Misled into a mistake, a decade later
Note: This incorporates material from a post published earlier on this blog. It is posted here as the electronic version of a column published in today’s dead-tree edition of the AJC.
—————–
Ten years ago today, the United States launched an unprovoked invasion of another country, an attack that was justified by claims of dire threats that our leaders knew to be false and exaggerated. More than 4,000 of our sons and daughters were to die as a result of that decision; tens of thousands more live today with physical and psychic wounds that have changed their lives forever.
The last of our soldiers to die in that war was named David Hickman. He was a recently married 23-year-old Army specialist from Greensboro, N.C. He was killed Nov. 14, 2011, by an improvised explosive device, a term that by the end had became all too familiar. The death toll continues even now within Iraq, with an average of a dozen people a day dying from political-related violence. More than 60 civilians were killed in a terrorist bombing Tuesday, a story that made headlines here only because it was timed to coincide with the war’s anniversary.
In other words, what was once deemed worth the investment of thousands of lives is now not deemed worthy even of notice.
Today, a majority of Americans have come to understand that the war was a mistake. However, that was not the case 10 years ago. In the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, our country was experiencing a degree of fear that it had not felt for decades. Under those conditions, it was all too easy for those in power to direct that fear wherever they wished, and to isolate and marginalize those Americans who dared to question the narrative as they spun it.
One of the architects of that effort, former Vice President Dick Cheney, looks back on that era in a new documentary film that was televised last week on Showtime. Cheney played a decisive role in maneuvering a pliable, inexperienced and maybe somewhat frightened president into an unnecessary war. But in typical Cheney fashion, the vice president expresses not the slightest regret or doubt.
“I did what I did,” he told the filmmakers. “And it’s all part of the public record and I feel very good about it. If I had it to do over again, I’d do it in a minute.”
While we did succeed in removing the tyrannical Saddam from power, that part of the mission was never in real doubt. In other ways, however, the invasion has set American interests back significantly. Instead of serving as a military outpost for U.S. forces keeping Iran in check, Iraq today is all but an Iranian client state. Despite our investment of blood and treasure, we have little or no influence over Iraq’s policies or practices.
By fighting on two fronts at once, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, we also divided our manpower, financial resources and attention, ensuring that we achieved real victory in neither. We will never know whether a full commitment to Afghanistan in the early years would have paid off with success; we do know that the odds of ultimate success look very dim.
Cheney, President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and others also lost the war here on the home front. The invasion launched 10 years ago today in a show of shock and awe was intended to mark a newly muscular and militaristic foreign policy, with the United States finally freed of the constraints once placed upon it by the Soviet Union.
That was the theory. In practice, the invasion of Iraq, driven by false promises of easy conquest and false threats of WMD, yellowcake, mushroom clouds and unmanned aerial vehicles, exposed the strategic overreach and arrogance implicit in such a policy. By his second term, a chastened President Bush had largely pushed Cheney aside. That recognition of his vice president’s malignant influence came too late to save his presidency.
Today, the ambitions of Cheney and his friends have been discredited. The lessons of Vietnam have been refreshed rather than overturned, and support is now growing even within the Republican Party for a less expensive military and a more circumspect use of force overseas. The remaining advocates of a Cheney-esque foreign policy — men such as John McCain and William Kristol — are left to stamp their feet in frustration.
If given the chance, they, like Cheney, would indeed be willing to do it all over again. But next time, the American people may be wise enough not to give them or others like them the opportunity.
– Jay Bookman
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
517 comments Add your comment
curious
March 20th, 2013
9:48 am
Didn’t we give Saddam at least a tacit “green light” to invade Kuwait?
In fact, up to that time, Saddam was our buddy because he was fighting Iran.
The Saudis, and their oil money, prompted George H.W. Bush to respond.
Granny Godzilla
March 20th, 2013
9:48 am
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022537300
godless heathen - owner of many things he does not need
March 20th, 2013
9:49 am
In December 2009, former Prime Minister Tony Blair stated that he “would still have thought it right to remove [Saddam Hussein]” regardless of whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction or not.
Granny Godzilla
March 20th, 2013
9:49 am
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/03/charts-cost-iraq-war
Welcome to the Occupation
March 20th, 2013
9:50 am
Jay: “That invasion was intended to send a message to Muslims everywhere, and as a means of establishing permanent US bases in Iraq to be used to dominate that region militarily and intimidate neighboring Iran into doing what we said.”
