We have a twofer. If you're a warmonger from a Think Tank then you are guaranteed a spot on TV. That's the way the media works. And Michael O'Hanlon is one of those war hawking monsters that will not go away. He was on This Week in Politics with Robert Kagan and tried once again to justify the US invasion of Iraq. It's pretty difficult to tell the world that our invasion is somehow different than what Russia did in Georgia. Bush's preemptive doctrine gives any nation the justification it needs to invade. Kagan did get honest and say that many people can see the difference between what we did and what Russia is doing. What is that exactly? Did we poke Russia in the eye? That's the question.
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His rationale is to say Saddam was an evil dictator-man. And the Russian conflict is only a blip on the radar screen as far as invasions go. It's the 21st century now and as McCain says: In The 21st Century Nations Don't Invade Other Nations" that's just not cool. Except when we did it. Trying to bring Georgia into NATO and set up Poland and the Czeck Republic with missiles is not a big deal. Get over it, Putin. And Obama has caught up to McCain in the latest PEW Poll that asks: Who would make better decisions on foreign policy? Of course O'Hanlon does not believe this poll.
Foreman: Do you think people can see the difference? Because certainly some people who are enemies of George Bush who don't like this White House say there's not much of a difference. They're bothered by it. They're bothered by what Russia did but they're equally bothered by what we've done in Iraq.
O'Hanlon: I would say with both Iraq and the case of Kosovo which is something Russia invokes a lot as an analogy here, we dealt with brutal dictators. There was a question about whether we had gone through all the proper diplomatic preparation. I do not think George W. Bush did a great job at preparing the ground work for the Iraq war. But come on, we overthrew a guy who killed a million people.
Foreman: As opposed to essentially a territory dispute of some sort.
O'Hanlon: Exactly a far lower level of violence regardless of who fired what shot first.
Foreman: Good explanation.
And how many innocent Iraqis died because of this, Michael? If we're using " the bad man" as the criteria for invasion, well, there are many, many evil men in the world MO that we could have taken out already, but the country would never allow that to hapen except when people like yourself help spread propaganda in the media. Why did Colin Powell go to the UN and give a false presentation to out allies? Why did Cheney and "his friends" place lying information in the NY Times and other publications so that they could be used as propaganda tools for Bush's surrogates to lie to the American people on the Sunday talk shows? And as Ron Suskind just reported---Why did the CIA try to plant false information to make connections between al-Qaeda that were not there? I'd say Bush did a great job in America with the help of the press to set the ground work in place for the attack of Iraq.
These warmongers never---ever talk about what they call collateral damage. Foreman gives him kudos for coming up with a nonsensical explanation. Bravo! I have a question for MO. Wasn't our invasion of Iraq a territorial dispute also except on a much larger scale? Let's see, Georgia has oil....Iraq has oil...Russia has oil....Oh, well....
Foreman: You brought up Iraq and I think that's an important point here because Vladimir Putin and many pundits have said both the candidates, George Bush, everybody had their legs cut out him, from them a little bit because of the Iraq war, because the United States went into a country without waiting for this gigantic UN consensus to say let's go. So how, Russia itself says "How do you criticize us? We're protecting our national interest too". Is this a real problem Bob?
Kagan: Not really. I wouldn't say that many pundits have said that. I uh, if you look at what's happening in Europe right now which is where this whole action is taking place uh, European leaders are condemning uh Moscow's action uh from the British government to the Swedish government. Uh there's, there's pretty good, I mean there's some difference between about exactly how to move, but there's very strong trans-Atlantic unity condemning this action. No one is waving ah Iraq or anything else. So people can see the difference between what Russia has done uh and what the United States and many European allies did in Iraq.
Foreman: Do you think people can see the difference? Because certainly some people who are enemies of George Bush who don't like this White House say there's not much of a difference. They're bothered by it. They're bothered by what Russia did but they're equally bothered by what we've done in Iraq.
O'Hanlon: I would say with both Iraq and the case of Kosovo which is something Russia invokes a lot as an analogy here, we dealt with brutal dictators. There was a question about whether we had gone through all the proper diplomatic preparation. I do not think George W. Bush did a great job at preparing the ground work for the Iraq war. But come on, we overthrew a guy who killed a million people.
Foreman: As opposed to essentially a territory dispute of some sort.
O'Hanlon: Exactly a far lower level of violence regardless of who fired what shot first.
Foreman: Good explanation.
