A Man With A Plan

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday July 27, 2006 · 5:18 PM PDT

2006/07/27 · 17:18

The book is Fiasco American Military Adventure In Iraq by Thomas Ricks, Senior Pentagon Correspondent for The Washington Post.

"President George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 ultimately may come to be seen as one of the most profligate actions in the history of American foreign policy. The consequences of his choice won't be clear for decades, but it already is abundantly apparent in mid-2006 that the U.S. government went to war in Iraq with scant solid international support and on the basis of incorrect information-about weapons of mass destruction and a supposed nexus between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda's terrorism--and then occupied the country negligently. Thousands of U.S. troops and an untold number of Iraqis have died. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent, many of them squandered. Democracy may yet come to Iraq and the region, but so too may civil war or a regional conflagration, which in turn could lead to spiraling oil prices and a global economic shock." (Penguin Group, USA 2006)

Extended Excerpt Here

Ricks story doesn't start with George W. Bush. He goes back to the 1991 Gulf War, and shows how the Rumsfelds, Wolfowitzes, and Cheneys lost to the military experts when it came to invading Iraq. He shows through direct interviews and inference that the powers behind today's throne wouldn't be satisfied until they could export their own brand of "American Democracy" [my interpretation].

He illustrates, in detail, the lies, half-truths, omissions of fact, and whatever wlse could be created to drive America to conquest in the Middle East. The betrayals started with the Kurd uprising in 1991, and continue to this day. This is a dispassionate, but damning explanation of the Wolfowitz Doctrine, and how it cost America its treasure, its international goodwill, its world influence, and the lives of thousands of its children.

It can be dense, it can be difficult, but it's important to read.

This content was created by a Daily Kos Community member.

Make YOUR voice heard!

Comments are closed on this story.