Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Barack Obama campaigned on change, but luckily he didn’t really mean it. Instead of hiring a bunch of inexperienced friends to run the United States, he has appointed dozens of former Clinton Administration staffers and experienced Senators to top jobs.
His most brillant, yet risky, move is to appoint Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State (NY Times say she has decided to accept). It unites the Democratic Party, gets his rival out of the Senate, and as an added bonus she’s probably one of the best Democrats for the job.
What is the risk? Well when has anyone ever managed to control Hillary, let alone Bill who is an inevitable part of the package? Will Hillary run her own foreign policy programme or Obama’s? Most likely outcome is his foreign policy will change to be hers. This is not all bad, as that allows him to focus on domestic issues.
But there is that risk of a falling out, which would be explosive. Thinks of Truman sacking MacArthur.
November 22nd, 2008 at 1:59 pm
(NY Times say she has decided to accept).
Why read that worthless crap??
Drudge, right now: “Philippe Reines, Senior Advisor, Sen. Clinton: ‘We’re still in discussions, which are very much on track. Any reports beyond that are premature’… “
November 22nd, 2008 at 2:38 pm
DPF, You’re right about it being an inspired choice in many ways, but where’s your evidence that HRC is somehow uncontrollable and at all likely to fall out with Obama?
Sounds like you are saying that she is emotional and lacking in maturity. There’s plenty of evidence to the contrary, actually. Observers have lauded her adroit performance in the Senate, winning over — as a freshman senator — many misogynist, seniority-obsessed senators from both parties. She has a acquired a reputation as one of the most diplomatic and effective senators. Nor do I think that Obama would give her the job unless the ground rules were clearly agreed between them. Finally, Clinton is too ambitious to do anything stupid. Unless things go really pear-shaped for Obama, and he finished up as unpopular as W, she will need Obama a lot more than he needs her in eight years’ time.
November 22nd, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I did not say she is emotional or lacking in maturity. I say she does not like following someone else’s agenda. The Clintons have a sense of entitlement, and how they manage that will be interesting.
November 22nd, 2008 at 3:03 pm
” I did not say she is emotional or lacking in maturity. ”
Of course she isn’t.
—————————————
Where is the G-damn f**king flag? I want the G-damn f**king flag up every f**king morning at f**king sunrise.”
(From the book “Inside The White House” by Ronald Kessler, p. 244 – Hillary to the staff at the Arkansas Governor’s mansion on Labor Day, 1991)
“You sold out, you mother f**ker! You sold out!” From the book “Inside” by Joseph Califano, p. 213 – Hillary yelling at Democrat lawyer.
“F**k off! It’s enough that I have to see you ****-kickers every day, I’m not going to talk to you too!! Just do your G*damn job and keep your mouth shut.” (From the book “American Evita” by Christopher Anderson, p. 90 – Hillary to her State Trooper bodyguards after one of them greeted her with “Good morning.”
“You f**king idiot.” (From the book “Crossfire” p. 84 – Hillary to a State Trooper who was driving her to an event.)
“If you want to remain on this detail, get your f**k ing *** over here and grab those bags!” (From the book “The First Partner” p. 259 – Hillary to a Secret Service Agent who was reluctant to carry her luggage because he wanted to keep his hands free in case of an incident.)
“Get f**ked! Get the f* *k out of my way!!! Get out of my face!!!” (From the book “Hillary’s Scheme” p. 89 – Hillary’s various comments to her Secret Service detail agents.)
“Stay the f**k back, stay the f**k away from me! Don’t come within ten yards of me, or else! Just f**king do as I say, Okay!!!?” (From the book “Unlimited Access”, by Clinton FBI Agent in Charge, Gary Aldrige, p. 139 – Hillary screaming at her Secret Service detail.)
“Where’s the miserable c*ck sucker?” (From the book “The Truth About Hillary” by Edward Klein, p. 5 – Hillary shouting at a Secret Service officer)
November 22nd, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Bill Clinton is known to cheat at golf, and if Hillary is as dishonest as Bill then Hillary and Barack will be great pals.
Hiring Hillary as Sec. of State is rather like the age-old system of ensuring peace with a potential enemy by arranging a marriage between the two relevant royal families.
http://www.kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com
November 22nd, 2008 at 3:58 pm
““Where’s the miserable c*ck sucker?” (From the book “The Truth About Hillary” by Edward Klein, p. 5 – Hillary shouting at a Secret Service officer)”
Was Monica a secret service officer then?
