I grow weary of “What if”. Obama was wrong and W was wrong - for different reasons. End of story
Iraq was invaded to serve Saudi interests and their security, the nation so many of the 9/11 terrorists came from.
The Leftist critics always called Bush a “Texas oil man” but as I read some months back on the BBC website a Saudi official was claiming heavy investment in the oil industry in the USA.
Our deeply in debt nation needs the Saudi money, that underlies Iraq regardless of who was president.
Obama pulled troops out to look good with the anti-war Left while he kept them in Afghanistan.
He was ultimately forced to put them back in because of the Islamic State, a problem with Saudi Arabia’s name written on it since their jihadists entered Syria to try and take power away from Assad.
Of course. Obama was or rather is wet behind his mega ears and never understood the mid east.
W did and continued to fight against Saddam’s war of agression
Just needed a force of 20,000 to maintain order in 2008. The Community Agitator comes in and pulls out of Iraq. Brilliant! Then destabilizes Syria, Libya, Egypt, Turkey, rewards Iran, pulls out of Afghanistan, etc... Coincidence?
(drops mic)
Bush is a traitor #### who I CANT BELIEVE anyone here would be naive/insulting enough to post this garbage.
He slept with the sauds so much that i’m surprised he didn’t have their babies.
#### Iraw, i two cent dictatorship.
Saudi Arabia was protected from the DEFINITE involvement in 9/11.
Have donated 10s of billinons. TENS!!
3000 are dead because of Saudi Arabia.
The towers I worked in are gone.
You insult too many people to count by posting this
BULLSHIT.
Iraq and Saddam’s removal served to destabilize the ME. Now look what we have, more chaos than before. You can’t bring democracy to those who don’t want it.
1. The 500 metric tons of yellow cake uranium that was sold to Canada would still be there.
2. The chemical weapons used by Syria would still be in Iraq.
I would trade Saddam Hussein being the leader of Iraq again for the return of the nearly 4,500 dead U.S. soldiers and 1.7 trillion spent on that war, to be frank.
I am sorry but Iraq was an epic mistake made by moron Bush and his idiot sycophants. He goes up there with Carter and Obama as one of the worst. Add me to the list of those who’d rather see Saddam in power than all those precious American lives and dollars lost.
I think it was ultimately foolish to invade in the name of establishing a democracy; first, because in that part of the world, voting for “freedom” or “liberty” or whatever constructs of democracy come to mind are apostasy over the worship of Mohammed. It is that simple. The hardest thing to get people to do is to dump their religion. This has been proven throughout all of human history over many religions. To get them to renounce Islam in favor of a Western set of idea(l)s that they hate and do not subscribe, in the format of an invasion and conquest is even harder. I think any 2nd year student of Arab studies could have seen this. But the geniuses in our government, The phd’s, could not.
Second, the idea that you are going to establish a democracy in an area where the people have had zero experience with it, have the kill-or-be-killed and steal whatever you can ethos of Islam and NONE of the morality that ALL the founders saw and knew would be required to establish and maintain our form of govt; was naive. Most of these nations were observably controlled effectively when and where they had a brutal dictator in charge. We don’t understand this calculus and we still don’t. We were obviously not going to go in and become tyrannical. But this is what these countries are used to. We can like it, we can decry it, but it is a fact. Denying facts is a tough business.
Third, Saddam may have had WMD, probably did, but I never understood why they constituted a threat to the US. Additionally, Saddam could have been manipulated to shepherd his weapons in ways that would have revealed their presence and locations by a campaign of subtle harassment the threat of overwhelming retaliation.
Fourth, the US had the best thing going as far as that part of the world when Iraq and Iran were at war and IMO that condition should have been encouraged, ghoulish as it may sound. Additional succor could have been extracted from the Saudis if the Bush admin was clever enough to manipulate instead of being manipulated by Wolfowitz et al. They just weren’t that smart. They thought they stood on a righteous and superior pedestal, much like liberals do. They were mistaken.
0bama was supporting his mussie buddies.
People that are suffering under a tyrannical government have the perfect right to remove and replace that government with one that respects natural rights. A free country has the right to help if it is in their rational self interest to do so.
With due respect and I know that reasonable people can differ , let me answer your questions. I think Donald Trump, our president, was right and I will briefly address each point in caps to distinguish your hypothesis from mine.
1.” Saddam Hussein would have become a bigger threat to the region. He had clearly come to the conclusion that the West would not stop him and was acting as such”.YOU HAVE NO CONCEPT OF THE THREAT THAT WAS CREATED BY REMOVING HIM. IT IS CALLED ISIS. THERE WERE ABSOLUTELY NO WMD SO WHAT DID WE INVADE THIS COUNTRY FOR. THERE WAS NO THREAT TO THE UNITED STATE WHATSOEVER.
2. “Iraq would have continued shooting at U.S. and UK planes enforcing UN resolutions. How many times do you allow someone to fire missiles at your aircraft?” DID YOU KNOW THAT OUR IMPOSED “NO FLY ZONE “WAS ILLEGAL AS HELL? IT WAS ABSOLUTELY NOT REPEAT NOT SANCTIONED BY THE UN. IN FACT IT WAS REBUKED AT THE UN. WHAT GIVES US A RIGHT TO IMPOSE A “NO FLY ZONE” OVER A SOVEREIGN COUNTRY? THIS WAS A VIOLATION ON INTERNATIONAL LAW. THE GULF WAR HAD BEEN OVER FOR 14 YEARS !! YOU ARE OK WITH CHINA IMPOSING A NOFLY ZONE OVER THE U.S. AND WE DON’T FIRE MISSILES AT THEM?
3. What about Israel? We do know today that Iraq won’t be attacking Israel or has WMDs to threaten its neighbors. We can thank President Bush for that. ISRAEL?? IRAQ NEVER ATTACKED ISRAEL!. WE BLOW 3 TRILLION DOLLARS 9ENOUGH TO REBUILD THIS COUNTRIES INFRASTRUCTURE) 5000 DEAD SOLDIERS , 40,000 WOUNDED AND MAIMED SOLDIERS ,OVER 300,0OO CIVILIAN IRAQIS SO THAT SOMEDAY SOMEONE WON’T ATTACK ISRAEL? WHO IS NEXT? SAUDI ARABIA?
GOERGE W. BUSH MADE THE GREATEST BLUNDER OF ANY PRESIDENT IN OUR HISTORY FOR WHICH HE TOTALLY PUT THE DEMOCRATS IN THE PRESIDENCY.
Please tell me this is a joke.
Conservatives are still trying to defend the Iraq war? Bush drove away a whole generation of young voters with that stupid war. Obama would never have been elected if the country wasn’t so disgusted with Bush.