Okay, honestly, I don't know the endgame is for the "But....Iraq!" crowd.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

Can someone fill me in?

How sufficiently long must the self-flagellation and sack cloth wearing period last?

Are we prohibited from weighing in on any act of foreign aggression within the world indefinitely because of what George W. Bush did?

Is Germany prohibited as well? Great Britain? Spain? Japan? Canada? (Just kidding on that last one.)

Must we insist that we all wear the albatrosses of our pasts around our necks? Because if that's the case, international consensus building would be next to none. Just about every country would be forced to shut its mouth for a perceived lack of "moral authority".

[NoOneMan]

1. If only it was just about Iraq

Its not. Iraq was a recent blatant example of decades of aggression and imperialism.

You're free to forget it whenever you want I take it. What difference does it make

[FraDon]

2. no-bid contracts have been awarded …

purchase orders await the "send" order.

The war profiteers salivate.

Really, will ya just get out of their way, ya know, like 9-11.

[okaawhatever]

3. Those who claim America doesn't have the moral high ground re:Russia and Crimea is sadly mistaken.

I'll take our human rights, other country invasion and war record over theirs any day of the week. It really puts people's thought processes and loyalties in perspective when they support Russia as the more noble government vs. the US. Anyone who can defend Russia's political and war history has some serious problems and aren't advocates for human and civil rights.

[reformist2]

5. LOL! US exceptionalism lives!

[Cha]

19. One only has to look at how Putin treats Gays in Russia to know what a steaming pile of

shit he is.. and there's more..

Tough-Talking Putin Crafted Image His Way

by Gregory Feifer - May 03, 2008

...The Kremlin has worked hard to build Putin's public image as Russia's virile "national leader" whose authority extends beyond his presidency...

Few people had heard of Vladimir Putin when Russia's then-President Boris Yeltsin appointed him prime minister in 1999. But the stern-faced former KGB officer triggered a love affair with the Russian population — by starting a popular second war in Chechnya later that year...

"If they're in the airport," Putin said, "we'll kill them there ... and excuse me, but if we find them in the toilet, we'll exterminate them in their outhouses."

...Putin has often lost his temper in public. During a 2002 news conference in Brussels, Belgium, the president responded to a question that angered him by inviting a reporter to come to Moscow to be circumcised:

"We have specialists in this question, as well," Putin said. "I'll recommend that he carry out the operation in such a way that nothing will grow back..."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90083829

freshwest

[reformist2]

4. It's only a matter of time before countries start breaking ranks from the US-dictated script.

[bemildred]

6. The issue is not our right to speak, the issue is whether anybody will listen. nt

[joeybee12]

8. +1

Its about credibility, and it will take time for other countries to listen to us again.

[Solly Mack]

9. Sadly.

[reformist2]

13. Especially now, now that Obama has revealed himself to be a "player" of power politics.

The world thought he was different. Just like most of us did.

[bemildred]

17. Don't attribute that sort of naive twaddle to me, please.

Credibility does not come from innocence or sanctimony, either one. It comes from competence and integrity, something we have been sorely lacking in. And it's not about Obama, it is a mistake to make it about Obama for the same reason that it is a mistake to make it about Snowden. In neither case is the person really the problem. Obama would not be there if he didn't play the game, and then we'd have some other person, likely a complete fool, instead.

[mike_c]

7. we might NEVER overcome the stigma of Iraq....

I find your question personally offensive-- not in a mean way, so I'm not accusing you of incivility or any such thing. It's offensive because what our country did in our names in Iraq still shocks and offends me, and I regard it as one of the central failures of human decency in my lifetime. Notwithstanding the dangers of making comparisons with Nazis, the decade of sanctions and the invasion of Iraq pissed on every principle of international law that the U.S. once embodied after Nuremberg. I cannot overstate how important that remains to me.

I will NEVER forget or forgive those who voted for the open ended AUMF. Its preamble is filled with lies that still stain the laws of this country today. I will not get over it, likely never. At the very least, I will not get over it until its perpetrators and abettors are dragged before judges in The Hague. You tell me how long that will be. I think we both know the answer.

The U.S. betrayed its own principles in Iraq. Sure, it's betrayed them before, in other places, and it will betray them again. Maybe it's just that the betrayal in Iraq occurred while I was paying close attention. It will not be over until justice is achieved for those who were harmed-- all of them-- and for Americans whose principles were betrayed by war criminals and unfit leaders. Moral authority is restored by moral action, not by time. The stain of Iraq will not simply fade. It will have to be scrubbed out. We have not even begun to do that yet.

[polichick]

10. "self-flagellation and sack cloth?" - We haven't even owned up to anything yet.

[GeorgeGist]

11. Your profound lack of remorse ...

is breathtaking in its Republicanism.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

12. Lack of remorse for what?

Please proceed, governor.

[Rex]

16. Wow, you notice that too?

And here I thought it was just me.

[GiveMeMorePIE]

14. Lenin had a name for that 'useful' crowd. nt

[Enrique]

15. i.e. "get over it already"

good luck with that.

[rhett o rick]

18. We need to have the conversation as Americans. We cant not pretend that it

never happen. I think the current problem is that the Pres appeared to try to play it down. That's a mistake with all the hard feeling still around the country.

[Scuba]

21. Eggzaklee!

[Cha]

20. They can scream it all they want.. in the mean time.. President Obama will

go about doing his job..



Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
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Pres. Obama didn't go to war; no, he went after the money & Putin picked up the phone to discuss diplomatic solutions http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/03/28/readout-president-s-call-president-putin …
11:56 AM - 28 Mar 2014
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TOD

[Fumesucker]

22. Prosecute the Bush administration figures who lied us into the worst foreign policy debacle ever?

Everyone knows they lied.

Here's Dubya, looking under the Oval Office rug for WMDs.