Ok, even I admit, this is not

I'm waiting for Fox to announce that we are at war with Eurasia.

And we have ALWAYS been at war with Eurasia.

This is not a great article.

It's definitely op-ed, not news.

Why the Eurasia reference? I didn't see anything that would warrant that.

Do you have kids? Can they be rescued and deprogrammed?

No kids, sorry Devin.

My post was for Grifter. You guys are getting your insults mixed up.

I'm a little confused as to this new sentiment of "You guys were wrong, the war went GRRRRRRRREAT."

How out of touch with reality can you be to say that?

First off, the vast majority of anti-war people wanted a swift and relatively bloodless war, hence them caring about the troops and not wanting them to die for petty reasons.

Second, in terms of "wrongness," what about all of the ridiculous justifications the pro-War crowd tried:

- "We will not be held hostage by a madman's arsenal" (Tee hee)

- It's part of the war on Terror (Which is why we're working WITH terrorist groups in Iraq to fight Iranian agents...again, BULLSHIT)

- "We're disarming Iraq because of them defying UN resolutions" (It's not up to separate member countries to independently act in the name of the UN. The resolutions weren't ours to control, and the sanctions aren't ours to lift.)

- "We KNOW of a huge WMD buildup, and we can't take the chance of them handing it off to terrorists or using it against their neighbors" (So huge, and so deadly that we can't find more than smatterings of any chemical development whatsoever, much less weapons despite occupying the entire country and having special agents scouring it even BEFORE we invaded - when Iraq could POSSIBLY have singlehandedly destroyed this huge arsenal. Yeah, right)

- "We're LIBERATING the people of Iraq." (Well, everyone except the Islamic fundamentalists, who should be held in check to make sure they don't control the current government, even though they comprise the vast majority of non-Kurdistan Iraq. Everyone else, though...you're FREE!)

I daresay, that in the face of us forming pacts with terrorists, finding no WMD, no Al-Queda links, and no evidence of aggression on their part....well, who's "wrong" here is up to some measure of debate.

As for the article, it's one-sided propaganda. Plenty of direct quotes from the zealous Right. Mostly indirect snippets of quotes from anti-war groups. Plenty of unsubstantiated allegations (it's just a big ruse to get Bush out of office, even though Bush is the one who engineered this entire scenario! What a conspiracy!)...no real journalism or even much of a point to it, really.

Really, this is twice now that this so-called New Hitler has rolled over and died in less than a month. Just what exactly were we worried about again?

This article seems to be written on the false and oversimplified idea that people were protesting because they thought that the U.S. would lose to Iraq, and they've been proven wrong because we quickly 'won.'

Well, duh, we won. Anyone who didn't realize we'd stomp all over Iraq is as naive as those on the right who are now surprised to learn that many Iraqis aren't pleased that the U.S. has set up shop in their country.

The protesting was mostly over the motivations, the questionable necessity of the war, and the long-term effects this will have on international relations. Some of these points are brought up by quoted lefties in the article, but there are no responses to them.

It seemed to me like they were going on the "Protesters don't care about the Iraqi people, they're just anti-Bush" angle. This is definitely not news, though. It's an opinion piece on a news website.

Drivel.

I can't believe they quoted The Free Republic as if it's an authority on something.

They overlooked what Bill Maher has said of late. He was against this war and said he thought it would be a disaster for our troops and chemical weapons would be used on them. I've seen him on two shows (Tonight Show and The View) and he has said he was wrong and congratulated the orchestrators. He did mention we aren't out of the water though and that rebuilding Iraq is the key. Also among his points was that we have further pissed off the Arab world by meddling in the Middle East once more.

Then again Maher is a Libertarian so they probably think he doesn't count .

Some have come out and admitted they were wrong and some haven't. Many not all of the anti-war crowd/protesters said this would be a long and drawn out war much like Vietnam.

I think the conservatives that cried and screamed about Kosovo in 94 should have said they were wrong after the fact and I have the same feelings here.

