What Led to Brussels

The national and international media is full of the atrocities in Brussels.

 These tragedies are the culmination of a series of events beginning with the action taken in 2003 by the Coalition of the Willing.

They also remind us of the four thousand plus casualties suffered by the Americans in this abject failure of policy and decision making. Unfortunately, and to our eternal shame, Australia was part of that coalition.

At the time, I made a small personal protest that made the front page of the local rag, and there were demonstrations both in Australia and overseas. The invasion went ahead, of course, and what we’re seeing in Brussels now, what we saw in Paris last year, and what we will continue to see, even if ISIL is overwhelmed in a military sense, can be sheeted back to that action in March 2003.

Of course, many mistakes have been made since by administrations other than the Bush Whitehouse, but it goes back to 2003. The arrogance, ignorance and naivety demonstrated by the Bush administration, and by proxy, administrations in London and Canberra, beggar belief.

It’s telling that none of Bush’s inner circle (Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, or Cheney) had combat experience in the military. The only one who did (Colin Powell) had reservations, but expressed them only in private, and they were ignored.

There were no Arabic speakers in that inner circle, and the person they relied on for advice and guidance, Ahmed Chalabi, became a convicted criminal.

The video above provides a very clear narrative.

Read it and weep.