Gentlemen
It comes down to this:
Seventeen resolutions and twelve years
The United Nations passed resolution after resolution to no avail. They showed themselves to be the paper tiger they are; and Saddam thumbed his nose at them with increasing vigor.
They never had any success dealing with Saddam, the largest failure of which was the Oil for Food (OFF) program. Saddam skimmed off billions from the OFF program; and with that money he bought still more weapons with which to threaten his neighbors.
Finally, someone said "If not us -- who? If not now -- when?"; and took the actions that threat after threat and resolution after resolution had failed to do.
The fact is the the U.S. has ALWAYS been the one to leap into the fray and take care of business while other nations would stand by and condone the actions of barbarians. The Nazis marched nearly unopposed across Europe and it took a foreign power to sail across the sea and bring its might and courage to defeat them. Countries local to the war stood silent as the Nazis march of conquest goose-stepped through their back yard.
We have ALWAYS come to the aid of the downtrodden and this is merely one more time that we have done so. It is also one more time that we have done so thanklessly as our allies who begged the U.S. for their salvation have turned their backs on us after we saved them from destruction. We saved their lives, their homeland, and their culture only to be spurned in our time of need.
Twenty-six million -- let me repeat that -- TWENTY-SIX MILLION Iraqis have a chance at freedom and liberty because of one thing and one thing only -- THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. If not for the U.S. the rape rooms would be open; Saddams offspring would still be prowling the streets of Baghdad raping, killing, and maiming their fellow Iraqis at their pleasure; the torture rooms would still be in full swing; and dissidents would still be being thrown from tall buildings or hanged at the local soccer field.
I don't give a steaming pile of dog doo whether there were WMD or not -- the intel for which the Brits still stand behind. We freed a people who were just as deserving of that freedom as any French, Australian, Filipino, Chinese, Belgian, African, Polish, Russian, and, yes, German, Japanese, and Italian person in 1945.
WE FREED A PEOPLE FROM TYRANNY AND THE BEST WE CAN DO IS TO DEBATE WHETHER THE REASON FOR THAT FREEDOM WAS JUSTIFIED!!!.
Does anyone here believe that the Iraqis give a damn that there were no WMD? They give a damn that we are there and we are trying to give them what we gave the rest of the world in 1945.
Unfortunately, there are those, some of whom gather on this board, who do not believe that a people deserve freedom unless there is a good reason to give it to them beyond "They are deserving of, and have a God given right to it."
<sigh>