But don’t forget, as I said above, there was an almost equally important “internal” message being sent here: which was that the ruling class was re-asserting its right, after decades on the defensive after Vietnam, to unilaterally determine an aggressive and muscular FP without fear of being brought to heel by a vocal popular uprising, over any objection and pressure from below coming from a Vietnam-esque “anti-war left”, either at home or abroad. The message to all the nattering nabobs within the democratic societies of the US and Europe was perfectly encapsulated by Bush on his visit to London where he ominously said, to the effect: “see what these people are doing here? This is why we’re going into Iraq, so that the Iraqis can express themselves here as these people are doing”, by which he of course meant the Orwellian opposite: “we’re going so that the Iraqis can express themselves, though we know that they will still have absolutely ZERO effect ultimately on their government’s policies”. We’re bringing them “democracy”, see?
And thus was initiated the new Orwellian world of up-is-down defiance of law by the ruling class, which we have now seen repeated again since in the security state attack on democratic rights and the financial bailouts and shielding of finance criminals from any accountability for lawlessness.
Iraq was the template.
DebbieDoRight - A Do Right Woman
March 20th, 2013
9:51 am
If there really was justice in this country, that group of maniacs would be sitting in jail.
Word.
What’s so sad though, from reading some responses, is that there are really people in the U.S. who feel differently.
I think these are the same people who, given the chance, would always take the blue pill, (The blue pill would allow him to remain in the fabricated reality of the Matrix. The red pill would lead to his escape from the Matrix and into the “real world”), these people ENJOY living in their bubbles and would hate for reality to intrude.
Doggone/GA
March 20th, 2013
9:51 am
“In December 2009, former Prime Minister Tony Blair stated that he “would still have thought it right to remove [Saddam Hussein]” regardless of whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction or not”
fine. Next time he thinks there’s a tyrant who needs to be removed let the UK start the damn war.
Normal, plain and simple
March 20th, 2013
9:51 am
Granny G,
I forgot about him. He sure was correct.
alittlecommonsense
March 20th, 2013
9:51 am
The truth is that it was a very complex time. We the public didn’t have the facts to make an informed decision because many of those facts were classified. Those who thought they knew more than the people with access to the classified intelligence reports were probably acting more on their partisan instincts than on facts.
If I could save those 5000 American lives and all the treasure spend on the war, in retrospect I would. But to pretend it was just Bush lying because he wanted Iraq’s oil, or had a personal grudge against Saddam, etc., is a hollow argument.
Mick
March 20th, 2013
9:53 am
erwin
You can’t change history but you can speculate…there were warnings all over the place the summer preceding 9/11 about hijackings. Stop the hijackings and there would be no 9/11, you didn’t need to know about the plot. Richard Clarke has already been on record that the bush admin did not take bin laden seriously, clinton and gore did, so, gore might have been more vigilant about the warnings that summer – just a theory but likely…
Jm
March 20th, 2013
9:53 am
Doggone
Aside from Obama taking over 1/3 of the economy while he was President, the fact that he is democratically elected with a legitimate election make it a wee bit difficult to argue that Obama is a tyrant
GM bondholders may disagree. But I digress.
Doggone/GA
March 20th, 2013
9:54 am
“We the public didn’t have the facts to make an informed decision ”
I did. Why didn’t you?
Jerome Horwitz
March 20th, 2013
9:54 am
If we’re all about removing tyrants why did we support Somoza in Nicarauga and the Devaillers in Haiti? They were horrible tyrants too. PArdon my spelling.
Normal, plain and simple
March 20th, 2013
9:55 am
Did anyone see Luckovich? Hilarious!
moonbat betty
March 20th, 2013
9:55 am
Bush was not at fault.
Saddam Hussein was at fault.
If you would like to vilify Bush and glorify Saddam, so be it.
FrankLeeDarling
March 20th, 2013
9:55 am
Well after reading some of the comments it my be possible that hindsight is not 20/20
williebkind
March 20th, 2013
9:55 am
“If there really was justice in this country, that group of maniacs would be sitting in jail.”
Yeah your are correct! I can not believe Hillary, Rice, and Obama are not in jail for the murder of four Americans.
JamVet
March 20th, 2013
9:56 am
And from the useless opinions file, I very much disagree with Jay when he writes: I do not believe that prosecution would have been appropriate….
My goodness, this level of deadly duplicity and criminal malfeasance does not rise to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors”? I believe that it clearly did.
…or possible.
Only because of a dearth of moral courage in Washington DC by men and women who put their political futures before the good of the republic.