The only possible "long war" scenario would be if they drew all of their forces into Baghdad and hid in civilian areas WHILE using chemical weapons on US troops, and even then, we would've withstood that for as long as war approval ratings held before littering the entire city with JDAMs and saying "we did all we could to help them."

I heard Bill Maher, and I'm not sure what he thought he was wrong about. He doubted we'd be welcomed wholesale, and sure enough we weren't and aren't. He doubted those iffy motivations that Bush, Powell, and Rumsfeld cited, and sure enough they all rang false.

And his concerns about the effect we're going to have long term in that region become more justified daily.

Clearly thats what you see there Mikah. I like Maher and think he's a smart guy. I watched him a week before the war started and he was debating with actor Ron Silver on CNN. His arguments and points were spot on as were Silver's.

The point is he did say he was wrong about some of his predictions and then pointed to other key issues. As I said Fox ignored Maher but thats probably because he's off ABC and is a Libertarian.

It's not information at all, just opinion. Free Republic isn't a research facility or pollster or a news service. When I go to their website, I'm treated to this blurb: Hoo-yah.

This isn't a great article, but it's a nice editorial, if you agree with that sort of thing.

How can anyone say Fox isn't biased?

I don't even see the need to get worked up over this, fellow anti-warriors. I mean, like the old story says, "You know I was a scorpion when you picked me up."

I don't even go to Fox News anymore.

I say with complete honesty and lack of ego that I would LOVE to be wrong with my assessments thus far but I don't feel I am and it's truly upsetting.

If one of those justifications was genuine and we were proven to be right, that might make the deaths of those servicepeople over there a bit more purposeful.

If my suspicions about truly fighting terrorism were wrong, we'd really be taking to all terrorists, and not just fighting some while working with others.

If my suspicions about our political impact over there were wrong, the various ethnic and religious groups of Iraq would put aside petty differences and create a government that did serve them all whil praising the US all the while.

But none of this has come to pass. And that's what saddens me.

Mikah I hope you didn't get the impression that I was calling you out saying that you were wrong in your assessments about Iraq and the war.

On the contrary I felt and feel you are usually expressing the right statements and bringing up the correct questions when its come to the war on terrorism and Iraq. The difference is that there were many who said all hell would break loose and that Bush would get thousands of our servicemen killed and many other things of that nature. Now after the fact many are redfaced and are hiding from the press now when then they were clamouring for camera time. You are not one of those people.

Btw it saddens me as well what our government tolerates what it says it fights then does something completely opposite like the article about Iran you posted.

Like Dave B said, those people were as foolish as could be.

There was a possibility that chemical weapons could've been used against our troops, and if we'd been facing the murderous monster we were supposedly opposing and he actually did possess this mighty arsenal we said he had, then it would have been a lot more likely.

But obviously, there were a lot of smoke and mirrors involved and the hype proved to be on par with a Tyson title fight. Only this time, people actually believed the tomatocan they propped against him was the fierce fighter the commercials said he was.

Um, maybe they were basing their fears of "all hell breaking loose" on the Bush administration's constant harping about WMD's and a mad, evil dictator? Which turned out to be non-existant?

Maybe you're right. Now tell me where they got their fears of us wiping out half a million Iraqi civilians?

Tell me where "they" or whoever said that?

The total US/Iraqi body count for Gulf War I including the military AND civilians was less than half that. Anyone who said 500,000 civilians would die would just be talking out of their butt.

Oh I heard that and many more saying " hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians will be killed by the American military. " of course every one of these people I saw saying these things were the protesters carrying their signs at the rallys. I can only speculate on why they would think the civilian death totals would be so large but I imagine its because they felt we (Coalition forces) would be in a Stalingrad/Baghdad battle that would end up taking place around high civilian population centers. As well as Jacob's correct point about the administrations propaganda on Saddam's chemical capabilities.

