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If you’ve harbored any doubts about the worst idea in the our history Iraq War and how it came to be, watch BUSH’S WAR. It’s excruciatingly clear. The bullies are shown above. Add to that, the quintessant con man, Ahmad Chalabi, of the self-defined Iraq National Congress. But the monsters are on the left of bully row. The PBS special is interviews with people who were there, not pundits talking about things. The criticisms and insights come from insiders.
The biggest war was between the guys on the top row and everyone else in America. The special makes the arrogance and pig-headedness of the people in charge absolutely clear, it makes the level of incompetence and denial clear, and it shows how their shared characterologic failings created the situation we are in now. It is also obvious that Bush [of BUSH‘S WAR] was a sideline figure, not any kind of leader – following Cheney and Rumsfeld into the jaws of hell.
The very idea that they’ve got Karl Rove out spouting their old, worn out fantasies now is a major insult to the American people…
I didn’t see the whole documentary about Bush’s War because my husband wanted the show off. To quote him”he said how my times do we have to see and hear the same”. I will be seeing the rest on line. I have always been an American history buff. I have been going to the library and picking books to read about the Iraq war but it’s too painfull to read about Bush anymore. I’m currently reading “Still Broken” by A J Rossmiller who served in the Defense Intelligence Agency for 2 years, part of that in Iraq. He also writes at Americablog.com. Something I didn’t know while watching the show, was how much Rice and her cohort were responsible for having the troops fighting the insurgants. How Rumsfield didn’t think it should be American troops fighting them when there were Iraqis being trained to fight and defend the so-called new gov’t of Iraq. The cohort is Philip Zelikow somebody who has worked for Rice off and on and was part of the 911 Commission,(his title was Executive Director) who rewrote history in “the 911 Commission Report” so that Rice wouldn’t be criticized as the National Security Advisor when she ignored advice from Clinton’s NSA Sandy Berger when she dismissed their concerns about Bin Laden and the rest of the al Qaeda network. Rice sent him over to Iraq when she rehired him (after a job well donewith the 911 commission)and she had Philip Zelikow checking out what was going on and he told her what was needed to change the direction of the war to the insurgency. I think Rice and Zelikow deserve another trip to Congress with many more hearings. Rumsfield was bad but he is not the only bad fish that was in the pot. You have the rest of them pictured above.
I can understand not wanting to watch it. My feeling, though, is like the Jews feel about the Holocaust, “Never Forget.” I think we kind of forgot Viet Nam and Watergate. We shouldn’t have put that behind us because it’s haunting us now. That said, Bush’s War put me in a very sad mood. So much carnage for no reason…
zELIKOW also chaired the Aspen Institute’s get togethers, which I (quietly) speculate to be what Scooter was referencing in his (in)famous letter to shill Judith Miller. (..”The Aspens are turning”)
Zelikow has made the news again today:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/05/winquiry105.xml
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The Aspen Institute, a think tank led by former Time editor Walter Isaacson, was the biggest spender on congressional outings. The organization spent nearly $3 million on trips over the five-year period. The Ripon Society and American Israel Education Foundation spent between one-half and three-quarters of a million dollars.
http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/042705/groups.html
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http://www.fortune.com/fortune/information/Presscenter/0,,03072003B,00.html
FORTUNE ANNOUNCES THIRD ANNUAL BRAINSTORM CONFERENCE IN ASPEN
Aspen Institute will co-host event, to take place in July [03]
New York, March 6, 2003-FORTUNE announced today that its annual Brainstorm conference
will again be held in Aspen. The third annual invitation-only gathering will take place from July 28-30 at the Aspen Institute, which for the first time is co-hosting Brainstorm with FORTUNE.
Guests at last year’s Brainstorm included William Jefferson Clinton, His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan, Shimon Peres, Madeleine Albright, Jack Kemp, and Zoe Baird, eBay Founder and Chairman Pierre Omidyar, Bill Joy, Harvard Business School’s Juan Enriquez, John Doerr, Sir Martin Sorrell, Rodney Chase, Ann Richards, and President and CEO of The Global Fund for Women, Kavita Ramdas.
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This from my notes: can’t source. Have been offline 2 months/back now~ I’ve missed reading you, much to catch up on. dc
1 The meeting was at the Aspen Institute, July 31,2003 to August 2, 2003. Judith Miller is listed as attending on page 20 of the report from the conference. Steven Hadley was there too.
2 The Daily KOS has placed Cheney as at his Jackson Hole, Wyoming home in August 2003.
In a Washington Post article on Aug. 3, 2003, Cheney is reported to be vacationing in Jackson Hole for the month.
3 With 295,734,134 people in America, what are the odds of any two people from Washington
D.C. randomly running into each other at a Rodeo in Wyoming?
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Happy Muckraking. Cheer up, M, your site is EXCELLENT.
welcome back dc!