The International Writers Magazine:The Iraq Papers Part II

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WHEN GOOD IDEAS ARE EXECUTED BY DUMB ASSES Debunking The Myth of the Iraq Mistake • James campion The following is the second of five segments tying together the loose ends of a fantastic load of misinformation, propaganda, media hype and revisionist history surrounding what is now being erroneously dubbed the worst war effort in the 229 years of this republic. Today we continue our series by ceasing this ridiculous notion that somehow because spectacularly flawed nincompoops ran the war effort, the whole idea and philosophy behind it was asinine and wrong.

Let’s see if we can get at least this straight; ousting Saddam Hussein’s regime from the Middle East was an imperative. This had to be done. Whether he had WMD’s or lost them or hid them or sent them elsewhere, one way or another he was not going to be a stable influence on the most volatile part of this planet and was the biggest single threat to the United States, if not directly or philosophically, then at the very least, ideologically and peripherally by example and rhetoric. After the Gulf War and 9/11, Hussein had to go. The real question of whether this country should have been involved in this mess in the first place should have been more hotly debated in 1990. After the decision was made to kick his sorry ass out of Kuwait his remaining in charge was not going to end well for anyone involved, and we were definitely involved now. And those half-wits who keep saying that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 are predictably ill informed. Of course it did. Listen to Osama bin Laden’s threats as early as 1996 talking about American troops and military presence on holy ground, certain Arab monarchies in bed with the Evil Satan helping us kill fellow Muslims and disgracing his land, and the interminably long bullshit sermons about bankrolling the Israel Defense Force to torture Palestinians. It had everything to do with 9/11.

Bush Sr.’s oil war and Big Bill Clinton’s failure to make these third world serial killers pay for offing American citizens for close to a decade aboard had everything to do with 9/11. Not to mention Ronald Reagan’s bolstering of the Afghan freedom fighters against Russia’s invasion and the building of an Iraq military state to defeat the ever-popular Ayatollah Khomeini in the 80s’. It is the "You Make IT – You Own It" axiom of history. We fueled the flames; we had to come with the extinguisher. Either way you slice it this maniac had to be expunged. So it all had to do, eventually, inevitably with Iraq. Hussein could not be allowed to hang around anymore. Period. This is not up for debate. What is on the table for debate and certainly a boatload of prime ridicule is the haphazard amateur pussyfoot fashion in which his ousting was concocted by badly recycled Republican fossils using a mentally challenged burn out hick president as a flaccid battering ram. The result is what has to be the second worst planning and execution of war in our war-rich country’s history.

The worst was Viet Nam. Hands down. To argue this, as I have heard some foolishly devised assertions, is abject folly. But that’s a slice of silliness for a future installment. As Mencken used to say, "One malarkey at a time." First off, an all-out invasion was patently unnecessary to carry out the deed. Despite my enthusiastic support for making camel chum of Hussein, I have been consistently opposed to that course of action. Assassination had to be the first option, an option that would have sent the country into its current state of civil war and chaos, emboldening the Iranians and sending the entire region into a cauldron of hate and violence, only the United States Army would not have been in the middle of it. Then we might have hoped for the kind of worldwide support that cleans up messes and saves us from being stuck with fighting an endless litany of insurgencies and building a national government out of whole cloth alone. But since we stopped assassinating leaders after the JFK screw up and bloodless coups went out of vogue, using the army became inevitable. But no one said we had to break records for desert speed racing and underestimate everything from troop numbers to local welcoming parties to ignoring the very-real possibility of fervent resistance and, of course, the Turkish government throwing a hissy fit. No one ordered up torture chambers or drunken marines taking photographs with naked prisoners and leaning on a CIA as sadly useless as bicycling trout.

In the spring of 2003, if anyone had the balls to tell me that this whole thing had to do with freeing Iraqis and using the US Army as traffic cops and construction foremen to help erect a democracy out of a thousand-plus years of violent religious madness, I would have laughed heartily and then said no thanks. This was vengeance and geographic chess, plain and simple. This was proactive, preemptive, and a license to kill after we were hit, baby. It was ugly and difficult and had to be done. Freeing Iraqis? Stabilizing the region with democracy? It is revisionist history, and bad revisionist history at that. This invasion, if it had to be an invasion, needed to be executed strategically. This means expecting the worst and planning on every possible eventuality. Instead, the simplest, most obvious contingencies for war imagined from the Egyptians to Greeks to the Romans was pissed away in an arrogant assemblage of half-assed stumblebum pratfalls eventually bungled into what we’ve got now.

But it does not change the fact that it needed to be accomplished one way or the other. Turns out that "the other" was trusting this shitty band of marauders, who had the guts to dive in, but no brains to carry it out; a classic human flaw, like morning wood, customer service and Nazis. Speaking of which, can you imagine if these people had run World War II? Can you fathom these idiots carrying out the D-Day invasion? Jesus Christ, the very thought of it paralyzes me with a gripping fear. The entire planet riding on Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Chaney and his Boy President ruminating on the greatest amphibious land assault in the history of warfare?

Okay, so let’s strike that nightmare. It didn’t happen. And good for the world. But bad for us, because this is not a dream. These guys are lost, admittedly. The whole thing has gone up in smoke. Dunderheads all.
But it still had to be done. Would have been nice if it were done properly.
© James Campion Dec 6th
www.jamescampion.com
realitycheck@jamescampion.com
The Executives New Clothes
James Campion- Iraq Papers1

Part Three: THE SONG & DANCE MAN REVISITED
The Fancy White House Plan to Spin Victory from This Mess

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