One had nothing to do with the other one, despite the shotgun marriage of a GOP administration.

Posts to the contrary notwithstanding.

but many more were against

and can't recall seeing any support for it here.

Of course Saudi Arabian money financed 9/11.

So...

Like many other DUers, I predicted that invasion the day Bush stole the WH.

That’s bad enough!

You can't just make an accusation like that without something to back it up.

during the Build up to the Iraq war. If there were any supporters here at the time, they didn't last long.

Saddam Hussein had to be removed. Yes, I do believe that sometimes we have to police of the world. There is no one else.

I sometimes wonder whether some so-called liberals would have preferred we did not enter WWII, or intervened in Kosovo.

And, of course, many here object to France's recent intervention in Mali.

Certainly the majority of the Arab world cheered the removal of Hussein. The problem was that we stayed too long. By the end of 2003, after Hussein was captured, we should have transferred the administration to international forces. Preferably from other Arab countries that shared language, religion and culture. More or less.

We should have let public servants to resume their work for an orderly transfer - more or less - of military rule to civilian one.

Instead we, first, refused to let Germany and France - that did not join us - participate in civilian rebuilding. We set a complete idiot - Paul Bremer - to administer a transfer. He refused to hire any member of the Ba'ath party, even though, as with many Nazis in Germany, they had no choice but to join the party to be able to hold a job and feed their families.

We poured millions of dollars to control Iraq while neglecting Afghanistan, letting the Taliban taking over.

I guess the “show me argument” is taken care of...

Did you? What would convince you - being tortured in jail in Iraq? Being gassed by his regime? What?

I do question the way many on DU blindly adhere to a mantra: anything that a Republican does or says is baaad, anything that a self-described liberal does or sasy is good. m Now, these are the true believers.

No discussion, no arguments, no examples. Just statement. Oh what an intellect, what an originality. What a brilliant mind.

This one you might want to figure out yourself....Intellect is way over rated...
I prefer truth.....You might however want to do a random search on Scott Ritter....

I’m betting...We’ll see....

He was effectively being contained. He was much more bark than bite. And even if at some point he needed to be removed, it didnt require invading and occupying the country. It could have done in a more surgical, less destructive way.

I suppose at the time - although sensing I was going against my sounder judgment - I suppose I leaned in the direction of supporting it - but with much fear and trembling. This was not because I believed Iraq was a security threat to the United States - That was crazy talk and I knew that all along. I leaned toward supporting it because of my connections with the Middle East and my knowledge about the nature of Saddam's rule left me with ranging contempt and disdain for that man and his wretched regime. I can think of no political figure within my life time who I have hated more. It was hard to imagine that it was possible to make life worse for most Iraqis than it already was under Saddam Husein. But the invasion and at least the way the Bush Administration handled it did exactly that. There is no way of knowing if it might have worked if the aftermath had been dealt with competently. But, I doubt it. When the social cohesion of a country is fractured -even if that social cohesion had been ruthlessly defended by a brutal totalitarian state - it is not likely that it can be put back together again - when so many irreconcilable differences exist within that country. At the very least - the U.S. blindly walked into a no-win situation. I don't know if there was ever a window of opportunity to make the invasion into a liberation - but if there was - they certainly blew it. And frankly, I doubt such a opportunity ever existed except in some peoples' fanciful imaginations and wishful thinking.

But the 30% for were fairly vocal.

I was here under another identity at the time.

I'm not sure how many of the 30% pro-Iraq invasion survived the subsequent 10 years as DU posters. Not many, would be my guess.

But don't let anyone tell you there wasn't any support. That's outright bullshit.

I attended an Iraq war protest just prior to the invasion and it was huge although hardly covered in the media. I remember a great sign some guy was holding..

"If you liked Vietnam, your going to love Iraq"

DU was 100% against it as I recall. I don't think I saw one post in support of war. Something to be proud of since more than half the country supported it at the time.

DU's slid a looooooong way to the right in 10 years.

EDIT - I see some people remember otherwise. I probably missed those threads, if so.

I knew those fuckers were lying from the get go.
You could see it in their lying eyes.

Our little government troll and fanboy of all things militaristic and police state.

FalconAir. (iirc)

Another world class DB.

her insistence that no member of the US military would never harm innocent civilians, not even unintentionally.

Last edited Mon Feb 18, 2013, 06:34 PM - Edit history (1)

msm, but also one of its greatest challenges.

Not only do people enter this environment at ALL different levels of being personally informed themselves, they encounter the information this environment presents in their own way, clicking or not, on specific, more or less significant, pieces of information, when/IF they encounter them.

Because there are some people, thus, WITHOUT the more essential, and pretty RARE at that time, information about the lies in the build up to the invasion and occupation of an INNOCENT nation known as Iraq, and WITH the extremely common cognitive limitation manifested in an inability to form original questions, let alone to entertain the possibility that you may be wrong, especially in your assumptions about your own dis-empowerment and de-valuing "small" actions, it's not at all un-reasonable that many people would default to "support the troops".

After-all, something quintessentially bloody appears to be increasingly likely, OUR troops, whether they agree with what is happening or not, will be much more intimately involved than the rest of us, so in light of what seems to be very probable in all of that (i.e. Iraqi persons blown to bloody bits - and - OUR soldiers in incalculable situations in which they must do as ordered - OR INCUR CONSEQUENCES THAT NEARLY 100% OF THE REST OF US WOULD NEVER ENCOUNTER - either at the hands of Iraqi citizens defending themselves or at the hands of the UCMJ), it is not at all unreasonable that lots of people (who might be relatively inclined otherwise were they somewhat more curious, were they in the habit of reality testing THEMSELVES, were the media not such BLOOD SUCKING traitors to the people for the 1% . . . etc.) . . . that is, under the conditions sketched here, it is not at all unreasonable to expect that many people would reflexively opt to "protect" the troops by "supporting" them. Who stands FOR the troops in a situation like what we had/have going on between Cheney's private intelligence and the Pentagon and msm??? The differences between people who reasoned this way have to do with the extent to which they refuse to keep the Five-fingers blinders on and taking your blinders off, by wondering if you might be wrong, and asking yourself questions about what you may AND may not know. All of that is more probable in an environment like the DU, where some degree of differences are tolerated withing certain shared parameters.

When differences are tolerated, within an agreed upon (empty) process, change is possible, but it is still true that even after admitting the possibility of personal error, even after asking a few original questions and seeking answers, some people DO maintain their initial evaluation of the circumstances and don't change. If I, or any we, have communicated our criteria for why/how we establish one's own/our principled truths and IF different others honestly and openly assent and abide by those criteria in their own position processes, and do not seek, therefore, PRIVILEGE, in their "different" truths . . . if all of that has happened authentically and openly, then different truths have the right to coexist and should respect one another as much as possible withing their agreed upon standards.

There was significant support here at the DU in 2001 for invading Afghanistan, but hardly any whatsoever for invading Iraq.

Both were stupid and ill-conceived.

And now we are supposed to cut back on social programs to pay for those stupid wars?

War/Boom/Bust.

Nice to know you, busterbrown. -- DZ