Rick Perry Meets with Doug Feith

[Moonglow]

I didn't support the Iraq invasion.

the point is the leaders of your party did. Some long before Bush ever got there. And they were cheering all along until the body bags started coming back.

Hey, I'm not a doctrinaire conservative. I think Bush did a lot of things wrong. He didn't listen to his generals on troop numbers, he left commanders who weren't getting results in command, etc. Disbanding the Iraqi Army was a huge mistake.

But I get tired of the notion that democrats had no culpability. There were none of these guys who were willing to say, "I think this is so wrong that I am going to throw away my political career to oppose it when it's popular." Never happened. And the only Democrat who was held to any account for his support was Joe Liebermann, because he kept on supporting it. (And even then, he ran as an independent and kept on serving.)

I think a lot of these guys figured that it would be over in a year and they could go back to bashing Bush on other things, just like they did with his Dad in the first Gulf War.

I am a green party member.

 

[JoeB131]

That would be the same Green Party that refused to renominate Ralph Nader in 2004 on the possibility that he might drain votes from John Kerry? (Who again, I point out, voted FOR the war.)

 

[Sallow]

I didn't support the Iraq invasion.

the point is the leaders of your party did. Some long before Bush ever got there. And they were cheering all along until the body bags started coming back.

Hey, I'm not a doctrinaire conservative. I think Bush did a lot of things wrong. He didn't listen to his generals on troop numbers, he left commanders who weren't getting results in command, etc. Disbanding the Iraqi Army was a huge mistake.

But I get tired of the notion that democrats had no culpability. There were none of these guys who were willing to say, "I think this is so wrong that I am going to throw away my political career to oppose it when it's popular." Never happened. And the only Democrat who was held to any account for his support was Joe Liebermann, because he kept on supporting it. (And even then, he ran as an independent and kept on serving.)

I think a lot of these guys figured that it would be over in a year and they could go back to bashing Bush on other things, just like they did with his Dad in the first Gulf War.

No they didn't. And you can print all the media statements you want. When a president asks for a war he gets it. The President also presented a plethora of bogus intel that seemed to point to Iraq's involvement in 9/11 and reconstitution of a nuclear program. The American people were overwhelmingly against an invasion. It was all a lie..and when it blew up in his face..the President and the Republican party refused to take responsiblity for it. And while they were fucking things up so badly in Iraq..they absolutely refused to change course until the Elder Bush sent in his wise men, Jim Baker and Robert Gates. People like Paul Bremer were saying how bad things were..after the fact. How fucking patriotic.

 

[Moonglow]

That would be the same Green Party that refused to renominate Ralph Nader in 2004 on the possibility that he might drain votes from John Kerry? (Who again, I point out, voted FOR the war.)

Wrong again!

While only one day in a long campaign, last Monday's events illustrate the differing strategies of the two leading candidates competing for the Green Party's backing. Cobb seeks the Green Party's nomination, while Nader, who has distanced himself from the party in an attempt to reach a wider audience, seeks only the Green Party's "endorsement" of his independent campaign. "Ralph Nader has refused to participate in the Green Party's democratic process," Cobb says. "I don't understand what we would hope to accomplish by supporting Ralph Nader's independent candidacy."

Nader vs. the Green Party? - Environment - Salon.com

 

[JoeB131]

No they didn't. And you can print all the media statements you want. When a president asks for a war he gets it. The President also presented a plethora of bogus intel that seemed to point to Iraq's involvement in 9/11 and reconstitution of a nuclear program. The American people were overwhelmingly against an invasion. It was all a lie..and when it blew up in his face..the President and the Republican party refused to take responsiblity for it. And while they were fucking things up so badly in Iraq..they absolutely refused to change course until the Elder Bush sent in his wise men, Jim Baker and Robert Gates. People like Paul Bremer were saying how bad things were..after the fact. How fucking patriotic.

More revisionist history.

If the American people were "against" a war with Iraq, why did 27 Senate Democrats vote for it?

Why did Tenet, Clinton's guy at the CIA say that it was a slam dunk that Saddam had WMD's?

Popular opinion in the United States on the invasion of Iraq - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Gallup poll made on behalf of CNN and the newspaper USA Today concluded that 79% of Americans thought the Iraq War was justified, with or without conclusive evidence of illegal weapons. 19% thought weapons were needed to justify the war.[9]

Now, yeah, a lot of people AFTER THE FACT that the war was wrong, when they saw what it was costing us. Well guess what, that could be said of ANY war we've ever fought. We rush in with a big yahoo, and then regret it when the body bags start piling up.

Support for WWII dropped after the invasion of Okinawa, and for the first time, pictures of American dead were shown publically.

 

[Moonglow]

Iraq was a mistake, a distraction for a more perverse idea of revenge and cronyism for profit by use of our military.

