@publius @snowdusk Do you not remember the Iraq Invasion??

@publius @snowdusk People tied themselves into knots to justify it to themselves. They formed little mutual social reprogramming enclaves and invented a whole new reality where the Iraqis would welcome them with open arms and the whole world would say what a swell country America was.

@mike @snowdusk

I do, in fact. I remember thinking exceedingly uncomplimentary things about Condoleeza Rice perjuring herself before the world. (She and Sergei Lavrov deserve to be locked up together in a small box for the remainder of eternity.) I remember thinking that many of my fellowcountrymen must be utterly out of their wits, or lost to all morality.

And Iraq was a country which nobody could deny was ruled by a brutal, murderous dictatorship.

@publius @snowdusk I’d really be a lot more comfortable if there was another western democracy willing to make this their problem instead of everyone kind of assuming this is a Russia Vs. USA thing. But it looks like the few democratic nations capable of taking it on have already been bought off.