The Iraq War for kids

Way, way too charitable about Bush.

I tell my children the truth. George Bush is either a stupid or an evil man - I'm not sure which - maybe both. But he intentionally lied in to the American people in order to get them to support a war, which he and other evil men had been planning for years before Sept. 11.

George Bush also relied on the fact that the American people were too stupid to tell the difference between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, in order to justify his war -- in order to attack and invade a country that had done us no harm, and could do us no harm. He and his men convinced our government agents to lie and mislead Congress and the American people so that they could carry out their plan.

In the course of this evil, he violated Catholic Just War principles and ignored Pope John Paul II who pleaded with him not to attack Iraq.

As a result, our economy is in terrible shape and it is getting worse. Not only that, but thousands and thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed, injured or forced to leave their homeland. And to make matters worse, Mr. Bush has turned a small, ragtag bunch of terrorists known as Al Quaeda into a large, worldwide force that hates the USA.

I'd tell him that nations do things that they perceive to be in their interest when they do them and sometimes it just does not work out the way they expect. That wars do not have to be just. Justice is irrelevant in the affairs of nations. They do have to be successful and even if the war is successful there is the dealing with the defeated nation after it (at which point I would read to him the relevant section from The Prince).

Iraq seemed like a good idea at the time.

My daughter, K. at 4: "Who's Monica Winsky?"

Answer: "Some people say she's the President's girl friend, which is not a good thing because he's already married."

K: "Oh."

Actually Rod, I think it can be put somewhat more succinctly:

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Two thirds to three quarters of the world's remaining easily accessible liquid oil is in the Persian Gulf. Most in the territory of four countries, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran and Iraq.

Almost twenty years ago, in 1990, the Saddam Hussein, the leader of Iraq invaded Kuwait, and could have perhaps also invaded Saudi Arabia. He controlled or threatened most of the world's remaining oil. Oil is the single most important natural resource that we need. Without it, our lives would change in many ways. We drive our cars, heat our homes, fertilize and harvest our crops, with oil. Almost all things plastic come from oil. Look at all the plastic in our house.

We generate most- more than 90% - of our electricity, with some oil as well as other fossil fuels like natural gas and coal.

Without fossil fuels we would live much simpler, more restricted lives. Like people did over one hundred years ago, when burning wood was the most common way to light and warm houses. When people had to walk, ride horses or take boats driven by wind or paddles to travel. Imagine not having a car.

Fossil fuels are non-renewable resources that were created over 100's of millions of years by plants and animals absorbing the energy of the sun, and then dying, rotting, and then collecting underneath earth in great deposits of coal, shale, tar, gas and oil.

In 1991, our president George W. Bush's dad George H.W. Bush ordered our military to re-conquer Kuwait to stop Saddam Hussein. But he made them stop before re-taking Iraq. From 1991 to 2001, we let Saddam rule Iraq.

On 9/11 2001, a group of Arab Muslims from Egypt, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, led by a Saudi named Osama bin Laden attacked the United States because they were angry at us (another topic to discuss later, but our troops left in Saudi Arabia after 1991 were one of Osama's biggest gripes).

George W. Bush said that Saddam was still a military danger to us, so we attacked him. It turns out that he probably wasn't that much a threat to the U.S. itself, because the Iraqi military was already destroyed, and they were only spending .1% of the amount of money we were spending on weapons. Not only that, but Iraq had no missiles, planes or boats that could conceivably threaten the U.S.

But because of 9/11 Americans were scared and angry. Also, President Bush knew that Iraq's oil (maybe a third of the existing oil in the world) is very very very important, and we needed to control it. So we attacked them anyway.

Now the Iraqi people and government are asking us to leave, but because of the oil, we are going to stay anyway..

===

There are a few more major points like the role Israel, and the fact that Pakistan is far more dangerous to us than Iraq (or for that matter Iran, but keep it simple for the kids) ever could be.

You could perhaps throw in references to Machiavelli and Hobbe's Leviathan for older kids, if they're smart and home schooled.

