Christopher Hitchens on the Iraq war in 2008

>"The liberation of Iraq - in other words the decision that we had to move the Iraqi people and the region into a post-Saddam era - will stand, I'm convinced, as one of the greatest decisions of American statecraft, as one of the things that American soldiers, male and female, the politicians who voted for it, and those who've defended it, will be proudest of in the future of any decision we've ever made."

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>Israeli statecraft
ftfy

You mean the guy who spoke up against Allah and His people and got punished with throat cancer? :^)

wtf i love how the Iraq war turned out now.

Why didn't this coward enlist then?

Go back to 2008 and you'll find far greater numbers of supporters for the Iraq War. It was only after the Arab Spring that we saw it was all Saudi-led to destabilised the entire Middle East to extend Saudi Islamic power

>statecraft

If America stayed in Iraq and TOOK THE FUCKING OIL it would have gone down as one of America's more amazing war victories. As it stands it was a clusterfuck because a decaying society tried to politely kill their enemies and it ended in the most powerful military in the world pulling back from an entire country they took in 2 months.

Modern Americans make me sick. George Washington would smack the shit out of every one of you for being bitches.

Beat me to it.

Of course but he goes way above and beyond merely supporting it at the time.

>"Will stand as one of the greatest decisions...one of the things [Americans] will be proudest of in the future of any decision we've ever made"

To be fair he was over 50 when Iraq happened lad.

Did he send some friend? Some son or nephew?

Fair enough, I like Hitchens but he's essentially our version of insane Libertarians in the US and says some stupid shit

>overthrow Sunni dictator
>establish Shia dictator to take his place, so we can fight Al-quesadilla in Iraq and not Sadar, who actually is far more disruptive
>have to work with Iran, Kurds, and Syria to stabilize country enough to leave
>actually u know what guys, let's fuck up Syria and the rest of the Middle East by encouraging democracy with embargos and no fly zones
>be surprised when surviving cells of AQI and other jihadis seize territory in the Sunni durkas areas of Syria,
>be surprised when they cross the border into Iraq
>be surprised that the Sunni units of Iraqi army don't fight Sunni insurgency and let Fallujah fall
>be surprised that the country who's army you rolled over twice due to incompetence of military culture gets rolled over by a non-substantial militia group
>be surprised they have Abrams and m-16s
>be surprised when they go into Libya, Yemen, and Afghanistan
>be surprised that they take land there too
>be surprised that all you've accomplished with this grand master chess move is that Iran is now more hostile towards you and more powerful, that Saudi Arabia is weaker and on the verge of collapse, and that the rest of the Middle East will almost certainly never trust you or want to work with you for a long time

>from a former position of realitivly increasing cooperation with the Arab world


THE BEST EXAMPLE OF AMERICAN STATECRAFT

tbqh the only thing keeping 50 year olds from doing most military jobs is that 50 year olds aren't stupid enough to do shitty, boring, and dangerous work for poverty wages.

to be fair a lot of that came after 2008 under Obama who surely has to go down as one of the worst foreign policy presidents of all time

>he thinks 50 year old bodies can withstand grunt work

>we are literally electing to continue his foreign policy or not

I want to die this election cycle senpai. Thing is I'm not solid republican, if there was any democrat that ran from congress that distanced himself from Obamas state department I might actually have voted democrat, (Bernie didn't even try to clarify his positions, that's why I always saw him as a fake candidate)

That said though, we probably would have had to stay in Iraq for 40 years or more to actually change the culture substantially to where it would be conducive to democracy and not horrible despotism. But that's an insane proposal to almost everybody.

>But that's an insane proposal to almost everybody.

Allied occupation forces have been in Germany for more than 70 years now. You could argue that it was because of the Soviets but the Americans also kept bases in Italy as well. If we had fully committed to a long-term occupation strategy we probably wouldn't be dealing with ISIS right now. But unfortunately people seemed to like the meme of 'pulling out of Iraq'.

It was some disgusting compromise that turned out to be a worse decision than going in, in the first place. Blood for oil was basically a "conspiracy theory"

Arab states are intentionally hard to occupy, Islam has made it so. The best authoritarian militaristic ideology ever created was Islam. Incorporate that into the Arab tribal culture and you have a resistance to foreign powers on steroids.

Fuck even other Muslims struggled conquering Muslim countries and had to slaughter half the populace

I mean our entire political culture is one of pandering and then acting like it wasn't your fault for pandering to emotional noisy children who turn on you regardless. So you know. Stuff.

Yeah I don't know what's so bad about taking over management of vital resources. Iraq under U.S. management with an unlimited flow of oil that is pumped by U.S. companies for a fair value that is used 100% for public works, infrastructure updates, and farming upgrades would have made Iraq into a decent place. Sadly we're going to have to wait at least 2 generations before we get another opportunity like this.