Who the hell even is George Soros. I've been told for years that I idolize and revere him but I don't even know what he's famous for, or why.

@AthrillatheHunt I often times refer to Dick Cheney as Darth Cheney lol

@BlueMetalChick that's funny but doesn't really apply.

@SW-User Dick Cheney is one of the most evil people to hold power in the Western world during my lifetime. Yes it absolutely does apply.

@BlueMetalChick No it doesn't. How? Based on what? What's he don? That's mostly baloney political accusations, with very little basis in facts or analysis.

@SW-User Uhhhhh his direct involvement in two illegal wars which killed a minimum of 200,000 innocent people, for starters. His continued support of Sunni terrorism, his support for torture and the several hundred who died as a result of it. Just to name a few.

THAT'S fact and analysis, sorry to tell you.

@BlueMetalChick Did the Bush administration use his race as a scapegoat with him?

@thewindupbirdchronicles I don't remember them doing so, no.

@BlueMetalChick Neither war was illegal, both were authorized by Congress and supported by large international coalitions. They may have failed in nation building, but they removed horrible evil regimes and gave their people the ability to develop a government from their own self-determination. That they failed is primarily their own fault, US mistakes notwithstanding.

He wasn't involved in any torture or such decisions. That was always a fast accusation. In both wars, 95% of the deaths were caused by terrorists, which explains why support for US presence remained so high within the population. I actually know this to be true - since I was involved in not just the actions, but in counting the results. He doesn't support Sunni terrorism (what are you talking about??).

So no - those are facts, and as analysis goes - it's pretty bad. Sorry. It's better to believe the truth than to make up your own narrative.

@BlueMetalChick I always run a danger in my sensitivities of conflating - so maybe I'll rephrase, would it not be convenient of them?

@SW-User So you invade another country, and the telling part is congress and the senate agreed? That's a little disingenuous, you asked Afghans how would you fuck up their life?

@thewindupbirdchronicles Really... is that what you think happened? I do believe the Afghan government was massively corrupt, and we shouldn't have supported them as long as we did. But you said "invade" - the reality is we liberated Afghanistan from the horrible Taliban. That was massively popular among the Afghan people.

You really should know more than wade into an argument with such ignorance. Seriously.

@SW-User Well no actually neither were authorized by Congress. There was no declaration of war either. Both were illegal.

They both removed evil regimes and replaced them with...even more evil regimes. Why do you think the Islamic State exists?

He was directly involved in torture. He requested that Bush give him authority to sign off on it. That's about as direct as it gets.

No, 95% of deaths were not caused by terrorists. If that were true, then over four million people would be dead. By the United States' own admission, over 200,000 civilians were killed by American military forces just in Iraq. If that were only 5% of the casualties, then an entire tenth of the country's population would have died.

As for support for US involvement being high, that's a bold face lie. The Afghanistan conflict was the single most unpopular war in American history. It hit a 14% approval rating, which is lower than even Vietnam ever got.

Dick Cheney was and still is one of the most outspoken allies of Saudi Arabia and the US program to arm them. Saudi is the world'# largest terror state and funds Sunni jihadist groups across the Middle East, including, say it with me, Al Qaeda. You know, the people who blew up the World Trade Center two decades ago.

Next time, bring me facts, not shit you wrote yourself.

@SW-User Seriously, I don't think America had a right to invade. You live in a world with over 198 countries, no one asked you to be a savior, or to act in self-aggrandized avenues that circumvented laws and disrespected international law. Funny Guantanamo keeps coming up to this day.

@SW-User Oh, we liberated them from the Taliban. Of course. Even though...the Taliban controlled more if Afghanistan every year of the war than when we invaded in 2001.

So we defeated the Taliban by giving them more land and power. Obviously.

@BlueMetalChick And it was proxy wars of Russia and the US, that created the Taliban. I'd likely be fundamentalist if I had to live their reality.

@thewindupbirdchronicles That's a separate issue from whether it's legal or not. Yes, intervention should be rare and a last resort, but the reality is we live in a world where that last resort is needed more often than some are comfortable with. There's no getting around two basic facts - both were terrorist regimes that were exporting their terrorism - and had become refuges for those who were attacking others, and both were horrible to their own populations. Populations which supported their liberation by very wide margins.

And yes... a significant part of the world (and not just the Free World) expects the US to defend the global commons.

The US military actions were supported by US legal actions -and no, it was not internationally illegal.. even under the UN charter.

@SW-User It was illegal, but no one will stand up to the US. If they do they are vetoed. Fuck ethics, ya know?

@SW-User [quote]There's no getting around two basic facts - both were terrorist regimes that were exporting their terrorism[/quote]
Really? Because it was Saudi Arabia that attacked the United States on 9/11. And Egypt too, to a lesser extent. And instead of doing anything at all to either of them, we...invaded Iraq.

You can ALMOST hedge out an argument with Afghanistan because Bin Laden was responsible and he was, for a time at least, being sheltered by the Afghans. But he's been dead for over ten years now, and we found him in fucking Pakistan.

@thewindupbirdchronicles Nope. Again - an emotional opinion. Not accurate factually,... as for ethics - the liberation of both countries was the right things to do. Good-minded persons can disagree on that - but just notice who is on which side, that says a lot about which side has ethics on their side... y' know?

@SW-User So, if a Canadian (or group), does something that kills Americans (or any other country) not state sanctioned (this is where it gets difficult), the US (specifically) as they are the only ones demonstrating that had the right, can invade my country? Base level, that is where it is. I'm happy my Prime Minister refused involvement.

I'm sorry, this I know follows geopolitical "reasons" but they are baited in race.

@BlueMetalChick Interesting. Finding OBL in Pakistan is irrelevant to the argument. Saudi Arabia itself didn't attack us, even if the 9/11 group had a large number of them. We liberated Iraq for different reasons altogether, four... to be exact, not related to 9/11. GW Bush never claimed 9/11 for the liberation of Iraq, but to this day his opponents still claim so.

I'm sorry, that gives away how you are literally decades behind the arguments... rehashing long debunked accusations.

@thewindupbirdchronicles No one has made that argument at all. You're not getting at anything. Canada did operate in Afghanistan. They have reasons fo their national security postures, not all that I would agree with were I Canadian, but that's a separate issue.

@SW-User How you seperate while trying to make your argument. Canada did deny. Did my government honour that, entirely? No, but that doesn't concede your argument

@SW-User It is an issue when you are looking at international law

@SW-User [quote]Saudi Arabia itself didn't attack us, even if the 9/11 group had a large number of them.[/quote]
Well the funding came from the Saudi defense budget and the two Egyptians said they were recruited by members of the Saudi military, so that's debatable.

[quote]We liberated Iraq for different reasons altogether, four... to be exact, not related to 9/11.[/quote]
Ohhhhh, so we DIDN'T invade Iraq because of 9/11. We just PRETENDED to. So George Bush, and Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld, and Carl Rove and Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, and the entire US State Department and the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, all congregated and decided to collectively lie to the American populace and PRETEND we were invading Iraq because the Iraqi government was responsible for 9/11 but in truth that's not why we invaded and they were just faking it.

[quote]I'm sorry, that gives away how you are literally decades behind the arguments... rehashing long debunked accusations.[/quote]
On the contrary. This is nearly twenty years out of date. "Hurr durr, captain, we invaded Iraq to liberate them." People believed that at the time but that ship sailed a long time ago.