Crime or Karma?

Excuse us as we wait for David to get canceled.

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In an echo of times long past, AO host emeritus David French joins Steve, Sarah, and Jonah as part of our long game to get him canceled from his fancy new job. They discuss Trump’s hush-money case, what GOP leaders are saying about the Iraq War on the anniversary of the invasion, and Buffalo Wild Wings’ not-so-secret secret. 

Show Notes:

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Comments (62)
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  1. Paulkempf

    Came across this helpful article by Richard Hanania on the role played by Ahmad Chalabi in formulating notions about Iraqi reconstruction, along that played by Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, who was skeptical of Iraqis' abilities to govern themselves. In retrospect, it's clear we suffered from having few sources within prewar Iraq, as well as from the clashing views of Colin Powell's State Dept. and Donald Rumsfeld's Dept. of Defense on what postwar Iraq should look like. And our memories are colored by the Obama and Trump administrations' lack of commitment to the enterprise.

    https://warontherocks.com/2018/12/ahmad-chalabi-and-the-great-man-theory-of-history/

    It's easy to forget that Saddam was in regular violation of the cease fire agreement that marked the end of the First Gulf War, and that the Clinton Administration had obtained a vote of Congress in favor of regime change. Action was required, we went in blind, and we learned from our mistakes. The caricatures of Bush and Cheney that live in many of our heads align poorly with the historical record.

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  2. Aaron H Frank

    David, who was on the ground in Iraq and working with teams that found traces of chemical weapons, was completely discounted by Steve who read about it.

    Did anyone actually read the final report of the Iraqi Survey group? In the intro it states, clearly, that we will never know if Saddam Hussein had WMDs because during the run up to the invasion, we gave the Iraqi dictator time to offload them some place else. The report suggests possibly Syria as they were the other Baathists in the neighborhood.

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    Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

    I have yet to hear a plausible alternative history in which (1) Saddam stayed in power and (2) things as a result turned out better, broadly defined and on a net basis, for Iraq, Iraqis, the region, American interests, western civilization, and the world. Those who insist that the Iraq War was a mistake in hindsight certainly haven't made the case that Saddam would have suddenly reformed his ways if the American-led international coalition threatening war against him simply had backed down rather than invading to depose him.

    In evaluating the value of a war waged to put an end to his regime, we must necessarily include a fair prediction, based on evidence of his past behavior, regarding what he would have done if we hadn't put an end to him. I have a hard time imagining a world that's better for him being in it atop Iraq.

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  4. Mrjsfisher

    You all have clearly not dealt with the simple and obvious truth that the Bush administration from the Top Down, waged an offensive war of choice and Sold it to American public using lies. The ties to terrorists have been thoroughly and consistently debunked (Steve). Hussein’s danger to America was nonexistent. And, again, it was mostly poor Americans who went there and died, got injured, and came home with PTSD. We handed Iraq to Iran. And we spent trillions of dollars in the process. Y’all’s path dependency is a shame. This war wasn’t based on the opinions of experts. This was a political decision made at the highest levels of the Bush Administration, who cooked the intelligence to support their predetermined goal. You CAN support the proposition that these were lies and not just being wrong. The fact that SOME democrats flip flopped doesn’t make the salesmanship somehow valid (Jonah).

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      Njh2005

      No one lied.

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      1. Mrjsfisher

        Lol.

        Hers a link to a database of the publicly verifiably false statements administration officials made when selling that war to you:

        https://publicintegrity.org/politics/search-the-935-iraq-war-false-statements/

        https://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/23/bush.iraq/


        Here’s a brief Google search from a variety of sources documenting as much:

        https://theintercept.com/2023/03/19/george-bush-iraq-lies-trump/

        https://www.businessinsider.com/george-bush-liar-cia-mohammed-atta-prague-911-iraq-invasion-2023-3

        https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/09/17/9-11-and-iraq-the-making-of-a-tragedy/amp/


        https://www.lawfareblog.com/was-iraq-war-foreseeable-blunder

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          Njh2005

          Saying something that is later shown to be inaccurate and lying are very different things.

          http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/08/AR2008060801687.html

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          1. Mrjsfisher

            “ The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. We will meet that threat now, with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of fire fighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.”

