Ok today I would like to unveil a new game on the blog. Let's call it Guess the Quote Source Game (anyone have a better name for it? Let me know!! seriously). Ok ready? Back story: This quote is in reference to the first Gulf War, and a discussion about going and getting Saddam Hussein then. Here goes:

"Trying to eliminate Saddam...would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible.... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq.... There was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."

Ok who's quote is this? ........

If you guessed the 41st President of the United States, you would be right. If however you guessed the 42nd President of the United States you would have been wrong. Who was the 41st President of the United States you ask? Well George H.W. Bush. That's right, the current president's own father said the above quote in his memoir "A World Transformed", and it was written 5 years ago. This is why even though I would describe myself as liberal, or better yet, progressive, I did not have such a negative opinion of George H.W. Bush. And you see Republican Bud, unlike you, who hated Clinton, simply because he was a Democrat (correct me if I am wrong), I really dislike georgie shrub because he has tarnished this country's good name. He was put us ALL in greater danger! He didn't even have the evenhandedness of his father to weigh these issues before pushing the United Nations aside, before sticking his middle finger up to the entire European and world community and marching into Iraq with NO, let me emphasize, NO plan for after we took Baghdad. Oh Let me see if I can find a quote from the Control Room (the movie, not my living room).

Damn, ok I can't find the quote. Well let me try to convey it the best way I can. The movie follows the reporters in the CentCom center in Qatar covering the Iraq war. There is a representative from the US army who is sort of a liaison between the US Army and the reporters. When we first get into Baghdad and looting starts occurring, several reporters start questioning this Army rep. He says that the Iraqi people are responsible for the looting, and that the US Army isn't responsible, they are simply liberators, and it is the responsibility of the Iraqi people to prevent looting of their own country. That is just one example of how we didn't have a "plan". How the hell could we have expected the Iraqi people to provide security when we had literally just drove into Baghdad days earlier and dissolved the police, dissolved the army, dissolved any sort of structure? Seriously this is just mindless.

Well that is all for now. Come and get it!