Deja vu: Watch each of the last 4 presidents announce U.S. is bombing Iraq

Peter Suderman
reason.com
Thu, 11 Sep 2014 04:19 UTC

Did last night's primetime presidential speech announcing expanding authorization for airstrikes in Iraq and Syria feel kind of familiar? Like you've heard it before?

That's probably because you have. You've been hearing for more than two decades, from presidents on both sides of political aisle. At this point, bombing Iraq is practically a American presidential tradition.

And, via the magic of YouTube and The Huffington Post's Sam Stein, you can watch every president back to the first George Bush announce a new plan to launch military strikes in Iraq.

Here's George H.W. Bush in January 1991 announcing that "air attacks are already underway against military targets in Iraq."

Here's President Bill Clinton in December 1998 announcing a mission, along with British forces, to "strike military and security targets in Iraq."

Here's President George Bush (the second one) in March 2003 announcing that American forces, with help from coalition partners, "are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq."

And here's President Obama, last night, describing U.S. airstrikes and other military operations designed to "degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

Comment: It seems the U.S. may be lamenting getting rid of Saddam Hussein. They had a convenient excuse to bomb innocents and destroy what was a healthy and vibrant, albeit (gasp!) secular, civilization. They had to go and create ISIS in order to continue their indiscriminate killing so as to appease their blood-thirsty puppet masters. While many people point out that ISIS was created and funded by the U.S. (as was Saddam), that will not stop Obama and his bosses from lying to the American people and ramping up the fear in their hearts. As you can see above, it's nothing new.