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Some Guy TT posted:Have you ever considered the possibility there might be a connection between the fact that Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumseld are not listed as war criminals in American texbooks and the equally true fact that the guy who was their point man in the Senate became the standard bearer for the opposition party some twenty years later? ... No, because that sounds like the ravings of an insane person, rather than my preferred take that life is grueling and disappointing, and that people in power who do bad things are rarely held accountable for a wide variety of reasons. also it's weird to refer to Biden as "their point man in the Senate," because he wasn't. He gave a speech in support of the initial resolution in 2002, but he wasn't even a co-sponsor of the Senate resolutions. you can criticize a man and believe him to be an awful human being without believing them to be the source of all evil in the world, you know.
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Nov 9, 2020 04:40
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PenguinKnight posted:1. The immediacy of how house dems have started to attack progressives is a worrying signifier that there will be no dragging left. I’m done with it; Biden, Congress, and the party are the most contemptible fuckers and I’m done. I think the real issue is that the Democratic party has become essentially a full-scale replica of a functional government, without much of a left-wing. Like, the right wing of the party is reasonable but I disagree with them, the moderates are not all I want them to be, and then the leftists are approaching "good" for me but I recognize they are not particularly left-wing relative to international standards. Then the GOP is a group of frothing lunatics who swoop in to gently caress things up every now and again.
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Nov 9, 2020 04:43
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Acebuckeye13 posted:... No, because that sounds like the ravings of an insane person, rather than my preferred take that life is grueling and disappointing, and that people in power who do bad things are rarely held accountable for a wide variety of reasons. He was the ranking member of the foreign relations committee, and in fact chaired it for most of the runup to the war. Who exactly do you think would be the more accurate person to describe as their point man in the senate?
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Nov 9, 2020 04:43
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Some Guy TT posted:Have you ever considered the possibility there might be a connection between the fact that Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumseld are not listed as war criminals in American texbooks and the equally true fact that the guy who was their point man in the Senate became the standard bearer for the opposition party some twenty years later? No. They designed the war from scratch, prosecuted it and hosed it up. Joe Biden was one of many, many people who supported giving the Bush administration the power to wage that war (alongside tens to hundreds of millions of Americans, probably including some of the same people who now take delight in calling Biden a "war criminal", and no I didn't support the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, I knew they were a terrible idea from the beginning). He didn't create it. It would have happened with or without him, because the Republicans and the American people were full of fire and fury and the Democrats in general were nowhere near having the will or the political capital to stop them. There were war criminals in that war, and most of them worked in the White House and the Pentagon. Joe Biden wasn't more of a war criminal than most of the Senate at that time, which, if you want them to be prosecuted, then fine, but you're just not going to get that. We are talking about a time when on this very forum there were discussion about whether all Muslim nations should be overthrown or only some of them.
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Nov 9, 2020 04:46
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The Artificial Kid posted:No. Joe biden was not just another senator but chair of the foreign relations committee and ensured that the AUMF sailed right on through committee without any opposition
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Nov 9, 2020 04:50
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Raskolnikov38 posted:Joe biden was not just another senator but chair of the foreign relations committee and ensured that the AUMF sailed right on through committee without any opposition Edit - Ok I see there was also one separately for Iraq. But that war was happening. There were 28 other Democratic senators voting for it along with Biden. Do you really think he made the difference between it happening and not happening? Or that he was vastly out of line with (tragically) the opinion of Americans at that time? The Artificial Kid fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Nov 9, 2020 |
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Nov 9, 2020 04:59
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Eighteen months? I think you've got your dates mixed up. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/17/joe-biden-role-iraq-war quote:But he had a power much greater than his own words. He was able to choose all 18 witnesses in the main Senate hearings on Iraq. And he mainly chose people who supported a pro-war position. They argued in favor of “regime change as the stated US policy” and warned of “a nuclear-armed Saddam sometime in this decade”. That Iraqis would “welcome the United States as liberators” And that Iraq “permits known al-Qaida members to live and move freely about in Iraq” and that “they are being supported”. C-SPAN links in the original article.
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Nov 9, 2020 05:00
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2.5. He's a center right president coming into a right wing senate that will obstruct everything and he will not use executive order to do anything of note for the people. Trump will run again in 2024 and beat him. At least for four years we won't have a president telling Nazis to "stand by" though.
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Nov 9, 2020 05:01
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Some Guy TT posted:He was the ranking member of the foreign relations committee, and in fact chaired it for most of the runup to the war. Who exactly do you think would be the more accurate person to describe as their point man in the senate? ...Any of the actual Republicans in leadership during that time, such as Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS), Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R-KY), or Republican Party Conference leader Rick Santorum (R-PA)? Or even Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-ND) or Joe Lieberman (D-CT), who sponsored the Senate versions of the AUMF resolution. Actually you know what if you really want to go with a democrat let's go with Lieberman, dude was still saying there were WMDs in Iraq and he didn't regret his vote for war as late as 2011.
