Here's when I knew Iraq would descend into chaos: Richard Perle 4/20/03...

On "Face the Nation":



http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/21/ftn/main550304.shtml

Now, Perle was speaking NeoCon, so allow me to translate:

"We've invaded, but, as we (the Brits and the US) have controlled Iraq for the past 100 years by exploiting and encouraging the divisions between the Sunnis, Shia and Kurds, we have no illusions that we'll be able to exploit the oil quickly. Instead, we intend to create enough chaos so that the Shia, Sunnis and Kurds go for each other's throats. Meanwhile, we'll build multi-billion dollar military bases. When they've decimated each other, we'll clamp down an iron rule with the full blessing of the U.N. After that is when we'll start pumping the oil. Oh, we might have to do the same for Iran before all is said and done."

Here's another Perle of wisdom;


"If we let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now." Richard Perle

Carl von Clausewitz is seen by many as somewhat of a warmonger for his statement, "War is foreign policy by other means." What many don't realize -- and here is the value of Clausewitz -- that if war is really an extension of foreign policy, then the military strategy with which the war is waged must be in alignment with the political purpose of the war.

A great example of this is the American Civil War. Prior to 1863, the goal of the Union was not military victory but reconciliation with the South. This political aim meant that the military strategy could not hit the South too hard. The North had to try and make the South realize that the national division was really not in their interest, and hopefully bring them back into the Union under pretty much the previous status quo. But as of 1/1/1863, the war became one to end slavery. Since slavery was a southern institution by this time (much of southern society was actually founded on this institution), then the military aim of the war became the destruction of southern society as it was. This, more than anything, freed the armies of the North to bring their tremendous advantages in manpower and materiel to bear on the Confederacy.

This is where the cluelessness of Perle and those like him comes into clear view. They say, on the one hand, that we're fighting to bring the gift of freedom and democracy to the Middle East. According to Clausewitz, this would require a military strategy that sought to concentrate on just ousting existing political regimes -- and did very little damage to the people or social infrastructure. However, in the next breath, he advocates total war -- a strategy that is almost certain to turn the rest of the world against us, or at the very least those people we're trying to "liberate".

their ideological heros (Leo Strauss et al) have told them the MUST lie about their intentions to overcome the soft, liberal majority they must rally.

Historian John Toland said that if the Germans had entered Russia as liberators instead of conquerors, they may have rallied the Russian people behind them against their government.

We spoke the language of liberation, but our actions didn't match the words. All that is left is our admission of defeat. It's just too fucking sad.

And just to buttress that notion........



**This byliner by Richard Perle, a member of the Defense Policy Board, first appeared in USA Today May 2 and is in the public domain. No republication restrictions.**


2 May 2003

"Relax, Celebrate Victory,"
By Richard Perle

Richard Perle op-ed article in USA Today

Relax, Celebrate Victory
Richard Perle

From start to finish, President Bush has led the United States and its coalition partners to the most important military victory since World War II. And like the allied victory over the axis powers, the liberation of Iraq is more than the end of a brutal dictatorship: It is the foundation for a decent, humane government that will represent all the people of Iraq.

This was a war worth fighting. It ended quickly with few civilian casualties and with little damage to Iraq's cities, towns or infrastructure. It ended without the Arab world rising up against us, as the war's critics feared, without the quagmire they predicted, without the heavy losses in house-to-house fighting they warned us to expect. It was conducted with immense skill and selfless courage by men and women who will remain until Iraqis are safe, and who will return home as heroes.

In full retreat, the war's opponents have now taken up new defensive positions: "Yes, it was a military victory, but you haven't found Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction." Or, "Yes, we destroyed Saddam's regime, but now other dictators will try even harder to develop weapons of mass destruction to make sure they will not fall to some future American preemptive strike."

We will find Saddam's well-hidden chemical and biological weapons programs, but only when people who know come forward and tell us where to look. While Saddam was in power, even a hint about his concealment and deception was a death sentence, often by unimaginable torture against whole families. Saddam had four years to hide things. We have had a few weeks to find them. Patience — and some help from free Iraqis — will be rewarded.

The idea that our victory over Saddam will drive other dictators to develop chemical and biological weapons misses the key point: They are already doing so. That's why we may someday need to preempt rather than wait until we are attacked.

Iran, Syria, North Korea, Libya, these and other nations are relentless in their pursuit of terror weapons. Does anyone seriously argue that they would abandon their programs if we had left Saddam in power? It is a little like arguing that we should not subdue knife-wielding criminals because, if we do, other criminals will go out and get guns. Moreover, this argument, deployed by those who will not take victory for an answer, confuses cause and effect: Does any peaceful state that neither harbors terrorists nor seeks weapons of mass destruction fear that we will launch a preemptive strike against it? Who are they? Why would they?

Iraqis are freer today and we are safer. Relax and enjoy it.

(Richard Perle, assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, is a member of the Defense Policy Board, which advises the Pentagon on military affairs.)