Actually Rod, I think it can be put somewhat more succinctly:

===

Two thirds to three quarters (hope they get fractions) of the world's remaining easily accessible liquid oil is in the Persian Gulf. Most in the territory of four countries, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran and Iraq.

(Refer to a map, show them that the area is about the size of Kansas).

Almost twenty years ago, in 1990, the Saddam Hussein, the leader of Iraq, invaded Kuwait. He could have perhaps also invaded Saudi Arabia. He controlled or threatened most of the world's remaining oil.

Oil is the single most important natural resource that we need. Without it, our lives would change drastically in many ways. We drive our cars, heat our homes, fertilize and harvest our crops, all with oil. Almost all things plastic come from oil. Look at all the plastic in our house.

We generate most- more than 90% - of our electricity, with some oil, as well as other fossil fuels like natural gas and coal.

Without fossil fuels we would be forced to live much simpler, more restricted lives. Like people did over one hundred years ago, when burning wood was the most common way to light and warm houses. When people had to walk, ride horses or take boats driven by wind or paddles to travel. Imagine not having a car.

Fossil fuels are non-renewable resources that were created over 100's of millions of years by plants and animals absorbing the energy of the sun, and then dying, rotting, and then collecting underneath earth in great deposits of coal, shale, tar, gas and oil.

In 1991, our president George W. Bush's dad George H.W. Bush ordered our military to re-conquer Kuwait to stop Saddam Hussein. But he made them stop before re-taking Iraq. From 1991 to 2001, we let Saddam rule Iraq.

On 9/11 2001, a group of Arab Muslims from Egypt, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, led by a Saudi named Osama bin Laden attacked the United States because they were angry at us (another topic to discuss later, but our troops left in Saudi Arabia after 1991 were one of Osama's biggest gripes).

George W. Bush said that Saddam was still a military danger to us, so we attacked him. It turns out that he probably wasn't that much a threat to the U.S. itself, because the Iraqi military was already destroyed, and they were only spending .1% of the amount of money we were spending on weapons. Not only that, but Iraq had no missiles, planes or boats that could conceivably threaten the U.S.

But because of 9/11 Americans were scared and angry. Also, President Bush knew that Iraq's oil (maybe a third of the existing oil in the world) is very very very important, and we needed to control it. So we attacked them anyway.

Now the Iraqi people and government are asking us to leave, but because of the oil, we are going to stay anyway.

===

There are a few more major points like the role Israel, and the fact that N. Korea and Pakistan are more dangerous to us than Iraq (or for that matter Iran, but keep it simple for the kids) ever could be.

You could perhaps throw in references to Machiavelli and Hobbes' Leviathan for older kids, if they're smart and home schooled.

Rod, you're a good man and the others who have commented here mean well ... but:

No 9-year old I know would sit through any explanation like the ones provided here.

In 1980 President Jimmy Carter, then running for re-election, mentioned his 12-year old daughter, Amy, in a campaign debate with Ronald Reagan. Carter claimed that he had asked his 6th grade daughter what the most important issue in that election was and that Amy said, "the control of nuclear weapons."

The country, of course, rolled its collective eyes at Carter's claim. Rolling my eyes is what I'm tempted to do after contemplating the "dilemma" of Noah Millman.

It occurs to me that if explaining the Iraq War to kids is difficult, imagine how much more difficult it is for a member of the Church of Englend to explain to their 9-year old some of the foolish statements uttered by the head of their Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury (see Rod's previous post, "Is this a spiritually healhy society?").

I like Rod's explanation best. It' fair, compassionate, kid-friendly, and doesn't seem full of bitterness. It teaches that bad results sometimes occur despite good intentions, and that, unlike in fairy tales, very few people are simply "evil." It even teaches that smart people are capable of doing very stupid things, especially when they're scared, or when they don't think things through carefully, and that war should always be a last resort. In other words, Rod's explanation is charitable, yet cautionary.

