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    JunkeezBrendan O'Connor
    7/06/16 10:46am

    I will never vote for a politician who voted for, or was in favor, of this war. It was driven by greed and those who supported it should be held accountable.

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      RyanAJunkeez
      7/06/16 10:49am

      I’d limit that to saying I’d never vote for any that still defend the decision. I’m not exactly a member of Congress, but Colin Powell had me convinced and, at the time, there was no reason to believe that he was incorrect. In hindsight, there will always be a reason to doubt the evidence moving forward - especially if it’s from someone that’s generally considered trustworthy that could have been set up.

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      DubayaTeeEffJunkeez
      7/06/16 10:51am

      Unfortunately in this shitstain of an election you’ve got to choose between your desire to punish someone (Hillary) and your desire to vote for the good of the country (Hillary). The Iraq War’s why I voted for Barack in the primary 8 years ago. The Supreme Court’s why I’m voting for her now.

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    Flying Squid (I hate me more than you do.)Brendan O'Connor
    7/06/16 10:42am

    I can’t wait for the U.S. inquiry.

    Ha ha, just kidding!

    Sigh.

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      Ham WalletFlying Squid (I hate me more than you do.)
      7/06/16 10:44am

      Uh, we already had one. The conclusion was that the intelligence community fucked up in aggregate.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Re…

      edit: who the fuck is starring you!?

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      butcherbakertoiletrymakerFlying Squid (I hate me more than you do.)
      7/06/16 10:48am

      Honestly, I’d rather we not even bother with the expense and theater of an inquiry here. We know that nobody would actually face any consequences over it, so why go through the motions just to reinforce what we already know, while at the same time getting to watch certain assholes continue to lives their lives of uninterrupted luxury?

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    1PompadourBrendan O'Connor
    7/06/16 1:17pm

    Also from the Guardian, from Bush’s own biographer: This is the core of the truth:

    ...by unsettling Iraq, Bush has unleashed the forces of Isis and terrorism that the world faces today.”

    He added: “Bush thought it was God’s will – that he was exercising God’s purpose in attacking Saddam Hussein.”

    I don’t know which statement is more horrifying. So Bush undertook a classic Crusade a la 1095 A.D. and pretty much for the same reason? Have nearly a thousand intervening years taught “us” nothing? This says to me that fanatic religion is still so embedded in the human psyche that hope thins. Proof that it’s in our DNA and a better case for genetic tinkering than any disease. In fact religion is a disease.

    There can be no doubt that our invasion knocked the top off the hornet’s nest. Whether this horror would have “happened anyway” is irrelevant because the U.S. invasion was unquestionably the catalyst. I know Bush is a stupid and oblivious man. But those around him were far too Machiavellian to be religious nuts. So what was their rationale?

    How did we, the American people, allow this to go forward? In the wake of the Vietnam debacle, we go right ahead and intervene again for an idiotic reason, with the lessons of history staring us in the face. And where was I, the former Berkeley demonstrator? Calmly pursuing my career while Iraqis died in the hundreds of thousands. So the guilt is mine too. I should have been out on the streets decrying the Iraq war instead of being a Good German. Ugh. I do think that Bush and his minions should be held to account. Leaving him in serene retirement to paint those disturbing pictures and chill out is again abdicating our moral responsibility, which is to pin him down and hear the ugly truth from his own lips.

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      Vox Populist1Pompadour
      7/06/16 3:24pm

      How did we, the American people, allow this to go forward?

      For the same reason that Germans were good Germans in 1914 and 1939 - a culture that glorifies violence and war and ridicules pacifism, compromise and diplomacy. German post-war scholars like Fromm and Adorno refered to it as necrophilia - the love of dead things (machines, weapons of war, imperial architecture) over living beings (the feminine, nature, harmony).

      To me as a second generation post-war German, the American obsession with war and violence and patriotism, with the glorification of the flag and the military seems completely bizarre and ridiculous for an otherwise equally postmodern nation, it’s even proto-fascist, but to an American, it’s how you grew up, you think nothing of it. And since your nation until now has never paid the price for all the violence it brings to the peoples of other nations around the world, there has never been a serious impetus to question, challenge and overcome this cultural pardigm.

      The military-industrial-police-prison complex doesn’t just drive violent foreign and domestic policy, it permeates every aspect of American culture. It’s much harder to mount a protest against that, than against a specific military fuck up like Vietnam, because you’d have to protest against what it means to be American.

      War is as much an American pastime as football, hotdogs and beer.

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      1PompadourVox Populist
      7/06/16 4:12pm

      Yes, it’s extremely difficult and challenging now to separate out not only what it means to be an American (as opposed to a citizen of the world) but what Americanism implies morally. Basic Golden Rule morality seems always to give way expediently to any perceived threat to American interests.

      But what does this mean in terms of the Iraq War? For Bush and his minions to disingenuously tell Americans that our national security and physical safety were the actual stakes in Iraq, creating thereby the rationale for going to war set the stage, in my opinion, for the war crimes that followed. and rises to a war crime in itself.

