Stanley Kutler: Our ‘Dumb Wars’ Will Go On
[Stanley Kutler is the author of “The Wars of Watergate” and other writings.]
“It is time to turn the page,” President Barack Obama said as he announced the “end” of combat operations in Iraq. Meanwhile, those who brought us that unnecessary war remain committed to such policies and, if returned to power, are likely to carry them out. Sadly, the president neither confronted nor repudiated his critics. They are shameless and unrepentant for designing the Iraq War, and they now call for a resumption of the policies that have resulted in a series of long, bloody and eventually unwinnable wars. It was not just the time to mark the departure of American troops; it was also the president’s moment to forcefully challenge and repudiate the policies that led us into what he once called “dumb wars.” He took a pass.
The day of the president’s speech, Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolton anticipated and criticized Obama and reiterated why we went to war. Wolfowitz had the prime space of the New York Times Op-Ed page, while Bolton appeared in the Daily Beast, with his usual meat ax, in a piece entitled “Obama’s Lose-Lose Policy.”
Wolfowitz, it should be remembered, promised that American soldiers would be welcomed as liberators, that Iraqi oil would pay the costs of the war, that occupation would be as easy as that of post-1945 Germany and Japan, and that Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki (who would be dismissed) was “wildly off the mark” when he estimated that an occupation would require several hundred thousand troops. Wolfowitz simply failed to anticipate the Iraqis’ now seven-year-long “insurgency.”...
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“It is time to turn the page,” President Barack Obama said as he announced the “end” of combat operations in Iraq. Meanwhile, those who brought us that unnecessary war remain committed to such policies and, if returned to power, are likely to carry them out. Sadly, the president neither confronted nor repudiated his critics. They are shameless and unrepentant for designing the Iraq War, and they now call for a resumption of the policies that have resulted in a series of long, bloody and eventually unwinnable wars. It was not just the time to mark the departure of American troops; it was also the president’s moment to forcefully challenge and repudiate the policies that led us into what he once called “dumb wars.” He took a pass.
The day of the president’s speech, Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolton anticipated and criticized Obama and reiterated why we went to war. Wolfowitz had the prime space of the New York Times Op-Ed page, while Bolton appeared in the Daily Beast, with his usual meat ax, in a piece entitled “Obama’s Lose-Lose Policy.”
Wolfowitz, it should be remembered, promised that American soldiers would be welcomed as liberators, that Iraqi oil would pay the costs of the war, that occupation would be as easy as that of post-1945 Germany and Japan, and that Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki (who would be dismissed) was “wildly off the mark” when he estimated that an occupation would require several hundred thousand troops. Wolfowitz simply failed to anticipate the Iraqis’ now seven-year-long “insurgency.”...