When I was 11, I found out about the fire-bombing of Dresden. I got into a huge argument with my father at the breakfast table about it. "We're supposed to be the good guys!" I said. "We murdered thousands of civilians! How could we DO that?" It ended up with my father screaming at me, "YOU ARE A STUPID, STUPID LITTLE GIRL AND YOU KNOW NOTHING!" I stomped off to junior high school, hoping that if there was another war, our house would be within the zone of maximum destruction where we'd be incinerated instantly, and trying to figure out if we lived close enough to any top secret research facilities to make that a real possibility. I don't think the explanation that we killed a lot of little kids and helpless bystanders, but it was really okay, because . . . is ever going to fly very well with most children, because they're not as stupid as some people think.

How about acknowledging the influence of the Israel lobby on US foreign policy?

With my brother doing a tour a year ago, we did a cursory treatment with our children. My oldest two were 6 and 7 at the time. I told them their uncle was risking his life for what our leaders thought would be in our best interests. They asked for clarification on what risking his life meant, and I told them that people would be trying to kill him and he would try to protect himself.

I'm surprised at how much my children pick up from the outside world. He heard about the Cyrus cover in Vogue. He also made a comment one day about us being almost done with this President. Both he picked up from Kindergarten or on the bus.

I'm with Reaganite on this one. I also opine that Charles Cosimano's Iraq seemed like a good idea at the time[.] is the most accurate as well as succinct introduction to global politics one can offer to a pre-teen. But more about the age of the child...

Our family take on the Chinese "curse" may you live in interesting times is "may you have children with strong egos." That's an ironic joke, for those who haven't had enough coffee yet to see that. ;-)

Children struggle with abstract concepts and reasoning from about the age of 4 (the advent of the neverending "why" questions) until they pass on (ahem). War is one of the most important abstract concepts to master. If a parent can find no other reason for giving children a strong education in history, understanding war can be a top choice. As the child becomes more and more aware of the conflicts between ego and the world at large, war as an event will not be difficult to understand... I think, Rod, that what you are struggling with is how to explain nationalism, globalism and imperialism. I submit that none of these will be any sort of an easy study to a child under the age of 14.

[soapbox] The most valuable skill you can train your children to master is critical thinking. It's foundations are logic, separation of fact and belief (not elimination of one or the other, but recognition), and a willingness to be proven wrong at any point. My personal suggestion is starting (age 9 is a good age) by carefully and assertively explaining the difference between critical examination of a topic and being critical of people who disagree with you. [/soapbox]

Armed with that skill, a child will master any abstract with which she is confronted. The only variable would be time.

Personal aside: my 15-year-old daughter is already deep in the phase well-described by the following, attributed to Mark Twain: "When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." While I'm not so confident that my patience will last, I am confident that she will find her way to the same conclusion of the phase that Twain found. For the sake of my patience, I hope she as precocious in finding it as she was in starting the search. ;-)

Well, I've dealt with the topic from my soon-to-be-11-year-old daughter and to a lesser extent, her 7-year-old brother. But I'm afraid I don't have a coherent, detailed explanation. I've preferred to explain it in small bite-size pieces and answer the questions that I'm asked at the time.

I don't think either child has flat-out asked, "Why are we in Iraq?"

The 7-year-old mostly wants to know what his older brother, Michael, is doing there and if he's safe. With him, the explanation has been something like this:

Michael is serving in the Army, which is a noble and good thing to do. He is working in a large prison and helping make sure the prisoners get medical care when they need it. He's pretty safe. His buddies in the Army will look out for him and he has a gun if he needs to use it.

It gets trickier with my daughter, who has decided she is philosophically opposed to all war and is enamored with the 1960s peace movement right now. (I think she's trying this on like some kids try on vegetarianism, but I digress). We've talked about why there is war in general, but she's never asked specifically why we went to Iraq. She just accepts that we're there and her brother is part of it, and she desparately wants him and the rest of the military to come home.

I'm with Reaganite on this one. I also opine that Charles Cosimano's Iraq seemed like a good idea at the time[.] is the most accurate as well as succinct introduction to global politics one can offer to a pre-teen. But more about the age of the child...

