#iraq

Until the eighteenth century, people believed that biblical paradise, the Garden of Eden, was a real place. It appeared on maps--located, ironically, at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in what is now modern-day Iraq. ↗

— Eric Weiner

#iraq #paradise #iraq

When the president during the campaign said he was against nation building, I didn't realize he meant our nation. ↗

— Al Franken

#bush #foreign-policy #iraq #nation-building #politics

It's often a bad sign when people defend themselves against charges which haven't been made. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#defensiveness #noam-chomsky #september- #iraq

To be against rationalization is not the same as to be opposed to reasoning. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#logic #rationalisation #reason #september- #iraq

The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has—from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#independence #partisanship #politics #radicalism #iraq

Whoever tries to climb over our fence, we will try to climb over his house. ↗

— Saddam Hussein

#imperialism #iraq #iraq

As a Nobel Peace laureate, I, like most people, agonize over the use of force. But when it comes to rescuing an innocent people from tyranny or genocide, I've never questioned the justification for resorting to force. That's why I supported Vietnam's 1978 invasion of Cambodia, which ended Pol Pot's regime, and Tanzania's invasion of Uganda in 1979, to oust Idi Amin. In both cases, those countries acted without U.N. or international approval—and in both cases they were right to do so. ↗

— José Ramos-Horta

#iraq

Ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. That was the whole idea, right? That‘s why we went. I am reluctant to let that fact disappear down the memory hole, because if— as the war ends, or at least starts to end— if, at this time, the history of the war is written as us going there to topple the regime of a bad man when that frankly isn‘t why were told that we were going there— Aren‘t we still at risk of making this horrific mistake again? And, aren‘t we letting the people who foisted the WMD idea on us, not many years ago, aren‘t we sort of letting them get away with it? ↗

— Rachel Maddow

#memory-hole #mistake #politics #rachel-maddow #war

Here you can shoot the bad guys,' a mercenary says in Baghdad. 'In America we give them corporate bonuses. ↗

— Michael Robotham

#iraq #iraq

A president who is burdened with a failed and unpopular war, and who has lost the trust of the country, simply can no longer govern. He is destined to become as much a failure as his war. ↗

— Glenn Greenwald

#governance #iraq-war #lyndon-b-johnson #politics #united-states