Fiasco: American Military Adventure in Iraq
2014 ж. 24 Сәу.
43 081 Рет қаралды
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Thomas E. Ricks discusses the American military adventure in Iraq, with a preface on recent developments.
Recorded in 2007 at the The Margaret Mitchell House & Museum in Atlanta, GA.
Army Iraq war vet here (1st Cav, OIF II 2004-2005) and I can say for sure that "Fiasco" is a perfect description for that war and especially for the experience of my unit in SW Baghdad.
Thanks for your service and honesty!
KZhead algorithm has very sick sense of humor...
Yup
Unbelievable how much this guy got right...
My cousin served two tours in Iraq in 2004 and 2006 and one in Afghanistan in 2010. He’s told me countless time both wars were complete disasters and that we broke the Middle East. Sounds like Mr. Ricks agrees
I was there 04-08 and again in 2014-15 with the FFL. Your cousin is right, what a mess. I think that if people were held to account maybe it could have changed.
@@jenpsakiscousin4589 Destabilizing the region was likely part of the point of the wars.
@@kreb12you’d imagine they wanted to destabilize the region cus that was the most obvious and lasting outcome of the wars. But other evidence suggests that somehow they were just so niave and arrogant they turned it into a clusterfuck while they were fantasizing about nation building
@@james-ty8ce Yeah maybe they thought they could actually make democracies. I tend to think it had more to do with securing access to the critical supply of oil. It also conveniently gave our military 20+ years of combat experience, which none of our competitors can remotely achieve. Plenty of years for fraudulent military and civilian contracts for technological development and rebuilding the countries we ruined for a generation. Shucks, even the Taliban now have a bunch of shiny new toys to cause havoc with. Keep the region unstable and no oil baron will ever threaten us. Unless it's the Saudis and we unfortunately need their oil to stay in the US purview.
Takes awhile to deduce that this talk was given in 2007.
just WOW, it's going to be 2018 in a month... and if you told Mr. Ricks he should start gathering material for another book, even he would not believe it was going to go THIS way - although he kind of predicted the alternative of splitting it into many civil wars (interestingly, his main worry was "new strong man" - new Saddam - uniting the country on anti-americanism) so he kind of got both, his bad guys named Al Quaeda are now much stronger ISIS (what a great one liner: drain the swamp... of terrorism)
@@budesmatpicu3992 Wait till you find out what happens in 2021...
This man should be Secretary of Defense. I've heard several of his lectures and his depth of knowledge on the US military, it's strengths and failures is better than any General I've ever met
There's not much in Mr. Ricks' presentation one can argue with. It seems we're always doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes every few years. It wouldn't be half as tragic if so many millions didn't have to pay the price of so much arrogance and stupidity.
Jeff G Read Thom Hartmann's 'The Crash Of 2016'. He describes a concrete theory about how we have economic chaos and a war every eighty years, or four generations: two generations who remember the last mess and avoid it then two generations who forgot and will create the next economic downturn and war. Think about it: American Revolution then 80 years later the Civil War then 80 years later the Great Depression and WW2 then the next 80 years brings us to now.
Jeff G No question. So much arrogance and stupidity. The Bush administration really dropped the ball in so many respects, but especially with governance. How can you create this democracy in Iraq? Well they were naive enough first and foremost not to consider the fact that there is centuries of culture in that country that goes against what the western world knows as democracy and government etc. The tribes etc, you can’t remove centuries of culture and think they will just instantly be able to work together. But here is the biggest issue and why it is as much of a mess today as it has ever been, and thus I remember not being able to believe at the time. Bush said all of Saddam’s government must be removed, every single member no matter what and we will build a new one. Now he was told that is not a wise idea in fact that is a disaster. It was explained to him that it was known many were not really true supporters of his but rather pretended to be so as they could have a position in government and a good career to provide for their families. It was explained to President Bush and those who wanted it that you cannot do that because you are removing every single person who has some experience in governing. Then what you have left is people who have no idea, no experience and will not be able to do it and without strong leadership by people who know how to lead that will lead to chaos. There will be millions of Iraqi people looking for leadership and be in disarray when they don’t see it and will act on their own devices with their own groups, or you give the cells the great opportunity to come in and assert control. He was told we must pick some of the current government to be the next leaders to establish a government, those that have experienced and those that are known to the people. He said no, he refused his plan was best. And as a result we see an unstable, non existent government the very thing the administration was warned could and more then likely would happen
Jeff G "mistakes" i think its called policies and fateful decisions anywhere else in the world...i imagine generals plotting the mistaking of iraq....oh no your military calls it invasion.
George W , Rumsfeld and Cheney😮😢
13:28 - damn this dude is like Nostradamus
It didn't take a Nostradamus, unfortunately... I was over there right at the beginning, got out in '04, my cousin who was in grade school at the time served over there.. We compared notes the last time we talked, and nothing had fundamentally changed... Nearly 20 years, and nothing accomplished...
If our soldiers lost faith in our government back then , what do they think now ?
