ThatDamnedPanda
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Joined: 1/26/2009
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quote:
ORIGINAL: rulemylife
quote:
ORIGINAL: ThatDamnedPanda
The citizens in a representative democracy have an obligation, a duty, to educate themselves and make informed decisions, especially on a matter as grave as choosing whether or not to launch a war. The American public, as a whole, did not do their due diligence, did not meet their responsibility, and if they had they would have arrived at the right conclusions and made the same decision you and I made. Not all of them, but enough of them that this criminal madness could have been prevented. I don't cut 'em any slack - they did not do their jobs as American citizens, and they bear the responsibility for letting that war happen.
Panda, we're on the same page on most issues but this is pure bullshit.
Neo-conservatives like Wolfowitz had written position papers for years in conservative think-tank publications advocating an Iraq invasion.
Whether 9/11 had happened or not we would have invaded Iraq.
What exactly do you think the American public could have done to prevent that?
Look at the public uproar over the initial bailout. Did that "due diligence" have any effect on the outcome?
Yup. Project For The New American Century. Wolfowitz had a hard-on for Iraq long before they even decided to put Bush in office, no question about it.
But planning to invade Iraq is not the same as getting away with it. I don't think the debate over the bailout is even remotely comparable to the debate that would have ensued over the decision to go to war if the majority of the people in the country had been opposed to it.
When the Bushers' Ministry of Information first began pumping the propaganda in late 2001, public opinion was 3 to 1 against the invasion, because everybody knew the very idea was absurd. By the time we invaded, the propagandists had flipped that number to 3 to 1 in favor. If the Bushers had tried to invade Iraq when the public was 75-25 against, there'd have been riots in the streets. At 3 to 1 in favor, very few legislators had the balls to vote against the war with some of them standing for election only a few months later; at 75-25 against (or even 60-40), those who opposed the war or were just not fully comfortable with it would never have endorsed it - it would have been a no-brainer. Even Bush's most loyal Republican lapdogs would have been reluctant to risk political suicide by supporting him at 75-25 or 60-40 against.
The votes in Congress to approve military action simply would not have been there. If Bush had gone and invaded anyway, without Congressional approval, the absolute worst that could have happened would have been that he'd have gotten run out of town on a rail in the 2004 election, and been completely stonewalled in Congress in the interim. At best, he may actually have been impeached. So yeah, I think the whole last 8 years would have turned out quite differently if the American people had kept their eye on the ball and not caved in.
< Message edited by ThatDamnedPanda -- 4/26/2009 12:50:24 AM >
_____________________________
Panda, panda, burning bright
In the forest of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Made you all black and white and roly-poly like that?
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