Reply #76: The intelligence didn't matter to Bush [View All]

[jmowreader]

Bush needed a war. Iraq was the best option--Saddam's a known asshole, Iraq supposedly couldn't fight back, it would have been cheap, Bush's friends wanted the oil. Look how easily we whupped up on them in 1991! North Korea was a bad alternative because they have a good army with probably the best logistical tail of any army in the world, including ours. Syria would have been bad because most people don't know Assad. Saudi needs to get the shit kicked out of it, but you don't shoot your dad's best friend.

The problem with that line of reasoning is that you're basing estimates of soldier morale on fighting an army that was conducting an occupation it really didn't want to do. Oh hell yeah the Iraqi army was a pushover in Desert Storm--"if you capture us does that mean we don't have to sit in a hole waiting for you to come kill us?" In this war, Private Mohammad's mom was in the line of fire. You're gonna fight hard to save your mom. We shot Private Ali's dad; you can't be serious if you don't think Private Ali's gonna get his platoon together and start racking ass on Americans.

If we wouldn't have had a war? The press would have noticed that a few things were missing...Osama, the anthrax terrorist, the Clinton surplus. Put a war on, and all of a sudden the press isn't asking piddlyass little questions like "how in fuck did you spend it all five times?" And the obvious follow-up question, "are you the dumbest fuck who ever drew breath in the history of civilization, or do you just look that way?"