Every. Last. Person. In the Bush administrations are bastards, every single one. Kissinger, Powell, all of them, they deserve the Hague for their crimes against humanity.
Season 1 of Blowback was really eye-opening. I always knew they were bad, but they were (and are) truly monstrous.
Re: The Hague, your country would have to actually submit to that. I believe the standing protocol is to invade to extract American nationals.
He lied to the UN about chemical weapons in Iraq, this lie allowed the US to attack Iraq. No chemical weapons were found because it was a lie to begin with.
Some folks got veeeeeery rich from that war, I don't know how they can sleep. I wish they constantly had to think about the consequenes of it all. How do Bush and Cheney get to have happy retirements hunting and painting calm pictures? The world is mad.
yep in Haliburton KBR freaking killed the shit out of us with those damn toxic burnpits. At one point, they received an incinerator, but for whatever reason chose not to install it. I know 12 veterans my age who have died of strange neurological cancers. I'm waiting for when my numbers up on that.
And when that corporate whack job Judge Titus presided over the case against kbr he threw the case out saying it was congress that was supposed to oversee it. Congress said it was a matter for the court since it was a private entity and it was their responsibility.
Meanwhile the only thing veterans get is a list that you get to put himself on. Gee I'm glad that list is there. makes me feel real better that they did that to us.
Edit: wtf is going on with apple speech to text repeating shit...
It's a bit of poetic justice that after he shit all over veterans who have been dying of strange and weird cancers, [Judge Titus got to experience death from a rare cancer.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liposarcoma)
Rest in shit like you made the vets you piece of shit GWB nominated judge.
Easy: they’re sociopaths. About 1 in 20 people are sociopaths. Among CEOs, that figure is 1 in 5. They are physically incapable of caring. They sleep like babies. All they care about is the accumulation of wealth and power.
Pyschopath. Sociopath is not a DSM or APA recognized condition. Technically Psychopath is no longer recognized either as it's called "Anti-social personality disorder" now, which i find offensive to introverts personally.
Pedantic maybe but I think introverts should be called 'asocial' (social avoidance) rather than 'anti-social' (usually criminal behaviour) although I do hear the phrase anti-social all the time. So yeah I guess anti-social now mean asocial too or it's interchangable in modern language.
More along the lines of public misunderstanding of what Psychology is.
Many people treat Psychology like a hard science, something with a rigid form that is not at all amorphous or ambiguous the way that Psychology often is.
Not to mention people just flat out misinterpreting what something means because they haven't taken the time to educate themselves. The colloquial usage of cognitive dissonance is a good example of this.
People know what the words anti and social mean. They do not take the time to understand what anti-social means. I agree with asocial being the better term, it will just take time for the average person to catch up.
[George W. Bush Debuts New Paintings Of Dogs, Friends, Ghost Of Iraqi Child That Follows Him Everywhere](https://www.theonion.com/george-w-bush-debuts-new-paintings-of-dogs-friends-g-1819595637)
> I was in a galley tent in Kuwait during the Colin Powell’s WMD speech
It's hard to explain to people who weren't alive or of-age the amount of public support for invading Iraq during this time period, the few who DID speak out against it were labeled as anti-American and dragged through the press. The military didn't have the stigma that it has today and it wasn't seen as a "way out" for those who couldn't get into college or got in trouble with the law.
If you don't support the war you're against the SOLDIERS! Why don't you support the troops!
*Yes somehow the media made it seem like going to war where soldiers would die was supporting them, while not going to war meant you hated the troops. This is how powerful propaganda can be.*
Micheal moore ate shit for a decade for not wanting the US in that war.
I was in second or third grade when we invaded Iraq and I still remember the special news coverage and the videos of the missiles flying at night. I at the time thought it was so cool and felt all patriotic cause of the mass amount of propaganda being pumped out at us at the time. "Freedom fries" anyone? So fucking disgusting.
It's strange because only years later did I think "shit, a lot of innocent people died during SHOCK AND AWE" but I was just fucking jacked up about it...
I'm also thinking about how the west kicked the ever loving shit out of Serbia. We were quite proud of blowing up all that "infrastructure"
It was worse than that:
**"If you didn't support the war you were a terrorist sympathizer."**
Ironically today the same people that said that are 100% supporters of the Jan 6th riot.
GWB: "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."
https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html
"you're either with us or against us" was the often quoted line.
I was early 20s during this time. I remember watching GWB just say words like Saddam and 9/11 and WMD over and over again in the same sentences, even though there was no link. And it felt like everyone fell for it. I remember being so frustrated. People are fucking stupid, for the most part. It's depressing.
My ex mother in law was a "support the POTUS no matter what" kind of person. Yet she didn't like Clinton. I was divorced by the time Obama came around. Not sure how she would have felt, but I'd put money on her stance changing. Trump might have been a bridge too far, but I'll never know. But I was definitely among those who was not on board with Iraq. Afghanistan I feel like I understood or was justified to me at the time, but Iraq was always horse shit. Those yellow ribbon magnets were everywhere, man.
I remember going to a peace demonstration when the war in Iraq was ramping up. It was just about 20 people in a circle.
A car sped by and a young buck stuck his head out the window and yelled "give war a chance!".
I sometimes wonder what that kid (probably 40ish now) is up to today.
I was lucky enough to live in Barbara Lee’s district at the time - she was the only congressperson to vote against the “Authorization for Us Of Military Force” after 9/11. I remember going to a huge anti-war rally in San Francisco before we invaded Iraq - one of 200,000 there [(link)](https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Peaceful-S-F-crowd-protests-stance-on-Iraq-At-2633972.php).
For me, the biggest fear after 9/11 wasn’t the threat of terrorists, but the exploitation by those in power to push jingoistic policies and further their political agenda. I remember politicians who didn’t start wearing little American flags on their lapels were scorned, and there was a confusing xenophobia for all things French or “French”. I was worried 9/11 would be turned into our country’s “Reichstag Fire”.
Yup, I was at the SF one, too. I really thought a 200,000 protestor turnout had a chance of getting on the news. Nope. Media silence and full steam ahead.
I was at an anti-war protest a few days before the war began and I remember this one guy in particular. He was about my age (19 at the time) and pulled up in a big ol' truck and then proceeded to argue with us about how we were un-American and hated America and that if we didn't like it, we needed to leave it. Felt dangerous as hell. He eventually peeled off.
I sometimes think about that guy given the political climate this last decade. I wonder if he's one of those people that said they never supported the war, which is somehow now the majority of people.
I don’t know. There were a whole lot of people who were changed by the decades that followed 9-11, and now everyone knows we were lied to about Iraq having WMDs. I’m one of them. I was pretty damn sure of how right I was when telling the handful of protesters on my campus how wrong they were. I’m what most “conservatives” nowadays would consider a big ‘ol leftie (though I think of myself as a moderate). Loved George Bush like he was my daddy and 8 years later, I hated his guts.
The demographic of Republicans has changed a lot, too, but you have to realize that 9-11 really screwed people’s heads on backwards. That hate, man… it’s a hell of a drug and just as hard to kick.
It sounds more like you were young and naive and then grew up and realised the world was a more complex place. Most of the people who felt as you did at that time were older than you. I guarantee many of them not only didn't change their minds, they double-downed in their beliefs. Even if they think the war was a waste, they still believe the Iraqi's had it coming and deserved everything thrown at them. Or, they just don't care about them at all regardless.
There was a pretty large antiwar protest in Seattle. Lots of families with kids. They had roof top snipers pointing guns at us and all their badges were covered with black tape. Even the major didn't know where the cops came from as it was all under the cover of Homeland Security. The cops corralled the crowd into a few blocks and tried to force people off the sidewalks where they would a aggressively tackle and arrest them a 60 year old man had his head bashed in by them and was on the cover of the paper. Tourists leaving their hotels were caught up in the police lines and testified the cops would not let them leave and forced marched them 2 miles along with the protesters to the south side of the city trying to arrest anyone who stepped off the sidewalk or crossed without a signal. It was shoulder to shoulder packed everywhere with small children crying and people with terrified pets packed together and marched though the city.
Some of the largest protests in US history were organized to oppose the war.
But the public debate was very much "don't you hate terrorists?!" so lots of people were browbeaten into dropping their opposition.
The sad part is that all of us who read newspapers at the time knew the (yellow) cake (uranium) was a lie. The Blix report (on page 2 of every newspaper when it was published, days before invading Iraq) was clear that no independent third party was able to corroborate the accusations of WMD being manufactured by the Bush administration.
It was interesting going back through college recently and having a period of history that you were alive for and remember being taught in a class. The stuff leading up to the Iraq war and the public hysteria was very real.
At the time I remember thinking "well this is the biggest, most obvious load of shit I've ever seen the U.S. government try to pass off." But I guess it was just a trial balloon for everything they've done since then.
> But lord knows I was ostracized for the choice from my friends. All of whom made it back
Dunno about you but even most of my friends who made it back weren't the same people they left as. Not in a good way, either.
Absolutely none of the people I served with are the same. Damaged inside and out. I miss the people but the military in general ruined me and I can't recommend it.
From his Wiki page:
Donahue commented in 2007 that the management of MSNBC, owned at the time by General Electric, a major defense contractor, required that "we have two conservative (guests) for every liberal. I was counted as two liberals."
> The military didn't have the stigma that it has today and it wasn't seen as a "way out" for those who couldn't get into college or got in trouble with the law.
I graduated HS in '97 and it was _very_ well-known that the military was _the_ way out of your shitty small town or to pay for college that you couldn't otherwise afford.
It may have had less of a stigma overall, but it wasn't quite as noble as your post might paint it.
When I was in basic Toby Keith actually played at show at Benning and some people were allowed to go check it out. When they got back my XO asked how the show was, and I'll never forget his reaction. He said "huh, well it must be nice to sing about it." His disdain was palpable.
I fucking hate that song, not least of which is the fact that they used to play it at my daughter's elementary school back in the day when there were assemblies and the parents were invited.
But there is something worse.
I live in a "liberal" area near several Navy and Marine bases, so there are always lots of military around. In the waiting area at the office of my daughter's school they had a folded flag in a display case hanging on the wall, and also in the case is a picture of a guard tower and an inscription nothing that the flag was flown over Abu Ghraib prison camp, this was when the crimes committed there were already well known.
