| Brief History: The Decade of American Tragedy | |
| January 1998 | In 1997, a group of neoconservatives from the American Enterprise Institute formed the Project for the New American Century – advocating a return to the policies of Ronald Reagan – meaning huge Military spending. In January 1998, they wrote President Clinton, advocating "regime change" in Iraq [meaning Military Invasion and presumabely assasination of Saddam Hussein]. They chided President Clinton for focusing on Terrorist Organizations like Al Qaeda. They advocated focusing on "States." |
| November 2000 | George W. Bush elected President of the United States with Vice President Dick Cheney [an A.E.I. Fellow and a P.N.A.C. Founder]. |
| February 2001 | Vice President Dick Cheney assembles an "Energy Conference" [exact participants unknown – the representatives of the major Energy Companies]. These deliberations remain a secret to this day, but it is known that their materials included maps of the Middle Eastern Oil Fields. |
| September 2001 | The Twin Trade Towers in New York are destroyed in a suicide bombing attack by Al Qaeda. |
| October 2001 | The United States invades Afghanistan – unseating the Taliban who harbored Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. |
| Winter 2002-2003 | President Bush and his Cabinet begin a campaign against Iraq, claiming Saddam Hussein has Weapons of Mass Destruction, is an emminent danger to the U.S. and advocates invading Iraq. |
| March 2003 | The U.S. invades Iraq, quickly toppling Hussein’s government. No Weapons of Mass Destruction are found. President Bush announces, "Mission Accomplished" several months into the war. |
| July 2003 | A former Ambassador, Joseph Wilson’s, questions the prewar Intelligence that lead us to war. The Administration reveals his wife’s covert C.I.A. identity in an attempt to discredit him. |
| 2003 – 2006 | The war drags on. Rather than raise an Army with a Draft, it is populated with National Guardsmen and paid mercenaries. Approximately three American soldiers are killed daily. A million Iraqis are killed. Violence escalates every time we reduce troop levels. The cost approaches a trillion dollars. President Bush and Vice President Cheney, claiming war powers, institute a domestic surveillance program ignoring oversight. The United States renounces the Geneva Conventions – holding prisoners without habeus corpus and uses torture to interrogate prisoners. There is a strong campaign to also go to war with Iran. The result of their outing of a C.I.A. Agent is a conviction of one person for lying. He is pardoned by the President. |
| December 2006 | A blue ribbon commission, the Iraq Study Group, recommends leaving Iraq post haste. |
| January 2007 | President Bush, instead, escalates our Troop involvement in Iraq – a temporary "Surge." |
| January 2008 | President Bush is about to announce that the "surge" isn’t temporary and Troop withdrawals will be halted. |
In my mind, there is no other issue in the current Presidential campaign other than Bush’s War of Occupation in Iraq. Obama voted against the Invasion of Iraq. While I like Hillary Clinton, she voted for it. My wife says I shouldn’t hold that against her since Bush fooled everyone. He didn’t fool me, and he didn’t fool Barak Obama. But, to be honest, I approve of curtains on voting booths for all of us. What we do in there is a private matter. I think it’s the curtains that make Democracy work – curtains and one of these…
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