I Was Anti-War From the Beginning: Do I Get a Prize?

[Placebo]

Well? :party:

I think all of us who were wise enough to know that Iraq was a mistake and would become a disaster deserve some kind of pat on the back, no? :shrug:

[NMDemDist2]

1. i think most of us were against the Iraq war

we all knew it would be a disaster

:pals:

[JohnKleeb]

3. yeah I think so too

I thought the idea was pretty kooky honestly, I proudly debated against in class, heh I of course lost my temper as I always do.

[nickgutierrez]

11. Ha, sounds familiar

I have a good temper though. Usually.

"You realize we're not going to find any weapons, right?"

"What? He has tons of stuff!"

"We'll see."

[K-W]

18. Thinking there were probably weapons has nothing to do with anti-war

but thanks for trying.

[nickgutierrez]

20. It was part of the case for war

And if you're going to go about dismantling the case for war, that's as good a place as any to start.

[K-W]

23. Let me try and piece together your logic.

If you were truely anti-war, you would assume all the facts in the case for the war were false and then dismantle the case by proving there were no WMD's, which was absolutely impossible to prove at the time.... brilliant.

Obviously there werent the WMD's they claimed. He didnt have huge stockpiles, he didnt have nukes, he didnt have delivery systems that could get to the US. But it was perfectly possible that he had some chemical or biological agents.

Claiming there were 0 weapons was just as silly as the Bush administrations claims, neithe statements were backed by evidence. I prefer to be rational, not reactionary. It was very possible that Iraq had something in the WMD catagory, resting our anti-war stance on that would have been silly.

[nickgutierrez]

27. I was right, wasn't I?

And yes, there was plenty of information out there that suggested that Iraq's WMD programs were something other than potent, one of them an interview by one of DU's very own. With a former UN weapons inspector in a position to know these things, no less.

[K-W]

28. So you are a psychic?

You saw into the future and knew we would find nothing? If so, I guess you were right. I would like to take your crystal ball for a test drive.

But if you were just making unsubstantiated claims, no, you werent right, you were spinning the facts to make a case you couldnt prove, just like Bush.

A rational person would have said what most people here said, which was that we dont know exactly what saddam has, but he certainly doesnt have enough, or the intent to threaten us, so war is not justified. It is however very possible that he still has some chemical or biological agents, he had them at one point and we have nothing but thier word that they were all destroyed.

So if you claimed then that there were no WMD you were being dishonest, and now you have the audacity to claim that those of us who didnt make unjustified jumps to conclusion werent really anti-war?

Thats just sad.

[nickgutierrez]

30. Do you read anything other than a subject line???

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1893956385/ref=pd_sim_books_1/103-5350074-5209441?v=glance&s=books

Note the publishing date.

September 25, 2002

From the summary:

" Ritter--ex-Marine, intelligence specialist, expert on Iraqi military strategy, and Gulf War veteran--dismantles the myths surrounding Saddam Hussein's biological, chemical and nuclear weapons capabilities..."

I'm not responding any more - flame away.

[K-W]

33. Ah, run away instead of answering.

You have made two outrageous claims, and Id appreciate it if youd back them up.

1. You had to disbelieve all WMD claims to be pro-war.
Do you truely believe this? It goes beyond any semblence of logic and is an insult to many people here, around the country, and around the world.

2. You knew that Iraq had 0 WMD's
Not you, not Scott Ritter, no one short of Saddam and God knew for sure what Saddam had. So you can cite as many amazon pages as you want, you cant claim you knew there were 0 weapons until you show me your crystal ball.

[nickgutierrez]

29. I should clarify, I guess

It wasn't the reason that *I* personally opposed the war - I knew what it was about. Who stood to gain, whose interests were at stake, how long the planning had been going on, and so on.

Don't think I didn't use that.

It seems to me that the way to convince people to oppose the war was to show that the case for war was total bullshit.

[K-W]

34. And the case was BS, but claiming there were 0 WMD was BS too.

I opposed the war for the same reasons you did. Yes, the case was bullshit. Yes the WMD case was bullshit. that does not mean that there were no WMD's at all, and you could not possibly have known that there were none at the time, thus if you claimed that, you were misleading people.

[nolabels]

41. I have only one thing to say to that

http://www.bloodforoil.com/index.php

[K-W]

42. What part of this dont you people understand.

Yes, it seems now, that there were no WMD's. hindsight is 20/20, that has nothing to do with what information was available in the pre-war period. At that time, if you claimed you knew that there were 0 WMD's you were lying. Nobody besides Saddam knew exactly what saddam had.

