10 ms·

General Colin Powell warned George Bush before the Iraq war, "You break it, you buy it..." Two months before the invasion of Iraq, Secretary of State Colin L.

General Colin Powell warned George Bush before the Iraq war, "You break it, you buy it..." Two months before the invasion of Iraq, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell warned President Bush about the potential negative consequences of a war, citing what Mr. Powell privately called the ''you break it, you own it'' rule of military action, according to a new book. ''You're sure?'' Mr. Powell is quoted as asking Mr. Bush in the Oval Office on Jan. 13, 2003, as the president told him he had made the decision to go forward. ''You understand the consequences,'' he is said to have stated in a half-question. ''You know you're going to be owning this place?...'' http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/17/world/the-struggle-for-iraq-policy-wary-powell-said-to-have-warned-bush-on-war.html?pagewanted=1 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/17/world/the-struggle-for-ira...

gkya 10y ago
Well the West bought it way before the US invasion of Iraq. After the WWI the Ottoman Empire didn't exit gracefully, but it was kill -9ed. Now people are in a quest for identity and peace, and they have to deal with vultures who want their petrol and gas and whatnot.
ams6110 10y ago
I don't think the US general public as really understood what war is, what the consequences are, or what it takes to win, since before Vietnam.
jjcc 10y ago
That was 2004. Now it becomes more and more clear that Iraq war made all the region into an unpredictable situation. We might believe the world leaders learned a lesson. Obama even took the case during election campaign as if he is different from Mr.Bush But later he DID the almost same thing in Libya, which had the same ideology based motivation to bring down dictatorship and promote (pretend it was done by its OWN PEOPLE) democracy and universal human rights. That's very dangerous and most people might not notice: Politician seems understand the situation in their talk, but their behavior shows the opposite. Just imaging: an idiot is silly in most things but just extremely good at one thing: pretend to be very smart and can successfully deceive every body INCLUDING himself. He would have overwhelming advantage over another seems dummy but actually smart guy. (Recently I've witness Obama behave the same delusional way again in a dialog with Charlie Rose. To most audience, Obama seems reasonable person and gave convincing reasoning but he was actually based on an illusion which happened to be shared by public. )

gkya 10y ago

Well the West bought it way before the US invasion of Iraq. After the WWI the Ottoman Empire didn't exit gracefully, but it was kill -9ed. Now people are in a quest for identity and peace, and they have to deal with vultures who want their petrol and gas and whatnot.

ams6110 10y ago

I don't think the US general public as really understood what war is, what the consequences are, or what it takes to win, since before Vietnam.

jjcc 10y ago

That was 2004. Now it becomes more and more clear that Iraq war made all the region into an unpredictable situation. We might believe the world leaders learned a lesson. Obama even took the case during election campaign as if he is different from Mr.Bush But later he DID the almost same thing in Libya, which had the same ideology based motivation to bring down dictatorship and promote (pretend it was done by its OWN PEOPLE) democracy and universal human rights. That's very dangerous and most people might not notice: Politician seems understand the situation in their talk, but their behavior shows the opposite. Just imaging: an idiot is silly in most things but just extremely good at one thing: pretend to be very smart and can successfully deceive every body INCLUDING himself. He would have overwhelming advantage over another seems dummy but actually smart guy. (Recently I've witness Obama behave the same delusional way again in a dialog with Charlie Rose. To most audience, Obama seems reasonable person and gave convincing reasoning but he was actually based on an illusion which happened to be shared by public. )