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Nov 9, 2020 05:02
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Acebuckeye13 posted:... No, because that sounds like the ravings of an insane person, rather than my preferred take that life is grueling and disappointing, and that people in power who do bad things are rarely held accountable for a wide variety of reasons. nah man you don't get to just overtly rewrite history. He was a major figure in the party and on the loving foreign relations committee, his words had power and making him the big cheerleader for the war was a key factor in getting dem support, this is just objective fact, the bush white house openly talked about how biden was a big figure to focus on woo'ing and thanks to him the AUMF skated through with hand picked experts who all came to the same conclusion of 'aw yea if we don't do this now Saddam's totally gonna nuke us. In fact, the 'welcome us as liberators' narrative began in HIS committee.
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Nov 9, 2020 05:03
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sexpig by night posted:nah man you don't get to just overtly rewrite history. He was a major figure in the party and on the loving foreign relations committee, his words had power and making him the big cheerleader for the war was a key factor in getting dem support, this is just objective fact, the bush white house openly talked about how biden was a big figure to focus on woo'ing and thanks to him the AUMF skated through with hand picked experts who all came to the same conclusion of 'aw yea if we don't do this now Saddam's totally gonna nuke us. Unfortunately this was the world they were operating in at the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq#May_2003
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Nov 9, 2020 05:07
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The Artificial Kid posted:Unfortunately this was the world they were operating in at the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq#May_2003 you, uh, you remember what year the AUMF passed, right? (it was 2002)
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Nov 9, 2020 05:10
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it's almost like they manipulated a nation wide disgusting sunk cost fallacy of 'well look we're already THERE so what you wanna go tell this dead dude's mom he died for nothing???' to keep support for an unpopular war and this could have been avoided by...not...doing...the war????
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Nov 9, 2020 05:11
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sexpig by night posted:you, uh, you remember what year the AUMF passed, right? Read higher. America (wrongly) wanted the war. I'm not saying it makes voting for it right, but it stops it being something that evil puppetmaster of war Joe Biden foisted on everyone.
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Nov 9, 2020 05:12
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The Artificial Kid posted:Read higher. America (wrongly) wanted the war. I'm not saying it makes voting for it right, but it stops it being something that evil puppetmaster of war Joe Biden foisted on everyone. No, they didn't quote:Although pro-war sentiments were very high after 9/11, public opinion stabilized soon after, and slightly in favor of the war. According to a Gallup poll conducted from August 2002 through early March 2003, the number of Americans who favored the war in Iraq fell to between 52 percent to 59 percent, while those who opposed it fluctuated between 35 percent and 43 percent.[10] Gallup, a right wing outlet who's samples always lean old and reactionary barely had a majority, and at those numbers...gently caress them? The AUMF passed in October 2002, this is just not the case of some poor innocent biden going along with the savage will of the proles, it was manufactured consent!
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Nov 9, 2020 05:14
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sexpig by night posted:No, they didn't You don't like that Gallup poll, what was the actual level of support and opposition for the war in America at the time? My memory might be clouded by the tremendous amount of support for the war that I used to encounter as an opponent of it at the time.
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Nov 9, 2020 05:18
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I'll admit that I had not remembered the specifics in Biden's role in pushing the AUMF through the Senate, which is probably because I was about 9 when the hearings were occurring and I wasn't quite as tuned in to politics as I am now 
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Nov 9, 2020 05:19
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My excitement is at a 2. The poop number. Cause this horseshit.
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Nov 9, 2020 05:20
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The Artificial Kid posted:Yeah, consent that was manufactured by the Bush administration with fake evidence of WMD. A consent that Biden and the other democrats had to take into account in deciding how to approach the issue. The most generous possible interpretation of Biden's actions you can come up with is that he was a political weathervane going along with the bloodthirstiness of the American public because he was scared of the polls. And this is supposed to comfort us that he's not going to commit war crimes in the future...why? Did you miss that this last election was a squeaker because it turned out that way more people were willing to vote for a warmongering candidate than anyone realized?
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Nov 9, 2020 05:20
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Acebuckeye13 posted:I'll admit that I had not remembered the specifics in Biden's role in pushing the AUMF through the Senate, which is probably because I was about 9 when the hearings were occurring and I wasn't quite as tuned in to politics as I am now That didn't stop you from defending him.