After the pull out from Afghanistan a Vietnam Veteran ask me how long it takes to build an army. I said 30 years. He was angry and yelled at me that basic training was 8 weeks. His highest rank was PFC. Basic, AIT at least a year in the ranks NCO academy, a 20 year career. Then some of those privates from 20 years ago are in senior leadership. Another 10 years to develop the institution. Are we will to fight for 30 years?
The US and other 'First World' nations have a hard time wrapping their heads around this. The old saying is "Home by Christmas", always assuming their might will guarantee a quick victory. In Vietnam both the NVA and Vietcong fought the US on their terms (85% of combat was initiated by them) and thus could control their rate of casualties... and that rate was based on their birth rate. They were planning for and preparing to fight *for generations* while the US was only planning 6 months to about two years out.
@johnnelson5503 You can only defeat insurgencies if you're willing to commit attrocities. Britain successfully defeated several insurgencies in its empire. It won against the Boers and Malaysia by forcibly imprisoning the civilian population and burning all the crops - you cannot hide in the civilian population if there is none - finding the enemy is easy if you can say anyone outside of the camps are the enemy. With other insurgencies like Iraq in the 1930s they just bombed settlements into obedience. The Nazis suppressed resistance movements by threatening to wipe out any settlement that resisted. This successfully discouraged French resistance activity until Normandy
@@jgw9990 so killing civilians will suppress resistance, brother, this will encourage and motivate more people to the resistance. One of the main reasons, the nazis lost the war, was their cruelty of occupied populace, they turned everyone against them.
@loulahassan4191 No it will not. The Nazis lost the war because they fought essentially every major power simultaneously. Crushing resistance movements was actually pretty effective. Attrocities only motivate further resistance initially. Everyone has a breaking point.
Great talk, very interesting. The volume is low though.
Today, in 2022, how sad and depressing, particularly when junior, middle and senior members of the Military have lost confidence in Congress and structures that is a bill being paid in lives today and the support for Veterans. God bless the current Admin is trying to support the " the blind, the crippled and insane " in the words of a great Irish songwriter .
18:26 I think he may be onto something.
BUSH JR WANTED TO GET SADDAM TO AVENGE HIS DADDYS REPUTATION.....THAT ALL IT WAS
What went wrong in Iraq, was the invasion and occupation, of that country by the US. Rick's enthusiasm for the draft omits the fact, that if military pay during the draft kept up with inflation, the average first time enlistee would be taking a $600-$800 per month pay cut. The presence of a draft did nothing to avert the US war in Vietnam. On the contrary it facilitated that war.
Stop-loss, calling up IRR etc should immediately trigger draft notifications. Failure to report in 30 days should result in a loss of citizenship.
Irak was not a wasted military adventure;Afghanistan, yes. We followed the British in their 1880's folly in the latter. Tsk Tsk
Everyone talks about how bad the invasion was. No one talks about the strategic desaster that was Desert Shield & Storm. Destroying the basis of life of an unaligned, suni state that was the major stabilizing factor in the arab world in favour of a monarchy with a bubble stockmarket economy. It enabled the expansion of shia goverments (which somehow is of any strategic importance), gave ambition to turkey, secured states that then turned to fund non state actor terrorists, forces OPEC states to soon choose sides between the free world and the communist bandits of mainland china. The world would be a better place if the US goverment would have stuck to not getting involved siding with the Kuwaitis and Saudis.
Net-net I think events have proven you could not be more wrong.
@@lindencamelback2305 you keep saying nothing. Do you have any facts or sources or even a real point of view?
Was it Desert Storm or the subsequent economic sanctions that had the bigger impact?
well, "strategic disaster" or the simple fact that it's a moral and a war crime to attack and invade a country. at Nurembourg at the end of ww 2 it was called the *fundamental* war crime -- starting the war.
How prescient and wish he was wrong.
they fucked up from the start calling it an adventure its highly disrespectful to military personnel who fought in that combat zone.
starting a war attacking a country and killing people in a foreign country is not an adventure. it's a war crime -- the fundamental war crime by Nuremberg trials after ww2.
Ricks is a brilliant analyst, but current events prove he is not always clairvoyant. The success/failure of our involvement in Iraq is still up for decision and probably will not be decided for another half century.
You literally said nothing.
"The Democratic party is terrified of being tagged with losing in Iraq like they were tagged with losing in Vietnam....." Sleepy Joe: Hold my beer.
Afghanistan was lost in 2002. Anybody who thinks that there was a different solution than the US withdrawing and the Taliban taking over was smoking Afghanistan's #1 cash crop.
@@chrisrautmann8936 0oh. Check you out. Posting serious comments in response to obvious whimsy. Embarrassed for you petal.
@@TheToonMonkey Why embarrassed? We were right. You were wrong. And you ended up killing 2000+ Americans in the ridiculous endeavor. Only major problem is that the GOP isn't going to learn from THIS one, either. You know what's worse than repeating history, over and over and over? Knowing what's coming, and not being able to stop it. You should see what I see coming down the road....
You have start with the assumprionthat a fast,abxolute victory over the 7th largest army in the world for minims; casualties was a "fiasco!"Compared to the American thunder run-on Baghdad, Montgomery's ca,paignin TUnisiawas a deep, dark, dank, stupid, failure!
Because, as he noted, the important part was what came after, which was an absolute fiasco.