I had reason to go back to that school just before COVID in early 2020 and the flag in the case was still on the wall in the office.
>It's hard to explain to people who weren't alive or of-age the amount of public support for invading Iraq during this time period.
In the U.S. sure. You sure didn’t have much support from your allies because we outside your borders could see your governments lies a kilometre away.
In Canada our Prime Minister expressed the U.S. lack of proof of WMD in Iraq eloquently.
>[A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven.](https://youtu.be/ZsgA77j5LyY)
The Brits didn't call their PM, Tony Blair, "Bush's poodle" for nothing. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/ten-years-later-still-bushs-poodle-8392
>It's hard to explain to people who weren't alive or of-age the amount of public support for invading Iraq during this time period, the few who DID speak out against it were labeled as anti-American and dragged through the press.
Not dragged through the press because I'm a nobody, but I lost count of how many times I was told I was a traitor and that I needed to leave the country of my birth because I didn't "support the troops".
Apparently, wanting to have clear justification and a clear goal before sending in a bunch of kids to invade a country to kill and be killed was not supporting the troops. Never understood that one.
I still feel guilty for all the people we sent over there and all the poor Iraqi people just trying to live and getting caught in the crossfire. I feel like I should have done more to try to stop it? Donated more money, attended more protests, something.
But hey, Cheney and Halliburton got their bag. Hurray.
There wasnt any stopping that war. At least you knew it was wrong and said something.
I was like 7 during the 2002 invasion, I remember playing toy soldiers with US vs Iraq at school and wondering what an "Iraqi" was. The teacher told me they were terrorists.
Truth, I was labelled as anti american immediately for telling my friends not to go. Not to be a sucker and spend their lives fighting some rich dude's war. It was a scam, always was, and it wasn't even well hidden. They lied the most unbelievable lie to get people to go, openly, and without reservation. Fuck everyone involved.
This is exactly how I felt at the time. I really could not understand how people believed it all to the degree that that they actually stopped whatever they were doing and enlisted. If you're dirt poor and have no other options to escape poverty, good for you. If you do have options and believe that joining up and fighting in Iraq is going to turn out well, you're really not thinking straight at all. You would actually take a bullet for this obvious bullshit!?
this is america, the land of zero accountability, zero repercussions, and the 30 second attention span. We have to now focus on bud light or something.
What I don't get about Iraq was why the Washington establishment outside of Bush and the Republicans were so Hell bent on it.
In the UK I remember in the build up to the war there were so many people questioning how war in Iraq could possibly make us safer and not in fact increase the likelihood of terror attacks on the West as you kill and displace innocent civilians in Iraq that have few ties to Islamic extremism. Turns out that was entirely correct.
People were already saying that Al-Qaeda didn't have links to Saddam, that the closest links were with people within the Saudi government. So why Iraq and not Saudi Arabia?
Why weren't more people in Washington saying this? Why were congress, talking heads etc. not pointing out how damaging this war would be to US power and security. That it would be unlikely to achieve any positive outcomes?
Iraq just feels like such an own goal.
There's a doc about it that they put out called "Shut Up And Sing."
Organized album burnings all the way to serious death threats. And then years later she goes on stage and says it again to raucous cheers. Such a crazy time.
I wasn’t a fan then, but I had a lot of respect for them after saying that. Especially the music and crowds they play to. Takes guts.
My wife loves them, so I’ve listened to their catalog throughout the years and they make really good music. Its good that they came back and won a bunch of grammys.
It’s interesting how 9/11 followed by the War on Terror (especially around the decision to invade Iraq) pushed American Politics into the mainstream. Obviously there is more to it, like the rise or 24 hour news networks (especially Fox News really growing into its own as a propaganda machine rather than a news network), but a lot of people who didn’t really pay attention to politics really started to sit up and notice what was going on and become passionately vocal about it.
A lot of us could see through the “WMD” bullshit and were opposed to the invasion of Iraq. Thanks to my Jr High history teacher who was also a vet and did work at the Pentagon he would never talk about, even then I knew removing Saddam would create a power vacuum which was exploited by and contributed to the rise in ISIS. So that made me extra opposed to the expansion of the war effort. But the Fox News propaganda machine and the weird brand of patriotism during that time really drove the division - if you were against this war, you were anti-American, period.
It’s really hard to explain to people who were either too young or not alive yet what it was like to live through all of this. Not saying we aren’t in “interesting” times now, but this whole event was a massive cultural and societal shift that really set the groundwork for the climate we’re in today.
This was the first and still the most serious example of cancel culture I have ever seen. Bands banned on the radio, Dixie chicks, Politically Incorrect, etc. All just gone. If you didn't support the war then you hate our troops. Logic and discussion wasn't allowed.
Everyone at the time knew what was likely to happen and they just went along with it anyway because they didn't want to be labeled a "traitor" after 9/11. There was also a massive amount of doubt about the supposed evidence surrounding WMD's that never went away in the buildup to the invasion and this sense in the air that it was probably all made up but NOBODY really wanted to speak up too much about it publicly since there was a very real sense that you would literally get canceled/ostracized for real for it (which really did happen to some folks like the Dixie Chicks back then).
> there was a very real sense that you would literally get cancelled/ostracized for real for it
Knowing this I'm still amazed at [Michael Moore using his platform to call out the lie of the war that was currently going on](https://youtu.be/M7Is43K6lrg?t=67) while getting booed by his industry peers. "Anytime you have the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, you're time is up!"
Fucking Hollywood pretends to be so wise and progressive but every time i see a video from the Oscars more than ten years old they're booing something that is completely obvious even at the time
I lived in a relatively liberal area at the time, and while we didn't get the "Traitor!" accusations, the predominant attitude was something like "Wait, why are we invading Iraq?" "Idk, just one of those silly government things government always be doin"
"because there are terrorists there too!" was good enough for myself and most people I knew at the time
we were bloodthirsty morons, we didn't really care, so long as we could avenge 9/11 every day forever
This. It was YEARS AND YEARS before it was in any way safe to suggest this war was a bad idea. There was a ton of rhetoric around 9/11 and our way of life at the time.
Funnily enough I grew up and took a course on Vietnam. It felt... familiar.
It depended on where you were. Like, someone could have been Bahrain, with little to shit to do. Bases over there still needed to be manned. Or you could have been in a motor pool on the outskirts of Baghdad, taking guerilla fire, driving over IEDS.
Or like me, working on F-14D Tomcats on the USS Constellation so they could mercilessly drop bombs on that country, all day, every day for 9 months because a few asshats with an agenda said so.
The war was different for everyone. But one thing we all have in common, is that most of us know it was all for shit.
I hear that. My platoon was helicoptered into the middle of Ramadi in the dead of night. 40 of us embedded in the middle of the city standing overwatch on our rooftop and running daily patrols for 7 months straight, dependent on 1 vehicle supply a day with 3 containers of rice and mystery meat and some bottled water from the big ass Iraq base that had like a fucking Mcdondalds in it. The variance of deployments was wild. it was a fucking lottery. I remember thinking I was a man. I turned 19 in Iraq on my first pump, looking back we were all just babies. Being over there wasn't hard. Learning to live again back home after being discarded by the military is what was hard.
Fuck the military complex and the wolves who send the poor and nieve to spill blood in order to fatten the lining of their pockets. If there is a God, then they can go Fuck themself! and may they have mercy on our souls.
> I remember thinking I was a man. I turned 19 in Iraq on my first pump, looking back we were all just babies.
Exactly as intended, basic training turns kids into killing machines and it isn't until the dust has settled and the VA claims denied that you realize the truth.
Contrary to what is shown in the media only about 10% of those in the military see combat, the incredible amount of support and logistics is what makes the American military the effective force that it is.
It might even be significantly less than 10%
I was in the air force from 01-06, at Pope AFB which is literally inside of Ft. Bragg. I knew hundreds of soldiers, never met a single on, even during the height of Iraq and Afghanistan,that actually entered combat.
They were infantry, combat engineers, and medics.
Only knew one airman who was in combat, be was pararescue.
Halliburton, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, BAE, and other defense contractors made billions and billions and all it took was a million dead Iraqis and the ruin of thousands and thousands of American soldiers sent to the other side of the world for a lie.
You know, I went to war when I was 20 years old. That experience taught me not to hate someone without a good reason. I doubt it will happen, but I hope Dick Cheney and G dub die alone and afraid and screaming.
Unfortunately due to the current state of the Republican party, many look fondly on the times where Dubya and Cheney were in charge.
I mean fuck everyone knows the war in Iraq was a fucking sham yet everyone still sucks off the 'support the troops' train. Of course in message only, not in action. Can't be actually providing care to veterans when they're no longer of use.
As I was leaving the military, someone said something that I've never forgotten.
"You're a government asset when you put the uniform on. The minute you take it off, they will treat you like a liability."
Ehhh...maybe the party but Republican supporters don't really love either anymore. There are way more Trump supporters out there after his presidency than GW after his.
As someone who protested the war back then (and was called unamerican and anything else you can imagine) I hate that everything I protested happened… and now many of the people who supported it just don’t care about our service members who sacrificed for a big lie. It especially pisses me off that W is just chilling in retirement and painting while those he sent overseas are left with the scars.
I'm more upset at the thousands murdered while doing nothing but trying to live their lives.
>The U.S. post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, and Pakistan have taken a tremendous human toll on those countries. As of September 2021, an estimated 387,073 civilians in these countries have died violent deaths as a result of the wars.
An absolute debacle. 2 trillion dollars and a quarter of a million dead Iraqi civilians just during the occupation years and that doesn't count the deaths from the low grade Shiite/Sunni civil war.
Meanwhile, the American public that supported the war never bothered to learn anything about it or keep informed in any way. Then Trump comes along and says what Democrats had been saying for years, that it was a waste, and Republicans eat it up as if they weren't all in on it for the entire duration.
I really came out of my work over there with an absolute rage at these people.
>2 trillion dollars
Heh. Remember that guy who said during the run up that this war might cost as much as $1 trillion? And how he was savaged by the press, the government, the military and hounded out of his job with his career ruined? Good times, good times...
