Bill
03-24-2007, 05:07 PM
I think this is a pretty damn good analysis.
And, I think it's haliarious that the neocons apparently had no idea there was such a thing as a sunni/shia split in islam.
Stupid frakking PNACs didn't know shit from shinola.
Oh yeah, this is from an interview of the same guy who wrote "Blowback".
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Karlin: When Bush says we have to accomplish the mission, or Cheney says we have to achieve victory, the question hangs out there as to what our mission is now? And what could possibly be victory in these circumstances? To them, mission or victory mainly means that we are perceived as winning and Iraq remains under our control.
Johnson: I believe that's absolutely true. It's one of the reasons why we didn't have a withdrawal strategy from Iraq -- we didn't intend to leave. Several people who retired from the Pentagon in protest at the start of the war -- I'm thinking of Lieutenant Colonel Frank Hoffman particularly -- have testified that the purpose of the invasion was to establish a new, stable pillar of power for the United States in the Middle East. We had lost our main two bases of power in the region -- Iran, which we lost in 1979 because of the revolution against the Shah, whom we ourselves placed in power -- and then Saudi Arabia, because of the serious blunder made after the first Gulf War -- the placing of American Air Force and ground troops in Saudi Arabia after 1991. That was unnecessary. It's stupid. We do not have an obligation to defend the government of Saudi Arabia. It was deeply resented by any number of sincere Saudi patriots, including former asset and colleague, Osama bin Laden. Their reaction was that the regime that is charged with the defense of the two most sacred sites of Islam -- Mecca and Medina -- should not rely upon foreign infidels who know next to nothing about our religion and our background.
The result was that, over the 1990s and going into the 2000s, the Saudis began to restrict the uses we had of Prince Sultan Air Base at Riyadh. They became so restricted that, finally, in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, we moved our main headquarters to Qatar and conducted the war from there. This left us, however, with only the numerous small bases we have in the Persian Gulf. But these are in rather fragile countries.
Iraq was the place of choice, to these characters, who knew virtually nothing about the Middle East. Spoke not a word of Arabic or knew even the history of it. Iraq was the one they picked out because it's the second largest source of oil on earth, and it looked like an easy conquest.
We now know that the President himself didn't understand the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam -- that he did not appreciate that Saddam Hussein's regime was a minority Sunni dictatorship over the majority Shia population. That once you brought about regime change there, the inevitable result would be unleashing the Shia population, who had previously been suppressed, to run their country, and that they would align themselves with the largest Shia power of all, a Shia superpower, namely, Iran, right next door, where most of their leaders had spent the period of the Saddam Hussein dictatorship.
That's essentially what's happened. It's hard to imagine how this served our interests, given the deep hostility between Iran and the United States ever since we started interfering in that country back in 1953. It is hard to imagine how this served the interests of Israel, in that it gave Shia support there. Support from Iran now spreads throughout the Middle East to Hezbollah, Hamas, and other organizations. And it leads to a contradiction in terms of what we're doing there. At times, we seem to be trying to restore Sunni rule, so that we can bring about some peace. On the other hand, we have no choice but to support the majority power because of our propaganda about supporting democracy at the point of an assault rifle.
And, I think it's haliarious that the neocons apparently had no idea there was such a thing as a sunni/shia split in islam.
Stupid frakking PNACs didn't know shit from shinola.
Oh yeah, this is from an interview of the same guy who wrote "Blowback".
====
Karlin: When Bush says we have to accomplish the mission, or Cheney says we have to achieve victory, the question hangs out there as to what our mission is now? And what could possibly be victory in these circumstances? To them, mission or victory mainly means that we are perceived as winning and Iraq remains under our control.
Johnson: I believe that's absolutely true. It's one of the reasons why we didn't have a withdrawal strategy from Iraq -- we didn't intend to leave. Several people who retired from the Pentagon in protest at the start of the war -- I'm thinking of Lieutenant Colonel Frank Hoffman particularly -- have testified that the purpose of the invasion was to establish a new, stable pillar of power for the United States in the Middle East. We had lost our main two bases of power in the region -- Iran, which we lost in 1979 because of the revolution against the Shah, whom we ourselves placed in power -- and then Saudi Arabia, because of the serious blunder made after the first Gulf War -- the placing of American Air Force and ground troops in Saudi Arabia after 1991. That was unnecessary. It's stupid. We do not have an obligation to defend the government of Saudi Arabia. It was deeply resented by any number of sincere Saudi patriots, including former asset and colleague, Osama bin Laden. Their reaction was that the regime that is charged with the defense of the two most sacred sites of Islam -- Mecca and Medina -- should not rely upon foreign infidels who know next to nothing about our religion and our background.
The result was that, over the 1990s and going into the 2000s, the Saudis began to restrict the uses we had of Prince Sultan Air Base at Riyadh. They became so restricted that, finally, in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, we moved our main headquarters to Qatar and conducted the war from there. This left us, however, with only the numerous small bases we have in the Persian Gulf. But these are in rather fragile countries.
Iraq was the place of choice, to these characters, who knew virtually nothing about the Middle East. Spoke not a word of Arabic or knew even the history of it. Iraq was the one they picked out because it's the second largest source of oil on earth, and it looked like an easy conquest.
We now know that the President himself didn't understand the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam -- that he did not appreciate that Saddam Hussein's regime was a minority Sunni dictatorship over the majority Shia population. That once you brought about regime change there, the inevitable result would be unleashing the Shia population, who had previously been suppressed, to run their country, and that they would align themselves with the largest Shia power of all, a Shia superpower, namely, Iran, right next door, where most of their leaders had spent the period of the Saddam Hussein dictatorship.
That's essentially what's happened. It's hard to imagine how this served our interests, given the deep hostility between Iran and the United States ever since we started interfering in that country back in 1953. It is hard to imagine how this served the interests of Israel, in that it gave Shia support there. Support from Iran now spreads throughout the Middle East to Hezbollah, Hamas, and other organizations. And it leads to a contradiction in terms of what we're doing there. At times, we seem to be trying to restore Sunni rule, so that we can bring about some peace. On the other hand, we have no choice but to support the majority power because of our propaganda about supporting democracy at the point of an assault rifle.