# Hubris: The Iraq War **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 19, 2013, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759 "2013-02-19T02:07:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/101 "2013-02-21T08:16:08Z")
How can Democrats possibly pretend to have any credibility on this after adopting the Bush argument wholesale to justify Obama’s bombing campaigns? Are “we know all Muslims are actually terrorists who deserve to die,” “it’s not illegal when the President does it,” and casting Ninicus Elevenityboo like a spell from Harry Potter to end any discussion of killing a brown person only evil when a Republican uses them, somehow? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/102 "2013-02-21T10:14:07Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > How can Democrats possibly pretend to have any credibility on this after adopting the Bush argument wholesale to justify Obama’s bombing campaigns? Are “we know all Muslims are actually terrorists who deserve to die,” “it’s not illegal when the President does it,” and casting Ninicus Elevenityboo like a spell from Harry Potter to end any discussion of killing a brown person only evil when a Republican uses them, somehow? Because the Republicans are even worse. There is no realistic option to put a good person in the White House; we only have a choice of evils. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/103 "2013-02-21T10:18:00Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > The myth that Saddam kicked the UN inspectors out of Iraq in December 1998 has been repeated so often by the press that even Bush opponents think it’s true. IIRC, Maddow even repeated it in Monday’s documentary. > > Actually, Clinton (through our UN ambassador) [told the UN](http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=peter_burleigh) that it had better get the inspectors out of Iraq, because he was about to start bombing, and they did so. However, it’s true that Saddam refused to let them back in after the bombing. Ah yes ‘Monica’s War’: > [@](#): > > The missile strikes began three days after Clinton was called to testify before a grand jury during the Lewinsky scandal and his subsequent nationally televised address later that evening in which Clinton admitted having an inappropriate relationship > **[1998 bombing of Iraq](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Iraq_%28December_1998%29)** > > The 1998 bombing of Iraq (code-named Operation Desert Fox) was a major bombing campaign against Iraqi targets, from 16 to 19 December 1998, by the United States and the United Kingdom. On 16 December 1998 Bill Clinton announced that he had ordered strikes against Iraq. The strikes were launched due to Iraq's failure to comply with United Nations Security Council resolutions and its interference with United Nations inspectors that were searching for potential weapons of mass destruction. The ins... ---
**Author:** ![Molesworth\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9dc877/32.png) [@Molesworth\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Molesworth_2)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/104 "2013-02-21T12:13:24Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > How can Democrats possibly pretend to have any credibility on this after adopting the Bush argument wholesale to justify Obama’s bombing campaigns? Are “we know all Muslims are actually terrorists who deserve to die,” “it’s not illegal when the President does it,” and casting Ninicus Elevenityboo like a spell from Harry Potter to end any discussion of killing a brown person only evil when a Republican uses them, somehow? Remember when John McCain was singing “Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran” to the tune of a Beach Boys song and trying to put that idiot Palin within one Presidential heart attack of the nuclear button? I do. Remember when Romney was similarly beating the drums for war with Iran? I do. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/105 "2013-02-21T12:53:56Z")
A related question: now that AG Holder has effectively sanctioned the murder of US citizens overseas, why not end the whole Guantanamo farce? Execution of the detainees would “clear the deck” and enable the Obama administration to have a “fresh start”. Strange how the left was all in arms about “waterboarding” and forced confessions, but has no problems with extrajudicial murders. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/106 "2013-02-21T13:21:53Z")
