I am naive. I thought there were limits... places folks wouldn't go. [View all]

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Fri Mar 28, 2014, 02:59 AM - Edit history (1)

I watched Obama's Brussels speech live yesterday. Having taken a great interest in what I consider a serious Russian aggression in annexing a portion of another country under military threat, I wanted to hear what he said.

It was mostly a boring speech full of eye-rolling moments, but when the President is acting as diplomat-in-chief it is hard to keep things real. Fair enough.

The section referring to Iraq was really... bad. I cringed to think what would happen on DU. I had opinions about it but did not feel like posting about it yesterday.

Then today it really started up. And joined in.

I expected a lot of hate from some usual suspects, and a lot of parsing and whistling past the graveyard and double-talk from others.

And saying Obama was in a difficult position and trying to put the best face on things is fine. I am down with that. I do not seek opportunities to criticize the man. And since I seriously have issues with the folks pumping Russian propaganda about Ukraine, and am on Obama's side on this issue, and I didn't feel like being associated with anyone being triumphant about the whole "because Iraq" Putin apologia thing.

Yes, there would be some defense, deflection and even (in extreme cases) staunch refusal to acknowledge the meaning of basic words in a transcript. But several thoughtful sympathetic worth-reading things were written about why Obama said what he said Good posts, even if I disagreed in places.

But I honestly did not expect anyone to treat the matter like just one more incident to be white-washed and shouted down... for anyone to minimize Iraq, to put it in "perspective," to dismiss it, to treat the Iraq War like just another issue to be spun. I didn't expect to see a tone of poor babies didn't get their peace pony because only a sniveling troll could plausibly be upset about Obama pointing out some of the not-so-bad parts of a huge moral crime.

And Isurely did not expect to see anyone actually defending the diplomacy (sic) involved in the run-up to the war, or the aims or conduct of the war itself, merely in order to maintain a position that everything Obama has ever said is RIGHT, or to contend against the other "side."

But there were. And I want to note the irony. The reason Obama is in the White House today is that the Iraq War was utterly wrong. Pillar to post. Every jot and tittle. Wrong. Monstrous. Horrific. Stupid. Tragic. Insane. Crooked.

To see Obama defended by revising the history of the Iraq War, by soft-pedaling its seriousness, by slurring people who object... that is in some dark place well beyond mere irony.

And this isn't some "Only Nixon could go to China thing." It isn't that Obama, as someone who opposed the war, is better positioned to say it wasn't 100% bad. He is horribly positioned to say that because his whole credibility is tied up with knowing that even if he didn't say it, that surely Obama knows that what we did was not just a "stupid war," but was an immense moral crime.

So it is alarming and disillusioning even outside the sphere of perma-bashers. It isn't just another football to kick around.

It is the Iraq F'ing War. And for Americans it should be "never again." And that means not letting it drift into some historical grab-ass zone.

It is Iraq. It is more important than "sides." And we have not, in fact, always been at war with EastAsia. And there is nothing good, double-plus or otherwise, about pretending that Obama did not defend elements of the US conduct of the taking of Iraq that really ought not be defended.

It does not make him a bad man.

But it is dangerous, morally dangerous, to be blasse about that speech. Yes, there are solid reasons for it, but not sufficient reasons. And yes, some folks have been hyperbolic in their criticism of it.

But it is IRAQ, dammit. It is beyond mere politics and games and sides.