            This is the literal statement of the literal president the day he launched the war. There was never any intelligence that suggested that Saddam Hussein had specific intent to launch terror attacks on the United States. That, sir, is a lie.

            And whether you call it a lie or obfuscation or self-fulfilling nonsense or B.S., his justification to the American people was that this war was NECESSARY to protect America, not just our Allies but at home. And it was not. And they knew.

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  5. Kinneyde32

    Regarding the decision to invade Iraq, it's also worth pointing out that Tony Blair, the PM of England, was also on board, and he reportedly had his own intelligence sources. In hindsight, it was an intelligence failure though. Another point for conspiracy theorists to ponder (since they appear to think that people in power can fabricate anything they want) is that after getting rid of Saddam, George W. Bush did not put forth reams of captured documents and truckloads of equipment to show that Iraq was in fact racing to produce WMD. Perhaps he knew that he would not get away with it.

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    Dave IL

    Loved it. I strongly disagree, though, with one of Jonah's points. I don't believe Jeb was blown away by Trump. All the people I know who supported Trump in 2015-16 were vehemently anti-Jeb before they were pro-Trump. I have only anecdotal evidence, but it's the best evidence available here in the Midwest.
    True, Jeb was a great governor who should have been the presidential nominee in 2000, but by 2005 I was betting that Reggie Bush would not win the Heisman because no one was going to vote for a Bush. Reggie managed to pull off the upset, but it should have been obvious that other Bushes would not be so lucky.

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    Kyzyl Tuva

    I’ve been following Jonah for many many years. But I have a new fav…. Sarah! The combination of Sarah and Jonah is the best in the business - and it’s good food for my mind. Thank you all.

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    Slp

    It's always the democrats.

    Watching from civilian land... I always thought a lot of senators, Hillary for instance, voted for the Iraq war for political reasons. Not because they thought it was a good idea. War fever. Us simple folk had watched how stupid the Vietnam war got. We'd been tramatzed by 9/11, we watched Osama escape... and before that got dealt with one day GW started talking about WMD... war fever.

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    PaulH

    In assessing the second Iraq war, it is important to understand that we did not have a simple choice between invading or not being involved in Iraq. We were already deeply involved in Iraq -- we were maintaining no fly zones in the north and the south and were engaged (along with our allies) in enforcing substantial economic sanctions against the country. All of this was part of an effort to get Saddam to stop killing his people and to comply with UN mandated WMD inspections (as he had agreed).

    Unfortunately, that policy was not going well. The Iraqi people were being immiserated by the sanctions (and, of course, Saddam was prioritizing spending on the elite and the military over helping his people). Saddam was showing no indication that he was going to facilitate the inspections or cease his support for terrorists. And our European allies were getting impatient with our policy approach and wanted to trade with Iraq (i.e. get access to its oil).

    One option would have been to de-escalate our pressure on Saddam. But that would have rewarded his intransigence and would have resulted in his restarting his WDM program and probably again attacking his neighbors and his people. And, likely, he would have increased his support for various anti-western terrorist groups.

    Or we could have tried escalating our pressure on Saddam. But there was not much more we could do short of invasion and, as noted above, sanctions fatigue had set in amongst our allies. And given that Saddam had shown that he was impervious to the misery of his people the likelihood of success of that approach seemed low.

    In atmosphere where we and our allies believed that Saddam had WMD (and was willing to use them) and where we had just seen the devastating impact of state-supported terrorism on our own soil, it is not surprising that initiating war had widespread support.

    It is easy (and understandable) to now criticize the war as a mistake and a debacle, but those making that argument do need to put some thought into what alternative policy they would have pursued.

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    Ben Connelly

    Also if abortion doesn’t get David canceled from the NYT his support of Iraq will…

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