Hey Washington; I'm still waiting for that $1/gallon gasoline

towhee wrote:

The "Everyone believed that Saddam had WMD in 2003" line from the RIGHT will go down as one of the dumbest idoicies of all time.

I fixed your comment for you. Now it looks good.

And it is idiocy. Just because some democrats, who were fed the cherry picked intel that the REPUBLICAN admin was feeding them, ended up being cowed, bullied, and frightened into agreeing that Saddam was a threat does not even come CLOSE to meaning "EVERYONE" knew Saddam had WMD. Except for a few select dems, most never got a full look at the intel that Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Tenet etc had. So they had to go on what they were told and given. And they were given only the hyped up, cherry picked intel that suggested that Saddam might be a threat. Much of the conflicting info was hidden.

Tell me this, do THESE gentlemen count as "everyone" ? They seemed to not believe that Saddam had stockpiles of WMD's and was an imminent threat:

"DOWNING STREET MEMO:

The memo recorded the head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) as expressing the view following his recent visit to Washington that "[George W.] Bush wanted to remove Saddam Hussein, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." It also quoted Foreign Secretary Jack Straw as saying that it was clear that Bush had "made up his mind" to take military action but that "the case was thin", and the Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith as warning that justifying the invasion on legal grounds would be difficult."

Everyone convinced of that, huh??

The bottom line was: the weapons inspectors were back in and NOT FINDING ANYTHING. Dems would have given them that chance to finish their jobs, but Cheney, Bush, Rummy et had made their minds LOOOONG ago, and kicked out the inspectors before they could tell the world that the WMD BS was just that, BS.

YOU are the one that has bought into idiotic revisionist history.

Sir Lance-alot wrote:

Just because some democrats, who were fed the cherry picked intel that the REPUBLICAN admin was feeding them, ended up being cowed, bullied, and frightened into agreeing that Saddam was a threat does not even come CLOSE to meaning "EVERYONE" knew Saddam had WMD.

"Cowed, bullied, and frightened"? Dude, really?

Congressmen (both Democrat and Republican) are big boys. There was no cowing, bullying or frightening going on. The Bush administration did an outstanding job of marketing the idea of a war with Iraq to the american public. The mainstream media utterly failed to question or investigate any claims made by the administration and just passed soundbites on as "facts". The american public overwhelmingly supported an invasion and the Democratic congressional minority didn't want to be seen as going against the wishes of the general public. Both Democrats and Republicans were "playing the game". There were no victims. Well, except of course the people who actually died in the war. You could call them victims, I suppose.

MonkeyMan wrote:

But I tend to agree that during the 02-03 timeframe, the vast majority (~80% by most of the polls I remember) strongly supported the invasion of Iraq.

The overwhelming majority of Americans have no access to intelligence data, and limited access to dissenting voices. Thus, when politicians and the media falsely claimed there was credible evidence of a WMD threat against the US, they supported the war. It was easy for most Americans to believe, as Iraq is a scary country where people practice a scary religion.

In truth, Americans will overwhelmingly support a preemptive attack against a country that is threatening the US with an imminent WMD attack. Such a country didn't exist in 2001, despite claims to the contrary by politicians and the press.

The Bush Admin put pressure on the intelligence community to interpret data with the specific goal of concluding Iraq had WMD. It was a justification, rather than a reason, for invading Iraq.

But most people and politicians were in favor of invasion, and it's not like those who weren't were protesting in the streets. Most just bitched about it on the internet. Nowadays when war's not so popular *nobody* thought invasion was a good idea in the first place.

I don't give a good goddamn what other people were doing. I was against it at the time and I'm still against it. And it didn't take long for there to be "protesting in the streets" (where else do you protest).

In fact, I just looked it up. There were large protests before we even invaded Iraq, and they continued for the duration. You are the revisionist here.

September 2002

On September 12, 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush spoke to the United Nations General Assembly. Outside the United Nations building, over 1,000 people attended a protest organized by Louis Posner of Voter March.[11]

Louis Posner Speaking at First UN Protest

Speakers included Voter March founder Louis J. Posner, singer songwriter Patti Smith, former Students for a Democratic Society President professor Todd Gitlin, author/professor Mark Crispin Miller, and Democrats.com founder Bob Fertik. The crowds chanted the popular them "No Blood For Oil."

