US Invasion in Iraq
November 6, 2006 8:00pm by Barry Ritholtz
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I was innitially very hawkish about the war. I even went so far as to argue that any non-democratic government was evil and deserving of ‘regime change’. The infeasability of that position never dawned on me.
I think my biggest problem with the Republicans is the total ineptitude with which they have handled the war. We went into Iraq, and overthrew the civil government. We can debate till we are blue in the face about whether or not that particular government deserved to be overthrown.
The take away point is that at that moment, we, the US, became the civil authority in Iraq. Providing for the security and well-being of the people of that country then became our *moral* duty. We failed to do so, and hundreds of thousands of people have died as a direct result.
No, our troops didnt directly kill them for the most part, but we aided and abetted through our inaction and incompetence.
The US needs to get out of the area to make room for the guys with the blue helmets. And they should stick us with the bill, because it is, in a nutshell, our fault.
‘We’ didn’t fail anything. It is the Bush administration and all those who enabled them that failed. ‘We’ are not morally responsible for the criminal acts the administration. ‘We’ may end up paying the price for their crimes, but don’t confuse that with being culpable. Bush and his administration lied to us to garner our support for an illegal, immoral and unjust war on Iraq. When ‘we’ found out we were lied to, ‘we’ withdrew our support.
dude….
go to his site and then hit stock…then search with no keywords and see this guys whole portfolio…
This is awesome…thanks for the turn on!!!!
Is this an endorsement of John Kerry?
Wait a minute: I thought the the initial reason that the US went to Iraq was because the country had weapons of mass destruction??? Then it turned into since we are in the country we might as well remove your government as well.
I agree with the previous poster, the Bush administration has failed numerous tasks and embarassed its citizens as well. Remember the governments reaction to Katrina???? Or how about Bush declaring the war over??? hmm what about putting 60 troops on the ground when Bin Laden was trapped in the mountains? Sounds like a responsible government to me.
Whatever happened to domestic issues- like healthcare, education, the economy (and no you don’t gauge its health by the stock market at new highs despite what the media wants us to believe). How come China is sprinting ahead of the US?
I’m from Canada, but having taken many history classes at uni about the US I know enough to say YOU DESERVE BETTER….. make sure your votes count tomorrow no matter what way you are voting!
“Providing for the security and well-being of the people of that country then became our *moral* duty. We failed to do so, and hundreds of thousands of people have died as a direct result. No, our troops didnt directly kill them for the most part, but we aided and abetted through our inaction and incompetence.”
The above statements are very bizarre and almost delusional false believes marked by severe loss of contact with reality.
Here is some reality from a US Army infantryman recently returned from Iraq:
“…A little bit of history for those who don’t know. Iraq has no concept of national unity or patriotism. Islam is divided up into two major sects, the Sunnis and the Shiites. The Kurds live in the Northern part of Iraq and generally have kept to themselves. Back in the day, Saddam, a Sunni, oppressed the Shiites along with persecuting and massacring the Kurds. Fast forward to 2006: the Sunnis are pissed because they don’t have their Saddam-era power base or wealth, the Shiites want retribution, and the Kurds still want to be left alone but wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to get a vengeful piece of that Sunni ass. What fuels the whole “Iraqi Civil War” scenario is just that, three distinctly different sects who generally don’t get along well. Because of the oppression/demand for vengeance there isn’t much national unity and the country is split along those lines.
The coalition is what’s holding this country together right now. If the US/British/etc. just upped and left, Iraq would destroy itself in a matter of weeks. The Shiites would exact vengeance on the Sunnis then naturally and understandably the Sunnis would react….”
http://funwithhandgrenades.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_funwithhandgrenades_archive.html
“Is this an endorsement of John Kerry?”
Typical neocon knee-jerk reaction: anyone who dares to evaluate a situation based on the facts and reach a conclusion that question ANY aspect of this administration policies or actions MUST be one the “enemy of the State”, a “liberal”, a “terrorist pamperer” and so on and….baaaaaaaarf!
