# Ten Years Ago, Most Dopers Were Against The War. I'm Proud of Us. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 20, 2013, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409 "2013-03-20T01:37:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![newcomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e5b9ba/32.png) [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/121 "2013-03-22T14:19:11Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > After 9/11 the war in Afghanistan was unavoidable. Probably Iraq as well. Why unavoidable? Neither of the countries – and I speak of countries – had no intentions of attacking US or US interests whatsoever. You, the American citizen, living free in the land of plenty, got scared shitless from your own “leadership”, stressed out that you wont be able to get your latte from Starbucks tomorrow UNLESS your glorious army goes off and flattens some country with brown people in it. Even after 10 years the scare did not subside and that’s most likely because realization of how gutless and cowardly US population is would bring more destruction to the fabric of society than 10 financial crisis combined. Even after 10 years there is no movement or a push of some sorts to investigate what really transpired that starts with a very simple question – how come the people who, until yesterday, were employed, trained and paid by US Government were suddenly the worst enemy of anything sacred to America since Nazis that needed to be annihilated? Even the silly but mind-boggling comparison to Nazis should be a red flag. But, it wasn’t. To steal from Bill Hicks, yes Americans, you have “American Idol” and “American Gladiator” and 24/7 reality shows but while your eyes were glued to the screen you are being eff’d by your Government for 30 years and more and you don’t let a squeak. In fact, you bend even more and ask – is that how you like it? It’s time to get off your high horse. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/122 "2013-03-22T14:24:58Z")
**Rune** ’s not American. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/123 "2013-03-22T14:28:44Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > I was for the war in 2002. My excuse was I was 17, and very very stupid at the time and didn’t have a clue that our country was NOT always the good guys. Well, the owners of capital need naive and exuberant teenagers to fight and die for them. In fact, they rely on them. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/124 "2013-03-22T14:56:59Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > The lesson from Afghanistan and Iraq must be: 1) when you need to go to war, do it to destroy your enemies, not to build a better state. Encore la logique de Versailles. That was so productive in the past, it must be replicated. > [@](#): > > Nukes would have been a reasonable response after 9/11, … It is of course reasonable to commit genocides of peoples unrelated to an event. It is the opinion that can be expected from persons who use racial jokes in this age and think they are amusing, they being the windows into the persons disguised thinking. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/125 "2013-03-22T15:27:51Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > Nukes would have been a reasonable response after 9/11, but conventional arms could also have done it. Can’t believe I missed this. Are you fucking serious? ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/126 "2013-03-22T21:50:20Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#): > > Well, the owners of capital need naive and exuberant teenagers to fight and die for them. In fact, they rely on them. When I realized this is when I dropped out of the Army delay entry program. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/127 "2013-03-23T05:22:39Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Oh dear. \*\*Red \*\*has quite some scraping to do again… Not really. I’m hardly Mother Goose. Free will and all that. Facts be dammed. > [@Rune](#): > > Oh dear. A **Red** fanboy… Your English is great – except when it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/128 "2013-03-23T11:07:39Z")
> [@](#): > > The lesson is to be skeptical. I was sure that there were no WMDs because the UN inspectors found none, even with free run and access to the list of sites that our intelligence claimed had WMDs, and that other countries, with access to the raw intelligence (unlike Congress) didn’t buy in to the war. > > The other reason was that Bush declared the invasion an immediate necessity, **despite the fact that the UN inspectors were running all over the country and that there was no imminent threat**. That’s a sign of someone who knows they don’t have a case. > > As for public support, my recollection is that there was majority support **for an invasion only with UN sanction.** After it started of course almost everyone supported it to support the troops. So even the public was not that far off. \*\*-Voyager \*\*#054 03-20-2013 12:39 PM 079a0039. Do you realize how rare an American you (ten years after) are to bring up the points you’ve made about the importance of UN isnpections. You are correct about the public mood during the run-up to the war. There was a CBS poll and others that supported it toward the end of February 2003, where close to 6 of 10 Americans including over 80% of Democrats, favored giving the UN inspectors more time, and did not support invading Iraq unless done so through the UN and a broad coalition of the international community. Bush was steadily losing the argument to the public about the need for war as the UN inspections went on. Do you wonder why, the current documentary “Hubrus” on MSNBC hosted by Rachel Maddow, does not give ten cents worth of attention to the UN inspections phase that lasted for over four months between Congress’ vote to AUMF against Iraq in October 2002 and and March 2003? And there was a long PBS documentary on the same topic of the run up to the war in Iraq, that skipped over the same four months of UN inspections, just like in Hubris? Do you wonder how Bush has gotten away with stating several times that Saddam did not let the UN inspectors in after the vote to AUMF against Iraq in October 2002, by the mainstream press and a vast majority of the main stream punditry on TV and radio and in print? There should have been no war because Iraq was cooperting fully