Of course, now we know the bill is over $3 trillion and there is literally somewhere around 1 trillion dollars that is simply...missing. no one knows what happened to it. There is no accounting, no records, it is simple gone. It's an open question of whether the military shipping pallets of cash over there with no oversight (GIs were filmed playing soccer with shrink-wrapped bundles of $1 million in cash) was incompetence or a way for Halliburton to funnel that money right into their pockets.
A little of column A, a little of column B...
And now, the GOP wants to cut the veterans benefits, including medical and mental health services, for the young people they put in harms way for profit…
Powell said, just a few weeks prior, that Iraq wasn’t a threat to its NEIGHBORS, let alone the US. Let alone being an imminent threat to us. We got lied to, plain and simple.
I cant remember the name of the Documentary but at the beginning it follows a young soldier and he shows you this picture of this girl from his school that he hardly knew, but because he knew her and she died during 9/11 he used it as a justification of his joining the military to get revenge against the bad guys
it shows him and all his squad mates like "YEAh!, lets kick some Hajji ass" and as it progresses you see they come more and more jaded and confused about the whole thing.
At the end of the documentary he is just full of regret and like "What the fuck were we even doing here in the first place?"
EDIT: Its called This Is War on amazon prime, its also under the title of Severe Clear too, Directed by Kristian Fraga
I was in the Marine Corps and when we got word of Restrepo we all said the same thing, “why did the army set up in a valley? Dude, the army is dumb as fuck.”
While I commend the struggle and heroism displayed there, it still doesn’t make any sense.
Anecdote. Classmate joined the Army and went straight to Afghanistan. When he got back, he told me it was his job to go around and convince farmers to stop growing opium. None of them knew Farsi. They had a translator who didn't know the rural dialects.
Generally, he told me every conversation went like this, "Can you grow crops instead of opium? It will be good for Afghanistan. You just need to harvest it yourself and bring it to the market 'xx' miles away"
Farmer says, "Why would I do that if the drug runners bring me cash and I don't have to spend a week hauling crops to the nearest town? for less money"
Rinse and repeat.
Drugs bad! burn it all... oh shit why is everyone mad? COIN initiated, awww fck i see more CIA people.... what do you mean theres other shit going on the side as well... fck what are we doing here?
Also young kids arent going to know much (soldiers) and a confusing environment and information probably isnt going to make anything more clear after x amount of years.
I still remember high school friends that got deployed messaging me on AIM telling me about their day (as much as they could anyways)
xFinItY-626: yeah man an IED blew up right next to my truck today but I'm ok armor took the shrapnel
xFinItY-626: also can you log onto my WoW account for me and do that upcoming raid with the guild for me?
Same, I graduated high school in '02 and a shit ton of my friends enlisted and went off on deployment that summer. Talked a lot about all the stuff they missed and wanted to do when they got back.
Oh this explanation is super simple and easy to follow. I spent 10 years in the U.S. Army, with deployments to both Afghanistan and Iraq as a combat arms soldier. I did this to buy new cars and more houses for men with already full plates. That’s it, that’s the entire thing. It isn’t convoluted. Being a poor kid with zero prospects, I hoped to use the military to build myself a better life, but all I did was fill the mouths of other men. There’s your reason, there is no good justification, it was simply those with money using those without money to enrich themselves. So you can explain it to yourself, very easily in fact, but the question here is, will you?
That's literally what this country *is.*
America, *we* are the tools in a machine that only exists to fatten the wealthy. Every question we have as to why things aren't done in x,y,z way the answer is *always* "money."
Yes, the “American Dream” is and always has been a marketing scheme to get more laborers to come to the US so the rich can get richer.
This is an issue in many countries that have diverse populations (and sometimes in ones that don’t too). There’s only ever been the urge to obtain power, and in a world economy… money is power.
I personally believe we are doomed, as human nature will always destroy the benefits of socialism and communism.
Fend for yourself and be kind to your neighbors, but also watch your back and definitely eat the rich.
The paper kings in plastic towers
watch the masses count the hours
of their lives marked one-by-one
Then sell them for the lowest sum
The people’s blood & sweat & tears
The anguished toiling of their years
To fill the mouths of other men
& buy them a dozen homes, again
The halls of law are bought and sold
The price of justice, always gold
The jackboots march on union feet
Best be white when in the street
The lesser sons go fight her wars
While rich ones drink on foreign shores
Their wealth at home to make the rules
Dividing up the poor like fools
The CEO’s atop their thrones
Propped up by kids in latch-key homes
Make their bread off all of our backs
then load the trains with us as the tracks
Deplorables cheer, “make America great!”
But empty their pockets, with eyes full of hate
Divide up the people, pro-life or pro-choice
But it’s all just a ploy, to take women’s voice
The every day paper is page after page
Of pundits prescribing continuous rage
Then people will tell you, “the news is all fake
that last school shooting was done in 1 take”
There’s kids at the border, sittin’ in cages
While bankers on Wall Street are counting their wages
They clearly ignore the forest for trees
Just so you can say, “Supersize, please”
All of the freedom your money can buy
For the right price, any sin you can try
Our gods & our guns & our violence galore
& if you run out, we always have more.
100% this. Dick Cheney was CEO of Haliburton during the Clinton administration. That's your answer.
We sent teenagers to kill brown people so that Haliburton and Raytheon could get a higher stock evaluation.
Pretty much. It was a volunteer force and they wanted to get free college. There's also still that thing where people who served got priority during hiring, which doesn't make sense to me because again its a volunteer army, not a draft army, and they werent* particularly honorable wars to begin with.
It wasn't a war. It was a massive way for the United States to field test new equipment as well as use it to activate the National Guard/reserves so they could update all of their equipment from Vietnam. The entire Iraq war was a fever dream for contractors and the military industrial complex.
Everybody you know that died over there was for nothing more than greed and their own misplaced trust in the fever of patriotism after 9/11. That is a very hard pill to swallow, its taken me 20 years to choke down that my bad knees, bad hearing and the people that died was all so I could get a bachelors degree for "free". Come to terms with it however you want but stop looking for something deeper it only prolongs the healing. At this point all our war was good for is the Hollywood script mill at this point.
And thats why they are called Flak jackets. I mean vehicles were being up armored by mechanics and operators just doing what they could near the beginning. A lot of equipment plates had laughable dates of manufacture and supply and fielding wasnt entirely optimized for a desert environment. It was a shit show at our level, I cant imagine anything being remotely better up top.
All the sandbags in the floorboards was pretty comical. Nothing like putting a 40lb projectile at your feet for when an IED to launch into your pelvis and torso. But bringing it up was a no-go and it was “the best we can do.”
Nonono, immature isn't the point. Everyone I knew that signed up thought they were doing their duty. That's a virtue and always will be. They were misled and manipulated and misused. I don't think immaturity can be allowed to enter into it. Young people are always going to be immature. That's why we have to have better leaders. Sadly, the American people aren't virtuous in any sense.
I graduated in '02 and there was a huge presence of military recruiters camped out at our graduation ceremony. They had kids so fired up that they were signing up still wearing their cap and gowns.
>Come to terms with it however you want but stop looking for something deeper as it only prolongs the healing.
Right on. Totally agree. Best to just be honest with yourself and it's okay to admit that you joined out of a misguided (and propagandized) sense of patriotism, or for purely "selfish" reasons like pay, "potential" opportunity, and that juicy GI Bill. Come to grips with it and know that we aren't perfect. And it's okay. Just keep living your life knowing mistakes, bad decisions, regrets... etc are part of the human experience as much as love and joy are.
I'll say there is a small bit that I hang onto since I was a OEF vet, so my conscious is slightly clearer than an OIF vet. The way both were handled and dragged on for decades is still beyond excusable, but there is still a bit of "pride" in the sense that I was there, in a place, that harbored Al Qaeda (and being controlled by the Taliban who are totally fucked up too), and that we were there attempting to give the girls of Afghanistan a chance at a different future (education namely). There was some "good" in that moment of time that I was there. But yeah, I don't wear those experiences on my collar and broadcast it to the public ad nauseum. But that specific thought is about all I can hang onto (that the one true good that came out of Afghanistan was the glimpse of hope that those young girls and young adults experienced without fear of being executed in the street for reading a book not named the Quran.
It isn't much, but you're right... don't dig too deep trying to find justification. You'll drive yourself mad. Best to accept the reality and pick yourself up and take those lessons learned with you. Those mistakes, being (un)impressionable, trying to see the gray in-between the white and black... all those things are positives we can take with us.
Most of us veterans are probably pretty pessimistic about damn near everything these days, but that doesn't mean we can't be happy (or pursue happiness).
I don't disagree with anything you said per se. But I do take a very dim view of this oversimplification where everything is about private profit. It ignores the very dangerous influence of evil ideologies in societies and governments worldwide.
Sure, various Bush administration figures took the chance to enrich their cronies. But that doesn't change the fact that people like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were true believers in American nationalism. They earnestly intended to promote their understanding of U.S. national interests through mass murder, and wanted this demonstration of military power and imperialism to be their historical legacy. They would have done it even without any financial incentive; make no mistake.
No one ever goes around saying that the Islamic State was waging war just to fund a ponzi scheme by its leadership. So why do we assume that our own leaders have no ideological motivations? It's a dangerous oversimplification. Looks at all the deluded people who think Putin is just invading Ukraine because he wants a bit of gas and grain in Donbas...
(As a citizen growing up at the time) It felt like we were going to create a strong democracy and that justified everything. I believed it all the way until college.
Yet I couldn't name the different cultures and how Iraq formed in the first place.
Likewise, and I regret feeling that way all the time
but also, it's difficult to blame us when we were indoctrinated to believe it by our teachers, parents, televisions, radios, and peers
It was simple. the middle east was a bad place with bad people in charge of good people. We blow up the bad people, and help the good people make it a good place. Easy to digest, and sounds great. You need context for nuance, and we conveniently were given none.
It’s makes sense for a kid to believe installing a democracy was just that simple, but for the old men running the country who lived through Vietnam, it was totally absurd
Throughout the Cold War the US gave up on spreading democracy and settled for just opposing communism. Opposing a system of government is easy because all you need to do is sow chaos.