I was a little surprised that there was no mention in the MSNBC special about the outing of Valerie Plame, even though both she and Joe Wilson were on the program. To me, that incident renders the “honest mistake” argument completely inoperable. That was such a petty, vindictive, stupid, pointless thing to do. It’s so spiteful and malicious, and anyone who was really working from an honest interpretation of the facts as they knew them would never have done anything remotely like that. On the other hand, it’s the kind of thing that people would do if they had desperately and intentionally rigged the system to achieve their desired ends. I think the “16 words” also make the “honest mistake” position extremely implausible. You don’t take an allegation out of your speeches at one point and then add it back in as being attributed to someone else if you’re being honest. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/107 "2013-02-21T13:23:51Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > A related question: now that AG Holder has effectively sanctioned the murder of US citizens overseas, why not end the whole Guantanamo farce? Execution of the detainees would “clear the deck” and enable the Obama administration to have a “fresh start”. Strange how the left was all in arms about “waterboarding” and forced confessions, but has no problems with extrajudicial murders. Legally and morally and they are different issues - torture and murder, you know that right? That’s not to say one is ok and the other not, they just need different arguments. Or is the world just a lot easier to deal with if you lump any and all wrongdoing into the same pen? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/108 "2013-02-21T13:32:31Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > How can Democrats possibly pretend to have any credibility on this after adopting the Bush argument wholesale to justify Obama’s bombing campaigns? Are “we know all Muslims are actually terrorists who deserve to die,” “it’s not illegal when the President does it,” and casting Ninicus Elevenityboo like a spell from Harry Potter to end any discussion of killing a brown person only evil when a Republican uses them, somehow? Well, if we look at the facts, there were a lot of Democrats who voted against the Iraq war and very few Republicans. So, simple math tells us that Democrats, as a whole, have more credibility on this. Also, I think it’s safe to assume that had a Democrat been in the Oval Office, the Iraq War would never have come about. Sure, many Democrats were complicit, by they were more followers. Bush et all were the leaders. Secondly, the statement that either the Republicans or the Democrats think that “we know all Muslims are actually terrorists who deserve to die” is an absurd strawman, so we can dismiss it without further debate. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/109 "2013-02-21T13:41:14Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Secondly, the statement that either the Republicans or the Democrats think that “we know all Muslims are actually terrorists who deserve to die” is an absurd strawman, so we can dismiss it without further debate. In the same way those who opposed the invasion weren’t cheese eating surrender monkeys or ‘old Europeans’? Remember Bush’s single observation of a “crusade” before that got shut down … That’s exactly how the irrational rhetoric grew at the time: ‘With Us’ = new Europe, ‘Against Us’ = France and the rest of the cowards, ‘crusaders’, etc, etc. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/110 "2013-02-21T13:47:40Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#): > > In the same way those who opposed the invasion weren’t cheese eating surrender monkeys or ‘old Europeans’? Remember Bush’s single observation of a “crusade” before that got shut down … Oh, there certainly were a few individuals, maybe even a few politicians, who wanted to just bomb the entire Middle East into oblivion, but the idea that that that “philosophy” informed our policy in any way is indeed a strawman. If you think it isn’t, you are welcome to make your case, with cites of course. > [@](#): > > That’s exactly how the irrational rhetoric grew at the time: ‘With Us’ = new Europe, ‘Against Us’ = France and the rest of the cowards, ‘crusaders’, etc, etc. Old Europe vs New Europe is an entirely different thing. And the bit about “crusades” is a simple malapropism. We weren’t, after all, going into “The Holy Land” to liberate Jerusalem. That term, in colloquial American English, cannot be blindly translated into “an invasion to expel the infidels from the Holy Land”. We weren’t expelling anyone from anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/111 "2013-02-21T13:48:13Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Well, if we look at the facts, there were a lot of Democrats who voted against the Iraq war and very few Republicans. So, simple math tells us that Democrats, as a whole, have more credibility on this. Also, I think it’s safe to assume that had a Democrat been in the Oval Office, the Iraq War would never have come about. Sure, many Democrats were complicit, by they were more followers. Bush et all were the leaders. I think this a fair statement. I also recognize that Bush et al. did a fantastic job manipulating the circumstances. In the days leading up to the vote, they engaged in a concerted effort to amp up the “mushroom cloud” kind of talk, making it as hard as they could for Democrats to vote against the authorization. I also agree that the authorization is worded such that a “rules-lawyer” can excuse the vote. In reality, anyone who voted for that authorization failed a key test of character and conscience. It is only that at present many of those Democrats who did vote for it reflect the pragmatically best choice to approximate what I think needs to be done; most anyone else would have voted on the authorization for war in the same way as John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, but the real problem is that they \*would \*have been voting their conscience. I do think that calling it “Hillary’s War” is to stretch the point beyond credulity, though. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/112 "2013-02-21T13:51:36Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > I do think that calling it “Hillary’s War” is to stretch the point beyond credulity, though. Yes. I would call that “poetic license” at best, but it’s really just a catchy headline that is meant to grab your attention. It also needs to be seen in the context of the time it was written-- a time when HRC was running for president and running away from her vote for the Iraq war whereas BHO didn’t need to run away from anything. ---
**Author:** ![temp\_user](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9de053/32.png) [@temp\_user](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/temp_user)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/113 "2013-02-21T13:53:51Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > The law invested Bush with the authority to determine necessity. Even if any other reasonable person on earth thought it stupid, the law was clear: Bush was handed a blank check for war, and everyone voting on that authorization should have known it. > > Haggling over the phrase “as he determines necessary” in order to come up with a definition that isn’t the plain meaning if those words is as silly as asking what the meaning if “is” is. This poster is correct. If you give a monkey a loaded handgun, and the monkey shoots and kills someone, it is your fault for handing him a loaded weapon, not the monkey’s. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/114 "2013-02-21T14:17:09Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Strange how the left was all in arms about “waterboarding” and forced confessions, but has no problems with extrajudicial murders. I’ll go out on a limb and guess that you’re not a regular viewer of MSNBC. If you were, you would know that their big guns (Maddow et al) have devoted large segments of several shows to criticism of the policy. But as others have noted, the choice we had was not Obama vs Kucinich, it was Obama vs Romney. I would also note that Holder has not broken any new ground. Bush also presided over the assassination of American citizens without trial or charges. The only difference was that hardly anybody noticed. [http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2002-11-24/news/0211240446\_1\_al-qaeda-killings-terrorist](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2002-11-24/news/0211240446_1_al-qaeda-killings-terrorist) ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/115 "2013-02-21T14:27:44Z")
> [@temp\_user](#): > > This poster is correct. > > If you give a monkey a loaded handgun, and the monkey shoots and kills someone, it is your fault for handing him a loaded weapon, not the monkey’s. Bush could just be caricatured as a chimp. In fact he was the head of the executive branch of the US Govt and it was up to the executive branch how they handled the power given them by this resolution. There’s plenty of blame to go around but the Presedent and his ilk chose to lie and mislead an entire nation into war on false pretenses. That individuals in another branch of government were too stupid, too calculating of their own careers, or too duped by the campaign of lies and disinformation waged by the Presidency and their media allies, does not remove the lions share of the blame from the Bush Presidency. But I would be quite happy to see the Senior House and Senate Leaders asked to answer charges. But it’s not going to happen. The best we can hope is ‘fool me once’ next time the sabres are rattled. The supine response to Obama’s Drone War isn’t promising. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/116 "2013-02-21T14:29:25Z")
> [@temp\_user](#): > > This poster is correct. > > If you give a monkey a loaded handgun, and the monkey shoots and kills someone, it is your fault for handing him a loaded weapon, not the monkey’s. I don’t know if you are offering that analogy seriously or not, but it’s not a good one. As much as I’m sure it gives pleasure to many on this board to refer to Bush as “a monkey”, your analogy absolves him of blame. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/117 "2013-02-21T15:02:41Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > The law invested Bush with the authority to determine necessity. Even if any other reasonable person on earth thought it stupid, the law was clear: Bush was handed a blank check for war, and everyone voting on that authorization should have known it. Actually, I would hope that everybody voting for that resolution knew that Bush already had that authority. