The 20 year anniversary of the United States invasion of Iraq. What are your thoughts all these years later?

[RhodyPatriot]

The ripple effects of the disastrous Iraq invasion still course through the Middle East and domestic US politics decades later. Yet there’s little evidence those in power have learned anything from it.

Is that actually your opinion, or are you just poll testing?

Which personality is joining us this evening?

 

[FranklinRoosevelt_FTW]

The first 4 callers we’re all critical of the war in Iraq making really interesting points …. The first caller from Alabama and older man was talking about how in his view there’s a ton of hypocrisy of how the Iraqi Arabs were viewed compared to the white Ukrainian people.

then the fifth collar a man from South Carolina of Vietnam war veteran talked about his son a US Marine was killed in Iraq in 2006.



You can listen to this man about the 14 or 15 minute mark of the video in the original post.

By the way I was wrong about the numbers , it was not 3200 killed in action , in the 2003 war in Iraq we lost 4200 American men …


This man was an American patriot the caller and his son that is to say. This man‘s son who was killed in Iraq campaigned for George W. Bush…. The father said his son died fighting for what he believed in. The called from South Carolina again a Vietnam veteran did have his regrets he questioned what the United States was doing in countries like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The man again a US Marine and a Vietnam veteran said in his view the American revolutionary war and World War II were righteous wars but he questions the other wars we have fought in.

This man from South Carolina has other family members actually female family members who are joining the US Marine Corps here in 2023. This is clearly an American patriotic family. God bless him and God bless his son may his son rest in peace.

 

[The Banker]

Here was an excellent morning discussion on the 20 year anniversary of the United States led invasion of Iraq. All sorts of informative calls from fellow American citizens on the very issue


“Viewers commented on a question concerning the 20th anniversary of former President George W. Bush declaring the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the start of the seven-year U.S. war in Iraq: “What is the legacy of that war?”

Washington Journal: News Headlines and Viewer Calls

Viewers commented on a question concerning the 20th anniversary of former President George W. Bush declaring the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the start of the seven-year U.S. war in Iraq: "What is the legacy of that war?"

www.c-span.org

I was just a young kid when this invasion had occurred in March 2003…. operation “shock and awe”




and it was a very interesting thing remembering it I was thinking why is this happening what is the deal with this man Saddam Hussein but more than that what about the proud people of Iraq what about them what about these Arabs what about these proud Arab Christians and Arab Muslims. Is he that’s one thing before 2003 12% of Iraq was Christian now something like 4% of the country is Christian. before 2003 the second in command of Iraq the number to most powerful man was a Catholic Tarik Aziz…. where is the Christian leader ship in Iraq now.? Critics have said that Iraq is very much influenced or even controlled by the Islamic Republic of Iran something that is very ugly it certainly is not good for proud Arab women.

This is one of the last outlet’s of journalistic integrity in America which is Washington journal on C-SPAN. Where American citizens can call into the program and provide their opinion. You just don’t see that on CNN, Fox News or MSNBC.

My thoughts on the 20 year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and the legacy of the Iraq war is first of all I stand by the United States military and by President George W. Bush. We as Americans we have freedom of speech that folks don’t have that in other countries of the world. But we have that in America at least for now. And I believe in supporting the office of the presidency just like it was during the Vietnam war when you had even Vietnam veterans who disagreed with the war but who fought because they were drafted and because they felt it was their duty.

I go back to the Iraq Iran war. I think that the United States should have supported Iraq more to crush Iran. Iran is a country that forces women to cover their hair has all sorts of sexist laws. They are problematic but they weren’t like that during the days of the shah. obviously we had the Iran contra affair I get this that was only for about four months during the Iran Iraq war and Ronald Reagan issued an apology to the Iraqi people for that episode.

One thing that stands out about this war is that Iraq was all alone…. they had no support from China no support from Russia that would’ve been a game changer if that support had occurred. Iraq did get some support from Arab volunteers across the Arab world but that hails in comparison to $100 billion in international military support for example. The hypocrisy of the international media between now and then is crystal clear.

