Dying Iraq Vet Writes to Mssrs. Bush and Cheney

[NEWDOC2002]

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[Bevo Incognito]

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[Roger35]

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[Bevo Incognito]

"Once you got to Iraq and took it over, and took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? If you take down the central government of Iraq you can easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off. Maybe even a civil war. It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq."

-- Dick Cheney, on not invading Iraq, April 15, 1994


"If I had it to do over again, I'd do it in a minute."

-- Dick Cheney, on invading Iraq, March 15, 2013

 

[Coelacanth]

NEWDOC2002,

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[Monahorns]

Coel, isn't the fact that many people consider every military act post WW2, somewhat a result of the media portrayal of US military action? I don't know of any popular opposition to the US being in war before Vietnam. Maybe I am wrong. If so I would like to know. That being said, I think a huge factor in popular opinion about war is the message people hear from news media. Most people look to WW2 as legitimate but couldn't US involvement in any war be argued against? I don't know that Japan was any real threat to the US at that time though most wouldn't argue against it because they attacked us first. But how about the Mexican-American War? Was there strong popular opinion against that war? I don't think national sovereignty was ever in doubt. Or how about the Spanish - American War? I don't know about enough to make any conclusions, but if US popular opinion of those two wars was favorable then I think there is some merit to the idea that what changed is not the US government's justifications for going to war but the way our news media reports it. How else can so many people call the Iraq War a disaster? It was costly and the postwar situation was very difficult. Mistakes were made and assumptions about the nature of the conflict were wrong. But I don't consider it a disaster. We more or less accomplished what we wanted, took Saddam out and established a new government that we had some influence in. Now I am not naive. I know Iran has as much or more influence than we do and I know long term it will be difficult to maintain this set up.

 

[Roger35]

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[mchammer]

 

[Mr. Deez]

There was some sincere opposition to the Iraq War within the Democratic Party, but there was a hell of a lot of it that was just rank partisanship especially from the party leadership. I got a feel for it when I saw what happened to Cindy Sheehan. She was a darling to the Left and the Party, and once they won the election, nobody gave two squirts of piss about her.