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 says that the President can start a war on his own authority, provided he meets a very low bar — and it was passed as a restriction on more sweeping powers. Rice and her ilk are still claiming to this day that one of the justifications for war was that Iraq had the temerity to occasionally shoot at our planes that had been patrolling the top and bottom fifths of Iraq for ten years, and that claim is all it takes to satisfy the conditions of the WPR. It also requires Bush to give notice to Congress within 48 hours, and the AUMF strengthened that by listing specific criteria for that notice, which Bush had no problem lying about. It also said that unless Congress authorized the action retroactively, the troops had to start withdrawing within 60 days, but good luck getting a US Congressman to face a future of attack ads saying he voted against our troops while they were in combat. So the AUMF didn’t give Bush any authority he didn’t already have to start the war. It even made it a bit harder in some ways, and the only thing it did to make it easier was to lift the toothless 60-day restriction of the WPR. I still can’t fault anyone who voted for it (at least, not for that reason alone), after the other amendments (like Levin’s) had failed, because it was better than nothing. However, you have changed my mind to the extent that I absolutely do fault anyone, including Clinton, Kerry, and Biden, who voted against those amendments. And it did accomplish some things: it got the inspectors back into Iraq, and they cleared so many sites that it made it almost impossible for Bush to plant WMDs, which I fully expected him to do. Most importantly, it proved to the world that Bush was a liar. Before he signed his name to that letter to Congress, he had the fig leaf of being technically correct in his speeches (e.g., by citing British reports in his “16 words”), though I would be ashamed of any 12-year-old who could not see how disingenuous they were. But by certifying in writing that nothing short of war could protect the US from Iraq, after the UN inspectors had proven beyond doubt that virtually everything Powell, Bush, Cheney, and Rice had said about Iraq’s current WMD status was false, he will go down in history as the President who lied us into a war. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/118 "2013-02-21T15:29:52Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I don’t know if you are offering that analogy seriously or not, but it’s not a good one. As much as I’m sure it gives pleasure to many on this board to refer to Bush as “a monkey”, your analogy absolves him of blame. And I still don’t think a wrong call on Bush was all that dumb. I must have made a thousand posts during 2002 about the misinformation Bush and his inner circle were disseminating, and it was blindingly obvious that he wanted war (although that was another thing he lied about in speech after speech), but I still breathed a sigh of relief when the UN reports in early 2003 made it clear to everyone that the CIA had been wrong. I really didn’t think Bush would have the brass to ignore them, because up to then, he had always ensured that his actions could be construed (by true believers, anyway) as misguided, but sincere. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/119 "2013-02-21T15:34:26Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > And I still don’t think a wrong call on Bush was all that dumb. I must have made a thousand posts during 2002 about the misinformation Bush and his inner circle were disseminating, and it was blindingly obvious that he wanted war (although that was another thing he lied about in speech after speech), but I still breathed a sigh of relief when the UN reports in early 2003 made it clear to everyone that the CIA had been wrong. I really didn’t think Bush would have the brass to ignore them, because up to then, he had always ensured that his actions could be construed (by true believers, anyway) as misguided, but sincere. I don’t recall Blix’s reports as being all that definitive. He was, after all, asking for more time and more inspections. If had already “proven” the CIA to be wrong, why did he need to do anything else? Bush effectively cut him off, though. I think what you may be missing, and I mentioned this upthread, is that SH had to not only destroy all his WMDs, but he had to account for their destruction, too. He was not able to do that, and one might argue that it was an impossible task, but it was still an open question. On my part, I didn’t care whether he had WMDs or not. I didn’t see that as a reason to go to war. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759/120 "2013-02-21T15:46:04Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I don’t recall Blix’s reports as being all that definitive. He was, after all, asking for more time and more inspections. If had already “proven” the CIA to be wrong, why did he need to do anything else? Bush effectively cut him off, though. He hadn’t proven that there was not a single WMD anywhere in Iraq. He _had_ proven that every site that the CIA had identified as a WMD factory or stockpile was clean. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hubris-the-iraq-war/650759.md?page=7)