Why are we in Iraq?

If we want to continue our way of life here in the U.S., we must win. If we want to assure freedom and tranquility for our allies, we must win.
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TheBluesMan has officially gone off the deep end. There is no win. Please define what win is, so we can do it. The simple fact is you are spewing administration talking points without a single iota of comprehension of what winning entails.

Time to relearn the basic tenet that throwing good money after bad is bad policy. We have enabled them to govern themselves, now we need to have them do that. If they are not fighting to determine their own constitution and creating a new country, no amount of troops from the US will make it happen.
 
You're missing the point. George W. Bush could have stood up and said "he tried to kill my daddy so I'm gonna take him out" and overthrowing him still would have been the right thing to do, both morally and geopolitically. However, since you (like everyone else these days) seem to conveniently ignore that fact that there were more reasons stated than "WMD", here's a nice quote from Powell's UN speech
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I see. So the point is that, as you just stated, we must invade any and all countries that have contempt for the U.N. council and are "morally wrong". Would Congress and the American people at the time that we were discussing the possible, agree to invade Iraq if the reason stated was :"he tried to kill my daddy so I'm gonna take him out", or if the sole reason for the war were because Saddam gassed the Kurds and killed a large number of Shia?

You have got to be kidding good sir. The fact that you are completely ignoring that everyone from congress on down were LIED to, by the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA in order to make a false case for going to war, is enough for me to completely stop taking you seriously. And also you shouldn't have to resort to name calling on your first post in order to try to put forth your flawed rationale.

But hey, I think the people spoke very clearly in the last elections.
 
Just a continuation of American trade and diplomatic policy in the region.

The world wide economics chess game of trade? Oh yeah, and terrorism.

An opponent whose military we could easily defeat, situated next to Iran with troops on the other side as well in Afghanistan, helping buffer/block Saudi's Wahabi led faction (who did sorta have some tangent financial action in a round-about related way to Al-Q and 9-11)?

To slow down the French, German, Russian (and Chinese?) traders, who may or may not have been providing SH/Iraq with technology detrimental to our continued diplomacy of Status Quo in the region but who were benefitting from the UN (US?) mandated food for oil program?

To show the world we were tired of being kicked in the junk over and over by small group/cells of people who were then figuratively flipping us the bird after each groin shot and it's hard to fight nebulous groups of wandering nomads but easier to fight a fixed target?

For an interesting historical read on US policy in the mid-east, read "Power, Faith and Fantasy" (AMERICA in the MIDDLE EAST 1776 to the PRESENT) by Michael B. Oren.
 
I see. So the point is that, as you just stated, we must invade any and all countries that have contempt for the U.N. council and are "morally wrong".
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Please tell me where I wrote that, 'cause I'm having trouble finding it. There's a large difference between "...would have been the right thing to do, both morally and geopolitically..." and "...we must..." when discussing any given course of action.

Would Congress and the American people at the time that we were discussing the possible, agree to invade Iraq if the reason stated was :"he tried to kill my daddy so I'm gonna take him out", or if the sole reason for the war were because Saddam gassed the Kurds and killed a large number of Shia?

You have got to be kidding good sir. The fact that you are completely ignoring that everyone from congress on down were LIED to, by the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA in order to make a false case for going to war, is enough for me to completely stop taking you seriously.
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The topic of this thread is "Why are we in Iraq" and not "how did the Bush Administration trick everyone into supporting war with Iraq". TheBluesMan and TwoXForr gave some excellent reasons why it was and is in the interests of the United States to be in Iraq, and if your obviously strong feelings regarding the President prevents you from discussing those points so be it. Ignoring them and focusing on the "lies and failure" argument might make you feel better but it does nothing to aid in understanding.

And also you shouldn't have to resort to name calling on your first post in order to try to put forth your flawed rationale.
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Comparing your words (angry, defeatist, apologetic of a tyrant) with that of a similar historical group is hardly name calling...and you have yet to articulate how any of the rationale I'm talking about is flawed.
 
Funny thing is(funny in a sad way).......
All of you who are screaming "bring the troops home to secure our borders" are the same folks who will then turn around and scream "I can't believe it, we're living in a police state, papers please."

Flame away.......................
 
I am a 2x iraqi (war/conflict?) veteran. And why are we over there is a good question. Realisticly, there are only a handful of people who do know but they wont tell us. As for WMD, I think we can put the IED's (road side Bombs) in that category now. Have they killed enough of us to be put in a MASS category?
Now moving on. When do you think the average joe out there will start to enforce imagration on his "own terms" and booting peoples butts out of our country?


______________________________________
"If you can see a person sing in Las Vegas for free, they arnt worth listening to"
William B. Foley
 
TIME FOR A HISTORY LESSON

Even if you completely ignore the WMD issue, we were fully justified in removing Saddam and his regime.

