Hawkish Voices Urging Action Against Russia Didn’t Lose Any Credibility After Cheerleading Iraq War

The most bellicose commentators on the current situation in Ukraine are pretty much exactly the same crew who zealously cheer-led for the illegal and deranged invasion of Iraq in 2003. Disappointingly, nobody thinks it appropriate to bring this up…as if it doesn’t affect their credibility in the slightest.

The immediate consequences of the war of Iraq were disastrous and the long-term geo-political consequences for the U.S. similarly so. This has been exhaustively poured over, without so much as a blushing of the cheeks from these pro-war stalwarts.

Less considered are the horrible consequences for Iraq right now and going forward. The U.S.-backed dictator Nouri al-Maliki is ruling the country with an iron fist, putting his political opponents in jail, torturing prisoners, crushing free speech, and so on. The advocates of “democracy promotion” in Iraq, somehow, don’t have to answer for the fact that the Iraqi parliament is now considering imposing new laws that would allow girls to be forced into arranged marriages from the age of nine.

Al-Qaeda, which had no presence in Iraq before the U.S. war, is sticking to Iraq’s Sunni provinces now like a malignant cancer, helping destabilize not just Iraq but Syria.

That’s all insignificant and obviously doesn’t reflect on their ability to properly analyze the U.S.-Russian relations in the aftermath of the Ukraine crisis…right?

A recent Reuters “Special Report” details horrendous atrocities committed by U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces, including extra-judicial executions of suspected terrorists and gruesome mutilations of dead bodies right out in public. Meanwhile, a Sunni-Shia civil war simmers just below the boiling point, with gun battles and car bombs an increasingly ordinary part of Iraqi life. More civilians were killed in 2013 than in any year since the war supposedly ended.

The brainless warmongers who helped turn American opinion in favor of invading Iraq are now stirring up indignation among millions of cable news watchers who now believe the U.S. must take aggressive action to rectify the situation in Ukraine. Their past records are irrelevant.

Stephen Walt summed up the issue rather well on Twitter yesterday:

23 thoughts on “Hawkish Voices Urging Action Against Russia Didn’t Lose Any Credibility After Cheerleading Iraq War”

  1. The chicken hawks within the us political arena are not aware that for Iraq to be invaded by that miserable English Labour Party leader Tony Blair and Bush Neo fascism lies, it took the Iraqi sanction
    14 years, killed more then a million baby's and over another million Iraqi for Iraq to surrender. Hitler was able to kill 10 million Russians before he and his follower, as these chicken hawks, were defeated by Russians people army and European resistance, what these people are asking is yet another inhuman wars against humanity, so if USG and these chicken hawks and their European colleagues can afford 240 years of sanction against Russia, or rest of the world then what they are waiting for, send in their children and let them start their "actions" against Russia.

  2. I agree. But it's 'pored over,' not 'poured over,' unless you're talking about a liquid.

  3. It is very interesting distinction: if you shout in full movie teather "Fire!" you can be prosecuted for false alarm if in following panic somebody dies, if you say on pages of New York Times or Washington Post pages or on Fox and/or CNN live broadcast Saddam has the WMD's or you have had warned the citizens for thirty years – "Iran will have nuclear weapon next week". and if the nation goes for your stupid statements to war in which hundreds of thousands die it is called "free spech" No consequences, no responsibility..

  4. This call blame game politics.We don't like that.And I can say Russia is not good for peace.Russian politics is very bad.Now at this moment we want peace in Ukraine.

  5. Al-Qaeda, which had no presence in Iraq before the U.S. war, is sticking to Iraq’s Sunni provinces now like a malignant cancer, helping destabilize not just Iraq but Syria. Thank information Kizi

  6. ??? ??? ????? ???? ?????? ?????? ??? ????? ??????? ??? ?? ??? ??????? ????????.:UE NOW

  7. UAnother costly war anywhere for ?the U.S. will surely be s road to ruin and accelerate our already slow decline as superpower. To want to even contemplate any kind of war aiding Ukraine in Russia:s backyard would be geopolitical suicide for America and possible suicide for ?the whole world. Russia is not Iraq or Afghanistan. ?the hawkish neo-cons better realize that and maybe they do and don’t care, thinking Putin and Russia to vulnerable to other forces. If they are willing to gamble and be that foolish we are indeed under ?the rule and influence of fools and God help us.

  8. It's the holocaust 'diner'.

    Europe pays in cash, the rest of the world in kind. America 'waits' and 'busses table',
    Israel runs the till.

  9. Of course, everyone knows (unless they are in serious denial) that “democracy promotion” was not the reason for the illegal invasion of Iraq.

  10. Great article, Stephen Walt, professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government — the school whose dean/president succumbed to pro-war drum beating before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which was thereby condoned by this prestigious institution.

    A professor at the school in March of 2003 told me then that, while the overwhelming sentiment of faculty and students at Harvard was anti-war, the school's leaders and most professors were unwilling to speak out because, he explained, they were unwilling to jeopardize their prospects for appointments to government jobs.

    Are you willing to equally undress the sell-outs at Harvard? And name names?

  11. Pingback: Walt’s Law |
  12. Al-Qaeda, which had no presence in Iraq before the U.S. war, is sticking to Iraq’s Sunni provinces now like a malignant cancer, helping destabilize not just Iraq but Syria. Thank information were good blog

  13. The Obama administration has been slowly – and very quietly – peppering the U.S. military throughout the continent and putting hundreds of millions of dollars into the pockets of government contractors to build the necessary infrastructure for a permanent U.S. military presence.

  14. The Obama administration has been slowly a?? and very quietly a?? peppering the U.S. military throughout the continent and putting hundreds of millions of dollars into the pockets of government contractors to build the necessary infrastructure for a permanent U.S. military presence.

  15. The one downside with the truth that persons are no longer considering for themselves is that the technology is turning into society. This means info know-how has new safety instruments, supply the highly effective guarantee for growth of the computer conferencing and E-enterprise. With the constant evolution of technology, retail level of sale techniques have gotten an integral a part of the retail sector. http://www.mundo-afora.com/

Comments are closed.