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The Architects of the Iraq War: Where Are They Now?
They’re all doing great, thanks for asking.
The U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq 20 years ago in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
We have no idea how many Iraqi deaths there have been. Various estimates range from 151,000 to over a million. While the U.S. ultimately spent at least $3 trillion on the war and the CIA put down $1 billion just to figure out that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, we’ve allocated exactly zero dollars to learn how many Iraqis have died thanks to the US.
How are the Architects of the Iraq War doing? Voltaire said that humanity invented hell to dissuade people from doing wrong when they noticed there didn’t seem to be any consequences for it here on Earth. On this bleak anniversary, you can certainly understand where he was coming from:
1) George W. Bush
Bush is gobbling down huge quantities of money on the speaking circuit, where he charges at least $100,000 for an hour of his thoughts and reflections. He recently condemned “the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.” Then he said, “I mean, of Ukraine!” and he and his audience all chortled, because you have to admit that’s pretty funny.
“I mean, of Ukraine!” Ha ha ha ha ha, what a scamp.
George Bush bungles speech condemning Putin invasion with Iraq reference
2) Dick Cheney
Vice President Cheney told one of the most blatant lies about Iraq during the buildup to the war. In an August 2002 speech, he claimed that when Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law Hussein Kamel defected in 1995, he revealed that Iraq was trying to make nuclear weapons again. In reality, Kamel had insisted that Iraq had no unconventional weapons of any kind. This was not a big secret: Kamel said it on CNN in an interview that was available to anyone with an internet connection. America’s crack press corps ripped the lid off Cheney’s obvious deceit by completely missing it.
Since leaving office, Cheney has spent his time fishing, endorsing Donald Trump for president in 2016, and not being prosecuted for torture. Also, for a period of time, he had a kind of external mechanical heart that pushed blood through his veins continuously, meaning that he had no heartbeat yet was still alive (?).
More at https://web.archive.org/web/20230315212143/https://theintercept.com/20
23/03/15/iraq-war-where-are-they-now/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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On the anti-abortion right, which has a stranglehold on the GOP, there are no moderate positions on abortion. Once you’ve staked your political future on the claim that abortion is literally murder, there is no arguing for lenience.
There is nothing currently stopping Republican officials in states where the GOP is in power from enacting the most radical version of their stated agenda: not the courts, not their future political prospects, not voters, not humility in the face of the human body’s complexity, not empathy for the people bound by their laws. Even the direct democracy option is drifting out of reach. Voters have favored abortion rights in every direct ballot initiative that has come up for a vote since Roe was overturned, but Republicans in several states—including Florida—are working to make it harder for residents to get propositions on the ballot.
Republicans have little to gain and a lot to lose (like a GOP primary) from moderating their positions on abortion. That’s why almost every state that has restricted legal abortion since the end of Roe has gone with a full ban, despite the fact that the majority of people in those states disapprove of such bans.
Stargel, the senator who sponsored the “not being mean” 15-week ban in 2022, said at the time that she wanted to propose a stricter ban, but she “knew we could never get that bill passed” because the Florida public was “not there yet.” Less than one year later, with a six-week ban around the corner, it is clear that what was restraining the Florida GOP in 2022 had nothing to do with what the Florida public did or did not want, because nothing in that realm has changed significantly since then. The only two things that distinguish this moment from that one are the absence of a constitutional protection for legal abortion—and the political will to disregard the majority of voters who support it.
More at https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/03/florida-abortion-ban-six-w
eeks.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs Across the U.S.
There's an easy fix for that.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The Architects of the Iraq War: Where Are They Now?
