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I liked this one and it's from The American Conservative, no less. Very well done and calling it a fiasco in Oct of last year.
http://amconmag.com/10_06_03/cover.htmlOctober 6, 2003 issue
Copyright © 2003 The American Conservative
The Cost of Empire
President Bush’s war policy marks the beginning of the end of America’s era of global dominance.
By Christopher Layne
The administration’s U-turn decision to ask for United Nations help in Iraq, and President George W. Bush’s request that Congress appropriate $87 billion to fund the occupation and reconstruction of that country send a very clear message: the administration’s Iraq policy is a fiasco. And a foreseeable one at that.
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I like Cohen.
The Patriotism Refuge
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, November 25, 2003; Page A29
If patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, as Samuel Johnson said, then it is the first refuge of politicians. That at least is the case with the Republican National Committee -- and by implication the White House -- which has started running a television commercial defending George Bush's handling of the Iraq war, saying the president's various Democratic opponents are attacking him "for attacking the terrorists." Not really. It's for doing such a bad job of it.
<snip>
Yet, as Thomas Powers, an expert on intelligence, points out in the current New York Review of Books, Colin Powell "made 29 claims about Iraqi weapons, programs, behaviors, events and munitions" in his United Nations presentation, and none of them have yet been borne out. His was the best and the most detailed case the administration presented, down to the tonnage of chemical weapons, and I found it convincing at the time. I now feel taken. If Powell feels the same way, he's entitled -- but he ain't saying.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12114-2003Nov24.html========
The best I've seen on the Spain election fallout, etc. Pinkerton has some great OPEDs.
-
The answer to terror is plain
James P. Pinkerton
March 16, 2004
Are the Spanish cowardly for tossing out their pro-Iraq intervention government? Or are they wise?
<snip>
(These 2 paragraphs are what makes this oped great. Though in may have been, I never saw it in any other story.) To be sure, the PP said it went to Iraq to help promote peace, but Spain's intervention had "war of civilizations" written all over it. Many Spanish troops serving in Iraq, for example, wore an arm patch depicting the Cross of St. James of Compostela. That insignia commemorates the Battle of Clavijo in 844. According to legend, the Apostle St. James the Elder came down from the sky and killed every Moor - as Muslims were then called - in his path. Ever since, St. James has been called "Santiago Matamoros," St. James the Moor Killer.
In July, the Madrid newspaper El Mundo warned: "To put the Cross of St. James of Compostela on the uniforms of Spanish soldiers demonstrates an absolute ignorance of the psychology of the society in which they will have to carry out their mission."
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vppin163709473mar16,0,4755338.column?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines=======
THIS ONE IS LONG, BUT VERY GOOD. It's somewhat a diary, as he was over there and had access to some of Bremmer's people.
WAR AFTER THE WAR
by GEORGE PACKER
What Washington doesn’t see in Iraq.
Issue of 2003-11-24
Posted 2003-11-17
In the shade of a high sandstone arch, a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and a platoon of American soldiers from the 1st Armored Division guard the main point of entry into Baghdad’s Green Zone, the heavily fortified area west of the Tigris River from which the Coalition Provisional Authority governs occupied Iraq. The arch was built a few years ago by Saddam Hussein, in imitation of ancient gates that once protected Baghdad from Persian invaders. American soldiers now call it the Assassin’s Gate.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031124fa_fact1_b======
Zbigniew Brzezinki's address at the Center for American Progress
was one of the best speech's I've seen. Don't know where the text might be.
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