To the other side of the argument one might say that the world is better off without the Ba’ath party of Iraq. But that is certainly very much debatable…. on the flipside you have ISIL and the terrorism brutality this was probably the worst state in the history of the world ….perhaps second to the third Reich. For a couple of years the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant were throwing people into fires, they were feeding men to sharks in pools literally, ISIL would put men in a cage three or four of them and then drown them to death in a suburban swimming pool, they would Put men into a car and then blow the car up. They would chainsaw peoples heads off …. they executed Christians in mass…. basically anything you could think of from a violent video game ISIL did…. ISIL even had their own modified version of the video game “ Grandtheft auto“…which word attempt to recruit young gamers over to the cause of ISIL.

Of course after 2003 and also during the initial invasion you had dead Americans you had dead Iraqis. There was anywhere from 300,000 to 1,000,000 dead Iraqis due to the war in Iraq. Not to mention the tens of thousands of American soldiers who were injured…. some of whom suffered horrific spinal cord injuries , neck injuries they had their legs blown off their arms blown off many of these men these brave American soldiers are in wheelchairs for the rest of their lives. They can’t have sex they can’t even use the bathroom on their own piano that is something that words cannot really describe.

But it’s not just ISIL. Here’s a question we as Americans can ask today. What is the purpose of The state of Iraq …. A country which of the United States poured trillions of dollars into and countless American lives over 3200 American lives and again tens of thousands of injured soldiers. So where does Iraq stand today is it actually an ally of the United States? , or is it more so an ally of the Islamic Republic of Iran? which chants of death to America.

Finally what will the future of Iraq be ? will it actually remain a technical ally of the United States or will it become closer toward Iran? I think this is perhaps the most important question. Iraq has quite a bit of natural resources of course much oil.

“The worst single mistake ever made in the history of our country: going into the Middle East, by President Bush,” the president [Trump] said during an exclusive interview with Hill.TV.

Bush and the GOP war in Iraq was the biggest mistake in modern US History, and the GOP and Fox News pushed the war every step of the way.

If you opposed the war, like I did, you were attacked and called unpatriotic by all republicans everywhere. Remember Freedom Fries, when the republicans had to change the name from french fries to Freedon Fries, because France opposed the War in iraq...

Bush and the GOP's blunderous war in Iraq was 1 of many mistakes the Republicans made in the 21st century.

 

[basquebromance]

Is that actually your opinion, or are you just poll testing?

Which personality is joining us this evening?

poll testing? i have no intention of running for office, if that's what you're implying. not now, not ever

 

[basquebromance]

It is very difficult to radically transform the current political system in Iraq. The most that they can hope for is reform within the system itself. That means elections that are more inclusive of the different political forces, as well as the independent secular parties that have been organized in the wake of the protests.

In the current situation, change will have to be incremental. All of these parties are militarized, and violent confrontations between the different Shia parties would compound the fragmentation of Iraq. There is no revolutionary option for the protesters: they are going to have to work within the system as it currently exists, with regular protests around certain issues and perhaps also changes of government.

 

[The Banker]

Same as I did back then, the Republican led government lied us into an unnecessary war that cost a crap-ton of lives and money.

If you opposed the War in Iraq you were attacked and called un-patriotic, or worse by the Republicans.

The GOP pushed for the war, started the war, fucked the war up bigtime, and now try to blame dems for the war.

That's a pattern of failure that keeps happening with these people.

 

[basquebromance]

You don’t have to take the word of former general Wesley Clark, a man who once nearly started World War III, and his claim that there existed a secret memo outlining plans for war on “seven countries in five years,” (Lebanon was one of the countries listed!) starting with Iraq and ending with Iran. The Bush administration’s own behavior, rhetoric, and later admissions made it abundantly clear that this was the idea.