Mind you, the neocons haven’t invented nothing: The Soviet propaganda machine operated the same way, ditto for the French Communists Unions, the right-wing nut jobs in Central America and so on and…u get the idea.
Truly pathetic: an extraordinary rendition of the faculty of reasoning.
Francois
Does being in “the middle” mean you’re a religious person that likes big government or a libertarian? I used to think that the republicans did sometimes-nefarious things to prevent the inevitable rise of socialism. But I can’t seem to fit Iraq into that equation.
Gosh, isn’t that the same eagle that swooped down and saved New Orleans?
Gosh all this angst because of the horror that our system isn’t perfect. Seems to me we were forced to fight and win a world war just 60 years ago because some countries thought they had come up with a perfect government. I defer to Churchill on the matter.
“‘We’ didn’t fail anything. It is the Bush administration and all those who enabled them that failed. ‘We’ are not morally responsible for the criminal acts the administration. ‘We’ may end up paying the price for their crimes, but don’t confuse that with being culpable. Bush and his administration lied to us to garner our support for an illegal, immoral and unjust war on Iraq. When ‘we’ found out we were lied to, ‘we’ withdrew our support.”
I don’t buy this.
‘We’ elected this administration. TWICE.
Anyone who was paying attention would have known that Scott Ritter (a Republican, no less) and the IAEA knew there were no WMD in 2002. but ‘We’ didn’t bother to pay attention.
‘We’ let our government break constitutional law by declaring ‘war’ without congressional approval.
‘We’ supported that war for years without question.
‘We’ paid for it with our tax dollars.
‘We’ are the ones who enabled, sanctioned, and paid for the policy. How are ‘We’ NOT responsible?
The american public failed themselves and the middle east by sitting by and haplessly letting our elected officials act with impunity.
Mr Coté:
I doubt very that Winston Churchill would have approved of the way that we’ve conducted this war. Seldom in history has any great nation knowingly entered a war with no *primary* plan of action, let alone a contingency plan. We have been running on hubris alone.
Churchill never did anything this half-assed in his life.
Bush in 2000 – broke his own rules 2 and 3.
Via http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2000a.html
MODERATOR: New question. How would you go about as president deciding when it was in the national interest to use U.S. force, generally?
BUSH: Well, if it’s in our vital national interest, and that means whether our territory is threatened or people could be harmed, whether or not the alliances are — our defense alliances are threatened, whether or not our friends in the Middle East are threatened. That would be a time to seriously consider the use of force. Secondly, whether or not the mission was clear. Whether or not it was a clear understanding as to what the mission would be. Thirdly, whether or not we were prepared and trained to win.
“Churchill never did anything this half-assed in his life.”
Now I love the old lion Churchill, but let’s not forget the Dardanelles campaign in 1915. 140K casualties in less than a year and zero success to show for it. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gallipoli
I agree with Speedlet. Churchill woud have had a plan. As soon as he could go on the offensive (with allies like the US) he put troops in Morocco to push the Germans out of North Africa and then invade Italy (Afghanistan). He would then land troops in France (Iraq). All in order to press the Germans (Iran), the real enemy, from two fronts (no third front today like the Russians but then again no deals with the devil). Then he would have invaded Germany (iran)and insisted on unconditional surrender.
Yes, If Churchill and Roosevelt were running this war…
Ba Bye, Ricky S. Hope u enjoyed your time in the BBC.
Oh yeah, the Dardenelles campaign, how could we have forgot?
Of course we also know this was 1915……..the year of MODERN warfare, so to obviscate we can compare the apples of 1915 with the oranges of 2006.
War was not only HELL in 1915, it was dumb, poison gas, trench warfare. Not exactly your VOLUNTARY satellite guided precision invasion. So there is NO comparison. Maybe IF Saddam had used gas.
Now if we only had a simulation of Churchill and Dardenelle with our modern methods of warfare…..you know, like modern chemical barriers, no trenches, and satellite guided munitions……I bet he would have suffered about 2800 fatalities.