Criminalizing politics is a very dangerous step.
Agreed, but these were – and still are – very dangerous liars intent on and successful in subjugating the law of the land to their own deviant purposes.
The truth is that by the time the war began, a strong if not overwhelming majority of Americans supported it. This is a stain on our nation, not just on those individuals who led it at the time.
Immaterial. From what I have read of it, the US Constitution does not read, “First take a poll and see if the populace agrees that these are high crimes and misdemeanors.”
The five people in that photo should have be tried for violations of American and international law. And Mssrs. Bush and Cheney should never have served out their terms…
alittlecommonsense
March 20th, 2013
9:56 am
So Doggone/GA got to see classified intelligence reports! Wow, I didn’t know we had a high level government official here on the blog!
TiredOfIt
March 20th, 2013
9:56 am
Just more proof you cannot trust the GOP. The war was only going to cost 50 billion, more like 2 trillion before it is all said and done.
How about Reagan (Bill Casey) negotiating with Iran to hold the hostages until after the election. Isn’t that treason?
moonbat betty
March 20th, 2013
9:57 am
“If there really was justice in this country, that group of maniacs would be sitting in jail.”
What have the dems been waiting for then?
JohnnyReb
March 20th, 2013
9:57 am
Jay, I’m not so sure about your comment that leaders knew there were no WMD, etc before the invasion. If that was so, either Powell lied or they used him like Obama did Rice.
Despite all the flaws of W and Cheney, when it comes to National Defense I would rather have them than Obama and his team. I’ve not felt comfortable with anything since Obama took office. Plus, he lies consciously all the time. We call him on it, you guys let him get away with it.
Granny Godzilla
March 20th, 2013
9:57 am
alittlecommonsense
I knew what Han Blix had reported as the bombing began.
With no security clearance.
JohnnyReb
March 20th, 2013
9:58 am
BTW – I lost count of the all the Monday Morning Quarterbacks here today.
Doggone/GA
March 20th, 2013
9:59 am
“make it a wee bit difficult to argue that Obama is a tyrant”
but I’m not talking about an “argument”…I’m talking about a country that decides, for whatever reason, that he IS a tyrant and that for out own good they need to invade us and remove him.
Scratch It
March 20th, 2013
9:59 am
Doggone/GA
and it was. if your Mother tells you YOU can choose to jump off a cliff or not, it is NOT her responsiblity if you decide to jump. Congress authorized Bush to MAKE THE CHOICE. He chose wrong, and that choice is his responsibility and his alone.
Its your opinion he chose wrong. Most people realize it was a hard decision but was the right one. The world is a better place without Saddam Hussein. But still as libs love to blame its just as much every dem who voted for it to own up to it to.
USinUK ... no longer a rainy Friday, but still mildly cranky
March 20th, 2013
9:59 am
“I think the left could have made a more coherent argument against the war if they were not so angry and bitter at the time. I personally tuned them out largely because of the tone of their argument.”
what a load of bollocks – you didn’t listen to the left because we were angry???
are you frickin KIDDING me???
maybe think about WHY we were angry rather than just call us dirty effing hippies next time …
mm
March 20th, 2013
10:00 am
The media is finally spilling the beans on Bush and his henchman, and now the cons are scurrying around to defend him like roaches when the light is turned on.
Erwin's cat
March 20th, 2013
10:00 am
Mick – gore might have been more vigilant about the warnings that summer – just a theory but likely…
Your crystal ball is apparently better than mine…or is it a magic mirror?
If we had only got that first down, or base hit, or if the umps hadn’t ruled it an infield fly, or if the wind hadn’t blown so hard, if I had just turned left….I try not to waste time in speculating an alternate scenario to what actually happened …it only serves to makes me feel better or smarter about a disappointing or bad situation…nothing more
TBS
March 20th, 2013
10:00 am
“Aside from Obama taking over 1/3 of the economy while he was President,”
Didn’t know there was a hyperbole contest this morning but we do know who is currently in the lead………..
Doggone/GA
March 20th, 2013
10:00 am
“So Doggone/GA got to see classified intelligence reports! ”
Liar
williebkind
March 20th, 2013
10:00 am
Are we back to incantations? Keep repeating the same old lies again again again and again. Then again with a new website. Again with another progressive liberal media source? After 30 years the intelligence can be released if the ongoing president will allow it. But that will just start another incantation by the liberals. But it is so much fun watching them spew out all their knowledge and intelligence about such an event and how skilled they are in plugging in the holes with disinformation and misdirection. That college education in cutting and pasting is paying off.
