One argument that is hard to refute

[Jack Sprat]

Even for Repugs, it is not easy to reconcile our unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation. The bombing of Baghdad and subsequent invasion was the action of a rogue nation. All their rationales could have/should have been brushed aside at the outset long before the excuses began changing after each was disproved.

No, this was a shameful time in American history and that is what we need to be clubbing these monsters of war to death with every single day. If the Japanese were guilty of the sneak attack on our pacific possession of Pearl Harbor, then these neocon snakes of the Bush administration have done something as sinister in the attack, invasion, and occupation of Iraq. Civilized nations just don't do these things. This, in my opinion, is in the hidden rage we all feel. To have subjected our nation to this kind of humiliation is an impeachable offense in and of itself. That's how I see it.

[mitchtv]

1. I never fail to refer to Iraq as

"an illegal war of agression"

[theoldman]

2. It's not fair to compare Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor with our

invasion of Iraq. The US had put the squeeze on Japan in the Pacific area. It was a question as to who would dominate the region. Japan did not want to invade the US.

[Bucky]

4. No, the Japanese really were brutal aggressors long before Pearl Harbor.

America's influence in east Asia consisted of owning the Philippines (altho with a time already set for full independence of the Philippines) and doing business with China. Japan's dominance of the region was in the form of a brutal conquest of China and periodic mass atrocities that yielded civilian body counts in the hundreds of thousands. To suggest that US and Japanese interests in the far east were being pursued on equivalent grounds is historically inaccurate.

I agree with the OP, our invasion of Iraq fits into Imperial Japanese model of unprovoked aggression. It is a fair and damning comparison.

[progdonkey]

5. I don't think that's what the old man was saying...

"To suggest that US and Japanese interests in the far east were being pursued on equivalent grounds is historically inaccurate."

Where does he say or even imply that? I think it's pretty clear that his point was that the Japan vs. US situation was completely different fundamentally than US vs. Iraq. Japan was not going to invade the US (which was in fact one of the arguments against conducting the attack on Pearl Harbor: you start a war with the US and you'll have to march on DC itself to receive a surrender). It viewed the US as the chief rival power in the Pacific region that could be easily wiped out, leaving all of East Asia to Japan--the British were already stuck in a war in Europe and would be little match for the Japanese, but the US would be able to bring its entire fleet to defend the Philippines.

The US invasion of Iraq was nothing more than an invasion of conquest: remove the sitting ruler and take over control of the land. Iraq was not a rival in the region in any way similar to the way the US was to Japan in the Pacific. Japan didn't attack Pearl Harbor in order to then move on to California, etc., to make a colony out of the US--or even Hawaii, for that matter.

So, referencing the attack on Pearl Harbor when discussing the invasion of Iraq is simply comparing apples to oranges.

[libertypirate]

3. After the first ,subsequent reasons are just excuses /nt

[Jack Sprat]

6. All the alleged provocations have proven invalid

Yet we, all of us, who are citizens of the United States have to live with this. Even though most of us here are not responsible for the election of this unqualified president and his appointed staff, they have humiliated our nation as a whole.

[BlooInBloo]

7. "The War Of Republican Aggression" - to vary their favorite name for the Civil War.