Lindsey Graham really misses George W. Bush?
Lindsey Graham was the biggest neocon and hawk in the minor Republican debate on CNN. Most of the times he seemed rather unhinged. He continued to foam at the mouth as he pushed for war.
“I am not afraid of a guy riding around a horse without his shirt,” Lindsey Graham said. “The guy’s got a pair of twos and we’ve got a full house. He is walking all over Obama. Mike, the surge worked. It worked. George W. Bush made mistakes, but he did adjust. I blame Obama for ISIL, not Bush. I am tired of beating on Bush. I miss George W Bush. I wish you were president right now. We wouldn’t be in this mess.”
What planet is Lindsey Graham living in? Maybe he must be reminded. America went into the Iraq War on the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Bush’s policies destabilized the region which left it relatively ungoverned. ISIL is the direct result of that destabilization.
When Lindsey Graham talks about the surge working, he should be reminded of this from the Boston Globe.
To believe in the myth of the surge is to absolve Iraqis of their responsibility to resolve their differences. It gives the US government an unrealistic sense of its own capabilities. And it ignores the roots of the conflict now stretching from Damascus to Baghdad.
“The surge didn’t ‘win’ anything. It bought time,” writes retired Lieutenant General Daniel Bolger in his new book, “Why We Lost: A General’s Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.” It’s not surprising that those words of wisdom come from a retired officer. But it is a shame. Credible institutional memory is of great value and often in short supply. It’s an inoculant against the repetition of mistakes.
It is important that the Republican debates are not allowed to change a truthful national narrative. Lies that only exist in an alternate state of reality that the Republican candidates are promoting to justify failed policies and to support the military industrial complex must be immediately called out.