Scratch It
March 20th, 2013
10:00 am
Jay bookman and jay carney are one in the same. Even though President Bush brought stability to Iraq he still can’t give him credit.
Recon 0311 2533
March 20th, 2013
10:01 am
Well the lib’s have been so politically driven to rewrite history that with the exception of Mick they probably actually believe the history rewrite. I could appeal to their common sense and point out how Saddam once invaded Kuwait and how we had to push him out and that we became his sworn enemy or the reports of his plan to kill Bush Sr. or his financing of suicide bombers but then lefties lack common sense so I may as well leave them to their delusion that Saddam Hussein was really a peach of a guy and that GWB made up a story about WMD’s only to deprive him of his justly deserved dictatorship.
alittlecommonsense
March 20th, 2013
10:01 am
“maybe think about WHY we were angry rather than just call us dirty effing hippies next time”
I didn’t call you that. But I guess if the birkenstock fits…..
moonbat betty
March 20th, 2013
10:01 am
“BTW – I lost count of the all the Monday Morning Quarterbacks here today”
Yeah, JReb, they had “ESP”N
curious
March 20th, 2013
10:01 am
Based on many of the posters here and on Kyle’s blog, Obama is a tyrant.
Progressive, Liberal, Lefty
March 20th, 2013
10:02 am
If it were up to me, we’d round up the whole bunch, from Bush to Cheney to Rumsfeld to Wolfowitz and on down the line, and ship them all off to the Hague for war crimes trials.
stands for decibels
March 20th, 2013
10:02 am
Someone quoting Tony Blair?
What a courageous partner in our glorious War on Brains.
http://www.arras.net/circulars/archives/tn_tony_bum_snort.jpg
USinUK ... no longer a rainy Friday, but still mildly cranky
March 20th, 2013
10:02 am
“Its your opinion he chose wrong. ”
no, it’s not
he chose wrongly because:
1) he chose not to pursue intel that he didn’t want to hear (hellooooo yellowcake!)
2) he chose to lie about why he was invading the country (WMD! Saddam! Freeance!)
3) he then chose to do it on the cheap, without seeking assistance from our allies (that should have told you about how tenuous his “proof” was)
USinUK ... no longer a rainy Friday, but still mildly cranky
March 20th, 2013
10:03 am
oh, and lastly, “we don’t like the guy” isn’t justification for invading a sovereign nation.
and now we’re reaping the whirlwind
JamVet
March 20th, 2013
10:03 am
Normal, thanks!
Apparently Mr. Luckovich agrees with me and the American Bar Association about the most incompetent vice president in 150 years!
RB from Gwinnett
March 20th, 2013
10:03 am
“And that is simply wrong as well, a blatant rewriting of history.”
Talk about rewriting history???? Just check out all the libs here who to this day refuse to admit the leaders of the Dem party at the time said the same thing about Saddam as Bush did. Including Bill Clinton. The rah-rah from the left lasted only as long as it took to decide they didn’t find WMD’s (not that there weren’t any…) and they turned on Bush like Coyote’s on fresh meat, ignored all the Dems who made the same conclusions from the same intel, and still do. They don’t even care that WMD’s wasn’t the only reason to get rid of Saddam, but it’s a good excuse for bashing Bush, so they’re going with it.
Again, you would think a political party chock full of history majors (see also “pizza delivery”) would be a little better versed in history.
Welcome to the Occupation
March 20th, 2013
10:04 am
alittlecommonsense: “But to pretend it was just Bush lying because he wanted Iraq’s oil, or had a personal grudge against Saddam, etc., is a hollow argument.”
Have you not been following the discussion? The argument here is more that it was a grand, epochal strategic “leap” that this was about, one aiming for a bold “reset” of geopolitical affairs and a reassertion of US imperial dominance. Obviously the oil was important here, too, and comes under the aforementioned, but that is not what any serious observer is claiming was the primary or essential motivation.
USinUK ... no longer a rainy Friday, but still mildly cranky
March 20th, 2013
10:04 am
“I didn’t call you that. But I guess if the birkenstock fits…..”
whatever you call me … I was still right.
Doggone/GA
March 20th, 2013
10:05 am
“It’s your opinion he chose wrong.”
Nope, it’s a fact
Welcome to the Occupation
March 20th, 2013
10:10 am
Scratch It: “Even though President Bush brought stability to Iraq he still can’t give him credit.”