Frankly, I think a case could have been made against the war without misleading, somehow making exagerated claims about WMD's seems like something we should just let Bush do, not something anti-war people should have done.

[nolabels]

49. I was really never for ANY war and just joking with you

It is really hard to explain to others what Peace is. I say this because we live in a violent world and have never really known what it is really. Every life form on the earth must fight for it's survial, it's a fact of life.

We 'peoples'are just a little different only because we battle in the now for things that MIGHT happen in the future. Which sounds kind of crazy on the face of it.

I see the debate, the debate being 'who gets to frame the debate' of course. I would say the aggressor unless he is in too weak of a position to begain with (bushco comes to mind). At that point the debate is on who get to frame, which brings us back full circle.

We won the debate, we just need to claim the prize

http://www.earthday.net/events/humanrightswwreport2001.stm

[Mandate My Ass]

60. YOU PEOPLE????????

Give me a frikkin break.:eyes:

I think you have it backwards. You can't prove a negative, and you shouldn't even be asked to do so because it's impossible.

OTOH, if you want to make the extreme decision to kill innocent as well as allegedly guilty people because they supposedly harbor WMDs, the burden of proof is on YOUR SIDE!

No such proof was ever provided. Every one of their claims fell apart from the drones, to aluminum tubes to the Niger uranium purchase and on and on.

[Eloriel]

43. Not at ALL true, K-W

Claiming there were 0 weapons was just as silly as the Bush administrations claims, neithe statements were backed by evidence.

There was AMPLE "evidence" from a wide variety of sources -- Saddam Hussein's brother-in-law who defected then got lured back and was killed; Scott Ritter; Hans Blix; other reporters at the time (esp. UK but also some in the US) who didn't get much media play here; on and on. I knew with some 99% certainty that there WERE no weapons. Period. As did most of the anti-Iraq-war DUers at the time.

[K-W]

45. 99% certainty? Come on people.

What on earth are you trying to prove?

Just deal with the fact that we couldnt know at the time whether or not in some compound somewhere, saddam didnt have some agents stored. Hans Blix never did and never would ahve said he didnt have anything. Nobody besides a MINORITY of DU'rs would make such a rediculous claim.

You couldnt have known with 99% certainty, not without going beyond the evidence... which is exactly what we critisize Bush for doing.

Dont you see that it is bad to exagerate evidence, whether you are pushing a war or opposing it?

The factual, evidence based WMD argument is that from the inspections we knew that he did not have a substantial program. He had no nukes. If he did have something it was not weaponized or ready to use. But he might very well have some somewhere stored. But that doesnt matter, because that wouldnt justify a war.

[Eloriel]

46. Sorry, 99% sure it is

I can't speak for you, but I CAN speak for myself, and from all that I read (and I was reading CONSTANTLY), *I* was 99% certain. I think a lot of DUers were similarly well-informed. And to tell you the truth, the only reason I wasn't 100% certain was that Bush&Co. kept INSISTING there were WMDs. Gave me that teensy nagging doubt. But the "evidence" against it was pretty overwhelming, including line-by-line analyses by a Cambridge University professor who had a website where he constantly updated his findings using the U.N.'s and U.S.'s very own PUBLICLY AVAILABLE documents to debunk the spin and simply bogus claims being made by Bush&CO at the time.

YOUR factual evidence recitation is woefully incomplete:

The factual, evidence based WMD argument is that from the inspections we knew that he did not have a substantial program. He had no nukes. If he did have something it was not weaponized or ready to use. But he might very well have some somewhere stored. But that doesnt matter, because that wouldnt justify a war.

I don't know if this link will be helpful to you or not, but you can take a look if the mood strikes:

http://www.ceip.org/files/projects/npp/resources/iraqintell/adminquoteshtml.htm

[K-W]

47. There is no way you could possibly have been 99% sure

That is exagerating the case against WMD's.

There is not a source on this planet that knew what was in every square inch of Iraq pre-war. You werent well informed, you were ill informed. There was NO information whatsoever that proved with any certainty that there was nothing. Certainly not enough for any rational person to say they were 99% sure there was nothing.

My mind is boggled that you continue to push this idea, its logically silly. It makes absolutely no sense. How on earth could you pretend to know that there wasnt a bunker somewhere in Iraq with some chemical agents in it?

