Thread by @yungneocon

This kind of strawmanning is super cringe. Hussein had serious and legitimate reasons to oppose the US, but we know that around 2001-2003, he was writing romance novels and seeking normalization and peace with the US, which the US ignored bc of its imperialist militarist drive

https://twitter.com/gothmarxist/status/1436942331987460097

Notably Hussein had opposed the US (implicitly) prior to the Gulf War & his country suffered in tremendous disproportion—the US murdering millions of Iraqi children because of his failed attempt at assertion of regional power. No doubt a murderer but nonetheless a rational actor

The Iraq war was gratuitous and absurd by even its own terms—Hussein had offered to abdicate. It’s frankly hilarious that my claim that victims of US imperialism respond rationally by attacking the US is construed as a defense of US policy and official mendacity.

(And mind you the key phrase there is “on its own terms”—i do not think the US should have forced Hussein to have abdicated. My point is that he, in an unprecedented historical move, offered to do so—undercutting US pretext for war—and it was ignored)

But this just reinforces the fact that the US does not need pretexts to go to war. It just goes to war. It’s been at war for 91% of its existence.