Did Congress REALLY Vote For The Iraq War?

[BlueMTexpat]

38. I don't believe that either Kerry

or Clinton was running for President in 2002. But perhaps you are better informed than I about that. From what I remember, Kerry was only a candidate in 2004 and Clinton not before 2008.

As for Bush's intentions from the get-go - even before 9-11 - they were to go after Saddam Hussein under ANY circumstances whatsoever. That was clear to ANYONE who was paying attention from 2000 on.

That was clear from his choice of Cheney (the guy who was STILL deeply POed because Bush I & Baker stopped the war before ousting Saddam in 1991) as a running mate, and his appointment of neocon warmongers (Wolfowitz, Feith, Bolton, Rumsfeld, etc.) to key senior government positions early on. I was paying close attention and writing letters to legislators to point this out, way before the 2002 IWR. Neither MD Senator voted for the IWR and I like to think that both were paying attention as too many Dems apparently were not.

Powell was only and always window dressing. He was never part of the "inner circle", but let himself be used, especially in the UN situation, for which I will never forgive him. Abu Ghraib was when the scales finally fell from his eyes, but by then, it was WAY too late, so he went through the motions for the rest of Buhs's 1st term. Condi Rice knew zilch about the ME, but both Cheney and Rumsfeld, like other neocons, were stuck back in the days of the Cold War, and wanted to restart some form of it because it would be good for their business interests. So Condi's outdated but fairly credible knowledge of USSR policies got her into the inner circle, where she was too "honored" and dazzled to be critical of their warmongering in the ME. Or anything or anywhere else, for that matter. Like Powell, she was also window dressing in a way because neither was a full-blown neocon.

By his second term, even feckless dimwit Bush realized that his policies had completely backfired. By then, Condi was the only one he trusted. But it was all too late by then and his disastrous policies have had disastrous consequences which will continue for some time in the future.

Unfortunately, what you see as the end of the story has not been. And that is my problem with Sanders: yes, he voted the right way on the IWR, but he has not only and always been anti-war, much as he would like you to believe that. His anti-IWR vote is the extent of his "knowledge" of foreign policy that I can see.

It is simply not enough for today's world where things are never as clear-cut as they were in the fall of 2002. That is the end of the story.