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Nov 9, 2020 05:21
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The Artificial Kid posted:Yeah, consent that was manufactured by the Bush administration with fake evidence of WMD. A consent that Biden and the other democrats had to take into account in deciding how to approach the issue. he didn't have to take poo poo into account because he was in charge of the committee! If he was worried about people being lied to he could have called ONE expert to say 'uh no, everything general Powel is saying is absolutely insane, moving WMDs to Syria in the dead of the night? That's Tom Clancy horse poo poo, and pictures of industrial activity in an industrial zone prove nothing', instead HE called nothing but yes men. It was his call and he chose to go along blindly with what absolute monsters like Powel wanted (and then continue to reward him with DNC speaking slots and poo poo in 2020!) Joe was either too stupid to be trusted with power, or he was an active participate in that manufacturing.
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Nov 9, 2020 05:23
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Some Guy TT posted:The most generous possible interpretation of Biden's actions you can come up with is that he was a political weathervane going along with the bloodthirstiness of the American public because he was scared of the polls. And this is supposed to comfort us that he's not going to commit war crimes in the future...why? Did you miss that this last election was a squeaker because it turned out that way more people were willing to vote for a warmongering candidate than anyone realized?
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Nov 9, 2020 05:25
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The Artificial Kid posted:Because this time around (I hope) nobody is going to 9/11 America, nor manufacture a case for war against another country and present it to the American public. If you can point to a time in the past where Biden has decided a war should happen of his own free will, then used America's intelligence agencies against their will to fabricate a case for that war, I'm all ears. That is not what happened in relation to Iraq. A cabal in the White House and Pentagon created that war, for their own financial benefit, and Biden was one of many who went along with it at a point in time when most Americans supported it (because the American people had been duped). So just to be clear your optimistic take is that Joe Biden was too stupid to do even the most token level opposition to a plan entirely cooked up by the white house only? You know what company functionally owns Delaware, right? You know how much money they made on military profiteering? It's almost like...the financial and political incentive to support the war were actually bipartisan, and leadership from both sides actively participated in maybe one of the most evil modern american acts done by our government. Also Joe was a big supporter of what we did in Libya and wanted to do more in Syria, did the ghost of Dick Cheny force him to saber rattle there too?
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Nov 9, 2020 05:29
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Lol it wasn't even the first time Dupont made bank off Iraq my dude https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/11/world/un-links-du-pont-to-iraq-arms-plan.html
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Nov 9, 2020 05:31
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The Artificial Kid posted:Because this time around (I hope) nobody is going to 9/11 America, nor manufacture a case for war against another country and present it to the American public. If you can point to a time in the past where Biden has decided a war should happen of his own free will, then used America's intelligence agencies against their will to fabricate a case for that war, I'm all ears. That is not what happened in relation to Iraq. A cabal in the White House and Pentagon created that war, for their own financial benefit, and Biden was one of many who went along with it at a point in time when most Americans supported it (because the American people had been duped). You have defined the circumstances for which we can hold a politician to account for a pro war record so narrowly that the only people who could possibly ever be said to have started a war of "their own free will" are presidents. And strictly speaking George W Bush is literally the only president who actually meets this standard because you're choosing to hinge everything on post 9/11 comparable nationalism and a deliberate sustained nationalist effort. Which Joe Biden willfully participated in, however much you'd rather pretend he was just a tiny cog in the war machine rather than a big one.
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Nov 9, 2020 05:38
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sexpig by night posted:So just to be clear your optimistic take is that Joe Biden was too stupid to do even the most token level opposition to a plan entirely cooked up by the white house only?
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Nov 9, 2020 05:38
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Some Guy TT posted:You have defined the circumstances for which we can hold a politician to account for a pro war record so narrowly that the only people who could possibly ever be said to have started a war of "their own free will" are presidents. And strictly speaking George W Bush is literally the only president who actually meets this standard because you're choosing to hinge everything on post 9/11 comparable nationalism and a deliberate sustained nationalist effort. Which Joe Biden willfully participated in, however much you'd rather pretend he was just a tiny cog in the war machine rather than a big one.
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Nov 9, 2020 05:40
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Dixon Chisholm posted:That didn't stop you from defending him. Mostly because regardless of his actions in the Senate, to describe him as an architect of the war is still deeply wrong in comparison to the actions of Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Franks, etc.
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Nov 9, 2020 05:48
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The Artificial Kid posted:I'm choosing to evaluate Joe Biden in relation to the realistic alternatives (not just his actual opponent in this election, but the broad run of American politicians of recent decades). I'm not claiming he's the best of all of them, but I don't think he's anywhere near the worse, either. I'd say he's in the top half, and that he may rise to the presidency in surprising ways, especially since re-election is unlikely to be anywhere near his biggest concern. Even if you're choosing to compare Biden to Trump he still falls short. Trump has actually had the power for the last four years to at least attempt to manufacture nationalistic fervor for a war. On two occasions, with Syria and Soleimani, he even had the mainstream media urging him to do it. Both times he decided to back off instead, even though he likely would have reaped huge political dividends for doing so. What makes you think Biden would back off in either of these cases when, again by your own extremely charitable interpretation, Biden cares more about opinion polls than he does in doing the right thing?