Of course, George W. Bush’s invasion fell to shambles so quickly that he never had the chance to put this plan into action. Rather than being the starting gun for a series of US wars in the Middle East, the attack on Iraq instead became merely the signature disaster of the Bush presidency and — at least until recently — the entire twenty-first century, a Vietnam-like black hole insatiably pulling human lives, neighboring countries, and trillions of dollars into its death vortex.

 

[FranklinRoosevelt_FTW]

From the Iraqi Arab perspective

 

[basquebromance]

From the Iraqi Arab perspective

if you want me to translate anything (meaning videos about the iraq war) from arabic, i'm happy to do it, as i do speak the language. don't make it too long though lol

 

[basquebromance]

Bush’s former counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke and others memorably alleged that the then president almost immediately demanded aides find some connection to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the attacks. Plenty of documents — like a top secret directive Bush signed six days later ordering the Pentagon to start war planning for Iraq — made it just as clear that he was determined from the start to take out Hussein no matter what.

Likewise, it took only hours after the 9/11 attacks for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to ask the vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others if there was information “good enough [to] hit” Hussein at the same time as Osama bin Laden, and to order the Pentagon’s top lawyer to get “additional support” for the “connection w/ UBL [Osama bin Laden].” Two whole months before September 11, Rumsfeld had produced a memo suggesting a “more robust policy” against Hussein on the basis of “the danger of an increasingly bold and nuclear-armed Saddam in the near-future,” and claiming that his ouster would create “a much-improved position in the region” for the United States and “enhance US credibility and influence.”

 

[EMH]

100% pure Zionist Fascist treason

All reasons given were BS

There was no US national interest

Making "Osama" "not a priority," flipping off TNA and handing Afghan to Taliban, Pat Tillman, those with IQ under 5 who still believe the official version of 911 cannot explain any of that and do not want to. Their angle is Jesus floating down from the clouds, and they do not care how much harm they do, how many they kill, how much of America they wreck the process, the pro Israel Christian SUB is THE DUMBEST MOST WORTHLESS LIFE FORM IN THE GALAXY.


Who is talking to Ziggy in this photo?

 

[RhodyPatriot]

If you opposed the War in Iraq you were attacked and called un-patriotic, or worse by the Republicans.All

The GOP pushed for the war, started the war, fucked the war up bigtime

All of this is irrefutably 100% true.

Where you completely lose the plot is the part where Orange Man Rad moves in to remake the Republican Party and your side actually starts to praise Bush/Cheney while giving out fat military contracts for even more war.

Under Trump there were no new wars.

You want to pretend it's still 2004, but it ain't. Both parties have changed.

Meanwhile, the guy in the Whitehouse right now who identifies as "President" voted FOR the war in Iraq.

I get so impatient with you numbskulls and your paucity of nuance.

 

[basquebromance]

We’ve arguably never seen this level of misinformation campaign in US politics, before or since. So relentless was the administration’s campaign of deceit that on the eve of the war, nearly two-thirds of the US public thought Hussein had played a role in the September 11 attacks, and upward of 90 percent believed that he had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) or was developing them. The Trump administration’s comparatively lackluster and unsuccessful attempts to create a groundswell of support for regime change in countries like Cuba and Venezuela are a testament to how sophisticated this operation was.

None of it could have succeeded without the mainstream press. Long before the words “social” and “media” became a single noun, this avalanche of powerfully effective fake news emanated from the most establishment of establishment news outlets and no small number of liberal columnists, to the point that you can literally count the number of journalists who questioned the administration’s case on one hand. It took only two days after the 9/11 attacks for a reporter to bring up the nonexistent links between Hussein and bin Laden to Powell, and for the Wall Street Journal to cite “experts” that Iraq was “most likely to have helped” bin Laden. An exhaustive analysis of two weeks of coverage in the lead-up to the war by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting found that 222 of the 297 current and retired officials that networks overwhelmingly relied on as guests were associated with governments backing the war, and that a mere four were critical of the invasion.