Wow, do we have a pulse here, any grey matter functioning AT ALL?
This look like “stability” to you, or do you even bother looking at the news?
1.2 million Iraqis dead, and counting.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/19/baghdad-bombings-anniversary-invasion
Bombings in Baghdad kill 56 on eve of Iraq war anniversary
Twelve bombs explode in Shia areas on tenth anniversary of US-led invasion of country
Scratch It
March 20th, 2013
10:11 am
Doggone/GA:
Nope, it’s a fact
Nope, it’s not. Its your opinion. Can you prove its a fact?
curious
March 20th, 2013
10:12 am
An excerpt from Commondreams, September 2002.
“In 1988, Saddam�s forces attacked Kurdish civilians with poisonous gas from Iraqi helicopters and planes. U.S. intelligence sources told The LA Times in 1991, they �believe that the American-built helicopters were among those dropping the deadly bombs.�
In response to the gassing, sweeping sanctions were unanimously passed by the US Senate that would have denied Iraq access to most US technology. The measure was killed by the White House.
Senior officials later told reporters they did not press for punishment of Iraq at the time because they wanted to shore up Iraq’s ability to pursue the war with Iran. Extensive research uncovered no public statements by Donald Rumsfeld publicly expressing even remote concern about Iraq�s use or possession of chemical weapons until the week Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, when he appeared on an ABC news special.”
Being a tyrant is okay as long as he’s our tyrant.
Doggone/GA
March 20th, 2013
10:13 am
“Nope, it’s not. Its your opinion. Can you prove its a fact?”
“Misled into a mistake, a decade later”
Mike
March 20th, 2013
10:13 am
The quotes the right always look to like Zoso above are all around the November 2002 date, were based on the intelligence as presented to them by the Bush Administration who omitted the fact that our own CIA as well as German Intelligence did not believe curveball when they submitted the case for war to the US Congress and curveball was one sole source of mobile weapons laboratories and without any corroboration. Congress was not told the whole truth. Who filtered the intelligence and gave it to congress? Who ignored the inspectors that were in Iraq right before the invasion? “We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories,” President Bush boasted at the time. “And we’ll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found them.”
Rebar
March 20th, 2013
10:14 am
For all those who are defending Bush & Cheney, those mighty weekend warriors, do you remember General Franks first words when he was fighting in Afghanistan and was told to prepare for the invasion of Iraq; and for these same nimrods defending the WMD issue, yes he had them at one time and we knew it because Reagan, Cheney, and Rumsfield gave them to him and gave him the coordinates to drop them on the Iranians. Geez, learn some history!
Scratch It
March 20th, 2013
10:14 am
Welcome to the Occupation:
I’m wondering if you have any grey matter that functions. Sure there’s still many crazies in Iraq just like there are in Chicago. The fact is when Bush left office thanks to the surge it became a stable democracy. Have you even heard it mentioned in the last 4 or 5 years in the so called main stream media? Not really. Maybe just in passing.
Regnad Kcin
March 20th, 2013
10:15 am
“they had “ESP”N”
Good one, Betty!
Scratch It
March 20th, 2013
10:15 am
Doggone/GA
“Nope, it’s not. Its your opinion. Can you prove its a fact?”
“Misled into a mistake, a decade later”
Lead to a stable democracy, a decade later….
Steve
March 20th, 2013
10:16 am
I clearly remember even my more moderate friends telling me I was unpatriotic to not support this war, but at a gut level I knew it was completely wrong. It was so frustrating to voice any opinions against the war because everyone was so angry about 911. But why did we equate Iraq with 911? I blame the idiot media for caving to the conservatives.
Mike
March 20th, 2013
10:16 am
maybe look up Cheney’s “OSP” Office of Special Plans and learn how the books were cooked.
Scratch It
March 20th, 2013
10:16 am
Doggone/GA
“Nope, it’s not. Its your opinion. Can you prove its a fact?”
“Misled into a mistake, a decade later”
Lead to a stable democracy, a decade later….
Scratch that. When Bush left office….
JamVet
March 20th, 2013
10:16 am
Bush was not at fault.
betty, notwithstanding how much I enjoy your contributions here, I want to gouge my eyes out over that one! (LOL!)
ex-pat for what it’s worth, I agree that alittle’s basic premise is absurd.
They tried their damnedest to silence the anti-war voices. The swinish Bill O’Reilly comes to mind as one of the war’s head cheerleaders.