On September 24, Tony Blair released a document describing Britain's case for war in Iraq. Three days later, an anti-war rally in London drew a crowd of at least 150,000[12] and probably around 400,000.[13]

On September 29, roughly 5,000 anti-war protesters converged on Washington, D.C. on the day after an anti-International Monetary Fund protest.[14]

[edit] October 2002

On October 2, the day President Bush signed into law Congress' joint resolution authorizing the war,[15] a small-scale protest was held in Chicago, attended by a crowd of roughly 1,000[16] who listened to speeches by Jesse Jackson and then-Illinois State Senator Barack Obama. Obama's statement, "I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars," was barely noted at the time, but became famous during the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries when the Obama camp used it to demonstrate his courage and good judgment on the war.[17]

On October 7, Bush delivered a major speech justifying the invasion of Iraq at the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal. Outside, approximately 3000 people gathered to protest the coming war. Later, a few hundred protesters blocking the Museum Center exits were dispersed by mounted police, and six people were arrested.[18]

On October 26, protests took place in various cities across the world. Over 100,000 people took part in a protest in Washington. 50,000 people took part in a demonstration in San Francisco. Both protests were called by the ANSWER Coalition.[19]

On October 31, around 150 protests took place across the United Kingdom, including Critical Mass bike rides, occupations, and mass demonstrations in Brighton, Manchester, Glasgow and London. Protests also took place in the US.[20]

[edit] November 2002

On November 9, demonstrations were held against the war at the end of the first European Social Forum in Florence, Italy. According to the organizers, 1,000,000 people were in attendance. Local authorities put attendance at 500,000.[21][22][23]

On Saturday, November 16, in Canada an anti-war demonstration of about 2,000 people occurred at Queen's Park in Toronto.[24][25][26][27]

On November 17, a large anti-war coalition held a peace march in Vancouver marching from Peace Flame Park as part of a Cross-Canada Day of Action. In Vancouver, about 3,000 people gathered in the rain. Washington must take any complaints against foreign governments to the United Nations, they said. Many accused the White House of targeting Saddam Hussein in order to try to take control of valuable oil reserves. About 1,000 marched through a shower of ice pellets in Montreal, and about 500 showed up in a blur of white snow on Parliament Hill. Rallies were held in several other cities, including Halifax, Winnipeg and Edmonton.[24][25][26][27]

[edit] January 2003

On January 16, 2003, protests were held worldwide in opposition to a war with Iraq, including in Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Japan, Belgium, the Netherlands, Argentina, and the United States, where Americans attended a rally in Washington, D.C. The U.S. Park Police, which oversees activities on the National Mall, stopped providing estimates of crowd size after being threatened with lawsuits by the organizers of the Million Man March, but said that protest organizers only had a permit for 30,000 demonstrators.

January 18 peace protest in Washington, D.C.

On January 18, anti-war demonstrations, focusing particularly but not exclusively on the expected war with Iraq, took place in villages, towns, and cities around the world, including Tokyo, Moscow, Paris, London, Dublin, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Cologne, Bonn, Gothenburg, Florence, Oslo, Rotterdam, Istanbul and Cairo.

NION and ANSWER jointly organized protests in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. Other protests took place all over the United States, including various smaller places such as Lincoln, Nebraska.

In San Francisco, between 150,000 and 200,000 people attended the demonstration. The San Francisco police had originally estimated the crowd size at 55,000, but admitted later that they had badly underestimated the number and changed their estimate to 150,000. The day started with a waterfront rally at 11 am, followed by a march down Market Street to the Civic Center.

In Washington, "at least tens of thousands",[28] or "several hundred thousand"[29] people demonstrated through the city, ending with a rally at The Mall. Among the speakers was Rev. Jesse Jackson who told the crowd that "We are here because we choose coexistence over coannihilation."[28]

The protests were planned to coincide with the January 15, birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.[19]

[edit] February 2003

Main article: February 15, 2003 anti-war protest

On February 15, millions of people protested, in approximately 800 cities around the world. Listed by the 2004 Guinness Book of Records as the largest protest in human history, protests occurred among others in the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Syria, India, Russia, South Korea, Japan, and even McMurdo Station in Antarctica. The largest demonstration this day occurred in London, where 2,000,000 protesters (about 1 in 30 of the population) gathered in Hyde Park; speakers included the Reverend Jesse Jackson, London mayor Ken Livingstone, and Liberal Democrats leader Charles Kennedy.