My point about this article and this thread is that the Polars as I will call them (Polar left and Polar right) don't admit when they are wrong. Same thing happened with some staunch conservos who said there would be hundreds of military personal coming home in bodybags and without limbs due to the heavy minefields in Kosovo in 94. Moral of the story is at the end of the day the monday evening quarterbacks don't admit they game planned wrong.

That seems pretty farfetched to me. Occams Razor tells us it's simply more likely he never had WMD's or the military might to resist the US.

"Folding like a cheap suit" does not sound like the kind of thing a megalomaniac wants to be seen as doing by the world at large. Rather I think he'd prefer to "go out with a big bang".

America doesn't need much help to look bad to much of the planet, and Saddam has never exactly been known for subtlety.

That's the way I thought things would go. Most of what I heard concurred that in 91, if we had driven to Baghdad, he would have launched WMD at us (as opposed to letting us spread them by blowing up his bunkers), so I figured it would be the same this time. Why didn't he go out with a bang?
Is it because he didn't have tactical command and the people responsible didn't obey orders? Is it because the US advance was too fast? Was it to get nations to stop the US by showing he wasn't such a bad guy and we were the aggressors? Or, perhaps, was it because a)he didn't have any weapons to launch at us or b)he didn't have any weapons ready to launch at us?

I don't think Saddam would have made a plan that involved him almost getting killed several times.

Again, I feel the need to ask: why are we at CHUD the ONLY people discussing this?!? That article was right about one thing: the anti-war folks have faded COMPLETELY from view in the last little while in the media. You'd think that, at the very least, the pro-war faction would be quoting them now to show what hypocrites they are, or something. But it's like everyone had their memories wiped!

Why hasn't anyone stood up and said, "My God, we weren't against the war being ended swiftly! We just objected to the methods we used and our rationale for the war, and are concerned about the future" (as Mikah said).

Granted, there was some hyperbole about how the war would become a quagmire and kill Iraqi civilians, and obviously the people who said that aren't eager to call attention to themselves, but come ON! Speak up for yourselves, folks! I just saw Maher on Conan and he sorta-kinda made the key points, but he mostly came off as apologizing for opposing the war.

Also, attacking Hollywood celebs is shooting fish in a barrel. It really shouldn't be "politicos vs. celebs", because that's not a fair fight. Where are the people standing up to refute, say, Noam Chomsky?

The failure of the Left is that they CONTINUALLY allow the Right to dictate the terms of the dialogue - the vast majority in flyover country seem to have the opinion that "war's over, we've won, the Left was wrong" and most news outlets are swallowing that hook, line, and sinker.

However, the facts remain that of the objectives, eliminating Hussein's regime has been SPECTACULARLY successful, something that is undeniable. But the issues of WMD, democracy in Iraq, and what sort of hornet's nest the US has stirred up with this action are still up in the air.

Someone with a large voice needs to inform the right that we're batting .250 on this so far, and that ain't a successful rate.

What I find completely fascinating, and disgusting, is how easily it was for Dubya and Co. to sell this war. And then equally as fascinating, and disgusting, is how quickly people brushed off the lies, and still support Dubya.

It’s a bit tragic, if you will, to find out that your country is almost entirely comprised of sheep.

It’s a bit far-fetched, however I couldn’t discount it entirely, because I haven’t any evidence to do so with.

However, I do owe Dubya and Co. some credit. They could have easily planted something, even if just small amounts, to allow some justification for all of their claims. That’s not to say that just because they admit that they lied they should suffer no consequences.

I don’t mean to sound jaded, but this pretty much applies to every news organization in America.

Serious question though.. When exactly was it that journalistic integrity, and objectivity, were auctioned off to the highest bidder? Imagine if scientific integrity were purchasable.

I don't know if there ever has been "journalistic integrity." The first newspapers were used as propaganda for whoever backed it, and even the penny press of the 1800s was very partisan. For a brief period in the mid-1900s it was less so, but we have never had a free or fair press. It was balanced, because there were people on both sides of the issue, but the press always has been like Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, etc.