November 22nd, 2008 at 4:05 pm
DPF, the rule is: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.
November 22nd, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Hillary actually hates Bill, because he deliberately screwed her Presidential bid. Can’t believe some of you have obviously missed that. It was incredibly obvious during the campaign. Have a look at this video which illustrates that point.
BTW, I’m not proffering that video as evidence for that contention, as I said it’s a simple illustration, so don’t bother saying that it’s not evidence because I already know that.
If you want evidence then remember this comment and observe what happens over the next months and years between Bill and Hillary.
November 22nd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Redbaiter, those quotes have been doing the rounds in an email for years. Snopes (which examines such urban legends) concludes that:
For instance Gary Aldridge’s other “revelations” included the infamous claim that the Clintons hung x-rated Christmas decorations on the White House tree – the man’s either generally nuts, or so partisan that he’s nuts when talking about the Clintons. Either way, hardly a reputable source. David Brock (whom Aldridge cited as the source of some of his wilder rumours) comments in the Snope piece:
The remainder of the “sources” aren’t much better. My point isn’t that Hillary’s a saint. It’s that if poorly attributed or fantastical nonsense like most of that stuff gets thrown around then the veracity of the quotes becomes the issue.
Better to examine the public record – the verified record of her early political life, her speeches, her voting patterns in the Senate etc. There’s more than enough there to concern those of a conservative persuasion without letting the bats out of the belfry.
November 22nd, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Thanks Rex. What a surprise, all of Redbaiter’s “sources” are bullshit and fairytales. Hillary can’t be any worse than Condoleeza Rice has been. On her watch: Iraq is a shithole, Iran almost has a bomb, North Korea hasn’t gone away, China is more powerful, Russia ditto, etc etc. It’s about time the worst adminstration in history was chucked out of the Whitehouse. And it’s not a bad thing if the Clintons end up back there in some capacity. They actually knew what they were doing.
November 22nd, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I hope she manages to avoid the sniper fire!
November 22nd, 2008 at 5:16 pm
“And it’s not a bad thing if the Clintons end up back there in some capacity. They actually knew what they were doing.”
So do Bush, Cheney et al, radar. You don’t think the results of their efforts have arisen entirely through lack of competence do you? Partly it has but there’s also been a lot of design in it too.
And BTW, I agree with you the Bush 43 Administration is the worst in history and I’ve been saying that here whenever I got the chance since 2002. However, you have to know that Clinton was almost as bad, as was Bush 41. I certainly hope you’re not as dumb as your average lefty who appears to imagine that Clinton led the US into a time of unparalleled prosperity, that would be just naive in the extreme.
November 22nd, 2008 at 5:21 pm
How will the Clinton Side Show Act in times of recession and depression? Keep printing the greenback boys and girls. Don’t let that psychotic bitch near the big red button.
November 22nd, 2008 at 5:24 pm
I vaguely remember reading somewhere that more US toops died under Clintons reign than George has lost. Perhaps the lefties here could find some data to refute this while extolling the virtues of a Clinton revival.
November 22nd, 2008 at 5:27 pm
One press of the big red button will get our minds off the financial crisis though dad4. Briefly of course.
November 22nd, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Besides the deranged rantings of Andrew Sullivan and co. is there any reality-based evidence for this accusation?
No, they were already united – all of HRC’s supporters voted for Obama.
His rival? He won, I doubt he feels in the least concerned about HRC challenging him. Bring it on I think he’d be thinking. She won’t challenge until 2016, if she does. Anyone else notice how this view actually insults Obama more than Hillary?
That’s his reason. He’s in a hurry, he wants to use the momentum he has, HRC won’t have to go thru a learning curve.
November 22nd, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Johnboy suggests:
I guess whether you’d class me as “a lefty” depends on your perspective, Johnboy. Redbaiter would no doubt see me as one. Steve Pierson, I suspect, doesn’t. I am, however, interested in historical accuracy – whether it be about the left or the right.
Considering how often righties – and Redbaiter in particular – go on about people of anything less than a hardline conservative persuasion having “drunk the koolaid” and fallen for some sort of brainwashing, it seems to be they who are only too ready to swallow fanciful fabrications about their opponents.
Snopes is always good for a reality check, as is the About.com ‘Urban Legends’ file which notes:
Note that figure for Bush is two years old so the difference would be larger now, and that About.com isn’t a political partisan site and references its information.
Note also that I’m making no argument for or against the Iraq war etc… merely suggesting the proliferation of nonsense through the blogosphere devalues an otherwise extremely useful medium.