They're all cheerleading your fuckin' war in Ukraine. Idiot.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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Jimmy Carter lost his 1980 reelection bid against Ronald Reagan thanks in part to the long-running Iranian hostage drama. It's long been suspected that Reagan's team actively tried to persuade Iran not to release the hostages so that Carter wouldn't get a victory bump, but there's never been any firm proof until now: https://jabberwocking.com/reagan-team-tried-to-sabotage-hostage-talks-
before-the-1980-election/
Tom Nichols was unimpressed with the story about Texas governor John Connally's 1980 mission to let the Iranians know they should wait a while before releasing the embassy hostages. But did Reagan know about any of this? We know the hostages were released within minutes after Reagan was sworn in. And we know that arms began flowing from Israel to Iran a few days later, something that could happen only with a US blessing. And we also know that Reagan was perfectly happy to trade arms for hostages later in his presidency during the Iran-Contra scandal.
Given all this, you'd have to be willfully obtuse to continue thinking it unlikely that Reagan—or at least his senior staff—knew what was going on: https://jabberwocking.com/ronald-reagan-and-the-hostages/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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lol @ jabberwokeing and Jimmy Carter.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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Quote:Ronald Reagan promised to give weapons to Iran if Iran would help him win the election against Carter. That was because Reagan was a crook. Nixon did the same thing in Vietnam: If the Vietnamese helped Nixon win, then Nixon would pay them back.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
lol @ jabberwokeing and Jimmy Carter.
Did Nixon Commit Treason in 1968? What The New LBJ Tapes Reveal.
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/60446
Quote:
Nixon’s promise of diplomatic backing for Johnson’s post-election peace efforts, coupled with the Republican’s backing away from his advisors’ criticisms of LBJ, seemed to be enough for Johnson. The President didn’t publicly reveal what he knew about the Nixon operatives and South Vietnam.
Nixon, of course, got the better of this arrangement: avoiding a pre-election bombshell that could very well have swung enough votes in a tight election, he narrowly bested Humphrey. The post-election peace talks, meanwhile, unsurprisingly went nowhere: the Thieu regime, fully confident that it would receive a better settlement from the presumably hard-line anti-communist Nixon, proved no more willing to negotiate after November 5 than before the election. And so, in the end, no one was held accountable for actions that Johnson had labeled “treason.”
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Ronald Reagan promised to give weapons to Iran if Iran would help him win the election against Carter. That was because Reagan was a crook. Nixon did the same thing in Vietnam: If the Vietnamese helped Nixon win, then Nixon would pay them back.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
lol @ jabberwokeing and Jimmy Carter.
Oh yeah?
What's Biden* doing right now.
lol
You morons made a big fucking deal about a phone conversation Trump had with child rapist Zelensky back in the day, but Trump didn't give track-suit Z $125 BILLION and counting or have a son on his energy board making $60k per month while his only contribution to Ukraine was doing all the cocaine in the country so the citizens couldn't buy any.
You are not even worth having a conversation with.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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Quote:1) Reagan promises to secretly (remember, it's a big secret) give weapons to America's enemy, Iran. Iran promises to elect Reagan. By the way, Iran is still America's enemy.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Oh yeah?
What's Biden* doing right now.
lol
You morons made a big fucking deal about a phone conversation Trump had with child rapist Zelensky back in the day, but Trump didn't give track-suit Z $125 BILLION and counting or have a son on his energy board making $60k per month while his only contribution to Ukraine was doing all the cocaine in the country so the citizens couldn't buy any.
You are not even worth having a conversation with.
2) Trump promises to withhold weapons from friendly Ukraine unless Ukraine helps elect Trump. Trump immediately got in trouble over this because the people doing the translation between Ukrainian and English were loyal to the USA. They were not allowed by law to work for electing Trump. For some reason, Trump thinks government employees are supposed to break the law to reelect Trump.
3) Biden promises weapons to Ukraine so that Russia can't conquer Ukraine. Russia threatens to nuke the USA if Biden sends weapons to Ukraine. By the way, Russia has been threatening to nuke the USA since Russia got nukes, resulting in an arms race costing $ trillions.
6ix, can you tell the difference between 1, 2, and 3?
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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