The entire basis for this justification rests upon Saddam's UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER in 1991.

In 1991, Saddam illegally invaded Kuwait in an imperial act of international aggression. The U.S. led coalition kicked him out and then proceeded to surround Baghdad backed by a force of 500,000.

At that time, we gave him this choice: Unconditional Surrender OR we eliminate you and your entire government.

He chose unconditional surrender. The terms that we imposed on him were required to be fulfilled or else the original threat of eliminating him and his government would be carried out.

The terms included 100% cooperation "anytime, anywhere" weapons inspections. The burden was ON HIM to prove that he no longer possessed banned weapons. The burden was never ON US to prove that he didn't have them.

Well, for over 10 years he was in violation of those terms. You know the story. He blocked inspections, declared his palaces off-limits, kicked out inspectors, fired on our planes in the no-fly zone, etc.

Keep in mind that Saddam was a ruthless dictator and (except for the Kurdish North) he controlled every square inch of his land with an iron fist. The only way we could know FOR SURE whether he possessed banned weapons is if he complied with the open inspections.

Short of an invasion, without Saddam's cooperation, there was no way for us to know FOR SURE whether he possessed WMDs.

NOW. After 9/11, we could no longer allow the UNCERTAINTY of the WMD issue in Iraq to continue on. The time for playing games was over. President Bush, if you remember, drew one final last line in the sand. He told Saddam very clearly, either cooperate 100% right now or else face an American-led invasion. Saddam stepped over that line.

We had the right, based upon the original 1991 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER, and based upon our need after 9/11 to find out one way or the other whether Saddam possessed WMD, to invade Iraq and remove Saddam from power.
 
I also agree with BluesMan's analysis with one addition: the US military had spent 12 years or so perfecting the Blitzing of Iraq, so in addition to all the other criteria there were plans in place.
The invasion went very well, media coverage of Jessica Lynch aside. This was the fastest invasion and toppling of a government in history. Unfortunately the Pentagon desk pilots forgot to spend 12 years planning for the inevitable results of blitzing Iraq: Now that you own the place, now what?

Personally, I say give it back to the Iraqis pronto, and let them @#$% it up. We know they're going to so let's get it over with. The whole region is a case study of how governments @#$% it up. It's an ingrained culture that comes with oil wealth since all nations that are "rich" solely in terms of petroleum resources are invariably saddled with bad governments.
 
Why we got into Iraq:
Because George W. Bush let Dick Cheney pick his cabinet and (surprise) his entire cabinet cane from the same think-tank. These people have been pushing for an Iraq invasion since George H.W. was president. So put together
1) a president who doesn't tolerate dissenting viewpoints and delegates policy decisions.
2) a WH staff who really want to invade Iraq as part of their long-term strategy for "taming" the middle east (plus making lots of money for their sponsors)
and
3) the deadliest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor

And there you have it.

Why we are still there:
The most horrifyingly cynical reason of all: Because they (Republicans in Washington) are trapped by their own propaganda. It would be political suicide to turn back now because that would be tantamount to admitting their opponents were right all along. They will keep this war going until the end of the Bush administration so that it becomes "the other guy's problem" and they can make political hay about how Hillary lost the war.
In short: all those lives, all that capital...just ballast to be tossed overboard to try to keep a failed administration afloat.

And from the Democrats' side, they are just as guilty. If they valued that "ballast" as much as they claim, their first priority would be to ignore the political consequences and kill the funding for the war immediately.
 
Note in my list of six criteria that WMDs and 9/11 ties are absent. Those two reasons had nothing to do with invading Iraq regardless of what GWB says.
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I'm going to have to disagree. Think back a few years to 2001-2003. We had sustained a significant attack by terrorists. We knew, or believed, that they fully intended to continue attacking. It was widely accepted that Iraq under Hussein had the ability to manufacture WMDs, and perhaps did still have some on hand. Many people seem to have revised their memories and want to pretend now that only Bush and co. claimed Iraq had WMD. There was intel indicating that Iraq might cooperate with Al Qaeda or other groups, at least to the point of providing weapons. No, I am not saying Iraq was behind 9/11...

That presented an intolerable situation. You have a country (the US) recently reminded of it's vulnerability, you have terrorists more than willing to use WMD, you have a country capable of providing them, and you have indications that they may well do so.

I'm not discounting your other reasons at all. Certainly a large part of the reason Iraq was chosen was as an example.

What we have attempted to do in going to Afghanistan and Iraq is change the ground rules and move from reactive to proactive. Terrorists can not operate effectively without some sort of tacit or overt government support. The idea is to make it too expensive for any government to consider supporting terrorists. Not "If you support terrorists and they attack us we'll complain in the UN, think about sanctions and possibly drop a bomb or two" but "If you support terrorists and they attack us we will remove your govenment."