Some of you know the story: back int he days when I actually watched that troll he said right before shock and awe that once the bombs start falling, Americans should stop protesting. To continue doing so proved they were unAmerican.
The next night he came on and “apologized” and said that he needed to make a retraction. He rephrased to say that were just bad Americans.
And immediately after the horrifically botched invasion, guess how many anti-war voices were on allowed to speak on the “liberal” (LOL!) news channels? (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, etc)
Two.
Out of dozens and dozens and dozens of pro-war talking heads there were two.
The Bushbots at Fox News had zero.
I knew then that the whole lot of these never-served, never-would cowards were gonna do everything in their power to dismiss and justify what was coming – the booming flag-covered coffin recovery business at Dover AFB.
These neocons have no shame and they certainly have zero bravery – but the only small silver lining is that they have to live with themselves about Viet Nam, Part II…
williebkind
March 20th, 2013
10:17 am
Ahhh more incantation from different sources:
What a courageous partner in our glorious War on Brains.
http://www.arras.net/circulars/archives/tn_tony_bum_snort.jpg
ttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/19/baghdad-bombings-anniversary-invasion
Wait there will be more to come. They will have a recess and trade notes and then websites.
Ronald Reagan Parkway
March 20th, 2013
10:18 am
On Iraq War anniversary, Condoleezza Rice announces a book
On March 19, 2003, American troops rolled into Iraq, in search of weapons of mass destruction. “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,” warned Condoleezza Rice, President Bush’s national security advisor. In the long war that followed, more than 4,000 U.S. troops were killed, but not a single “nuke” was ever uncovered.
Exactly 10 years later, Condoleezza Rice has announced a new undertaking: She’s going to write a book. To be published by Henry Holt, it’s being billed as “an examination of democracy at home and abroad.”
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-on-iraq-war-anniversary-condoleezza-rice-announces-a-new-book-20130319,0,576903.story
mbtc
March 20th, 2013
10:18 am
Interesting tidbit from Parade Magazine’s ten worst dictators for 2003. Who’s above Hussain at 3rd?
In February of 2003, Parade Magazine (Boston Globe) published the following list of the “Worst Dictators on the Planet.”
1. Kim Jong-il (North Korea)
2. King Fahd and Prince Abdullah (Saudi Arabia)
3. Saddam Hussein (Iraq)
4. Charles Taylor (Liberia)
5. Than Shwe (former Burma, now Myanmar)
6. Teodoro Obiang Nguema (Equatorial Guinea)
7. Saparmurat Niyazov (Turkmenistan)
8. Muammar Gaddafi (Libya)
9. Fidel Castro (Cuba)
10. Alexander Lukashenko (Belarus)
Welcome to the Occupation
March 20th, 2013
10:18 am
curious: “Being a tyrant is okay as long as he’s our tyrant.”
Or “son of a b$tch”, as one president famously said.
williebkind
March 20th, 2013
10:19 am
JamVet
March 20th, 2013
10:16 am
You do know the viet nam war was started by Kennedy and continued by Johnson. The conservatives were wrong because they followed their leader and that is something we can not do today.
Granny Godzilla
March 20th, 2013
10:20 am
RB from Gwinnett
“Just check out all the libs here who to this day refuse to admit the leaders of the Dem party at the time said the same thing about Saddam as Bush did.”
.
.
.
.
Excuse me but that’s plainly poppycock.
Lot’s of posts above
admitting that very thing just above…..(your head?)
USinUK ... no longer a rainy Friday, but still mildly cranky
March 20th, 2013
10:20 am
“Nope, it’s not. Its your opinion. Can you prove its a fact?”
I’m sorry … where EXACTLY were those WMDs found???
Doggone/GA
March 20th, 2013
10:20 am
“Scratch that. When Bush left office….”
That’s right, move them goalposts. Are you in favor of invading North Korea?
Jefferson
March 20th, 2013
10:20 am
Absolutely Nothing, say it again.
Scratch It
March 20th, 2013
10:20 am
The funny thing is nothing is made about how pathetic obama has been in leading the war effort. Most casualties in Afghanistan happened on his watch because of his inexperience and not being engaged.
JamVet
March 20th, 2013
10:21 am
Lead to a stable democracy, a decade later….
Not surprising – more idiotic lies to justify all of the previous ones that the guppies swallowed, hook, line and sinker…
http://nation.foxnews.com/iraq/2012/01/15/former-iraqi-pmiraq-neither-stable-nor-democratic
Normal, plain and simple
March 20th, 2013
10:23 am
JamVet
March 20th, 2013
10:16 am
Well said.
