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I knew Bu$h was going to invade somebody when I saw
him stacking his cabinet with Reagans leftover Gestapo.
How can anybody support genocide on a group of people
for the profit of a few ? Its hypocracy at its worst that Bu$h
and his g-men arent getting what Saddam got.
While all of you chickenhawks are putting yellowribbon magnets
on your SUVS the country that made yer stick-on patriotism
is laffing out loud.
Poor planning from the beginning - Though intentions were (mostly) good
In spite of what came out of the inspections for the WMDs - More than likely they were there, at least to some part. And, it would have been easy for the Iraqis to get rid of them quick.
Let's face it - Saddam used chemicals weapons on his own people - No one is denying this fact - So, something was there...Maybe not to the extent that our intelligence thought - But, something was there, and is somewhere today. And, I am sure that if the insurgents had the ability to get their hands on some of it, and complete the chemical processes to use it - They would. (Maybe we should not be pointing a finger at Syria - But, thanking them for taking them out of Iraq)
Our big problem was going into Iraq without a plan. We should have taken a deep breath and thought about it before we proceeded.
The biggest error we made was bombing 85% of the factories there - This was overkill...This is what should have been thought-out before it was done. Much of today's problems exist because of this...Let's face it - The people there have no place to work...There is almost total unemployment there (70% or so?)....And, the old adage is, "Idleness is the Devil's playground" ...
The other big mistake was discharging the Iraqi military (which we did at first) - Even though they were the minority, they were trained soldiers.
We did not give them the chance to prove themselves (I am sure a good many of them would have co-operated, and made an effort to make a new government work)...
So, when they were just discharged - They went home angry...Many with their weapons...And, this is now contributing to the anger and violence there...
Our intentions were good...Our planning and execution were too hasty...And now it's a real mess....
If Turkey starts any military operations against the Kurds, we will be in a worse mess...Who do we stand by?...Our Turkish allies?...Or, our only friends left in Iraq - The Kurds?...
Another big problem there is the corrupted system of awarding contracts for the re-building...This got the Iraqis even more furious...They saw what was happening...Big $$$$ going to favored contractors, who were sub-contracting to suppliers of other (low wage and low priced) countries...Even the (Arabic) interperters were being brought in from other countries, and they have been using their positions to steer business to their people...(This I know, as I hear this from Iraqi businesspeople that have been frustrated for years now).
It's the typical low quality return we have been getting for decades from our self-serving, self-important intelligence community (like the CIA)...The same intelligence community that we spent hundreds of billions of dollars on - And, who did not have a clue that the Berlin Wall was going down, and that was caught completely unaware and unprepared when communism fell in Russia (their main focus for decades)...And, look at the results of that debacle!...We did not know how to handle the situation in Russia, and have now lost it back to Putin and his mob...
Personally, I thought that we should have concentrated our forces on the Afghani-Pakistani border to root out Osama bin Laden and Co. If Hans Blix and his fellow UN investigators were truly given the time to find credible evidence of WMDs in Iraq, then I may have welcomed the US sharing the responsibility and credit as part of an international force to effect change.
Yes, Saddam Hussein presided over a brutally repressive regime. But sadly, there are many such regimes all over the world of various size and strength. Unlike most of those nations, however, Iraq is a major petroleum producers. That certainly had to be on the minds of the two former Texas oilmen currently in charge. (Side note: Dick Cheney did build his career in Wyoming before eventually making his way to TX... but he did at least semantically change his residence to back "home" just before the 2000 campaign began.) I also recall seeing George W. Bush remark on television about how Saddam threatened to assassinate his father. So that makes it even more personal for him.
The surface reasoning of wanting to have Iraq become a democratic beacon for the Middle East as well as a warning to the other two Axes of Evil is reasonable enough... but between grossly underestimating the number of WMDs, the determination of the insurgents and the underlying religious differences that bubbled out into a civil war, the reasoning for continuing this war does not stick IMO.
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I thought our purpose should have been to find those responsible for 9/11 and to prevent another attack. Afghanistan made sense at the time due to the evidence of terror training camps in country. At the time I didn't think Iraq presented an imminent threat and thought it was wreckless to invade when Afghanistan was still an issue (which it still is) and with so little planning.