November 22nd, 2008 at 6:10 pm
“all of Redbaiter’s “sources” are bullshit and fairytales.”
Can’t ever write here with out some cheap lie can you little wanker? The quotes are from books and can be easily verified merely by reading the publications concerned. If they were wrong Clinton could have sued. She didn’t. Snopes in reality says nothing of consequence one way or the other. Your allegation that they’re “my” sources and that they are “bullshit and fairy tales” is just another of your usual cheap cowardly lies. The usual worthless expression of bigoted uninformed ignorance. There’s no doubt whatsoever that Clinton is another sick power drunk leftist so obsessed with controlling people she enabled her rapist and serial adulterer husband all the while posturing as an empowered woman and someone for feminists to look up to. Without Bill Clinton she wouldn’t rate a mention. The Clinton’s, Hillary and Bill are creeps and losers who should fuck off out of politics while the public (remarkably) still grants them a skerrick of respect. That the US should be considering this fat arsed deceitful foul mouthed manipulator for Attorney General is an indicator of how far down the tube that country has been taken by progressive politics.
November 22nd, 2008 at 6:16 pm
for some peculiar reason the Clintons became an urban myth magnet. Any sort of BS could be said about them and all of a sudden it’s written in stone. Some of this does derive from the VRWC that hounded Bill but during the primaries the liberal pundocracy also got in on the act with Hillary. It was bizarre and disturbing.
November 22nd, 2008 at 6:21 pm
“Snopes is always good for a reality check”
Fuck off Rex. Snopes is well known to be another left liberal source, and untrustworthy as any such source on political matters . Look it up for chrissakes. David and Barbara Mikkelson, in Kalifornia own the website and they have no formal background or experience in investigative research but are known to be committed liberals who vote Democrat.
You commies with your weak and mindless reliance on mainstream information sources are always light years behind the play.
November 22nd, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Redbaiter suggests:
Just like George W Bush could sue this guy Hugh, who claims over 300 scandals involve Bush. But he hasn’t, so I guess the guy’s right then!
Public figures tend not to go round suing nutjobs like Hugh (who holds Bush personally responsible for the fact that “in Virginia, hackers sent a bogus email to the 30,000 students of George Mason University telling them the election had been moved from November 4th to November 5th”) or Aldridge (who’d have us believe that Bill & Hillary & Chelsea hung little marzipan penises on the White House Christmas tree).
Any crackpot can publish a book, or cook up a list of supposed transgressions and attribute them all to one man. Doesn’t make them sane, let alone reliable.
Now I’m sounding like a defender of Hillary, and I’m not. She strikes me as a woman very much in the Clark mould – one who believes her education invests her with omniscience and, from that derives a right to boss other people around. But if I’m going to criticise her, I’d rather level charges that are harder to refute than the rantings of Aldridge et al.
And what, pray tell, does the size of her arse have to do with it?
November 22nd, 2008 at 6:43 pm
“One press of the big red button will get our minds off the financial crisis though dad4. Briefly of course.”
Look on the bright side……there would be plenty of room for economic growth… and no population problems
November 22nd, 2008 at 6:45 pm
“And what, pray tell, does the size of her arse have to do with it?”
The size of the sun light oriffice is important for global warming calculations
November 22nd, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Snopes actually debunks of many myths about Dubya, including the one about him having the lowest IQ of any President in the past 50 years, and many of his supposed verbal blunders. All wrong, according to Snopes.
But thank goodness you’ve told me to get over my “weak and mindless reliance on mainstream information”. Now I can sink back into the warm embrace of ignorance and go on believing he’s dumber than a block of cheese.
Shunda Barunda: Touche’
November 22nd, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Rex, your reference to Snopes in this respect is worthless. We have the books, we have the verbal evidence of Secret Service agents concerning these events and other, such as throwing books at people’s backs. You have nothing other than that Snopes cannot prove it one way or the other. Worthless.
“And what, pray tell, does the size of her arse have to do with it?”
Pear shaped people have been clinically tested and found to naturally tell more lies and be more abusive than thin people. Look that up on Snopes.
November 22nd, 2008 at 6:59 pm
“They (the Clintons) actually knew what they were doing.”
Yeah. When it comes to bombing aspirin factories, they’re brilliant. Probably Bill Clinton found it hard to think clearly in the oval office when he was denigrating it by having a brain damaged intern give him blow jobs while he was talking on the phone.
