Okay, to begin...
Right after we captured Baghdad, there were a *lot* of PAO-type pix appearing in SIPRNET mail to various units (all combat arms outfits, as far as I could tell), showing US and Iraqi equipment, battlefield shots of blown-up tanks and people, etc., and some stuff highlighting the technology we used. Our S-2 knew I'd think that was real neat, so he called me in to show me. Among the goodies were two AWACS radar screenshots labeled "Iraqi truck convoys converging on Syria" -- lines of little glowing dots on the highways heading north, then turning northwest. They gave a timeline, but all I remember was it happened the night before we jumped.
Next day, there was a recall of the mail with the pix, citing OPSEC violations on the AWACS pix because they showed US positions -- bear in mind that the pix were a full week old, and that US units had already reached Baghdad by the time they were released. Our S-2, being a good S-2, promptly deleted the stuff without a thought. So did everybody else, as far as I can determine, including the military intel types OCONUS with SIPRNET access. Later, I heard the oblique AWACS screenshots were compared with satellite overhead photos and were matched to a gnat's eyelash.
Some time later, the Dems in Congress began screaming that Bush was a war criminal because we hadn't found Saddam's WMD -- we had found a lot of WMD and WMD-related stuff, but the Dems kept screaming "That's not the WMD Bush said they had."
Which morphed into the pre-election Talking/Screaming Point “We went to war in Iraq for a lie, because there were no WMD!” that continues to this day.
Now, let’s recap.
Did we find chemical weapons that Saddam had hidden from the UN inspectors? Yup.
Did we find biological warfare labs and delivery systems? Yup.
Two out of three, so far, and either one standing alone exposes “There were no WMD” as a lie.
Now – shall we try for the hat trick?
Did we find a nuclear weapons program? Well, yes and no.
Yes, we found the evidence, but was it an ongoing program? Saddam himself lied about stopping and starting so often, that, if it wasn’t ongoing during the weeks before the invasion – and Saddam *knew* it was on the way -- chances are very good that he would have cranked it up again had we *not* jumped in.
Was the program stolen from under our noses while we were in the process of restoring some semblance of normalcy to Iraq?
Or was it just on hiatus until Saddam – or his designated heir – could open up for business in a new location? *Something* was on the convoys going into Syria, which the Iraqis, sources in at least two of Iraq’s neighbors, and the CIA's ace advisor have confirmed. Why Syria?
Dirt simple – what party held the political allegiance of both Saddam and the al-Assad family in Syria?
The Ba’ath.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that Saddam's Iraq was at odds with Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, any more than Andrew Cuomo’s New York is at odds with Deval Patrick’s Massachusetts – party loyalty transcends borders in both examples.
Now, here's what really frosts me.
Dick Cheney had the pix, he had the background info, he had the ear of the President, and he had enough personal authority to release them to shut the Dems up.
Those of us who knew about the pix kept expecting a dog-and-pony show from the White House which would stop this particular Big Lie in its tracks and reveal the Dems for what they were.
Any day, now... any day.
When he was asked (in 2010) why he didn't at least advise GWB to go public with the pix and their probable significance, Cheney just blew the question off, and said "we had other concerns at the time."
Swell. Thanks so much for being midwife to this particular Big Lie, Dick -- you gave us Barack Obama in 2008 and the resulting cascade of Big Lies we've been bombarded with ever since.
And if you ask me to buy your book, I *will* give you a very rude response...
Right after we captured Baghdad, there were a *lot* of PAO-type pix appearing in SIPRNET mail to various units (all combat arms outfits, as far as I could tell), showing US and Iraqi equipment, battlefield shots of blown-up tanks and people, etc., and some stuff highlighting the technology we used. Our S-2 knew I'd think that was real neat, so he called me in to show me. Among the goodies were two AWACS radar screenshots labeled "Iraqi truck convoys converging on Syria" -- lines of little glowing dots on the highways heading north, then turning northwest. They gave a timeline, but all I remember was it happened the night before we jumped.
Next day, there was a recall of the mail with the pix, citing OPSEC violations on the AWACS pix because they showed US positions -- bear in mind that the pix were a full week old, and that US units had already reached Baghdad by the time they were released. Our S-2, being a good S-2, promptly deleted the stuff without a thought. So did everybody else, as far as I can determine, including the military intel types OCONUS with SIPRNET access. Later, I heard the oblique AWACS screenshots were compared with satellite overhead photos and were matched to a gnat's eyelash.
Some time later, the Dems in Congress began screaming that Bush was a war criminal because we hadn't found Saddam's WMD -- we had found a lot of WMD and WMD-related stuff, but the Dems kept screaming "That's not the WMD Bush said they had."
Which morphed into the pre-election Talking/Screaming Point “We went to war in Iraq for a lie, because there were no WMD!” that continues to this day.
