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Excellent Empire Programme Round Table Discussion on Al Jazeera TV on the Futility of the Ten Years of US Occupation in Iraq

Excellent Empire Round Table Discussion on Al Jazeera TV on the Futility of the Ten Years of US Occupation in Iraq

An experienced panel with good moderation

All Agreed that USA went into Iraq in the so called war on terror on pre conceived and ill informed notions that

  1. Iraq Oil will pay for the Cost of the Occupation
  2. Iraq Civilians will welcome the US as Liberators
  3. Democracy will spread outward from Iraq to the whole of the Middle East
This was voiced  for the Iraq Occupation ~ the Greatest US Foreign Policy Blunder ~ A Strategic Disaster ~A Moral Failure ~ a Catastrophe ~the justifications all turning out to be untrue that Iraq posed a Nuclear Threat,had connections with Al Qaeda and that on the overthrowing of Saddam Hussein’s Regime the US will be welcomed as Liberators by the Iraqis ~went in more for economic reasons than for human rights violations to extract natural resources rather than rebuilding Economy or State ~ Iran benefited from the sectarian conflict in Iraq
Barbara Bodine,Professor at Princeton College and former US Ambassador to Yemen and also formally a part of the Office for Reconstruction of Iraq asserted that US went into Iraq with bombastic idealogies,self interest and no plan ~ we had a 120 civilians to run a country of 25 million !~ this was lunacy ~ we went in April and expected to set up the Country for self governance by August in the same year ~ it stretched to ten years ! ~ and those who made this decision ,may be now out of power and in  a minority ~ but the voices are still there and yet remain utterly unrepentant and won’t admit that their decisions were poorly made and poorly executed

Christopher Hedges,the Author of  The Empire of Illusion and former Middle East Bureau Chief of The New York Times puts it quite bluntly that US wants compliant states not open soceities and that it was a huge tactical mistake to use military force to tackle Islamic Fundamentalism ~ it was a woefully wrong strategy ~ “I don’t want my country to be occupied and be ruled by a puppet regime who only want to enrich themselves and their small circle”  ~ 4400 US Soldiers Dead,over 100000 and maybe upto 1.5 million Iraqis dead and the Cost of the Occupation is US $ 800 Billion

Jean Marie Guehenno,Director of the Centre for International Conflict Resolution in Columbia University and former Under Secretary General  of the Peacekeeping Operations of the United Nations, however was of the view that sometimes Military Force is indicated as in Mali where the French have intervened as there was clear and present danger that Terrorists would have taken it over

He was supported by John Nagl,retired US Lt Col and co-author of  US Army & Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual ~’ Boots on the Ground and Drones in the Air’ are a quicker way than Nation Building that can take many years ~ unstable places attract radical idealogies

There was Depth in the Discussion ~ View it as linked above

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