November 22nd, 2008 at 7:01 pm
“Snopes actually debunks of many myths about Dubya, including the one about him having the lowest IQ of any President in the past 50 years, and many of his supposed verbal blunders. All wrong, according to Snopes.”
Hardly deserve credit for that. Anyone with a brain knows that most of what has been said about George Bush is liberal media/ Democrat lies, and they don’t need Snopes to tell them that.
November 22nd, 2008 at 7:10 pm
“Anyone with a brain knows that most of what has been said about George Bush is liberal media/ Democrat lies”
Yes, exactly. Like everything in this: http://www.amazon.com/Assassins-Gate-America-Iraq/dp/0374530556/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227334042&sr=1-1
and this: http://www.amazon.com/Fiasco-American-Military-Adventure-Iraq/dp/B001E96KKK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227334042&sr=1-2
and this: http://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Life-Emerald-City-Vintage/dp/0307278832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227334151&sr=1-1
I am willing to bet my house that Redbaiter has never read a book about the invasion and occupation of Iraq that was not written by a neocon. Facts hurt.
November 22nd, 2008 at 7:17 pm
My god, it’s worse than we thought!.
When even its opposition praise it (that’s the same site which a widely circulated anti-Snopes email, which I bet is the source of your critique, recommended right wingers use instead), as does the About.com urban legends website – while simultaneously debunking the “flaming liberal” allegation – I’ll believe them over a guy who fantasises about Hillary holding a penis – even if it is in the form of a Christmas tree decoration.
Nah, this whole “believing whatever your prejudices tell you is fact” thing is quite rewarding. Who needs fact checking?! Several of my ex-girlfriends were want could only be called “pear shaped” and that description fits themperfectly. So, with no research or attribution whatsoever, I think I’ll write a book – “Inside the mind of a fat arsed woman: How checking her pants size now can save you on alimony later”.
Should sell at least as well as Alridge’s effort
November 22nd, 2008 at 7:24 pm
radar
And so what was Iraq like under Saddam Hussein – no free press, no free elections or democratically elected Parliament, no trade unions, blackouts at night, 200,000 brutally tortured and then executed, thousands of Marsh Arabs deliberately driven from their homelands, thousands of Kurds brutally gassed to death, hundreds of thousands of needless Iraqi deaths due to his fruitless wars with Kuwait and Iran – that sounds like a genuine shithole to me. Now Iraq today is no picnic but at least there is a free press, regular elections with the beginnings of democracy, electrical output is higher than pre-invasion as is oil production. The war is won thanks to the Petraeus strategy – zero US casualties last month and fewer murders in Baghad than in Chicago. I guess that’s not the outcome the left was hoping for.
All Bush Administration efforts to restrict Iran’s nuclear development via diplomatic channels or the UN have been thwarted by the Chinese and the Russians with the tacit looking the other way by the French – all whom profit from trade with Iran. Even reasonably tough sanctions and banking restrictions from the US are undermined in all directions by these same enabling countries. Prey advise us what Rice didn’t do that would’ve prevented Iranian nuclear development.
North Korea has given up its nuclear weapons programme – something it was allowed to develop under Clinton’s watch thanks to the hapless “Agreed Formula” decided by that great lover of despotic rulers – Jimmy Carter.
November 22nd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Ex-girlfriends? Shame on you. Serves you right for chasing after those floozies when you probably had a perfectly good mother.
Limpdick.
November 22nd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Redbaiter suggests:
Ah so that explains it!
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs: “Mr President, we could always just fire a few warning shots across the border…”
Clinton: “No, harder! Harder!”
CJCs: “You want a firmer response? But the only target we have identified is an aspirin factory. Surely you’re not suggesting we bomb that?”
Clinton: “Yes, yes, god yes!”
CJCs: “Okay Mr President, we’re bombing it now. But it appears to be full of civilians.”
Clinton: “Uh oh, I made a mess. Better get something to clean that up”.
CJCs: “Well I did warn you sir. You want us to avoid the press discovering this?”
Clinton: “Yeah we can’t have them finding your dress”.
CJCs: “My…what…?? Uh oh…”
November 22nd, 2008 at 7:32 pm
isnt she comprimised by her husband? he’s doing all sorts of dodgy deals around the globe..
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:18 pm
“And so what was Iraq like under Saddam Hussein”
Well KIA I don’t imagine the people who live in one of the oldest civilisations in the world are terribly pleased with the results of the US invasion.
