Sunni/Bathist minority out of power. 80% of the people are now not subjected to the whims of 10%.(10% kurds still doing as they please) Dictatorship replaced with representative government. Saddam and sons, all brutal ********, dead. No weapons of mass destruction available to foist onto Israel from Iraq. Not bad. Saddam would still be in power likely with UN restrictions lifted. Israel would be in greater peril. More expensive than it should have been but I think it was well worth it and will continue to be well worth it unless Obama pulls a Carter/panama thing.
"Sunni/Bathist minority out of power. 80% of the people are now not subjected to the whims of 10%.(10% kurds still doing as they please)" -- Yeah, and now the Sunni minority is in fear of being oppressed by the Shias (which are being influenced by Iran). Much of the violence is between Shias and Sunnis, and many Iraqi Christians experienced far greater persecution AFTER Saddam was removed. "Dictatorship replaced with representative government." -- Representative government is obviously better than an oppressive dictatorship, but if that is justification for the invasion, then there about 100 other countries in the world whose countries could be attacked and whose governments should be removed (e.g. Cuba, Syria, Myanmar, North Korea, etc.) "Saddam and sons, all brutal ********, dead." -- I'm glad they are gone, but as mentioned above, there are plenty of other brutal governments around the world too. Why shouldn't the POTUS make a case to invade those countries to bring democracy to their people also? "No weapons of mass destruction available to foist onto Israel from Iraq." -- This is the kicker and crux of the whole issue, isn't it? Iraq no longer had WMD's after Desert Storm, yet WMD's were the entire (false) justification used to invade Iraq. Remember when Bush (and Powell) insisted on national and international TV that they had evidence Iraq was actively pursuing WMD's? Well, all of that turned out to be a huge, colossal, and expensive lie. So now we have spent (wasted) hundreds of billions of dollars (eventually approaching one trillion dollars when all costs are factored in). Over 4,200 U.S. soldiers have lost their lives, with tens of thousands more who have been injured/crippled and many of them requiring VA medical care the rest of their lives. And this, of course, doesn't include the millions of Iraqi citizens whose lives have been turned upside down by the battle against terrorists, almost all of whom came into Iraq AFTER the U.S. invasion. "Not bad. Saddam would still be in power likely with UN restrictions lifted. Israel would be in greater peril." -- Regarding Israel, they were never under as much threat from Iraq as they were from Iran, especially after the U.N. imposed sanctions after Desert Storm. While it was certainly an enemy of Israel, Iraq was also a bitter enemy of Iran, whose influence has only grown now that we conveniently eliminated their arch enemy. I sort of agree with your assessment of 'not bad'. It's much worse than that, absolutely horrible.
The only way to win a guerrilla war is systematic genocide. Moral nations are not equipped to win them. We ignored that rule to our detriment and the detriment of the world, which depended upon our threat of force for peace.
groerat, I think you know me to be no big defender of the war in Iraq, nor everything that has happened in it, but... Seriously? You don't think Iran had a 'conventional military'? It was my understanding they had a massive standing army. No? Also, I consider chemical weapons, even in small amounts to be WMD. To be not finding many, was a double edged sword. It was proof we didn't really need to invade Iraq, but it was also only AFTER that we could find out that Saddaam was lying about having them and that the international intelligence was wrong about them having them. In hindsight, it is great to know they didn't really have many. Wish we knew that before hand. I believe we did accomplish good things in Iraq, but am still unconvinced it was necessary to go in. I will say, I am glad I wasn't in the position to have to make a call one way or the other.
Yeah, Israel is more secure then they were before with Iran dominating the region. Fact is, we'd be much beter off today if Saddam were still around. I won't go into why because I think it is fairly obvious. And if I did have to explain, well, there's no convincing that person anyway.
The more he opens his mouth, the more damage he does to Bush's legacy. Bush's people have got to be wanting to ice his feet and throw him over a bridge.
Let's not forget that Bush and Cheney were advised on Iraq by Henry Kissinger, who was quoted saying [to Alexander Haig] that military men were "dumb, stupid animals to be used" as pawns for foreign policy. Link #1 Link #2 Link #3 Please note that I am NOT questioning the bravery, sacrifice and patriotism of the men and women who serve our nation in uniform. I am, however, increasingly skeptical about the motives and circumstances behind our Presidents' decisions to use/sacrifice our nation's armed forces (and taxpayer dollars). Note: Truck's Son, I agree with pretty much all your points below. There is certainly lots of gray/fuzzy ground surrounding the whole Iraq affair. But the way I see it, a President should face a higher level of accountability for making a decision to go to war than for not leading his (her) nation into war.
BOB, we'll probably not agree on any of these points but I'll offer my view on some of your comments:
Fightin' Horn, Maybe I am just taking your bait, but even if Sadaam was still in power I don't think he would have kept Iran from becoming a nuclear power. It seems that Iran will have to be dealt with, but I don't honestly know by whom. The UN has obviously failed, and I think Iraq already took their best shot during the Iran/Iraq war, and could only fight to basically a stalemate. Also, I don't think that the people of Iraq would be better off with Sadaam, in power. It might just be me, and while I don't think that the US should be the world's police, but I do believe that the lives of Iraqi's matter! Which is why the war's effect on them was duly noted and brought up by so many on the left in our own country. Neither our military persons nor the Iraqi civilians should be treated as pawns in foreign policy.
Roger35, You are consistantly wrong and you are wrong again in this case. From: The Facts on Halliburton "When Factcheck.org checked the facts about allegations by Democrats that there was a scandal because of the "no-bid" contracts awarded to Halliburton they stated, "It is false to imply that Bush personally awarded a contract to Halliburton. The ‘no-bid contract’ in question is actually an extension of an earlier contract to support U.S. troops overseas that Halliburton won under open bidding. In fact, the notion that Halliburton benefited from any cronyism has been poo-poohed by a Harvard University professor, Steven Kelman, who was administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the Clinton administration. ‘One would be hard-pressed to discover anyone with a working knowledge of how federal contracts are awarded...who doesn't regard these allegations as being somewhere between highly improbable and utterly absurd,’ Kelman wrote in the Washington Post last November." (Emphasis added.)
Only cost about 20 times more than Cheney predicted. A shitload more lives than Cheney ever predicted, so how the f**k can he say they accomplished what they woanted? Oh yeah... delusions of grandeur...
Why doesn't Obama pull all troops out of Iraq and Afganistan, would save a lot of money. Iraq could not be worse off than under Sadamm or have you forgotten the mass graves of thousands of Iraqis he had slaughtered. Then he could use that money for another of his socialist programs.
logcap, logCAP, LOGCAP The government military contracts for logistical support are well defined through the LOGCAP program. Read about it before you make an *** out of yourself about no bid contract nonsense.
