BushCo WWIII: What's the cause -- Incompetence, or Evil?

[Sparkly]

Poll question: BushCo WWIII: What's the cause -- Incompetence, or Evil?

Limiting it to two possibile scenarios, which do you think is more likely (and please read them before you decide!):

1. BushCo intended some domination in the Middle East, but never thought they really needed the involvement of other powerful nations (look at the weak "coalition" they went with). They truly did think it'd be a "cakewalk," that the Iraqi people were too stupid to fight back, to fight each other, or to do anything but obey the US in setting up a new government, and thank us. But oops -- billions of dollars and thousands of lives later, we're in a quagmire, and for political reasons at home, need the Iraqi government such as it is (paging Chalabi!) to "ask us to leave" -- and off we go, declaring victory (leaving just enough forces behind to guard Halliburton's oil interests).

The perfect "cut and run!" Civil war escalates, Iran becomes more involved, Syria exerts more influence, Turkey gets concerned, Israel feels threatened, and terrorist networks that thrive on chaos grow, and it threatens Europe. The UN has to get involved in an effort to stem the mess the US created and left behind, and the governments of nations like Pakistan, Egypt, India, Jordan, and even Saudi Arabia feel pressure from their people to take a stand. Russia, supplier of Iran's nuclear plants, is inherently involved in the conflict; and while all this is happening, how does North Korea seek advantage? And what is China doing? This WWIII, whatever it'd look like, would be an OOPS -- a result of BushCo's incompetence.

2. BushCo intended to spark WWIII. The word "crusade," the phrase "Axis of Evil," the unnecessary invasion of Iraq were intended to create conflict between Christianity and Islam, or oil-poor nations and oil-rich nations, or wealthy "developed" nations and poorer populations of third-world nations -- or all three. The intent of the Iraq invasion was to light a match in a shaky tinderbox and catch the world on fire. As other nations feel the heat -- the ensuing chaos threatening them in various ways, from security to politics to economics etc., more or less as described above -- they join in by necessity to protect themselves, their interests and alliances.

BushCo intends to stay put in Iraq until other nations are compelled to come onboard, after Iran, Syria and North Korea turn up the heat further; they fully expect Russia and China to become involved, but figure the US will accept a draft in the case of a world war, the EU will provide an allied victory, and in the end the US will be seen not as the instigator of WWIII, but as the savior of the world who led allies to exterminate "evil." The result is that other nations will have enabled, even welcomed, the US to set up "shop" in countries that were brought in -- as above, countries that could include Pakistan, Egypt, India, Jordan, and even Saudi Arabia. This WWIII, whatever it'd look like, would be a result of BushCo design.

Please do explain your own scenarios in posts, but meanwhile please humor me and stay with these two for the poll in voting...

[punpirate]

1. Other...

... both. To quote Margaret Atwood, "stupidity and evil amount to the same thing, if one judges by the results."

[TheWraith]

2. All evidence points to stupidity.

Look at these people and tell me that they're bright enough and skillful enough to pull off an actual plan. Hell, they can't even do one of their Iraq PR offensives without it blowing up in their faces. The fact that they've gotten this far is tribute only to inertia, fearmongering, and the slowness at which people have woken up from their 9/11 induced stupor.

Certainly a few types like Wolfie and his ilk always intended a broader war, but not this way--if they had their way, we'd already have gone through Syria and been in Iran. Again, not competant enough to be as evil as they want to be.

[Sparkly]

4. True, it seems that if they had an actual plan in mind

they'd have been better at selling it. "Greeted as liberators?" If they'd known, it seems they'd have thought of something else to prepare people...

And as you say, they wanted to broaden their battlefield, but perhaps by being victorious rather than by needing help.