Maybe it wasn’t great under Saddam but at least there was stability. Now those poor souls have experienced the worst of all possible worlds: utterly brutal attacks on anyone without mercy, decimation of infrastructure and functioning institutions, the strong possibility of a warlord like regime arising from the ashs of the occupation if/when the occupiers withdraw, I could go on but we all know.
If anyone can possibly argue that, on balance, the US invasion has been at all beneficial then go ahead.
Frankly, the military did what was asked of them. They disarmed the enemy and stabilised the situation, in a very short time. Then, it was time for the rest of the strategy to swing into place: diplomatic and bureaucratic. Newsflash: the poor souls are STILL freakin waiting for both of those things. The fact is, the Bush Administration made massive strategic errors starting with the wholesale disarmament and disbandment of the Iraqi security forces. That left a vacuum and a lot of well trained well armed people with nothing to do. Hull-freaking-lo.
Next thing the Bush Administration UTTERLY failed to do was to use the freely available power of the US to implement a diplomatic solution. To get the regional nations on board and to keep regional trade working, to get local govt up and running in a non-factional environement. Newsflash: HE DID NONE OF THAT.
You know, to go on about how this solution was better than the past is just fucking ignoring the fact that this is an example of the second most badly handled regional conflict the US has ever been involved in. The first of course being Vietnam. Who knows, it may turn out to be Number One, because the final acts are yet to played out. At least in Vietnam, the blame could be fairly apportioned across several Administrations. For this one, the Bush Administration takes 100% of the blame thus far, and you can absolutely and unequivocably lay at the door of that Administration the blood of hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians and thousands of very fine US troops.
And P.S. Still no WMD.
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Reid
You are doing what is called in America being a Monday morning quarterback. Name one war where there was an eventual victory that didn’t involve a myriad of defeats and cock ups before eventual victory. WW1 – the British made 3 years of cockups before finally getting the right mix of tactics and technology after 4 million friggen casualties on their side alone. Britain never won a battle in WW2 until El Alamein in 1943 and suffered almost four years of humiliating defeats before any battlefield victories. Ditto the US until the Battle of Coral Sea (2 years after Pearl Harbor). Even after D Day when Nazi defeat was only a matter of time, the Allies suffered huge setbacks at Arnhem and the Ardenne. No – clean quick clinical unequivocal victories like Israel in 1967 and Gulf War 1 in 1991 are very much the exception rather than the rule.
* Detail the diplomatic strategy that the Bush administration failed to do that would’ve suceeded.
* What bureaucratic infrastructure? There wasn’t one except the Baath party that functioned like a modern day Nazi Party.
* Disbanding the Iraqi security forces was problematic but the one in its place is now functioning to the point that the Iraqi Govt itself has asked the US to drawdown its forces because it now has the growing capacity to defend itself. The alternative was what – Saddam’s hopeless and corrupt troops to stay on.
* Getting the regional nations on board – which ones do you mean? Surely not Iran and Syria who are anti-American to the core and were happy for Saddam to remain in power to keep the heat off them and make mischief with Israel. Kuwait and the UAE supported the US. Do you mean the Saudis? The same Saudis who persuaded Bush 1 to leave Saddam in power – surely not.
* What local government – you mean Baath party lackies. A “non-factional environment” – what planet are you living on. Newsflash – Shi’ites and Sunnis have hated each other since well the 7th century when their respective interpretations of Islam split. Iraq is factional – always will be. Is the fact that this factionalism is difficult to manage a reason to say well lets leave the dictator in power?
* What about the blood of the 100,000’s of Iraqi citizens it is known that Saddam murdered? Was that to go on? Hitler murdered millions and the war to remove him guess what, it cost the lives of millions of innocent German civilians and hundreds and thousands of fine British and American soldiers. Was it worth it? Is Europe a better place with the removal of Adolf Hitler?
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:42 pm
How about Clintons sanctions? Bush seniors targeting of power stations and sanitation plants during the defense of Kuwait? I don’t think it’s as clean cut as you say.
November 22nd, 2008 at 9:29 pm
KIA, I haven’t bothered putting in links simply because wordpress puts comments into moderation. You can find them through google. I’m not interested in debating the efficacy of the sources, if you don’t agree with the point that’s being made then give me evidence it’s wrong by attacking the reasoning and not the source. BTW I won’t be getting back on any further response as it’s Saturday night here as you know….
“As democracy scholar Thomas Carothers puts it:
“[T]he hope of advancing a regional democratic agenda has been deeply undercut by the Iraq war. . . . Day after day Arab citizens see on their television sets tens or even hundreds of Arabs dying as a result of a ‘democratic experiment’ in their region.”
