Rice adviser: ‘The biggest stupid idea was to invade Iraq in the first place.’

[kpete]

Rice adviser: ‘The biggest stupid idea was to invade Iraq in the first place.’

Former Australian Army officer David Kilcullen, who helped Gen. David Petraeus “design his 2007 counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq,” is currently an adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In a recent interview with Spencer Ackerman, Kilcullen, the main author of an upcoming handbook on counterinsurgency for senior policy-makers, said he tells them they should “think very, very carefully before intervening” in other countries. As an example, Kilcullen called the invasion of Iraq “f*cking stupid“:

More bluntly, Kilcullen, who helped Petraeus design his 2007 counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, called the decision to invade Iraq “stupid” — in fact, he said “f*cking stupid” — and suggested that if policy-makers apply the manual’s lessons, similar wars can be avoided in the future.

“The biggest stupid idea,” Kilcullen said, “was to invade Iraq in the first place.”

more at:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/28/rice-adviser-the-biggest-stupid-idea-was-to-invade-iraq-in-the-first-place/

[OwnedByFerrets]

1. Wow, just Wow!!

[jody]

2. NO! The biggest stupid idea was to elect Dubya as president. n/t

[YOY]

7. It's a good thing he wasn't...twice.

n/t

[Jack Rabbit]

8. Take that up with Justice Scalia

He's the one who elected him.

[WhiteTara]

21. make that selected n/t

[tridim]

10. Bush wasn't elected, he was selected by one vote in the Supreme Court.

[lonestarnot]

18. heh. Maybe you would like to reconsider that point?

:rofl:

[jody]

19. Why? n/t

[lonestarnot]

24. Try NEVER elected.

And be truthful.

[jody]

26. Like you, I'm well aware of the debacle that led to Dubya taking office in 2001 and 2005.

Nevertheless history will record those as elections in spite of any protest that you or I might make.

If it makes you feel good to say "selected" rather than "elected", go for it, but at this point it no longer concerns me.

I have much more important things that worry me among which is bringing our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Have a peaceful evening, :hi:

[Raster]

35. Not necessarily my good man, not necessarily. In spite of continued rethuglican attempts to revise

and rewrite electoral history, there is an ACTIVE movement in our country to re-examine elections 2000, 2002, 2004, and the only reason this is continuing is because good people are just not going to "get over it." I too am concerned with bringing our troops home from these illegal, immoral wars. But I do believe that if we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. Sorry, but to decide the most severe electoral fraud in our nation's history "no longer concerns me" is to acquiesce to their crimes. No one said correcting these hideous miscarriages of electoral justice would be easy or swift. But I believe it must be done. We can deal with it now or we can deal with it again and again and again. And that, my friend, definitely concerns me.

You pick your battles. I'll pick mine.

[indepat]

31. Even more stupid was to re-elect him?

:P

[Raster]

33. bush*/cheney* were NEVER LEGALLY AND LAWFULLY ELECTED.!

According to the News Consortium, Al Gore won Florida. And once you factor in Jeb and Cruella's dirty tricks, it becomes apparent that Gore won Florida by a large margin. Ah the beauty of controlling a state's election infrastructure.

[jody]

34. See #26. n/t

[Raster]

36. See #35.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

3. What makes him believe they want to avoid future wars???

Ain't no money in peace. :shrug:

[redqueen]

4. Can't have disaster capitalism without the disaster!

[Hydra]

11. Peace is rather profitable

But it's profitable to MANY people, and that's not what they want.

They want HUGE profits(Legalized Looting) in a small number of hand(consolidation) and a relaxing of the legal oversight(Legal immunity for the people in charge).

You don't get that in peace. In peace, you get happy, productive people who look for better ways of doing things(Clean energy, for instance), get better educations and have more of a voice.

That is their worst nightmare. Happy, empowered progressives.

[Wickerman]

5. Policy makers need a manual to avoid invading sovereign nations?

Wow, How did we manage for so long without that kind of insight - and blunder?

[Initech]

6. Wow, a double whammy in one week!

First we get Bush admitting that Wall Street got drunk with power... now this! What's next?

Fuck, even Scott McClellan is turning on his former boss.

[aquart]

9. Yuh think?????

[benld74]

12. Nope that was the 3rd,,

The 2nd was to elect Bush the 2nd time
The 1st was his Supreme Selection!!!

[notadmblnd]

13. bush was not elected a second time either.

KKKarl stole it for him.

[Jack Rabbit]

22. Rove stole it?

He certainly had something to do with it, but Bush won the election by carrying Ohio after many citizens had their right to vote thrown down a deep, black well.

[notadmblnd]

23. what ever, thrown out, switched.. whatever way you want to color it. It was rigged.

[Jack Rabbit]

28. I prefer that Ohio votes were thrown down a black well

:evilgrin:

[speedoo]

14. Got that, McWhine? The invasion you supported was stupid.

And so are you.

[davekriss]

32. (I miss molly) nt

[sinkingfeeling]

15. Why is an Australian an advisor to the Secretary of State? No Americans with the

qualifications?

[Olney Blue]

25. Apparently, none that would work for the War Chimp.

[entanglement]

16. It was not "stupid" - it was a crime that didn't go as planned, like a botched bank robbery

[glitch]

17. Well, they have gotten away with the loot.

So far.

[L. Coyote]

20. Unless, of course, the idea was to win Republican elections. Then it really worked!!

[Cha]

27. Yeah, that's what we thought and now over 4000 dead Soldiers,

5 years, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis Dead, how many trillion$$$$..it all came tragically true.

But, the mainstreammediawhores will not admit they marched the drum to war..the little creepy press and mediawhores should all be indicted along with the bushites.

[grannie4peace]

29. yeah-wow

he's a day late & a dollar short-- like everyone in this administration. it makes me sick-- if they weren't in politics they'd be jobless!!!!!

[Tesla]

30. I'm a mommy in a small city in Ohio

And I knew they had no reason to go into Iraq!
How come I had more info about it than the leaders of this country!

Now it wasn't a good idea!!