Zbigndjksutjkjniew Brezinski

As a non-Pole, you have no right to make fun of his name. Having a name like "Zbigniew" just isn't within your universe of experience. You have no idea what it would mean to have that name.

And if you asked the American people if World War II was worth its much, much, much higher cost in American lives and fortune to save some Jews the answer also would have been NO!

And they would have been just as wrong.

So let's have a tally..what are Muslim lives worth compared to Jewish lives?
One half? One quarter?

And what would the public say about the cost in lives and fortune in the Civil War for some slaves. A cost percentage even bigger then WWII. What does
Brez think? Not worth it? Shouldn't have been done?

How about the War of Independence? Another huge waste? Shouldn't have been done? The king wasn't nearly as bad as Saddam, or Hitler, or slavery, why shouldn't we have just went along with that tyranny?

Brez think those liberations also should not have been fought? They were just blacks? They were just Jews, they were just Muslims...why should Brev care?

IF? Excuse me.... IF the American people were asked this?

THEY WERE ASKED THIS. I was one of the people who asked this. It was asked on blogs, it was asked in editorials, it was asked by 400,000 people marching outside the U.N.

The audacity of Brzezinski to imply some kind of guiltless "if only someone TOLD us this would be the worst fucking idea in American history" is astounding.

IF? Excuse me.... IF the American people were asked this?

THEY WERE ASKED THIS.

August, we were asked about tossing a tyrant on his ass, not playing referee in a civil war. There was a bad case of mission creep once we got there, one in which our input was unwelcome and unheard.

"The audacity of Brzezinski to imply some kind of guiltless "if only someone TOLD us this would be the worst fucking idea in American history" is astounding."

Easy fella. Zbig's on our side. He opposed this war from the getgo.

If you're one of Bush's campaign contributors, this war was worth a whole hell of a lot.

Why do you think it was started in the first place?

"literally every premise was a lie. There were no weapons of mass destruction."

I guess these are the lies you refer to.

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
--President Bill Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
--President Bill Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
-- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
-- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
-- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
-- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."
-- Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002

"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do"
-- Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
-- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..."
-- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

Anonymous, Saddam was no Hitler, so cut the crap. All you're doing is taking a gigantic piss all over the sacrifice of the millions and millions of people who died trying to put that monster down.

"So let's have a tally..what are Muslim lives worth compared to Jewish lives?
One half? One quarter?"

If you really believe that we were going in to save "Muslim lives," then you are stupider than the rest of your post would indicate. And the rest of your post indicates you're some mighy, mighty stupid.

ABg, whats your point? That some Democrats are almost as scummy as the Republicans are?

I'm not Hillary Clinton. I'm not not John Kerry. Quoting them doesn't really mean dick, now does it?

Be a fucking man and stand by the decisions you've made and fucked up so badly. Don't try to deflect blame onto other people. Take some fucking responsibility.

And if you asked the American people if World War II was worth its much, much, much higher cost in American lives and fortune to save some Jews the answer also would have been NO!

What an incredible insight you have into the mindset of the USA 61 years ago. And what an interesting conclusion you draw considering that the USA declared war on Japan because of that attack. A few days later Germany and Italy declared war on the USA, after which the USA reciprocated by declaring war on Germany and Italy (and assorted other countries).

So even if the response would have been "NO!" as in your scenario, what actually happened is that war was declared upon the USA. Not much choice at that point to support a war or not.

The rest of you comment is a strawman argument. No one is saying that Muslim lives are less important than anyone else's. In fact, Ezra is saying that Muslims in that region would be better off had this war never taken place.

Er, 67 years ago.

Uh, BCM, the "mission", if we can call it that, was definitely billed as something more like "bring democracy to Iraq". You *might* have a point if the adventure had been sold only as "depose Saddam, leave. Period."

But it wasn't. And in the world as it actually is, the "mission creep" of playing referee in a civil war a fairly predictable consequence. One warned of by many, many credible experts. (If not the "experts" given pre-war airtime on tv networks...)

August, I get your point and I mostly agree with it. This is a Democracy, and that means we're all responsible for the decisions of our govt. None of us took up arms and tried to overthrow it.

But I remember most people NOT agreeing with this war, and then saying they supported it after it already started to present a united front. I remember every news organization on the planet filling their heads with lies, and every leader in this country telling them they had to support this war. That can't be forgotten, even if it doesn't completely mitigate your point.

More LIARS

“Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.”
-Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

“He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983.”
–Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

“The intelligence which the president shared with us was in line with what we saw in the White House…”
- Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, 2003

To add on to August's sentiment, the American public deserves a portion of the blame for not engaging in even a cursory skepticism of what they were being told during the run-up to the war.