Our family take on the Chinese "curse" may you live in interesting times is "may you have children with strong egos." That's an ironic joke, for those who haven't had enough coffee yet to see that. ;-)

Children struggle with abstract concepts and reasoning from about the age of 4 (the advent of the neverending "why" questions) until they pass on (ahem). War is one of the most important abstract concepts to master. If a parent can find no other reason for giving children a strong education in history, understanding war can be a top choice. As the child becomes more and more aware of the conflicts between ego and the world at large, war as an event will not be difficult to understand... I think, Rod, that what you are struggling with is how to explain nationalism, globalism and imperialism. I submit that none of these will be any sort of an easy study to a child under the age of 14.

[soapbox] The most valuable skill you can train your children to master is critical thinking. It's foundations are logic, separation of fact and belief (not elimination of one or the other, but recognition), and a willingness to be proven wrong at any point. My personal suggestion is starting (age 9 is a good age) by carefully and assertively explaining the difference between critical examination of a topic and being critical of people who disagree with you. [/soapbox]

Armed with that skill, a child will master any abstract with which she is confronted. The only variable would be time.

Personal aside: my 15-year-old daughter is already deep in the phase well-described by the following, attributed to Mark Twain: "When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." While I'm not so confident that my patience will last, I am confident that she will find her way to the same conclusion of the phase that Twain found. For the sake of my patience, I hope she as precocious in finding it as she was in starting the search. ;-)

The Iraq War happened because our country was attacked on September 11 by Arab Muslim terrorists.

Dead Wrong. The Iraq War happened because the United States is hopelessly addicted to oil and Iraq is the geological center of the world's largest reserve of oil. September 11 was the pretense Bush used to occupy Iraq.

Muslims terrorists, who were at war with America for 25 years, finally attacked American soil on 9.11 and destroyed a great symbol of America, bombed the Pentagon, almost destroyed the Capitol Building, and killed thousands of people in the process. America didn't want that to ever happen again.

President Bush and his advisors looked around the world and saw that Saddam Hussein, who hated America and fought a war against us in 1991, had terrorist friends and also thought at that time that he still had chemical weapons that terrorists could use to kill lots of people. America also wanted to attack someone because lots of terrorists thought America was weak and afraid to fight. If America attacked a country and killed their leaders, it would scare the other terrorists. President Bush also thought that Arab people should be free, and if they were free, they wouldn't be as angry at America, because they would be busy living their lives. Lots of Arab governments are run by dictators and the people don't have much freedom and are very poor.

America invaded Iraq and removed Saddam, and the Iraqi people were happy. But they didn't want freedom, they wanted America to leave. Iraq isn't like America, where everyone is equal. In Iraq, there are tribes, and everyone belongs to a tribe. The biggest tribe is Shiite Muslims and because Bush gave them democracy, the Shiite can control everybody. Saddam Hussein was part of the Sunni Muslim tribe, and they did lots of bad things to the Shiites and the Kurds, another tribe. Although not all Sunni people are bad, they were afraid they would all be punished by the other two tribes. Then the tribes started killing each other, especially Sunni and Shiite. Some terrorists from other countries also came to Iraq, because they were part of the Sunni or Shiite tribe in their own country, and they tried to get more people to fight.

Another coutry also joined the fighting, Iran. In the 1980's, Sunni Saddam wanted to kill more Shiites, so he attacked Iran, which is a Shiite country. Now that Saddam was gone and the Sunnis were weak, Iran was helping the Shiites kill Sunnis in Iraq.

It was a big mess, but America didn't want to let everyone kill each other, so the Army stayed and tried to fix things. It's really hard to fix though, so lots of Americans argue. Some people say we should stay until things work. Some people say we should stay only until things stop being very bad. Other people think it can never be fixed, or its not our job, so we should leave right away. People get very angry about it because it costs a lot of money and the way we act is watched by every other country, and our leaders don't want other countries to think America is weak if it leaves.

"Everybody realized how much danger we were in by some crazy Muslims, that they could hurt us worse than we thought."

Wait. Did this happen before or after September 11? I seem to recall some warnings from Richard Clarke, a PDB entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike Inside US", et cetera. The chronology isn't clear from your writing.

