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August 23, 2005

No Exit (Strategery, that is...)

(Or, spinnin' wheel keeps a-spinnin' around!)

Bush Defending His Iraq War Policy

President Bush, defending his Iraq war policy in the face of anti-war opposition and slumping approval ratings, says pulling out before the mission is complete would dishonor the memory of all the Americans who fought and died in pursuit of freedom.

Translation: "Death before dishonor, as long as it's someone else's kids doing the death part. 9/11. Support our troops in the noble cause. 9/11. Stay the course... Terra... 9/11. You can't get fooled 9/11 again!"

Pres. George H.W. Bush with Brent Scowcroft, A World Apart, 1998:

In Chapter 19, which discusses the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War (also known as "Desert Storm," the military operation to liberate Kuwait from occupation by invading Iraqi forces), they wrote:

"Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under the circumstances, there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different — and perhaps barren — outcome."

A world apart, indeed.

Posted by Jeff at August 23, 2005 06:17 AM