Useful Idiots: How many of you still think invading Iraq was a good idea?

The BBQ Pit
121

Sheeze. My point is that in matters relating to war there is rarely perfect information. Intelligence is a tool that is used all the time. You weigh the intelligence you have—some of it contradictory in nature—with those things that you do know for certain. For instance, we knew for certain that Saddam had WMDs at some point. We thought we knew (Rumsfeld, Powell) that they still had some and where they were. It was possible to believe the later because, in part, of the certainty of the former.

I have not argued that we should have gone to war when we did. Only that it is disengenuous for someone to claim now that they “knew” which bits of intelligence were correct before they proved themselves to be.

As I also stated, I think we should have waited some. How long, I don’t know. But I do understand that if one believed the intelligence to be correct, that given 9/11, that maybe we didn’t have the luxury of waiting until we knew “for certain”. Sometimes you just *can’t *know. Sometimes waitiing is a bad decision in and of itself. Such is the nature of war.

One final thing, if by" fooled" you meant that the information that we had painted a misleading picture, you are correct. I think you mean it more along the lines of the result of someone wishing to deliberately mislead. If so, that’s one more thing that you might be right about, but you don’t know.

I find the idea that someone might argue with this is both baffling and revealing.

If I would qualify “no one” it would be to exclude Saddam himself and a few of his minions. Other than that we had a people with opinions. Nothing more. The quality of the opinions are dependent mainly upon the information they were based on. I think it fair to say that there was a good argument for going or not going. I think you have to err on the side of not going, but there is a threshold at which (again, based on the information in hand) NOT going is the imprudent thing. I believe, that based on an honest weighing of the information available that someone could believe the threat to be so great that to not act was irresponsible.

Conversely, I would also argue that if we went over there and found all the WMDs we envisioned, that that would NOT mean that going to war was necessarily the correct thing to do. Though I have little doubt that some would have equated the two.

122

We know now that they weren’t simply mistaken, they were actually lying. They did NOT “think they knew”’; they knew what they wanted to be true so it would bail them out. That isn’t the fault of the facts or the intelligence, it’s a combination of their own human failings.

Virtually *all * the *known * facts, and there were many, were to the contrary.

Would 2 weeks have done it? Enough time for the UN teams to inspect the few remaining sites they hadn’t already? After it was already clear to the reasonable that the WMD’s didn’t exist like Bush hoped they would? That his pretext for starting a war was about to be discredited so thoroughly he couldn’t recover from it? Would that have been long enough for you?

Do you understand that that position was *already * nearly untenable, *already * known to be in conflict with the facts, *before * the invasion?

But this wasn’t one of those times.

It is not reasonable to think otherwise, given what we do know.

Yet the people on the ground, with the facts as they were, were essentially all saying one thing. The Administration actually had to create an entirely new “intelligence” agency to tell it what it wanted to hear, remember? *That * was widely known public information before the war, as well.

It wasn’t a tossup. It wasn’t a case of “on the other hand”. It wasn’t opinion vs. opinion. We were *lied * to. Too many of us were scared into believing those lies. Many of that group now know it and don’t make excuses anymore.

123

ιδιωτης, idiōtēs in the original greek, you grammar rapist!!

One has to be merciless with oneself too.

124

Saw David Kay on tv lately. He said he had a pocket of green cards and visas, Lots of money was available. If any Iraqi could have given them information ,they could be set up comfortably any place they wanted to go. Including family. When he only got a few nuts to talk to him, it became clear there was nothing to find. This was after extensive searching turned up nothing.Bob55 missed out on millions.

125

There’s a reason I opened this thread in The Pit – and that’s so I could call imbecils like you what you really are: Useful Idiots, ready to munch on whatever turd-sundae BushCo sends your way.

Listen up shit-for-brains, you’ve already been fighting in Iraq longer than you did in WW-II. The results, as anyone with an ounce of common sense left will tell you, are nothing short of disastrous. I don’t give a fuck if your Gramma is over there, clutching an M-16 and fighting in her camouflaged bloomers.

While we’re at it, you can stick your “front-line reports” where the sun don’t shine and eat a dose of reality – Iraqis, with perhaps the exception of the Kurds for as long as they need you, don’t fuckin’ want you there. Every godamn poll taken on the matter shows that quite clearly – 'cept for morons like you and Dubya.

Matter of fact, here’s something you ought to be celebrating: U.S. deaths in Iraq, war on terror surpass 9/11 toll.

With “love” like that, spare me any hatred.

Seriously, are you really this stupid or are you making an extra effort just for me?

Tell me, do you look for brown-skinned terrorists under your bed every night? 'cause you read just like the type of voluntary incontinent who would.

I mean, where the fuck do you get off saying that a third-rate army froma third rate nation, destroyed twice over, by war and sanctions was a “potential agressor” to the mightest force the world’s ever seen? Seriously, it’s beyond hysterical paranoia that anyone would think that way. They’d become a be a glass parking-lot right after their first missile launched – which they couldn’t have done for years and years anyway. Hell, might as well invade Haiti. Oh, wait, you did that already – more than once IIRC.

Lastly, I’m glad you brought Hitler into the picture. Not only because of Goodwin’s Law, but because it makes my point for me: you’re dummer than a box of charcoal, what with comparing Iraq’s non-existant military strenght with The Wehrmacht.

Og Almighty! I’d be stunned to learn you can tie your own shoelaces.

