Always have been.

Didn't really forget to mention that, just didn't feel like making the post any longer.

Precisely.

Exactly

I've stopped trying to figure out what other Americans are thinking.
Too many of them cannot be trusted to engage their brains before they start to spew.
Case(s) in point, Bush2 being elected - twice,
45's con job on half the nation, science deniers, anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, conservatives, republicans, and the stubbornly un-masked.

The reason we finally realized Iraq was no longer viable was when the number of casualties in Iraq surpassed those killed in the towers. I remember watching support fall as the numbers killed increased.
Yes the Republicans are criminals but we need two parties to exist as a democracy. Having a monopoly could easily make the one party as bad as the other.
I feel sorry for the youth and it was recently reported that among millennials the suicide rate is climbing because they see a future for themselves. I have a grand son and grand daughter (in Brea) and worry for them.

@JackPedigo There were a shit ton of us that were astonished that we invaded Iraq, it was always crystal clear that revenge for 9/11 was being used as an excuse for another agenda.
I've never changed my mind about any political situation since 9/11, well since Reagan really but I was willing to allow fascist to prove their point after Reagan but not after 9/11, if you do that now they'll jab you in the neck with that point.
If I'm right and the fascist GOP is a criminal organization that's worse then the Mafia then how the F can you tell me we need them for Democracy, that's F'ing stupid.

@Willow_Wisp I cannot understand how, after so many bad Republican presidents we still elect them to a high office. Actually, I have read some theories and agree.

@Willow_Wisp So true. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and other neocons sent a White Paper to President Clinton explaining the need to invade and control a Middle Eastern country, one with oil, to have more control in that part of the world. I never bought into 9/11 being a legitimate reason for invading Iraq. We got Bin Ladin with a small force. We never needed a mass invasion anywhere over there. I think the more we quit messing around over there the less they will mess with us. This is for them to sort out. It is not like they are going to quit selling us or other nations oil.

@Sticks48 We invaded Afghanistan for the same reason Russia did, in the early 80's they did a geological survey and found massive deposits of Lithium in Afghanistan, so Russia fought to control it until they ran out of money and we ran right in and did the exact same thing.
The sad part is that new battery technology will replace lithium Ion technology within the next couple of years.

@Sticks48 We invaded Iraq for the oil. Alan Greenspan stated that when he was asked "why did we invade Iraq"? It would have been more honest if we went in from the south and built a wall around the oil fields and then left the rest of the country to fend for itself.

@starwatcher-al [nytimes.com]
There's a Trillion dollars worth of lithium at minimum in Afghanistan.
We're all but energy independent due to fracking, the price of oil dropped due to lack of demand, the price increase since the pandemic is from pandemic distribution and supply issues but before that it was at a historic low, especially when everyone first started staying home due to quarantine.

@Willow_Wisp Yup, those mountains are heavily mineralized. Ya think we'd have figured out how to scam the minerals without starting a war.

@starwatcher-al That's what Capitalism is all about, and in the event that fails they own the most powerful military on Earth.

@JackPedigo There is no 2 party system. Each side has sold out to big corporate and the wealthy.

@JackPedigo, @Sticks48 Wasn't Paul Wolfwitz one of the authors of that paper? Or was that something earlier?

I had a long reply about my 9/11 morning and it disappeared. So this is the short version.
I watched the second plane hit. I stated to my SO at the time, "that was no accident (the news was still saying was a terrible accident that has just happened), it was planned and bush will take us to war." Nothing that has happened since was any real surprise, mostly because I had seen the slide to fascism since Reagan. It's always been about the money and power.

@silverotter11 l believe so. I can't remember who signed off on it. I had forgotten about him. Thanks.

It is amazing how on a developmental level this country has remained stuck in the tribal state. There seems to have been no age of enlightenment where the idea of humanity and caring for all members of society on an equal basis helps move everyone forward. It is a small group that has no concept of this humanity, being stuck in the "it's the other who is the cause of our woes" as they are that has ALL the control. How does that happen?