[edit] March 2003

On March 8, three separate marches converged on Manchester Town Hall, UK. Official estimates put the number of participants at 10,000 (although this was disputed by organisers), making it the biggest political demonstration in the city since the Peterloo Massacre in 1819.[30]

protesters in front of Complexe Guy-Favreau in Montreal

On March 15, Spanish and Italian cities showed some of the largest turnouts against their governments' pro-war stance, with more than 400,000 protesters in Milan, more than 300,000 in Barcelona forming a mile-long human chain,[31] and more than 120,000 in Madrid.[32] Marches also took place in Seville, Aranjuez, Palencia, and in the Canary Islands.[33]

Many of the protests were smaller than those in the same cities a month ago; an exception was that in Montreal, which upped its turnout to 200,000 people. The turnout may have been related to solidarity against American anti-French sentiment, which was a common theme for many of the protesters.[34] A further 15,000 protested in Quebec City.[35] 55,000 protested in Paris, and 4,500 to 10,000 in Marseilles. 100,000 protested in Berlin, some 20,000 protested in Athens, close to 10,000 people marched in Tokyo, and tens of thousands in Washington, D.C. Organizers claimed between 30,000 and 45,000 people turned out, while The Oregonian and the Associated Press estimated between 20,000 and 25,000 people attended, closer to the number in Portland who participated in the January 18 protest.[36] Thousands more marched in cities worldwide including Bangkok, Seoul, Hong Kong, Amman, Chicago, Calcutta, Melbourne, Christchurch, Dunedin, Paris, London, Portsmouth, Leeds, York, Exeter, Newcastle upon Tyne, Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Zürich, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Nicosia, Monaco, Santiago de Chile, Havana, Buenos Aires, Moscow, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Vancouver, Halifax, Ottawa, and Toronto, as well as cities in Yemen, Turkey, Israel, and the Palestinian territories.[34][37][38][39][40][41]

On March 16, more than 6,000 candlelight vigils for peace were held in more than a hundred countries.[42]

On March 19, across the United Kingdom tens of thousands of school students staged walkouts.

In Birmingham 4,000 (BBC estimate) striking school students held a demonstration which ended at Victoria Square. Though there were some reports of some students throwing coins, West Midlands police said that the protests were "buoyant rather than boisterous" and no arrests were made. The demonstration later moved on to Cannon Hill Park. The son of Lord Hunt, a junior health Minister who quit his job over the march, was amongst the students in attendance.[43]

In West Yorkshire around 500 students (BBC estimate) walked out of Ilkley Grammar School, reportedly one-third of the student body. In Bradford up to 200 students (BBC estimate) gathered in Centenary Square.

Demonstrations also took place in the city centre in Leeds and Horsforth.[44]

A large protest took place at Westminster where London school students gathered.

In Manchester, 300 (eye-witness Stop the War estimate) secondary school children, Further Education students and university students met at Albert Square at 12 noon. They marched to the BBC studios where they sat down in the road at around 1pm and blocked the traffic for over an hour where their numbers grew to around 1000 demonstrators. They were filmed by anti-war activists andvideo clips were distributed. The students then marched around the city centre and ended up back at Albert Square at about 4pm where they remained demonstrating in front of the Town Hall for some hours. The whole of this event was filmed by anti-war activists acumilating two hours of footage.

Note that these were all BEFORE the invasion.

You're going to try to blame the WMD debacle on the left? Really?

The real UncleB wrote:

It never was about gas. We never heard that from officialdom. Nor, as it turns out, was it about any of the myriad of reasons we were given for the war -- Iraq's culpability for 911 (false), WMDs (false), humanitarian reasons (please), and so on.

To really know what is was about, we would need to ask those who conceived and implemented the war -- Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith.

What else do these gentlemen have in common (besides bringing us the Iraq war)? Each has been either investigated or indicted for handing over US secret information to a foreign nation.

Unlike with other trolls it is IMPOSSIBLE to determine which one IS the "REAL" UncleB. You are both as ignorant and thoroughly boring as one another!

MonkeyMan, Democrats opposed to the invasion of Iraq did cower to the Bush Juggernaut, and acquiesed on their opposition due to a masterful PR campaign masterminded by Karl Rove. How many times did you hear "if you are against the war, then you are against the troops".

Democrats backed off their opposition for political survival. Everybody, except me, was drinking the Bush Kool-Aid. Military leaders were equally gutless in not opposing the Iraq war FOR MILITARY REASONS.

Military Tactics 101 - you don't fight a war on two fronts....Iraq AND Afghanistan.

You know I am right on this one!

Here, I've pared down your list to only include significant protests with >10,000 people that took place within the US (since that's what I was originally referring to). I never meant to imply that the rest of the world ever thought our invasion of Iraq was a good idea.

So, six sizeable protests in five months with the largest protest consisting of 150,000-200,000. Yeah, it seems like a pretty small minority opposed the war, which is pretty much what I said. Admittedly, my post may have been misleading because I did not perform a detailed wiki search to generate a list of pre-war demonstrations. My apologies.

Recall too that the american public punished GW Bush just 18 months later by re-electing him president.

definition of myriad: of an indefinitely great number; innumerable: the myriad stars of a summer night.

I am afraid you are incorrect.

Does this mean that you think that these gentlemen were not investigated and/or indicted for handing over US state secrets to a foreign state? Can you guess what nation that might have been?