Posted on 03/22/2023 7:56:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
“You would have supported Adolph over his invasion of Poland? Oh well.”
This is a good example of how stupid people think.
Drawing false equivalencies and appealing to emotions.
Because their minds are incapable of rational thought.
From conflicts in my lifetime, I assert that US operations can effectively be maintained for no more than two presidencies before collapsing into operational morass and strategic failure.
Actual defense would be a different thing, but otherwise the plan must include the endgame and handoff to local or regional control. That of course doesn’t feed the industry so…
ancient hhistory or not, we should have leveled Baghdad,, and all the adjacent areas, tthen the military installations, all the electric power generating sites.
we could have done it all by air, aircraft or drone, and saved a whole generation of Americans.
that would’ve shown Iran what they may expect.
You think we’ll ever occupy Russia like that?
Not sure how one can fit occupying Russia into the Iraqi scenario...
In any event, even perhaps with a total defeat of Russia, I do not think the U.S. government has the political frame of mind or institutions necessary to effectively occupy Russia for any purpose, even with a DJT in the WH.
No. Bad move by idiot Bush Junior.
That it did not turn out as expected or as we wanted at the time does not change the justification. What I see now is a lot of rewriting of history to suit current politics, to turn Iraq into another Vietnam in reference to Ukraine. The "unanswered questions" were asked and answered then. Just like then the answers are ignored. This time the Republican side ignoring the questions and answers, not the Democrats.
Saddam was disguising and hiding his intent to restart his WMD program as soon as he could. Instead of having ready chemical weapons, he stocked up on precursors and kept up low level R&D. Bush made it easy to attack him by refusing to defend any decision he made. Why he refused to defend his decisions when it would have been easy and let the Democrats and the press to walk all over him is beyond me.
The reality is, the US and Iraqi people won. Iraq is its own country, Saddam is dead, the Baathist's are gone, Al Queda and ISIS exist as shadows of what they were, Iran is largely in check. The Middle East is not Europe or Asia. Iraq's cultural heritage goes back 10,000 years and is Islamic, not European and Christian. The outcome was never going to be neat and tidy like we think of WW-II today when Iraq's neighbors are Iran and Syria.
It was right until Obama didn’t have a Status of Forces agreement and gave up the Green Zone. No matter the Weapons of Mass Destruction issue, the Hussein dictatorship needed to end. It’s probably the first time that we ever got a regime change right. It started going wrong when they enshrined Islam in the constitution of Iraq.
The war was shopped from the get go. The first reason given was Iraqi violation of the northern fly zone set up by daddy, which was rejected by the UN. When that didn't work they trotted out the Clintonian WMD bullshite. That worked til it didn't so the purple fingers in the air we're bringing democracy to the Middle East was employed. Was it worth close to $2 trillion and close to 4500 American servicemen? You fuggin pathetic neocons need to go away.
Back then I knew that Saddam was not a sponsor of Musalim terrorism. I did go along with Bushy that Saddam had nukes. Now it turns out this was Saddam’s propaganda to keep Iran at bay.
Today I say don’t bother with Muslim nations. Leave them to their own devices with their wacko religion and wacko dictators. Just buy oil and gas from them. This is all they are good for.
Ukraine is a righteous war in Europe. Where most FReepers ancestors are from. But many Freepers don’t want the US to help Ukraine. Due to our two recent wars in Muslim nations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Where many Americans died and were maimed. With trillions squandered. So now some FReepers are born again Peaceniks.
“Who stood the gain from us starting a war of choice in Iraq?”
Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, UAE, the Kurds,
To me, that is the best summary. He needed to be gone. Bullies only submit to counter force. If we didn't take him out he would just be emboldened to act elsewhere.
All of the 20/20 "hind sighters" forgot Kuwait and forgot the bluster saddam pumped out after we kicked his ass the first time but didn't take him out.
Perhaps 20 years ago there was a valid reason. However times have changed. The current mindset is that there is NEVER a reason to invade another country.
No.
Iraq was paying families of suicide bombers and was (along with Iran) one of the major funders of Islamic terrorism worldwide.
And no it wasn’t worth a SINGLE American life to fight that war, which was my EXACT point!
We should have made a glass parking lot of most of that country along with Afghanistan after 9-11 without costing us ANY American lives.
Neocon ? LMAO
I am more conservative than you by a MILE on any issue, guaranteed.
No. Wrong then, still wrong today.
Conservative is just the opposite of a Progressive to me. Both love big government for different reasons.
And we were fighting forces of Al Queda in Fallujah. That kept them busy and away from the US mainland.
Well this is false. Saddam has chemical weapons, even the NYT has an article over soldiers hurt by them when they had to hide that they were finding them.
Secret removal of tons of yellowcake (uranium) to Canada if I remember correctly, was pretty well known.
The problem though wasn’t any WMD, it’s that the Muslim world needs harsh dictators like Saddam to keep them in line. Without him, the gap was quickly filled with even worse people.
The only way to succeed, as someone else mentioned above, was to delete most of the country’s way of life and start back over, like Japan after WWII. But even that would have been iffy unless we did the same thing to all the surrounding countries that are all the same. The entire society is extremely tribal, and the only way to put it together into something actually coherent involves mass re-teaching of the kids and a LOT of time and effort. The Japanese at least started out smart and industrious. That part of the world is neither.
We got involved in an intra-Arab squabble we had no business getting into.
And of course as with every war, the BS stories flew, like the incubator story in Kuwait.
It was an awful decision, IMHO...
The Iraq vs Iran bloody war would have still been going on and the rest of the world would be much safer today...
We had two raghead countries killing each other’s soldiers by the thousands every day for ten years...
It needed another 20 years to permanently clean up that part of the ME...
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