Op-Ed Article

Wars are easy to start and difficult to finish…

• George Bush is not a good leader. He is arrogant, not self-made, over-the-top religious,and lacks wisdom and an understanding of other people’s history and culture.  I like his tax cuts but he should have followed this up with huge, non military government cuts.  Instead he allowed the pork to fly and his conservative Republicans became more like drunken sailor Democrats or Canadian Liberals and NDPs when it came to spending…

• Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell was correct when he advised George Bush senior in Gulf War I to stop short of taking Baghdad and deposing Saddam.  You take it, you own it he opined.  He was right and Bush senior listened.  I thought Powell was totally wrong then.  Secretary of State Colin Powell was the only member of Bush II’s cabinet that had any war experience.  His advice was to push harder for other solutions before starting Gulf War II but if war started follow the lessons learned in Vietnam; attack with overwhelming  strength, have a clear objective and have an exit strategy.  Powell’s advice was ignored.

• Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is arrogant, has the answer before asking the question who emasculated his generals and surrounded himself with “yes” men.  He was a worse leader than George W. Bush.  A disaster really.

• Canada should have supported Gulf War II both morally and militarily but should have not agreed to hang around after the war was won and the peace was lost.  I believed this then and I believe this now.

• George W. Bush junior and most other American politicians have succumbed to voter pandering and campaign money from big business in failing to control illegal immigration from the south.

• This is a bad joke.

• General Douglas MacArthur espoused that one should never get involved in a land war in Asia. Now add to that a religious war in the Near and Middle East.

• The U.S. should have had a puppet government, selected and ready to take over Iraq once Saddam was deposed.  The rulings by the Presidential envoy and post war administrator of Iraq (less Rumsfeld and the U.S. military’s support) L. Paul Bremer were wrong.  Banning all Baathist party members from holding jobs in post war Iraq and dismantling the Iraqi military sewed the seeds for the insurgency that followed.  Civilians were paid triple and more for doing the same jobs as others if they joined the Baathist party.  These included all teachers, government workers, and professional people.  So these people could no longer work.  As for the ex military personnel. They went home with their weapons and had no jobs.  So Iran, Syria, Al Qaida, ex Baathists and militant Muslim Mulla’s stepped in and filled the void by offering them beliefs, dignity, jobs and money. It's real easy for a muslim to hate another muslim let alone a foreign, non believing devil.  George W. Bush junior and Rumsfeld appear to have had zero knowledge of Iraq’s make up, history, religious situation, heritage,culture and how others in the region could and would play Iraq after the war.  In the British Empire the Middle Eastern subjects were considered the least trustworthy because they easily changed allegiance.  They lived by the creed that “the enemy of my enemy is now my friend”. They were never to be trusted. Of course the British and Europeans broke a few of their promises to the Middle Easterners as well no doubt.

• NATO needs to be careful in Afghanistan.  I believe that Canada should be there but all NATO countries need to share in fighting the Taliban, not just the U.S., Britain and Canada.  How long should we stay and in what fashion?  Certainly, the Afghans must eventually begin to run and defend their own country probably via a very strong military dictator not unlike Pakistan.  One thing is certain, we have to drop our pie-in-sky thinking about democracy being applied to the Middle East.  Elections in Iraq and Afghanistan allow the wrong people, our enemies today, to be elected not unlike how Hitler was elected in Germany.  A volcano such as the Middle East, requires a strong cork to keep it from exploding and fracturing.

• George W. Bush junior allowed himself to become involved in a war of attrition, within a well educated, highly charged religiously fanatical region, fighting against a population that does not want foreigners on their soil, who are well armed, well paid, deadly cruel, factionalized and who see God as being on their side.  He now must find a face saving way for him and his coalition forces to declare victory and leave Iraq.  The conservative movement in the U.S. has been severely damaged and the left wing liberals now control congress and the senate.  Now sharing power the Liberals are now sewing the seeds for their own future follies…As for how much others in the world like Russia, China, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan will become emboldened by the U.S. and coalition forces withdrawing from Iraq is the BIG unanswered question. It's also possible that the U.S., the most powerful and assertive keeper of the peace in the world, will now withdraw to a more isolationist position.  And to think that the UN may once again be seen as a credible leader in solving the world’s problems…. makes me feel that the 21st century may see a lot of war and unrest; not unlike all the other centuries past… humans will be humans regardless of the consequences…as it has been and will always be…force is always the final step in diplomacy without which there is no real diplomacy.  But that force must be used wisely and not squandered as Mr. Bush and his cronies have done in Iraq.

Mickey Moulder

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