To paraphrase the eloquent poet, essayist, and philosopher George Santayana, this is what happens when people do not pay attention to, or learn, the lessons of history.
Dick Cheney ‘94: Invading Baghdad Would Create Quagmire
(CLG, 12 Aug 2007)
Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved into Baghdad?
Dick Cheney: No.
Q: Why not?
A: Because if we’d gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn’t have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq. Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein’s government, then what are you going to put in its place? …
It’s a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.
The other thing was casualties…
And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.
A quagmire is a quagmire. What else is there to say? That things are ‘different’ since 9/11? Who really believes that old canard? Independent thinkers and readers of history are having none of it. God/dess help the rest.
