GOP congressmen: Everyone agrees Iraq war a ‘horrible mistake’

rawstory.com...

Two GOP congressmen say most Republicans on the Hill now believe the Iraq war was a mistake, and "more than half the Republican caucus" believes the way in which the US entered the Afghanistan war was also a mistake.

Reps. Tom McClintock (R-CA) and Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA) made the comments at a discussion panel at the Cato Institute on Thursday.

Going into Iraq "was a mistake because I thought we had to finish the job in Afghanistan," Rohrbacher told the panel, echoing a popular Democratic talking point at the time.

"In retrospect, almost all of us think that was a horrible mistake," Rohrbacher said. "Now that we know that it cost a trillion dollars, and all of these years, and all of these lives, and all of this blood … all I can say is everyone I know thinks it was a mistake to go in now.”

Asked by panel moderator Grover Norquist what percentage of Republican congressmen agree with that view, McClintock said, “I think everyone [in Congress] would agree that Iraq was a mistake.”

"Surprise, surprise" as Gomer Pyle would say....

And it seems like only yesterday that the conservatives were calling those that disagreed with these wars, commies, terrorist sympathizers, unpatriotic, tulipwalkers, turdblossem, etc; even here on ATS where critical thinking and denying ignorance is encouraged; Not blind obedience to the system; It's astonishing to me how often ideology can get in the way of a persons common sense!!

My question is....Who here still thinks the wars were justified?



[edit on 20-3-2010 by whaaa]

reply to post by whaaa

....turdblossem....

Actually, I believe "turdblossom" was George W's pet name for Karl Rove....


But, this is yet another example of he staggering hyprocricy that infects politics....BOTH sides, ALL sides. (not in every instance, not with every individual, of course)


Still, the incredible inanity that is displayed, and sometimes right here on ATS, as the "Faux News-Limbaugh-Hannity-O'Reilly-Bachman-Coulter" (etc) brigade trundle out the same tired old "talking points", as they do every chance they get is just old. Unfortunately, too many people suckle at the teat of that font of misinformation.

Revisionists, those bobble-heads are at the very minimum. Flat-out lying [redacted word here] in most cases......

I'm sure, on the Al Jazeera network, there's a similar sentence along the lines of: Iraq: Everyone agrees GOP congressmen a 'horrible mistake'.

It's a pity they're only just agreeing now. Perhaps the next quarterly forecast for all those American and European firms involved in the middle-East isn't looking too good?

Great.

It only took them 7 years and 4,386 American lives to figure it out.

Morons.

I wish I could take credit for the following, but I heard it somewhere else:

"Invading Iraq after 9/11 would have been like invading Mexico after Pearl Harbor."

= Duh emoticon.

EDIT TO ADD: Perhaps Dana Rohrbacher will admit he is wrong about climate change as well. ( But heck, one outta two ain't bad.)

[edit on 20-3-2010 by kinda kurious]

reply to post by whaaa


A mistake that will still not be corrected. Just like how they are building perminate bases in Iraq when they say we are pulling out in the future.

reply to post by Stop-loss!


I don't think it is "pulling out"....it is ceasing the 'occupation', in terms of the peace-keeping (or whatever prase du jour) and providing training and support for indigenous Iraqi troops to take over.

Besides, we have a very state-of-the-art base in Qatar:

en.wikipedia.org...


But, that is part of the problem. Has been, it's why the USA is so hated, in certain parts of the ME.

Geez LOOK AT ALL THAT DEFICIT SPENDING.

Let's ignore that though...and complain about how unemployment benefits and people getting health insurance is destroying the country.



reply to post by drwizardphd


Starred your post just for the avatar. Nice.

[edit on 20-3-2010 by David9176]

Originally posted by David9176
Geez LOOK AT ALL THAT DEFICIT SPENDING.

Let's ignore that though...and complain about how unemployment benefits and people getting health insurance is destroying the country.

Nice.

