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Comment by hvmonk | Hacker News Reader

First, we destroy a place/city/habitat, and then after completely ruining beyond any hope of recovering, make a museum or write a posthumous article about it.

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and by 'we' you mean the Mongols who sacked and razed this version of Baghdad to the ground in 1258, right?

I would wager that there was a version of this city, more recent than 1258 that the residents were happy with.

We did not destroy anything. Our beloved leaders did. Let's keep that distinction in mind about who to blame.

The leaders didn't elect themselves.

No it takes Goldman Sachs.

Either the majority of Americans are culpable or America is not a democracy

Only the ignorant call America a democracy. Also:

  George W. Bush: 50,456,002
  Al Gore: 50,999,897

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...

PS: The supreme court chose 7–2 not to count 70,000 ballets in Florida when 537 votes was the margin of victory. That's all kinds of sketchy, but... America FUCK YEA!!!

Florida: The Dance State?

America is a representative republic, and one where the representatives in power have incentive to continue maintaining that power. This is to detriment of their constituents.

Yeah, I don't think it's too difficult to pick the correct answer there...

Correct, the USA is a Republic.

"Before the invasion in March 2003, polls showed 47-60% of the US public supported an invasion"

Manufactured Consent talks all about that. With propaganda you can get any group of people in the world to attack some other random group. Does not mean anyone actually supports it, just that they can be coerced into doing so. Polls as justification for popular mandates is itself a sham. Polls lie.

This reduces to all elections being non-binding as they're subject to manufactured consent, and thus doesn't stand up.

That's right.

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” - W. Churchill

Maybe, if not for various manipulations, more people would have supported the invasion.

When your government goes to war it does it in your name. When a soldier kills somebody in that war he kills in your name. That's why it is called a representative government, the people vote for these guys, these guys represent the people. That's the foundation of a representative government. You can argue the process is corrupt, i'd argue it is because people stopped caring about the process at first place.

Agree. And also, don't forget no WMD was ever found in Iraq. What a mess that whole region is in now.

"Your" government? This assumes a democracy, no?

As long as you choose to fund the US government, instead of funding another government, you have culpability.

Isn't the US a democracy? That means the citizenry accept culpability in their leaders' actions.

(Personally, I don't think the US is a democracy, and you're off the hook)

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/iraq/gdp : http://country.eiu.com/iraq Strong economic growth since establishment of new government.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/iraq/gdp-per-capita

I wonder where that growth went?

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