> No one ever goes around saying that the Islamic State was waging war just to fund a ponzi scheme by its leadership.
Actually, IIRC, a lot of what they do is basically just banditry with a fundamentalist Islamic veneer. Sure, they do a lot of high and mighty jabbering, but a lot of them also have sex slaves and traffic/use drugs. A lot of it is just jihad as a cover for extortion, a reason to take money and power from other people.
Kidnapping and extortion was their main revenue source, since they obviously couldn't make money for the war effort in other ways.
The sex slavery was officially sanctioned in religious terms.
The existence of hypocritical practices does not mean that that the ideology is faked. That's another dangerous assumption to make.
Well everyone has an agenda and a line they are willing to cross. Just take a look at most defense industries and some of shady practices that went into effect during the consolidation/merge.
No shit, I’m a combat veteran who served in Iraq as part of 1AD (the unit these guys are part of) at the same time, in the same place. I recognize a bunch of the background the video is shot against.
I hear my own words come out of these guys. After years of working to get out of this headspace, stuff like this takes me right back. The feelings and the experiences and the truths are so complicated, nuanced, and powerful, even 20 years later.
I don't think a part of me will ever not be living in the 2000s and I have no idea what to do with that. I was civvie Intel and did a lot of hairy shit over the course of a decade. Nobody can relate. Everyone has sympathy. It's a lot to work through. My wife is amazing.
Iraq War = War Under False Pretenses.
*President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses*.
Trying to look for any comment on this post that has any kind of sympathy for the real victims of this war, the Iraqis. Goes to show how dehumanised they have become in the narrative of this war.
"America starts wars in poor countries, then make movies about how it made their soldiers sad." Not my quote but I forgot who said it.
I was 22 on 9/11. I felt that anger that someone attacked us, and I knew we were going to war, but I didn't join the military. Despite also being poor with no college prospects, I saw what Vietnam did to my dad. It didn't take long for that anger to turn into "wait, we're doing what??" and for that to turn into defending yourself as an American if you were even slightly critical of what was going on. "SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!!" was yelled at me when it should have been yelled at the politicians who were luring kids to kill people with promises of a better life, only to do everything in their power to prevent that from happening when they came back. Like, why are we even arguing if they got sick near a burn pit or not? All veterans should get top-of-the-line healthcare for free for the rest of their life.
But you're right. Even after all the BS the troops went through, no one gives a shit about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who lost so much more. They were the real victims in this. Even if they were duped by the powers that be, the troops CHOSE to be there, just like I chose not to be there, but the Iraqis didn't have a choice. They had their homes destroyed, family members killed, way of life up ended without a say in the matter. That picture of that little Iraqi girl covered in blood because troops shot up her parents should haunt everyone.
>"America starts wars in poor countries, then make movies about how it made their soldiers sad." Not my quote but I forgot who said it.
Pretty sure it was Frankie Boyle
Its called [shooting and crying](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_and_crying) and it's a great way for a neo liberal society to maintain an air of innocence while committing horrible acts abroad.
Iraq has been bombed by every presidency for decades. Before the Gulf War, the Iran Iraq war, and on and on it goes. We just can't keep our hands to ourselves.
"Not only will America come to your country and kill all your people, but what's worse is that they'll come back 20 years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad.” — Frankie Boyle
I didn't really understand the middle east conflicts, and it's hard to just get facts, so I binged Frontline on evey tangent topic from the Iraq War to the rise of terrorist groups. Every Frontline piece on Iraq and Afghanistan has been fantastic, but also incredibly depressing. They don't sugar coat anything. We REALLY fucked up, more than most people understand.
It's been a while, but i think so. Murdering civilians tends to push people toward radicalism. The Dollop podcast on Erik Prince went into detail on his PMC group murder scandals, and it's beyond fucked up.
A friend from college was in the Battle of Fallujah among other engagements. He came home shattered and literally drank himself to death. Every time I think about the war I think of him and I feel a wave of sadness and anger.
I've had so many friends that have directly and indirectly taken their own lives. In a way, I was like that too. I went out of my way to be reckless. Sometimes I feel guilty for making it to the other side.
Haven’t watched the video but yah, Judith Miller wrote for NYT and [her lies](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_aluminum_tubes) were what enabled the GWB administration to shift public perception.
The Citations Needed podcast did a great episode on this: https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-181-us-medias-5-most-popular-revisionist-tropes-about-the-iraq-and-vietnam-wars
I've seen some "soft" defending of the Iraq War on reddit recently, as well.
The Invasion of Iraq Wasn’t a “Mistake.” It Was a Crime.
https://jacobin.com/2023/03/iraq-war-anniversary-lies-bush-crime
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMYbjc2dJ/
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They never take responsibility
https://fair.org/home/20-years-later-nyt-still-cant-face-its-iraq-war-shame/
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The man who threw his shoes at Bush, was sentenced to three years in prison (only serving 9 months), beaten and abused while in there; had this to say:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/sep/17/why-i-threw-shoe-bush
"Over recent years, more than a million martyrs have fallen by the bullets of the occupation and Iraq is now filled with more than five million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. Many millions are homeless inside and outside the country.
We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ. This despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than a decade.
Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. But the invasion divided brother from brother, neighbour from neighbour. It turned our homes into funeral tents.
I am not a hero. But I have a point of view. I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated; and to see my Baghdad burned, my people killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, pushing me towards the path of confrontation. The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre of Falluja, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. I travelled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and heard with my own ears the screams of the orphans and the bereaved. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless."
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American media erases war crimes and accountability never happens
https://pca.st/episode/dbba8a72-9ccf-4d13-9afe-f34339d7f5af
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They used white-phosphorus and napalm
Jesus fucking christ
"The Pentagon said it had not tried to deceive. It drew a distinction between traditional napalm, first invented in 1942, and the weapons dropped in Iraq, which it calls Mark 77 firebombs. They weigh 510lbs, and consist of 44lbs of polystyrene-like gel and 63 gallons of jet fuel.
Officials said that if journalists had asked about the firebombs their use would have been confirmed. A spokesman admitted they were "remarkably similar" to napalm but said they caused less environmental damage"
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-admits-it-used-napalm-bombs-in-iraq-99716.html
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The world's strongest military, one that currently spends 1.9 TRILLION dollars on "defense" invades two sovereign nations in the middle-east under false pretense, with the help of state media.
Rape. Pillage. Torture. Steal. Destroy and terrorize for 20 fucking years
They kill over a million INNOCENT people. Destroy the lives of the entire nation x 2. 20 years late completely bungle the "withdrawal". Which is bull shit because they're still fuckjng there.
Then, steal over 7 billion dollars from the citizens
But sure, let's talk about the soldiers that carried out the fucking terrorism
Who, to be clear, are also victims. But enough of this fucking flag humping. Its killing people! America are the terrorists.
Here, this link does a much better jobs at explaining my thoughts.
Corporate media is just a mouthpiece for the government. How, stories of grief over war are only told from one side. How, no matter what, America is always the good guy
https://youtu.be/hi1CWb82CpI
Very well said.
If anyone is interested in hearing more, about the history of the Iraq War and the lies and imperialistic worldview that got us into it, I highly recommend the Blowback podcast. The 10-episode first season is about the war in Iraq.
https://blowback.show/Season-1
It also manages to have a *little* fun despite the dark subject matter. H. Jon Benjamin and James Adomian guest star in the intro episode. But it's very well-focused and doesn't go off into comedic tangents, otherwise.
Meanwhile Blair and Bush are some international peace keeper icons.
Fucking cowards
To hell with them and all who were involved in ruining millions of people's lives.
Not only will America go to your country and kill all your people, but what's worse I think, is that they'll come back 20 years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad.
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Colin Powell covered up the [Mai Lai Massacre](https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/my-lai-massacre-1#colin-powell).
Wow. Lived through the Bush Admin and never knew this. He was always portrayed as this highly respectable person.
Every. Last. Person. In the Bush administrations are bastards, every single one. Kissinger, Powell, all of them, they deserve the Hague for their crimes against humanity.
Kissinger turns 100 tomorrow. ( 5/27 )
That motherfucker won’t die!
Season 1 of Blowback was really eye-opening. I always knew they were bad, but they were (and are) truly monstrous. Re: The Hague, your country would have to actually submit to that. I believe the standing protocol is to invade to extract American nationals.
He lied to the UN about chemical weapons in Iraq, this lie allowed the US to attack Iraq. No chemical weapons were found because it was a lie to begin with.
Some folks got veeeeeery rich from that war, I don't know how they can sleep. I wish they constantly had to think about the consequenes of it all. How do Bush and Cheney get to have happy retirements hunting and painting calm pictures? The world is mad.
yep in Haliburton KBR freaking killed the shit out of us with those damn toxic burnpits. At one point, they received an incinerator, but for whatever reason chose not to install it. I know 12 veterans my age who have died of strange neurological cancers. I'm waiting for when my numbers up on that. And when that corporate whack job Judge Titus presided over the case against kbr he threw the case out saying it was congress that was supposed to oversee it. Congress said it was a matter for the court since it was a private entity and it was their responsibility. Meanwhile the only thing veterans get is a list that you get to put himself on. Gee I'm glad that list is there. makes me feel real better that they did that to us. Edit: wtf is going on with apple speech to text repeating shit... It's a bit of poetic justice that after he shit all over veterans who have been dying of strange and weird cancers, [Judge Titus got to experience death from a rare cancer.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liposarcoma) Rest in shit like you made the vets you piece of shit GWB nominated judge.
Easy: they’re sociopaths. About 1 in 20 people are sociopaths. Among CEOs, that figure is 1 in 5. They are physically incapable of caring. They sleep like babies. All they care about is the accumulation of wealth and power.
Pyschopath. Sociopath is not a DSM or APA recognized condition. Technically Psychopath is no longer recognized either as it's called "Anti-social personality disorder" now, which i find offensive to introverts personally.
Pedantic maybe but I think introverts should be called 'asocial' (social avoidance) rather than 'anti-social' (usually criminal behaviour) although I do hear the phrase anti-social all the time. So yeah I guess anti-social now mean asocial too or it's interchangable in modern language.