BTW kids, we’ve already been in Iraq LONGER than WWI or WWII. So much for comparisons.
It’s not that the war has been run incompetently, it’s far worse than that. The war itself, its fundamental premise, was and is immoral. From there, everything else follows. Is an immoral act better if it is done competently?
Calmo’s Helper – I have to take issue with your comment on the Dardanelle’s campaign. Churchill was essentially exonerated of mismanaging that campaign post World War I even though the stigma of wrongdoing stuck with him the rest of his life. It was a device used by his political opponents to keep him out of the cabinet and in political exile.
Churchill was the architect of the Dardanelles but the fact is that his commanders on the seas and on the shores were far too timid and did not press the attack early on. The British could have been in Constantinople in a matter of days.
I don’t understand where all the blame falls on Bush. You can make a fine argument that the war has been mismanaged, but the decision to go was hardly Bush’s alone.
The US Congress voted on it – Kerry, Clinton, Edwards, and Reid were “Yea”‘s. The UN said it needed to be done (unless you want to argue about what “serious consequences” means).
all the blame falls on the Bush Admin because they LIED dforester. How many times do you need to hear it?
America used to have credibility in the world.
Bush abused it.
Bush took advantage of the post 9-11 world and american anxiety to engage in a neo-con pipe-dream of spreading “Democracy” at the point of a gun in the land of all that lovely oil…
Few on the Left dare say this however. Right wing demagogues were all too ready (& still are) to smear with charges of lack of patriotism.
btw…”Faulty Intelligence” is and was a fig leaf for those lies… EVERYONE knows it except for a “few dead-enders” on the Right. Rumsfeld’s special Iraq unit within the Pentagon drummed up what they could in the run-up to war (it wasn’t much baby but it’s all they had–Yellowcake, aluminum tubes, “we saw an al qaida guy in northern iraq” etc)
Tenet got a Medal for falling on his sword for W.
(That’s where the buck stopped)
I’m surprised “Brownie” didn’t get one as well.
Brion – Your little screed is hardly unique; don’t give yourself that much credit – that’s the party line of the left; I’m not sure how you deduce that “few will say it”.
Did you read the UN resolution? I guess Bush controls the UN, too, cuz gawd knows how much they kowtow to him.
Look, I have my gripes with Bush, and the Republican party in general – they’re not exactly “little government” nowadays. However, I guess I’m a “dead-ender” in that I don’t really buy the notion that Bush fabricated a bunch of intelligence. I honestly think E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E (Bush, the Congress, the UN, ad infinitum) made the best decisions they could with the best information available. People do that every day.
I honestly think the first comment sums it up the best:
“I think my biggest problem with the Republicans is the total ineptitude with which they have handled the war. We went into Iraq, and overthrew the civil government. We can debate till we are blue in the face about whether or not that particular government deserved to be overthrown.” –drtomaso
Andrew wrote:
“Wait a minute: I thought the the initial reason that the US went to Iraq was because the country had weapons of mass destruction??? ”
In fact Andrew, the only reason that The US went to war was for the good enough reason that Saddam wanted to open an oil market in Euro.
This does explain the fury of the french.
BTW, this is the same thing that happen with the iranian lately. They wanted to open an oil market in september this year.
Nevertheless, my question as a Christian is more the following:
Should we continue to take the sword everytime we get slapped on the cheek?
Excuses, excuses.
“Hey, everybody makes mistakes, right?” Not when thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars and the prestige of the United States of America are on the line, they don’t.
There are plenty of books out there that provide a well-documented history of the “magical thinking” and lack of planning that led us to this sorry state — “Fiasco” and “State of Denial” by Bob Woodward (republican) being just two of them.
The idea that somehow this is not George Bush’s war is preposterous. Iraq is his legacy — history will judge him based on the outcome. Even he understands that.
But at some point you can expect him to try to claim it was all someone else’s idea.
