America's 'War on Terror' seems to have inclined the US government to forget that the purpose of a functional society is to provide justice, peace and an economy of plenty for its people. Most wars can be prevented if these remain the guiding principles. In this respect, the Iraq war of 2003 is exemplary. Understanding the many mistakes the Bush administration made going into and during war can help us prevent even worse blunders in the future.
The cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars appears to be headed toward about $4-$5 trillion in total expenditures once all is said and done, if we include to the $1.41 trillion spent to date the equivalent interest payments on the massive amounts borrowed and supplemented to the deficit by the Bush administration, and the 50-60 years of Afghan/Iraq's 2.8 million veterans reaching a projected 40% permanent disability levels.
This is slightly higher than the cost range for World War II and a very far cry from the $4-$5 billion incurred by the Afghan field operations in Oct-Dec 2001. If the Bush administration had not passed on the opportunities presented to eliminate Mullah Omar, Osama bin Laden, and Ayman al-Zawahiri just a few months after September 11, the war would had been brought to swift conclusion with the decimation of al-Qaeda.
This shocking figures become even more appalling when one considers how relatively little it would have cost the nation for the Bush administration to have taken seriously the many warnings coming into the nation's capital before the attacks of September 11. Ordering commercial airline cockpit doors to be reinforced while in flight would have done much more to secure the whole nation's safety than simply ordering private jet flights for a select few cabinet officials due to the 'enhanced threat assessment' in place, which clearly indicated that the attacks would involve airplanes!
Such a little step of applying commercial airline cockpit doors - appropriate in light of the circumstances - would have saved the lives of the nearly 3,000 killed in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. A serious investigation into the tragedy was prevented by the terms of the Bush administration's Victim's Compensation Fund, which used US taxpayer money to pay an average of $1.8 million to each of the 9/11 victim families willing to sign an agreement not to sue, and thus force disclosure of the extensive negligence and security breaches that led to the tragic 9/11 events.
Was Bush's Mission really accomplished? Al-Qaeda's goal in carrying out its attacks on American soil was to force the US government to drain the country financially by forcing it into a war. In that, George W. Bush was more than happy to comply not only with the Afghan war but the Iraq war as well!
The US government will now have to deal with an 'Axis of Evil' that did not exist previous to the 2003 invasion of Iraq as now both Iraq and Iran, previously worse enemies, are Shia-governed friends and allies intending to sell to China most of their oil. This is something that never would have happened under Saddam Hussein.
All these non-accomplishments in both wars came at the price of nearly 7,000 US Service Personnel dead. In Iraq, there were somewhere between 120,000 to 1,000,000 dead and more than 3 million newly minted orphans since 2003.
As the Vice-President of Iraq asked, rhetorically, in the opening days of the Iraq war, 'What is George Bush trying to do, create an entire generation of terrorists?'
As Edward R. Murrow once observed, "The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer". Incredibly oblivious to the facts, there are still those that want to maintain Bush kept us safe from terrorism.
What planet have these seceded to - Delusionus?
At least, with all the government spending, a lot of people in Washington D.C. have been doing handsomely.
George W. Bush's Iraq War demonstrates much of what is wrong with aggressive neo-conservative foreign policies.
If we fail to learn from such mistakes, it is likely our $1.2 trillion/year military will become increasingly vulnerable to the asymmetric defenses of hegemons. China, our nearest military competitor with a $140 billion/year defense budget, chooses to put most of its money into developing its economy, and plans to deal with our aggressive $6 billion super carriers using relatively inexpensive anti-ship ballistic missiles.
Combining this position with our increasingly hollowed out economy - 'free trade' they call it, having no historical memory that the same thing doomed the British Empire a hundred years ago - and the replay of another Iraq-type Middle-Eastern scenario (as Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper demonstrated during Operation Millennium Challenge) is the sort of thing that brings down a great power.
What the Iraq War of 2003 can teach us so we can prevent similar disasters in the future?
The cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars appears to be headed toward about $4-$5 trillion in total expenditures once all is said and done, if we include to the $1.41 trillion spent to date the equivalent interest payments on the massive amounts borrowed and supplemented to the deficit by the Bush administration, and the 50-60 years of Afghan/Iraq's 2.8 million veterans reaching a projected 40% permanent disability levels.
This is slightly higher than the cost range for World War II and a very far cry from the $4-$5 billion incurred by the Afghan field operations in Oct-Dec 2001. If the Bush administration had not passed on the opportunities presented to eliminate Mullah Omar, Osama bin Laden, and Ayman al-Zawahiri just a few months after September 11, the war would had been brought to swift conclusion with the decimation of al-Qaeda.
This shocking figures become even more appalling when one considers how relatively little it would have cost the nation for the Bush administration to have taken seriously the many warnings coming into the nation's capital before the attacks of September 11. Ordering commercial airline cockpit doors to be reinforced while in flight would have done much more to secure the whole nation's safety than simply ordering private jet flights for a select few cabinet officials due to the 'enhanced threat assessment' in place, which clearly indicated that the attacks would involve airplanes!
Such a little step of applying commercial airline cockpit doors - appropriate in light of the circumstances - would have saved the lives of the nearly 3,000 killed in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. A serious investigation into the tragedy was prevented by the terms of the Bush administration's Victim's Compensation Fund, which used US taxpayer money to pay an average of $1.8 million to each of the 9/11 victim families willing to sign an agreement not to sue, and thus force disclosure of the extensive negligence and security breaches that led to the tragic 9/11 events.
Was Bush's Mission really accomplished? Al-Qaeda's goal in carrying out its attacks on American soil was to force the US government to drain the country financially by forcing it into a war. In that, George W. Bush was more than happy to comply not only with the Afghan war but the Iraq war as well!
The US government will now have to deal with an 'Axis of Evil' that did not exist previous to the 2003 invasion of Iraq as now both Iraq and Iran, previously worse enemies, are Shia-governed friends and allies intending to sell to China most of their oil. This is something that never would have happened under Saddam Hussein.
All these non-accomplishments in both wars came at the price of nearly 7,000 US Service Personnel dead. In Iraq, there were somewhere between 120,000 to 1,000,000 dead and more than 3 million newly minted orphans since 2003.
As the Vice-President of Iraq asked, rhetorically, in the opening days of the Iraq war, 'What is George Bush trying to do, create an entire generation of terrorists?'
As Edward R. Murrow once observed, "The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer". Incredibly oblivious to the facts, there are still those that want to maintain Bush kept us safe from terrorism.
What planet have these seceded to - Delusionus?
At least, with all the government spending, a lot of people in Washington D.C. have been doing handsomely.
George W. Bush's Iraq War demonstrates much of what is wrong with aggressive neo-conservative foreign policies.
If we fail to learn from such mistakes, it is likely our $1.2 trillion/year military will become increasingly vulnerable to the asymmetric defenses of hegemons. China, our nearest military competitor with a $140 billion/year defense budget, chooses to put most of its money into developing its economy, and plans to deal with our aggressive $6 billion super carriers using relatively inexpensive anti-ship ballistic missiles.
Combining this position with our increasingly hollowed out economy - 'free trade' they call it, having no historical memory that the same thing doomed the British Empire a hundred years ago - and the replay of another Iraq-type Middle-Eastern scenario (as Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper demonstrated during Operation Millennium Challenge) is the sort of thing that brings down a great power.
What the Iraq War of 2003 can teach us so we can prevent similar disasters in the future?
About the Author:
Iraq War 2003 - What Really Happened Behind the Political Scenes by Charles Edmund Coyote ties together all the events that led the neoconservatives of the Bush administration start the war in Iraq. Already a best selling book in the Iraq category, it is currently on sale at Amazon.
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