Misremembering

Oversimplification...Misunderestimatification

I'm still not entirely sure what "ISIS", the acronym, stands for yet. I'm pretty sure the S's are cuss words. At least, that's what I gather from their actions. I never judge a book by its cover, but I do judge books that chop innocent peoples' heads off. I'm pretty sure I've made my utter disdain for ISIS and their ilk pretty plain before, so I won't waste your time with another rant about that.

What I do want to talk about is this current trend of progs and democrat lackeys to blame the entire thing on Bush. Yeah, I know...what else is new? They blame everything on Bush. But specifically, they are "misremembering" the Iraq war in a way that makes ISIS a natural progression of that war. They are completely forgetting the whole reason we went to Iraq, and what was going on in the world at the time. The whole "war for oil" idea was a product of years later. At the time, things were clearer. Let's take a little trip on the way back machine...

September 11, 2001. We all remember that day. Well, those of us over the age of 18 or so. The world went to Hell in a matter of minutes. These Muslim terrorists that have always been little more than a nuisance had finally done it. They'd hit a big target and killed thousands of people. We were angry. Very angry. Left, right, Democrat, Republican, we were angry. The only people who weren't were the crazies, like that Ward Churchill guy. We, as a nation, wanted blood for blood.

I'm not going to argue that we were being completely reasonable at the time, but we're only human. We wanted war just to lash out and make someone pay. All of us. There were very few that didn't, and they were weirdos who hated America anyway (and still do). But emotions wore off, and thankfully, we didn't act on impulse only. The world agreed that Afghanistan had to be dealt with, so we all went to Afghanistan together. Even current progs don't complain too much about that.

Iraq came later. And it wasn't about oil. It was about fear. Raw, unadulterated fear. The culprit? Saddam Hussein. Brutal, authoritarian, and self-absorbed; for all of his faults he was a very intelligent man. But his ego was even bigger. He had gotten away with so much after the first Gulf War, with violating the no-fly-zones, even taking shots at UN fighter craft and making illegal sales of oil, as well as denying actual free access to UN weapons inspectors. So he didn't care to change his stance after 911. His mistake.

Not just Bush, but the whole US government...nay, the whole world...wanted to make sure that Iraq didn't have WMDs that terrorists could get a hold of. The UN and the US both knew that Saddam wasn't a big pro-islamist guy. They were more afraid of him giving things up to Islamists because he had no choice or because they offered him something valuable in return. Basically, the world couldn't trust Saddam, and Saddam gave us no reason to.

He played games, and our intel fell for a lot of them. He wanted us to think he had them but not be sure. For him it was a game of chess. For us, it had moved onto an imagined game of life and death. Saddam and the West were not on the same page anymore. He didn't understand how serious we took things at that point. He called our bluff; thinking it as merely a bluff which was normal with the West, who tries to solve things peacefully. 

We weren't in the mood, so we went to war. His army did exactly what our analysts thought they would: fold like a bad hand. The invasion was over in weeks. Time for the occupation. 

Then there was the insurgency. Or "quagmire" as the media started calling it. You see, once the bombs had dropped and the invasion was over, the media and the Democrats shifted political gears. The threat was passed, so it was time to turn against the Republican President, or else risk political ruin. Unfortunately, this wrecked people's memories of the events that had led up to Iraq in the first place. It was sexier, for Democrats at least, to paint it all as a "war for oil" caused by Republicans.

And those of an ideological bent towards the left use this even today to describe the Iraq War and the reasons for it. Decades from now, historians will set things straight, but the damage is done. It is now called "Bush's war for Oil" amongst the masses. And from that viewpoint, we have the current crop blaming ISIS on Bush. The idea is that an Iraq with Saddam was stronger than an Iraq without him.

But the key thing people are forgetting is, Saddam's Iraq fell in a couple weeks to US armed forces. How strong is that really? It isn't. Like most dictatorial regimes, power is based on a heavy dose of illusion. Bullets have a way of penetrating illusions. That is why the US military was able to steam roll the Iraqi army. Not just because our military is "so good". Mostly because the Iraqi military was a paper tiger. Basically, they were cowards. Even with training from Americans, the new Iraqi military were cowards when ISIS came. It's a cultural weakness really.

ISIS is a fulfillment of the fears that led us to the Iraq War in the first place. The plan was to have an established presence in Iraq to prevent such a thing, but our current government lacked the intestinal fortitude to carry on with that plan and considered cheap votes for stupid campaign promises to be more important than carrying out a well thought-out plan.

Obama is, of course, the person I am talking about there. It was his conviction to bring our troops out of Iraq that caused the immense power vacuum in Iraq. Regardless of what the Iraqi government "demanded", we had a right and the power to tell them "no". And that we are staying until the situation is stabilized. Because that is what we did in Germany and Japan. We are still in both countries even now. That is how occupation works. We don't conquer countries, but we do make darn sure they can function with the rest of the world before we leave.

Obama failed to realize that, and now we have ISIS. Blame Bush all you want, but History will tell the truth. It is the current administration that failed to follow the plan and allowed all of this to happen. Syria has little to do with it, as a fully occupied Iraq would have put a stop to the spread of ISIS and kept the menace contained within Syria. 

Now I fear, ISIS is too big to simply be contained. We will have to deal with them eventually.