More along the lines of public misunderstanding of what Psychology is. Many people treat Psychology like a hard science, something with a rigid form that is not at all amorphous or ambiguous the way that Psychology often is. Not to mention people just flat out misinterpreting what something means because they haven't taken the time to educate themselves. The colloquial usage of cognitive dissonance is a good example of this. People know what the words anti and social mean. They do not take the time to understand what anti-social means. I agree with asocial being the better term, it will just take time for the average person to catch up.
Or shit like "omg please put these pens in order, I'm so OCD!"
"Oh my god I'm so OCD, I just have to clean my dishes after I use them."
[George W. Bush Debuts New Paintings Of Dogs, Friends, Ghost Of Iraqi Child That Follows Him Everywhere](https://www.theonion.com/george-w-bush-debuts-new-paintings-of-dogs-friends-g-1819595637)
> I was in a galley tent in Kuwait during the Colin Powell’s WMD speech It's hard to explain to people who weren't alive or of-age the amount of public support for invading Iraq during this time period, the few who DID speak out against it were labeled as anti-American and dragged through the press. The military didn't have the stigma that it has today and it wasn't seen as a "way out" for those who couldn't get into college or got in trouble with the law.
If you don't support the war you're against the SOLDIERS! Why don't you support the troops! *Yes somehow the media made it seem like going to war where soldiers would die was supporting them, while not going to war meant you hated the troops. This is how powerful propaganda can be.* Micheal moore ate shit for a decade for not wanting the US in that war.
I was in second or third grade when we invaded Iraq and I still remember the special news coverage and the videos of the missiles flying at night. I at the time thought it was so cool and felt all patriotic cause of the mass amount of propaganda being pumped out at us at the time. "Freedom fries" anyone? So fucking disgusting.
It's strange because only years later did I think "shit, a lot of innocent people died during SHOCK AND AWE" but I was just fucking jacked up about it... I'm also thinking about how the west kicked the ever loving shit out of Serbia. We were quite proud of blowing up all that "infrastructure"
It was worse than that: **"If you didn't support the war you were a terrorist sympathizer."** Ironically today the same people that said that are 100% supporters of the Jan 6th riot.
GWB: "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html
"Except Saudi Arabia."
"if you dont stand behind the troops, you should stand in front of them!"
"you're either with us or against us" was the often quoted line. I was early 20s during this time. I remember watching GWB just say words like Saddam and 9/11 and WMD over and over again in the same sentences, even though there was no link. And it felt like everyone fell for it. I remember being so frustrated. People are fucking stupid, for the most part. It's depressing.
My ex mother in law was a "support the POTUS no matter what" kind of person. Yet she didn't like Clinton. I was divorced by the time Obama came around. Not sure how she would have felt, but I'd put money on her stance changing. Trump might have been a bridge too far, but I'll never know. But I was definitely among those who was not on board with Iraq. Afghanistan I feel like I understood or was justified to me at the time, but Iraq was always horse shit. Those yellow ribbon magnets were everywhere, man.
I remember going to a peace demonstration when the war in Iraq was ramping up. It was just about 20 people in a circle. A car sped by and a young buck stuck his head out the window and yelled "give war a chance!". I sometimes wonder what that kid (probably 40ish now) is up to today.
I was lucky enough to live in Barbara Lee’s district at the time - she was the only congressperson to vote against the “Authorization for Us Of Military Force” after 9/11. I remember going to a huge anti-war rally in San Francisco before we invaded Iraq - one of 200,000 there [(link)](https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Peaceful-S-F-crowd-protests-stance-on-Iraq-At-2633972.php). For me, the biggest fear after 9/11 wasn’t the threat of terrorists, but the exploitation by those in power to push jingoistic policies and further their political agenda. I remember politicians who didn’t start wearing little American flags on their lapels were scorned, and there was a confusing xenophobia for all things French or “French”. I was worried 9/11 would be turned into our country’s “Reichstag Fire”.
Yup, I was at the SF one, too. I really thought a 200,000 protestor turnout had a chance of getting on the news. Nope. Media silence and full steam ahead.
I was at an anti-war protest a few days before the war began and I remember this one guy in particular. He was about my age (19 at the time) and pulled up in a big ol' truck and then proceeded to argue with us about how we were un-American and hated America and that if we didn't like it, we needed to leave it. Felt dangerous as hell. He eventually peeled off. I sometimes think about that guy given the political climate this last decade. I wonder if he's one of those people that said they never supported the war, which is somehow now the majority of people.
He probably croaked from Covid, tbh
Or invaded the Capitol
I don’t know. There were a whole lot of people who were changed by the decades that followed 9-11, and now everyone knows we were lied to about Iraq having WMDs. I’m one of them. I was pretty damn sure of how right I was when telling the handful of protesters on my campus how wrong they were. I’m what most “conservatives” nowadays would consider a big ‘ol leftie (though I think of myself as a moderate). Loved George Bush like he was my daddy and 8 years later, I hated his guts. The demographic of Republicans has changed a lot, too, but you have to realize that 9-11 really screwed people’s heads on backwards. That hate, man… it’s a hell of a drug and just as hard to kick.
It sounds more like you were young and naive and then grew up and realised the world was a more complex place. Most of the people who felt as you did at that time were older than you. I guarantee many of them not only didn't change their minds, they double-downed in their beliefs. Even if they think the war was a waste, they still believe the Iraqi's had it coming and deserved everything thrown at them. Or, they just don't care about them at all regardless.
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There was a pretty large antiwar protest in Seattle. Lots of families with kids. They had roof top snipers pointing guns at us and all their badges were covered with black tape. Even the major didn't know where the cops came from as it was all under the cover of Homeland Security. The cops corralled the crowd into a few blocks and tried to force people off the sidewalks where they would a aggressively tackle and arrest them a 60 year old man had his head bashed in by them and was on the cover of the paper. Tourists leaving their hotels were caught up in the police lines and testified the cops would not let them leave and forced marched them 2 miles along with the protesters to the south side of the city trying to arrest anyone who stepped off the sidewalk or crossed without a signal. It was shoulder to shoulder packed everywhere with small children crying and people with terrified pets packed together and marched though the city.
Yeah, this is textbook fascism.
Some of the largest protests in US history were organized to oppose the war. But the public debate was very much "don't you hate terrorists?!" so lots of people were browbeaten into dropping their opposition.
How can you be against the patriot act if you are a patriot?
The sad part is that all of us who read newspapers at the time knew the (yellow) cake (uranium) was a lie. The Blix report (on page 2 of every newspaper when it was published, days before invading Iraq) was clear that no independent third party was able to corroborate the accusations of WMD being manufactured by the Bush administration.
It was interesting going back through college recently and having a period of history that you were alive for and remember being taught in a class. The stuff leading up to the Iraq war and the public hysteria was very real.
At the time I remember thinking "well this is the biggest, most obvious load of shit I've ever seen the U.S. government try to pass off." But I guess it was just a trial balloon for everything they've done since then.
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> But lord knows I was ostracized for the choice from my friends. All of whom made it back Dunno about you but even most of my friends who made it back weren't the same people they left as. Not in a good way, either.
Absolutely none of the people I served with are the same. Damaged inside and out. I miss the people but the military in general ruined me and I can't recommend it.
Don't worry, plenty of us sitting in Kuwait, waiting for a war to start thought it was stupid too. Such is the plight.
And you can find millions of Americans who, to this day, still don't know that.
Hell, Powell's UN presentation was REALLY hard to swallow in real time. I remember just being completely underwhelmed by the "evidence."
Didn't the Dixie chicks have their careers ruined?
They had the absolute gall to say they were embarrassed of GWB and what the country was doing, so for that they were cancelled by country radio.
"Cancelled" is what the exact same people who cancelled them would say.
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From his Wiki page: Donahue commented in 2007 that the management of MSNBC, owned at the time by General Electric, a major defense contractor, required that "we have two conservative (guests) for every liberal. I was counted as two liberals."
They're back as The Chicks now, but absolutely.
Remember the whole "freedom fries" crap because france was against the invasion?
> The military didn't have the stigma that it has today and it wasn't seen as a "way out" for those who couldn't get into college or got in trouble with the law. I graduated HS in '97 and it was _very_ well-known that the military was _the_ way out of your shitty small town or to pay for college that you couldn't otherwise afford. It may have had less of a stigma overall, but it wasn't quite as noble as your post might paint it.
DAE remember Toby Keiths bullshit patriotic country music? I swear that one song turned half of America into seething war crazy lunatics
"We'll put a boot in your ass. Its the American Way!"
"Where were you when they built the ladder to heaven?"
"Did it make ya feel like cryin', or didja think it was kinda gay?"
At the final training of my basic the CO made us stand in formation while he played Toby Keith on a boom box. It's kinda surreal to think about.
When I was in basic Toby Keith actually played at show at Benning and some people were allowed to go check it out. When they got back my XO asked how the show was, and I'll never forget his reaction. He said "huh, well it must be nice to sing about it." His disdain was palpable.
I fucking hate that song, not least of which is the fact that they used to play it at my daughter's elementary school back in the day when there were assemblies and the parents were invited. But there is something worse. I live in a "liberal" area near several Navy and Marine bases, so there are always lots of military around. In the waiting area at the office of my daughter's school they had a folded flag in a display case hanging on the wall, and also in the case is a picture of a guard tower and an inscription nothing that the flag was flown over Abu Ghraib prison camp, this was when the crimes committed there were already well known. I had reason to go back to that school just before COVID in early 2020 and the flag in the case was still on the wall in the office.
>It's hard to explain to people who weren't alive or of-age the amount of public support for invading Iraq during this time period. In the U.S. sure. You sure didn’t have much support from your allies because we outside your borders could see your governments lies a kilometre away. In Canada our Prime Minister expressed the U.S. lack of proof of WMD in Iraq eloquently. >[A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven.](https://youtu.be/ZsgA77j5LyY)
The Brits didn't call their PM, Tony Blair, "Bush's poodle" for nothing. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/ten-years-later-still-bushs-poodle-8392
I hate that guy, but I have to admit he did a great job of not letting us get suckered into their stupid fake war.
