The Iraq War 20 years on (March 20, 2003)

[SaysWho?]

3 takeaways 20 years after the invasion of Iraq

WWW.NPR.ORG

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Two decades ago, then-President George W. Bush announced the start of combat operations in Iraq. The bloody occupation that followed lasted longer and cost more in lives and money than anyone guessed.

 

20 years on, most Americans say Iraq invasion was the wrong decision

WWW.AXIOS.COM

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The war has shaped a generation of U.S. foreign policy.

 

This has a TON of PBS specials about the war:

 

The U.S.-led Invasion of Iraq, 20 Years Later | FRONTLINE

WWW.PBS.ORG

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Explore 22 FRONTLINE documentaries that chronicle the U.S.-led March 2003 invasion of Iraq, its long and bloody aftermath and the enduring impact on ordinary Iraqis and U.S. soldiers. 

 

The invasion began March 20, 2003.

[TheShader]

It's still hard to wrap my head around the fact that full-grown adults exist that never lived in, let alone experienced, a pre-9/11 world. I can only imagine for people my age and older in Iraq and Afghanistan about their own youth.

[unogueen]

11 minutes ago, TheShader said:

It's still hard to wrap my head around the fact that full-grown adults exist that never lived in, let alone experienced, a pre-9/11 world. I can only imagine for people my age and older in Iraq and Afghanistan about their own youth.

I met a few through jobs. It's basically impossible to relay to people of relative comfort what it's like to live in such a volatile environment.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Having friends from high school sign up for this war was an absolute brain melting experience. Post 9/11 yeah I get it. But after the start of the Iraq war? You’re insane

[Jason]

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

If 9/11 "broke" the United States, then the invasion of Iraq guaranteed that it would never be "fixed".

[MarSolo]

The Iraq War is now too old for R.Kelly, but rightfully groomed enough for Drake.

[TheShader]

13 minutes ago, MarSolo said:

The Iraq War is now too old for R.Kelly, but rightfully groomed enough for Drake.

Not if DiCaprio gets to it first.

[Guest]

I remember thinking it odd that we were going into Iraq for the states reasons, but supporting it because Hussein was clearly a bad guy. I didn’t realize at the time that…there are always bad guys and it simply isn’t enough reason to go to war. It resulted to a large degree with my pacifist beliefs today.

 

Much like capital punishment, it isn’t that I don’t believe there can be just actions, I just don’t trust humanity to carry these things out in a consistently morally and ethically righteous way. You even see this in the way invaded countries treat POWs.

 

It makes good people bad, and bad people worse.

[TheShader]

5 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

I remember thinking it odd that we were going into Iraq for the states reasons, but supporting it because Hussein was clearly a bad guy

I feel like that was most rational people's reaction. Including people that bought into the weapons of mass destruction BS. The conflict was inevitable because it's what the administration clearly wanted despite shaky reasoning, and fuck it Saddam is bad anyway, right? At least from my memory that seemed to be the prevailing feeling.

 

I don't recall a strong enthusiasm for this. It was more like when a friend insists on getting Subway when you aren't even hungry in the first place, and reluctantly go because they're offering to pay anyway.

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, TheShader said:

I feel like that was most rational people's reaction. Including people that bought into the weapons of mass destruction BS. The conflict was inevitable because it's what the administration clearly wanted despite shaky reasoning, and fuck it Saddam is bad anyway, right? At least from my memory that seemed to be the prevailing feeling.

 

I don't recall a strong enthusiasm for this. It was more like when a friend insists on getting Subway when you aren't even hungry in the first place, and reluctantly go because they're offering to pay anyway.

There is a non-trivial percentage of the American population that loves war. Our media machine loves war. Our political class loves war. Our corporations love war.

 

We are a violent people. I believe that is what allows people to rationalize our nation getting in to conflicts that we don’t particularly like on their specific merits.

[Zaku3]

6 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

There is a non-trivial percentage of the American population that loves war. Our media machine loves war. Our political class loves war. Our corporations love war.

 

We are a violent people. I believe that is what allows people to rationalize our nation getting in to conflicts that we don’t particularly like on their specific merits.

 

Checks out for a nation that has been in conflict more then peace.

[TheShader]

Oh, 100%, but those people would be for a war no matter what. Bush could have given his reasoning as 'they stole my ice cream when I was in high school' and they'd shout 'Say no more, we're in!'.

