Ugh, do you really think your viewers wanted to spend two hours of their Saturday morning rehashing Iraq? I didn't appreciate Chris' preachy intro either... we don't care if you're tired of hearing about Iraq, we're going to force feed you more and you should like it.

On an another story on this site, an Up staffer had this commentary:

My reaction to the North Koreans crying was profound sadness. They've been locked away from those countries whose citizens have risen up to assert their humanity. (source)

What was even sadder was the New Years eve show.

In 2004, Harris reported that 38 percent of the US public still believed that the US had located WMD in Iraq. By 2006?

That number had risen to fifty percent. (source)

The literary battle that Orwell depicted does not require a totalitarian stage. The play can be performed very well in a modern democracy with a highly literate technologically advanced society with a "vibrant and free press" filled with very smart but very deluded journalists. That was the tragedy of today's 2 hour show on Iraq. That through all of the analysis of alternate perspectives and policy mistakes, with such insightful guests, producers and a host like Hayes, it did not touch on the real Iraq war: The conquering of the American mind- How that campaign was waged so effectively- where the setbacks were, and how it reacted to maintain those approval numbers. For greater depth on this, Manuel Castells provides a survey of some of the research literature on how the epistemic terrain was strategically modeled and adjusted as the war progressed, in his book "Communication Power" (see kindle location 3153, for the chapter "Conquering the minds, Conquering Iraq, Conquering Washington: From Misinformation to Mystification" ).

This war before the war is nothing new in political analysis. Alinksy quotes in his "Rules for Radicals" the insight of John Adams :

"The Revolution was effected before the war commenced", John Adams wrote. "the Revolution was in the hearts and minds of the people ... This radical change in the principles, opinion, sentiments and affections of the people was the real American Revolution."

What I can't understand most is why Hayes utterly ignored this. For an intellect that purportedly understands something about Rorty's analysis of the language and theater of representationalist accounts the world, I just find it unfathomable.

Learning the lessons of the Vietnam war? Of the Iraq war? We have learned nothing that will help defend ourselves the next war over the outlines of the national epistemic terrain. And sadly we learned nothing from Up!'s retrospective. Because it really didn't cover that real war that Krugman, Castells, John Adams and Rorty are speaking of.

Another stellar performance by the Up with Chris Hayes show and panel. They handled a difficult topic and widely diverging views with respect and compassion. For contrast just try to imagine what this discussion would have been like on Fox.

B.N. I can't always get up at 6 am and it is nice to watch the show in it's entirety on MSNBC. I prefer watching it in big hour long chunks. Though I understand why they might want to slip them up. It would be nice to maintain them in order if possible, please.

I'm watching this on my DVR and once again there are extremely annoying voices in the background, particularly a female to whom I would like to say "SHUT UP!" I'm into the second segment now and they seem to have gone away, but why are they always there at the beginning of the show? Please make them go away.

I think the problem with Iraq - and I didn't watch the whole thing - is that so many of us were against it, we couldn't do anything to stop it, it was horrible and terrible and we were powerless. Americans didn't trow George Bush out even after they knew he was a horrendous failure and had taken the country down with him. THEN Obama came in and held no one accountable for their war crimes and we are still powerless. It has killed our reputation, our democracy and our economy and none of the politicians has seemed to have learned one thing. I really don't want to spend two hours of my time focused on that colossal failure. I would rather the program had focused on empowerment and what we need to do going forward.

No one on UP with Chris placed any blame for the last 9 years on Iraqis. Granted, our invasion was poorly handled by the Bush Admin and the reason for the war was a lie but the people hated Sadam so you would would think they would have supported us anyway. No they had to fight like religious zealots instead of building a new country. They are to blame for an unstable country. These people are two sects of the same religion and still they can't get along.

Great Show Chris!

The one part that was omitted was that Colin Powell sold the war and quit upon learning that the premise for his argument was flawed....hell...it was a lie!...I thought Sestak's revelation of his conversation with Gingrich regards WMD's as the premise was very telling and would probably be the basis for a tv ad against Newt should he make it past S.C...again great show and I can't promise I'll be up in the AM but will certainly catch the video!...This IS my favorite show...well besides Jeopardy and Politics Nation....keep up the great work and Happy New Year to you, your staff and all of your families!