In the patriotic furor before the Iraqi war, the majority of people seemed happy to believe what they were told and willfully delude themselves. This is from a pre-war survey in 2003:

"Fifty-six percent said they oppose the postwar rebuilding efforts in Iraq if the United States would have to keep troops in the country for several years and spend $15 billion a year, the most conservative publicly available estimates of what it would take to stabilize a post-Hussein Iraq.”

Think about that: a majority of people said they would oppose spending $15 billion *per year* to rebuild Iraq. These estimates, while low-balled, were still available and public knowledge. Yet a majority of people publicly supported the war. Are our leaders entirely responsible for this cognitive disconnect?

http://www.1001words.com/2003/02/the-incredible-public.html

abg:
it's telling that most of the quotes you have are from 2002.

Many of the quotes are from people who had been fed distorted intel about just exactly what the state of affairs in Iraq was at the time.

In any case "you supported our stupid ideas at the time" is not much of a defense for stupid ideas. And as other commenters have pointed out, many of us were opposed to the war from the very beginning. Throughout the early months of 2003, I repeated early and often to anybody who would listen that Bush was lying the country into starting a war on bogus reasons.

To the anonymous fellow who thinks the US would not have fought WWII: wow, that is some revisionism there. And your conclusion is also off base. You seem to imply that it is desirable for leaders to put the citizens of the nation into a war, even when the populace doesn't want to fight that war, as long as the leaders are sure they are right. There is no more anti-democratic sentiment that I can think of. This is pure Cheney-esque nonsense. Given that the people of the country are the ones paying the bill and providing the manpower, I think it would be interesting to hear a justification for this anti-democratic attitude. What, because some pet cause of yours might hypothetically not have been supported?

If you dislike the idea of being led by majority rule, I suggest you consider just how much more volatile minority rule is in comparison. If you don't trust the majority, what principle would lead you to trust any minority?

Will any of your progressives please point to one election where American's voted against the war. You can shove your opinion polls up your ass, we don't rule by opinion polls. America had a chance to vote against the war in 2004 and Bush was re elected. All your claims of the majority of americans wouldn't have gone in had they known, and everyone is opposed are BS. We held an election, america spoke and you sorry cowards lost. Get over it.

THousands of Americans are still signing up to go over their and fight what do your comments on this board say about them? AH that's right your for the troops even though you never listen to what they say. When progressives stand up and do anything positive for this nation even once then we'll respect your thoughts, till then stick your thumb back in your mouth and stop crying the grown ups are making the world a better place, minus Sadam, democracy is spreding, and we are better off then we were 6 years ago, your ignorance of this surprises no one. It tracks closely your ignorance on Health Care, welfare, trade and everything else.

"""If you really believe that we were going in to save "Muslim lives," then you are stupider than the rest of your post would indicate. """

Actually it has been FACTUALLY proven by the UN that far more Iraqis were dying due to Clintons genocidal sanctions and embargoes, then are dying now after the liberation.

Millions died under Clintons policies all based on the Iraq has WMD lie, started by and perpetuated by the Clinton adminstrations led by George "SLAM DUNK" Tenet.

If George Bush had told you prior to Sept 11th that we would be attacked by cave dwelling terrorists from Afghnaistan that would destroy the World Trade Center and cost our economy a trillion dollars you all would have said he's a crazy war monger. You would have pointed out that Osama Bin laden has NO weapons that could threaten the US. You would have said Bush is a liar, etc. etc., and you would have been completely wrong.

We were also told that if we invade Afghanistan we would find Osama Bin Laden, guess what, NOT. Just like WMDs in Iraq, no Osama Bin Ladens in Afghanistan.

You should actually go back and read Bushs speeches you claim to know so well, WMD was not the first, nor second reason Bush had for liberating Iraq. Because the media, the UN and Europe made it all about WMD and inspections rather then the fact Saddam was a world class terrorist who was engaging in the destruction of his country with the help of the Clinton adminstrations.

Whispers, what war are you talking about. The Iraq liberation WAS voted on by your representatives, most Democrats voted for it. Look at the Iraq Liberation Act that Clinton himself signed. Look at the Iraqi war vote. Look at the annual funding and troop increases funded by a Democratic controlled Congress. This war has been voted on time and again and time and again the votes are in favor of waging it.

You can cite polls till your blue in the tush, but polls do not a Republic make.

It was actually Clinton that fought an illegal war that was not authorized by Congress and which violated the War Powers Act, not Bush.

And if anyone was lied to about intelligence, then the lies happened first under Clinton and were pepetuated by Clintons cronies. Bush did not have a single appointee sitting at the CIA in 2002, they were all Clinton people. They were all slam dunkers.

