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Comment by zardo | Hacker News Reader

> Whatever it is I am sure it's not as bad as what the other party did in 2003.

Democrats don't get to wash their hands of that invasion. Both parties supported it.

Sanctions and sporadic bombings on critical infrastructure under Clinton was estimated to cause on the order of a million deaths, mostly children dieing of disease because the US destroyed water treatment facilities. Albright infamously defended the deaths of 800,000 children as worth the cost in a 60 minutes interview.

(Unfortunately the political lesson from that wasn't don't cause mass death, it was don't acknowledge that you've caused mass death)

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215 (96.4%) of 223 Republican Representatives voted for the resolution. 82 (39.2%) of 209 Democratic Representatives voted for the resolution. 6 (<2.7%) of 223 Republican Representatives voted against the resolution: Reps. Duncan (R-TN), Hostettler (R-IN), Houghton (R-NY), Leach (R-IA), Morella (R-MD), Paul (R-TX). 126 (~60.3%) of 209 Democratic Representatives voted against the resolution. The only Independent Representative voted against the resolution: Rep. Sanders (I-VT) Reps. Ortiz (D-TX), Roukema (R-NJ), and Stump (R-AZ) did not vote on the resolution.

29 (58%) of 50 Democratic senators voted for the resolution. 48 (98%) of 49 Republican senators voted for the resolution. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milit...

58% of Dem Senators (the more senior controllers of the party), as well as the top brass (Clinton) supported the invasion.

Don't use numbers to repaint history.

Republicans used this as a campaign issue in the 2002 midterms. They wanted to paint a no vote on Iraq as weak. I believe this is a substantial component for why many congressional and senate Democrats voted for it.

It was a really ugly thing to see playing out in public and media... Policy was set arbitrarily in the executive branch and media and congress were ... Yes also responsible, and not really exercising their full power and responsibility, but also some of them bullied into it. The patriotism of anyone against the war was very harshly attacked and unfortunately it seemed pretty effective at the time.

Yeah, according to HN, the invasion was mostly the NYT's fault...

Realistically, there is zero chance the invasion would have happened without exaclty that trio of President, Sec-State & VP, plus or minus a Wolfowitz.

But the Republicans successfully goaded some Democrats into voting for it by threatening to taunt them. The US public needed some more important foreign blood to be spilled than Afghani. And that's the way the cookie crumbled...

> The US public needed some more important foreign blood to be spilled than Afghani. And that's the way the cookie crumbled...

I really don't see how you can reach that conclusion that prime mover on the Iraq invasion was the US public at large.

Yeah, it was more like dishonest politicians suggested to the US public that Iraq and 9/11 were related and a lot of people didn't know the difference, and didn't bother to learn. In that respect the US public was responsible and at fault. But not a "prime mover" as you say.

I thought Richard Clarke's book a few years later was pretty informative. Iirc, in his telling, they wanted to attack Iraq before 9/11 happened, and when it did happen, many in the administration didn't care at all who did it, they just wanted Iraq to pay. There was a line attributed to Rumsfeld "but Iraq has better targets".

> But the Republicans successfully goaded some Democrats into voting for it by threatening to taunt them.

Really? Wow, voting for a war you (allegedly) know to be wrong because you're worried about being "taunted". That's the most pathetic spineless thing I've ever heard. Worse than unashamed pro-war crowd, in some ways.

What happened to all those cowardly losers anyway? They all get voted out and replaced with people who were happy to continue those occupations and support the new wars and interventions during the Obama administration?

Technically they voted to authorize the war and the executive branch was trusted to make final decisions wisely (they did not).

Doesn't change anything that's just a sorry excuse for cowardly corrupt warmongers. They clearly knew what the executive branch would do.

More generally, that would be a dereliction of duty too. The entire point of these checks and balances is so that an individual branch does not need to be trusted to make a wise choice.

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