[tgb29]

By 2010, the administration I wrote this memo for would totally squander America's opportunity to lead the free world. Not learning from the US-MX war of 1840s or the Vietnam war of 1960s, we embarked on a costly and disastrous military initiative in Iraq. We destroyed privacy with the Patriot Act and crashed the global economy in 2008.

[anonu]

When something bad happens - take a plane crash for example - its never just one thing you can point to and say that was 100% to blame. There's always a series of events that compound together - decisions and shortcuts made years or decades before a catastrophe occurs that all work up to the event.

I could just as easily blame the British for the Balfour declaration... which led to the current Mideast strife - which led to AlQaeda causing 9/11 which lead to the military interventions in Iraq.

My point is - its too facile to blame the Bush administration for everything. Look further back...

[Loughla]

That sort of feels like trying to justify poor choices via a belief in magical predetermination to me, though.

Al Qaeda being caused by whatever they were caused by has absolutely no bearing on the actual decisions made after their attacks on 9/11.

9/11 happening doesn't determine what the outcome of 9/11 will be in terms of policy response.

The response of the Bush administration was important, and led to many (I suspect intentional) negative outcomes for the American public in general.

To just wave it away and say - it comes from earlier in history - strikes me as a bad idea at best, and a way to avoid responsibility for your actions at worst.

[tgb29]

So who's responsible for the poor execution of the military initiative in Iraq? Was it predetermined to be a failure or could there have been a more successful outcome?

Predicting events is one thing, but there are certainly better ways to predict the results of policies.