Anonymous: Your argument would have some merit if the reason for going to war had been to liberate the Iraqi people from a tyrant. However, only someone with very little understanding of history and what drives U.S. foreign policy could believe such a story. The real reason for going to war was to install a U.S.-friendly regime that would allow Iraq to be turned into a economic and military platform for U.S. hegemony in the Middle East. (See PNAC, see Peak Oil, see growing global struggle for resources.) Measured against this real standard of what the war was about, the jury on success is still out, although prospects are more negative than positive. The whole question of when and how the U.S. should withdraw is a sick joke, since it was never the aim to withdraw.

On another point, Anonymous: What on earth makes you imagine that the War of Independence was worth it? If it hadn't been for that war, all of you in the Federated Dominion of North America would now have parliamentary democracy, universal health care, and March Madness Curling.

What's even sadder then the American lives lost is the media and the lefts obsession with the number of casualties. As if they ever cared in any war they got us into how high they drove the casuality count.

It is so ridiculous that the number counters are left with including every soldiers who was ASSIGNED to the Iraq theater at the time of their death.

They are including soldiers that died in car accidents while on leave in Kuwait, or Bahrain, and even a guy who had a heart attack while on leave in Maine.

Such is the lenghts they feel they need to go to try to get Bush comparable to the 50,000, 100,000 or 200,00 they killed in their little unnecessary wars.

"""On another point, Anonymous: What on earth makes you imagine that the War of Independence was worth it""

Actually my family was split on the question. My great, great,great,great,great,great,great grandfather had sworn an oath to the King when he arrived in Philadelphia and would not fight in the war.
His sons however, two of them, did fight along side Washington in militias near Germantown.

I, myself, think it was worth it simply for the good dental care.

To add on to August's sentiment, the American public deserves a portion of the blame for not engaging in even a cursory skepticism of what they were being told during the run-up to the war.

That's a broad brush to apply to such a delicate subject, Jason. I personally thought the justifications for war was BS and I'm an American, thus your logic doesn't sit. If you meant to say a majority I'd agree with you, just don't put us all in the same boat.

If memory serves, the Admin actually did do a certain amount of quiet polling pre-war to determine how many casualties the public would tolerate.

By the standards by which the U.S. tried and executed many Japanese politicians after WWII, American politicians are guilty of war crimes. No hyperbole, cold legal facts. That's why there are so many unhinged responses to Ezra's post. There are people in this country who can't admit they approve of war crimes, as long as they're on the side committing them.

So I guess the only thing to do is pull back to the oilfields and force Iraq give us 1 trillion dollars worth of oil and call it quits.

Wow, nice job abg. Plenty of blame to go around.

Ezra, no doubt the Bush Admin lied, most convincingly to themselves. Bending facts to fit a predetermined thesis and course of action was so habitual to the chief actors that I doubt they themselves could sort the self-delusion from the bamboozling of the outside world. But this statement does not strictly speaking make sense:

"No one would have taken this deal. But it was never offered."

Of course it wasn't offered. Had the Bushies been the most responsible policymakers and communicators on the planet, they could not have "offered" in advance what actually happened. And if they believed that the outcome would be the evils you catalogued, they would chosen a different course of action.

"""On another point, Anonymous: What on earth makes you imagine that the War of Independence was worth it""

My ancestors thought it wasn't, and fled. I am eternally grateful for citizenship in a civilised nation with parliamentary democracy, universal health care, and March Madness Curling.

Not to mention not having been drawn into this Iraq idiocy, which was so patently absurd from the get-go even normally tag-along Canadians wouldn't sign up to provide some canoes and crullers in support.

I was against the war at the start, a war BTW that we won easily in 2 weeks, and I am for an immediate withdrawal now. But…

60% of Americans supported the war before the start and this is the reason that whore politicians democrats and republicans who should have known better went into it.

It's worth remembering the very false bill of goods under which the war was sold. It was to be a quick war -- a couple months at most -- where the Iraqi people greeted us as liberators and paid for reconstruction through oil revenues.

The war lasted only 2 weeks. The people did greet the US army as liberators, oh how short memories can be, but they were un-happy that we stayed around after winning the war to attempt to build a liberal democratic nation.

It was sold as a humanitarian mission on the one hand, and self-defense on the other. And it was to set off a wave of democratization across the Middle East.

This is very true. It was a liberal’s war as much as a neocon’s war. Even some woman’s liberations types supported the war. Liberal Christofer Hitchens is one of few fools still supporting the war as is Joe Liberman. The war cause a split among conservatives between neocons and paliocons. Hillary was a big support of the war as was Bill Clinton.