@silverotter11 Unfortunately, because we are a large country with a lot of rural versus urban areas it's nearly impossible to get a unified consensus. However, some very rural areas, like ours, does follow a more liberal ideology.

Afghanistan was chosen, then abandoned before they killed Bin Laden, because "There's Gold In Them Hills." It was not a war for oil. It was a war for mineral rights. We had troops there, defending poppy fields, because we, they, wanted the war lords, and drug trafficker's, to maintain political, and military, control over Afghanistan. The last thing that they wanted was a Democracy. They want almost all of the money from mining. And, of course, no costly environmental standards. This was all done, to never share the proceeds from mining, with the overwhelming majority of the people who live, and die, there.

Exactly.....

And the 9/11 attacks were planned in Europe, something US politicians refuse to understand. Bin Laden just happened to be in Afghanistan with his droogies. The whole logic of the invasion was based on false assumptions. Bin Laden wanted America to invade, following the Soviet Union before them. He told Mullah Omar, then Taliban leader, so. The real history must be told here.

@David1955 I think al-Queda itself may have been a reaction to Desert Storm. That little venture (which so many approved of) was my first Protest. Desert Storm sickened me for making our military buyable. I think The Emir told Papa Bush that he would move his money into Yen if we didn't get Sadam out of his nation. See, they had not used money to build an Army, or defense of any kind, against a guy who had announced that Kuwait was his and he was coming to get it. Thanks to the Saving and Loan crime (which Papa Bush was involved with) our banks were rather weak.
I told people then, including an AM station in L.A, that we should invest gobs in money in renewable energy and tell Kuwait to get him out themselves. It would have been cheaper than a war(s) and better for all humans. People nodded and then told me it had to be done. POTUS said so.

@HankHunter13 It's always about the money.

@rainmanjr I was there, at the March On Washington, in 1991, just 10 days after #IraqWar1 started. I was with #Greenpeace, one of the major organizers. #NoBloodForOil was on the cover of our magazine. There were more people at that protest, than anytime since the #VietnamWar. It was awesome. My educated guess, is that it was 500,000 people. The main stream news claimed that there were only 250,000 protesting that war, in the entire country, that weekend. Years later, I heard that protestors in #SanFrancisco shut down the #BayBridge. That was never in the so called "News". And they promoted the so called marches "for" the war. Which was a huge #BigLie. In front of the #WhiteHouse, the supporters for the war, could barely fill 1 or 2 buses. The #AntiWar march, past the White House, lasted for 3 hours. It was a sea of people. From every imaginable walk of life. Many of us knew, instantly, that the #Invasion was just the start of decades of war for oil, and mining, in the #MiddleEast. Sometimes, I hate being right. (That's me, in the first picture.) News pictures. Friends pictures. And my pictures, of people from our Door To Door Canvas, and Activist, office in #Cincinnati #Ohio. We just had a 30th Anniversary Reunion, for the 50th Anniversary of #Green #Peace in July. That's Very Cool that You were there, too. It sucks that the 'news' keeps saying 20 years, in Afghanistan, without ever mentioning that it's over 30 years of military involvement in that region (let alone Reagan & the CIA & Saddam) or, that all 3 overt wars were started by #Republicons. Afghanistan was not a War On Terrorism. Or a War for Oil. It was a War for Mineral Rights. "There's Gold In Them There Hills." And Lithium, Titanium, "and so on."

@HankHunter13 You were looking great, bro. I remember that rally. The L.A rally was also very large. Most of my protests were on corners in Orange County so that one was incredible. My sign quoted Buffalo Springfield, "Nobody's right if everybody's wrong." That got the radio reporter's attention. Peace.

@rainmanjr that's a great sign. peace man

In addition to the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan, they surrendered because the Soviets were on their way to begin an invasion of Japan.
Stalin had promised to carry on the war in the East after the Germans had been defeated in Europe.