this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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I've heard Sam Harris talk about how we only knew the end story was bs afterwards, and that there was no credible opposition....
Canada Not following USA into that war should should have been a good clue
France as well! Republicans gave us French so much shit for standing up to the US and refuse to support the invasion. "Freedom fries", "Surrender monkeys" and all that crap.
Freedom fries... hehehe je trouve encore ça drôle. À bien ý penser c'était un des premiers signes de la transformation débile de la politîque américaine.
Well, there was trickle down economics before that. Reagan was the downfall.
Refusing to get pressured into wartime adventurism was absolutely the right move, and the French said so at the time despite the juvenile insults being tossed their way by our dimmest politicians.
I remember when Republicans tried to hit Obama for going on an "apology tour" after W and his clowns trashed our most cherished alliances.
The worst part is that they're too cynical or stupid to be embarrassed for themselves.
You hear all about Freedom Fries, but I’ve never heard of Freedom Toast.
Or Freedom Kiss.
Sam used to be cool. I'm so disappointed in him.
Sam was never cool. You were duped.
You're right.
I've heard him say so many bad takes. I used to really like the guy too
What do you mean someone who tries to sell a theory on objective scientific morality has many bad takes?
To be fair, I was a fan before that point.
Was he wrong though? I recall plenty of people were against the war in principal, and loads of people were sceptical of the government's WMD line (am speaking from a British point of view). But there was not as I recall any actual evidence that the wmd thing was made up. David Kelly (UK weapons expert) leak didn't happen till after the invasion. As well as the invasion itself obviously turning up no evidence. But before there were no leaks or counter claims. It was just down to whether you trusted the government or not. Which is what I think Sam's right about - if that's what he's saying.
A lot of people knew it was utter bullshit then. Millions of people protested the war and close to 50% of people were opposed it in many of the countries which participated.
Sam Harris's whitewashing of his cheerleading of a war which resulted in a million deaths and destabilisation of an entire region is sheer cowardice.
UN weapons inspectors prior to the invasion found no evidence of WMDs. If I recall correctly, there were also quite a few leftist publications that were correctly calling out the lies told. Don't have time currently to dig.
I think it definitely is the more widespread story that the lies were only identified after the fact, especially with publications like the NYT carrying water for the Bush administration.
You see.. this is the issue. This idea has been passed around second hand so many times people are convinced there was no evidence or reason to suspect a WMD program. The idea the US government made it all up out of thin air for neocon warmongering reasons is too juicy to ignore..
HOWEVER
The UN weapons inspections DID find plenty of evidence to be concerned about, and Saddam's provable track record of chemical weapon use AND lying AND concealment only made it harder to know what was going on. One of the lead inspectors, British weapons expert David Kelly, who led missions to Iraqii factories and staff sites dozens of times said...
"despite the steps taken, Saddam refuse[d] to acknowledge the extent of his chemical and biological weapons and associated military and industrial support organisations [and there was still a concern about] 8,500 litres of anthrax VX, 2,160 kilograms of bacterial growth media, 360 tonnes of bulk chemical warfare agent, 6,500 chemical bombs and 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical and biological warfare agents [which] remained unaccounted for from activities up to 1991"
David Kelly thought the "launch in 45 minutes" claim was bollocks. He also thought various US attempts to say certain equipment could be quickly turned into launch vehicles or chemical weapons processing plants was also bollocks. He also said the link to Al-Qaeda was bollocks.
However, he wrote an entire article for a British newspaper outlining how based on evidence he had personally seen as a part of UN sanctioned missions, Saddam was committed to a chemical weapons programs, their use was inevitable, and only regime change would stop it.
"Iraq has spent the past 30 years building up an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Although the current threat presented by Iraq militarily is modest, both in terms of conventional and unconventional weapons, it has never given up its intent to develop and stockpile such weapons for both military and terrorist use....The long-term threat, however, remains Iraq's development to military maturity of weapons of mass destruction—something that only regime change will avert."
You can read it yourself here: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/aug/31/huttonreport.iraq
David Kelly killed himself shortly after the war started because he name was publicly outed as a critic of the "45 minute" dossier. Conspiracy theories abound. But centre on Kelly undermining the British and American governments - which is why "supposedly" they had him killed.
But even he - a distinguished weapons expert, known internationally, with decades of experience, dozens of missions to Iraq, who inspected Iraqii equipment personally, and who thought the US and UK governments were full of shit exaggerating - even he believed the evidence was such that regime change was the right thing to do, to avert chemical / nuclear disaster.
There was never any good evidence, it was always "trust the CIA!"
Well, if you put it that way... no.
Iraq is nowhere near Afghanistan either. And the US has international weapons inspectors in Iraq annually after the first war. They posed no threat to us... we still had a frickin no fly zone over half the damned country, what were they going to do?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_no-fly_zones_conflict
Fascinating history, but the war against Iraq never really ended. We were constantly bombing Iraq on the daily 1999 through 2003.
David Kelly, British weapons inspector who lead multiple UN missions to inspect Iraqi facilities (and deal with their bullshit) first hand...
But DID
And this is the guy conspiracy theorists think got assassinated because he was too opposed to the governments. Even he argued that what he'd seen showed Saddam should be forcably toppled...