Or – forgetting what they knew then.
In the Taliban slave-state where Afghanistan used to be, thousands of jihadists from Chechnya, Libya, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Kashmir and elsewhere were attending to their exercises in training camps strewn across the landscape in the days before 9-11. Do we really need to run a fan-fiction contest to imagine how that situation would have played out had we all listened to Noam Chomsky and stayed out of it?
As for Iraq, there is a kind of wilful amnesia demanded by the revisionist orthodoxy that “what we know now” is that the world would be a better place if Saddam Hussein had been left unmolested in Baghdad. We know no such thing because we can’t know. But there is something more enfeebling than mere memory loss at work in the pernicious and widely-held misapprehension that the entire Iraqi regime-change escapade was trumped up on a Bush administration “lie” that Saddam possessed WMDs.
It wasn’t even the Bush administration that committed the United States to shifting the Baathist nightmare out of Baghdad. It was the Clinton administration and the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.
An excellent piece by Terry Glavin.
2003 into Iraq was to complete unfinished business. The whole WMD was a casus belli.
What was the excuse for Obama ousting Mubarak for his muslim brothers?
“What we know now” is a political gotcha question for enemies, or a political excuse answer to excuse bad decisions, as we didn’t know what we know now.
“Mr. President, given what we know now, was it wise to pull all US troops out of Iraq?”
Though I might add, WMD was found; it was still just a casus belli.
knowing what we know now, is it wise to allow even one more muslim immigrant into the country.
The Middle East was/is a boiling caldron of primitive motives and development, in hind sight the best policy would have been to put a lid on the cauldron and let the contents cook themselves (Isolate and insulate) – instead the unimaginative and bull headed state department used time-worn, ineffective, expensive interventionist tactics to install yet another replacement regime which turns rogue – someone is not learning the lessons of history in DC.
A total embargo and ban on immigration and importation from these warring hell holes and developing our own petro resources would have seen the ME starved for the resources to fuel war and eventual come to their senses sitting in a heap of rubble that used to be their home – it is oil that has fueled this conflict.
Hind sight is gold only if you use it, but if you keep repeating the same mistake like the US did, fate is not kind to dummies.
Hurry. Go buy your medication!
The problem with that ha been mentioned many times: the US isn’t the only customer for Mideast oil. An embargo won’t keep the Mideast from getting the oil money they need to promote jihad.
Bravo, Mr. Glavin. “So what lessons have we learned?” Well, this shameful episode upon which you report—the “Knowing what we know now…?” gambit—has shown us that the political and chattering classes, left, right and otherwise, pose a greater danger to us than do the savages. The threats, of course, are different. To the savages we might lose our heads, and that would be rather inconvenient. To the professional talkers, we lose our minds. How are we—those of us busy living the lives of ordinary people—supposed to understand how the world works when the commentariat upon which we depend for information is so ineffectual and/or corrupt? Where oh where (present company excepted) are those who remember that the WMD threat was one of twenty-some reasons for invading Iraq, and far down the list in importance? Where are those who noticed that caches of WMD were found in Iraq. Where are those who ask where Assad got his WMD, and remember in the asking the stories of Russian Spetsnaz troops carting WMD out of Iraq into Syria and Lebanon?
In the place where facts and understanding should be, we have instead this idiotic question and its presumption that the Iraq adventure had to fail. It did not. That failure took considerable effort from the ruling classes. Let’s remember to give them the credit.
What have we learned? We should have learned, again, that these a$$holes will say anything to promote their cause, and that their cause is always themselves. (Case in point: The idiot Rand Paul now says that ISIS was caused by GOP hawks. What purpose do you think this idiocy is intended to promote? Truth? Knowledge?)
In this regard, it may be worth remembering that the rights of free speech and of the press exist to protect and promote knowledge. When the press and the politician’s purpose is instead to make you stupid, why should their speech be protected?
Thatt cause of action alll money and power pulling not share.
–
old news methinks you need a short history lesson:
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings;
the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
Winston Churchill…
At least they have jobs and can move up the capitalist ladder.
Socialism takes from the rich and workers,
and gives it to the ‘I don’t give a shit leeches.’
Here endth today’s lesson..
Just when gifted smart woman is talking ,you muscle men better shut up.
–
old news I have noticed that also..
