State of the Union

Non-Interventionism Is Right Again

Remembering Iraq

By Philip Giraldi • June 7, 2011, 5:03 PM

Does anyone remember how the US media and the Bush Administration were excoriating Saddam Hussein for the hideous dictatorship he was running and it later turned out that not only did he have no WMD but news coverage after the invasion made it clear that many Iraqi households had an AK-47 or two lying somewhere around the house. It rather suggested that Saddam was less oppressive and consequently less afraid of his own people than had been assumed.

I am getting the same feeling about Libya. God knows it is difficult to make excuses for Gaddafi, but I note that most of the major US and international news outlets appear to have correspondents reporting relatively freely from Tripoli. If Gaddafi the Monster wanted to control the message going out from his embattled regime wouldn’t these people be shot/imprisoned/disappeared/exported? Maybe what we are being fed is not quite what it seems to be.

Posted in Election, War.

8 Responses to Remembering Iraq

principalities and powers says:

June 7, 2011 at 10:51 pm

You’re right to be suspicious. The neocons don’t have the truth in them. Of course they exempt themselves from truth-telling with half-digested Straussian or Churchillian claptrap – truth requires a “bodyguard of lies”, leaders needs must “nobly” lie, and so on. Nice work if you can get it, and don’t mind wading in blood.
Ivan Brooks says:

June 7, 2011 at 11:13 pm

Everybody I’ve talked to in Jordan is, with one exception, on Qaddafi’s side, and have been since the rebels asked for NATO’s help. Before that, comments ran something like, ‘well if they want to get rid of the old man, that’s their affair.’ After NATO’s intervention, it changed to ‘they’ve sold their revolution to the Americans, and no death is too bad for them’.
cfountain72 says:

June 8, 2011 at 12:51 pm

Don’t look now, but David Gergen’s ready to give Obama a second Peace Prize for waging an illegal war…

“As for President Obama, he took an unorthodox approach to the episode, applying military might up front but then carefully drifting back to let others do the heavy lifting — and keeping the U.S. boots off the ground.
I was among those who would have preferred stronger, more assertive American leadership, but if Gadhafi falls, Obama will have bragging rights that his way worked better than critics like me thought it would.”

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/06/08/gergen.libya.gadhafi/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn&is_LR=1

This might be good for Libya. It won’t be good for our Republic one way or the other.

Peace be with you.
Kelly Rek says:

June 8, 2011 at 1:50 pm

@ cfountain72

David Gergen also said in that article …

“Nation-building could be expensive and, as we have seen in Egypt, could well lead toward a government that is less friendly than we would like.”

**Nation-building could be expensive** … as the U.S. sinks deeper into debt.

**… could well lead toward a government that is less friendly** … as new enemies may emerge.
michael says:

June 8, 2011 at 2:53 pm

Hey, why not quit worrying about what the Arabs in Libya or elsewhere are up to? Why in the world should we care if they live in “liberty”, much less expend blood and gold to make it possible for them. Our intervention in Iraq has been going on for 8 years, with what result? Why don’t we just let those people kill as may of each other as they can, and buy the oil from what ever el corrupto sits in the palace at the time?
Nergol says:

June 8, 2011 at 2:55 pm

“As for President Obama, he took an unorthodox approach to the episode…”

Believing that there’s no problem in the world that you can’t solve by dropping a bomb on it is hardly “unorthodox” in America.
Thomas O. Meehan says:

June 8, 2011 at 10:31 pm

While the urge to meddle in all of the Middle East is endemic among Neo-cons, I think Syria is their target of the day. Libya is no threat to Israel or much of anyone else. Syria can actually lob rockets on the sacred soil of Zion. No matter that Assad’s regime is all that stands between Syria’s remaining Christians and other minorities and the knives of the Sunni majority.

But why would our diverse country care about the fate of the people of Christ in the Holy Land?
Joao Alfaiate says:

June 13, 2011 at 3:25 pm

If Obama were actually keen to protect Arab civilians he needn’t have looked further than Gaza. Same for Rohrabacher making a fool of himslf in Baghdad. For these politicians humanitarianism is like measles, it tends to breakout in patches.