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Edited on Fri Jun-25-04 10:42 AM by reprehensor
Ritter was absolutely fantastic last night. What an energetic speaker. There were about 350 people at the ballroom, all very eager to hear Scott. They were not dissapointed.
Scott made no claim to being a liberal or a pacifist. He is an ex-marine, made the mistake of voting for W, and is working hard to atone for his voting sin.
Ritter still very much proclaims himself a warrior, and would lay his life on the line again if his family was threatened, if the Constitution was threatened, or if Americans were threatened.
It must have been difficult for some of the people in the audience to listen to Scott talk about his experience as a fighter, how he would 'wade into the enemy' and do what he was trained to do, kill them, if he had to do it again. The event was organised by the Dallas Peace Center, and I assume that some of the people there are totally anti-violence. There were also several veterans in attendance.
The point he was trying to make is that IF the stakes were high enough, he would go into action again. In Iraq, the stakes were clearly not high enough.
We were misled into a disaster, and the responsibility for the mess is primarily W's. He is the Commander In Chief, and this is what he wanted. Responsiblity also lies with Congress for giving carte blanche to W to use military force where he sees fit. Responsibility also lies with the Press for not asking ANY tough questions, for not challenging the Administration when it mattered most. And ultimately, responsibility lies with the American people, because millions of Americans didn't try hard enough to protest the invasion of Iraq, those that did, didn't sustain the protest, did not do enough to sway Congress, and citizens that chose not to protest swallowed what the press fed them, hook, line, and sinker.
It's time to get out of Iraq. Yesterday was too late. The damage has been done. It's NOT going to get any better. W has opened a Pandora's box, the contents of which have not fully manifested themselves.
No amount of patchwork or troops is going to 'fix' Iraq. The longer that US troops stay in Iraq, the more anger and discontent will be aroused by a population that has been shafted.
The preceding two paragraphs roughly sum up what Ritter had to say. Bear in mind that he was right about Saddam's non-existent WMD's, & he and William Rivers Pitt were right in varying degrees about the clusterf*ck that is post-invasion Iraq.
Colin Powell was singled out for especial scorn by Ritter. Ritter is convinced that Powell was FULLY aware that he was using shaky intel. And the little prop of powdered Anthrax? Ritter says Iraq wasn't even making that type of super-refined Anthrax. If Powell wanted to be more realistic, he would have held up a bottle of dark liquid that would have to have been aerosolized, and Saddam wasn't even doing that. Saddam's weapons experts were pouring the semi-refined Anthrax into artillery shells and lobbing them at their enemies. There was more danger of being killed by the shell crushing your skull with a direct hit than death from Anthrax inhalation. So who was zooming who?
After W is deselected, Kerry will have to be reminded daily that Iraq un-made W, and it will un-make him too unless he gets US troops out of Iraq, pronto. Staying the course didn't work in Vietnam, and it won't work in Iraq.
If Ritter comes to your area, go see him, it's well worth it.
Thanks to the DUer's who tipped us off to this great event.
-reprehensor. |
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