I try and choose my words carefully, it looks like you are still responding to what you think I must mean, rather than what I said. You say you thought I meant jr and the recent war in Iraq when I reference Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait. I was in fact referencing no particular Iraq war, but the overall condition Iraq is in(as per the video and my own earlier reference to same. Maybe some room to misunderstand that, but my full quot if you can read it carefully this time:
“blaming Bush Sr. for Iraq, rather than Saddam's campaign of genocide against his own people and his conquest of Kuwait.”
I did specifically name Bush Sr, which At the least should rule out thinking I’m discussing anything done by Jr.

As for Sr’s war in Iraq, Kuwait was a province of the Iraqi state when Senior came in to liberate it. He also stopped short of removing Saddam, which was imo a mistake for Iraqi’s and the one thing I’d agree would be a fair accusation against him re the overall consition of Iraq today. It left Saddam time for another genocide against the Shia Iraqi’s that had risen up thinking Senior was serious about standing with them. Public opinion though was too much against it and so American forces stopped short of removing Saddam and followed popular opinion. Saddam’s WMD programs where dismantled(which he very much had then) and northern Iraq’s airspace remained occupied by Anerican forces right through until jr’s war. Saddam also continually decieved, obstructed and kicked out the UN inspectors in Iraq there to confirm his full and continued disarmament. Enough so that before jr’s war one of the most vocal anti-war inspectors cited Saddam’s almost certain possession and use of chemical weapons as a reason risking an invasion was too dangerous...

No sir.

I'm addressing his comment about the invasion of Iraq happening because of "Saddam's campaign of genocide against his own people and his conquest of Kuwait." when that's absolutely not how the invasion was sold to us by W. That's only partially how Desert Shield was sold by Sr. (Keeping in mind the gassing had happened years earlier), but that didn't remove or even target Saddam and barely went into Iraq, so clearly wasn't designed to remove him from power or stop his atrocities, just to stop his expansion into our allies territories.

The invasion of Iraq and direct targeting of Saddam was by W, not Sr. and are what led to the current state of the region far more than any result of Desert Storm...what I thought he meant by "blaming Sr. for Iraq"....I read that as 'blaming Sr. for the current state of Iraq and the region'.
I may have misunderstood what he meant by "blaming Sr for Iraq", but I can tell the difference between bushes.

Keep in mind, it was neither his genocidal tendencies nor his expansionism that were used as the public excuses to attack Saddam, it was a false narrative about a successful nuclear weapons program (and other fantasies about weapons of mass destruction) and another false narrative about his ties to and support of terrorists, both lies created by the Whitehouse.

I think we violated master Tzu's teachings and went to war not knowing our enemies or ourselves, a sure recipe for failure.

Stopped watching at "The never ending killing fields of Iraq".

Now, if the speaker goes on to accuse Bush Sr. for failing to remove Saddam after having Liberated Kuwait, I judged too quickly. I'm pretty confident though that this is just more of the revisionist history garbage blaming Bush Sr. for Iraq, rather than Saddam's campaign of genocide against his own people and his conquest of Kuwait.

I mean, if you want to rail against American exceptionalism, at least have the decency to blame the presidents prior to Bush(Carter and Reagan) who supported Saddam after the Iranian revolution, rather than the American president who finally took the right side against one of the most brutal tyrants and dictators of his time.

The intelligence community gave clear, unbiased and objective evidence that Saddam had WMDs too.

I must say I believe, and hope I'm right, that the crowd that sees this and says that looks great is a lot smaller than you believe.

Controversy might be more numerous around the anti-war crowd citing Abu-Ghraib as proof the Iraq war in it's entirety was wrong and evil. There are a lot of people who observe that Saddam did much worse, for much longer, and as standard desirable practice of governance, myself included. I dare say the number of people believing that greatly outnumber the pro-torture crowd.

Still important for America to hold itself more accountable on this. Am I not wrong but most of those involved who even were charged mostly got off with dishonorable discharges?

Interesting narrative - and perspective on the aftermath of the removal of Saddam H. Would like to hear more - how does the society play out after the payback? Is the former ruling minority then suppressed by the newly empowered majority? or is there an ethical equilibrium achieved??? Or is Democracy just a euphemism for oppression by the majority?