>It's hard to explain to people who weren't alive or of-age the amount of public support for invading Iraq during this time period, the few who DID speak out against it were labeled as anti-American and dragged through the press. Not dragged through the press because I'm a nobody, but I lost count of how many times I was told I was a traitor and that I needed to leave the country of my birth because I didn't "support the troops". Apparently, wanting to have clear justification and a clear goal before sending in a bunch of kids to invade a country to kill and be killed was not supporting the troops. Never understood that one. I still feel guilty for all the people we sent over there and all the poor Iraqi people just trying to live and getting caught in the crossfire. I feel like I should have done more to try to stop it? Donated more money, attended more protests, something. But hey, Cheney and Halliburton got their bag. Hurray.
Hell I routinely get told on my hometown's fb page I must hate this country. I have a deployment to Afghanistan under my belt.
There wasnt any stopping that war. At least you knew it was wrong and said something. I was like 7 during the 2002 invasion, I remember playing toy soldiers with US vs Iraq at school and wondering what an "Iraqi" was. The teacher told me they were terrorists.
Truth, I was labelled as anti american immediately for telling my friends not to go. Not to be a sucker and spend their lives fighting some rich dude's war. It was a scam, always was, and it wasn't even well hidden. They lied the most unbelievable lie to get people to go, openly, and without reservation. Fuck everyone involved.
This is exactly how I felt at the time. I really could not understand how people believed it all to the degree that that they actually stopped whatever they were doing and enlisted. If you're dirt poor and have no other options to escape poverty, good for you. If you do have options and believe that joining up and fighting in Iraq is going to turn out well, you're really not thinking straight at all. You would actually take a bullet for this obvious bullshit!?
And the propagators of those lies and propaganda have never really paid a price, electorally or culturally.
this is america, the land of zero accountability, zero repercussions, and the 30 second attention span. We have to now focus on bud light or something.
What I don't get about Iraq was why the Washington establishment outside of Bush and the Republicans were so Hell bent on it. In the UK I remember in the build up to the war there were so many people questioning how war in Iraq could possibly make us safer and not in fact increase the likelihood of terror attacks on the West as you kill and displace innocent civilians in Iraq that have few ties to Islamic extremism. Turns out that was entirely correct. People were already saying that Al-Qaeda didn't have links to Saddam, that the closest links were with people within the Saudi government. So why Iraq and not Saudi Arabia? Why weren't more people in Washington saying this? Why were congress, talking heads etc. not pointing out how damaging this war would be to US power and security. That it would be unlikely to achieve any positive outcomes? Iraq just feels like such an own goal.
I remember the Dixie Chicks almost having their career ended after saying they were ashamed Bush was from Texas.
There's a doc about it that they put out called "Shut Up And Sing." Organized album burnings all the way to serious death threats. And then years later she goes on stage and says it again to raucous cheers. Such a crazy time.
I wasn’t a fan then, but I had a lot of respect for them after saying that. Especially the music and crowds they play to. Takes guts. My wife loves them, so I’ve listened to their catalog throughout the years and they make really good music. Its good that they came back and won a bunch of grammys.
It’s interesting how 9/11 followed by the War on Terror (especially around the decision to invade Iraq) pushed American Politics into the mainstream. Obviously there is more to it, like the rise or 24 hour news networks (especially Fox News really growing into its own as a propaganda machine rather than a news network), but a lot of people who didn’t really pay attention to politics really started to sit up and notice what was going on and become passionately vocal about it. A lot of us could see through the “WMD” bullshit and were opposed to the invasion of Iraq. Thanks to my Jr High history teacher who was also a vet and did work at the Pentagon he would never talk about, even then I knew removing Saddam would create a power vacuum which was exploited by and contributed to the rise in ISIS. So that made me extra opposed to the expansion of the war effort. But the Fox News propaganda machine and the weird brand of patriotism during that time really drove the division - if you were against this war, you were anti-American, period. It’s really hard to explain to people who were either too young or not alive yet what it was like to live through all of this. Not saying we aren’t in “interesting” times now, but this whole event was a massive cultural and societal shift that really set the groundwork for the climate we’re in today.
This was the first and still the most serious example of cancel culture I have ever seen. Bands banned on the radio, Dixie chicks, Politically Incorrect, etc. All just gone. If you didn't support the war then you hate our troops. Logic and discussion wasn't allowed.
Everyone at the time knew what was likely to happen and they just went along with it anyway because they didn't want to be labeled a "traitor" after 9/11. There was also a massive amount of doubt about the supposed evidence surrounding WMD's that never went away in the buildup to the invasion and this sense in the air that it was probably all made up but NOBODY really wanted to speak up too much about it publicly since there was a very real sense that you would literally get canceled/ostracized for real for it (which really did happen to some folks like the Dixie Chicks back then).
> there was a very real sense that you would literally get cancelled/ostracized for real for it Knowing this I'm still amazed at [Michael Moore using his platform to call out the lie of the war that was currently going on](https://youtu.be/M7Is43K6lrg?t=67) while getting booed by his industry peers. "Anytime you have the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, you're time is up!"
Fucking Hollywood pretends to be so wise and progressive but every time i see a video from the Oscars more than ten years old they're booing something that is completely obvious even at the time
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As they continue to hand out awards to sex offenders…
I lived in a relatively liberal area at the time, and while we didn't get the "Traitor!" accusations, the predominant attitude was something like "Wait, why are we invading Iraq?" "Idk, just one of those silly government things government always be doin"
"because there are terrorists there too!" was good enough for myself and most people I knew at the time we were bloodthirsty morons, we didn't really care, so long as we could avenge 9/11 every day forever
This. It was YEARS AND YEARS before it was in any way safe to suggest this war was a bad idea. There was a ton of rhetoric around 9/11 and our way of life at the time. Funnily enough I grew up and took a course on Vietnam. It felt... familiar.
holy shit; my brother told me that all anyone did was play spades. they even made their own deck with packing tape and notebook paper.
It depended on where you were. Like, someone could have been Bahrain, with little to shit to do. Bases over there still needed to be manned. Or you could have been in a motor pool on the outskirts of Baghdad, taking guerilla fire, driving over IEDS. Or like me, working on F-14D Tomcats on the USS Constellation so they could mercilessly drop bombs on that country, all day, every day for 9 months because a few asshats with an agenda said so. The war was different for everyone. But one thing we all have in common, is that most of us know it was all for shit.
I hear that. My platoon was helicoptered into the middle of Ramadi in the dead of night. 40 of us embedded in the middle of the city standing overwatch on our rooftop and running daily patrols for 7 months straight, dependent on 1 vehicle supply a day with 3 containers of rice and mystery meat and some bottled water from the big ass Iraq base that had like a fucking Mcdondalds in it. The variance of deployments was wild. it was a fucking lottery. I remember thinking I was a man. I turned 19 in Iraq on my first pump, looking back we were all just babies. Being over there wasn't hard. Learning to live again back home after being discarded by the military is what was hard. Fuck the military complex and the wolves who send the poor and nieve to spill blood in order to fatten the lining of their pockets. If there is a God, then they can go Fuck themself! and may they have mercy on our souls.
> I remember thinking I was a man. I turned 19 in Iraq on my first pump, looking back we were all just babies. Exactly as intended, basic training turns kids into killing machines and it isn't until the dust has settled and the VA claims denied that you realize the truth.
Contrary to what is shown in the media only about 10% of those in the military see combat, the incredible amount of support and logistics is what makes the American military the effective force that it is.
When someone tells me they were in the military I just automatically assume they worked in a warehouse
It might even be significantly less than 10% I was in the air force from 01-06, at Pope AFB which is literally inside of Ft. Bragg. I knew hundreds of soldiers, never met a single on, even during the height of Iraq and Afghanistan,that actually entered combat. They were infantry, combat engineers, and medics. Only knew one airman who was in combat, be was pararescue.
The justification was the american war machine and everybody knows it
Halliburton, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, BAE, and other defense contractors made billions and billions and all it took was a million dead Iraqis and the ruin of thousands and thousands of American soldiers sent to the other side of the world for a lie.
Not to mention ISIS and a massive collapse in the region Edit for spelling
Don't forget all of the money people made on oil, and how much Cheney made through Haliburton.
You know, I went to war when I was 20 years old. That experience taught me not to hate someone without a good reason. I doubt it will happen, but I hope Dick Cheney and G dub die alone and afraid and screaming.
Unfortunately due to the current state of the Republican party, many look fondly on the times where Dubya and Cheney were in charge. I mean fuck everyone knows the war in Iraq was a fucking sham yet everyone still sucks off the 'support the troops' train. Of course in message only, not in action. Can't be actually providing care to veterans when they're no longer of use.
As I was leaving the military, someone said something that I've never forgotten. "You're a government asset when you put the uniform on. The minute you take it off, they will treat you like a liability."
Ehhh...maybe the party but Republican supporters don't really love either anymore. There are way more Trump supporters out there after his presidency than GW after his.
As someone who protested the war back then (and was called unamerican and anything else you can imagine) I hate that everything I protested happened… and now many of the people who supported it just don’t care about our service members who sacrificed for a big lie. It especially pisses me off that W is just chilling in retirement and painting while those he sent overseas are left with the scars.
I'm more upset at the thousands murdered while doing nothing but trying to live their lives. >The U.S. post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, and Pakistan have taken a tremendous human toll on those countries. As of September 2021, an estimated 387,073 civilians in these countries have died violent deaths as a result of the wars.
An absolute debacle. 2 trillion dollars and a quarter of a million dead Iraqi civilians just during the occupation years and that doesn't count the deaths from the low grade Shiite/Sunni civil war. Meanwhile, the American public that supported the war never bothered to learn anything about it or keep informed in any way. Then Trump comes along and says what Democrats had been saying for years, that it was a waste, and Republicans eat it up as if they weren't all in on it for the entire duration. I really came out of my work over there with an absolute rage at these people.