There were so many good factual arguments against the war and against the case for war. Why do you feel the need to exagerate? The only way to prove with 99% certaintity that he had nothing would have been to invade and tear through everything... which we did. But until now there is no way on earth any rational person could conclude with 99% certainty that there was nothing whatsoever in Iraq. Not one barrell of a chemical, not one shell with a toxin.

Were there substantial WMDs, No. Were there nukes, No. Was there a functioning program, No. Did they pose any threat at all to the US, NO.

Those are all things you could have known with great certainty. One fo the few things you couldnt possibly know was whether something existed somewhere.

You may have felt that it was true, you may have staked your life on it, but that doesnt mean you could prove it, and once you go past what you can prove, you are in Bush territory. He had a feeling and an inkling too.

And how dare you imply that I am poorly informed because I choose to stick with the facts and what can be proved.

[G_j]

56. Nuremberg Tribunals Chief U.S. Prosecutor On "Aggressive War"

it was clear from the beginning that invading Iraq was illegal
---
Statement by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert L. Jackson
Chief U.S. Prosecutor
at the Nuremberg Tribunals
August 12, 1945
on War Trials Agreement; August 12, 1945

There are some things I would like to say, particularly to the American people, about the agreement we have just signed.
For the first time, four of the most powerful nations have agreed not only upon the principles of liability for war crimes of persecution, but also upon the principle of individual responsibility for the crime of attacking the international peace.

Repeatedly, nations have united in abstract declarations that the launching of aggressive war is illegal. They have condemned it by treaty. But now we have the concrete application of these abstractions in a way which ought to make clear to the world that those who lead their nations into aggressive war face individual accountability for such acts.
<snip>

"We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which
their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the
war, but that they started it. And we must not allow
ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war,
for our position is that no grievances or policies will
justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced
and condemned as an instrument of policy."
<snip>

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert L. Jackson
Chief U.S. Prosecutor
at the Nuremberg Tribunals
August 12, 1945

READ THE ENTIRE STATEMENT HERE:
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/jack02.htm

[radiclib]

2. Hey!

I was first!!:bounce:

[ParanoidPat]

4. A pat on the back or front row seats in Gitmo?

:shrug: :evilgrin:

ParanoidPat, Proud 10%er! :hi:

[Placebo]

6. HaHa...

Probably the latter :spank:

[G_j]

5. it is just a shame

we aren't in Congress. Because if we were, there would be thousands of human beings alive today who instead met violent deaths.

[Kanary]

19. Yeah, that nags at me, too.

That helpless feeling is one big burden to carry.

Especially given we know it will continue.

Kanary

[DrWeird]

7. Well, we know you're not a complete idiot...

as opposed to those who are or were at some point for the war.

[thebigidea]

48. I'm noticing most of the prowar crowd left DU

funny, that.

[swag]

8. May your intelligence be its own reward

[Placebo]

9. Well when I said "I" I really mean ALL OF US who were Anti-War...

we all deserve major pats on the back! maybe we'll get the ultimate reward on November 2nd... :party:

[Eloriel]

44. Sorry, The Nation, I don't feel that way about it at all.

If anything, my heart is -- and was -- very heavy that knowing the truth as so many of us did counted for absolutely nothing. We couldn't get our elected leaders to listen to us, our protests meant nothing to them, the media wouldn't listen to us or even report accurately (or at all!) on our protests, on and on. There is no joy in having been right on this for me. Just heartache.

So many other decisions in the political life of a country are reversible, or at least fixable. War is not one of them. People die -- that's permanent. Geopolitical realities are disrupted, perhaps forever. Money is spent (wasted) that can never be gotten back. And in this day and age poisons are unleashed on the environment that almost never go away, continuing to cause grief and suffering and death for thousands if not millions. And just as we predicted, we are now mired in a no-win situation from which it will be very difficult to extract ourselves.

No celebration here. Just heartache.

[in_cog_ni_to]

10. For OUR prize

I think we should have the pleasure of watching the cabal tried, convicted, sentenced to life in prison and marched off in handcuffs and orange jumpsuits. I'll "settle" for that!

[serryjw]

24. SO WOULD I !

.......Remember the GREAT LIE....The OIL will pay for the war! $200,000,000,000 later..............where is the oil? $46 a barrel!

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

12. To quote Chris Rock

What do you want? A cookie?

[Placebo]

13. Tollhouse would be nice...

:P

We all deserve one.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

14. Just being humorous

I was opposed too. I really don't feel good about being right. A thousand of our service people dead. How many more wounded and how many dead Iraqi citizens? For what? So the dim son can avenge his daddy?

