If the war was promoted based on facts and logic, it would have been different. I was not against the first Iraq war nor against the Afghanistan war -- those were straight forward and not based on lies. The Afghanistan war didn't go much better than the Iraq war either, thus it isn't about the after effects.

The Iraq war was sold to the public based on lies and Charles Krauthammer was one of those key promoters pushing those lies. For a good segment of the population at the time it was very obvious this was being done.

How many liberals? Convenient that the US propped Saddam up and provided him with chemical weapons for use against Iran and his own people. When it was no longer in Bush's interest he was toppled and then the provisional regime bungled the rebuilding of the infrastructure that the coalition destroyed, by putting in incompetent political cronies and party loyalists in charge of reconstruction. Conservatives invaded and destroyed the country and were so outrageously ignorant of the society, and breathtakingly stupid about fixing what they broke. Go and tell ANY Kurd how Turkey, Syria and Iran want no Kurdish state and will grind the Kurds down to prevent it. Then answer for how well the US will support the Kurds given Trump's love affair with Erdogan.

> It's really astonishing how many liberals in the west will defend the middle-east's version of Hitler.

Opposing the war of aggression waged immorally, illegally (under international law and arguably— given the bad faith in the application of the conditional authorization by Congress—under US law as well), and incompetently by the Bush Administration isn't the same thing as defending Saddam Hussein (who is no more the Middle East version of Hitler than many other past or current leaders in the Middle East, many of whom—including Saddam, at the peak of his most Hitler-like actions—have or had the direct backing of the U.S. government, including—again, also specifically in the case of Saddam Hussein—the particular individuals most responsible for military and defense policy in the Bush 43 Administration. )