He goes on to say that “over the past four years President Bush has closely associated democracy promotion with a military intervention in Iraq that is widely viewed as illegitimate, illegal, and the cause of tremendous human suffering. . . . The Iraq war has . . . effectively rebrand[ed] democracy promotion as a tool of hegemonic interventionism – this time with militaristic coloring.””
Umm, the schools, the govt depts, you know, the things that make up a nation. Iraq had it. Didn’t you know that?
Who cares what’s happening now KIA? Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis raped, kidnapped, murdered in the interim. That was my point as you well know. And see my last quote below from the British. It was well known, it was a deadly mistake. It was dumb. Why can’t you admit it?
Yep, also Israel, as well as the others you point out. If you don’t understand how that could have worked I suggest you don’t really understand ME politics.
See the memo below.
Yeh but geez KIA, that WASN’T why Bush SAID he was going into Iraq. I mean it would be great if the US would invade every single nation run by a despot, including Zim, Congo and all the others. That would be excellent. But it wasn’t about that, was it? So your point is irrelevant.
Happy to get really really deeply into every single detail if we ever get a dedicated thread on Iraq on this blog but until then, here’s that memo. Also, please bear in mind I’ve been decrying the Iraq war since very early in 2003 on this blog, I’m hardly speaking after the event, so as for being a Monday Night Quarterback, leave it for those late-comers who take awhile to catchup. Here’s that memo….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/mar/14/uk.topstories31
“Senior British diplomatic and military staff gave Tony Blair explicit warnings three years ago [2003] that the US was disastrously mishandling the occupation of Iraq, according to leaked memos.
John Sawers, Mr Blair’s envoy in Baghdad in the aftermath of the invasion, sent a series of confidential memos to Downing Street in May and June 2003 cataloguing US failures. With unusual frankness, he described the US postwar administration, led by the retired general Jay Garner, as “an unbelievable mess” and said “Garner and his top team of 60-year-old retired generals” were “well-meaning but out of their depth”.
That assessment is reinforced by Major General Albert Whitley, the most senior British officer with the US land forces. Gen Whitley, in another memo later that summer, expressed alarm that the US-British coalition was in danger of losing the peace. “We may have been seduced into something we might be inclined to regret. Is strategic failure a possibility? The answer has to be ‘yes’,” he concluded.
The memos were obtained by Michael Gordon, author, along with General Bernard Trainor, of Cobra II: the Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, published to coincide with the third anniversary of the invasion.
The British memos identified a series of US failures that contained the seeds of the present insurgency and anarchy.
The mistakes include:
· A lack of interest by the US commander, General Tommy Franks, in the post-invasion phase.
· The presence in the capital of the US Third Infantry Division, which took a heavyhanded approach to security.
· Squandering the initial sympathy of Iraqis.
· Bechtel, the main US civilian contractor, moving too slowly to reconnect basic services, such as electricity and water.
· Failure to deal with health hazards, such as 40% of Baghdad’s sewage pouring into the Tigris and rubbish piling up in the streets.
· Sacking of many of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party, even though many of them held relatively junior posts.
Mr Sawers, in a memo titled Iraq: What’s Going Wrong, written on May 11, four days after he had arrived in Baghdad, is uncompromising about the US administration in Baghdad. He wrote: “No leadership, no strategy, no coordination, no structure and inaccessible to ordinary Iraqis.”
November 22nd, 2008 at 9:44 pm
This posting for Hillary nearly confirms my prediction that Bill will become another Kissinger as a foreign spokesman for the Obama administration.
The state dept will become the Billary dept and somehow,, there will be a glitch in the system that has Bill authorised to speak on behalf of the White House in foreign affairs.
Don’t think we’ll see another visit to NZ.
Wonder if Chelsea swears like a trooper
Some one leak it to you tube
Plleeeeasseeee!
November 22nd, 2008 at 9:53 pm
“A lack of interest by the US commander, General Tommy Franks, in the post-invasion phase.”
Exactly the situation at Pearl Harbour. The Pacific fleet comander ignored all warngings from British intelligence that Pearl was in dire danger. America thinks big and the lives of 10,000 men is insignificant.
“Sacking of many of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party, even though many of them held relatively junior posts.”
Be interesting to see how Iraq deals with that. there’s no reason why those men can’t get their positions back under Iraqi rule. I wouldn’t be surprised if the yanks made it a pre requisite in negotiations to give them life time
bans. Americans think big, but they can also be very petty.
