That glorification of "service" is part of a midaevil honor culture in which offenses real and imagined must be avenged with physical force and revenge is mandatory for any attack, justified or no. That culture seems to run strongly in the South.
It seems that, among the people who needed to learn lessons from the invasion of Iraq, only a spattering learned the right lessons and the rest are elbowing each other to be the first in line for a do-over.
Isikoff and Corn are magnificent in their organization of the facts as we rushed, headlong, into this needless conflict. Hubris is the perfect title/label for what ensued. From lies promulgated to force clear thinking folk being called non-patriots and traitors when they dared to object to this war, to the obfuscations(more fucking lies) tossed out to conceal the lack of a substantive rationale for the deaths of thousands of American, countless Iraqis, and the those losses incurred by our 'coalition' partners...nothing has been gained. Many of us were 'woke' then and now. The parallels between 2003 and now are uncanny and 'Hubris...' is a bit heartbreaking in that context. Rethuglicans, evangelicals, and just plain money-grabbers(lookin' at you mil-def establishment) get us into this shit and we, as lib/prog/dems need to get us out of it. Yeah...there is a crappy world out there...but there are better ways to engage it than with weapons.
Consider: what are the three good reasons Iran is our sworn enemy?There aren't any. They are Saudi sworn rivals. As was secular Iraq. We are destroying all their competitors for religious dominion on the peninsula. Proxy fighters in a religious war. Consider: we have to transport ourselves 5000 miles to chase a handful of militia. For 20 years. Not even the people responsible for 9/11. How big a threat can they really be?Why are we occupying Iraq?
You are required to keep the classified information you know classified for your entire lifetime. No NDA needed, it might be the law (would need to clarify that, but I assume so).
They could publish a book with the unclassified information they know, but it would have to be reviewed by the relevant classification authorities for anything that might have slipped through by accident (that happens more easily than you might think. Sometimes one piece of information by itself is okay and another piece of information by itself is okay, but both of them together is very not okay).
And I think that there is a time period when all this will be declassified due to time passing. But that's not going to happen for some decades, because I'm not even certain we've reached that point for the Vietnam War.
I'd recommend that all USians read Twain's "The War Prayer" (about three minutes' reading time) and Smedley Butler's (at the time most-decorated U.S. service member) "War Is a Racket."But Twain's point would sail right over the heads of most of our stupid country and Butler would dismissed as an America-hater.Anyway, for those interested in some interesting, and little known, history of America's goodly military interventions, here's this. It details how the U.S. has been in the genocide bidness for some time and how it royally fuk'd up a nation by installing an oligarchy to finally end a decade of horrific slaughter:https://www.historyisaweapo...
I was too young to vote when we invaded Iraq, but I still supported it and bought into all the bullshit evidence, hook, line, and sinker.I'm ashamed of that.
That glorification of "service" is part of a midaevil honor culture in which offenses real and imagined must be avenged with physical force and revenge is mandatory for any attack, justified or no. That culture seems to run strongly in the South.
Mmmmmmmmm.....cake.....
It seems that, among the people who needed to learn lessons from the invasion of Iraq, only a spattering learned the right lessons and the rest are elbowing each other to be the first in line for a do-over.
(You'll notice I went to brunch and never came back...)
There was a large protest march in Boston against going to war. Lots of us knew it was stupid but it didn't matter.
We were traitors after all.
Fox News sold the bullshit line that he was on saddam’s payroll.
They’ve been a disaster for longer than that.
Isikoff and Corn are magnificent in their organization of the facts as we rushed, headlong, into this needless conflict. Hubris is the perfect title/label for what ensued. From lies promulgated to force clear thinking folk being called non-patriots and traitors when they dared to object to this war, to the obfuscations(more fucking lies) tossed out to conceal the lack of a substantive rationale for the deaths of thousands of American, countless Iraqis, and the those losses incurred by our 'coalition' partners...nothing has been gained. Many of us were 'woke' then and now. The parallels between 2003 and now are uncanny and 'Hubris...' is a bit heartbreaking in that context. Rethuglicans, evangelicals, and just plain money-grabbers(lookin' at you mil-def establishment) get us into this shit and we, as lib/prog/dems need to get us out of it. Yeah...there is a crappy world out there...but there are better ways to engage it than with weapons.
Consider: what are the three good reasons Iran is our sworn enemy?There aren't any. They are Saudi sworn rivals. As was secular Iraq. We are destroying all their competitors for religious dominion on the peninsula. Proxy fighters in a religious war. Consider: we have to transport ourselves 5000 miles to chase a handful of militia. For 20 years. Not even the people responsible for 9/11. How big a threat can they really be?Why are we occupying Iraq?
Redemptive violence. An American tradition
MIC..
It also runs strong in Hollywood productions.
You are required to keep the classified information you know classified for your entire lifetime. No NDA needed, it might be the law (would need to clarify that, but I assume so).
They could publish a book with the unclassified information they know, but it would have to be reviewed by the relevant classification authorities for anything that might have slipped through by accident (that happens more easily than you might think. Sometimes one piece of information by itself is okay and another piece of information by itself is okay, but both of them together is very not okay).
And I think that there is a time period when all this will be declassified due to time passing. But that's not going to happen for some decades, because I'm not even certain we've reached that point for the Vietnam War.
So maybe when people are held accountable it might make hard for them to fuck it all up again
I'd recommend that all USians read Twain's "The War Prayer" (about three minutes' reading time) and Smedley Butler's (at the time most-decorated U.S. service member) "War Is a Racket."But Twain's point would sail right over the heads of most of our stupid country and Butler would dismissed as an America-hater.Anyway, for those interested in some interesting, and little known, history of America's goodly military interventions, here's this. It details how the U.S. has been in the genocide bidness for some time and how it royally fuk'd up a nation by installing an oligarchy to finally end a decade of horrific slaughter:https://www.historyisaweapo...
I was too young to vote when we invaded Iraq, but I still supported it and bought into all the bullshit evidence, hook, line, and sinker.I'm ashamed of that.