[Mz Pip]

15. A pro-war friend of mine

got me a bottle of French wine. He now calls Bush the most wicked president ever.

The French sure do make good wine. :-)

MzPip
:dem:

[Kanary]

22. Now *that's* a good turnaround. ^_^

Make mine Dubonet, pleeez.

:toast:

Kanary

[genius]

16. I agree. I opposed it from the beginning too.

[JohnnyRingo]

17. Don't blame me....I voted for George McGovern

Anti war from the beginning.

[carrowsboy]

21. We should get a Barbara Mandrell remake!

I Was Anti-War When Anti-War Wasn't Cool

I remember kickin' straight leg Neo-cons
Freeps and Ldotters even when they weren't in style
I remember singing with Peter, Paul & Mary
At the ralleys when the left was really wild
And I was listening to the 9/11 Commission Hearings
When all of my friends
Were digging Darryl Worley and Toby Keith
I was anti-war when anti-war wasn't cool

I remember circling the drive-in
Pullin' up and turnin' down Howard Dean
I remember when no one was looking
I was handing out fliers in protest marches
I took a lot of kiddin'
Cause I never did fit in
Now look at everybody tryin' to be what I was then
I was anti-war when anti-war wasn't cool

Oh, I was anti-war when anti-war wasn't cool
I was anti-war from my hat down to my boots
I still act and look the same
What you see ain't nothing new
I was anti-war when anti-war wasn't cool

They call us commie pinko leftists
For sticking to our patriotic roots
I'm just glad we're in a country
Where we're all free to choose (for now, at least)
I was anti-war when anti-war wasn't cool

Hey, I was anti-war when anti-war wasn't cool
Yeah, and I was anti-war from my braids down to oh, my birkenstocks
I still act and look the same
What you see ain't nothing new
I was anti-war when anti-war wasn't cool
Yeah, I was anti-war when anti-war wasn't cool

[Placebo]

25. That is GOLD!

:thumbsup: Absolutely perfect. :thumbsup:

[Atman]

57. I've sold quite a few of these

Thanks, Barbara!

[leesa]

26. But were you against the slaughter of innocents in Afghanistan?

They ALSO did nothing to us.

[gratuitous]

35. I was

When you start from the premise that All War Is Sin, you find lots and lots of interesting, creative ways of solving problems between nations. I'd sure like the U.S. to try it some time.

[K-W]

37. Yep that too, I get two cookies then?

Yay!

[0rganism]

31. Depends. Did you make any bets?

All I've gotten for my past three years of anti-war activism is a lot of demoralized exhaustion and a splitting headache, and I can't even muster up any iconoclastic self-righteousness to go with 'em. I just feel sad and tired.

I'm sad for the innocent people living on the land we bomb.

I'm sad for the families who get their sons and daughters shipped home to them in flag-covered boxes.

I'm tired of the perpetual spinning in the mass media about how these wars are good for everyone involved.

I'm tired of the Democratic party rolling over to give Caligula every little war toy he asks for.

And on top of it all, I have to wave my flag extra hard and try to be enthusiastic about pulling the lever for the guy who says that he'd vote for it all over again knowing what we know today.

[Placebo]

32. Wow...

when you phrase it like that, it's incredibly depressing. :nopity:

[Pastiche423]

38. How else could it be phrased?

[Placebo]

39. Good point...

touche.

[Kanary]

36. You eloquently summed up what I've been feeling.

I guess, I can only add ..... exhausted by the throngs of USians who think torture is like one big football game ' "Kick their butts!!"

Rah.

Rah.

Rah.

Kanary

[HFishbine]

55. Well said

Especially the last paragraph.

[Jack Rabbit]

40. You get an electronically autographed copy of a Jack Rabbit article

The Left Was Right by Jack Rabbit, Democratic Underground, February 14



My autograph placed here with the assistance of the University of Kansas

[tjfreeman]

50. Yer Prize is your conscience...

For those of you that haven't figured it out yet, the issue of Iraq's possession of WMD was never even the important issue.

I spoke out against the war in numerous peace rallies prior to the war. On Feb 1, 2003, the day of the Columbia disaster, I started to write an essay summarizing my opposition to the war. I finished it just days before the war broke out. It is posted here:

http://hawaii.ms11.net//Freeman3-25.htm

later I revised it and it ended up here:

http://www.counterpunch.org/freeman09172003.html

a brief version for a local alternative weekly ended up here:

http://www.world-crisis.com/analysis_comments/181_0_15_32_C31/

[Dem2theMax]

51. Well Nation, I'm right there with you.

Opposed to it from the beginning as well. (and please, I've seen the attacks here in this thread -- I may have had one Aunt die and another had a stroke so bad she will never recover, within two days of each other, can't be confirmed yet, so I'm NOT in a mood to fight).

