It has been six years sin
ce British Prime Minister Gordon Brown asked civil servant Sir John Chilcot to conduct an investigation into how Britain was led to join us in the Bush/Cheney Iraq oil-prospecting adventure of 2003.
Loud demands for some results of Chilcot’s investigation have been sounding since day one, fueled primarily by friends and families of British soldiers killed and wounded there, in another misguided “nation-building” war started by the U.S.A.
Most Brits believe (and in our hearts, we know it’s true) their nation went to war on false pretenses —outright lies by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice regarding alleged presence of a huge stockpile of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) weapons built-up there by Saddam Hussein. It never existed, and everyone involved in selling it to our allies and the United Nations, except the much-deceived Secretary of State Colin Powell, knew so.
Their abuse of First Gulf War military leader and Secretary of State General Colin Powell is perhaps the worst example of a President doing big wrong to his own Cabinet Secretary in our entire history. Ours isn’t a long history, and won’t be much longer, judging by the way our leaders handle national crises, lying to allies, lying to the help, and gettin’ the help to lie to us.
Hey! How dumb are we, buying-in, time, and time again?
Current Prime Minister David Cameron is unhappy with pace of Sir John’s inquiry, and publicly displayed some irritation while urging him to, “Get on with it.” Their first mistake was putting a “long-term civil servant” in charge; and the process is filled with “protections” for officials whose names appear in the draft reports, allowing them to challenge criticism. Other “civil servants” delayed reports containing ‘sensitive material’. (Some documents have only been released this year, after years waiting.)
We well know “sensitive material” could be anything from “most secret” stamps on blase documents, to civil servants protecting their personal rear ends. It is, very likely, mostly the latter. Many knowledgeable Brits complain the investigation was too broadly-based, tasking Chilcot to cover the eight-year period from 2001-09. Such a charge requires looking into the origins of the war. (Good luck with that, considering the coked-out brain of the shrub, and the evil first heart of Dick Cheney — his new one, however, seems as bad, or worse).
Chilcot is further charged to investigate all the political, diplomatic and military decisions made during the war from invasion, through the following occupation. The Brits seem to be intent on holding builders of their military misadventure in Iraq to a strict accounting. (It could be done here, and I’m surprised – amazed, even, it wasn’t started by Dems in 2009.) Brits believe former PM Tony Blair was duped into joining the BCR attack through faked evidence and lies.
By joining them in the war unconditionally, Blair also bought into the biggest blunder in a tale of big blunders, disbanding and releasing the captive Iraqi army, and the whole Iraqi civil service. Questions the British people want answered, oddly, are the ones Americans should have been asking from the start. But few did. I’m proud to have been among those who did.
Why were so few soldiers committed to security — that is true in the British sector, and in areas of our responsibility. How do they (both governments) explain the lack of good intelligence throughout the conflict?
Even now, the Brits have no time-table for delivery of the Chilcot report. Several recent government reports there have required as much as 12 years to the top and the public. Delay is the preferred method of avoiding justice here and there. “Never reinforce failure’ runs an old military adage. Our military reinforced failure to the tune of 4500 + (four thousand, five hundred plus) dead soldiers, never raising a finger in protest. Most pathetic twits, they are —caved in to BCR, and wasted all of them.
Well, on another note. A trumpet note. A CBS news reporter last weekend reported the three most-used words in news articles and political commentary about the ‘Donald,’ are arrogant, ignorant and idiot Regarding Thump, one is extremely hard-pressed to find a derogatory term as yet unused. Or even one
seldom-used.
It seems, from news polling last week, many, if not most, of Thumper’s campaign crowds are among the nitwits and dimwits who bitch a lot, but, generally, don’t vote. Most of ’em won’t next year, either. I do think this guy just might be the fatal blow to the GOP. Aim true, Thumper! Last time I saw him on the tube he was pandering to the religious crackpots in a not-all-that-large crowd, repeating, “I love Billy Graham; I love Billy Graham.” Two rich buddies.
Our founders wanted to keep all this religious crap out of U.S. politics, and they screwed-up royally in failing to figure on total inability of religious zealots to, “mind their own beeswax.”
