One thing about G-Dub.

[goldfly]

And what would you have done? The country completely supported the invasions, even after the falsities of the WMD claims in Iraq were exposed. Blame the strategy, the generals, etc.

what would i have done?

not invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, spilt the world against us that we are still dealing with today and will for a long time, not leave before finishing the job of finding bin laden, not have our soldiers and the 100s of thousands of Iraqis that were killed for an experiment and that a man tried to kill my dad for starters

i don't care what the american people support and it is a petty argument to bring that to justify such a horrible choice our gov't made

the good will that this country had and could have used to do so much good in this country was lost as soon as Iraq happened. it is sad what he did with that

 

[goldfly]

fify.

good job comparing those 2

i mean

they were so similar

 

[Hawk]

i don't care what the american people support and it is a petty argument to bring that to justify such a horrible choice our gov't made

the good will that this country had and could have used to do so much good in this country was lost as soon as Iraq happened. it is sad what he did with that

I don't disagree with the sentiments expressed in your final sentence, but you should probably start by blaming the people that wholeheartedly supported the wars instead of the President. It wasn't that we were misled by our government, wool pulled over our eyes, or whatever -- we had bloodlust, we wanted revenge. Yeah, it came at an unquantifiable cost but it is what the majority wanted at the time.

 

[The Tariff King]

Hawk could you imagine the unamerican and unpatriotic labels Rove and Cheney would've used to any notable dissenters of the war?

 

[goldfly]

I don't disagree with the sentiments expressed in your final sentence, but you should probably start by blaming the people that wholeheartedly supported the wars instead of the President. It wasn't that we were misled by our government, wool pulled over our eyes, or whatever -- we had bloodlust, we wanted revenge. Yeah, it came at an unquantifiable cost but it is what the majority wanted at the time.

so you don't want me to blame the commander in chief who pivoted us to Iraq for no good reason?

 

[Hawk]

good job comparing those 2

i mean

they were so similar

In the context of the issues being discussed in this thread the similarities are acute. Clinton struggled to protect the homeland and also exposed the country internationally via military intervention. He wasn't a pussy, although he did like them.

 

[Hawk]

Hawk could you imagine the unamerican and unpatriotic labels Rove and Cheney would've used to any notable dissenters of the war?

I certainly could, but there weren't many, if any, notable dissenters -- and IMO not because of Cheney/Rove but because of our societal mentality at the time. Retribution was an almost universally accepted course of action. Freedom fries, proud to be an American, RAH RAH.

We didn't see revisionists begin to crop up until years later.

I would be shocked if you, personally, didn't support War at that time.

 

[Hawk]

so you don't want me to blame the commander in chief who pivoted us to Iraq for no good reason?

As a scapegoat, I guess you could. But to singularly point the finger at Bush is looking at the climate which existed at the time through a very limited scope.

The invasion was not as egregiously short-sighted as Vietnam or the first Gulf War.

 

[ESP47]

Hitler made some pretty bad ass speeches too, before he sent millions and millions to their death. Lets talk about how cool the former was, not the latter.

Quick, someone make a thread about how noble Ted Bundy was for helping people by working a suicide hotline before he turned into a mass serial killer.

 

[goldfly]

As a scapegoat, I guess you could. But to singularly point the finger at Bush is looking at the climate which existed at the time through a very limited scope.

The invasion was not as egregiously short-sighted as Vietnam or the first Gulf War.

uh, the white house is the one that shifted focus away from the people that actually did 9.11

your ability to rewrite history to still justify this is amazing

 

[Hawk]

uh, the white house is the one that shifted focus away from the people that actually did 9.11

your ability to rewrite history to still justify this is amazing

I'm not trying to justify anything, I'm just attempting to provide background. It isn't a clear cut issue to me.

You (and Keith) are giving a lot of credit to a White House that you can barely mask your disdain for.

 

[goldfly]

I'm not trying to justify anything, I'm just attempting to provide background. It isn't a clear cut issue to me.

You (and Keith) are giving a lot of credit to a White House that you can barely mask your disdain for.

of course i give a lot of credit to the white house

it is a powerful institution. it doesn't matter if i have disdain for that particular white house or not

 

[zitothebrave]

As a scapegoat, I guess you could. But to singularly point the finger at Bush is looking at the climate which existed at the time through a very limited scope.

The invasion was not as egregiously short-sighted as Vietnam or the first Gulf War.

Don't get how you can say that about Iraq, it was way more short sighted than the first gulf War. The intentions of the first Gulf War was to push Hussein back from oil rich kuwait and neuter him and they did that. The second war the US entered under patently false pretenses that anyone with half a brain knew were fake.