I will however say that yes, Nation, you, and all the rest of us who were against this war (read 'invasion') do deserve a prize.

And you know what it's going to be? A Brand Spanking New President!
How's that sound for a prize? :) :) :)

[Q]

52. I think it's much more likely that you'll get an FBI file started on you..

...than getting a 'prize'.

[nolabels]

53. Like the Wen Ho Lee Case

When a government uses law enforcement for politics (even in a keystone way) it often discredits itself along with the agency it uses. In my estimation this is one big reason the Soviet Union fell so fast. Their whole system was replete with such abuses

The Wen Ho Lee Case
http://www.jonathanpollard.org/china.htm

Co-Intel-Pro’s Legacy

by John Burl Smith


Poets For Peace, an Atlanta consortium of artists speaks to the Diaspora on behalf of children who will die in George W. Bush’s so-called "War on Terrorism." Holding poetic vigils contemplating John Lennon’s admonition Give Peace a Chance, we mourn the nameless and faceless children who have never ridden on an airplane, let alone thought of hijacking one, but who will become collateral damage simply because they were born in a Muslim country. The war hysteria sweeping America is a convenient rogue for the Bush administration to do what it planned all along. Remember, beefing up the military, turning attention away from Bush’s racist domestic and unilateral foreign policies, providing corporate bailouts and making limits on personal freedom litmus tests were already on the table. Poets For Peace cautions, war should always be approached with a grim face; it is not a football game. It is one of those things that take on a life of their own; Martha Mitchell illustrated this tragedy in Gone With The Wind.



Attorney General John Ashcroft’s plea for what he called, "necessary changes in the law to protect our freedom" seems innocent enough. Pumping up the volume for "WAR," America’s media have made patriotism the new weapon in the assault on individual rights. Compassionate conservative pro-life born again Christians have suddenly become pro-war Americans. Everything in Ashcroft’s package has been proposed previously. Never a defender of individual rights, the Bush administration is using the Pentagon and World Trade Center jetliner bombings to brand unpatriotic anyone daring to speak out for peace or close examination of his policies. Similarly, pointing out Israel’s Zionist aim to take land from Palestinians to extend its borders makes one anti-Semitic. On its face, it may appear Bush is doing what the American people want, but beneath the surface however, I am certain some people are getting rich. But even more sinister, when the dust settles, Americans will have lost more of their freedom.

U. S. Representative Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) presented evidence from a Congressional hearing on Human Rights in the United States: The Unfinished Story, Current Political Prisoners - Victims of Co-Intel-Pro to the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Xenophobia, Racial Discrimination and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa as part of slave descendants case for reparations from America for genocide. The purpose of this American government Counter Intelligence Program was to disrupt, destabilize, discredit, imprison and/or assassinate black power advocates. Patriotism signified support for the Vietnam War. Opposition to the war was the litmus test for profiling war protestors, civil rights and black power advocates. "Threat assessment" is the new code for racial and religious profiling. Under "threat assessment," Attorney General Ashcroft seeks the same authority exercised under Co-Intel-Pro that allowed FBI agents to suspend the constitutional rights of those expressing what the government considered unpatriotic or un-American sentiments.



Within our life time, the government has admitted Co-Intel-Pro excesses, but still refuses to give specifics about what it did to American citizens and why. Rep. McKinney’s hearing proved that the government lied to Congress about these abuses. No government official has ever been charged or jailed for violating the civil rights of citizens killed or falsely imprisoned by Co-Intel-Pro agents. Now, John Ashcroft is telling America to trust the government not to profile citizens and violate their rights, when he will not tell America what went on under Co-Intel-Pro and whether or not he approves of such behavior. American history teaches that every time citizens surrender an inch of freedom the government takes a mile. The founding fathers added checks and balances along with the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution because they knew the government could not be trusted to safeguard individual rights. T.H.I.N.C. about it!
(snip)
http://www.thedish.org/Cointelprolegacy.html

Egg on ones face is only a learning experience, not any reason to get angry :donut:

[WilliamPitt]

54. Do you want one?

If so, why?

[DinahMoeHum]

58. A clear conscience is the best you can expect. . .

no more and no less.


:evilfrown:

[deutsey]

59. With conscience being in such short supply these days,

perhaps that's enough.