[rman]

10. yup, they are quite skilled at fearmongering - no war without fear

Pentagon Lays Out "Long War" Strategy
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...
{sorry, no complete link}

'The Pentagon, readying for what it calls a "long war," yesterday laid out a new 20-year defense strategy that envisions U.S. troops deployed, often clandestinely, in dozens of countries at once to fight terrorism and other nontraditional threats.

Major initiatives include a 15 percent boost in the number of elite U.S. troops known as Special Operations Forces, a near-doubling of the capacity of unmanned aerial drones to gather intelligence, a $1.5 billion investment to counter a biological attack, and the creation of special teams to find, track and defuse nuclear bombs and other catastrophic weapons.

China is singled out as having "the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States," and the strategy in response calls for accelerating the fielding of a new Air Force long-range strike force, as well as for building undersea warfare capabilities.'

=====

also see

NYT
Pentagon Publishes New Long-Range Strategy Paper Setting Goals
By DAVID S. CLOUD
Published: February 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/glogin?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/politics/04pentagon.html&OQ=_rQ3D1&OP=60194551Q2FFo)-FQ5B5XQ7CV55luFu11bF1uF1ZF95eQ7ElQ7EXQ7CF1Z9)ylqd5y04l7e

[AtomicKitten]

3. had to think about the choices for a bit.

While there is no question it was by design, the stupidity is epic, so had to go with that.

[awoke_in_2003]

5. I voted for design

but their is an element of stupidity. This whole debacle was designed by PNAC, the stupidity is Bush (in office by design of PNAC) and the American public

[OneBlueSky]

6. read the PNAC documents . . . n/t

.

[Muddy Waters Guitar]

7. A hefty serving of both

Remember that Bush is allied with those wacko Dispensationalists, the extremist Christians who believe they'll soon be raptured into Heaven, but that WWIII needs to happen soon to enable it. Bush is only too happen to push Armageddon along a little faster.

An attack on Iran would be suicidal for us. They're much bigger, much tougher, and much better armed than Iraq. I'm starting to think it's a good idea to start learning Chinese these days (in addition to Spanish), since we'll all probably need it to get a job in 20 years.

[bklyncowgirl]

8. Evil or Stupid, Stupid or Evil--I have to go with stupid--but it's close

The PNAC crew really seems to believe that they will be able to change the world and usher in an era of Pax Americana by stomping around in the Middle East, taking out dictators and freeing the struggling masses to embrace democracy and the free market system (which is one and the same to them) and live happily ever after. They planned for this years in advance. They might have actually pulled it off except for their own dumb incompetence.

Unfortunately reality jumped up and bit them in the ass. They did not take into account the history and culture of the region and the actual attitudes of the people they were trying to free. They failed to take into account even simple human nature. Vengeance, outrage, hatred, corruption and greed have totally eclipsed any naive notions of how a liberation of Iraq would actually work.

These guys come into this with different motives--and some of them may actually think they're doing the right thing for noble purposes--in other words, some of the neocon theorists believe their own spin. As for the politicians, I think that Bush has swallowed this neocon bullshit hook, line and sinker--he wants to go down in history as a great war leader. Rumsfeld wants above all to be seen as the man who rewrote the military textbooks--sort of like Field Marshall Rummel--er I mean Rommel. Rove primarily sees this war on terror as a means to political power. Cheney also sees the war as a means to power--and of course to profit. War has been very very good to Cheney and his pals in the oil business.

9/11 gave them their Pearl Harbor. I've never been able to believe in MIHOP simply because it is inconceivable that these guys who have screwed up everything they've touched could have pulled of this brilliant plot. LIHOP is more credible at least for some of the more nefarious players but you can never discount sheer dumb incompetence as a major force in history.

[Totally Committed]

9. We let them off the hook every time we ascribe any of their evil

only to "Stupidity". They are monsters with a plan, not the bunch of nincompoops some of us make them out to be. Even Bush, stupid though he is, knows the score enough NOT to play along, but he is evil enough to go through with their plans anyway.

Always assume the worst about them, and you will be on the right track.

TC