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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPaul Krugman NAILS the Iraq War Liars!
Jeb Bush definitely did us a favor: in his attempts to avoid talking about the past, he ended up bringing back a discussion people have been trying to avoid. And they are, of course, still trying to avoid it they want to make this just about the horserace, or about the hypothetical of if you knew what we know now.
For that formulation is itself an evasion, as Josh Marshall, Greg Sargent, and Duncan Black point out each making a slightly different but crucial point.
First, as Josh says, Iraq was not a good faith mistake. Bush and Cheney didnt sit down with the intelligence community, ask for their best assessment of the situation, and then reluctantly conclude that war was the only option. They decided right at the beginning literally before the dust of 9/11 had settled to use a terrorist attack by religious extremists as an excuse to go after a secular regime that, evil as it was, had nothing to do with that attack. To make the case for the splendid little war they expected to fight, they deliberately misled the public, making an essentially fake case about WMD because chemical weapons, which many believed Saddam had, are nothing like the nukes they implied he was working on and insinuating the false claim that Saddam was behind 9/11.
Second, as Greg says, even this isnt hindsight. It was quite clear at the time that the case for war was fake God knows I thought it was glaringly obvious, and tried to tell people and fairly obvious as well that the attempt to create a pro-American Iraq after the invasion was likely to be an expensive failure. The question for war supporters shouldnt be, would you have been a supporter knowing what you know now. It should be, why didnt you see the obvious back then?
more
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/16/blinkers-and-lies/?_r=0
He's been on a roll lately!
Electric Monk
(13,869 posts)&u&g&m&a&n
Scuba
(53,475 posts)SoapBox
(18,791 posts)delrem
(9,688 posts)giving the MSM their excuse for war boosterism, after which "We came. We saw. He died. (laughter)".
The US did Libya *such* a favor... because the US coalition was "friends of Libya (tm)"
And, of course, Assad is evil incarnate. And the US coalition, hell bent on delivering Syria a similar favor, is "friends of Syria (tm)".
Thanks to a continuity of *the same* warmongering politicians who voted to destroy Iraq.
They get voted in every time, and God help us all if they're voted in again in 2016.
Blood thirsty warmongers are ever eager to believe any excuse for engaging in slaughter.
They never have an iota of remorse, or sympathy for the victims of their war crimes.
They don't even think about it.
They can just call the enemy of today 14th century barbarians -- in contrast to their "western civilization, western values", and blame the victims.
It seems that the neocon warmongers can't wait to start a next war, even before the blood is dried from the war of choice they're fighting/encouraging now.
They always claim to be fighting for the moral, righteous cause.
I don't know why it is.
It's creepy beyond words.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)The disaster Capitalists saw an opportunity to piggy-back on the legitimate Arab Spring to enter a Civil War in Libya on the side of Black Flag Terrorists (AlQaeda)
in order to "take out" Gaddafi.
For years, Gaddafi had blocked the Western Banks and the IMF from making their usurious loans to starving countries, and using that countries Natural Resources to collateralize the loan.
Our Freedom Bombs turned another stable country that had the highest standard of living in North Africa into a failed state run by those who impose Sharia Law.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD27Ak01.html
Duppers
(28,120 posts)Yorktown
(2,884 posts)It was obvious then that invading Iraq was insane.
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
Breaking Iraq was sure to strengthen Iran, an insane theocratic regime.
Breaking Iraq was sure to be a quagmire for US troops because of above.
Not to mention the cost to the US in deficit and lives.
It was obvious to me then, and I'm sure the WH and Department of State were full of people who knew all this.
So, why did the chicken cross the road? Why did GW go to war against Iraq? I still have no clue.
rafeh1
(385 posts)congress or any or the jcs would have placed 150k us army all bunched up in kuwait just prime targets for wmds.
In fact everyone from Clinton and Congress to jcs knew for a positive fact saddam had nothing.
Dont believe the liars hand wringing then or now. Its the same war criminal liars.