Thread: The war in Iraq...again

Love it, hate it, or tired of talking in circles about it? Here is the topic for you, not the others that turn into war debates.

I will state my stance to get us started. We went to Iraq to find and eliminate WMD. It was obvious that the government and military of Iraq was not going to just open the doors and let us go where we wanted when we wanted, so we had to use force to be able to search for them. In using force to search we eliminated many military and government officials. Once this was done we needed to stay to help rebuild the country, much like we did in other countries that we went to war with.

Talk amongst yourselves.

Anyone who has ever had boots on the ground in the region knows already that there were WMD's, Materials for WMD's and plans for WMD's in Iraq. Anyone with half a brain could watch the video footage of the miles long convoys of universal haulers crossing the Syrian Border for an entire week before caving to UN and US demands to close the border - and SHOULD be able to figure out "hmm, I wonder what could have been on those trucks.... bread I should think, bread for the starving children of Syria".

After all, Saddam always showed that he viewed himself as a savior of the Arab. That was why he would rather give his Air Force to his Arab Enemy (Iran) during the 1st Gulf War and that was why he would not have hesitated in the least to send the materials in question to the one country in the region that could put them in the hands of the Martyr's (Syria) in the 2nd.

I don't have buds of mine from the Corps and Gulf War I with Gulf War Syndrome because of exposure to sand fleas and camel spiders. We don't have folks showing up stateside now with unexplained neurological abnormalities and muscular degeneration because of over exposure to the Media and Obama's magical smile.

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However, discussions like these most often turn out moot. Civilians will NEVER understand and can never empathize with someone who has been in the shit. I salute and appreciate every American who can support and sympathize, but noone will ever understand unless they walk a mile in a GI's boots (preferably in the sand).

I am a civillian, but I know many soldiers (including members of my family), who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, who think the war in Iraq is an exercise in futility and abuse by the state of our military. However, they carry out their orders. I know a lot of contractors too, they want to be deployed anywhere BUT Iraq.

Religious groups, such as Al Qaeda, were not tolerated by Saddam. They are direct threat to his power as a dictator. He did not want them in his country. He may have given them "props" for attacking us, but he did not harbor them or help them. A fascist dictator tries to obscure religion and focus attantion and zeal on the state; on their glorious leader. Al Qaeda was a threat to his power and he would not have them in his country. There was no connection between the tragedy on sept 11th and Iraq.

The mission in Afghanistan however is another matter; there are indeed terrorist training camps, and their mastermind being harbored by the Taliban, a warlord driven theocracy of sorts. Much more tolerant of fools like Bin Laden or other Al Qaeda operatives and operations.

Somebody said earlier in the other thread that the other countries offered their condolences and were behind us. I would add that most of those countires were behind us for the operation in Afghanistan, not in Iraq. It was not sanctioned by the UN security council. Why have a power structure if we choose to ignore it? Further, we threw away the support of many countries who had decided they feel badly for us when we went into Iraq. We had just garnered some trust, and we threw it away.

In the end, when Saddam realized Bush was not screwing around, he began frantically complying with inspections. But it was too late: the administration had made up it's mind. It seemed obvious to me, long before we went in, from all the news footage I saw (on all sides of the aisle), that Iraq was not capable of threatening anyone except it's immediate neighbors.

Why do we not go and liberate other countries that are threats to their neighbors but not us?

Further, terrorism is an ideal you cannot attack with tanks and jets. It is something that must be dealt with through law enforcement and intelligence.

In the end, I was utterly shocked on 9/11; when I discovered we do not have air marshals on EVERY plane. I ahd always assumed we did. Hell if Tom CLancy can write a story about it ten years prior, it is obviously a threat someone thought of. I was also surprised to find out we do not inspect all shipping into our country. Again, I assumed that the countless fictional tales of briefcase nukes/bio/chemical would mean that people can think of something that obvious.

But we are, 7 years later, we still do not inspect every shipping container, there are not air marshalls on every flight, etc. Yet we pour huge amounts of money into a ground war that supposedly protects us from these threats. And what do we hear? "They are scared of freedom," "we are doing this to protect your freedom," etc. If a foreign military blew up my homeland and family, I would do everything in my power to thwart them. Are we truly fighting terrorists on the streets of Iraq? Or idealistic young men who believe they are fighting for their freedom, not against it.

Bring 'em home to rest and defend our country. Put that money into intelligence and law enforcement. Start inspecting every damn shipping container and putting air marshalls on every plane. The war is a collossal waste of money and lives. We had the respect of much of the world finally, and this war in Iraq, and the troubles it has stirred as far as human rights have made America look uglier than ever. That is going to be a big problem as we slowly slide down the totem pole.

Obviously I am highly opposed to the operation in Iraq. They were never a threat to us, they did not harbor terrorists who were a threat to us. They do sit on a nicely strategic piece of land however; especially considering we "have" Afghanistan as well.

The video is from 1998, and Clinton is saying we will use force against Iraq because they have, and have used, WMDs.

So here is my take on the whole WMD thing. To put it in terms more of us can understand, let's assume that you are into illegal drugs. you get arrested, and part of your probation is that you are subject to random home searches at any time the police request. The police show up once, and you are not home, so no search. The police show up a second time, and you pretend not to be home, so no search. The police show up a third time, and you tell them they can't come in right now, so no search. You then get word that the local SWAT team is coming to raid your house by any means necessary within the next two weeks. You look around at all the drugs, and drug paraphernalia lying around, and have a choice to make. Do you A) just leave it there, and hope to get by with it, or do you B) get rid of it and hide it? I think we all know the answer, and my money is on the fact that Saddam did too.

Another analogy I heard, maybe even in another topic here, is that we found all the ingredients to make WMDs, but no actual completed weapons. Much like walking into a meth lab, and the guy saying well yeah, I don't actually have any meth, but I do have a perfect explanation for having every single ingredient necessary. Yes, the explanation is you were making meth, and are about to make more.