Beautiful French Canadian smart women wearing small tight yellow polka dot bikinis with shapely hips and breast cause many muscle men on beach to shut up and tongues swell up and cant talk.
But their bodied bikinis also cause Tsunamis and powerful earthquakes,
Dangerous…
“Knowing what we know now…” that the United States Government would spend a trillion dollars and get NOTHING for it, would it not have been better to roll up Saddam’s army in five days, break everything that had his name on it, hang him by his hairy neck… and then leave?
The Sunnis and the Shia are content to kill each other in job lots, despite every peaceful overture and even enforced regime change due to being conquered. They determinedly return to war, as the dog returns to his vomit.
I think there’s an opportunity to make some money arming both sides with small arms and leave them to it for forty years or so. We can negotiate with the survivors, if any.
This is an idea whose time may be coming soon. Somebody convince me why its a bad one, because frankly I’m feeling a bit cranky about the whole thing and James T. Kirk’s “LET them die!” sounds pretty good right about now.
If I knew one week ago what I know today, then today I’d be cashing last Friday’s winning Lotto Max ticket.
Leftists pick some point in time, in the past, present or “future,” and decide that was/is/will be when the situation was/is/will be “just right” or in “equilibrium” and go from there with their hypothetical “fact finding,” ensuring the rhetorical “target” is constantly in flux, but amazingly has never changed in their eyes. History need only be judged by their personal experiences and “feelings:”
Temperatures in 1950 were “just right”
No extreme weather this very moment is “equilibrium”
Hussein left in power, with no reference to what he might have done, is “just right”
Income distribution at some point in the past was “equilibrium”
Ethnic, sex and orientation ratios right now are “just right” so society must now conform to that snapshot in time, not matter the revisionism required.
An on and on; I’m sure many can add more examples, like US Forces remaining in Iraq was “equilibrium” – no they don’t like that one. Only they are allowed to set the “standard,” which you must accept and in the meantime be called on to defend all your conclusion which they refuse to accept with their fits of emotion.
Logic be damned, perspective be damned. Truth be damned. Their orthodoxy and revisionism is the only acceptable standard, so anyone not conforming must be “bad” so they must be shamed, shut up, jailed whatever it takes to keep them out of the “debate,” for the good of “society.”
Mrs. Hillary, knowing what we know now would you have withdrawn American troops from Iraq, destabilized Egypt and Libya and sucked up to Iran to the point that America is widely seen to be on the Shia side in this war? I’m probably going to have to wait a long time to hear that question.
For liberals history starts every morning.
Knowing what we know now it would have been best to let Saddam* to continue to feed Islamists into his wood chippers and carpet bomb Afghanistan and/or turn Kandahar into a sheet of glass.
Then say, “Who wants more SUGAR?!”
*ditto for Gaddafi and Assad*
‘W’s biggest ‘F’ UP was planting the poisonous meme that “Islam is the Religion of Peace” because that’s been protecting these Head Choppers(and they’re all Head Choppers) like Teflon/Kevlar since 911.
Afghanistan CONQUERED and they made it and ISLAMIC REPUBLIC!
(which it wasn’t before)
Iraq CONQUERED and they made it and ISLAMIC REPUBLIC!
(which it wasn’t before)
The WMDs BS is supposed to be a Leftist dodge and Glavin is using it here?
Shame on you Terry Glavin. I don’t Blame Bush or Obama, I blame the USA and Canada’s Lapdog Poodle Leaders for making us a part of this historic clusterFECK.
Our people’s blood, our people’s treasure, and we aren’t ONE HAIR SAFER because the WHOLE PROBLEM is that the TRAITORS we have as Leaders LET THEM COME OVER HERE!!!
Nick said: “To the professional talkers, we lose our minds. How are we—those of us busy living the lives of ordinary people—supposed to understand how the world works when the commentariat upon which we depend for information is so ineffectual and/or corrupt? ”
Bravo, sage wisdom Nick. However, freedom of the press and freedom of diverse opinion men we must expose ourselves to truths and commentary which challenge our preconceived notions.
I was against the war in Iraq from day one for the simple reason I have seen all recent military efforts to remove tyranny hijacked by politicians which ultimately results in a losing effort – going to war with anything less than a will to win decisively and finally, is a crime -a blatant waste of life and capital – the last 5 presidents who committed US forces to a “global” intervention have committed these crimes – the crime of not making losing and option