Replies

Bob,

Fighting a war (or any war, for that matter), especially in the Middle East, for 'moral' reasons, is not "good enough."

Reports of human rights atrocities had been coming out of the Middle East for decades, and not just in Iraq. And we did nothing. Europe did nothing.

After 9/11, the American people didn't need any further reason to want Saddam dead and buried. Geopolitical excuses, like "Saddam is a foil to Iran," "Saddam, like Tito, keeps a tribalistic Iraq from disintegrating," "Saddam may be a monster, but he's our monster," were no longer good enough reasons to keep him alive.

The First Gulf War (which I supported), was a rousing success, but, as it always seems, America is great at screwing up afterwards. We bloodied his nose, decimated, to a degree, his ability to "export" war, but we left enough of his military intact to remain a foil to Iran and to keep Iraq from disintegrating. Sated our bloodlust, satisfied our sense of moral obligation to the Kuwaitis, and "punished" Saddam for being an evil dictator. Wham, bam, thank you Saddam.

Then 9/11 happens. Revenge, justice, payback, moral outrage are often used as justifications for war, but are, in hindsight, not always the best way to enter a conflict. I supported these conflicts. We bombed Afghanistan into the Stone Age. We achieved a level of success, arguably, that rivaled anything the Soviets could have ever done in their Vietnam-like boondoggle.

We achieved military success, in so short a time, with fewer US casualties. We owned Afghanistan, and no one opposed us, not Russia, China, or Iran. And then we screwed up the afterwards.

Iraq was next. Three weeks, from start to finish. Three weeks the might of the US military conquered a country the size of CA. Could we have done that in 1991, if the political will had been there? And then we screwed up the afterwards.

I am tempted to go on. If and until the United States, her citizens, her politicians and bureaucrats, and her military leaders, are willing to plan (and implement and stay the course), from the get-go, for the afterwards, then the U.S. should stop helping.

We are adult enough to take in the facts, the atrocities, the geopolitics, the "realities" and to make a rational logical decision on whether we should spend our blood and treasure helping, and decide whether we should remain the world's Policeman.

[[Fighting a war (or any war, for that matter), especially in the Middle East, for ‘moral’ reasons, is not “good enough.”]]

My response was that there were two very valid reason- militarily and morally-

[[her military leaders, are willing to plan (and implement and stay the course), from the get-go, for the afterwards, then the U.S. should stop helping.]]

We were prepared to stay the course until our current president took office-

[[make a rational logical decision on whether we should spend our blood and treasure helping, and decide whether we should remain the world’s Policeman. ]]

Being allies to an oppressed people is not policing- there’s a big difference- nor is going to war after myriad un violations policing- We knew for a fact saddam was using WMDs on his own people- and the atrocities he was committing on his own people were far and above what most regimes do- Again- there were several key issues that led the US to take him out- And morality was just one of those key issues- You will discover, if you read the investigations into wmds that even the investigators knew he had them - read the report- the final decision was a politically motivated one meant to deligitimize bush- the iraqi’s under order by saddam buried their weapons all over the country-

“5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs” were found scattered across Iraqi soil.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/10/16/new-york-times-reports-wmd-found-in-iraq

BOMBSHELL: New York Times Reports WMDs WERE Found in Iraq!

http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/bombshell-new-york-times-reports-wmds-found-iraq/

These were not old antiquated wmds- these were the real deal- soldiers suffered chemical poisonings and burnings from wmds- And these are just the ones that were found-

Further Iraq was required by un resolution 1441 to fully account for and destroy all wmds- they refused-

“My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now reached the final days of decision. For more than a decade, the United States and other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime without war. That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Since then, the world has engaged in 12 years of diplomacy. We have passed more than a dozen resolutions in the United Nations Security Council. We have sent hundreds of weapons inspectors to oversee the disarmament of Iraq. Our good faith has not been returned.

The Iraqi regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage. It has uniformly defied Security Council resolutions demanding full disarmament. Over the years, U.N. weapon inspectors have been threatened by Iraqi officials, electronically bugged, and systematically deceived. Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime have failed again and again — because we are not dealing with peaceful men.

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq’s neighbors and against Iraq’s people.”

President George Bush

The dueler report which ‘concluded’ that there ‘were no wmds’ was wholly unaware of the fact that there were later found 500 warheads with sarin gas at 25% concentration levels- Woopsie- such a definitive determination when all the actual facts weren’t known- some as high as 40%- these were not ‘old ineffective wmds’

“The most interesting discovery has been a 152mm binary Sarin artillery projectile—containing a 40 percent concentration of Sarin—which insurgents attempted to use as an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). The existence of this binary weapon not only raises questions about the number of viable chemical weapons remaining in Iraq and raises the possibility that a larger number of binary, long-lasting chemical weapons still exist.”

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/02/iraq-had-wmds-after-all.php

The more warheads that were found, the louder the cry of ‘old-useless’ from the left became- they just could not admit that they were wrong about there being ‘no wmds’ so they had to keep trying to diminish how recent or effective the warheads were- but htere became so many of them, and the concentrations were so high- that their lie became obvious to all those who knew these weapons existed- the problem is that the msm buried these reports until the NYT finally came out with their report, refuting the claim that the wmd’s found were ‘not important’-

Everyone knows that Saddam had all the time in the world to move and hide wmds=- even moving some out of country- the left knew it- everyone knew it- there was nothing honorable about saddam at all- he stopped at nothing trying to hide incriminating evidence-

“One of three important questions before us today is how much might remain undeclared and intact from before 1991; and, possibly, thereafter; the second question is what, if anything, was illegally produced or procured after 1998, when the inspectors left; and the third question is how it can be prevented that any weapons of mass destruction be produced or procured in the future.”

You knew damn well saddam was saying “Pay no attention to the voice behind the curtain”- He was juts biding his time and waiting for the right time to rebuild what he had just destroyed- every honest person knew this—