 

[excalibur]

See:

20 Years On: The Avoidable, Anguishing, and Awful 2003 Iraq War

But George W Bush gets embraced by Obama and Michelle and is welcome at all Presidential ceremonies. Whereas the President of Peace, Donald Trump is scorned and not welcome. 🤔 Oh, and idiots in the United States Senate are trying to keep the AUMF alive. ... As part of the October 2002...

www.usmessageboard.com

 

[Lesh]

Here was an excellent morning discussion on the 20 year anniversary of the United States led invasion of Iraq. All sorts of informative calls from fellow American citizens on the very issue


“Viewers commented on a question concerning the 20th anniversary of former President George W. Bush declaring the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the start of the seven-year U.S. war in Iraq: “What is the legacy of that war?”

Washington Journal: News Headlines and Viewer Calls

Viewers commented on a question concerning the 20th anniversary of former President George W. Bush declaring the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the start of the seven-year U.S. war in Iraq: "What is the legacy of that war?"

www.c-span.org

I was just a young kid when this invasion had occurred in March 2003…. operation “shock and awe”




and it was a very interesting thing remembering it I was thinking why is this happening what is the deal with this man Saddam Hussein but more than that what about the proud people of Iraq what about them what about these Arabs what about these proud Arab Christians and Arab Muslims. Is he that’s one thing before 2003 12% of Iraq was Christian now something like 4% of the country is Christian. before 2003 the second in command of Iraq the number to most powerful man was a Catholic Tarik Aziz…. where is the Christian leader ship in Iraq now.? Critics have said that Iraq is very much influenced or even controlled by the Islamic Republic of Iran something that is very ugly it certainly is not good for proud Arab women.

This is one of the last outlet’s of journalistic integrity in America which is Washington journal on C-SPAN. Where American citizens can call into the program and provide their opinion. You just don’t see that on CNN, Fox News or MSNBC.

My thoughts on the 20 year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and the legacy of the Iraq war is first of all I stand by the United States military and by President George W. Bush. We as Americans we have freedom of speech that folks don’t have that in other countries of the world. But we have that in America at least for now. And I believe in supporting the office of the presidency just like it was during the Vietnam war when you had even Vietnam veterans who disagreed with the war but who fought because they were drafted and because they felt it was their duty.

I go back to the Iraq Iran war. I think that the United States should have supported Iraq more to crush Iran. Iran is a country that forces women to cover their hair has all sorts of sexist laws. They are problematic but they weren’t like that during the days of the shah. obviously we had the Iran contra affair I get this that was only for about four months during the Iran Iraq war and Ronald Reagan issued an apology to the Iraqi people for that episode.

One thing that stands out about this war is that Iraq was all alone…. they had no support from China no support from Russia that would’ve been a game changer if that support had occurred. Iraq did get some support from Arab volunteers across the Arab world but that hails in comparison to $100 billion in international military support for example. The hypocrisy of the international media between now and then is crystal clear.

To the other side of the argument one might say that the world is better off without the Ba’ath party of Iraq. But that is certainly very much debatable…. on the flipside you have ISIL and the terrorism brutality this was probably the worst state in the history of the world ….perhaps second to the third Reich. For a couple of years the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant were throwing people into fires, they were feeding men to sharks in pools literally, ISIL would put men in a cage three or four of them and then drown them to death in a suburban swimming pool, they would Put men into a car and then blow the car up. They would chainsaw peoples heads off …. they executed Christians in mass…. basically anything you could think of from a violent video game ISIL did…. ISIL even had their own modified version of the video game “ Grandtheft auto“…which word attempt to recruit young gamers over to the cause of ISIL.

Of course after 2003 and also during the initial invasion you had dead Americans you had dead Iraqis. There was anywhere from 300,000 to 1,000,000 dead Iraqis due to the war in Iraq. Not to mention the tens of thousands of American soldiers who were injured…. some of whom suffered horrific spinal cord injuries , neck injuries they had their legs blown off their arms blown off many of these men these brave American soldiers are in wheelchairs for the rest of their lives. They can’t have sex they can’t even use the bathroom on their own piano that is something that words cannot really describe.

