Home / General / “Raise Your Hand If I Should Care About Your Opinion About Iraq. No, Put Your Hand Down Right Now, Senator McCain.”

“Raise Your Hand If I Should Care About Your Opinion About Iraq. No, Put Your Hand Down Right Now, Senator McCain.”

/
/
/
1179 Views

The people who promised us democracy! whiskey! sexy! protection from Saddam’s balsa wood drones of nuclear terror! cheap! from the Iraq War should never be listened to again:

But there are few people who understand Iraq less than the Republican politicians and pundits who are being sought out for their comments on the current situation.

As you watch the debate on this issue, you should remind yourself that the most prominent voices being heard are the very ones who brought us the Iraq War in the first place, who promised that everything was simple and the only question was whether we’d be “strong” and “decisive” enough — the same thing they’re saying today. They’re the ones who swore that Saddam was in cahoots with Al Qaeda, that he had a terrifying arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, that the war would be quick, easy and cheap, that since Iraq was a largely secular country we wouldn’t have to worry about sectarian conflict, and that democracy would spread throughout the region in short order, bringing peace and prosperity along with it.

We can start with the man on every TV producer and print reporter’s speed dial, John McCain. McCain does provide something important to journalists: whatever the issue of the moment is, he can be counted on to offer angry, bitter criticism of the Obama administration, giving the “balance” every story needs. The fact that he has never demonstrated the slightest bit of understanding of Iraq is no bar at all to being the most quoted person on the topic.

For context, here’s a nice roundup of some of the things McCain said when he was pushing to invade Iraq in the first place. When asked if Iraqis were going to greet us as liberators, he answered, “Absolutely.” He said, “Post-Saddam Hussein Iraq is going to be paid for by the Iraqis” with their oil wealth (the war ended up costing the American taxpayer upwards of $2 trillion). And my favorite: “There is not a history of clashes that are violent between Sunnis and Shias, so I think they can probably get along.”

In a world with properly functioning public discourse, these people would be too ashamed to show their faces in public; instead, they remain Respected Leaders.

Fortunately, warbloggers seem far less influential, but remain hilarious.  The man who gave us the internet’s equivalent of the Mission Accomplished speech is, for some reason, still saying things about Iraq:

OH, YEAH: Obama Talked About Iraq Today. We’ll do something, as soon as we decide what to do, but whatever it is it won’t be anything decisive. And this is all the Iraqis’ fault, and probably Bush’s.

Well, what do you know — through the use of sarcasm Reynolds has inadvertently said something true about Iraq, or at least attributed a true statement to Obama. Meanwhile, Reynolds’s ongoing preference for action that is “decisive” (with implicitly only killing people counting as “decisive”) to action that is wise shows that he, like most hack Iraq warmongers, has learned less than nothing. (Note: this post is even funnier when you remember Reynolds’s belief that people are skeptical about American claims about WMDs because of Barack Obama. I’ll never forgive him for giving that farcical speech to the UN in 2003!)

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
This div height required for enabling the sticky sidebar
Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views :