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Nation Building Gone Bad

by TChris

The president had it right before he became president, when (in a debate with Al Gore) he criticized the use of troops "for what's called nation building." Here's what the president's exercise in nation building has wrought (choose your headline):

etc.

Juan Cole (not a headline, just a fact): "The threat of terrorism and attacks on Americans just went way up."

[Update: The permalink and comments to this post are off for some reason. Just so you know if you get a blank screen.]

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    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#1)
    by Edger on Wed Feb 22, 2006 at 06:04:53 PM EST
    The UK Independent Online puts the destruction of 1,200 year old Golden Mosque in Samarra into very clear historical, social, political, and religious perspective:
    The bomb attack has enraged the majority Shia population, who regard the shrine in the same way that Roman Catholics view St Peter's in Rome. ... "Iraq is in a Weimar period like Germany in the 1920s which will either end with the country disintegrating or in an authoritarian government taking power," said Ghassan Atiyyah, an Iraqi political commentator. ... The destruction of the Golden Mosque will be an immense psychological blow to Iraqi Shia who have endured so much down the centuries. The shrine contains the tombs of the 10th and 11th imams, Ali al-Hadi who died AD868 and his son Hassan Ali al-Askari who died AD874. His son, the last of the 12 Shia imams, Mohammed al-Mahdi, disappeared and is known as the "hidden imam". Shias believe he is still alive and will bring justice to humanity. ... There are signs of increasing anti-American feeling among the Shia as they see the Americans allying themselves with the Sunni. ... The extent of Shia retaliation may also depend on the Iranian government... Ayatollah Khamenei blamed the intelligence services of the US and Israel for being behind the bombs in Samarra.


    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#2)
    by scarshapedstar on Wed Feb 22, 2006 at 07:01:31 PM EST
    for what's called nation building.
    Isn't it kind of strange how a "man of the people" -- in stark contrast to the effete elitist John Kerry -- engages in the lamest condescension ever?

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#3)
    by Sailor on Wed Feb 22, 2006 at 08:28:03 PM EST
    Gee, they had that 'pottery barn' rule, yet once they don't agree with the 'democracy' they founded at the point of a gun, they threaten to withdraw their financial support. OR Well at least they are consistent, make sweeping claims and speeches, but never folloow thru or fund them. OR You f@#!ed up! You trusted us!

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#4)
    by jimakaPPJ on Wed Feb 22, 2006 at 08:54:34 PM EST
    et al - In other news, Henny Penny reports that the sky is falling. Details at 11.

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#5)
    by Che's Lounge on Wed Feb 22, 2006 at 09:13:55 PM EST
    Jim, it's official (again).

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#6)
    by john horse on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 03:45:10 AM EST
    Surely this is the best of all possible worlds. (satire alert)

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#7)
    by jimakaPPJ on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 05:50:07 AM EST
    Che - Can't stand a little sarcasm, eh?

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#8)
    by kdog on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 06:20:59 AM EST
    It'll be 100 years before we live this one down..if ever. So many lives lost, so little gained.

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#9)
    by desertswine on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 07:33:34 AM EST
    Iraq Spirals Toward Civil Conflict
    So who didn't predict this... Oh yeah.

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 07:50:07 AM EST
    The neoconvics did set out to change the middle east didn't they. Well looks like they got what they wished for. If I were an Iraqi I would consider this my 9/11. Buckle up everybody Bushbag&Co has us in for one hell of a ride.

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#11)
    by jimakaPPJ on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 10:09:10 AM EST
    I don't think there is any shock that one side did it to the other side. It had to happen and will happen again. The issue will be managing the results without becoming a very repressive secular society as in under Saddam or a very repressive society as in under Imam "X."

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#12)
    by Edger on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 06:29:47 PM EST
    Update: The permalink and comments to this post are off I don't seem to have any problem reading or posting here... ?

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#13)
    by Sailor on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 07:37:47 PM EST
    I don't think there is any shock that one side did it to the other side.
    Seems to have suprprised the hell out of bushco! Anyone else remember 'greeted with flowers', 'statue of bush in the square', 'pay for itself' and 'we know where the WMDs are, they are 25 miles north of Tikrit' ?

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#14)
    by Sailor on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 07:41:10 PM EST
    And let's not forget, 'turning the corner', 'light at the end of the tunnel', 'turning the corner', 'death throes', 'turning the corner', 'turning the corner', 'turning the corner', 'turning the corner'.

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#15)
    by Johnny on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 08:53:21 PM EST
    Eventually if you turn enough corners (3 in an area layed out like a grid), you end up smack where you started, just before you start going in circles... As someone once said, this too shall come to pass.

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#16)
    by Che's Lounge on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 09:58:31 PM EST
    I don't think there is any shock that one side did it to the other side. It had to happen and will happen again. The issue will be managing the results without becoming a very repressive secular society as in under Saddam or a very repressive society as in under Imam "X." Wow, you're SO analytical. It must be nice to so effectively sequester the images of tens of thousands of Iraqi and American corpses. Too bad you have blood all over you. One side did this to the other? You don't know squat about who did this particular act. And by the way, the US is responsible for security in Iraq. Therefore this is no one's fault but ours. We invade a country, remove the government, destroy the infrastructure, leave the cities and borders completely unprotected and then blame the victims for the chaos that follows. Oh and our tax dollars go to fund an perpetual, Bush-sponsored Blackwater turkey shoot.