with UN Res 1441 several weeks prior to the invasion date. Yet there is no focus or emphasis on that aspect of the war. Everything falls on the hype and lies about WMD. The thing of it was, there were no inspections going on in October 2002 when Congress voted to AUMF. The intelligence, even faultily accurate was the best we had at the time. I agreed in October that SH should have been forced to resume inspections since that regime was in violation of international law by keeping inspectors out for four years. And by March 2003, SH was not in violation of international law, exactly because he was cooperating sufficiently to ‘bring about peaceful disarmament and verification’ as required by international law. The inspections matter because SH went from being in violation of international law in October 2002 when war would have been justified if he refused to resume inspections even under the threat of force and regime change; but when he submitted to international law and resumed inspections to the point of being proactive on all matters of cooperation prior to the war… it is difficult to understand how so many can ignore the inspections process and the legal remifications from it, and spend so much time aguing about who screwed up or lied aboout the WMD intelligence and hyped it. This universal lack of interest in the inspections by the left is incomprensible to me. I understand why Bush supporters and the war supporters are petrified to think that Saddam acutally cooperated with the inspections, but I don’t get why the left and the middle who see this war for the blunder and ruin that it actually was, just don’t care to hear that the inspections happened and what the true significance of UN inspections truly is. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/129 "2013-03-23T14:48:05Z")
> [@](#): > > “It does bear repeating, however, that 10 years ago there was broad support amongst the US public for the invasion of Iraq. There was broad support in the media, and in the Congress. All of this support was centered around the bogeyman that Saddam had WMD’s. 10 years later I am still chilled by the evidence that an entire population can be moved to lethal folly by nothing more than an appeal to phantom threat.” -Nachtmusick 03-21-2013 03:53 AM 080a0353. If you are speaking to broad support for Bush starting a war in the way that he did, without UN sanction on the WMD issue prior to the actual date of the start of the invasion, I am certain according to most polling at the time that the broader support was for giving the UN inspectors more time. > [@](#): > > Should the United States take military action against Iraq fairly soon, or should the United States wait and give the United Nations and weapons inspectors more time? > > “Take military action fairly soon” (Total)=35% (Republicans)=55% (Dems)=23% > “Give weapons inspectors’ time” (Total)=60% (Republicans)=38% (Dems)=75% The above CBS poll taken at the end of February 2003 suggests why the American people now have the gut feeling we were ‘taken for a ride’ by President Bush and all who favored an invasion around him. Of course after the full scale invasion got started, the public then gave broad support for the war. To me that was not about WMD. That was about the broad support Americans give to our men and women who serve in the military. For a month or two, many had to assume that Bush actually had something on Saddam Hussein that the UN inspectors could not catch. (Never my view) But I do wonder why those six out of ten Americans who were wise enough to prefer that the UN inspectors get more time, are not as angry about Bush deciding to kick UN inspectors out as I am. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/130 "2013-03-23T15:05:35Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > It’s impractical to keep up with all the irrelevant requests for Cites, but to stifle your snark, IF requesting a source for claims made in one’s argument or discussion (I am not arguing with you on your major points by the way) is a snark or irrelevant, then why make the point at all? I don’t think this claim is irrelevant in the bigger picture considering for the past nine years, I have been arguing with the die-hard, and continued to this day, Iraq invasion supporters, who some use the idea that Saddam thought he had WMD, but publically denied it, as one excuse for Bush to have been justified not to trust the UN inspectors that he himself agreed to get back in place to avoid the need for war if at all possible. That is an absurd argument, the volumn of pebbles of mini-myths and suppositions about what Saddam Hussein thought add up to a huge buffer that protects Bush and Cheney from recieving more public anger than what they get. Right Wing talk radio is unbearable this week spewing bs and crap about how the Iraq war was the right thing to do. Bill Kristol was on our radio station in the D.C. area saying that Iraq was the right thing to do, and now ten years later, it is President Obama who has lost all the gains that were made as a result of the initial invasion of Iraq. > [@](#): > > 03-20-2013 12:07 PM Include me among those who assumed Iraq had WMDs like nerve gas. **Even Saddam thought he had WMDs!** – his officials were afraid to tell him the truth. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/131 "2013-03-23T17:44:49Z")
> [@NotfooledbyW](#): > > Before you start calling people uninformed … > [@NotfooledbyW](#): > > IF requesting a source for claims made in one’s argument or discussion (I am not arguing with you on your major points by the way) is a snark or irrelevant, then why make the point at all? I’m going to post my opinions, often without explicit cites. I won’t respond to all requests for “cites” – on more than one occasion I’ve responded to such a request by laboriously typing in long copy from a printed book, with no Thank You in response. If this is unacceptable to you, please just set the Ignore User option. BTW, it was your “Before you start calling people uninformed” that I found snarky. Admittedly I’m overly “thin-skinned.” > [@NotfooledbyW](#): > > Afghanistan suffered because of Iraq, but you’d need to explain how toppling the Taliban, and then leaving would have ended the terrorist haven there with Pakistan supporting the Taliban at the time. I think we’re in broad agreement. It’s ridiculous that the U.S. tolerates the behavior of the alleged “ally” Pakistan, though I don’t know exactly what U.S. should do about it. I do agree U.S. should have kept troops in Afghanistan to aid the fledging anti-Taliban government. _But the focus should have been on advancing real Afghanistan populism, not a corrupt and cynical Friedmanist experiment and the stupid “purple finger democracy,”_ ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/132 "2013-03-23T18:24:34Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > It is the opinion that can be expected from persons who use racial jokes in this age and think they are amusing, they being the windows into the persons disguised thinking. I have no idea what you are babbling about. I do however find funny racial jokes funny. I also find funny dead baby jokes funny. But nothing beats funny holocaust jokes. > [@RedFury](#): > > Your English is great Thank you. Now a quick view gives me: two snarky replies (Latro, RedFury); one that completely missed the mark (newcomer), one personal insult (Ramira). Boring. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/133 "2013-03-23T19:34:26Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I’m going to post my opinions, often without explicit cites. I was not challenging your opinion, I was questioning one of the facts you cited in forming your opinion. As I explained, it see the perpetuation of stories that Saddam thought this and Saddam believed that is well used by people mostly on the Republican side to perpetuate some kind of non-reality based narrative that Bush was absolutely right to invade Iraq in 2003. I’m actually wondering why that story that Saddam actually thought he had WMD’s holds some utility on the side who agree with me that the war was certainly the wrong thing to do. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/134 "2013-03-23T21:15:46Z")
Yes, we were right. So was most of the civilized world. We _failed_ to stop it. The war happened anyway. Countless thousands of people got killed. countless thousand more had their lives ruined, hundreds of billions of dollars were effectively destroyed. What should we be proud of? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/135 "2013-03-23T21:58:29Z")
> [@NotfooledbyW](#): > > I’m actually wondering why that story that Saddam actually thought he had WMD’s holds some utility on the side who agree with me that the war was certainly the wrong thing to do. I’m not sure what you mean. I sometimes report the facts that I believe to be true whether they support “my side” or not. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/136 "2013-03-23T23:06:41Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I do agree U.S. should have kept troops in Afghanistan to aid the fledging anti-Taliban government. _But the focus should have been on advancing real Afghanistan populism, not a corrupt and cynical Friedmanist experiment and the stupid “purple finger democracy,”_ 1. FTR, I think your cite upthread is weak: it’s by no means clear that Saddam’s underlings were hedging about the very existence of the programs they headed (something I find unlikely- UN inspectors have no authority to jail them) as opposed to being candid about their chaotic recordkeeping (something I find highly likely). 2. We shoulda forgotten about advancing democracy and focused on “advancing real Afghanistan populism”: that’s pretty silly hand waving. Where exactly would we find this non-corrupt populist? We were wading into a multi-tribal society marked by extensive internal suspicions. Now you can argue that GWBush should have at least _planned_ for post-invasion Iraq and put known experts in place, as opposed to yes-men in their early 20s from the Heritage Foundation. But I’m highly dubious of claims that efforts at advancing a pseudo-democracy in Afghanistan hurt us: they did little good IMHO, but they also did little harm. Look, I agree with the Afghan invasion. And frankly, I’d like to read an article about the downsides of exiting the country and letting them fight the civil war amongst themselves. At the very least, you would want to pre-announce something like that, but I’m not convinced it wouldn’t be a good idea, provided that country had attacked you first. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/137 "2013-03-24T00:48:24Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I’m not sure what you mean. I sometimes report the facts that I believe to be true whether they support “my side” or not. I am simply respectfully saying that it is not a fact that Saddam thought he had WMD because of what he said in public and when he sent Amir al Saadi in mid-December 2002 to the UN in New York City to invite the CIA to come into Iraq to look for WMD since the CIA seemed to think they knew for certain that WMD were there. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/138 "2013-03-24T01:54:10Z")
> [@newcomer](#): > > Why unavoidable? > > Neither of the countries – and I speak of countries – had no intentions of attacking US or US interests whatsoever. Afghanistan certainly was justified-it was harbouring terrorists and the reactionary, misogynistic Taliban regime had long since forfeited any moral right to existence. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/139 "2013-03-24T05:07:16Z")
Fun fact: In August 2012, the US placed sanctions on Iraq. I don’t know how to characterize their severity. Up to 2004, Iraq was on the list of countries that required companies to boycott Israel. A 1986 US law denies US investors in such companies foreign tax credits. After 2004, Iraq was suspended from the list, pending review. In 2012 they were placed back on the list, along with such esteemed partners as Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen. Weirdly, Iran is not on that list, which sort of disappoints me. [http://tmagazine.ey.com/news/ibfd/united-states-us-treasury-department-reissues-list-boycott-countries-results-restriction-us-tax-benefits/](http://tmagazine.ey.com/news/ibfd/united-states-us-treasury-department-reissues-list-boycott-countries-results-restriction-us-tax-benefits/) ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409/140 "2013-03-24T05:48:09Z")
Well, trade with Iran is already severely limited. I’ve seen customer’s servers seized because they were doing business with the government of Iran. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-years-ago-most-dopers-were-against-the-war-im-proud-of-us/653409.md?page=8)