It seems even worse now as there are many references out there to people predicting the current situation (secular civil war) and it's obvious they were ignored. It also seems that whatever threat Iraq did present didn't require full scale invasion to counter.
The surface reasoning of wanting to have Iraq become a democratic beacon for the Middle East as well as a warning to the other two Axes of Evil is reasonable enough... but between grossly underestimating the number of WMDs, the determination of the insurgents and the underlying religious differences that bubbled out into a civil war, the reasoning for continuing this war does not stick IMO.
Good points overall Tone509 - Though, the question is - How the heck do we get out of it without leaving a debacle behind?
I wish all of our people there could leave tonight...But, what the heck would happen there?..And, how would it affect the entire region?
Good points overall Tone509 - Though, the question is - How the heck do we get out of it without leaving a debacle behind?
I wish all of our people there could leave tonight...But, what the heck would happen there?..And, how would it affect the entire region?
We don't pull out without leaving a debacle behind, and as long as we stay we'll keep losing American servicemen and spending billions of dollars we don't have.
Regardless of when we leave, whether it's now or in 50 years, the end result will be the same, a civil war. Meanwhile, Americans are dying needlessly.
Good points overall Tone509 - Though, the question is - How the heck do we get out of it without leaving a debacle behind?
I wish all of our people there could leave tonight...But, what the heck would happen there?..And, how would it affect the entire region?
migee, good points, and that is everyone's fear. But then the issue to look at becomes - it is a debacle already. And nothing we are doing is really changing that. There was a report just over the weekend about how the Iraqi "government" is not even close to accomplishing any of their promised benchmarks...and they plan to take all of August off for a break!! Turkey is now talking about moving in to the North.
Iraq is broken. If we leave will things get worse? Maybe, who knows. Then again, maybe our presence is a lightning rod for the extremists and our leaving will make thiings better. Why should we listen to what the administration says, they obviously have not a clue about how the middle eastern mind works. It is a debacle no matter how you slice it.
The problem isn't that we went into Iraq without a "plan". There were many plans drawn up with different scenarios, and all of them indicated explicitly that Iraq, with a vacuum left when Saddam was deposed, would become a bloodbath of a civil war. Everyone at the Pentagon and in Washington, including George H.W. Bush knew this, and told Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and W, and yet they said it was worth the cost. These warnings were dismissed by the political pundits as tomfoolery (and labeled "un-American). Oops.
I was for going into Iraq shortly after we had success in Afghanistan, because I was short-sighted and thought the momentum would carry us to victory. Of course, I'm just a tad too young to remember that conflicts in the Middle-East, and in Southeast Asia (like Vietnam and Korea where we still have a presence and a demilitarized zone) are UNWINNABLE. The Sunni and Shiite "insurgents" have way more time and energy invested into this (like centuries of tribal angst), and are much more willing to sacrifice than we are (heck, they'll blow themselves up. How many Marines are willing to do that?). How do you defeat people where death means nothing? Smear them with pig's blood? Yeah right.
That's why there will be no winners and losers in this one. It will be more of the same drudgery day in and day out, more troops dead, more civilians bombed, more chaos. It's just like when we had our own Civil War.
We haven't cracked one Al Qaida case due to our presence there (other than capturing and killing Al Qaida hiding there which we could have gotten with special ops). Seriously, how many terrorist attacks in Spain, London, Israel, Bali, etc. have happened since 9/11 were we able to stop because of our presence in Iraq? Maybe I missed the news story, but I'm pretty sure it's 0.
1) The people who said it's all about oil, which I thought were crackpots, were right. Not Iraq's oil, but the entire Middle Eastern oil reserve. Otherwise, why wouldn't we be working to depose other dictators or rogue governments in other parts of the world. Think about it.
2) The people who thought it was another Vietnam, who I thought were a bunch of ex-hippies, turned out to be right.
3) The people who think we should give a 6 month timeframe for complete withdrawal, who I thought were crazy and would leave a giant bloodbath in its place, are right.
