The Iraqi Nuclear Crisis - Day 10

AKA "The War of the Worlds"...

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I conceived this bit of alt history some time back, but never got around to writing the story I'd created in my head. The central point to any alt history work is to answer teh question what would be different (or what wouldn't) had we turned one way rather than another at a crucial moment in time. The global war on terror is rife with such moments, and given that so many have argued so forcefully that every decision made was wrong I think the what if argument is one worth examining - at least briefly. And the idea that things couldn't possibly be worse than what they are now is an absurdity, so injecting some absurdity into the "what if" answer seems fair. To be honest, the one aspect of the video above that I'm certain would actually have happened had the invasion of Iraq been cancelled at the last minute is the scroll reassuring viewers that they would be returned to their regularly scheduled programming as soon as possible. Whether the backdrop would be a mushroom cloud seems less certain, but hardly impossible. (For the record, I didn't believe Senator Rockefeller's claim that Saddam Hussein would have nukes by 2007 - but who knows? Perhaps he was right.)

But the idea that certain politicians would be arguing the exact opposite of their current sincere positions seems likely (if not certain) to me, too. After all, to do so they wouldn't have had to execute the complete 180 that they did in real life, and wouldn't have had to insist that they'd been completely hoodwinked, outfoxed, and outsmarted by the crafty genius George Bush (but were now fully aware and engaged in the real world and won't get fooled again). That 180 would be difficult to pull off in a sane world, but you have to credit those who pulled it off so well.

One of the best executed 180s I've ever seen involved the surge. This is from May, 2007...

Last year, pre-surge (pre-US elections) retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton appears before congress, excoriates the Bush administration and demands a surge of troops for Iraq.

Batiste and his colleagues offered their solution: more troops, more money and more time in Iraq.
"We must mobilize our country for a protracted challenge," Batiste warned.

"We better be planning for at least a minimum of a decade or longer," contributed retired Marine Col. Thomas Hammes.

"We are, conservatively, 60,000 soldiers short," added retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who was in charge of building the Iraqi Security Forces.

This year, in television advertisements for his political group "VoteVets", he says:

President Bush says he listens to his military commanders.

Well, Mr. President, I was one of those commanders, and you weren't listening when we warned you of the dangers we would face invading Iraq. Now our military is overcommitted, and America is less secure.

Mr. President, you're being told we need serious diplomacy, not escalation, and you're still not listening.

If the president won't listen, Congress must.