Now, let’s recap.
Did we find chemical weapons that Saddam had hidden from the UN inspectors? Yup.
Did we find biological warfare labs and delivery systems? Yup.
Two out of three, so far, and either one standing alone exposes “There were no WMD” as a lie.
Now – shall we try for the hat trick?
Did we find a nuclear weapons program? Well, yes and no.
Yes, we found the evidence, but was it an ongoing program? Saddam himself lied about stopping and starting so often, that, if it wasn’t ongoing during the weeks before the invasion – and Saddam *knew* it was on the way -- chances are very good that he would have cranked it up again had we *not* jumped in.
Was the program stolen from under our noses while we were in the process of restoring some semblance of normalcy to Iraq?
Or was it just on hiatus until Saddam – or his designated heir – could open up for business in a new location? *Something* was on the convoys going into Syria, which the Iraqis, sources in at least two of Iraq’s neighbors, and the CIA's ace advisor have confirmed. Why Syria?
Dirt simple – what party held the political allegiance of both Saddam and the al-Assad family in Syria?
The Ba’ath.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that Saddam's Iraq was at odds with Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, any more than Andrew Cuomo’s New York is at odds with Deval Patrick’s Massachusetts – party loyalty transcends borders in both examples.
Now, here's what really frosts me.
Dick Cheney had the pix, he had the background info, he had the ear of the President, and he had enough personal authority to release them to shut the Dems up.
Those of us who knew about the pix kept expecting a dog-and-pony show from the White House which would stop this particular Big Lie in its tracks and reveal the Dems for what they were.
Any day, now... any day.
When he was asked (in 2010) why he didn't at least advise GWB to go public with the pix and their probable significance, Cheney just blew the question off, and said "we had other concerns at the time."
Swell. Thanks so much for being midwife to this particular Big Lie, Dick -- you gave us Barack Obama in 2008 and the resulting cascade of Big Lies we've been bombarded with ever since.
And if you ask me to buy your book, I *will* give you a very rude response...
That oughtta scare Hell out of our Big Liars. Oh, yes it should.
They did not want to have to invade Syria and Iran - at the same time.
[Syria has a full blown signed mutual defense treaty with Iran.]
Then there is Syria's agreements with Russia.
Any acknowledgement would have been cause for a much larger war...
At any rate, I believe the Israelis solved the puzzle of what was in the convoy...
But what does a lowly grunt know, right?
There is also the case of Iraqi generals calling up our command and begging/pleading not to be punished WHEN the chemical attacks came onto the US forces. They knew damned well that the chemicals existed and that all the nicey nice nice of the US forces would end the moment such were used.
There is also the case of obvious AQ and Iraqi security force involvement long prior to the war. No way in hell the AQI could move in as fast as it did withou previous knowledge of safe houses, contacts, safe travel routs, staging areas, weapons caches, etc and so on.
A guy that flew under the name of JVeritas was doing translations of the Iraqi documents that had been dumped on the public domain a long while ago. His blog is at:
http://iraqdocs.blogspot.com/
The blog seems to have been reactivated recently. Might be the same guy. Maybe someone interested could shoot off a question email or few and then, if it is the same guy, post up the goodies here for us'ns to read?
And the binary shell that the dirtbags used as an IED in '04 against a foot patrol. Fortunately, the bursting charge wasn't strong enough to mix the chemicals properly.
They get pretty steamed when they try to steal an election fair and square and still lose. The Dems in NJ usually scream "dirty Republican tricks" and demand a recount if their candidate only gets 120% of the popular vote...
Both Bushes were members in good standing of the Republican Eastern Establishment. As such they are actually liberals with little difference between themselves and the Dems. Dubya's daddy hated Reagan (who really wasn't a conservative either) and did everything he could to wipe out any good that Ronnie did.
To being the journey of discovery into the how and why, I'd suggest starting with reading the works of Antonio Gramsci.
More than any other "thinker" of the Marxist filthology, Gramsci's play book is the one most carefully followed by "Western Intellectuals".
Fair enough. Forgive me if I take that as explaining how you got confused on historical revisionism though :P
Bemusing discussion in there. I might spring for the Kindle version.
You're forgiven. Please understand one thing, I am not the one confused. You would be surprised at some of the pictures that I have seen. The confusion actually going back to a time before the first Persian Gulf War. Everybody went ballistic when Saddam entered The Nation of Kuwait. Please understand there is photographic evidence on many levels of actual historical events. If we are going to talk about “Historical Revisionism”, we need to take everything into consideration. We can not be, “Selective Historians”. We need to look at the whole picture. Grimmy, personally, about Saddam and his whole regime, I would have no problem with the “Chief of Police of Saigon with a VC Approach”. But our problem is this, this does not only mean with Saddam. This is a very complex region of the world. If we are selective in our historical view, then all of us are equally historical revisionists.