It was supposed to be good for us ending terrorism and good for the people of the Middle East bring democracy to them so it was and is sort of a humanitarian mission.

In the final accounting, literally every premise was a lie.

Every premise was a failure not a lie.

There were no weapons of mass destruction.

There where plenty of voices in the media before the war, saying that there were no weapons of mass destruction only deluded fools and the very risk averse were really concerned with WMDs in Iraq.

Hubris did us in sounds like in most other Government projects.

If you are against the whole thing, I am with you but let’s get the record straight and learn the correct lesson from it.

Further if you are trying to provide universal health care through government for some humanitarian reason to improve the health of the poor it will not work. Look at Australia, the UK and Canada where the difference in life expectancy and health between the rich and poor is just as big as in the USA. But if we go into it for the hard nosed reason of cutting spending it might work.

There really are still Bush dead-enders I guess; we see them in the comments here. It's especially choice that they talk about the value of Muslim lives. Those would, presumably, include the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis killed in an aggressive and unprovoked US war based on lies. And that's the point. Millions of us could see that they were lies. And the same people who are spreading fertilizer in this thread were there telling us that we were deluded traitors. Now they're the deluded ones, still chirping about how great things are in Iraq. Despite the fact that they were wrong about everything then and are wrong about everything now.

And people in the USA knew what they were getting into when they declared war on Japan and Germany, and clearly would have paid the costs even if they knew after the fact. Because, unlike the Iraq snipe hunt, there was actually something at stake in World War II. People will sacrifice for a real reason. Hysteria whipped up in bad faith? Not so compelling in the clear light of dawn. Thousands dead in a war that make things worse, harm the interests of our country, and betrays our values is not a bargain compared to hundreds of thousands dead to defeat Hitler. This isn't rocket science. (And, troll repellent, it isn't the fault of the soliders that they were sent on a fools mission.)

The point is that they all had access to the same intel. Hillary admitted she didn't even read the intel report. How can someone vote for war without even investigating to the full extent possible? But that is beside the point.

You don't engage in a war and then pull out cuz it is politically expedient. The whole world thought Iraq had WMD. I thought we should have went in. Knowing what I know now I would not have cuz I think Iraq kept Iran in check. But we are there and if we leave, hundreds of thousands if not millions of innocent muslims everyone is worried will be slaughtered.

But don't complain about Bush's lies or else you have to acknowledge all the democrat's lies as well.

Otherwise you lack intillectual honesty.

ABG, I would submit to you that there is a reason why Hillary is losing this nomination battle.

Is there anyone who really thinks she wouldn't be cruising to an easy victory had she voted against the war?

What on earth makes you imagine that the War of Independence was worth it? If it hadn't been for that war, all of you in the Federated Dominion of North America would now have parliamentary democracy, universal health care, and March Madness Curling.

The interesting thing about this commenter is he believes these are universally desirable outcomes.
Along with all of this additional socialism, we would have homosexual marriage and harsher gun control, more issues he probably thinks everyone else wants.

Thank GOD my ancestors weren't the PUSSIES that his were.

Thank GOD my ancestors weren't the PUSSIES that his were.
Posted by: El Viajero | April 1, 2008 1:07 PM

Indeed, Fred, they fought and died so that you could be the ultimate pussy posting anonymous screech on a daily basis on other people's blogs.
You wingnuts could pick up a whole lot of cred by just admitting that every single premise of your imperial war was, at best, wrong, and at worst, a flat out lie. Hand picking a bunch of quotes and copy pasting them on these blogs every few days or so is an awfully pussy defense, you know. Pretty much nothing, nothing at all, has unfolded in Iraq the way you wingnuts desperately wished for. Everybody knows this. The whole world knows this, except for the 19% or so left here still fighting over who will comfort Cheney's member tonight. Not a proud moment for you wingnut types.

The interesting thing about this commenter is he believes these are universally desirable outcomes.
Along with all of this additional socialism, we would have homosexual marriage and harsher gun control, more issues he probably thinks everyone else wants.

Thank GOD my ancestors weren't the PUSSIES that his were.

LMAO, that's great. I can't believe I was taking morons like this seriously just because some of them were commenting anonymously or under new pseudonyms. A list of possible virtues of a non-independent America includes "March Madness Curling," so to anyone with a third-grade reading level or higher and two brain cells to rub together, it's obviously tongue-in-cheek. But one or both of those traits doesn't apply to Robert Zimmerman, aka Fred Jones, aka El Viajero.

Speaking of whom, it's hilarious to see you trying to call others dishonest.