 

[50PoundHead]

Nobody forced anyone to join the military. Moreover at a time of war and would end up being two wars. I knew what I was getting into and knew the outcome of me being killed was very real. So did the rest of the people.

Not recently, but (and now I'm sounding like a really old codger) up until the mid-1970s, there was a military draft and a whole bunch of folks (including some of my friends and relatives) found their way into the service and into combat. And if no one ever joined the military, that would be back (and there are days I wish they would bring the draft back).

Anyway, to weso's point. It was a shining moment for Bush. I always thought he was at his best when totally unrehearsed or polished.

I'll leave my commentary about the rest of his term to other threads.

 

[Julio3000]

I certainly could, but there weren't many, if any, notable dissenters -- and IMO not because of Cheney/Rove but because of our societal mentality at the time. Retribution was an almost universally accepted course of action. Freedom fries, proud to be an American, RAH RAH.

We didn't see revisionists begin to crop up until years later.

I would be shocked if you, personally, didn't support War at that time.

Oof.

 

[Julio3000]

As a scapegoat, I guess you could. But to singularly point the finger at Bush is looking at the climate which existed at the time through a very limited scope.

The invasion was not as egregiously short-sighted as Vietnam or the first Gulf War.

You mean one that had the support of the international community and a clear objective, which ended with the accomplishment of that objective?

 

[zitothebrave]

Oof.

Yeah I agree. While there was some support for Iraq War, probably the majority of people supported it, but there was also a massive dissent. I was a Freshman in highschool around that time so my knowledge of the world was young and I was against it. And as someone who went to a catholic school that seeded heavily from Bush friendly parts of NJ. So I was in the minority with my opinion amongst my peers.

 

[sturg33]

It's also pretty easy to get support when you lie to the American people about the imminent danger we were facing.

Also, they had the convenience of 9/11 in the back-pocket to propagate the fear.

 

[50PoundHead]

I certainly could, but there weren't many, if any, notable dissenters -- and IMO not because of Cheney/Rove but because of our societal mentality at the time. Retribution was an almost universally accepted course of action. Freedom fries, proud to be an American, RAH RAH.

We didn't see revisionists begin to crop up until years later.

I would be shocked if you, personally, didn't support War at that time.

The day we invaded Iraq, I turned to a colleague and said "The war is going to be easy. It's the peace that will be the hard part." I'm not right often, but I hit this one out of the park.

You're correct. Revisionists didn't show up. But I was surprised (and still somewhat dumbfounded) that so many people with a sense of history wholeheartedly supported the invasion when it went against just about every rule in the book. And it was across the spectrum, even hard core left-of-center intellectuals like Michael Walzer (author of "Just and Unjust Wars") supported the whole Middle Eastern project.

I think this whole episode showed the vast difference between Americans and Europeans. Generations of Europeans have felt the effects of war and destruction as part of their daily lives. In a geographic sense, we hadn't experienced that since the American Civil War (discounting Pearl Harbor). 9/11 was a punch in the gut and like a schoolyard victim, we overreacted in the larger sense. I thought W. did a good job (up until the "go shopping") in the short term calming the country and exhibiting leadership. I will always view it as a lost opportunity to create a deeper sense of what it means to be an American and the civic commitment necessary to maintain our pluralistic democracy. Instead, it turned into a rah-rah moment that devolved into a lot of political finger-pointing (by R's in the short-term and D's in the long-term) that drove a wedge between us as Americans. All the while, the economy is headed for disaster and no one is paying attention.

 

[The Tariff King]

It's also pretty easy to get support when you lie to the American people about the imminent danger we were facing.

Also, they had the convenience of 9/11 in the back-pocket to propagate the fear.

Exactly. Rove and Cheney could've used the un-American anti-patriotic card on many dissenters considering 2004 elections were right around the corner.

Now should some libs have grown a spine and spoken out more against the war? Of course.

When Cheney and Co. sent Colin Powell, really the strongest political capital they had, around the world and to the UN to sell this war, they did a good job selling it.

Because so much of the population was still in fear after 9/11, while Saddam didn't look like he posed a threat, people were willing to go along with it because at the time, the country was still lusting for any blood after the twin towers.

Let's not forget the Bush's raising terror alert levels to make people think something scary was about to happen.

Over the years... 2003 Iraq War spin job went from:

They have WMD's and are a goldmine for Al Qaeda
>>
Ok there wasn't WMD's but getting rid of Saddam was the right thing.
>>
All the money and troops casualties were worth it, because we did our job spreading freedom by giving it to the Iraqi's.