      But now I find it’s even worse than that. Bush’s biographer, as I read today in the Guardian, states: “Bush thought it was God’s will – that he was exercising God’s purpose in attacking Saddam Hussein.” So it was not American safety but some religious clatfart in the mind of the world’s most powerful man, that brought on this unspeakable violence and ongoing warfare. We knew years ago that we were lied to, but this new information adds a breathtaking further layer of mendacity and madness to the initial WMD tale.

      For Americans now to allow Bush to luxuriate in a serene retirement, painting his psychiatrically disturbed pictures, is a suppurating wound on America’s soul. The Chilcot Report sets out the indisputable monstrousness attending that war. It looks like the British are holding Blair to account; are we now going to confront the original instigator? At all?

      If we are ever to recover some vestige of national decency and morality, as the Germans have addressed themselves to doing, we have to divest ourselves of that tissue of deceit that constitutes American moral superiority and examine the wages of what we’ve brought about.

      I am optimistic enough to believe that history will not only exonerate Chelsea Manning, but will be grateful for her sacrifice. She is still alive now, and suffering the horror of not being able to live and not being able to die. Personally, I don’t give a crap about the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but those are the toils she is caught in. We as Americans have to stop picking nits about legalities and acknowledge the massive crimes she helped expose. On a humanitarian level, we can then perhaps help her find a way to live, as she tried to help America find a way to live.

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    Gamblor JDBrendan O'Connor
    7/06/16 10:46am

    I’m so glad the Dems would never nominate a war hawk who supported invading Iraq.

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      Manny Both-HansGamblor JD
      7/06/16 11:15am

      Don’t forget, the vote to authorize war in Iraq was made by people who’d been shown misleading and false intel. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t still a bad call, but it’s not as evil as it appears in hindsight.

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      CaiteeCruelleGamblor JD
      7/06/16 11:20am

      *sob* And I'm voting for her. :-(

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    GregorMendelBrendan O'Connor
    7/06/16 11:02am

    Why are volumes 6-10 so unpopular?

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      DL ThurstonGregorMendel
      7/06/16 11:03am

      By that time it was clear that the plot wasn’t really going anywhere. It wasn’t until Brandon Sanderson took over the volumes that things really starting coming together and the readers came back to see how to would end.

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      HighLikeAnEagleGregorMendel
      7/06/16 11:27am

      They put all the porn in the first few volumes.

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    X37.9XXSBrendan O'Connor
    7/06/16 10:40am

    Down, Tony

    Heel

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      Misteaks were madeX37.9XXS
      7/06/16 10:54am

      Odd they have him made up like a prissy french poodle.

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      X37.9XXSMisteaks were made
      7/06/16 11:00am

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    horse-ponyBrendan O'Connor
    7/06/16 11:02am

    I worked for my high school newspaper. I wrote a column at the age of 15 that we were rushing into this war without thought or clear information. I wrote how going to war could have devastating consequences for not just us, but the Iraqi people. I wrote how everything was being rushed and it felt like there were a lot of unanswered questions.

    I look back at that every now and then and think, how could a 15 year-old hispanic kid from a shitty neighborhood going to a pro-military Naval Honor School see this shit, yet politicians couldn’t.

    Can you imagine if the U.S. took out loans and spent 15 trillion on infrastructure, education, health care and in general the American people? We would be much better off. Hell, we probably could have made allies if we spent a trillion, built up their schools and roads and subsidized farmers growing corn or highly needed, but low paying crops. Then those farmers and their kids wouldn’t have joined ISIS for a few hundred a month in pay to supplement family income. Then we would have less attacks, better schools and in time a better educated populace that loved us.

    But nah, lets bomb them, make enemies and then deny them a place to live when they run away and ask for asylum because justice?

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      DoobyOnehorse-pony
      7/06/16 11:12am

      Any of us who pointed it out had our patriotism questioned. It was and is a fucked up situation.

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      horse-ponyDoobyOne
      7/06/16 11:18am

      True. Bullies who picked on me were too busy making fun of me for liking Marvel, Star Trek and astronomy.

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    Freddie DeBoerBrendan O'Connor
    7/06/16 10:52am
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      XrdsAlumFreddie DeBoer
      7/06/16 11:30am

      “That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out” - Karl Rove

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      facwXrdsAlum
      7/06/16 11:50am

      Oh Turd Blossom, it’s really too bad you didn’t end up in jail. Maybe the Republicans in Congress will continue their crusade against illegal private emails servers by paying more attention to yours.

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    DengEatsEggdropBrendan O'Connor
    7/06/16 10:41am

    The publication of the report seems premature. Let’s see how this Iraq thing plays out.

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      ummagummibearDengEatsEggdrop
      7/06/16 10:48am

      Last I heard, they accomplished the mission.

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      DengEatsEggdropummagummibear
      7/06/16 11:00am

      Exactly! Does Iraq have weapons of mass destruction? No, they do not.

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    c'est-a-direBrendan O'Connor
    7/06/16 10:42am

    And on W’s birthday lmao.

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      c'est-a-direc'est-a-dire
      7/06/16 10:42am
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      Vox Populistc'est-a-dire
      7/06/16 3:04pm

      Bush may be the only President who’s aged half as fast while he was in office and twice as fast since he’s been out of office. Usually it’s the other way round.

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