I'm not a big fan of Kulongoski and this last Tuesday was the first time I've ever voted for him. But I have long been more than willing to give him props for his obvious and genuine dedication to veterans, active service personal and their families. It's a highly admirable trait, IMHO.

Every congress person who agreed to this war is complicit in these losses, both ours and Irag's. There was plenty of evidence that there were no WMD's available to anyone that was actually looking.

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"Every congress person who agreed to this war is complicit in these losses"

Strike: 'congress,' 'who agreed.'

You either get that or not. And everyone gets whether or not you do.

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"Scratch 'congress', 'who agreed'" ..

No, I don't think so. I (much to my embarrassment now) supported the Iraq war originally. My president told me, on national TV, that Iraq was a danger. And they had all these WMD "We know where they are. In the Tikrit and Baghdad area.. and north, south, east, and west.." and their fleet of Nuqulure Robot Anthrax Planes was going to come spray New York, and I don't remember what all. But that country was presented as a Clear And Present Danger to us, and I fully supported stopping that.

It wasn't later till I realized I and the rest of the country had been Flat Out Lied to.

This fiasco is not my fault. And it's not the fault of the huge group of people that sadly agreed that we needed to go to war to defend ourselves, even if the Commander In Chief was a bit of a twit and not as competent as one would have hoped.

It's originally the fault of the administration, who deliberately lied about the information they had. And it's subsequently the fault of the Republican ex-majority who slavishly followed the administration's lead well after the dumbya's Big Foreign Adventure had been shown to be nothing more than a vanity war that the dumbya didn't have any idea how to go about winning.

Curt

It's originally the fault of the administration And every fucking media whore that wanted a war to raise their ratings.

If anyone bothered to actually check, it was evident that Iraq had no WMDs. But that would have meant some work.

The reason people don't learn from the past, is because the past was a repetitious lie to begin with. Mike Hastie U.S. Army Medic Vietnam 1970-71

Curt, I hope this was a lesson for you not to swallow what you hear from our leaders and corporate media without checking it out yourself. There was plenty of information out there that proved the lies. We live in a democracy . We are responsible for our government and what it does. If we don't stay informed and responsible, our system won't work.

I never supported the war becasue I believed that the wmd's never existed but I agree with curt. I know I have always trusted Colin Powell so when he went to the UN and said that for sure there were wmds then I had to really think about my position. For everyone else in my AP Pyschology class we learned about 20/20 hindsight. Today it easy to say hey there was so much evidence that wmds didnt exist in Iraq but before the war it wasnt so easy. I think that saying the war was the media's fault isnt fair to them. I dont remember a lot of newspapers going out the war is great we need to go to war in Iraq. Dont forget the war was presented very well, evidence was presented( which we now was false evidence) and the war was well presented in the form of being part of the war agaisnt terror. Dont blame Curt and others who reasonably supported the war at first. They made a decison on what facts they saw, facts later provern to be false. Lets stop talking about the people who supported the war on what they thought were good facts and talk about how do we get our troops out while helping improve Iraq.

It is hard to credit anyone actually believing Rumsfeld about anything he said publicly, since he never bothered to hide his contempt for the public-at-large when they dared question him. Witness his incredibly lame 'denial of reality when it smacks you down' parting shot about the Iraq conflict being a "little understood, unfamiliar war" that is "complex for people to comprehend."

One who was 13 or so at the time could be forgiven an unquestioned trust in leaders but adults had every reason to be skeptical of the administration's facile justifications of their rush to war.

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Okay, thousands of human souls are dead since you got fooled. How convenient to excuse yourself. And go on ignoring the blood on your ballot pencil.

As for 13-year-olds, or other wards, their guardians and parents gave them the koolade lies to drink, squeezed from the harvest of way many kools. At 17, they are the closest ones to bring the truth, and the murderous result (body count) of lies, back to the guardians and parents.

What I wonder about all these voices who forgive themselves, (until the troops get home, walking here among us, in the store, in the car beside you) -- Who knew? -- I wonder whether, or not, the gullible Buyers of Lies then, who See the Light, NOW, oh !, sooo knowledgeable !, have shined their new Light in mind around to see the Lies are still coming, everywhere, and I wonder whether the once-gullible KnowNothings are Still Buying off-the-shelf new and old Lies.

For examples,

• Terrorists hate us and kill themselves crashing planes because they can plan that that will force the president to lie to start war. DO you believe that lie?

• A plane crash and piddley fire can collapse a Twin Tower into dust. DO you believe that lie?

