Link and introductory text courtesy of atrios.blogspot.com.
The LA Times has a long article on the post-war planning screwups.
Donīt forget to read all the way to the end. If you donīt, youīll miss
this:
Still, [Douglas J. Feith, the No. 3 official at the Pentagon]
and other Pentagon officials said, they are studying the
lessons of Iraq closely to ensure that the next U.S.
takeover of a foreign country goes more smoothly.
"We're going to get better over time," promised Lawrence Di
Rita, a special assistant to Rumsfeld. "We've always thought
of post-hostilities as a phase" distinct from combat, he said.
"The future of war is that these things are going to be much
more of a continuum."
"This is the future for the world we're in at the moment,"
he said. "We'll get better as we do it more often."
http://www.latimes.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=la-na-postwar18jul18012420§ion=/printstory
Notice how Di Rita attempts to head off debate over possible future
acts of military aggression with his comment "This is the future for
the world we're in at the moment." Such a comment invokes the power
of prophecy. Its purpose is to make military aggression seem
inevitable, and what's the point of debating the inevitable, after
all?
Civilized people have other plans. Do these guys really think they
can go on like this war after war after war? They have no idea how
evil and scary they sound, do they?
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