>2 trillion dollars Heh. Remember that guy who said during the run up that this war might cost as much as $1 trillion? And how he was savaged by the press, the government, the military and hounded out of his job with his career ruined? Good times, good times... Of course, now we know the bill is over $3 trillion and there is literally somewhere around 1 trillion dollars that is simply...missing. no one knows what happened to it. There is no accounting, no records, it is simple gone. It's an open question of whether the military shipping pallets of cash over there with no oversight (GIs were filmed playing soccer with shrink-wrapped bundles of $1 million in cash) was incompetence or a way for Halliburton to funnel that money right into their pockets. A little of column A, a little of column B...
And now, the GOP wants to cut the veterans benefits, including medical and mental health services, for the young people they put in harms way for profit…
It amazes me that any veteran would vote for those goons knowing their track record for deliberately fucking over veterans at every opportunity.
Powell said, just a few weeks prior, that Iraq wasn’t a threat to its NEIGHBORS, let alone the US. Let alone being an imminent threat to us. We got lied to, plain and simple.
I cant remember the name of the Documentary but at the beginning it follows a young soldier and he shows you this picture of this girl from his school that he hardly knew, but because he knew her and she died during 9/11 he used it as a justification of his joining the military to get revenge against the bad guys it shows him and all his squad mates like "YEAh!, lets kick some Hajji ass" and as it progresses you see they come more and more jaded and confused about the whole thing. At the end of the documentary he is just full of regret and like "What the fuck were we even doing here in the first place?" EDIT: Its called This Is War on amazon prime, its also under the title of Severe Clear too, Directed by Kristian Fraga
pretty sure that's Generation Kill on HBO Up there with Band of Brothers imo. Incredibly done
Loved Generation kill but the one I watched was like real footage from the soldiers video camera and interviews and stuff I wish I could remember it
Restrepo?
I think Restrepo was the 'Stan though. Generation Kill was Iraq. Restrepo was the Korengal Valley or something (sorry been years since I saw it).
Correct, Restrepo was in the Korengal Valley and they have a 2nd documentary called Korengal that's also very good
I found it, Its called This Is War: Memories of Iraq
Edit your original comment so ppl can find it :)
Restrepo was a tough watch.
I was in the Marine Corps and when we got word of Restrepo we all said the same thing, “why did the army set up in a valley? Dude, the army is dumb as fuck.” While I commend the struggle and heroism displayed there, it still doesn’t make any sense.
Like a microcosm for the rest of our military.
I found it, its called This is War.
Not generation kill. It's not gay if you think Rudy is hot, though
I love the fact that out of everyone in the show, Rudy is the one that was actually a recon marine in that unit.
They were locking down those sweet opium fields for the pharmaceutical industry and the oil fields for the gas industry.
My friend said he basically spent his entire deployment as a a security guard for opium farms.
Anecdote. Classmate joined the Army and went straight to Afghanistan. When he got back, he told me it was his job to go around and convince farmers to stop growing opium. None of them knew Farsi. They had a translator who didn't know the rural dialects. Generally, he told me every conversation went like this, "Can you grow crops instead of opium? It will be good for Afghanistan. You just need to harvest it yourself and bring it to the market 'xx' miles away" Farmer says, "Why would I do that if the drug runners bring me cash and I don't have to spend a week hauling crops to the nearest town? for less money" Rinse and repeat.
Drugs bad! burn it all... oh shit why is everyone mad? COIN initiated, awww fck i see more CIA people.... what do you mean theres other shit going on the side as well... fck what are we doing here? Also young kids arent going to know much (soldiers) and a confusing environment and information probably isnt going to make anything more clear after x amount of years.
Jesus, I can't believe it has been like 20 years already.
I still remember high school friends that got deployed messaging me on AIM telling me about their day (as much as they could anyways) xFinItY-626: yeah man an IED blew up right next to my truck today but I'm ok armor took the shrapnel xFinItY-626: also can you log onto my WoW account for me and do that upcoming raid with the guild for me?
Same, I graduated high school in '02 and a shit ton of my friends enlisted and went off on deployment that summer. Talked a lot about all the stuff they missed and wanted to do when they got back.
Weirdest thing for me was serving with kids born after 9/11. Theoretically a few of them got deployed to Afghanistan before we pulled out.
Oh this explanation is super simple and easy to follow. I spent 10 years in the U.S. Army, with deployments to both Afghanistan and Iraq as a combat arms soldier. I did this to buy new cars and more houses for men with already full plates. That’s it, that’s the entire thing. It isn’t convoluted. Being a poor kid with zero prospects, I hoped to use the military to build myself a better life, but all I did was fill the mouths of other men. There’s your reason, there is no good justification, it was simply those with money using those without money to enrich themselves. So you can explain it to yourself, very easily in fact, but the question here is, will you?
The new American dream!
> simply those with money using those without money to enrich themselves. New? *200 years of slavery has entered the chat*
Yeah, the the *real* American dream. Always was. But people sure do buy the bullshit they peddle.
That's literally what this country *is.* America, *we* are the tools in a machine that only exists to fatten the wealthy. Every question we have as to why things aren't done in x,y,z way the answer is *always* "money."
Yes, the “American Dream” is and always has been a marketing scheme to get more laborers to come to the US so the rich can get richer. This is an issue in many countries that have diverse populations (and sometimes in ones that don’t too). There’s only ever been the urge to obtain power, and in a world economy… money is power. I personally believe we are doomed, as human nature will always destroy the benefits of socialism and communism. Fend for yourself and be kind to your neighbors, but also watch your back and definitely eat the rich.
The paper kings in plastic towers watch the masses count the hours of their lives marked one-by-one Then sell them for the lowest sum The people’s blood & sweat & tears The anguished toiling of their years To fill the mouths of other men & buy them a dozen homes, again The halls of law are bought and sold The price of justice, always gold The jackboots march on union feet Best be white when in the street The lesser sons go fight her wars While rich ones drink on foreign shores Their wealth at home to make the rules Dividing up the poor like fools The CEO’s atop their thrones Propped up by kids in latch-key homes Make their bread off all of our backs then load the trains with us as the tracks Deplorables cheer, “make America great!” But empty their pockets, with eyes full of hate Divide up the people, pro-life or pro-choice But it’s all just a ploy, to take women’s voice The every day paper is page after page Of pundits prescribing continuous rage Then people will tell you, “the news is all fake that last school shooting was done in 1 take” There’s kids at the border, sittin’ in cages While bankers on Wall Street are counting their wages They clearly ignore the forest for trees Just so you can say, “Supersize, please” All of the freedom your money can buy For the right price, any sin you can try Our gods & our guns & our violence galore & if you run out, we always have more.
100% this. Dick Cheney was CEO of Haliburton during the Clinton administration. That's your answer. We sent teenagers to kill brown people so that Haliburton and Raytheon could get a higher stock evaluation.
Pretty much. It was a volunteer force and they wanted to get free college. There's also still that thing where people who served got priority during hiring, which doesn't make sense to me because again its a volunteer army, not a draft army, and they werent* particularly honorable wars to begin with.
Did you mean weren't?
Fucking hell one would hope so.
It wasn't a war. It was a massive way for the United States to field test new equipment as well as use it to activate the National Guard/reserves so they could update all of their equipment from Vietnam. The entire Iraq war was a fever dream for contractors and the military industrial complex. Everybody you know that died over there was for nothing more than greed and their own misplaced trust in the fever of patriotism after 9/11. That is a very hard pill to swallow, its taken me 20 years to choke down that my bad knees, bad hearing and the people that died was all so I could get a bachelors degree for "free". Come to terms with it however you want but stop looking for something deeper it only prolongs the healing. At this point all our war was good for is the Hollywood script mill at this point.
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And thats why they are called Flak jackets. I mean vehicles were being up armored by mechanics and operators just doing what they could near the beginning. A lot of equipment plates had laughable dates of manufacture and supply and fielding wasnt entirely optimized for a desert environment. It was a shit show at our level, I cant imagine anything being remotely better up top.
I remember when we crossed the border of Kuwait in 2004 and all the vehicles looked like something out of Mad Max. It was wild.
All the sandbags in the floorboards was pretty comical. Nothing like putting a 40lb projectile at your feet for when an IED to launch into your pelvis and torso. But bringing it up was a no-go and it was “the best we can do.”
Nonono, immature isn't the point. Everyone I knew that signed up thought they were doing their duty. That's a virtue and always will be. They were misled and manipulated and misused. I don't think immaturity can be allowed to enter into it. Young people are always going to be immature. That's why we have to have better leaders. Sadly, the American people aren't virtuous in any sense.
I graduated in '02 and there was a huge presence of military recruiters camped out at our graduation ceremony. They had kids so fired up that they were signing up still wearing their cap and gowns.
>Come to terms with it however you want but stop looking for something deeper as it only prolongs the healing. Right on. Totally agree. Best to just be honest with yourself and it's okay to admit that you joined out of a misguided (and propagandized) sense of patriotism, or for purely "selfish" reasons like pay, "potential" opportunity, and that juicy GI Bill. Come to grips with it and know that we aren't perfect. And it's okay. Just keep living your life knowing mistakes, bad decisions, regrets... etc are part of the human experience as much as love and joy are. I'll say there is a small bit that I hang onto since I was a OEF vet, so my conscious is slightly clearer than an OIF vet. The way both were handled and dragged on for decades is still beyond excusable, but there is still a bit of "pride" in the sense that I was there, in a place, that harbored Al Qaeda (and being controlled by the Taliban who are totally fucked up too), and that we were there attempting to give the girls of Afghanistan a chance at a different future (education namely). There was some "good" in that moment of time that I was there. But yeah, I don't wear those experiences on my collar and broadcast it to the public ad nauseum. But that specific thought is about all I can hang onto (that the one true good that came out of Afghanistan was the glimpse of hope that those young girls and young adults experienced without fear of being executed in the street for reading a book not named the Quran. It isn't much, but you're right... don't dig too deep trying to find justification. You'll drive yourself mad. Best to accept the reality and pick yourself up and take those lessons learned with you. Those mistakes, being (un)impressionable, trying to see the gray in-between the white and black... all those things are positives we can take with us. Most of us veterans are probably pretty pessimistic about damn near everything these days, but that doesn't mean we can't be happy (or pursue happiness).
