Too bad, so sad.

[Mark Thibodeau]

Well, I know *I* was opposed. And seeing as I was writing a daily email
newsletter with an audited readership of just under 300K at the time
(Internet famous, I was!), I have a written record to prove it.

I also have documentary evidence to prove that conservatives of that time
period were just as vile and allergic to reality and reason as are today's
Trumptards, all the Frumses', Podhoretzes' and Kristolses' lamentations to
the contrary notwithstanding.

Recently, I went back and reviewed my writing from that era - much of it
involving vigorous back-and-forthing with angry, pro-war, conservative
subscribers - and one of the things that jumped out at me was the sneering,
condescending joy they exhibited when the first part of the invasion was "a
cakewalk". As if the world's only remaining superpower taking over a
country that the international community had just spent a decade disarming
was something to boast about.

In fact, on April 5, 2013, when the conservatives were doing victory laps
all over the media landscape, I wrote the following:

*NEVER FORGET...*

Despite a somewhat hairy start and some rough patches in the early stages
of this whole "Iraq Attaq," the city of Baghdad seems about to fall and
there are hints that Preznit Dubya is pretty much ready to declare victory.
And yes, while it's true that American and British forces seem to be
slicing through both the much-ballyhooed Republican Guard and the dreaded
Fedayeen militia at will - there was a reported 3000-to-1 kill ratio during
Saturday's incursion, alone - there are three things we should always keep
in mind:

- First: spiritually and physically, this war is mangling a generation
<http://www.thedailycamera.com/bdc/county_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2423_1866804,00.html>
of
Americans, both on the battlefield and at home.

- Second: this so-called "war of liberation" is actually a monstrous
fucking slaughter.
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2537328,00.html>

- Third: Preznit Dubya and his criminal administration constructed this
entire wasteful, Satanic enterprise upon a foundation of propaganda,
forgery, and outright lies <http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/03/04/01.html>.
There is no valid ethical, moral or legal justification for it, no matter
how "easy" the task might eventually turn out to seem… relatively speaking.

Never forget these things. Even as you wave your little plastic flag at
the homecoming parade on your TV screen, with its smiling soldiers
resplendent under a blizzard of confetti and cheers, never forget that it's
all a lie, and that no amount of wishful thinking can change that sorry
fact.

***

In other Daily Dirt editorials, I frequently warned that the occupation was
far from secure, and was ultimately proven (tragically) correct. Not that I
gloated at the time.

Anyhoo, I think the invasion would have taken place no matter what. The
Powers That Be wanted in, come Hell or high water.

J


On Mon, Dec 18, 2017 at 5:21 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Maybe Joseph is, as I just sent regarding Thomas...
> ." a critical mass" is pretty tough to measure for even 'the newspaper of
> record' and all the other media which it influences.
> and when Judith Miller's sources--her supposed bedmate Chalabi---lied and
> deceived, as did she---and lost her career over it, too little too late, we
> can now, smart critical thinkers that we are, blame the *whole* NYTimes,
> "mainstream media',whatever that is, now throw in the Wa Po and many others
> because one very major story in the 'newspaper of record' was because
> it--all the editors and publishers---were being played, well, not too smart
> in my judgment.
>
> And as I just said to Thomas, would that administration NOT have gone to
> war anyway?
>
> Some, say Barack Obama, saw through the evil of an impending Iraq war.
> Many others too, esp all over media that I bet plisters followed. In fact,
> I bet most plisters
> were opposed, whaddya think? So now they can displace their anger on the
> NYT and other 'mainstream media'? Okay.
>
> Here's my attempt at an aphorism of the day: When you can find out that
> stories in double-sourced (at least) independently-verified stories in
> media papers and
> other vehicles are wrong---you know you have a way of measuring truth.
>
> and a simple social observation about a word: Have you all noticed how the
> word 'lie' has come often to be used, even by many over trivial things, to
> mean a mistake,
> a wrongness, a nonfact, a non-truth independent of an actual willed
> intention?
>
> Later,
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 18, 2017 at 5:01 AM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I imagine Joseph might be referring to the role played by such august
>> journals as the New York Times in getting a critical mass of the American
>> population to switch from opposing to supporting the US invasion of Iraq in
>> 2003, a folly which has led to the unnecessary, superfluous deaths of
>> upwards of a million innocent souls so far, and counting.
>>
>> I don't, however, blame "mainstream American journalism" any more than I
>> do the populace that allowed itself to be persuaded. And of course, much
>> less than the actual criminals at the top, many of whom knew that the
>> rationale they proffered for their businessman's war* of first resort was
>> nothing but a tissue of lies, because they knew that if they revealed their
>> REAL reasons for the invasion (which, to be exceedingly fair, I'm sure they
>> thought were good reasons), the American people wouldn't be so gung-ho for
>> bloodshed.
>>
>> J
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 18, 2017 at 3:55 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Joseph T:
>>> "I agree that mainstream american journalism is complicit in much more
>>> mass murder than any good they may have done."
>>>
>>> A remark so ignorant, even, maybe, so inherently vile in even pretending
>>> this makes measurable sense about valid journalism, that one shudders for
>>> the polity from the other side.
>>>
>>> So it goes.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
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