Dana Perino says we’re not occupiers in Iraq, we’re “guests”:
QUESTION: But he wasn’t a guest. We’re occupiers.
PERINO: No, we’re not. We are absolutely a guest.
This is part of the sick culture of self-deception in which the Iraq War has gotten wrapped up. We invaded Iraq by force, dropping ordnance and firing lethal weapons. And our present there has been deeply unpopular for years. Our forces aren’t subject to Iraqi law. We just concluded a series of negotiations in which the main sticking point was that the Iraqi government wanted us to promise to leave the country and we didn’t want to. That’s an occupation. Perhaps Perino thinks, falsely, that the occupation serves the strategic interests of the United States. But this kind of denial is not helpful to understanding our situation in the world.