The problem is, that threat has to be credible. It was for some time after 2001, now it is less so. A couple of the countries Iraq was to be an example for are Iran and Syria. Both support terrorism and we know it. What are the odds of anything happening?
 
Why are we in Iraq?

It's a proxy war being fought on Israel's behalf based on a plan called Operation Clean Break, sold to the administration by mid-level bureaucrats with more loyalty to Israel than the US, and sold to the American people a PR campaign to turn public opinion against Iraq.

There's more, but you'll have to read "A Pretext For War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies" by James Bamford.

If you wanna skip the dry reading, the juicy stuff begins about pg. 250.:mad:
 
Mike,
There was intel that indicated that Iraq either had or would soon have WMDs. There was also intel that indicated that Iraq either was or might cooperate with terrorists.
But your argument neglects the fact that there was also plenty of intel indicating otherwise. All of it was presented to the administration. They chose to ignore that which didn't justify the war and present that which did to the American people.
The old "bad intel" excuse wears thin because it's standard policy for the intel community to present all sides of the case to the policy makers, and everything we've been told (even by the WH) indicates that they (the administration) "blew the call" at best, not the intel community.

But they didn't "blow the call", they intended to go to war regardless.
 
Whose intel was it, we really don't know, all we know is what the media tells us and all the media knows is what the government tells them. if their lips are moving, they're lieing

Saddam was nothing more than the mayor of Baghdad, with the no fly zones and us dropping a couple bombs on him every other day, he couldn't even go out side for smoke break.

Hasn't anyone been paying attention to G Tennet or Richard Clark, Bush wanted to go after Saddam from day one, even on national TV he made the statement that "besides he's the guy that tried to have my dad killed"
of corse the media dropped that statement quick, that was when saying anything against going to war was unpatroitic, before people realized that troops get killed and wounded in war.
look at how many Dems are filp flopping now, " I voted for the war but I really didn't think Bush was serious. What did they think that Bush, Cheney, wolfowitz,Perle,Rummy, Hannity and a lot more scumbags wanted the troops to do in Iraq,? sell avon.
I was against the war from the start, but now we have got a lot of people pissed and we have to finish the job in Iraq and Afgan, I believe if we run now it won't be like Vietnam when we left, those nuts in the middle east will come over here after us.
 
We had the right, based upon the original 1991 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER, and based upon our need after 9/11 to find out one way or the other whether Saddam possessed WMD, to invade Iraq and remove Saddam from power.
 
They chose to ignore that which didn't justify the war and present that which did to the American people.
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GS,
The flip side to that, they based their decision on the intel presented and went with the preemptive strike plan to protect American soil from another attack.
 
The war with Iraq was and is very important. If we want to continue our way of life here in the U.S., we must win. If we want to assure freedom and tranquility for our allies, we must win. If we leave now, or even pull out in the next 4-6 years, Iraq will fall into civil war. Islamic radicals love to kill Americans, but killing other islamic radicals is a close second. The spread of terrorism will increase exponentially if civil war in Iraq becomes reality. And it won't respect any borders - it never does.
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Yeah, I'm gonna have to go with SecDef and ask you to define "win." Because I've yet to hear a realistic or attainable version of it. I mean, I suppose we could just leave troops there indefinitely to prevent a civil war, but otherwise it's pretty obvious that they're not going to cooperate and the second we leave they're going to get to killing each other, pronto.

And six more years? Yeah, the cost/benefit ratio there isn't working out for me. But honestly, I care less and less as my ETS approaches. Let you and yours fight your war. This soldier is voting with his feet. I've seen what's going on over there, and it's certainly not worth my life. And I'm pretty sure it doesn't qualify as defending my country, either.

Unfortunately, I forsee an early pull-out of American troops followed by a bloody civil war that spills into at least one adjacent country. Throw in a nuclear Iran and things get real tricky real fast. Then we'll have some very difficult decisions to make. 3,000 dead American civilians and 3,000 dead troops will seem like nothing compared to what will happen if we pull out early. Our enemy will be emboldened and will come at us on our own turf again. Like TwoXForr says - take the fight to them!
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First, maybe this is an argument that we should let them start their civil war before Iran has nuclear weapons. And yes, I agree that the consequences of pulling out are bad, but I don't agree that simply staying longer will necessarily prevent them. I'm firmly convinced that we aren't getting Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Also, what exactly is "the fight?" Been there, didn't really see a "fight." More like playing cop and hoping not to get blown up by guys who don't give you an opportunity to fight back. So what this sounds like to me is more like letting our soldiers play decoy over there (indefinitely, apparently) so that the folks back here never have to worry about the consequences of their government's heavy-handed foreign policy. Yeah, like I said I'll pass on that. I didn't sign up to play bomb magnet for a bunch of scared little children too dense to realize that A) this is not the way to stop terrorism, and instead we've only created more terrorists making the problem worse and B) statistically I'm probably more likely to die driving to the store for a pint of Chunky Monkey than by a terrorist attack.