My son was 9 when the war started. Being Canadian though it was easy for me to explain. Americans think that they are in charge of the world and their president is a moron. Thank God your Grandfather moved here after he returned home from his (conscripted) time in Vietnam.

Well, some aspects of your explanation I like quite a lot, while others I think are lacking. I'd find some different lessons:

-If you're the president, and a war is going badly, you've got to fire your secretary of defense and top generals, and try other generals who will do things differently. Our great presidents did this -- like Lincoln, who went through generals like they were Kleenex. President Bush should have fired Rumsfeld and some generals a whole lot sooner. When he put General Petraeus in charge and sent more soldiers to fight, things got a lot better, although even that took a while to work.

-Persistence is important. If we had given up when things had been going badly for a long time, we would have lost, and that would have been bad for a lot of people in Iraq, in America, and in other places around the world. It's easy to get discouraged: your Daddy got discouraged, and started believing the people who said the war was lost for sure, but they were wrong, and your Daddy was wrong. We ended up winning, and Iraq is a better place as a result.

[And there are some commenters on your Daddy's blog who are mightily tempted to serve him plate after steaming plate of free-range crow about his bailing out on the war when it was going badly. -- Well maybe you should leave that part out.]

How about:

We went to war because of a terrible piece of bad luck. I'll explain:

You see, some people think that their way of living, or thinking, or believing in God, is the ONLY right way to do those things. They think that everyone who lives or believes or thinks differently is wrong.

Now some people believe this in their hearts, but just sort of leave people different from them alone. Others will try to convince other people to change, to be more like them. But some people, fortunately relatively few, will actually try to hurt people who live or think differently from them. They think that people different from them don't have the right to live that way.

Some people living in the Middle East are that way. And one of those people, a man named Osama bin Laden, had enough money and power and influence to form a group of terrorists, who attacked us because we lived a way they didn't like. They blew up some planes and building, and killed thousands of American people. And we became scared and angry.

Now, at the same time, there was a guy named Saddam Hussein, who was sort of the President of Iraq. He hated us too, although he didn't much care about our religion. He just hated us because we were more powerful than he was, and wouldn't let him take over other countries. He was a mean and selfish person, who only seemed to care about himself, and the people who helped him. We had fought a war with him in the past, and beat him badly.

Now these things were pretty bad. But the really bad luck began because our own country, America, had just elected a new president into office, and as luck would have it, he and his friends were ALSO the kind of people who thought that everyone had to be like them. And they hated people different from them. He thought everyone had to like the same religion as him, the same kind of government, etc. Usually, we had better Presidents than that, but we didn't really know it about him when we picked him.

Anyway, he was really, really mad about being attacked, so first he went after the guy who attacked us, Osama, and his friends. But Osama was very clever, and kept getting away. This made our President Bush really mad. He already didn't like Saddam Hussein, and since Saddam looked kind of like Osama, and spoke the same language, and had the same religion (in a very general sense), and seemed like someday he might try to attack us, President Bush decided to attack him first. He also had a lot of oil, which we needed, so that seemed an added benefit. Also, Bush really thought that once Saddam was gone, everyone in Iraq would be really grateful to us for having got rid of him, since he was so mean and selfish, and become our friends. Then they would think and act more like us, with democracy and capitalism.

Well, we beat Saddam pretty easily, but it didn't work out. It turns out that a lot of the people there really don't want to think like us. Many of them are more like Osama and President Bush...they think that only people like them are right, and that people who think different or have a different religion are wrong. So they began fighting each other, and killing each other, and when we tried to stop them, they killed us too.

Of course, most of the Iraqi people weren't that way, but the people who thought only their way was right had a lot of guns and money and support from countries like the U.S., Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc., each one supporting the people who thought more like them.

Anyway, the whole thing was a big mess, and it cost an incredible sum of money, and many good Iraqis, Americans, and people from many other countries died. It will probably get better eventually, because people usually get tired of hurting each other after awhile, and want to live better lives. But that could be a long time from now.