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Nov 9, 2020 05:50
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Mostly because regardless of his actions in the Senate, to describe him as an architect of the war is still deeply wrong in comparison to the actions of Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Franks, etc. Good point. He's more like the engineer that signed off on the design for the murder machine and said LOOKS GOOD TO ME BOYS, but nit the architect.
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Nov 9, 2020 05:58
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Some Guy TT posted:Even if you're choosing to compare Biden to Trump he still falls short. Trump has actually had the power for the last four years to at least attempt to manufacture nationalistic fervor for a war. On two occasions, with Syria and Soleimani, he even had the mainstream media urging him to do it. Both times he decided to back off instead, even though he likely would have reaped huge political dividends for doing so. What makes you think Biden would back off in either of these cases when, again by your own extremely charitable interpretation, Biden cares more about opinion polls than he does in doing the right thing? Edit - look, this is a thread for people to say how excited or not excited they are about the Biden administration. I'm (potentially) excited, you're not. I don't think we're on the verge of convincing each other, so maybe we should let it rest there for now.
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Nov 9, 2020 05:59
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OK. I'm a two by the way. The only reason it's not a one is because it will probably be funny in some horrible twisted way. It already is really.
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Nov 9, 2020 06:13
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3-4 if I'm being as optimistic as possible. If covid really does push him to strengthen social services in the US then... great. I'd love to be wrong, and every lib please mock all the leftists for being wrong. If this lifelong corporate democrat enacts the austerity his transition team has alluded too for the entire cycle... then he will be the most criminal president in US history. Not looking forward to the treatment of the Left by brunch pilled libs.
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Nov 9, 2020 06:16
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The Artificial Kid posted:Are you talking about the authorisation of military force passed a week after 9/11, when people were calling for Afghanistan to be nuked, and claiming that it's the reason the Iraq war happened 18 months later after the Democrats had lost the senate? You realize that "_____ would have happened anyway, so you can't really blame someone for facilitating it" isn't really a convincing argument, right? Most evil things happen through spreading responsibility around such that most individuals can tell themselves "if it wasn't me, someone else would be doing it, so I can't be blamed." It is literally analogous to someone saying that a member of Nazi leadership isn't really responsible because the same things would have happened if they weren't there and most of the public supported them. The Artificial Kid posted:I didn't say he cares more about opinion polls than about doing the right thing, I said in a climate where most people supported the war, he gave his support to the war. It was easy for someone to convince themselves, at that moment, that the war was the right thing. In fact most people in America had. They were wrong, but they were convinced. This isn't even remotely an excuse, though, because Biden was in a position of power/leadership. You only hold this opinion because, on some level, you don't view the Iraq/Afghanistan wars for what they truly were. For whatever reason, you don't file them in the same mental category as other war crimes and atrocities, which leads to holding opinions that you would otherwise recognize as ridiculous and morally contemptible if they were applied to the leadership of other countries that commit atrocities.
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Nov 9, 2020 06:17
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WnTnLgBI_8 What else could he do? The GWB administration forced him to take a stance he knew was wrong!
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Nov 9, 2020 06:45
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I'm a 1. And with the way they're already blaming the left for their disappointing showing, I have to say I'm extremely looking forward to them losing the House in 2022.
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Nov 9, 2020 06:50
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1. not interested in bringing back the same people who led to trump in the first place.
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Nov 9, 2020 08:20
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2. Cant wait to see him try to reason and work with the Republicans, who will continue to do everything possible to obstruct him, while throwing the people who win him the election under the bus. He gets 1 points for maybe normalising international relationships again.
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Nov 9, 2020 08:41
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9-Volt Assault posted:He gets 1 points for maybe normalising international relationships again.
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Nov 9, 2020 08:44
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5, because I am excited to see if his inability to tackle the manifold crises the country faces will further along a true left opposition, radicalize more people, spur mutual aid/dual power, etc. I actually am optimistic that this will be easier under Biden than Trump, simply because a lot of people need to be shown that the Democrats are not, as an institution, there to help them. That said, it's gonna be a rough road ahead. The Senate GOP will ensure that very little of value gets done, and Biden's record is one of austerity policies at home and interventions abroad. I'm glad Trump's gone, but Biden/Harris is probably gonna suuuuuuuck.
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Nov 9, 2020 09:08
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