“Nevertheless, my question as a Christian is more the following:
Should we continue to take the sword everytime we get slapped on the cheek?”
I like your points. Apparently nobody likes to use diplomacy anymore. Here is a question for the masses: Why is N.Korea able to test a nuclear weapon and get away with it? but GWB goes after Iran, which as much as I don’t like their president at least he came to the UN assembly in NY.
Unacceptable
Andrew,
N.Korea has a lot going on for it (alas!):
1) The Chinese will do anything to avoid the collapse of the regime. They do not want x millions of refugees within their borders.
2) SK capital Seoul is less than 35 miles (IIRC) from the DMZ. NK can rain tons of missiles on it very fast and the USA, Japan, China all know that.
Not an easy situation. I personally abhor the NK regime but not much can be done to remove them. Well…we can always try to corrupt them with the decadencies produced by our capitalist system. He he!
wonder if the French and Germans and Russians will continue selling nuclear technology and weapons systems to all the 3rd -world scumbags of this earth so that we in the US can stop the insanity… the real enemy are the Europeans
Just think, we could have just paid Sadam off. We could have just talked to him and helped him to establish a democracy. He used to be our friend you know, as a matter of fact we kind of encouraged him to attack Kuwait… We gave him weapons, we sent him Caviar and some of our prettiest girls. He was at one point, one of our best allies in the Mid-East. he was our THUG, and he was very usefull. I think that someone got jealous. Gee, I wonder what went wrong. Perhaps we should think about that..
Just lookat the Crap that our policy makers have gotten us into. I wonder why.
Someone please explain this to this idiot. Oh yes, now I remember there’s this abstraction we call democracy and freedom. I guess we just cant stand it when someone doesn’t have democracy and freedom and we’ll go to any length to ensure that they get it.
RIGHT…?
Okay, let’s really be clear on this, for all of us.
Regardless of Bush and his cronies lying us into war, the Dems (my party) were a JOKE.
IMO, everyone was jerking it when they should have been REAL patriots and fulfilling their SWORN DUTY to protect and defend THE CONSTITUTION.
Yes, I’m voting for re-instating checks and balances, but I REALLY need Dems to grow some nuts.
The ONLY Dem I can think of that stood through the shit slinging of the rabid war-mongering right was Jim McDermott from Seattle. Remember?
He is right as rain now. It pays to have principals and to stand by them!
McDermott is a man amongst mice
The ONLY Dem I can think of that stood through the shit slinging of the rabid war-mongering right was Jim McDermott from Seattle. Remember?
Well, McDermott and 146 other Democrats. A solid majority of the Democrats voted against the use of our armed forces in Iraq. Nearly all Republicans voted for what will likely come to be viewed as America’s greatest strategic defeat in our nation’s history. That is one reason why this G.O.P. member of 32 years standing happily pressed the “D” button today.
I must echo Singer’s comments about this being great stuff. You’ve also got a great blog. I just don’t know about the company you keep ;-).
In my profession (nursing) women work full time when their husbands are doing poorly, part time when they need to supplement family income, and stop working when their husband is doing well. You saw the opposite signal when we pulled out of the 2001 recession. Guess what this means for 2007!
Bush is the Churchill of the day! He is trying to civilise savages, so that next time we get attacked by islamic radicals, it won’t be a nuclear holocaust, its a war of ideologies we are fighting. You fruitcakes who are still crying about WMD’s should check your rear!
The Warmongering right! That’s a cute one! The last Republican who took americans into war before George Bush Senior was, Abraham Lincoln. WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Bosnia… All of these Wars Democrats launched america into… Need I say More…
I had to make a comment to this one “Bush took advantage of the post 9-11 world and american anxiety to engage in a neo-con pipe-dream of spreading “Democracy” at the point of a gun in the land of all that lovely oil…”
The only reason this fruitcake is saying this, is because it wasn’t his pipe-dream that was crushed under 110 stories of rubble. By madmen operating from the land “of all the lovely oil”…