There have been several occassions throughout history where many were killed because they stepped up due to USA prodding, only to be left hanging out die.

I believe the kurds were given assurances after the first gulf war if they were to step up. Soldiers were assembled to aid them, but then recalled leaving the kurds to be slaughtered by Saddam.

There have been others thruout history, it seems to be our pattern, in addition to sponsering evil regimes, then changing our mind in the future. I think this is one of the reasons for hatred of the USA thruout the world. I think these events are more publicized there, then here.

However, I don't think there is a chance to cleanup Iraq under the current scenario. The administration thought they could go in alone, or with few troops from other countries, and burned lots of bridges in the process.

I hate to harp on the misleading by the govt, but I heard some audio of a house investigation into how we got into the Iraq war. It was sponsered by the Dems, but 1 Repub had the guts to show up. One of the points made during the Frontline report last week was that Cheney and Rumsfeld put together their own intelligence dept in the defense dept. It was totally stocked with neocons.

An ex-CIA manager yesterday commented that the CIA was show one report that came out of this group. He happened to be discussign this report with Feingold, I believe, and when they compared notes, they discovered the report shown to the congressmen was different from the version shown to the CIA. The reason for the difference....the parts of the document that anyone from the CIA could easily disprove were yanked from their version of the report.

I don't think this is consipiracy theory at all. There are just far too many examples of these types of events. And if you connect the dots I don't like the picture I see.



>>I don't remember the exact context, but I recall an event we were discussing and you made the comment that you didn't think the event was as bad as some thought it to be, because you thought the American people wouldn't let the govt take it further.
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>I can't place the thread at the moment.
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>>I used to think that about the American people. But from what I can surmise about you, I would guess you are one of those types refered to in the old Charlie Daniels songs about meeting the communists with your rifle in hand when they tried to take over the USA.
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>Well, that could be taken any number of ways. But I do own a rifle, and have on occasion sworn to protect our country against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And anyone I catch uninvited in my house is going to stain the carpeting.
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>>Don't these types of events make you go "hmmmmm?".
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>No. I'm not a conspiracy theorist. Wolfowitz's report was not an actionable blueprint for world domination by the US. It identified potential threats, and proposed responses for them, in order to secure our position in the post-Cold War era. It was also published in 1992 - fourteen years ago. Joe Wilson and his yellowcake is such a twisted story that, to be honest, I don't know who to believe (but I'm not inclined to believe him). Vanity Fair is not exactly a neutral publication, and the CIA people that are allowing themselves to be interviewed all seem to have an axe to grind.
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>But never mind all that. History will sort out who to blame for what, but in the meantime, we are in Iraq, and regardless of how we got there, we owe it to both the American and Iraqi people to not leave until their government can stand on its own. One of the great shames of this country was our breaking of promises to the South Vietnamese government after our pullout in 1972. Despite repeated assurances of financial and military support, Congress refused to send help when the North started its final invasion. Not only did this mean the 50,000-plus American dead (and hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese) mean nothing, it led to the deaths and displacement of many thousands more in that country and its neighbors.
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>Iraq is not Viet Nam, but there are parallels. And I would rather "stay the course" and try to help the Iraqis (with no assurances of success, but a reasonable assumption of it) than pull out now, which would guarantee failure and a hostile nation in the future.