4) Two things we know: a) We stay in Iraq and the bloodbath and civil war continues infinitum, never to be resolved (until one side Sunni or Shiite wipes out a big chunk of the other side and takes over the government there). And we continue to drain our military to the breaking point and not have them defending our country from the real threat of terrorism and infiltration.
b) We leave and the bloodbath and civil war continues infinitum, (read above). We get our boys and girls back, beef up the reserves, beef up our technology, greatly expand our special ops and intelligence forces, and go about the business of protecting this country from real terrorists working right now to attack civilian Americans. We've done ALL WE CAN and MORE for the Iraqis, let them stand on their own.
To invade a country under the flimsy guise of bringing them democracy and the pretext of some spurious link between Saddam and Al Quaeda is a pretty serious crime. Iraq never had WMDs , everybody knew that but the lure of huge reserves of oil was just too tempting... America believed it could kick butt in Iraq and were proven wrong in a spectacular fashion. The war was illegal and immoral and has caused so many American casualties and 650000 innocent civilians'deaths. It has made the US the most hated and ridiculed place on the planet and managed to bring Iran and Iraq closer which is a disaster for everyone. It has radicalised thousands of Muslims who were previously no threat at all to anybody and made the most secular Islamic Nation into a hotbed for fundamentalism. It has also meant gross breaches of human rights . The Iraq war is wrong on so many levels , it is amazing Bush got away with this kind of crime against humanity and not been impeached yet.
He lied to Americans, sent troops to be slaughtered , made a bad situation in the middle East about 500 times worse and contributed to the worldwide increase in terrorism. What a fantastic success for his administration. How on earth does he get away with it? He should bottle this kind of luck , and sell it...
Its time to IMPEACH . Bush should not be allowed to get away with what he is doing any longer. So far , what I see , the real enemy is in the mirror, it is US , for letting the Neo Cons get away with what they have done, for so long.. There is a shift in what is going on now. The Reps. are starting to jump ship. Just watch what will happen in the next week or so. The time is now, we all need to get behind the movement to impeach the crime family.........Bush & friends.
Every time I read the newspaper there is some poll indicating that the war in Iraq is the biggest issue in the minds of most Americans and that a lot of them are against it. I remember that in the beginning there were strong support for this war. What happened to that support? Were you a supporter of the war then, but not now and for what reason? Have you always been against it? Is it because you think it is morally wrong? Are you against it because you hate Bush? Are you against it because you feel the government lied about it? Is it because American troops have died over there? I can't help but imaging that a lot of people are simply getting on the anti-war wagon because other people are doing it. Thanks for reading.
Have not checked other posts, but here goes. I voted for Bush simply because I found him less disturbing than Kerry. Figured he'd be our "junkyard dog" in an increasingly hostile world. I made excuses for his lack of "polish" and inability to give a convincing speech.
We must remember that at the time, Saddam was a real loose cannon and a genuinely scary guy. Remember, in all fairness, that we thought he had nukes, and would not hesitate to use them. (I went over this extensively on another thread). Knowing what we THOUGHT we knew now, and in view of Saddam's complete refusal to "deal" with us, yes, I did favor "taking him out" (I argued heatedly with my Dad, a WWII vet, over this. He said 'The US doesn't start wars- it ends them') Nevertheless I held my ground. Thought we'd be out of there in short order, leaving many friends behind.
In my defense, I must mention at this point that my "antennas went up" INSTANTLY when Bush began slipping the "bringing democracy" remarks into his pep talks. I felt then, and still do, that the Iraqi people had no concept of, no confidence in, and no desire to experience democracy. I thought Bush was being hopelessly naive, but surely some adviser would set him straight. There's no more interest in democracy in the Middle East, than there is in "gay rights" at a KKK convention. When they want it, they'll adopt it.
So, botton line is this; I favored "taking out" Saddam, thinking there'd be a massive "good riddance" celebration as we departed in friendship. I trusted that rational minds in Washington would talk us out of trying to "spread democracy" where it's not wanted. Massive mistake on our part.
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Poor planning from the beginning - Though intentions were (mostly) good