Cherokee
March 20th, 2013
10:23 am
‘a stable democracy’?
Why argue with someone who is that out of touch with reality…
USinUK ... no longer a rainy Friday, but still mildly cranky
March 20th, 2013
10:24 am
“Most casualties in Afghanistan happened on his watch because of his inexperience and not being engaged.”
yes. and you know this because you’ve been in the sit room everyday.
Regnad Kcin
March 20th, 2013
10:25 am
“Absolutely Nothing, say it again”
..and now I always picture jackie Chan…
Kamchak ~ Thug from the Steppes
March 20th, 2013
10:26 am
In December 2009, former Prime Minister Tony Blair stated that he “would still have thought it right to remove [Saddam Hussein]” regardless of whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction or not.
And HE is still a f*ck-wad.
Normal, plain and simple
March 20th, 2013
10:26 am
Willie,
I will agree that LBJ made the Viet Nam war into what it was, but if JFK had remained alive so would have 58,000 plus Americans. He never would have gone past advisor stage. JFK had been to war, was a bonafide hero. He KNEW what war was like and he would have avoided it if at all possible.
Scratch It
March 20th, 2013
10:26 am
JamVet:
I rephrased my earlier post. It was stable when President Bush left office. Under inept inexperienced obama it could possibly be reverting back to being unstable.
Regnad Kcin
March 20th, 2013
10:26 am
“Most casualties in Afghanistan happened on his watch because of his inexperience and not being engaged”
You say such silly things. BTW, our president is married.
Welcome to the Occupation
March 20th, 2013
10:26 am
Scratch It: “Have you even heard it mentioned in the last 4 or 5 years in the so called main stream media?”
What are you talking about man, the US media establishment was all about the big “surge”, gave it top-shelf treatment for months on end, and even helped elevate its architect, the criminal Mr. Petraeus, to iconic hero status amidst the whole affair (wee saw how that ended).
Face it. Iraq is an unbelievably violent cesspit, a hell-hole where despite the presence of major Western oil companies large parts of the country are still without running water and electricity. Oh and there’s the little matter of the 1.2 million Iraqis killed if you care about that kind of thing (something tells me you’re the kind of person who brushes aside such figures but then points to the thousands of Americans killed on 9/11 as carte blanche to unleash a rampage of violence around the world out of our righteous rage and wounded virtue).
williebkind
March 20th, 2013
10:26 am
“I’m sorry … where EXACTLY were those WMDs found???”
Well there were the residents of a Kurd village that was completely eliminated with chemical weapons. Oh I know we must redefine WMD now to mean biological/nuclear right. Keep up your incantations they has to be some uninformed person who will believe you.
Scratch It
March 20th, 2013
10:27 am
Regnad Kcin:
Great liberal response..
stands for decibels
March 20th, 2013
10:27 am
and you know this because you’ve been in the sit room everyday.
He knows this because unlike the Manly Man-Ape from Texas (ok, New Haven, pretty close though), Obama never walks around like he just got done ridin’ a horsie.
Steve
March 20th, 2013
10:28 am
The kurds were attacked by Sadam in the 1980s – and guess who propped him up in the 1980s? hmm?
williebkind
March 20th, 2013
10:28 am
“but if JFK had remained alive so would have 58,000 plus Americans.”
Now that is another myth the liberals love to cling to. If he only lived. Yep and if Lincoln had lived the South would not had to live through reconstruction and redistribution.
Kamchak ~ Thug from the Steppes
March 20th, 2013
10:28 am
Keep up your incantations they has to be some uninformed person who will believe you.
Dittoheaqds say, “What?”
Scratch It
March 20th, 2013
10:29 am
USinUK … no longer a rainy Friday, but still mildly cranky
“Most casualties in Afghanistan happened on his watch because of his inexperience and not being engaged.”
yes. and you know this because you’ve been in the sit room everyday.
no. I know this because there are stats to back it up. Silly lib.
Steve
March 20th, 2013
10:29 am
So – Iraq is worth spending 6 trillion on, but we want to gut Medicare and Social Security? you conservatives are bordering on retarded.
Normal, plain and simple
March 20th, 2013
10:29 am
Scratch It
March 20th, 2013
10:20 am
Divert much?
That is the most insane thing I have ever read.
JamVet
March 20th, 2013
10:29 am
willie, no, that is news to me!