 

As for the general population, I think it shouldn't be underestimated how safe and protected we are here in the States. War hasn't directly impacted us in any meaningful way in over 150 years. Yeah, we have our occasional 9/11 or Pearl Harbor...but that's hardly war on our main soil when you compare it to the other side of the world. We are painfully disconnected from war efforts or even the risk of war efforts. The fact we'll never have, say, Russian troops suddenly storming through the Canadian border and towards our Capitol goes a long way. War is very intangible to most Americans. WWIII could break out in Europe right now and most people in the United States still won't be directly affected by it. Conceptually, war is just one big Ender's Game to any given person in the United States.

[thewhyteboar]

It's still so frustrating that no one had to pay a price for this fuckup. Other than the dead soldiers and Iraqis. The cheerleading journalists? Still doing their thing. The politicians who led the lie? Still in office or retired with reputation intact.

[thewhyteboar]

1 hour ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

If 9/11 "broke" the United States, then the invasion of Iraq guaranteed that it would never be "fixed".

What broke the US is the direct line from Nixon's pardon, to Reagan's crime, to Bush's illegal war, to Trump. Republican presidents have learned that they can do whatever they want with impunity.

[Zaku3]

26 minutes ago, thewhyteboar said:

What broke the US is the direct line from Nixon's pardon, to Reagan's crime, to Bush's illegal war, to Trump. Republican presidents have learned that they can do whatever they want with impunity.

 

I want to say it was broken from the beginning. Regardless of the words they used betraying your king is not good in the hood. Pretending it wasn't about wealth, power, feeling constrained in terms of getting more land from those savages, believing in Jesus but owning slaves, etc. There isn't one cause there are multiple causes. 

 

Like rascism is systemic because it came with the project not because we messed up somehow.

 

I did also want to note. That Michelle Obama photo with Bush is probably one of the worst photographs in modern American history. Ellen defending him a few years back is out right disgusting.

 

Edit: I'd argue WW3 never took place because you couldn't guarente that the Soviets wouldn't nuke us back. It's why proxy wars were cool but out right confrontation was avoided.

[TheShader]

17 minutes ago, Zaku3 said:

I'd argue WW3 never took place because you couldn't guarente that the Soviets wouldn't nuke us back. It's why proxy wars were cool but out right confrontation was avoided.

If this is in response to me, I think you missed my point entirely. It's not about WWIII happening or not, but that Americans are largely guarded from having war occur in their backyards due to our circumstances both geographically as well as militarily. We haven't seen full war on US soil since the Civil War 150+ years ago, and we're unlikely to in our lifetime short of Civil War 2.0, and even that most people aren't afraid of.

 

Putting most citizens of the United States in a position in which the concept of war is more of a vague abstract concept than an actual real world thing. Leading most people to not really care one way or another what the US does with its military.

[Zaku3]

Just now, TheShader said:

If this is in response to me, I think you missed my point entirely. It's not about WWIII happening or not, but that Americans are largely guarded from having war occur in their backyards due to our circumstances both geographically as well as militarily. We haven't seen full war on US soil since the Civil War 150+ years ago, and we're unlikely to in our lifetime short of Civil War 2.0, and even that most people aren't afraid of.

 

Putting most citizens of the United States in a position in which the concept of war is more of a vague abstract concept than an actual real world thing. Leading most people to not really care one way or another what the US does with its military.

 

My mistake I agree with you. I just felt the idea of WW3 in Europe not leading to us getting nuked back to the stone age is unlikely.

 

Makes cool games like Warno but it is gonna go nuclear as soon as the allure of tactical nukes becomes too much to ignore.

 

I do think Civil War 2.0 would look like a modern civil war like Syria though. So some places may in fact be completely and maybe have less goods available compared to pre-war life and others will be warzones.

[SuperSpreader]

Lots of Americans were for the war, at least half. 

 

 

[Signifyin(g)Monkey]

10 hours ago, TheShader said:

If this is in response to me, I think you missed my point entirely. It's not about WWIII happening or not, but that Americans are largely guarded from having war occur in their backyards due to our circumstances both geographically as well as militarily. We haven't seen full war on US soil since the Civil War 150+ years ago, and we're unlikely to in our lifetime short of Civil War 2.0, and even that most people aren't afraid of.

 

Putting most citizens of the United States in a position in which the concept of war is more of a vague abstract concept than an actual real world thing. Leading most people to not really care one way or another what the US does with its military.

Yet this psychological distance is, interestingly enough, also arguably a key part of what created the American global hegemony Iraq and 9/11 served to blemish.