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Just as an aside to my previous post, isn’t it interesting how the British, with their long history and institutional understanding of establishing colonial occupation, immediately are able to spot the issues with a post-war occupation whereas the Americans, who’ve consciously and wrongly eschewed such wisdom, are quite unable.
It was in fact one of the main issues arising in the post-WWII world, where during the war, an important aspect of the American Grand Strategy was to keep Britain from re-establishing her pre-war power base. This of course led to the rapprochement between Stalin and Roosevelt and then Truman, and importantly also to the broad front strategy which eventually led to the Soviets taking Berlin and half of Europe.
A very interesting story for those interested is the establishment of British colonial power in India. The difficulties of the venture across such a wide continent with no communications, and the elegance and skill with which the British accomplished the task is a great read.
If only the Americans could focus just on taking the place then leave it to the British to keep it, I think it might be a different world we live in.
November 23rd, 2008 at 12:23 am
I’m sure Hillary Clinton will have the same stunning success as the Secretary of State as she had with the health reforms program she was involved with under Bill’s presidency.
November 23rd, 2008 at 4:33 am
Reid
Thank you for telling us what we already know and that I largely agree with – that the Americans made many mistakes post invasion. You skirted past my main contention and that is that the prosecution of wars (and post war management) invariably involves a multiplicity of mistakes. You made a great virtue of the British and quote their military experts comments about Iraq. There is a library of books of British military mistakes – the Somme, Dunkirk, Crete, Singapore, Burma and on and on. But in the end Britain was on the winning side of most wars because their commanders learned from their mistakes. The hallmark of what is going on in Iraq RIGHT NOW is the history of a brilliant commander (Petraeus) who learned from the previous blunders and gradually enacted an effective urban insurgency strategy that, much to the chagrin of critics like you, has succeeded. Political success is following the military success.
The other point you entirely ignore is that despots and tyrants like Hitler, Stalin and Hussein are only ever removed from power through brutal force. You laud the ’stability’ of pre-war Iraq. Kind of like the stability of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia huh. I note you never answer the question – is Europe a better place without Hitler and use the usual smokescreen of why doesn’t America remove every dictator. The simple answer is that even super powers have limits. Mugabe is a thug but he has limited power to threaten regional African stability. I would love for some larger power (Britain or the US) to overthrow him. Saddam Hussein proved by his actions over 15 years that he was a threat to regional peace and he had previously shown his propensity to develop and use WMD (gassing the Kurds). Millions died in his war with Iran, he invaded Kuwait, he fired medium range missiles into Israel when Israel had no part in his decision to invade Kuwait and played a limited role the Coalition forces decision to retake Kuwait.
“Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis raped, kidnapped, murdered in the interim.” You throw this emotive truth as if this was the first and only war where these terrible things happened. Since you enjoy memos – here’s a memo: war is brutal, it usually involves substantial collateral civilian casualties and often the destruction of vital infrastructure. Part of Britain’s victory over Germany involved the controversial night boming raids over German cities where sometimes there were no military targets at all with the only goal being the destruction of the morale of the German people. All armies of various ideological stripes throughout all recorded history commit atrocities. Those committed by the Allies in WW2 were rare and infrequent as were US or British atrocities in the Iraq war. You cannot remove brutal dictators easily and without bloodshed. Bush frequently referred to regime change as one of the reasons for the invasion. The primary reason given was the Iraqi regime’s blatant and continuous breaches of numerous separate UNSC resolutions.
Post war clean up and reconstruction is time consuming and costly. Rebuilding democracies in defeated nations even more so. When you compare the condition of the infrastructure of Iraq (both physical and governmental) at this point post the invasion and compare it with the equivalent point in the reconstruction efforts in Germany and Japan post WW2, Iraq is miles ahead. Similarly with the establishment of Constitutions and elections. It was 5 years before Germany or Japan ever managed either. It took decades to rebuild South Korea. And yet if we look at Germany, Japan and Korea today many years after brutal devastating wars they are thriving democracies with vibrant modern capitalist economies.
Sorry for the threadjack people but the Iraq war is unlikely to come up in a post.