In a way Scahill is like a less educated\refined version of Noam Chomsky. He does good investigative work, and dedicates enormous energy into exposing and spotlighting the bad things that America does. That has a place, but without a similarly harsh and critical light being cast on America's targets/enemies it becomes propaganda.

Jeremy says he wouldn't work with Charles Manson to oppose trump, fair enough. What about kind of working with Stalin to defeat Hitler? Say, at least agreeing not to attack Stalin while you both deal with Hitler?

The world is incredibly complicated and the singular and lone focus on American mistakes paints a deceptive picture. Pointing out the problems with America's war in Iraq, like torture and Quantanamo and declaring these as so immoral we needn't even look at Saddam's past is propaganda. Saddam waged two campaigns of genocide against his own people. When America saw the abuses at Abu Ghraib, they shut it down and attempted to punish those responsible. When Saddam's brother used chemical weapons to exterminate Kurdish civilians Saddam commended him for it. Guantanamo is bad, but it doesn't mean we should fail to acknowledge the concentration camps that Saddam operated during his genocide of the Kurds. It doesn't mean it's unfair to observe that conditions in Saddam's prisons across the country were far more cruel during his entire reign.

There's a nuanced place here that Scahill and Chomsky and pundits like them just fail to acknowledge and encourages inaction at times were the lesser evil may well be for America to do something, even if aborting Gadafi's genocide doesn't make Libya a paradise after.

Let's step back then from arguing against other people's claims.

The claim that tyranny is pretty universally based upon an unarmed civilian population provides at least some real world evidence that civilian armament and freedom have some correlation. Whether that warrants allowing citizen's access to weaponized anthrax and cruise missiles is another matter. Can you agree that a well armed population is incompatible with historical tyranny(Mao, Stalin, Saddam, Gadhafi, the Kim's)?

Sorry, gotta disagree with you @enoch.
First, yes, America is guilty of interference in third world elections, but not so much in free elections.
Second, the level of interference in this election is unprecedented (EDIT: Including evidence the Russians tried to hack voting machines and virus many poll workers, and there's absolutely zero question which candidate they were trying to help).

Third, there is plenty of EVIDENCE his campaign colluded, they've admitted doing so after the election but before confirmation, and that at least he tried hard to hide that fact, and the fact that he has financial ties to them.
There is no publicly available PROOF that Trump himself colluded to steal the election....yet.

There is mounting proof that he has, since the election, at every turn, used the office for private financial gains from numerous foreign entities, which is totally illegal.

Does this translate to undeniable proof that he colluded to steal the election with a foreign enemy? Again, not yet, but the investigation is still in it's infancy, largely due to his interference in it and his stonewalling every legal question. It's far worse than just being a used car salesman abusing his power, it's the "leader of the free world" subverting the constitution for financial gains.

It was actually 17 agencies, and most of them were certain the evidence that Saddam had WMD's was suspect at best, and not credible....they said so, but were drowned out by the few agencies that went along with Bush's narrative...that has been shown fairly conclusively in the intervening years.

Again, I don't believe there was a joint statement about the gassing, that was again Trump's administration claiming certitude about Assad, not the intelligence community.

Not sure what you mean about Gadhafi, he did kill thousands, but again, I don't recall any joint public statement from the intelligence community.

In fact, I recall the joint statement being a first.

That doesn't mean they're right, just that your implication that they are so often wrong is a bit exaggerated and not factual as you wrote it....or at least as I read you.

Unfortunately, the evidence that would be proof is classified evidence...so we may NEVER see it without high level clearance of a bad leak. Not seeing it is no evidence at all that it doesn't exist, you should not be able to see it.

The term "deep state" is an Orwellian term meant to delegitimize ANYONE not in step with the current administration...just call them liberal holdovers and dismiss them...that's the idea...don't buy it. Most intelligence agents are non political....not all, but most.

CNN hasn't been pantsed IMO...they admitted what everyone knows, they are less about reporting important news than they are about ratings. That doesn't make their story wrong or fake, it makes it make sense that they ignore other actual news to talk incessantly about the one story that makes them money/ratings, even with no new information to share. Certainly that detracts from their value as a news source, but doesn't make them Breitbart willing to make up stories out of whole cloth and back them to the end.

Perhaps there's something there I'm missing since I won't watch a Breitbart story or give it a shred of credence, but not from what I've heard and seen elsewhere. I've not seen any evidence they made things up or lied, just that they are operating like a business rather than an independent news source.