 

It is what led American leaders, during both World Wars, to break with the tradition of cancelling war debts between allies, and insist that Europe pay for the loans the US made to it to finance both wars.  This, in turn, resulted in the US owning, by the 1950s, over 50% of the world's gold reserves--essentially making it the global creditor nation.

 

Its status in this respect subsequently made the US treasury bill into the global currency standard when the US spent away all those gold reserves rebuilding Western Europe and Japan and fighting the Cold War, which destroyed Bretton Woods and left the dollar as the only means left for settling foreign debts, since gold could no longer be relied upon.  And the dollar standard is ultimately what upholds the global American empire.

 

All of which is to say, we have been rewarded greatly for our aloofness and nakedly insular self-interest.  Arguably more than any nation in history.  (which, as you mentioned, therein leads to dumb behavior--like the invasion of Iraq–that does not reward us at all)

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

@Signifyin(g)Monkey - the font for your post is black using the dark theme.

[TheShader]

11 minutes ago, SuperSpreader said:

Lots of Americans were for the war, at least half. 

 

 

Seventy-Two Percent of Americans Support War Against Iraq

NEWS.GALLUP.COM

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Seventy-two percent of Americans interviewed in a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Saturday and Sunday favor the war against Iraq, while 25% are opposed. President...

 

[Signifyin(g)Monkey]

4 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

@Signifyin(g)Monkey - the font for your post is black using the dark theme.

How does one fix that on mobile?  My raw HTML skills are kinda meh these days

 

[TheShader]

6 minutes ago, Signifyin(g)Monkey said:

How does one fix that on mobile?  My raw HTML skills are kinda meh these days

 

Holding atl+f4 should open the menu to fix it. 

[Jason]

20 minutes ago, Signifyin(g)Monkey said:

How does one fix that on mobile?  My raw HTML skills are kinda meh these days

 

I just went and added the T_x button at the end of the WYSIWYG editor toolbar. You should be able to select the text and hit that button to clear all formatting on it. Not fixing it myself just to make sure that button works as intended.

[Jason]

Or you could just copy it all in WYSIWYG mode, open up the source code editor, delete everything, and then paste the text back in, hit submit on the edit. Boom, all plaintext. Which is what I normally do and why I hadn't thought to but that T_x button in before.

[SaysWho?]

Iraq, an Idiot's Delight in 2004:

 

 

[thewhyteboar]

This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t

WWW.THEONION.COM

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George W. Bush may think that a war against Iraq is the solution to our problems, but the reality is, it will only serve to create far more.

 

Still a banger.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

10 hours ago, TheShader said:

Seventy-Two Percent of Americans Support War Against Iraq

NEWS.GALLUP.COM

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Seventy-two percent of Americans interviewed in a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Saturday and Sunday favor the war against Iraq, while 25% are opposed. President...

 

Remember how not supporting the war meant you literally hated America and wanted it to fall to Osama bin Laden?

[MarSolo]

It still fascinates me that the Dixie Chicks legit got canceled over being against the war. Cancel Culture was real at one point!

[Keyser_Soze]

1 minute ago, MarSolo said:

It still fascinates me that the Dixie Chicks legit got canceled over being against the war. Cancel Culture was real at one point!

 

Canceled twice because they're just the chicks now.

[CitizenVectron]

While public sentiment has certainly turned against the war in a broad sense, it's unfortunate that many people hold a view similar to "it was an honest mistake." As in, it was handled poorly and the US was there for far too long, but the heart was in the right place. Very similar to police apologists who defend murder by cop at regular traffic stops.

[chakoo]

The Iraq war is what made me learn to detest patriotism. At the time expressing that the war was an awful idea had so much vitriol that you were no better than the terrorist on 9/11.

 

To this day, even though I've lived longer in Canada and have citizenship, I don't see myself as an American or Canadian. I just see myself as a person who just happens to live in Canada but ultimately it could be anywhere. I should note I'm not in Canada because of the above, I just happen to come here for work and enjoyed staying.

[gamer.tv]

The Guardian's Politics Weekly podcast did a piece on this from a British perspective. I was 12 or 13 when the invasion began so really had no clue what was going on/why. It’s unreal to learn that it was all a sham, but as someone said above, all those involved seemed to have walked away (politically) unscathed. 

[MarSolo]

Oh, I wish I could say I completely forgot about the whole “Freedom Toast” and “Freedom Fries” debacle, but Geno’s Steaks in South Philly STILL lists them as Freedom Fries.