November 23rd, 2008 at 7:05 am
Some [such as Reid above] have argued that President George W Bush is the worst US President ever. GW Bush has expanded the powers of the presidency beyond the limits laid down by the U.S. Constitution; his mishandling of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars makes Madison and Polk look magisterial; his tolerance of corruption by his cronies evokes memories of Harding and Grant- but Bush has not handed over to Obama a nation divided in arms against itself, as Buchanan did to Lincoln. Buchanan’s mishandling of Southern secessionists in 1860, allowing them to seize arms and equipment from federal control and making the civil war inevitable, makes Buchanan the worst President ever, for he failed to preserve the Union.
Dubya is, at most, the second worst, not the worst.
November 23rd, 2008 at 8:07 am
“You skirted past my main contention and that is that the prosecution of wars (and post war management) invariably involves a multiplicity of mistakes.”
Mistakes are made in all wars. It’s the gross negligence and incompetence that is the hallmark of the Iraq war that is most unforgiveable. If you were to read any of the three books that I linked to, you would read that the CPA was too focused on privatising the state owned companies, and not on providing security and electricity to the Iraqis. They wanted to transform their economy before they made them safe to walk in the streets. Anyone with a higher IQ than Redbaiter’s would know that security must be ensured first, then work on everything else. Plus, the people that got jobs for the CPA were not experts, they were Republican loyalists. The twenty-something kid put in charge of getting the Baghdad Stock Exchange up and running had no experience in markets or running companies. But he did know someone in the Whitehouse. That is just one of hundreds of examples. It was a case of “jobs for the boys” writ large. Add to that that the CPA were serverly under manned. When the Berlin wall came down, the Germans sent 8,000 people to transform all the East German state-ownded companies into efficient enterprises, while to do the same job in ALL OF IRAQ, the CPA had 3 people. When history is written, as it is being now, the invasion and occupation of Iraq will be a blueprint for how not to invade and stabilise a country, and all the village idiots who think that it went well, that no mistakes were made, and that no fault lies at the feet of the genius George W Bush, need to start reading news sources other than Newsmax, Human Events, and FOX, in order to learn some reality.
November 23rd, 2008 at 9:53 am
“If you were to read any of the three books that I linked to”
Who would bother reading tired old armchair general after the event crap from Washington Post and NY Times losers other than some mired in the past dipshit suffering from the worst case of Bush Derangement Syndrome on Kiwiblog. See a psychiatrist nutjob. Its ancient history. The Iraq war is over and Bush won. Suck on it.
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An inability to separate wheat from chaff transforms The Assassins’ Gate into an echo chamber for conspiracy theories. Packer bases his treatment of the Office of Special Plans, the Pentagon policy shop to which I belonged, on secondary sources cherry-picked from Rozen and Cole’s blogs, who themselves drew their stories from Bob Dreyfuss of The American Prospect. Dreyfuss long served as Middle East columnist for a magazine belonging to Lyndon LaRouche, a discredited American conspiracy theorist and convicted felon.
Packer wrote The Assassins’ Gate to elucidate the Iraq war. He succeeded, but unintentionally: in trying to illustrate the human element of the Iraqi enterprise, his book instead becomes a monument to the tendentiousness undercutting U.S. Iraq policy. While his descriptions are rich and his character portraits compelling, style trumps substance and politics supplant honesty. Those critical of U.S. intervention have already seized upon Packer’s narrative, but, ultimately, historians will dismiss it as venal. It may reflect current progressive sentiment, but it will not survive the test of time.
http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.23528,filter.all/pub_detail.asp
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In other words, just more Bush hating bullshit from the usual BDS nutjobs. Yawn.
November 23rd, 2008 at 11:24 am
I’m stunned that the leading neocon think tank in Washington would defend the invasion and occupation and criticise those who wrote books about it. What a shocker.
November 24th, 2008 at 2:23 am
meanwhile at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/the_crushing_of_sarah_palin.html
“The continuous assault on Sarah Palin is not so difficult to understand. In fact, it can be summed up thusly: she’s a woman opposed to abortion. You see, when a man says he’s opposed to abortion, women who disagree can accuse him of trying to control a woman’s body and/or simply not understanding how a woman feels about dealing with pregnancy, career achievement and defeating the “good ole boy” network. But, how are they going to justify that to a Sarah Palin, who has raised a family, been elected to the highest office in her state and has gained a reputation as a corruption fighter? And a woman decided to keep, raise, and love a Down syndrome child, her son Trig.
Governor Palin represents a stake in the heart of the abortion movement and for that reason alone, she must be sniped at, ridiculed and trashed until her name becomes a scarlet letter on the bosom of every woman who dares to challenge the inner sanctum of liberal orthodoxy. “