We're Forgetting Every Lesson From Iraq and Afghanistan

[bronxiteforever]

Daily Beast
By DAVID AXE
05.14.18 4:41 AM ET

I’ve never forgotten Iraq. But America apparently has forgotten. In 2003 we ignored our allies’ warnings, shrugged off a working inspection regime, and went to war on the basis of anger and lies. With President Donald Trump’s rejection of the Iran nuclear deal, we’re repeating that tragic past. I remember what happens next. Do you?

Do you think the U.S. military today has the capacity to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan, ISIS in Syria, and al Qaeda’s spinoffs all over the world plus deter Russia in Europe and China in the Western Pacific, and go to war with Iran over its nuclear program?

Maybe it does. But can it wage all those wars without resorting to overwhelming, undiscerning force? Imagine how many innocent civilians would die. Remember, please, how many civilians have already died in our wars...Forget the dead at your peril, because everyone has friends and family.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/were-forgetting-every-lesson-from-iraq-and-afghanistan?ref=scroll

Powerful piece from a former war correspondent.

[still_one]

1. We actually helped create AQ when Reagan provided aid and supplies to the mujahideen in Afghanistan

to counter the Russian presence there

Reagan also supplied arms and aid to both Iran and Iraq to push both countries to engage in a bloody 8 year war where millions were killed. Perhaps some don't remember how friendly we were to Saddam Hussein at the time.

As the OP stated the second Iraq war was based on lie, but the dirty little secret is that the first gulf war was the result of either unintentional or intentional miscommunication by our ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, when Hussein called the ambassador to complain about Kuwait territorial dispute, and directly asked the ambassador the U.S. position if Iraq went into Kuwait with troops over the dispute. The Ambassador informed Hussein the U.S. would NOT involve itself in that dispute, which effectively gave a green light to Hussein to send troops into the disputed area.

[dameatball]

2. Interesting. I did not know that.

[still_one]

3. This was first televised on a PBS frontline, and most newspapers mentioned it, but it sure didn't

get the headlines it deserved:

"Eight days before his Aug. 2, 1990, invasion of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein met with April Glaspie, then America's ambassador to Iraq. It was the last high-level contact between the two countries before Iraq went to war.

From a translation of Iraq's transcript of the meeting, released that September, press and pundits concluded that Ms. Glaspie had (in effect) given Saddam a green light to invade.

"We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts," the transcript reports Glaspie saying, "such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary [of State James] Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction ... that Kuwait is not associated with America."

https://www.csmonitor.com/1999/0527/p23s3.html

In fact the Congressional Human Rights testimonies were a snow job to sell the war:

"That’s where a hearing held by the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in October 1990 played a major role in making the case for war.
A young woman who gave only her first name, Nayira, testified that she had been a volunteer at Kuwait’s al-Adan hospital, where she had seen Iraqi troops rip scores of babies out of incubators, leaving them “to die on the cold floor.” Between tears, she described the incident as “horrifying.”
Her account was a bombshell. Portions of her testimony were aired that evening on ABC’s “Nightline” and NBC’s “Nightly News.” Seven US senators cited her testimony in speeches urging Americans to support the war, and George HW Bush repeated the story on 10 separate occasions in the weeks that followed.
In 2002, Tom Regan wrote about his own family’s response to the story for The Christian Science Monitor:
I can still recall my brother Sean’s face. It was bright red. Furious. Not one given to fits of temper, Sean was in an uproar. He was a father, and he had just heard that Iraqi soldiers had taken scores of babies out of incubators in Kuwait City and left them to die. The Iraqis had shipped the incubators back to Baghdad. A pacifist by nature, my brother was not in a peaceful mood that day. “We’ve got to go and get Saddam Hussein. Now,” he said passionately.
Subsequent investigations by Amnesty International, a division of Human Rights Watch and independent journalists would show that the story was entirely bogus — a crucial piece of war propaganda the American media swallowed hook, line and sinker. Iraqi troops had looted Kuwaiti hospitals, but the gruesome image of babies dying on the floor was a fabrication."



https://billmoyers.com/2014/06/27/the-first-iraq-war-was-also-sold-to-the-public-based-on-a-pack-of-lies/