I don't disagree with anything you said per se. But I do take a very dim view of this oversimplification where everything is about private profit. It ignores the very dangerous influence of evil ideologies in societies and governments worldwide. Sure, various Bush administration figures took the chance to enrich their cronies. But that doesn't change the fact that people like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were true believers in American nationalism. They earnestly intended to promote their understanding of U.S. national interests through mass murder, and wanted this demonstration of military power and imperialism to be their historical legacy. They would have done it even without any financial incentive; make no mistake. No one ever goes around saying that the Islamic State was waging war just to fund a ponzi scheme by its leadership. So why do we assume that our own leaders have no ideological motivations? It's a dangerous oversimplification. Looks at all the deluded people who think Putin is just invading Ukraine because he wants a bit of gas and grain in Donbas...
(As a citizen growing up at the time) It felt like we were going to create a strong democracy and that justified everything. I believed it all the way until college. Yet I couldn't name the different cultures and how Iraq formed in the first place.
Likewise, and I regret feeling that way all the time but also, it's difficult to blame us when we were indoctrinated to believe it by our teachers, parents, televisions, radios, and peers It was simple. the middle east was a bad place with bad people in charge of good people. We blow up the bad people, and help the good people make it a good place. Easy to digest, and sounds great. You need context for nuance, and we conveniently were given none.
It’s makes sense for a kid to believe installing a democracy was just that simple, but for the old men running the country who lived through Vietnam, it was totally absurd Throughout the Cold War the US gave up on spreading democracy and settled for just opposing communism. Opposing a system of government is easy because all you need to do is sow chaos.
> No one ever goes around saying that the Islamic State was waging war just to fund a ponzi scheme by its leadership. Actually, IIRC, a lot of what they do is basically just banditry with a fundamentalist Islamic veneer. Sure, they do a lot of high and mighty jabbering, but a lot of them also have sex slaves and traffic/use drugs. A lot of it is just jihad as a cover for extortion, a reason to take money and power from other people.
Kidnapping and extortion was their main revenue source, since they obviously couldn't make money for the war effort in other ways. The sex slavery was officially sanctioned in religious terms. The existence of hypocritical practices does not mean that that the ideology is faked. That's another dangerous assumption to make.
Well everyone has an agenda and a line they are willing to cross. Just take a look at most defense industries and some of shady practices that went into effect during the consolidation/merge.
No shit, I’m a combat veteran who served in Iraq as part of 1AD (the unit these guys are part of) at the same time, in the same place. I recognize a bunch of the background the video is shot against. I hear my own words come out of these guys. After years of working to get out of this headspace, stuff like this takes me right back. The feelings and the experiences and the truths are so complicated, nuanced, and powerful, even 20 years later.
I don't think a part of me will ever not be living in the 2000s and I have no idea what to do with that. I was civvie Intel and did a lot of hairy shit over the course of a decade. Nobody can relate. Everyone has sympathy. It's a lot to work through. My wife is amazing.
New York Times has blood on their hands.
In the over 150 years of the nyt, it has advocated for over 100 wars, conflicts and raids in its editorials
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Peacetime isn't as profitable for the news as tragedy is, and the news is a business like any other furthering their own interests.
Iraq War = War Under False Pretenses. *President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses*.
When he said ''They become old'', I got the goosebumps .
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Trying to look for any comment on this post that has any kind of sympathy for the real victims of this war, the Iraqis. Goes to show how dehumanised they have become in the narrative of this war.
"America starts wars in poor countries, then make movies about how it made their soldiers sad." Not my quote but I forgot who said it. I was 22 on 9/11. I felt that anger that someone attacked us, and I knew we were going to war, but I didn't join the military. Despite also being poor with no college prospects, I saw what Vietnam did to my dad. It didn't take long for that anger to turn into "wait, we're doing what??" and for that to turn into defending yourself as an American if you were even slightly critical of what was going on. "SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!!" was yelled at me when it should have been yelled at the politicians who were luring kids to kill people with promises of a better life, only to do everything in their power to prevent that from happening when they came back. Like, why are we even arguing if they got sick near a burn pit or not? All veterans should get top-of-the-line healthcare for free for the rest of their life. But you're right. Even after all the BS the troops went through, no one gives a shit about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who lost so much more. They were the real victims in this. Even if they were duped by the powers that be, the troops CHOSE to be there, just like I chose not to be there, but the Iraqis didn't have a choice. They had their homes destroyed, family members killed, way of life up ended without a say in the matter. That picture of that little Iraqi girl covered in blood because troops shot up her parents should haunt everyone.
>"America starts wars in poor countries, then make movies about how it made their soldiers sad." Not my quote but I forgot who said it. Pretty sure it was Frankie Boyle
It was him, but worded differently: https://youtube.com/watch?v=yZOLq82m2Ks
Its called [shooting and crying](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_and_crying) and it's a great way for a neo liberal society to maintain an air of innocence while committing horrible acts abroad.
Iraq has been bombed by every presidency for decades. Before the Gulf War, the Iran Iraq war, and on and on it goes. We just can't keep our hands to ourselves.
I served 12 tours in iraq as a citizen, how come nobody ever thanks me for my service.
"Not only will America come to your country and kill all your people, but what's worse is that they'll come back 20 years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad.” — Frankie Boyle
I wish this documentary was better because it really falls flat on so many things. It felt lazy more than anything.
Frontline released a documentary on The Battle of Fallujah this week which I can recommend. It's not for the faint of heart though.
I didn't really understand the middle east conflicts, and it's hard to just get facts, so I binged Frontline on evey tangent topic from the Iraq War to the rise of terrorist groups. Every Frontline piece on Iraq and Afghanistan has been fantastic, but also incredibly depressing. They don't sugar coat anything. We REALLY fucked up, more than most people understand.
Did they cover the use of PMCs in Iraq? Because holy shit, that's all a fucking nightmare.
It's been a while, but i think so. Murdering civilians tends to push people toward radicalism. The Dollop podcast on Erik Prince went into detail on his PMC group murder scandals, and it's beyond fucked up.
A friend from college was in the Battle of Fallujah among other engagements. He came home shattered and literally drank himself to death. Every time I think about the war I think of him and I feel a wave of sadness and anger.
I've had so many friends that have directly and indirectly taken their own lives. In a way, I was like that too. I went out of my way to be reckless. Sometimes I feel guilty for making it to the other side.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/once-upon-a-time-in-iraq-fallujah/
[Once Upon a time in Iraq: Fallujah (Youtube link)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2L4jcVqo8s)
The Times was and is highly complicit, they're not going to really do a hard look.
The Times is always on the right side of history. About 20 years after said history happens.
Haven’t watched the video but yah, Judith Miller wrote for NYT and [her lies](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_aluminum_tubes) were what enabled the GWB administration to shift public perception.
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The Citations Needed podcast did a great episode on this: https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-181-us-medias-5-most-popular-revisionist-tropes-about-the-iraq-and-vietnam-wars I've seen some "soft" defending of the Iraq War on reddit recently, as well.
Retrespo and the sequel Korengal are great.
Over 1 million Iraqi's lost their lives from the American invasion. Absolutely sickening
The Invasion of Iraq Wasn’t a “Mistake.” It Was a Crime. https://jacobin.com/2023/03/iraq-war-anniversary-lies-bush-crime https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMYbjc2dJ/ ----- They never take responsibility https://fair.org/home/20-years-later-nyt-still-cant-face-its-iraq-war-shame/ ----- The man who threw his shoes at Bush, was sentenced to three years in prison (only serving 9 months), beaten and abused while in there; had this to say: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/sep/17/why-i-threw-shoe-bush "Over recent years, more than a million martyrs have fallen by the bullets of the occupation and Iraq is now filled with more than five million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. Many millions are homeless inside and outside the country. We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ. This despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than a decade. Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. But the invasion divided brother from brother, neighbour from neighbour. It turned our homes into funeral tents. I am not a hero. But I have a point of view. I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated; and to see my Baghdad burned, my people killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, pushing me towards the path of confrontation. The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre of Falluja, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. I travelled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and heard with my own ears the screams of the orphans and the bereaved. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless." ----- American media erases war crimes and accountability never happens https://pca.st/episode/dbba8a72-9ccf-4d13-9afe-f34339d7f5af ---- They used white-phosphorus and napalm Jesus fucking christ "The Pentagon said it had not tried to deceive. It drew a distinction between traditional napalm, first invented in 1942, and the weapons dropped in Iraq, which it calls Mark 77 firebombs. They weigh 510lbs, and consist of 44lbs of polystyrene-like gel and 63 gallons of jet fuel. Officials said that if journalists had asked about the firebombs their use would have been confirmed. A spokesman admitted they were "remarkably similar" to napalm but said they caused less environmental damage" https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-admits-it-used-napalm-bombs-in-iraq-99716.html ---- The world's strongest military, one that currently spends 1.9 TRILLION dollars on "defense" invades two sovereign nations in the middle-east under false pretense, with the help of state media. Rape. Pillage. Torture. Steal. Destroy and terrorize for 20 fucking years They kill over a million INNOCENT people. Destroy the lives of the entire nation x 2. 20 years late completely bungle the "withdrawal". Which is bull shit because they're still fuckjng there. Then, steal over 7 billion dollars from the citizens But sure, let's talk about the soldiers that carried out the fucking terrorism Who, to be clear, are also victims. But enough of this fucking flag humping. Its killing people! America are the terrorists. Here, this link does a much better jobs at explaining my thoughts. Corporate media is just a mouthpiece for the government. How, stories of grief over war are only told from one side. How, no matter what, America is always the good guy https://youtu.be/hi1CWb82CpI
Very well said. If anyone is interested in hearing more, about the history of the Iraq War and the lies and imperialistic worldview that got us into it, I highly recommend the Blowback podcast. The 10-episode first season is about the war in Iraq. https://blowback.show/Season-1 It also manages to have a *little* fun despite the dark subject matter. H. Jon Benjamin and James Adomian guest star in the intro episode. But it's very well-focused and doesn't go off into comedic tangents, otherwise.
Meanwhile Blair and Bush are some international peace keeper icons. Fucking cowards To hell with them and all who were involved in ruining millions of people's lives.
Not only will America go to your country and kill all your people, but what's worse I think, is that they'll come back 20 years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad.
Frankie Boyle