"Well, you kinda had to be there at the time."

[BeyondGeography]

Link to tweet

?s=61&t=EcvWMxA1syxTf8zqNwq-IA

[Baitball Blogger]

1. White conservative American insanity.

Talking to someone who had a direct loss when the towers fell, they just wanted someone to do something in retaliation and for conservative types, one dark skinned country is no different than another.

I'll tell you the mothers who wised up to geography. It was the mothers who sons and daughters died in a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.

[treestar]

14. why drag "white" into it

middle eastern people are caucasian (white). The Russians are white, so white opponents are not out. In fact, America is the diverse locality. And this was done on behalf of America. And the American military is diverse.

[Baitball Blogger]

15. You failed to include the word "conservative."

Which makes a huge difference. I was here during that time. I tried to step up and point the obvious fact that we were being misled into a war by a president who was not being given proper intel. And I got slammed for it. So, fuck you to all who think there was a "we" in this situation. It matters when Americans are being misled and allowing themselves to be used as useful idiots. There is no "we" involved in this when it comes to blame for being sheep. There are leaders who should have been held responsible for their bad decisions, and they weren't. And because of that, WE were all shoved into a dark rabbit hole, waiting for one of them to die of natural causes before the truth came out.

[treestar]

16. as to that, we are part of a country

and likewise, there could have been Muslims who didn't approve of 911, maybe even a majority.

We can't avoid being responsible on some level. "We" got attacked on 911 because of what the country's leaders had done in the middle east. So "we" attacked a place whose leaders allowed or supported the 911 attacks.

[Baitball Blogger]

17. I will disagree.

How many times do we blame the other side for not standing up against the rogue members in their own party? What do we say? If you're silent, then you're complicit. History should remember that period as a time when the hard right forced us into a war against the wrong country, and refused to listen to reasonable people. It was a time when useful idiots never fully understood how they helped the wrong forces to take over, and it was a precursor for what we're seeing today. We should learn from that era. It is more patriotic to stand up against your leader's abuse of power, than it is to follow like a lemming.

[treestar]

18. We did have protests against Iraq War

Didn't do immediate good. But it did in the end become unpopular and was stopped.

[Wounded Bear]

2. There's actually a LOT of that in history...

and not just US history at that.

[genxlib]

3. That is what PTSD at the national scale looks like

It remains untreated and is still the cause of a lot of underlying issues in America

[Duppers]

12. +100

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. Oh, it made sense. It just depended on the goal people were aiming for.

[Lonestarblue]

11. It made economic sense for Cheney and Halliburton.

[Trenzalore]

5. Remember when a purple heart amputee war hero was run out of office for a draft dodger

because he wasn't pro-war enough.

You had to be there at the time to understand.

[OAITW r.2.0]

6. Project for a New American Century explains the gameplan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

Thanks Bill Krystal and Robert Kagan!

[Deep State Witch]

7. A Lot of Us in the IC

Made the same argument. We were taking our attention off of Afghanistan, where we KNEW that the bad guys were.

[LeftinOH]

8. Exploiting Americans' epic lack of geographical knowledge helped.

Iraqistan, Saddam Bin HusseinLaden, Talibaghdad ...it's all the same, right?

[JHB]

9. I'd be a bit more thorough than "you had to be there"...

I had a whole laundry list, and more to the point, I was right for the right reasons. The criticisms I made then hold up pretty well, whereas plenty of people with better resumes on the subject either fell for it or just went along., and were dead wrong.

Thankfully, he does recognize how inadequate a comment like that was, and is dismayed at how it isn't studied nearly enough.

Lastly - I fervently wish more discussions like this happened at commissioning sources. Or even military PME in general. I am frankly alarmed at how quickly and eagerly everyone wants to move on from the last 20 years, from both professional and personal levels

Professionally, the 2003 invasion of Iraq needs to be studied for service members to truly understand the intersection of politics, strategy, and military service

Personally, those who deployed there have a LOT of feelings on it. Speaking to younger generations helps w those

Link to tweet

[Richard D]

10. A very upsetting fact about Iraq

It was a war for the sake of war as a war was needed at that moment.
Only cost over a million lives with tens of millions more maimed for life.
Not to mention the destruction of one of the oldest civilizations on the planet and the rape of their cultural heritage.

[Duppers]

13. Uncle Dick made a ton of $$$

I wonder if Liz could ever acknowledge this fact?

[Aristus]

19. Not if she wants to be in the will.

And when is that scowling, growling, heartless motherfucker going to DIE already?