A little bit more about the Trump situation, with King Con Don predictably playing the perennial victim, just as he always does. King Con Don is once again trying to rally the troops, so to speak, and come out in his defense to take back the country, as he predicted his own arrest.
For the good of the country, this clown act needs to end, and he needs to be put behind bars for good, once and for all. Throw away the keys.
Lately, I have tried to make a point of keeping things light on the weekends, and particularly on Sundays. But today is different. Today marks the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.
I remember debating some supporters of the war during that time. To people who were younger than me, I urged them (particularly the men) to put their money where their mouth is, and sign up for the war effort. Become a soldier, go and fight. I said that if I truly believed that Saddam Hussein was anywhere near the level of threat that the George W. Bush administration seemed to think he was, I would probably sign up myself.
The thing is, logic should have dictated that he was nowhere near that level of threat. He had been defeated in a war before the entire world just a little over one decade earlier. Then, his country had been humiliated with conditions limiting their power, and with a no fly zone imposed in the country. Some compared Saddam to Stalin or Hitler, but neither of those two men ever had such limits on their power imposed on them like that. Also, nobody predicted that they could be defeated quickly in war, that it would take six days or six weeks, but likely would not last six full months.
Still, the Bush administration insisted that Saddam posed such an urgent threat, that something needed to be done immediately. And as Hans Blix states below, peaceful inspectors from the United Nations had to give way to an invading army, and Iraq saw missiles and bombs fall all across their suddenly destabilized and devastated country:
So it was that a few hundred unarmed U.N. inspectors left Iraq, to be replaced by hundreds of thousands of soldiers who began an occupation that would have a horrendous cost in lives, suffering and resources.
Below is more of what Hans Blix had to say about the war, as well as a video documenting how the war - which lasted a lot longer than six days or six weeks or even six months - came to change the world:
Hans Blix: Iraq War was a terrible mistake and violation of U.N. charter by Hans Blix, Special to CNN, Tue March 19, 2013:
Yes, the United States was very involved with Iraq ever since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait back in August of 1990. Indeed, I am old enough to remember that first Persian Gulf war. And once it was over, my assumption was that we were done with Iraq.
There were 13 years of severe economic sanctions. Very severe. It was estimated that over half a million Iraqi children died as a result of these sanctions. Infamously, then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright basically confirmed that she believed this was indeed a fair price when she was asked about it by Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes back in 1996. Here was the exchange, specifically:
“We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima,” asked Stahl, “And, you know, is the price worth it?”
“I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.”
Then, we went to war once again with Iraq, and against the world's wishes. It was not long after the September 11th attacks, and then President George W. Bush and his administration aggressively pined for war against Saddam Hussein. They continually mentioned him and Iraq in the same breath, and sometimes in the same sentence, as mushroom clouds and 9/11, even though there was absolutely no evidence which existed that Saddam Hussein or Iraq played any role whatsoever in the September 11th attacks. Moreover, the other justification used for the invasion was the claim that Saddam had built a huge arsenal of "Weapons of Mass Destruction" (WMD's), which were never found. Pretty much all of the claims that the Bush administration used to justify the Iraq invasion/war.
Yet another thing that we Americans got wrong, and which the Bush administration helped to push Americans to believe, was that we would get a quick and decisive victory, and then be out just as quickly. Infamously, then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld predicted that the war would be very quick, that it would likely be over in days or weeks:
"Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that," he said. "It won't be a World War III."
Later, Rumsfeld amended this just a little bit:
“It could last…six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."
The war wound up lasting the better part of two decades.
Americans seem to get outraged a little too easily with things these days. Many Americans get angry over issues of gender and bathrooms usage, or when Trump tells them - without offering a shred of real proof - that he only lost the election because of some vague "massive voter fraud." They get angry over many things, and they did back then, as well. Many felt that opposing the invasion of Iraq was itself an affront, tantamount to sympathizing with the terrorists. France stood opposed, and there was an ugly era of "French bashing" that was all the rage, particularly on the late night comedy television circuit at the time, expressing outrage that France should dare to criticize the proposed invasion of Iraq.
But were Americans outraged by all of these lies that led to a horribly costly war, that cost hundreds of billions of dollars and saw America's military involvement stretch to well over a decade and a half? Were they outraged by all of the casualties from the war, as well as all of those who were injured?
Not so much. The Bush administration won another term in office. Many people claimed to miss him almost immediately after he left office. His popularity has been rising quite steadily since he left the White House, even though he could rightly be viewed as a war criminal.
And Americans are still often surprised when much of the world views them with distrust, or even when some people - perhaps particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan - hate them? Really?
