The Atlantic:James Fallows=Bush's Lost Year-GREAT-on how IRAQ WAR hurt USA

[papau]

Topic A with Tina Brown mentioned this - a quiet damning article with all the facts that should make anyone Know, in the media or the electorate of the media will inform them, about how Bush has been the worse President, in terms of US Security, that we have ever had. A detailed look at the reasons the Bush Iraq decision was not only based on lies, but was stupid and dangerous and foolish and has made us much less safe in a world of terror. One more way President Gore, if allowed to take office, would have been better for the USA.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200410/fallows

The Atlantic Monthly | October 2004


Bush's Lost Year

By deciding to invade Iraq, the Bush Administration decided not to do many other things: not to reconstruct Afghanistan, not to deal with the threats posed by North Korea and Iran, and not to wage an effective war on terror. An inventory of opportunities lost
by James Fallows

.....

I remember distinctly the way 2002 began in Washington. New Year's Day was below freezing and blustery. The next day was worse. That day, January 2, I trudged several hundred yards across the vast parking lots of the Pentagon. I was being pulled apart by the wind and was ready to feel sorry for myself, until I was shamed by the sight of miserable, frozen Army sentries at the numerous outdoor security posts that had been manned non-stop since the September 11 attacks.

I was going for an interview with Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense. At the time, Wolfowitz's name and face were not yet familiar worldwide. He was known in Washington for offering big-picture explanations of the Administration's foreign-policy goals—a task for which the President was unsuited, the Vice President was unavailable, and most other senior Administration officials were, for various reasons, inappropriate. The National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was still playing a background role; the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was mainly dealing with immediate operational questions in his daily briefings about the war in Afghanistan; the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, was already known to be on the losing side of most internal policy struggles.<snip>

[papau]

1. WHAT IF WE HAD NOT GONE INTO IRAQ? By Richard Reeves

WHAT IF WE HAD NOT GONE INTO IRAQ?


By Richard Reeves

WASHINGTON -- I have thought for a long time that communism would have collapsed in the 1970s rather than at the end of the 1980s if the United States had not chosen to go to war in Vietnam. We squandered years of moral, political, financial and military capital in jungles and rice paddies we could not name, much less "conquer" or "liberate."

Because of that, a couple of sentences in the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly seem etched in stone more than slapped on paper. James Fallows, the magazine's national editor, in an article titled "Bush's Lost Year," writes of spending the past two years with military, intelligence and diplomatic personnel at the "working level of America's anti-terrorism efforts." Most are Republicans, he says; many supported the decision to invade Iraq (news - web sites) in March 2003. Next he writes:

"I have sat through arguments among soldiers and scholars about whether the invasion of Iraq should be considered the worst strategic error in American history -- or only the worst since Vietnam. Many say things in Iraq will eventually look much better than they do now. But about the conduct and effect of the war in Iraq one view prevails: It has increased the threats America faces, and has reduced the military, financial and diplomatic tools with which we can respond."

Among the many people quoted in the Atlantic is Jeffrey Record, a professor of strategy at the Army War College, who summed up a good deal of the thinking in Washington now: "Are we better off in basic security than before we invaded Iraq? The answer is no. An unnecessary war has consumed American Army and other ground resources, to the point where we have nothing left in the cupboard for another contingency -- for instance, should the North Koreans decide that with the Americans completely absorbed in Iraq, now is the time to do something."

(more)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ucrr/20040913/cm_ucrr/whatifwehadnotgoneintoiraq

[gulliver]

2. I'm not ready to forgive Fallows for his hit piece on Gore in 2000.

I dumped The Atlantic Monthly when Michael Kelly published an article by Fallows in 2000 criticizing Gore as a bloodthirsty debater. The cover was a picture of Gore with fangs. Fallows allowed as how he "liked Gore less" after reviewing Gore's debates.

Michael Kelly ruined the Atlantic Monthly. I dumped my subscription shortly afterward because the articles which were once so cultured and intelligent turned into right-wing biased sludge.

Kelly, of course, died in Iraq. Maybe it is time to check out the Atlantic again. I miss the articles on cheese.

[KoKo]

4. Maybe Kelly's death affected Fallows...although I've given up thinking

that any of these "Beltway" writers care about anything but their status and presitige with their own little "group think" crowd.

I know what you mean about Fallows. So many writers I used to enjoy reading now make me barf once I saw where their real loyalties are. It took Clinton's last term, Gore and now Bush, for them to reveal themselves. ugh.

Need some new folks out there.

[buycitgo]

5. me either.....PLUS he says that Bush has NEVER lost a debate!

WTF was he watching in 2000? did he just listen to the pundits, who said he won, and not actually watch himself?

he's a real jagoff, with a very strange agenda

[KoKo]

3. "President Gore." Oh...the misery I think we could have been saved, if

not for Florida and our weak Daschle...

"President Gore."