Marie Cocco: Public isn't blameless in Iraq War debacle

[Mass]

Excellent read about the lessons that people should take of this war. Of course, many DUers have seen these things long ago, but it is good to see columnists write these things in back and white for people who did not already get the lessons (not the just the facts that the war was a mess, but why we bear some responsibility for it

Marie Cocco: Public isn't blameless in Iraq War debacle
By Marie Cocco -

Published 12:00 am PST Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Story appeared in EDITORIALS section, Page B7

The country has concluded that the Iraq War is a profound misadventure from which the United States must somehow extract itself. Details have been left to the foreign-policy experts and political fixers of the Iraq Study Group, a sort of government-outside-the-government that is supposed to offer a path of wisdom to those inside the government who've not found one on their own.

The American people cannot untangle this dangerous web. But we can take stock of lessons learned.

...

The first is that we allowed the crudest sort of politics to form the basis of support for war. The Iraq invasion was a political choice, not a necessity of national security. If we were befuddled, or scared out of our wits by the Bush administration's rhetoric about weapons of mass destruction and its false linkage of Iraq with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, our suspicions should have been aroused by White House hucksterism: "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August," White House chief of staff Andrew Card said in explaining why the president waited until the fall of 2002 -- on the eve of the midterm congressional elections -- to begin selling us the faulty Iraq product.

...
The moment of rejection might have come sooner had we not made another crucial mistake, from which we must learn the most important lesson. Many Americans were all too willing to allow this war to fester so long as only those relatively few families with sons and daughters in the volunteer military were at risk -- and so long as we were not asked to pay even a dollar in taxes to support it.
...

If such broad sacrifice had been required to go to war in Iraq, would Congress have been so compliant in approving the conflict? Would the country in 2004 have re-elected President Bush?

...
The 2008 presidential election looms. We may or may not be out of Iraq by then, but we will be forced to choose. Another lesson of this grim experience is that we must finally shun candidates who are long on charisma and good at catchphrases, but short on life experience that brings a level head.

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/84177.html (copy-paste the link on your browser to read the full article)

[uberblonde]

1. Link? [EOM]

[Mass]

2. oops! Corrected now. Thanks.

[rock]

3. Correct. If he means SOME of the public

not ALL of the public.

[beltanefauve]

4. I'm still seething

over the people who voted for * the second time. (Won't ever say"re-elected!)because they were manipulated by fear or because, "You don't change horses in midstream of during a time of war."

[twilight_sailing]

5. Yep.

I wish I had a list of everyone who voted for Bush twice. I'd go door to door selling them bibles or vacuum cleaners or something. If those folks will buy Bush not once, but twice, they will buy anything.

[blm]

6. Look what the broadcast media was feeding these people after 9-11, Bush was

TURNED into a figure of heroic proportions by almost the entire media structure, broadcast and print, and once that image was hoisted, the media could not find a way out of the storyline, especially as their bosses were benefitting greatly from it.