Rick Atkinson
Rick Atkinson
Lawrence Rush "Rick" Atkinson IVis an American author who has won Pulitzer Prizes in history and journalism...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth15 November 1952
CountryUnited States of America
belongs common country disgrace fine goes million
That was a pretty fine Army that we had in 1965. By 1973, it was in tatters. It was a disgrace to the country and to itself, to its own heritage, really. So it's, you know, the Army belongs to all 307 million of us. It is our common possession, it's our common heritage. As goes the Army, so goes the republic.
against basically became bush developed inherited iranian iraq iraqis known saw though toward wall
I think the Bush Administration had basically inherited a policy toward Iraq from the Reagan/Bush Administration that saw Iraq as a kind of fire wall against Iranian fundamentalism. And as it developed over the 1980s, it became a real political run-a-muck... even though the Iraqis were known to be harboring Palestinian terrorists.
additional conduct confirm deep few interviews largely looking record sources version
I conduct very few interviews with veterans. The contemporaneous, or near-contemporaneous, record for WWII is so spectacularly deep that latter-day recollections are largely unnecessary for a historian. Of course, in considering any account, I'm looking for additional sources that can confirm or enlarge that version of events.
If I've vividly laid out the narrative, the reader will come to his own conclusions.
I was a foreign correspondent in Berlin in the mid-'90s.
experience
I think I may try and write something about my pretty extraordinary experience with the 101st in Iraq.
adolf bush convinced fact feelings genuine himself notion quite saddam searching settled towards war
In searching for a rationale to go to war, Bush settled on the notion of Saddam as an incarnation of evil, basically, and convinced himself that Saddam was fundamentally Adolf Hitler reborn. I think his feelings towards Saddam were in fact quite genuine and quite legitimately hostile. He was not play acting.
belief bush discontent fact great limited objectives point raising seeds stakes talking war
It's my belief that by demonizing Saddam, by raising the stakes in this war to the point where we're talking about a great moral crusade, that Bush in fact planted the seeds of discontent in the country, because this was fundamentally a limited war with limited objectives and with limited gains.
audiences empire mercantile nation navy potent tend
American audiences tend to underappreciate the British, but 240 years ago they were us: They were the most powerful nation on Earth. Their mercantile empire spanned the planet. They had the most potent and experienced army and navy the world had ever seen.
thank-you country memorial-day
I was born in Munich, and my father was stationed in Salzburg. For the first three years of my life, I lived in Austria back when the American Army was still in Austria. I grew up subsequently in posts around the country around veterans.
fate battle topography
In battle, topography is fate.
narrative conclusion reader
If Ive vividly laid out the narrative, the reader will come to his own conclusions.