 

[Seawytch]

Here's the thing. When we were actually INVADING Iraq, everyone thought it was a good idea. The Democrats, the Republicans, the Pentagon, the CIA, the media- everyone. Everyone was absolutely convinced Saddam was a bad man and had to go. Only kooks like Michael Moore said differently.

Half the Senate Democrats voted to give Bush the authority to go to war, including John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. So did any Democrats in a marginal district. (only ones in "safe" districts voted against it.)

Yeah, after the thing dragged on for six years and everyone was tired of it, then people started trying to deny their culpability in the thing.

What we have here is a lot of finger-pointing after the fact.

Now, right now, Perry is leading my pick for the GOP nomination (Because I really, really despise Romney and think Bachmann is a few tacos short of a combination platter), but I would hope he wouldn't give the NeoCons access to our foriegn policy again. Even Bush started rejecting their advice by the end of his term.

Let's start with the fact that it wasn't just "kooks" like Michael Moore that were opposed to the invasion of Iraq. There were people like, oh, weapons inspectors that thought it was a bad idea...since there were no WMDs. Let's add to that the fact that Congress was given false information.

Gee, a Texas governor who thinks god wants him to run for office...what could go wrong?

 

[JoeB131]

Iraq was a mistake, a distraction for a more perverse idea of revenge and cronyism for profit by use of our military.

Again, I have to wonder why so many folks on the left are mourning for the loss of Saddam Hussein...

He killed nearly 2 million people. His own and his neighbors. He was a monster.

A lot of the way we executed the war was wrong, absolutely. Lessons learned.

No need to get hippy on us.

 

[JoeB131]

Let's start with the fact that it wasn't just "kooks" like Michael Moore that were opposed to the invasion of Iraq. There were people like, oh, weapons inspectors that thought it was a bad idea...since there were no WMDs. Let's add to that the fact that Congress was given false information.

Well, the weapon inspectors themselves kept changing their story, didn't they? In 1998, they were just INSISTING Saddam hadn't come clean. Of course, the fact the UN and a lot of people were making a killing off of Food for Oil might have had something to do with it.

As for Congress, sorry, just don't buy that. Congress had the same information that it had when Clinton was insisting we needed to maintain sanctions and occassionally bomb Iraq. Clinton was the first guy to claim Saddam and Bin Laden were in cahoots when he mentioned Iraq 17 times in his indictment of Bin Laden.

Gee, a Texas governor who thinks god wants him to run for office...what could go wrong?

Gee, sorry, I was doing pretty well when Bush was in office. So were most people I know. I'd happily exchange 2006 for 2011 any day of the week.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Went right over one righties head so far.

Douglas J. Feith - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Feith joined the administration of President George W. Bush as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in 2001. As part of his portfolio, he supervised the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, a group of policy and intelligence analysts created to provide senior government officials with raw intelligence, unvetted by the intelligence community.[8] The office, eventually dismantled, was later criticized in Congress and the media for analysis that was contradicted by CIA analysis and investigations performed following the invasion of Iraq.

Another quote from the "Hindsight is 20/20" choir.

Here's the thing. When we were actually INVADING Iraq, everyone thought it was a good idea. The Democrats, the Republicans, the Pentagon, the CIA, the media- everyone. Everyone was absolutely convinced Saddam was a bad man and had to go. Only kooks like Michael Moore said differently.

Half the Senate Democrats voted to give Bush the authority to go to war, including John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. So did any Democrats in a marginal district. (only ones in "safe" districts voted against it.)

Yeah, after the thing dragged on for six years and everyone was tired of it, then people started trying to deny their culpability in the thing.

What we have here is a lot of finger-pointing after the fact.

Now, right now, Perry is leading my pick for the GOP nomination (Because I really, really despise Romney and think Bachmann is a few tacos short of a combination platter), but I would hope he wouldn't give the NeoCons access to our foriegn policy again. Even Bush started rejecting their advice by the end of his term.

Why did you conveniently leave out that most Democrats in the House voted against the war?

 

[JoeB131]

Why did you conveniently leave out that most Democrats in the House voted against the war?

Because it's not relevent. At that point, the Dems were a minority party reduced to just their safe districts... So you could get a guy like Bill Lipinsky (IL-3) who could vote against the war because the Republicans weren't going to challenge him, anyway. It's easy to be "gutsy" when you have nothing at stake.

House Dems in swing districts, and Senators, voted for the war...

Not one person said, "This is a moral outrage, and I'm going to vote against it even if I am voted out by the voters in November!" They didn't do that.

This war happened because a lot of people abdicated responsibility.

 

[The Rabbi]

Another quote from the "Hindsight is 20/20" choir.

Here's the thing. When we were actually INVADING Iraq, everyone thought it was a good idea. The Democrats, the Republicans, the Pentagon, the CIA, the media- everyone. Everyone was absolutely convinced Saddam was a bad man and had to go. Only kooks like Michael Moore said differently.