There are a lot of lessons you can learn from all this. Be careful what you do or say when you're mad. Think it through first. Make sure you have a good plan before you do something drastic. Don't believe everything you're told. Check things out on your own. Things can be harder than they look. And you can't make people change; they have to want to change.

But probably the most important thing is this: It's ok that everyone doesn't live like you, or think like you, or pray like you. It was people who didn't know this, on all sides, who created this war. And whenever someone tells you that there's only one way to think or live or pray, they're wrong. Even if I tell you that. Find a good way for yourself...let other people find a good way for them. Respect their way, and love them, even if they're different. And try to convince them to do the same to you. And if you can't convince them, be careful around them. Because whether it's Iraq, or the Nazi's in WWII, or America back when we fought the Native Americans, people who think that they're way is the only way can be dangerous, until they grow up and learn better.

I would like to comment on a point you made. My husband is in Sadr City right now helping to rebuild a very poverty-sticken area. The vast majority of Iraqi civilians he has encountered are welcoming and very happy to be receiving help from the "bad" Americans. There have been many mistakes made in Iraq but you cannot paint with such a braod brush many times.

We ended up winning, and Iraq is a better place as a result.

LOL.

Some victory. We've turned the place over to the party created by those same Iranians we want to bomb. It's surrender with a happy face painted on it.

One piece of context I would add is the background that lead the intelligence community and much of the government to be so wrong over WMD's. In 1998 both India and Pakistan began a series of nuclear tests that surprised almost every intel agency in the world. They were rattled almost to the point of panic over it.

Add in the fact that there were no reliable human intelligence assets from any western agency in Iraq's command structure, and that the sanctions regime was collapsing. All those factors lead to an intel community that was understandably paranoid, working blind, and had a ticking clock running. The strategic problem of having large troop contingents and air power stuck in Saudi and Turkey to enforce sanctions and no-fly zone didn't help.

Of course, failing to pursue CI strategies for four years because of a bizarre democracy fetish is a whole different ball of wax that will be argued over for decades.

Franklin,

"In Rod's defense he has posted (perhaps not often enough, arguably) explicit admission that he was wrong in his initial support for the Iraq war.

You might criticize him for the quality/quantity of his admissions, and I'll not gainsay you, but he has not been silent."

This is what has made Rod's recent silence all the more baffling to me. Given his willingness to admit error with respect to one stance, why not admit it a second time? Is that so much worse?

To Rod's credit, he has said very explicitly that he hoped he would be proven wrong in his pessimistic evaluations of where things were headed in Iraq. (Needless to say, he is completely unlike that vile subset of lefties whose pathological hatred of Bush has led them to root for American defeat.)

My suggestion is that now would be a fine time for Rod to explicitly take a new tack on Iraq, rather than note progress only backhandedly, as in his "Iraqui sovereignty" post of several days ago.

Our troops are in Iraq for a lot of reasons. Some of them were acknowledged and discussed before the war, and some of them were not.

One reason our troops are in Iraq is to help contain and counter Iran's growing power and to give the United States and other leaders more leverage in our efforts to influence Iran's behavior. . . That's important because the leadership in Iran states on an almost daily basis that they wish to destroy the United States and the only other free, democratic states in the region - our ally Israel, and they are currently pursuing nuclear weapons to further those aims. They also threaten our other allies in the area, the Sunni Arab states to Iran's west (who quite possibly hate and fear the Iranians even more than the Iranians hate and fear us).

Because of Iraq's location between Iran and Syria, our troops in Iraq make the supply and coordination of Iran's various proxy groups in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza more difficult and potentially more vulnerable.

Any direct assault on our allies by Iran would have to navigate past/over/around/through a large US occupied zone to their west.

If it becomes necessary to attack Iran, we have the men, material and installations already in place to do so.

In the past, Oil wealth in the ME has been monopolized or threatened by brutal dictators who use the money and influence to spread radical, violent ideologies, threaten and destabalize other countries, and support islamist groups and militias which do not believe in freedom and often attack their host countries. Our troops are also in Iraq to make sure that Iraq's oil does not fall under the control of, and can't be threatened by, unfriendly groups and regimes -not now and not in the future.

