“I hope the President realizes that if we leave, the debate will become ‘Who lost Afghanistan?’ ”

The media and right wing pundits certainly confused the public, but the official reason for the invasion of Iraq was WMDs. The government never claimed Iraq had anything to do with 9/11 and they didn’t. Although, I remember some really high percent of the public, like 70%, thought Iraq was involved with 9/11.

Preemptive war - Attacking a country that was not a threat and had no plans to attack us was a huge deal. We considered japan and Germany evil for doing such things, so it was considered un-American.

 

you are a good poster and i like you but lets not change the narrative of what happened.
9/11 and fear was ABSOLUTELY part of the fear connection.. this bbs a willing player as well btw..
i said at the time 20 years ago we would be able to "say anything" later and thats what happened and in essence thats what you are doing in this case. it wasnt ferris bueller and 9 times this is president, vp, rumsfeld, powell, rice

61 times!!


"The Bush Administration sought to link the Iraqi dictator to Islamist radicals early on in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. President Bush allegedly made the case to Tony Blair as early as September 14, 2001, although Blair urged him not to pursue the claim"

"Vice President Dick Cheney had told Meet the Press on December 9, 2001, that Iraq was harboring Abdul Rahman Yasin, a suspect in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing" LOOK AT THE DATE DEC 9 2001

"In the same Meet the Press interviews, Cheney implied a connection between Iraq and Mohamed Atta"
"
Opponents of his Iraq policy charged that his statement was inconsistent with his letter to Congress of March 21, 2003 [36] and a minority (Democrat) staff report by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform claimed that "in 125 separate appearances, they [Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld and Rice] made ... 61 misleading statements about Iraq's relationship with al-Qaeda."[37]
"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein_and_al-Qaeda_link_allegations#:~:text=The Bush Administration sought to,not to pursue the claim.

 

The reason we invaded Iraq was that he threatened World oil supplies and our allies in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. But that was hard to justify publicly so Cheney went looking for reasons he could sell.
I will tell you I was for it certainly Gulf War 1 because I thought it would be an international effort to overthrow a brutal murderous dictator leading to a freer world. That may seem naive but if we hadn't blown the occupation by disbanding the army history might have been different. But things happened the way they happened.

 

We are on the same page. I never claimed they didn't tie Iraq to terrorism. I remember it being a moving goal post. First it was trying to tie Saddam to 9/11, then terrorism in general, then something else, and finally WMDs. There was the Colin Powell speech about WMDs and the fake yellow cake story. It all a little hazy after 20 years.
They certainly pumped the fear up to 11. Hell that little threat level chart they kept pulling out just popped into my mind. Weren't we always on orange alert or some bullshit. Their propaganda, although effective, seems quaint in the age of Facebook, Twitter and "fake news".

 

Oh the irony.

 

Wait: is there any American who believes we want to WIN Afghanistan? (And we simply are unable?)

 

I do hate to see Trump get legacy points by doing the right thing.

The United States is largely responsible for the disintegrating mess that created Al Qaeda and even the Taliban. . We destroyed Iraq in the first Iraq War and particularly in the second Iraq War. During the end of the Cold War, we also were early backers and weapon suppliers for the Taliban to harass the Russians when they went into Afghanistan. Of course the main stream media which are willing partners with the military industrial complex will for the most part not remind folks of this history, but maintain the narrative that we are good hearted USA helping those poor folks develop democracy while trying to make the world safe from terrorism.

Get out and quit trying to "help" militarily.

 

Let me clear the air for everyone on Glynch's beliefs on The first Gulf War. Glynch believes we told Saddam he could invade Kuwait and we are the ones who then reneged and chased him out of Kuwait

 

Who lost Afghanistan?

Every country who has invaded Afghanistan has lost.

 

Its not a matter of winning or losing the country.

The Taliban is useless

ISIS is dead

We won.

 

Isis was formed in Iraq.

 

Where are they now?

We won

Time to exit everywhere

 

1. Al Qaeda was in NE Iraq in 2002/03. We pushed them out of Afghanistan and they were allowed to cross Iran and settled in NE Iraq. The CIA was informed by the Kurds of Al Qaeda's presence in 2002 while prepping the battle space for the Iraqi invasion. CIA officers requested a special forces attack and/or air strike on their compounds. Any attack was denied because the administration thought it would tip off Saddam of our presence and pending invasion. After the initial invasion of Iraq, the Green Berets were given the okay to attack the Al Qaeda sites in NE Iraq but the Al Qaeda leadership had already moved closer to Baghdad and were starting up the insurgency.

2. The decision to go into Iraq was already decided and the CIA and Green Berets were prepping the battle space working with the Kurds in 2002. The WMD bull was based on partial intelligence and some total BS to gather more support from the public and our allies. The CIA believed Iraq still had WMD because they had a high ranking regular Iraqi army officer working as an asset. CIA asked him if they had chemical weapons. He laughed, and said of course we have them. CIA asked him where they were located? He gave us a location and it checked out with satellite imagery. The bunker was also being guarded regularly. We then asked if he had seen the weapons lately. He said no. He wasn't allowed. Only the Republican Guard. That is what our actual intelligence on the Iraqi WMD program was at the beginning of the war. The CIA officer in charge of the operation before the invasion said it would take him more time to get someone high enough up to get inside the bunker but he thought he could get it done. The war machine was already on the move and it was too late. The yellowcake crap was just made up BS. CIA agents in Iraq were watching Colin Powell at the UN on tv and said WTF is this? Turns out Saddam destroyed the WMD but didn't want people outside his inner circle to know it because it was part of what kept him in power.

Everything I've said has been published before.

The invasion of Iraq was a disaster and never should have happend. ANY politician that voted in favor of it should not be in our government any longer. Sadly, both parties seem to not care as many republican senators and the current president-elect voted for the war.

 

Just waiting for us to take over the Space space over Afghanistan too with our new Space force. I am sure, the new space force will create new wonderful enemies so we can continue our military domination, which we all know it's really about money. If anyone thinks War was fought for any other reason than money/power.

Meanwhile our solider are taking the brunt of the crap and are trained to believe it is for a better cause, meanwhile we have scum who votes who to fight/where to fight based on their individual feelings.

Case in Point
Trump - Kim is my bestie
Reagan - Evil Kim

With parties...who also have their own individual feelings about the situation because they had bad Kim Chi one time. I find it laughable any politician who has never visited another country or lived in that country, can truly make any valid comments that are not bias to his/her own cause.

I take more pride in our solider who defends country vs invading other countries because a group of politicians said so based on intelligence (apparently can be faked/mistaken/interpreted wrong)

 

Any money for anything in the middle east came from oil

They're broke especially the rogue children like Bin Laden. Nobody has money for dumb **** lile terrorism. No dedication can overcome brokenness