But it’s not just ISIL. Here’s a question we as Americans can ask today. What is the purpose of The state of Iraq …. A country which of the United States poured trillions of dollars into and countless American lives over 3200 American lives and again tens of thousands of injured soldiers. So where does Iraq stand today is it actually an ally of the United States? , or is it more so an ally of the Islamic Republic of Iran? which chants of death to America.

Finally what will the future of Iraq be ? will it actually remain a technical ally of the United States or will it become closer toward Iran? I think this is perhaps the most important question. Iraq has quite a bit of natural resources of course much oil.

It was a COLASSAL mistake based on lies that cost over 4,000 American lives-destabilized the Middle East ,gave rise to ISIS and cost trillions of dollars

 

[FranklinRoosevelt_FTW]

There was another Vietnam veteran who called in right after the man from South Carolina whose son died in the Iraq war. This other Vietnam veteran made a really interesting point that I did not know about that apparently Ho Chi Minh fought against the Japanese in World War II and helped the allies …but this caller the Vietnam veteran was saying that of course in the Vietnam war we turned against him

The Vietnam veteran was saying that the Vietnam war was 10,000 times worse than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While he disagreed with Vladimir Putin he also said that George W. Bush is a war criminal same thing with George tenant.

 

[EMH]

If you opposed the War in Iraq you were attacked and called un-patriotic, or worse by the Republicans.

The GOP pushed for the war, started the war, fucked the war up bigtime, and now try to blame dems for the war.

That's a pattern of failure that keeps happening with these people.

The "GOP" did not push the war, ZIONIST FASCISM did...

For the War


JOE BIDEN
Schumer
Feinstein
Weiner
Waxman
the entire media


Against the War

Pat Buchanan
Robert Novak
Gen Schwartzkopf
HW
Chuck Hagel

 

[basquebromance]

The unambiguous catastrophe that the war became set off a genuine shift in US public opinion more generally, as Washington politicians succeeded in somehow getting more Americans killed than had died in the terrorist attack that was supposed to have justified the war. Public sentiment soon lurched away from the hawkish view that had prevailed since the Reagan era, and toward less military adventurism, more restraint, and an emphasis on securing prosperity at home. Even if US elites today remain slow to catch up to the rest of the country, this public shift has inflicted real political costs on those running against it, enough that the war’s architects are still whining today that the resulting “Iraq syndrome” has stopped them from getting all the wars they’ve wanted in the intervening years.

 

[The Banker]

All of this is irrefutably 100% true.

Where you completely lose the plot is the part where Orange Man Rad moves in to remake the Republican Party and your side actually starts to praise Bush/Cheney while giving out fat military contracts for even more war.

Under Trump there were no new wars.

You want to pretend it's still 2004, but it ain't. Both parties have changed.

Meanwhile, the guy in the Whitehouse right now who identifies as "President" voted FOR the war in Iraq.

I get so impatient with you numbskulls and your paucity of nuance.

Biden didn't start any wars.
You can't let Putin run wild through Europe

Your comment is your typical stupidity

 

[The Banker]

The "GOP" did not push the war, ZIONIST FASCISM did...

For the War


JOE BIDEN
Schumer
Feinstein
Weiner
Waxman
the entire media


Against the War

Pat Buchanan
Robert Novak
Gen Schwartzkopf
HW
Chuck Hagel

Every republican ever loved the war. You people loved this war. Then it blew up in your face "Mission Accomplished" Style.

You loved the war when Fox news told you to love the war. Bush's failed Iraq War was 100% the GOP's war and they started it and fucked it up. Its laughable how you now try to act like you opposed that war or that the Republicans (and Fox news) didn't pump that war like nobody has ever pumped a war before.

Republicans attacked all who opposed the war, including Cam Cleland the disabled veteran. look it up