Wow! And here I thought that the Viet Nam was started by James Buchanan!
The things willie teaches me here!
Absolutely Nothing, say it again.
Killer song, Jefferson!
I just pray that the neocons NEVER, EVER find their collective scrotums, vis a vis the inept invasion and mangled occupation of the wrong country.
As long as they remain Bush bootlickers, the chances of them returning to any semblance of power in Washington DC is very, very small.
Doggone/GA
March 20th, 2013
10:30 am
“Well there were the residents of a Kurd village that was completely eliminated with chemical weapons”
And thart was 10 YEARS before we invaded. If that was the justification, it sort of didn’t get mentioned…now did it?
Scratch It
March 20th, 2013
10:30 am
Welcome to the Occupation
What are you talking about man, the US media establishment was all about the big “surge”, gave it top-shelf treatment for months on end, and even helped elevate its architect, the criminal Mr. Petraeus, to iconic hero status amidst the whole affair (wee saw how that ended).
Face it. Iraq is an unbelievably violent cesspit, a hell-hole where despite the presence of major Western oil companies large parts of the country are still without running water and electricity. Oh and there’s the little matter of the 1.2 million Iraqis killed if you care about that kind of thing (something tells me you’re the kind of person who brushes aside such figures but then points to the thousands of Americans killed on 9/11 as carte blanche to unleash a rampage of violence around the world out of our righteous rage and wounded virtue).
Sure the media was all over it until they realized it was working. LOL…
Regnad Kcin
March 20th, 2013
10:30 am
“I rephrased my earlier post. It was stable when President Bush left office”
Tens of thousands of foreign troops make a country “stable?” You have a strange definition of the word…
Jay
March 20th, 2013
10:31 am
“I will agree that LBJ made the Viet Nam war into what it was, but if JFK had remained alive so would have 58,000 plus Americans. He never would have gone past advisor stage. JFK had been to war, was a bonafide hero. He KNEW what war was like and he would have avoided it if at all possible.
We’ll never know, of course, but I disagree. JFK was a Cold War advocate who had shown little willingness to challenge accepted wisdom on that topic. I think that he too would have had a very hard time walking back and letting South Vietnam “go Commie” on his watch.
Normal, plain and simple
March 20th, 2013
10:31 am
williebkind
March 20th, 2013
10:26 am
Willie,
You do know, don’t you, that we gave Saddam those chemical weapons?
Scratch It
March 20th, 2013
10:31 am
Steve
So – Iraq is worth spending 6 trillion on, but we want to gut Medicare and Social Security? you conservatives are bordering on retarded.
Wow. $6 trillion. Thats a reach..
Darwin
March 20th, 2013
10:32 am
Saddam Hussein had exiled to Egypt after trying to overthrow the Iraq government in the 1970s. He quickly befriended CIA operatives who supported and financed his overthrow of the Iraq government because they leaned too far to the Soviet Union. His dictatorship was totally supported by the U.S. and the West. After the fall of the Soviet Union, he became expendable (as well as other U.S. dictators – see Panama for further reading). However, he was still OUR dictator until he went to war with Kuwait. Now he was a dictator out of control and no longer serving our interest. Iraq’s many ethnic factions make democracy a fantasy. But even though in the U.S., the right wing feels that our government should be out of our lives and small, there is never a doubt that they love to drop bombs on the other guys. No matter the excuse.
Scratch It
March 20th, 2013
10:33 am
Regnad Kcin:
Deposing of an evil despot and killing as many terrorists as possible certainly does. Of course in the mind of a liberal we only have to be nice to them and they’ll like us..
Normal, plain and simple
March 20th, 2013
10:33 am
williebkind
March 20th, 2013
10:28 am
Sorry Willie, You are just another right wing idiot, with that statement. You are on your own from now on. What a joke.
Jay
March 20th, 2013
10:34 am
““Well there were the residents of a Kurd village that was completely eliminated with chemical weapons”
And AFTER that atrocity, Ronald Reagan sent Donald Rumsfeld to meet with Saddam, shake his hand and offer him weapons, military aid and intelligence support. The Reagan administration also ran cover for Saddam in the United Nations.
Doggone/GA
March 20th, 2013
10:34 am
“Of course in the mind of a liberal we only have to be nice to them and they’ll like us”
And that’s why Bush also invaded North Korea, right? I mean, after all, they have a brutal dictatorship AND nuclear WMDs. So we MUST have invaded them.
funny, that invasion was NEVER reported anywhere. Talk about keeping a secret!