I became a BDSer in the 4th quarter of 1999, when I became aware that Bush had amassed a $70 million dollar war chest, to be come president of the United States. I didn’t see him as a Conservative, and I wasn’t thrilled that he was going to be sucking all the oxygen out of the room the following year.
Sadly he lived down to my expectations. And sadly there are those today who will still argue he was a better president than Ronald Reagan. Yes, seriously, I’ve had people make that argument to me on this forum. Who cares what he handed off to Obama. Who cares what damage it did to both trust in Conservatism and Capitalism.
As for the war in Iraq, I see it different than I do a potential war in Syria. For the most part Assad’s regime had settled into a known entity. Christians were left alone within Syria. His shenanigans with known terrorist groups seemed rather subdued. He was serving as a proxy for Iran, but things could have been a lot worse. Today we may be seeing how it could become worse. We just don’t know.
The point is, Assad was a fairly well known entity. He wasn’t overtly supporting terrorists. He wasn’t making threats against the West. He wasn’t spouting off against Israel every few days, making it look like he was ready to pounce.
He wasn’t threatening any of his neighbors.
Contrast this with Saddam Hussein. Hussein had either invaded or committed acts of war against Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. His invasion of Iran cost over one million lives. His purges inside his own nation had cost 10s if not 100s of thousands of lives. He had already been involved with the United States in one war, and he was violating no fly zones as well as shifting his armed forces back and forth into areas near his borders with other nations. He was paying $25,000 to any family whose member had carried out a terrorist act against Israel. He was making public statements in support of terrorist groups carrying out acts of terrorism against the United States. He did have either Chemical or Gas WMD munitions on his soil. Those were uncovered at one point after our invasion and his removal. There was a large convoy that carried cargo of some sort out of Iraq into Syria prior to his removal. The chemical attacks taking place now, may have been former Iraqi WMDs.
Hussein was therefore a coiled snake that needed to be taken out. We couldn’t take a long term chance he would fund terrorists against us, or arm them with something devastating in the process.
I haven’t seen anyone make the case that Assad is anything close to what Hussein was. That and the fact the rebels are made up of al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers, causes us to believe there is no win possible in Syria. Let them beat each other to a pulp. Thin the herd.
In conclusion, I supported Bush entering Iraq. I know there are decent arguments against it too. I don’t see what is taking place now in Syria to be remotely the same as what was taking place in Iraq. The dynamics are quite different. In Iraq we had the possibility that a stable government could rise out of the ashes.
In Syria, whichever side wins, it’s going to be problematic. There’s no viable resolution there. We should definitely take a pass.
I am pretty sure we didnt invade Iraq over its attacks on Iran, which was ~ 20 years earlier. And few in the US shed a tear for Iran in those days.
Saddam wasnt invading anyone in 2001.
In fact once no WMDs were found the Bush bots resorted to Obama-speak, it was those atrocities inside Iraq that was the real reason..
Pretty much the same idea after that, break a country and create a huge mes.