@Fairbs

look at what i wrote.

i totally agree with you,and the mounting evidence that:

russian intelligence may have attempted to influence our elections,but name a first world country whose intelligence agencies do NOT try to influence elections,or unduly influence legislators to implement legislation favorable to their interests?

the argument isn't that russian intelligence did what every ..single..intelligence agency does on a global scale,with US intelligence agencies being the biggest offenders.

the narrative being shoved down our throats is that the trump campaign COLLUDED with russian intelligence to install trump as president,of which there is NO evidence..zero..zip..nada.

is there evidence that trump may (and let us be frank,most likely)have engaged in some suspicious and possibly illegal financial and business dealings with russia?

considering that no american financial institution will touch trump with a ten foot pole,and his global credit is in the shitter.also considering his blatant abuse of his son in law to garner financial loans from china with the promise of "presidential favoritism" (which is soooo fucking illegal).

i think it safe to say that trumps business and financial dealings with russia are,how shall i put this?
colorful and inventive?(and possibly illegal).

but does this translate to collusion to install trump as president?
nope..just a crooked car saleman abusing his status to broker deals with crooked russians.

you mentioned the 13 intelligence agencies.
do you mean the SAME agencies that were POSITIVE that saddam had WMD's?

the same agencies who were CERTAIN that assad had used sarin gas on civilians?

the very same agencies who were 100% proof positive that gadhafi had killed his own people?

THOSE agencies?

the very same agencies who are making the argument that russian intelligence colluded with the trump campaign and have not provided ONE lick of evidence besides:"trust us,we know".

sorry mate,you know i love ya,but i am gonna need some proof,because THOSE fuckers have lied to me more often than not.the term DEEP state is referring to the very agencies that have lied to us time and time again.

and i ain't buying it.

and for CNN to get pantsed in public by the likes of a slimeball such as james o'keefe and breibart..FUCKING BREITBART..they need to just walk out into traffic and end themselves.

not that i gave CNN much cred to begin with,but now they are just dead to me.a pimple on a syphillis infected rhinocerous's ballsack.

so much fail...but corporate bobbleheads do not experience shame,or guilt.

cuz they get paid to lie,obfuscate and gaslight you,and me.
despicable human beings...the lot of them.

jimmy dore is from the young turks.

while you may disagree with his delivery,you cannot deny that historically the intelligence community has been used as a battering ram to perpetrate some fucked up,and sometimes,illegal shit.

multiple intelligence agencies also swore that saddam hussein had WMD's and was collaborating with al qeada.

multiple intelligence agencies swore that the conflict in vietnam needed to be expanded,and use sect of defense robert mcnamara to sell it to president johnson.

mcnamara later recanted and displayed deep regret for the lies he sold not only the president,but the american people.colin powell ended up doing the very same thing,for the EXACT same reasons.

in my opinion,CNN has slowly become a propaganda arm for the state.so it is NO surprise that they reference these "multiple intelligence sources" as a means to increase tensions between US and russia.

and while i am positive that russia,along with the US and pretty much every advanced nation on this planet engages in cyber spying,until i see actual PROOF that putin directed russian intelligence to actively hack our elections in order to put trump in power...i am going to remain skeptical.

because i have seen "multiple intelligence sources' as an excuse to engage in some pretty despicable activities by my government.

i live by a very simple axiom:
governments lie.

Gary Breecher, better know as The War Nerd, "Saddam Died Beautiful: A Special Eulogy":

"Blaming Saddam for being what he was is like blaming a rattlesnake for killing. That's how it lives, and it's what that Crocodile Hunter guy would've called "a bee-YOO-tiful ambush predator." Saddam was right for Iraq the way a Sidewinder is right for the Mojave. The NeoCons scared us by shaking his fangs in our faces, as if Saddam planned to bite every single commuter in LA, when all he wanted to do was stay alive and in power -- because those were the same thing for him -- in the Iraqi desert, where everything stings, sticks or bites. We may as well have gone on a crusade to wipe out all the snakes and spiders in the desert for being what they are. Only difference is, we wouldn't have lost 3000 soldiers that way."

---

Saddam was a rat-fuck bastard of the lowest order, but the world ISN'T a better place now that he's gone. In fact, for the amount of chaos his removal has sown, he might as well have been named Franz Ferdinand

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