Chris Hayes said, "and the Democratic President, that managed to bring the war to a close...". That's all I needed to hear to get pissed at MSNBC!

The exit of troops was already agreed to by , it pains me to write it, the Bush Admin..

This Obama admin. did everything it could to keep our troops in place, but the Iraqi gov't., in their wisdom, said no!!!!

I've lost a lot of respect for Chris Hayes, because he spouts the party line, instead of the truth.

I want to hire a US Vet (preferably a disabled Vet) to work as my Personal Assistant to help me with simple exercises (I am disabled and have to have a spotter even to go for a 1/4 mile walk), occassionally drive me places, and potentially assist in other light tasks around the house. My house is handicap accessible and although a person in a wheelchair couldn't necessarily pull me out of a dangerous position they could still keep me company until I can figure out how to get myself unstuck (which can take an 1/2 hour without assistance).

Anyways, I tried to find a way to hire vets and couldn't figure out how to do it. If anyone knows a place to post part time jobs for vets I would greatly appreciate the information.

Chris Hayes failed to include, at the beginning of the first hour, some very important and telling clips of the invasion---namely those leaked to, and released by, wikileaks. Those clips of the helicopter jockeys murdering innocent civilians, and laughing about it.

C'mon Chris, lets have fair and balanced reporting.

Did we have a truth commission after Viet Nam? That is when faith in the military and government were first breached for the modern generations. We've needed honest and transparent assessment of our foreign policies, political class, and executive governance for decades. It's the only way to assure corrections are made.

From my readings and listening to people who have avidly studied and reviewed our unfortunate and commercial wars, I am convinced that the consensus is finally building. I hope so. We can not move forward until we have faced the past. I was grateful to hear that Gen. Sanchez has called for a Truth Commission on the Iraq War. Building on what has been learned to date of our departure from International and Domestic Law and the Geneva Conventions, we could finally administer Justice.

The fact that those architects of the events are well-placed in comfortable jobs or lives free from reflection while millions of veterans, Iraqis, and US families must live with the physical and emotional wounded aftermath appalls me. If the greater lesson is that Americans as a people are done with using war as an industry or substitute for diplomacy, that would be great! I think we must never again delay Public analysis and review. Those found guilty of crimes must be punished. Otherwise those following them will not learn nor will those callously using our nation's military. honor, and Treasure for personal gain be stopped. We have to do this; for ourselves and our global community.

Yes, we have a warrior caste, but they are the minority, and Americans by and large are fractious but peaceful, in my opinion. Our budget and policies do not reflect American interests accurately.

Great show that I DVR'd and had to take in short bursts. The reason is that the continuous, insidious "breaks" almost completely destroy any sense of continuity. My sense is that MSNBC goes much too far in stuffing commercial time into the eventual destruction of their programming. I lose patience with this and I fear that eventually I will stop watching a very talented Chris Hayes because I just cannot tolerate all these commercials. Thank Heaven I am at least able to fast-forward through them.

MSNBC needs to give Melissa her own spot without taking Alex Wagner's away; only then, will your news program line ups be completed with the smartest, most attractive, most logical, non weird, and hippest people of cable news.

“do you really think your viewers wanted to spend two hours of their Saturday morning rehashing Iraq?”

Yes, as long as it takes…

My brothers were lost in the Vietnam War. They both returned but left their young spirits in the jungle. They suffered intensely and were never the same after they returned. One recently died. He told me he woke up many nights with the Vietnamese women and children he had to shoot from his helicopter standing around his bed even after he was fully awake. The enemy shot at their helicopters with the women and children surrounding them. The other has been almost totally a hermit since he returned. Since Vietnam, he has never been ‘normal’ in any since of the word. While they were not counted as part of the body bag count they and our family’s life was never the same after they returned from Vietnam. War is a human act. War can be prevented in many cases. When our loved ones are victims of war we feel pain and helplessness but we also feel anger. When our politicians start wars that are clearly not a matter of absolute and imminent necessity for survival or by mistake, this error may be abstract to most Americans but to those of us that directly experienced the resulting pain, we are angered by the glibness of such abstractions and everyone that made such tragedies possible from voters to political decision makers. We will carry our tragic losses every day for the rest of our lives but PLEASE folks do not think of war as one political issue among others, it is horrible tragedy that we can prevent – If you are grateful to our veterans please take our pain to the voting booth.