Precisely.

Over in one of your threads I found this very interesting.

costofwar.com...

reply to post by whaaa


That's the thing...people KNOW this is BS yet they stay silent on it. If we are spending too much money...then why is it ok to spend TRILLIONS on a war we can't afford??????????

But holy hell.....extending unemployment benefits will cause the whole country to bankrupt instantly!!!

I can't tell you how many times i've brought this up in posts and most people ignore me on them..or skip right beyond it and pick on something else.

Yeah, everyone now agrees the Iraq war a ‘horrible mistake’, but what they don't tell you is that everyone also agrees that both wars made all their friends and lobbyists insanely rich. Lives? Are you kidding me? Who cares about American lives in the government, much less all the foreign lives lost to this "mistake".

The worst part is here, that this wasn't even a mistake! It was a deliberately planned multi-tiered political and monetary coup against the world, benefiting people far removed from the battlefield and the horror of what they are STILL doing. Every damn fricken, sad mother******* day.

And hey, when the public pressure and suspicion rose to an intolerable level, and got a little too close for comfort, what was their solution? Divert the mass's attention with healthcare reform. For 14 months. Well, that ought to do it huh? Just LOOK at how the reports of the war and anything related have dropped dramatically over that term as the healthcare debate raged strong from both sides, saturating MSM airwaves to aid in the diversion of the initial crimes.

Mistake my tush. The politics of EVIL is more like it.

[edit on Sat Mar 20th 2010 by TrueAmerican]

reply to post by TrueAmerican


I was just stating in another thread that it's kind of odd when we have the "Racial and Homophobic" thing going on right now with that one Congressmen. It's definitely taking attention away from the anti-war protests that happened in other cities besides D.C. today.

I've watched a couple of videos of the actual protest when the guy walked through...but I don't hear any slurs being stated. He wasn't the only one though...Barney frank was called the F word supposedly as well.

[edit on 21-3-2010 by David9176]

Originally posted by whaaa
My question is....Who here still thinks the wars were justified?

Karl Rove, George Bush, Rumsfeld ?

Of course they still deny it was an elective war. I saw Rove on TV not more than a few weeks ago, reiterating that Hussein was a gathering imminent threat etc, the CIA told us they had WMD etc..

I read Sec Treasury Paul O'Neill's book The Price of Loyalty, Bush and Co. were planning to invade Iraq long before 9/11 went down. PNAC wanted to remake the middle east into a democracy, and they figured Iraq was the easiest target.

Is war ever justified?

Agree with TrueAmerican. Absoluty no mistake here!

Oh and drwizardphd don't forget the 95,724 – 104,427 Iraqi civilian deaths, which no one bothered to count properly!



[edit on 21-3-2010 by Trying Times]

Originally posted by weedwhacker
Besides, we have a very state-of-the-art base in Qatar:

en.wikipedia.org...


But, that is part of the problem. Has been, it's why the USA is so hated, in certain parts of the ME.

All parts of ME hate west due to it being godless or pagan. West's interest in ME issues won't help indeed.
But just like infidels, Muslims can be hypocrites too and gladly accept money from the west. But for them, it's OK as long as some of that money goes to funding Jihad. Corruption in entire Arabia goes to wests' favor, so taking their land is almost effortless. Terrorist attacks are an advantage too, to show people how Muslims are evil all while Mecca itself is under US protection.

War in Iraq is actually a great success. The only thing currently halting western domination of ME is Iran. Extremist groups like so called "Taliban" or "Al-Qaeda" are no real threat at all, except for the marines and army a little.
As for Israel, my humble opinion is that IT is the most powerful country in the world and IT is really "driving the world" with full control over west. Only after them come the UK while US is the muscle of this body or what we like to call TPTB. Should Israel lose control of the west (impossible tho), consequences would probably be total anarchy and chaos. That is why eliminating Iraq and Iran regimes is important, they have (or had) some actual military power.