Seriously, listening to how the politics of fear are being used in this country and have been used since 9/11, I'm gonna go ahead and congratulate the terrorists on that one...they seem to have gotten exactly what they wanted.

Except maybe the virgins. I'm pretty sure they didn't get those.
 
In regards to the Iraq/Al Queda, Saddam/Bin Laden ties.

Most people selectively forget the old phrase, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"

Even if Bin Laden hated Saddam doesn't anyone think eventually him and his cronies would have said "hey this Saddam guy hates the US too, why don't we see if we can work with him on that."

I don't think anyone believes that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11. I sure as heck don't.

But when you are dealing with pest iin your home, say coachroaches and you are trying to exterminate them, if you come across some wasps aren't you going to kill them too.

Oh yeah and I am glad we made certian he did not have WMDs, I don't like Mustard Gas on street vendor hot dogs.


As to the issue of China and North Korea. Tell you the truth I am not really worried about either of the them right now. North Korea is slowly and surely dying in place. Through starvation and falling behind in the Guns vs. Bread race with thier Southern cousins. (Our big joke when I was with the 2nd ID in Korea was, are we here to keep the North Koreans from coming South or the South Koreans from going North). Granted they are kinda of an Ace in the Hole for China, if they want something nasty done, all they have to do is point the finger at that little nut that runs the country and say it wasn't me it was him.

The Chinese, they are slowly backing away from thier hard line communism and swithching over to Socialism (or Communism Lite). More cell phones, more internet, more capitalism. I think it will only be a matter of time. Heck we got McDonalds over there, why invade or fight them when we can kill them with high cholestral like we are killing ourselves. Viva la Big Mac. (Yuck I just typed French, get me some disenfectant)


As for us pulling out of Iraq, how long did it take after the Revolutionary War to form our current goverment? All major land warfare ended in October 1781, the Article of Confederation didn't work so again G. Washintion and the boys met in Philadelphia to work on another plan. It was completed in 1787 but did not go into effect until 1789.

So it took us 6 years to firgure out a way to make our country work, and another to once they had a plan to have it take effect.
Of course the Iraqs have copier machines and faxes so, maybe it will take them a shorter time. Of course George and the Boys did not have outside forces coming in trying to assasinate them and keep the country in turmoil. (Of course like I stated earlier in this disscussion, maybe Saddam killed all the Georges, Ben Fs, and John Adams).

What will victory look like, a stable Parliment, a firm constitution, free elections, all major parties having a voice. The Iraqi goverment thanking us and asking us to go home. (Yes, yes I know we are making money, they are our puppets, it will never end..........:barf: )

Oh by the way Old 12 Gauge when did him make the statement about his Dad? Would like to see a time, place and a reputable source. I find it hard to believe that this press, wouldn't be playing that gem over and over again.
 
Oh by the way Old 12 Gauge when did him make the statement about his Dad? Would like to see a time, place and a reputable source. I find it hard to believe that this press, wouldn't be playing that gem over and over again.
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12 seconds with Google returns this. Next time feel free to look it up yourself. In this case, it was as simple as running a google search for "george bush" and "tried to kill my dad."

I mean good lord, can't anybody look anything up for themselves anymore?

EDIT: And part of the reason it didn't get beaten into the ground is because it happened back in 2002, before bashing Bush was a national pasttime. You know, back when talking ill of the president was a sure way to end up with a boot in the posterior from Toby Keith. Or maybe it did get beaten into the ground back then, and I just don't remember.
 
Even if you think the war had some logic, can anyone honestly think that Team Bush totally screwed the pooch in his implementation of the war after the initial battles against a third rate army?

If it is so crucial to us, why did Bush not really go to war but buy into that set of idiots Rummy, Cheney and Wulfowitz and their totally inept implementation of the after first battle plans?

I'm sorry - any logic to the war was washed away by that. And as we sit here and plan for zombies, Iran is happily on the way to nukes that will probably land here someday.

I also think that beating the insurgents in Iraq won't stop the next attack based on 11 guys and some clever plan.
 
I think the reasons for this war are somthing other than what's being sold to the American people.
No offense but I think we're failing to see the big picture.
Whether it's for a permanent American military presence in the arab world or something else, I don't think we'll ever know the real reason.
 
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