> it’s a lot easier to Monday Morning quarterback decisions made 20 years later
I'm not doing that. I was around and paying attention, and I remember Colin Powell sweating trying to sell this story about scary mobile weapons labs to the UN. And I also remember stuff like that one US news site that reported on an anti-Iraq-war demonstration by school children by captioning a photo of a few blonde kids with open mouths and furrowed brows (since they were likely chanting something) with "Hitlers children: Pro-Sadam demonstrators protest in Munich, Germany". Some people had such a hard-on for war, and it was obvious from day one. Even Christopher Hitchens ended up being a cheerleader for it, so deep was the depravity.
But it wasn't something nobody could have known better, which is why most people knew better. They were proven correct, too, and to call that quarterbacking now, because they were shouted down then, with phrases like anti-Americanism and Bush Derangement Syndrome is kinda rich. If nobody could have known, how come so many called it right away?
> War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
-- from the Judgement of the International Military Tribunal for Germany
It wasn't hard to see, it was just a lot of people had and have double standards.
> No matter how bad a president is perceived to be, I’m not sure we will see him or her jailed for their actions.
It's not about "perceiving a president", it's the simple act of a war of aggression on Iraq. And yes, it's unlikely, which is my whole point.
> Billing and insurance are a mess, but I don’t think you’ll find anyone argue that.
It's a profitable mess for some, hell for others. And to combine that with 9/11:
"Jon Stewart slams Congress over benefits for 9/11 first responders"
If you have never seen it, watch it in full. In the face of that and what it stands for, many other things, and not least the war of aggression pitched to it which you agree is "unlikely" to ever have any justice shed upon it, a phrase like "Those who were responsible for the lives lost on 9/11 were held accountable." is just incorrect.
I'm not doing that. I was around and paying attention, and I remember Colin Powell sweating trying to sell this story about scary mobile weapons labs to the UN. And I also remember stuff like that one US news site that reported on an anti-Iraq-war demonstration by school children by captioning a photo of a few blonde kids with open mouths and furrowed brows (since they were likely chanting something) with "Hitlers children: Pro-Sadam demonstrators protest in Munich, Germany". Some people had such a hard-on for war, and it was obvious from day one. Even Christopher Hitchens ended up being a cheerleader for it, so deep was the depravity.
But it wasn't something nobody could have known better, which is why most people knew better. They were proven correct, too, and to call that quarterbacking now, because they were shouted down then, with phrases like anti-Americanism and Bush Derangement Syndrome is kinda rich. If nobody could have known, how come so many called it right away?
> War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
-- from the Judgement of the International Military Tribunal for Germany
It wasn't hard to see, it was just a lot of people had and have double standards.
> No matter how bad a president is perceived to be, I’m not sure we will see him or her jailed for their actions.
It's not about "perceiving a president", it's the simple act of a war of aggression on Iraq. And yes, it's unlikely, which is my whole point.
> Billing and insurance are a mess, but I don’t think you’ll find anyone argue that.
It's a profitable mess for some, hell for others. And to combine that with 9/11:
"Jon Stewart slams Congress over benefits for 9/11 first responders"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uYpDC3SRpM
If you have never seen it, watch it in full. In the face of that and what it stands for, many other things, and not least the war of aggression pitched to it which you agree is "unlikely" to ever have any justice shed upon it, a phrase like "Those who were responsible for the lives lost on 9/11 were held accountable." is just incorrect.