearly than others. But, in every case, the traditional realists in the State Dept., Pentagon, and CIA got it right and the neocon academics got it wrong. For example, Scott Ritter, the American Marine major who led the U.N. inspection team, said over and over there were no WMD. He was ridiculed by Wolfowitz, but the guy that got his hands dirty was right, and the clever academic was "dead wrong". Four Generals: The Iraq Mistake / Why Rumsfeld Should Go And He Went! The Neocons:

1. Sold us the WMD story. They loved Chalabi. Chalabi was peddling fabrications. No WMD existed. No WMD programs. 2. Said U.N. sanctions had failed and the inspectors were deceived. Sanctions ended WMD programs in 1991. Neocons misread Saddam. 3. Said we needed only 100,000 troops to keep the peace. After a year of trying to keep the peace Bremmer said that was worst mistake. 4. Said Chalabi’s forces would rise up and help our troops and take power. Chalabi's force could barely function. 5. Said major hostilities would end in about five weeks. The third year is worse than the first. 6. Said Chalabi was the best bet to lead Iraq. A 2004 poll of Iraqis showed him to be most distrusted with Saddam a distant second. 7. Said Chalabi was one of us. He betrayed the US to Iran by giving them highly classified information. 8. Said no need to prepare for occupation. The occupation was 90% of the challenge and has been a disaster. 9. Said Saddam's Baathists should be completely purged. Sacking the army may have been the single worst mistake of the war. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." —White House. Pride goeth before a fall. —Proverbs

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Vietnam war: surge to disaster (And What Have We Learned?)

Did America cut and run from Vietnam? Did the Democrats lose the war? The US dropped more than four times the tonnage of bombs trying to win Vietnam as the allies used to flatten Germany in World War II. At a minimum, over 2 million people were killed including 58,000 Americans. Two and a half million Americans served in Vietnam. This was not cut-and-run, it was digging deeper when in a hole. Anti-war protests? The most effective anti-war protests were by the US troops who "fragged" (threw fragmentation grenades at) 788 officers. Eighty six officers were killed by their own troops and 714 wounded. This had more impact than the kids with placards. You can't fight a war that the troops are sick of after ten years without progress. (It took both +) Did South East Asia go communist and threaten the US? That was predicted. The countries we bombed did go communist, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, but they were no threat. The important ones, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, did not. Most importantly, 30 years later, this is the result of losing the Vietnam war: Mr. President, and Madam Chi, the reason I'm smiling is because I'm really happy to be here. And so is Laura. ... Vietnam is a remarkable country. For decades you had been torn apart by war. Today the Vietnamese people are at peace and seeing the benefits of reform. The Vietnamese own their own businesses, and today the Vietnamese economy is the fastest growing in Southeast Asia. —George Bush, WhiteHouse.com To prevent this outcome, pro-war extremists think we should have killed more millions and sacrificed more American kids. But weren't there bloodbaths when we left? There were. The biggest was in Cambodia where 1.7 million were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Before the US bombing, they had fewer than five thousand poorly armed guerrillas. Years later, a former Khmer Rouge officer, stated "It was because of their dissatisfaction with the bombing that they kept on co-operating with the Khmer Rouge, joining up, sending their children off." The CIA’s Directorate of Operations, after investigations south of Phnom Penh, reported in May 1973 that the Communists were “using damage caused by B-52 strikes as the main theme of their propaganda.” All told, the US dropped 2,756,941 tons of bombs on Cambodia (slightly smaller than Oklahoma). This is the same amount dropped by the US and Great Britain in the European theatre during all of World War II. Bombing of that magnitude changes a country's history. The idea that America should have killed another million or two peasants in North Vietnam to prevent a bloodbath is morally indefensible and a mistake. It would not have brought peace or victory, but only more bloodletting. In Vietnam, surging to win (then it was called escalation) was tried again and again for 12 years (1959-70). Each time, the pro-war extremists thought it was the path to victory.