Half the Senate Democrats voted to give Bush the authority to go to war, including John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. So did any Democrats in a marginal district. (only ones in "safe" districts voted against it.)

Yeah, after the thing dragged on for six years and everyone was tired of it, then people started trying to deny their culpability in the thing.

What we have here is a lot of finger-pointing after the fact.

Now, right now, Perry is leading my pick for the GOP nomination (Because I really, really despise Romney and think Bachmann is a few tacos short of a combination platter), but I would hope he wouldn't give the NeoCons access to our foriegn policy again. Even Bush started rejecting their advice by the end of his term.

I didn't support the Iraq invasion.

It was totally logical for a recovering alcoholic to assume that he could start two wars and pair that with a huge tax cut for the wealthy. It made a lot of sense to W and DICK.

Obviously it made sense to a lot of Democrats too since they voted for it.

But what does that have to do with Perry?
Perry is consulting two of the most experienced foreign policy players in the US. Talking to someone does not mean agreeing with everything they ever said or wrote.

 

[Seawytch]

Gee, sorry, I was doing pretty well when Bush was in office. So were most people I know. I'd happily exchange 2006 for 2011 any day of the week.

I'm glad I think outside my little world to the country as a whole...which certainly was not doing better under Bush. 700,000 jobs a month being lost and a DOW at half what is now when Bush left office. whoopie!

 

[The Rabbi]

Gee, sorry, I was doing pretty well when Bush was in office. So were most people I know. I'd happily exchange 2006 for 2011 any day of the week.

I'm glad I think outside my little world to the country as a whole...which certainly was not doing better under Bush. 700,000 jobs a month being lost and a DOW at half what is now when Bush left office. whoopie!

When Bush left office the UE rate was a little over 7%. It has been over 9% pretty much ever since Obama took office. Gas prices are up. And no one thinks this recession is going to be gone in 3 months, unlike when Bush was in office.
Never mind that Bush's terms saw low unemployment, low inflation, and steady growth, until the last 3 months of his term.

 

[WillowTree]

Rick Perry is going to run. imho

 

[blastoff]

I didn't support the Iraq invasion.

the point is the leaders of your party did. Some long before Bush ever got there. And they were cheering all along until the body bags started coming back.

Hey, I'm not a doctrinaire conservative. I think Bush did a lot of things wrong. He didn't listen to his generals on troop numbers, he left commanders who weren't getting results in command, etc. Disbanding the Iraqi Army was a huge mistake.

But I get tired of the notion that democrats had no culpability. There were none of these guys who were willing to say, "I think this is so wrong that I am going to throw away my political career to oppose it when it's popular." Never happened. And the only Democrat who was held to any account for his support was Joe Liebermann, because he kept on supporting it. (And even then, he ran as an independent and kept on serving.)

I think a lot of these guys figured that it would be over in a year and they could go back to bashing Bush on other things, just like they did with his Dad in the first Gulf War.

Hillary was a good example of being for the Iraq war before she was against it. When it became politically prudent for her to jump ship she gave the all-time lame excuse that she hadn't realized voting for the resolution actually meant we'd be going to war with Iraq. How could she? All she did was vote to support the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. Anyone could make such a mistake, huh?

 

[JoeB131]

Gee, sorry, I was doing pretty well when Bush was in office. So were most people I know. I'd happily exchange 2006 for 2011 any day of the week.

I'm glad I think outside my little world to the country as a whole...which certainly was not doing better under Bush. 700,000 jobs a month being lost and a DOW at half what is now when Bush left office. whoopie!

Okay, let's look at that. Companies filch off the fat when they have a crisis, but usually in a recession cycle, they've rehired most of what they got rid of with a year and a half. We are three years into this thing, and no one is hiring yet. Nor is anyone likely to start hiring soon.

Recessions are cyclical, but Obama has managed to prolong the misery, and it's intentional. He wants to raise taxes, even though he's been told by his own advisors that this would increase unemployment.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Is America ready for another George W. Bush?

From Perry, neocon tea leaves - Ben Smith - POLITICO.com
Rick Perry has yet to launch his 2012 presidential campaign, but his meeting in Austin last week, reported in National Review and elsewhere, with a set of Republican foreign policy hands seems to offer a glimpse at his emergent platform.

Perry reportedly met former Bush aides Doug Feith and William Luti, both strong internal backers of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Daniel Fata, whose article today is headed, "Why Iraq Still Matters."
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Douglas Feith
Described by General Tommy Franks as either "the dumbest fucking guy on the planet" (according to Franks' autobiography) or "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the Earth" (according to Bob Woodward's book Plan of Attack), Douglas Feith began his long Washington career as a Middle East specialist under Richard V. Allen at the National Security Council (1981-82), then he spent two years at the Pentagon as the staff lawyer for Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle. Then in 1984 Feith was promoted to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy, where he stayed for another two-and-a-half years before leaving for the private sector.