Also, our leaders believe that if we can help bring into being just one stable, democratic, friendly country in the ME, it will change the dynamic of the whole region and then other countries in the area will begin to move toward self-governance and moderation as well. In this way, the United States hopes to take momentum and power away from the worst groups and regimes and make everyone in the world safer, but especially for those who believe in freedom.

It's a very risky plan, and it's too early to know if it will work. But Iraq now has a fairly friendly, democratically elected government and our troops, along with the Iraqis, have seriously damaged and discredited one of the very worst islamist groups in the world, Al Qaeda, which had mobilized a very large effort against us and also against the new Iraqi government at the time of the invasion.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

how's that?

We can think of all the rosy ways to communicate war to our kids we want.
If I were you, I'd start thinking about having your sons and daughter go to Canada or Mexico. Seems like Republican Neocons are eager for war with Iran.
Just saw the latest thing coming out of the Pentagon supposedly that Iran has missiles which could reach Europe. Sounds like the Neocon arguments that Iraq could've nuked us and used drone planes to do other dirty work. Oh and remember the mobile chemical weapons labs?
Actually, the Bush administration wanted to start offices of disinformation after 911. I'm not making this up.
I'm not real sure that Western Europeans are shaking in their boots over Iran. And I'm really not thinking that I buy it.
Being that our military is overstretched by all media accounts, even FOX news, - I'd say that if McCain does bomb Iran (he jokingly hummed/sung 'Bomb Iran' to the Beach Boys tune with the rhyming title), kids will eventually be plucked from their fathers out of the burbs and rural areas. (*Note: McCain has also said the al Qaeda is in Iran - so what do ya think of that folks?)
Maybe we can ask these questions with our kids to get them to think critically: Will China and Russia sit idle while the U.S. and possibly NATO occupies Iran and border countries Iraq to the west, and Afghanistan to the east? Is it fair to just draft poor kids and let the rich kids get college deferments like Cheney had? Should we start really thinking of alternative energy and conservation or are wasteful things like SUVs worth dying for?

My suggestion is that now would be a fine time for Rod to explicitly take a new tack on Iraq, rather than note progress only backhandedly, as in his "Iraqui sovereignty" post of several days ago.

There's no new tack to take. We've turned over the country to a mix of Shia and Sunni Islamists. The big winner in this war is still Iran. It was SCIRI and Dawa who came in from Iran after we invaded, and now they rule the roost. This was not worth the lives of 4,000 American soldiers, or the tens of thousands of soldiers maimed, or the over hundred thousand Iraqis killed and the millions of refugees created.

Slightly more seriously, it is once again proof of the adage that because the internet is forever, be careful what you scribble on it.

Well, almost forever. I'm sure Rod's glad that we can't peruse his DMN editorial staff blog entries from 2003.

Slightly more seriously, it is once again proof of the adage that because the internet is forever, be careful what you scribble on it.

Why? The purpose of an internet blooger like Rod and others is filler, like that expanding foam you buy in a can and squirt into cracks around your windows. How is being "right" any different than being "wrong"?

Straight up, Rod - what did you think about the surge before it was implemented?

I suspect that JPL and I don't agree on much else, but it takes an immense level of koolaid drinking stupidity to assert that we are SAFER today than we were the day before we invaded Iraq.

Back then I described that fools errand as going half-way 'round the world to stomp on a nest of rattlesnakes.

But stupid is as stupid does, and there's a whole lotta stupid in my Stupid Party.

Here's an a grown-up alternative argument:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/why-iraq-was-inevitable-11456

Awaiting a list all the successful attacks by Islamic terrorist groups in the U.S the last few years

Also awaiting a list of all successful attacks by shape-shifting reptilians in the U.S. in the last few years.

(I guess it will come right after the apologies from all those who said the Chariots of the Gods is bunk, that tinfoil hats won't work, etc.)

