Rank Incompetence
In commenting on my earlier post about the “Energy” bill that Bush will sign into law today in order to hand out lots of my money and your money to the poor, destitute energy companies, he asks why I threw in the comment about Bush & co. being incompetent, given that oil has doubled in price to $60/barrel since we invaded Iraq.
The subtext is:
Rumsfeld wanted to engage in an experiment to test his theory that he could invade and conquer Iraq with a greater reliance on technology than on troop strength & numbers.
The problem is, you can’t occupy a country with laser beams and expect it to remain remotely stable. That’s incompetent.
When the administration sold us this war, they said Iraq had so much oil it could pay for its own occupation, and then some. That hasn’t happened - not by a very long shot. (The AEI neocon cretin who suggested this was promoted to head of the World Bank).
So the insurgency has stymied oil production and exportation due to the fact that our occupying force hasn’t the ability to maintain a semblance of law & order in the country. In the meantime, OPEC has been playing games with oil supply, driving the price way up. Despite what Bush said in 2000, he either has no political will, or not enough political clout, to convince OPEC to do very much about it. We have to go begging to Bush’s Saudi buddies with whom he holds hands like Oliver Twist asking for more gruel.
Even though the war was allegedly not about oil, part of the sales pitch was that Iraqi oil sales with sanctions lifted would help us and them.
With a jump from $1.55 to $2.30/gallon, I’d say their sales pitch was so off the mark that it was false advertising. (Maybe Spitzer should investigate).
Maybe - just maybe, Rumsfeld should have listened to the generals and put more boots on the ground. Maybe, just maybe, the US could have taken Blix at face value: he told us in late 2002 that there was no evidence of WMD or WMD programs in Iraq, yet that was the justification for war. The administration and its mouthpieces called Blix an Iraqi lapdog who couldn’t be trusted. Well, 150,000 US troops occupying Iraq didn’t find any WMDs either. The US and its AEI neocon overlords owe Blix an apology.
Maybe - just maybe, US diplomats and the administration could have persuaded other countries to join the Iraqi campaign using tactics other than public insults.
I drank the Kool-Aid in 2002-2003 and advocated for the war due to Iraq’s continued refusal to abide by SC resolutions based on WMDs. But it was all bullshit, and this administration hasn’t done anything meaningful to whip the CIA into shape since then. In fact, Bush’s and Cheney’s chief advisors are accused of leaking the name of a covert CIA agent in an act of political revenge.
You know, it’s one thing to trust the President was telling the truth when he claims not have had sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. It’s another thing altogether to trust that the President was telling the truth when he claimed that our intelligence service and MI6 all agreed that Saddam definitely, absolutely has WMDs despite the fact that weapons inspectors hadn’t found any.
Hadn’t found any despite the fact that Blix was going to the precise locations that the US claimed had those weapons.
It’s like high school and we’re run by a really mean and really fucking stupid clique. The movie Heathers comes to mind.
All things considered, I’ll take a President who relies more on realpolitik than ideology - even if he does get a hummer in a room off the Oval Office and doesn’t admit it to a press gaggle.