• HALF of all your taxes goes for our Military OVERkill, more than the rest of the world combined, and you MUST PAY THAT much because our enemies are Out There, they are Everywhere, they are Coming to GET you -- you cannot cut all your taxes by half. DO you believe that lie?

• There is plenty of oil in the earth, it won't run out by the end of your life, or ten years, whichever comes first. DO you believe that lie?

• Global climate heating does not mean you have to stop driving your car. DO you believe that lie?

Just saying, please answer -- those of you who see the big WMD lies now: Is Bush invading Iraq like Hitler invaded Poland, the ONLY pattern of lies your Light shows you? Are you only ignoring knowing you are being lied to, and going on living as a sucker until the massmedia sticks the lies in your face and shows the blood on your hands later, and your plan now is to think about it then, and forgive and excuse yourself again then?

And for the often heard whine, 'WELL WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO ABOUT IT'

DO this: DO NOT BELIEVE THE LIES.

Then you are DOing something, right now, today.

Stop others when they tell you they believe the lies. That also means stop the massmedia. Easy, kill them.
Use your OFF button.

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Thanks to Tenskwatawa for keeping us on the left from getting too certain of our side always being right about everything.

... and assuming all the crazies can be found listening to Lars Larson or joining the Minutemen movement.

Ed,

You are sir without a doubt a jerk. At 13 I saw a man named Colin Powell who was a man of trust say that wmds existed I didnt beleive and never supportted the war. You would do well to shut up sir because you spew nothing but stupidity and bullshit. This thread has been hijacked by radical lefties who hurt the image of moradation that central democrats like me try to convey. Many democrats supported that war at first because of the evidence shown. If the war keeps going bad and a draft is made I will be drafted for sure so dont talk to me about believing crap and that you dont have to for these mistakes. People around my age do like the kid who graduated from my school 2 years and died in Iraq.

17,

I've had my differences with Ed Bickford, but you are insulting him when it is not warranted.

Yes, many intelligent people believed the Shrubbery, and Powell, about WMD. That's because they got their information from the corporate media, which never challenged the lies. I got my info from independent media, and heard almost nothing to suggest that the claims about WMD were credible. Beginning in August 2002, my cohost Jim Wrathall and I on TVset [Portland Community Media] exposed the lies and exaggerations the Shrubbery made to sell the invasion of Iraq. There was no claim that was not easily exposed as fabrication or wishful thinking. Of course, if you read any of the major US papers or news magazines, watched network TV, or listened to radio other than KBOO, you heard that "we know they have WMD."

My suggestion: Don't believe the mainstream media. Check out, CommonDreams.org, TruthOut.org, or other independent websites, listen to Democracy Now or Randi Rhodes [if you can stand the ads], read The Nation, Z Magazine, and locally, The Portland Alliance. Of course, don't believe these sources without confirmation either. For example, the Nation does great journalism, but they are afraid of anything that might be called "conspiracy theorizing", so they ignore many worthwhile stories.

We need to understand why most Americans were snookered by the war lies, but we also need to take personal responsibility for learning whom to trust about what. It's not an impossible undertaking. Good luck and don't stop thinking.

This just in: Portland Indymedia is temporarily down and has sent their "analysts" over to Blue Oregon :-)

I think that Tenskwatawa makes a valid point, uncomfortable though it may be to contemplate. Being fooled into supporting something like a new tax rate that ends up disasterously when better quality info was out there is one thing. Being fooled into supporting a war where thousands lose their lives when better quality info was out there is, it seems to me, a very much more serious thing.

I'm going to go out on a limb here as suggest that as a rule we Americans find it entirely too easy a thing to decide to unloose the dogs of war in some other part of the planet. By the same token, as a rule, we find it entirely too easy a thing to turn a blind eye to other wars, horrible though they seem to be, because it's taking place somewhere else... and gosh, there's that hot sale on (insert most coveted material possession) at that new mall over at (insert place).

And I'm not a bleeding heart liberal. I just think that our priorities are sometimes a bit on the... myopic side.

I apologize to '17yow/opinion' in that I left my comment too open to interpretation as an attack on his personal ability to make reasoned judgements currently; young people are learning a lot about the world across the span of years which I infer you have lived since General Powell perjured himself before the United Nations. It is one more crime with which Bush must live to have besmirched another respected senior serviceman in heedless pursuit of power.

With the internet so readily available, it's pretty easy to find enough information to sort through to find the real truth or most of it. The TV news is about the WORST place you can go to get your information, in fact any TV stuff is likely garbage dished out solely to garner ratings.

