Richard N. Haass: Why Did We Go To Iraq?

View the entire video at: http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/
Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass visited Zócalo to explain the motives and decision-making process behind the Iraq war.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• zocalo
• public square
• lecture series
• Richard haass
• Iraq
• war
• international policy
• bush
• George w
• Condoleezza rice
• colin powell
• state department
• defense
• Afghanistan
• terrorism
• 9/11

[menzerna1234]

An American President's overall objective is simple: TO GET RE-ELECTED.

And to get re-elected, he has to execute many grandiose "projects" that makes him look great. This is what American corporate giants do overseas. US expats get posted in a country for 3yrs, and during that 3 yrs, he has to make himself look like THE Hero there.....with NO consideration of what happens after he leaves that country's American subsidiary.

Typical American culture.

You guys fucked yourselves.

[sdxn2400134]

The neocon goals were to spread democracy through the Middle East and to have a military presence (bases) throughout the world. Following the attacks on 9/11, conditions were favorable to the neocon goals. However, the neocons in the Bush administration needed to justify the invasion. Since what they wanted to do is illegal and morally questionable (invading a sovereign country to overthrow the government and establish a democracy), they had to come up with a pretext.

[sdxn2400134]

They decided the pretext would be WMD and they set out to gather "evidence" that Saddam had WMD. There are other reasons for the war too: Bush wanted to be the heroic president who overthrew Saddam, the war helped him to get re-elected (did you notice the rush to war: how they were in such a rush to invade Iraq and win the war before the Nov 2003 elections?), and being in a state of war give the Bush administration a great deal of power to do as they pleased.

[Rickdeckard2020]

to put it another way. Water in a sinking ship is not THE problem its A problem. If you focus on water "I blame the water which is responsible for our sinking" you may miss the Hole in the hull and the reef that's outside the ship that caused it, in which case fixing the water problem symptom itself with a bucket is useless because more water will flow in and more holes can be caused.

if that doesnt help you might want to read

War is a Racket

by Smedley Butler for another point of view, cheers

[Reptile0000]

@Rickdeckard2020 :S so the person who commits crime (kill people) isn't responsible for his actions? A murderer isn't responsible for a murder if he's tricked into it? Would you not blame suicide bombers for killing innocent civilians because they are programmed to kill people believing they will go to the heaven? Am I missing a simple point here?

[Rickdeckard2020]

@Reptile0000

Because the people doing the lying are Much more responsible.

ex: if a news-anchor stands to gain if innocent mr.X(your brother) gets killed and announces on TV that innocent mr.X is dangerous and carries a belt of explosives, if someone sees this cast and shoots mr.X, the news anchor did not shoot but has criminal intent while the executor thinks hes defending people. Will you blame the shooter who's cluless or the newsanchor whose criminal intent was the catalyst for the crime?

[Reptile0000]

@Rickdeckard2020 why wouldn't you set soldiers responsible for innocents children and women's deaths? Just curious about the reasoning behind your view, why wouldn't you?

[Rickdeckard2020]

thousands have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, I dont blame the soldiers doing the dying but I wont hold back on the warmongers doing the LYING.

Haass, Feifh, Kristol, Perle and others are warmongering CHILD MURDERERS, suit&tie vermin for whom execution is too good, they should be dropped over Iran with a parachute saying we want to bomb your men women and children next.

911 link was a LIE, WMD LIE, lies reused to fool people into supporting another war for oil, israel, petro$ & profiteering

[seanpdaly]

What has 9/11 and iraq have in common???? and what about weapons of mass destruction??

[franz909]

Ahhhh , bush wanted to " shape history " and " bring democracy " to Iraq . Few problems w/ that disinfo , A. Bush never said it before illegally invading , none of that shapin history stuff or democracy stuff . B. WMD's Haass , WMDS .

And if you want to democratize , which we had no legal right to kill 500,ooo people even if it were true , you don't plan the economic take over , by changing their Business laws , banks 100% foreign owned now . Where were the Iraqis in that decision , LIAR ?