Here's my response to the text that he posted from Rod:

I have a problem with, "So President Bush thought if we can just get rid of the bad dictators in the Middle East, where the Arab Muslims live, then they people would see they could have a better life by living like we do, and they would want to be just like us. "

It should have read, "So President Bush thought if we can just get rid of the bad dictators in the Middle East, where the Arab Muslims live, then people would be able to realize their God-given right to live freely in a democracy, which could be set up and established in accordance with their customs to fit their lives."

Rod wrote: "So President Bush and his advisers got everybody to think that Iraq might have been behind the 9/11 attacks, or might come do something like that to us again."

It Should be: "So President Bush, after reviewing the best known intelligence at the time that had been collected by the US and other allies (Britain, Russia, NATO, etc), enforced the consequences of 17 different United Nations security council resolutions, which clearly stipulated that military force would be used against Iraq."

Rod wrote: "The idea is that if the people were more like us, they wouldn't hate us. And the idea was that all people deep down want to be like us."

It should be: "The idea is that democracies don't go to war with one another because they are too busy being free and being prosperous."

Rod wrote: "So we attacked Iraq and destroyed the Iraqi government, and got rid of the evil Saddam Hussein. But then things went wrong. It turned out that not all the people were glad we were there. It turned out that the people of Iraq didn't really want to be like us, not most of them. They wanted to be like themselves, and they hated having a foreign army in their country."

It should read, "So we attacked Iraq and destroyed the Iraqi government, and got rid of the evil Saddam Hussein. Things weren't perfect. No war is perfect. In this case, Iraq became a magnet for every Muslim extremist who ever had a poster of Osama hanging in his room growing up. In fact, so many foreign fighters flooded into Iraq to destabilize the situation, that it was just about an all out regional civil war. This was really bad. What was worse, Iraq's neighbor Iran, provided weapons and money to the foreign fighters to further deteriorate the situation. It turned out that the Iraqis needed our help even more - so much that when we asked them if they'd like us to leave, they said 'no -we still need you here', and haven't asked us to leave yet."

Rod wroteL "A lot of these were really bad people, especially the crazy Muslim ones who used their religion to justify killing our soldiers, Iraqi people who weren't Muslims, and Iraqi people who weren't the right kind of Muslims.

He should add, "When all the Muslims were fighting each other, they were too damn busy to realize that an actual democracy had been set up around them. Some realized it, but just boycotted it because they didn't understand that getting involved gave them a meaningful stake in their country and in their futures. One group of Muslims participated in the democracy before the other groups - and they started getting the picture. Now most of the groups are participating - so much so that they are becoming more in charge of stabilizing their own country again. They have a long way to go. Things are not perfect yet. It's even quite interesting to see a democracy being born and not too hard to imagine our own democracy when it was originally set up. Heck, ours took a good 35 or 40 years to really get set up. We had violence and bloodshed too - but it eventually got formed into the democracy that we wanted it to. And, it's still not done."

Rod wrote: "The war did us no real good, and ended up helping our enemy Iran."

It should read, "The war, despite helping our enemy Iran in the short term, may prove to be the formative watershed moment that began a generation-long transformation of the Middle East. Provided that we show resolve to stick with the sometimes painful and costly transformation, your kids may live to see the Middle East the way it once was in the 7th century, before radical extremism took over Islam like a cancer - and help it back to being the shining star of culture and civilization."

Rod wrote: "It's easier for the people of a country to agree to go to war when they don't have to go themselves, or know anybody doing the fighting; and that sometimes a country has no choice but to fight a war, but a country really really really should only go to war as a last resort."

It should read, "It's easy for a country to go to war when we think it's going to be cake walk. We should have studied things a bit more. But, it's also easy to play Monday Morning Quarterback too. There were alot of well respected people from both political parties that agreed to go to war based on the best intelligence at the time. Heck, nobody took the decision lightly. We even have a Presidential Candidate today (John McCain), who's own son is fighting in Iraq on this very day, who was in on the decision making. He was one of the men who voted to goto war, knowing full well his own son may some day have to fight there. What noble and honorable men we have leading this great country that would even follow principal if it meant their own children would have to wage war!"