Rumsfeld also had another infamous quote in trying to justify the invasion of Iraq. Here, he gives specifics of where the suspected WMD's in Saddam's Iraq are:
"It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
You got that? We were supposed to simply accept that the weapons are "around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." Here, he is frankly insulting the intelligence of Americans. Was there any real outrage? Yes, some. But not nearly enough. In fact, most Americans continued to support the invasion, and the Bush administration. Again, all of these things happened during the first Bush term, and they won a second term in office, and this time, relatively convincingly. So even though this last statement could easily have been interpreted as an insult to the intelligence of Americans, we collectively justified this insult. We gave them exactly what they wanted, and we paid the price, too. After all, far from demonstrating America's overwhelming military might and capabilities, Iraq instead showed the limits of America's capabilities. Both Iraq and Afghanistan did that. Chaos ran supreme in both countries. Eventually, the Islamic State took over much of Iraq, and the Taliban eventually took over Afghanistan.
Not exactly "mission accomplished," eh?
It seems pretty evident that the Iraq invasion was a disaster. Indeed, it may have actually been the biggest foreign policy disaster for the United States since Vietnam. When you take into consideration the loss of trust and status for what was the world's leading superpower based on the lies used to justify the invasion, to Abu Ghraib and other abuses by American troops, to the obvious overconfidence of those pursuing the war finally being exposed when the war turned into a quagmire, to the lack of ay exit strategy, to the war lasting more than a decade and a half and proving far more costly than most people could have imagined, and in every sense of that word, you can see why it probably does indeed rank as one of the greatest foreign policy decisions in the history of the United States.
What is the legacy of the US-led invasion in Iraq? | The Stream
Rumsfeld: It Would Be A Short War BY JOHN ESTERBROOK NOVEMBER 15, 2002 / 1:5
Let’s remember Madeleine Albright for who she really was by Ahmed Twaij Freelance journalist and filmmaker, Published on 25 Mar 2022:
The former US Secretary of State, who once publicly admitted that she thinks the deaths of half a million Iraqi children were ‘worth it’, was no force for ‘democracy and human rights’. Ahmed Twaij Ahmed Twaij Freelance journalist and filmmaker Published On 25 Mar 2022 25 Mar 2022:
This particular Mother Jones article actually provides a quite extensive history of all of the lies that ultimately led to the Iraq invasion of 2003. If you want the full history of how the American people were deceived (although I still believe that most of them deceived themselves by showing absolutely no willingness to scrutinize), this article really digs in deep:
Lie by Lie: A Timeline of How We Got Into Iraq by Jonathan Stein and Tim Dickinson, POLITICS SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2006 ISSUE:
Mushroom clouds, duct tape, Judy Miller, Curveball. Recalling how Americans were sold a bogus case for invasion.
Finally, the news appears to be hitting recently that former President Trump will be facing some actual legal consequences for his criminal conduct. Remember, this guy has a long, long list of behavior that most of us would not think that we could get away with, but which he routinely gets away with. Before he ran for the White House, he had been sued thousands of times, evidently, for not meeting his obligations by paying workers, although I never paid much attention to him before he won the White House in 2016, mostly out of choice.
Once he was running and ultimately reached the Oval Office, however, he got away with a staggering number of things, and much of it right in front of the entire world. He would seem to condone violence at times, then back away from that at others, such as when he had a shockingly difficult time condemning outright Nazis and militant white supremacists during that rally in Virginia. He also seemed to cater to the racism of at least part of his base of support, by doing not so subtle things, like calling dozens of countries in Latin America and Africa "shithole nations," and suggesting that Mexicans in the United States were rapists and criminals, trying to set up a national registry of Muslims, and posting a brief video of one of his supporters shouting "White power!" in his 2020 re-election bid, before taking it down after a few hours.
This man paid off a porn star in order that she stay silent and not reveal anything about the affair that they had, he tried to blackmail a foreign head of state before committing to providing them weapons, and then claimed that this same phone conversation in which he did this was "perfect." He tried to exceed executive authority by asking members of his administration to specifically dig up dirt on his political opponents. He banned any mentioning of "climate change" by certain federal employees. He systematically undermined our American democracy by routinely implying that it was rigged against him, and kept claiming that, in reality, there was no way that he could lose an election. He won in 2016, but did so with 2.7 million votes less than his opponent. Then in 2020, he lost the election by well over seven million, and lost the electoral college race, as well. But he contested the results with recounts and over 60 court cases, which was well within his rights. But since he lost all but one of those court cases - and his team bent over backwards to make it clear that they were not arguing "massive voter fraud" - and lost each of the recounts. Yet, he still intervened in certain states and, in one case, urged a local official to "find" him more than 11,000 votes while somehow also saying, apparently almost in the same breath, that everyone knows that Trump won the state (Georgia)..Ultimately, as a last ditch effort, he gathered his masses and, on January 6th, urged them to "be strong" and "show no weakness" before directing them to Capitol Hill, where of course, as we know, they literally stormed Congress in what I still feel was an actual coup attempt.