During that terrible time right after 9/11, there were people who were willing to follow the Intel anywhere it went. But, as soon as any politician or staff on any level went into the world of intelligence, they were pushing an agenda. If they would have stayed out, it would have been most helpful to the overall mission. Their actions did more actual damage then the “Frank Church Commission." "Undue Influence” ultimately cost the community many years of experience, through retirement and aggravation.
This is only the very very tip of a very large iceberg and we've only just begun to remove the dust off of the surface.
Armorer and Dr. Maloney, did you ever do a Google search on “Georges Sada?”
John, I can almost hear you saying, “Grumpy why don't you just shut it down and let your brain catch up with you.”Yeah, this is exactly what I'm going to do. Good night, Grumpy
I suggest we're closer to on the same page as not.
I don't know if you're making the assertion that both sides, politically, are equally perfidious. If you are then I fully disagree. Neither side my be saints but one side has aggressively, overtly and obviously been doing whatever it can to aide our existential enemy as long as it scores them some points with the most irrationally radicalized elements of the enemy loving left that can be found in our country.
Which side was it that produced those commercials trying to show Iraq as the "Vietnam quagmire"? complete with a US soldier sinking up to his waist in the sand?
Which side was it that had two of their most well known members abusing the protected speech of congress critters by standing before podiums and trading quotes back and forth with Muktada al Sadr about how evil and bad American troops were in Iraq?
Which side was it that held the military budget hostage at every opportunity and used that hostage to push through the most ridiculous, ruinous and egregiously idiotic socialist spending bills since this current heating up of the centuries long war with an expansionist Ummah began?
Which side's current personnel roster is nearly totally comprised of devotees to alien filthosophies that demand the US of A be brought low and or eliminated as a sovereign entity? and are the first to line up to blame the bad ol' US of A for all evils in the world?
Neither side may be saints, and no side is always correct on all the issues, but to claim any sort of moral equivalence between the two is either grossly lazy or plain disingenuous.
Now, again, that may not be your position. I put the above out there to clearly state my own in case anyone was interested. Homey don't do ambiguous.
As to the Mid East being so complicated. There again, I mostly disagree. It's only complicated in that our "betters" just don't want to say it for what it is. For so long as we're stuck under the mental constructs build during the Cold War, it will remain so, unfortunately.
We're at least a full decade away from being shed of those incompetents and being able to face the issues square and deal with them fully as required for our own long term survival.
PS. To Whom It May Concern:
Thank you many muches for including a spell checker.
I set a personal record of 11 "replace"s this time.
The above web address will take you into a brief history of the world of the Assyrian Empire. This kind of background is what caused me to be cautious about embracing everything being said.
Grimmy,Sir, I agree with you that there was more in common than in contrasts in our views. The one thing that really confuses me is this, why is the US being blamed for a disagreement that has been going on for 5000 years? Good grief, we are the new kids on this block! Yes, everybody makes mistakes but there are no free mistakes.
fdcol63, I added this article on the Assyrian Empire which was much larger than the present Nation of Iraq. I have always known of this history and its potential for extended grief for the US. Understand, there are tribal lines there go all the way back to the Assyrian Empire.
Dr. Maloney, Sir, you have raised some very central issues, but not just for the media. No, I am not suggesting a witch hunt, but more of a learning from our own past. You are right on the mark, when you speak of the failure of the media to use investigative journalism on this subject. There is a great deal of “OPEN SOURCE INFORMATION”, I am in no way referring to the “Wikileaks Debacle”. There are many ways to gather information, lawfully.
Armorer, I really think it boils down to people with that, “Cranial–Rectal Disorder”!
To All, Thank you, for a good and thoughtful discussion,
Grumpy
I've heard the "Ancient Empire" thing before. The thing is, the argument does not hold water.
Those ancient empires no longer exist and have not existed for a couple/few millennia. It's long long long gone and aint coming back, no matter how hard a current potentate tries to play it.
The Iraq = Babylon or Assyria holds no more water than it would if the French were using the ancient Gaul map as an excuse to conquer modern Spain.
Same with the "ancient griefs" bullcrap. Imagine how'd it play if Italy tried to pull that crap as an excuse to start murdering Frenchmen because long ago Gauls sacked Rome? Or, how about if Italy went to war against all of the Spanish, French, North African and mid east nations because once upon a long long time ago, Rome owned all that? How about if England invaded Aquitaine area of France because once upon a long long time ago, that area belonged to the English Crown?
Does anyone really believe that the mid east is the sole possessor of "ancient" grudges? Those things only gain traction as agreements with the same sort of numbnuts that fall for that multi culti means everyone's culture is valid but our own.