So if you supported this Iraq invasion because you were fooled by the magic TV box, your excuse kinda sucks and yes you are at fault to some extent. Being gullible or ignorant isn't a legitimate excuse. But at least you, like so many others, finally woke up and that's where the focus should be - undoing the damage.

I respect and honor all soldiers, whether dead or alive. My late father was a decorated soldier in WW II in the Pacific. I have his medals and I think of him often.

Iraq is a hopeless quagmire. In my opinion, every US soldier that dies in Iraq is a wasted life. Except for the price of oil, I don't think anybody in the US gives a damn about what happens in Iraq, except that as a human being, I hope that the killing and maiming and torture stops now.

Stop the War Now!

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If you are 'Buzz It' empowered on Buzzflash(dot)COM, Sarasohn's column is in the queue to be buzzed onto The Front Page of BuzzFlash.

= On this Iraq 'thingie.' You know it is common knowledge that our tax payments to the Pentagon war-whoops gave missiles (and more) to Iran and gave missiles (and more) to Iraq, arming both sides in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War 'thingie.' (While Bush the Sinister was provisional president, hiding behind Ronnie the 'Who, me?' Alzheimer.)

Same Bush Sinister now (moving the lips of Bush Jughead), same method of diverting you in a staged a 'war thingie,' same American tax payers arming both sides -- our invasion AND the pesky 'insurgents' who we are propping up.

That's right, WE are BOTH SIDES in Iraq. Those (killing Americans) 'improvised roadside explosives'? -- paid for by American taxpayers.
Those recruited Iraqi 'insurgents'? Trained and Strategy-informed and Armed by -- you guess it: You. And me.

Think: al'Ka-Ka, weapons depot, under US guard (Oct.'03?), cleaned out. 'Looted' bare. Who knew? Where'd all those guns and bombs go? (Can you possibly think Iraq has a gun factory anywhere? that spy satellites do not see? Think about it. Can you possibly think convoys of guns come across any border, or any square inch of soil, of Iraq that Pentagon surveillances do not see? Think again.)

Last week, an AP news item said $4 billion (American tax dollars) are RECENTLY 'unaccounted for' and seemingly 'stolen, into the insurgency to buy guns with.' Or find your own evidence, go google some combo of 'Iraq' 'billion' 'unaccounted' 'stolen' 'waste'.

Come at it from another aspect: How could the War Crime Gang who lied this Iraq 'thingie' into being -- and fooled us who 'weren't expecting such treasonous LIARS, such trusted TV images' -- how could they say back when they started it that they know 'this war is going to go on a long long time'? Unless they are arming both sides.

Red Army / Blue Army -- it's just 'a military exercise.' Get it? War gaming. They call this 'thingie.'

Hundreds more died overnight.

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Chew on Some Collective Guilt before the Turkey This Year by Kay Campbell - - Published on Monday, November 13, 2006

Here's a quick way to end a party: Raise the question of collective guilt, over, say, our responsibilities in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis during the current unpleasantness. Or ask about reparations from whites to the descendants of slaves.

I confess to having sometimes lobbed out these topics just to watch people inflate as they begin justifying their innocence. Their instant prickly reaction could signal, any psychologist would opine, that perhaps they should investigate their defensiveness.

I don't do this at gatherings where I wish to remain popular.

My own defensiveness on this subject comes from two sources: First, I want other groups who have wronged mine to admit their guilt before I do; second, I am worried that too much will be asked of me to make an acknowledged wrong right. ...

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Feel Like I'm Fixing To Die Rag (Next Stop Iraq) (With appologies to Country Joe & the Fish)

Come on all of you big strong men Uncle Sam needs your help again he's got himself in a terrible crock way down yonder in sunny Iraq put down your books and pick up a gun we're gonna have a whole lotta fun

(CHORUS) And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for don't ask me I don't give a damn, next stop is sandy Iraq And it's five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates ain't no time to wonder why, whoopee we're all gonna die

Come on generals, let's move fast your big chance has come at last now you can go out and get those rag heads cos the only good arab is the one that's dead and you know that peace can only be won when we've blown 'em all to kingdom come

Come on wall street don't be slow why man this war is a go-go there's plenty good money to be made by supplying the army with the tools of its trade let's hope and pray that if they drop the bomb, they drop it on the camel jockeys

Come on mothers throughout the land let's pack your boys off to Iraq come on fathers don't hesitate send your sons off before it's too late and you can be the first ones on your block to have your boy come home in a box

Stop the War Now!

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