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#17)
    by jimakaPPJ on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 06:14:54 AM EST
    Johnny - The trick is knowing when to turn. Che - You seem to forget that thousands were being killed by Saddam. And no, that wasn't why we invaded, but it was happening. The invasion was about changing regimes and getting a democracy started. I for one never doubted that you would have strife between the remmants of the Baath Party and al-Qaida/terrorists, Sunis and Shias and Kurds. And if I knew that, so did the adminbistration. Remember. You may not like the administration, but these folks aren't dumb. The question now is managing the results in such a way democracy is the result.

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#18)
    by Johnny on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 06:51:08 AM EST
    The question now is managing the results in such a way democracy is the result.
    LMAO... Try this on for size: "I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president." "I wish you'd have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it...I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with answer, but it hadn't yet....I don't want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't -- you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one." --President George W. Bush, after being asked to name the biggest mistake he had made, Washington, D.C., April 3, 2004 "Can we win? I don't think you can win it." --after being asked whether the war on terror was winnable, "Today" show interview, Aug. 30, 2004

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#19)
    by Che's Lounge on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 07:02:04 AM EST
    First you say: You seem to forget that thousands were being killed by Saddam. And no, that wasn't why we invaded, but it was happening. Then the sentence reads: The invasion was about changing regimes and getting a democracy started You just contradicted yourself. WHY did we want to change regimes? Because he was killing people? or was it WMD. Or WHAT. Jim, now I know why you won't smoke pot. You might realize the truth. That you are chasing your tail. By the way, we sure have a strange way of "bringing" democracy. But I guess WE had a civil war too. Is that part of the democratizing process? Tell us, great poobah, because things are not going so swimmingly in Iraq these days. But to you the whole problem is the left's fault for even bringing it up. So what is done? A curfew? If that weren't so stupid it would almost be funny. Last throes. Mission accomplished. Turning the corner. Pay for itself. 6 months. Elections. It's all B***sh*t IMPEACH NOW!!!!!!!!

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#21)
    by jimakaPPJ on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 09:16:49 AM EST
    Che - If you don't know why we invaded Iraq there is nothing I can tell you. BTW - Where you following the news say, around 8/02 through 3/02? If you did, you gotta remember all those "go get'em comments" By Democrats named Kerry, Kennedy, Clinton, etc. But hey, if you missed'em, try Google. Dark Avenger - Huh? And your point is? I do love you sooooo much when you are sooooo wordy. Johnny - Nice picking. Keep trying, you can do better. BTW - You show a lot of disrespect for your audience when you do that.

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#23)
    by jondee on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 02:16:41 PM EST
    shorter jim: "Thank you sir - may I have another?"

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#24)
    by Che's Lounge on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 02:18:15 PM EST
    Jim, I was trying to get a straight answer from you. But you already knew that.

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#25)
    by squeaky on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 04:57:17 PM EST
    William F. Buckley, Andrew Sullivan and Bill O'Reilly have all jumped the good ship "Bring 'Em On". Wonder how fast the rest will follow and come to their senses. Francis Fukuyama declared the whole neocon project a failure in the NYT last week, as evidenced by the failed war in Iraq. I am sure that our wingnuts will be the last to admit the disaster we have created in Iraq.
    et al - In other news, Henny Penny reports that the sky is falling. Details at 11.
    A brilliant comment by our resident warmonger. How can these guys be so callus? I guess it is how white supremetists feel about brown skinned people, and our guys are the couch potato versions of those kind of terrorists. Hate and fear drives them all.

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#26)
    by squeaky on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 05:16:22 PM EST
    Oh, in case anyony wants to read the longish Fukuyama NYT Sunday Magazine article here is the link. The first few sentences:
    As we approach the third anniversary of the onset of the Iraq war, it seems very unlikely that history will judge either the intervention itself or the ideas animating it kindly. By invading Iraq, the Bush administration created a self-fulfilling prophecy: Iraq has now replaced Afghanistan as a magnet, a training ground and an operational base for jihadist terrorists, with plenty of American targets to shoot at.
    This is from one of the guys who signed the PNAC Statement of Principal and wote the famous neocon tract The End of History.

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#27)
    by Sailor on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 07:03:28 PM EST
    Squeaky, I think you might be mistaking rightwingers for bushlickers*. Ya see, a bushlicker could watch a bushco take drugs, drink and then shoot a man in the face, and then drink some more, and then they'd blame the victim. We may not agree with rightwingers, but they aren't THAT delusional! *Not to be mistaken for bush lickers.

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#28)
    by squeaky on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 07:22:58 PM EST
    Sailor- Sorry, the finer distinctions in wingnuttia are often lost on me. Perhaps I am clouded by the conflation of bushlickers and wingnuts who troll this site. I will try to be more discerning from now on. Much like a non eskimo trying to understand all the subtle distinctions between the 15 Central Alaskan Yupik lexemes for snow, I struggle to understand.

    Re: Nation Building Gone Bad (none / 0) (#29)
    by squeaky on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 08:32:54 PM EST
    CNN has the latest on dear leader's er... optimistic schedule for getting Iraq Troops up to snuff.
    Pentagon: Iraqi troops downgraded No Iraqi battalion capable of fighting without U.S. support
    via SusanG at dkos