Lastly, you can be dammed sure I’d be willing to say the exact same things right in your face. You get exactly what you deserve: zero respect from me and millions of others like me, who think cowardly bullies are just that.

Grow a fuckin’ pair, dumbfuck.

126

Poor form.

You bring up the Americans who’ve died in this war and use them as a distraction to win a checkers match on the intarweb.

Shame on you.

127

Blow me dickwad. I brought a FACT perfectly fitting both my premises and the collective Pitting I’m giving you warmongering assholes.

Instead of worrying about my “form”," why don’t you find who’s to blame for the death of all those (mostly) kids, because it sure ain’t me. In fact, look in the mirror – there should be quite a bit of guilt there mixed-in with the innocent’s blood. For it was people like you that made this whole bloody mess possible. OTOH, it was I and many, many others like me, who prededicted this was exactly what was going to happen.

Believe you me, I doubt a single one of us gets any pleasure from having been right all along.

Then again, why not be original and call me an Anti-American helping “the terrorists”? Or maybe you should just read this instead:Why I am a Terrorist

128

You’re yesterday’s news, you effete foreign douchebag. You ought to shut your mouth though, about American blood and intentions, you fucking asshole. We actually give a shit, leaving you the ability to sit on your fat ass and not, or delude yourself about your possibilites with your realtor or something.

Douchebag,

129

Slightly off topic, but did you know that just this past month the total number of American soldiers killed in Bush’s little Iraq adventure surpassed the number bin Laden killed at the World Trade Center (2642 vs 2602)?

130

I don’t thing that expecting as a given that “It will take time and rivers of blood” to then get a good result in Iraq to be a position that shows that you give a shit.

The Spanish Douchebags still remain our allies BTW:

http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_5831.shtml

131

Tragically, though, giving a shit and good intentions don’t actually count for much in practical terms without legitimacy and competence. We could have accomplished so much after 9/11 under responsible and intelligent leadership, with the sympathy and support of most of the world to back us. And instead we just pissed so much of it away in those rivers of blood. It breaks my heart to think of it, it really does.

132

Why? Because it’s bloody? Shall we become squeamish when my brothers have been bombed and burned and shot and skinned and flailed and poisoned and beheaded, all in the name of holding Hell at its boundaries?

The place is a horror, I’ve always said so, but I’m starting to think we’re the only nation that could hold it.

133

Ah, the old “White man’s burden” I thought that idea fell in disrepute after the Britain found out they could not hold on in India.

134

We have imposed Hell on Iraq, and the people who have died there died for the neocon’s ideological fantasies, the profits of people like Haliburton, and America’s indiscriminate bloodthirstiness and sadism.

If by “your brothers” you mean American soldiers, my response is : Too damn bad. They invaded a country in a war of aggression and greed, and every one that dies is a victory for humanity in general. I have no sympathy for any of them.

135

I don’t think I’ll argue with you on that; we are the only nation that could hold it. Problem is, we’re not. Not only was the actual invasion (which is what this thread was originally about) a major fuckup, everything we have done since the invasion - in our attempts to settle the place down - has been a major fuckup.

The insistence of the administration that they are the only ones who know how to solve the problem - after they have fucked up every single element of the invasion - is, to me, ludicrous.

Even leaving aside the debatable elements of whether the invasion of Iraq was deserved, every single element of the administration’s policy in Iraq has failed. What, precisely, do you expect from Bush to solve the problems in Iraq?

136

Well, there you go again.

Right now it remains clear to me that many American soldiers are ignorant of the real reasons for intervening, later polls have shown that the majority are still thinking that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. Soldiers, more than anyone else, are subjeted to propaganda from the current administration.

I direct my bile to the remaining third of Americans that still think this was a good idea. I reserve my bile for the Mainstream media that still misleads the nation, I direct my bile to the Administration that still thinks this course is proper. I also direct my bile to the soldiers that indeed have been found to be involved in massacres and abuses that in turn are one of the reasons why other soldiers get to suffer more.

But, many soldiers that do know are trying to survive and help, **Der Trihs ** not all have drank the kool aid, you are an idiot if you assume all of them are on it.

137

Then they are fools as well as scum. I knew better than that before the war; am I so much smarter than they are ?

138

I did know better too, and I’m not assuming I’m smarter than them, I see that a good number of soldiers that are coming from the gulf that get involved in politics are against the war.

Once they are out of service they deserve to be treated with contempt if they still follow the propaganda like lemmings.

I take into consideration what Joseph Campbell said in “The Power of Myth” to Bill Moyers when he asked about what other rituals that are important to society:

Of course I don’t follow Campbell 100%, when soldiers do crimes that idea is gone, I do know that abuses and many massacres are not being properly investigated, but for other soldiers it remains their burden until they are dismissed, complaining against all of them is stupid and indirectly helps the bastards that gave the orders.

The current administration, doing what it amounts to be a back door draft, is what is criminal on top of the invasion.

139

Exactly right. The idiots whose lies and poor judgement got us into the Iraq mess, whose incompetence and shortsightedness made it such a total fucking mess – these are the people the right now assures us with a sincere gaze and much hand-waving are the ONLY people who can get us out of the mess … to do otherwise than what the PROVEN IDIOTS want to do will surely lead to disaster!

It’s just jaw-droppingly absurd. How people can advocate such stupidity without experiencing obvious agonies of embarrassment is beyond me. The conservatives must have set up a School for Hypocrisy somewhere while they were building all those think tanks back in the 80s.

140

Trouble was, they used real tanks.