Even when he did not break the law outright, he seemed to show his intention of doing so. He mused about using nuclear weapons, and even apparently inquired as to why this would not be acceptable. And he "joked" about being "president for life" and hinted - supposedly again as a "joke" - that he might run for a third term.
Through all of this, nobody has really managed to hold him to account. It seemed to confirm that all of those claims that "nobody is above the law" were apparently no longer true, if indeed they ever had been. After all, this guy got away with almost literally everything that he did.
Perhaps now, there finally are some indications that he may be seeing some actual, serious legal ramifications for at least some of his actions. Evidently, Trump will finally be facing some serious indictments, and there still is a question about whether New York (for tax evasion) or Georgia (for the aforementioned election interference) will be the first of these serious charges. Evidently now, he will be facing some serious charges, and seeing his day in court.
Let's hope that this leads to seeing him finally where he really belongs: behind bars.
Glenn Kirschner shared his thoughts, and they seemed worth sharing here.
Just one day after 15th seeded Princeton knocked off the number 2 seed Arizona, there was yet another enormous upset. And once again, it was a New Jersey school which managed to be on the right end of this shocking bit of history.
Fairleigh Dickinson University became only the second 16th seed in NCAA Men's Basketball history to knock off a Number 1 seed in the first round of the "March Madness" tournament. In the last few days, the tournament certainly has been living up to it's name, with a number of huge upsets.
Only once has this happened before in the history of the men's tournament. That happened in 2018, when the UMBC Retrievers stunned then then number top seed, Virginia Cavaliers. To their credit, Virginia responded the following season by winning the whole thing, taking the championship, which was the first in that school's history.
Of course, it remains to be seen how Purdue will respond, following this rather humiliating loss. It was not a blowout, as the UMBC-Virginia game wound up being in 2018. UMBC just got on a roll, and Virginia just played flat. But in this one, Purdue looked like they were likely going to win for much of the game. Only Fairleigh Dickinson took over in the second half, particularly in the final minute, to secure the unlikely win.
But this might just have been an even bigger upset than that first game between UMBC and Virginia proved to be. Here's a bit of history from Nick Bromberg's Yahoo article on the game:
UMBC — the University of Maryland-Baltimore County — became the first No. 16 seed to beat a No. 1 in 2018 when it defeated Virginia. And FDU’s upset may be even bigger than UMBC’s. The Retrievers were a 20.5-point underdog ahead of the game against Virginia and FDU was a 23.5-point underdog against the Boilermakers.
Purdue are apparently no strangers to rather stunning losses to much lower seeds, and even to losing to New Jersey schools in the first round. Again, a bit of history from Bromberg (see link below):
It’s also the second straight tournament loss for Purdue against a low-seeded team from New Jersey. The Boilermakers lost to No. 15 seed St. Peter’s in the Sweet 16 as a No. 3 seed a year ago. And the year before that, Purdue lost 78-69 to No. 13 North Texas as a No. 4 seed. The Boilermakers have lost their last three tournament games to low-seeded teams since making the Elite Eight in 2019.
Again, wow!
March Madness: No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson shocks No. 1 Purdue by Nick Bromberg Fri, Mar 17, 2023:
FDU is the second No. 16 seed to beat a No. 1 in the first round of the men's NCAA tournament Nick Bromberg Fri, Mar 17, 2023:
I had my corned beef (which, I learned, does not even really exist on a major scale in Ireland) and cabbage, with potatoes and carrots. Wore green (at least on Friday, to the Irish pub), and wrote some blog entries with heavy Irish themes to them. Here I am, doing it yet again.
But as it turns out, the truth is that St. Patrick's Day is not really an Irish holiday. It's an American creation, with a distinctly Irish feel, but it was not a major holiday or anything in Ireland itself.
I have known that fact for a while now, but here was an article with some facts that I didn't know. I was familiar with some of these facts, but not as familiar with others.
One way or the other, though, it was interesting, and so I thought it was definitely worth sharing here on the Charbor Chronicles, and today on St. Patrick's Day, of all days:
"Everything You Know About St. Patrick's Day Is Wrong" by Christine Dalton of The Huffington Post, March 14, 2014:
I wrote an article in 2015. This was in the tradition that I have been trying to keep with writing about the history of holidays - although I am still kicking myself for missing Valentine's Day, which had an interesting history that I would have loved to write an article for in the Guardian Liberty Voice.
Still, in any case, at least I was able to get this one done, and now, it is published. Truth be told, I liked the old picture that I had a lot better than the one that was actually accompanying this article.
So, please take a look at the finalized, now published article about the history of St. Patrick's Day, and learn some interesting facts that might dispel some popular myths and misconceptions about this particular holiday. Here's the link below:
