Am I the only one?

[Perd Hapley]

Am I the only one who's not sure about the Iraq war, but is sick of the clamoring against the war?  There are so many ridiculous arguments used.  Or maybe it's just that the well-meaning dissenters are too much stained by the obvious Commies, Jew-haters and anti-American rabble in their ranks. 

I don't know whether the Iraq war was a good idea.  There are a lot of things I don't know.  Never thought you'd hear that from fistful?  Anyone who pays attention to my scribbles knows that I take stands on controversial issues and don't retreat without hashing things out.  But there are some things I haven't studied enough to commit either way on the issue.

Nonetheless, the anti-Iraq-war position never fails to get my back up.  I'll disagree with Bush all day long on immigration, social spending and a lot of other things, so that can't be what it's about. 

Anyone else get riled up over rhetorical attacks on a point of view they're not even sure they agree with? 

[The Rabbi]

Yeah, you're the only one.

And it's your fault.

[mtnbkr]

I'm not sure about either.  Personally, I didn't care how many of his own countrymen Saddam killed as long as he kept it in house (GW1 was a different matter).  I see the value of taking the fight directly to the Wahhibists/Muslim extremists, but I wonder if Iraq was the right time/place to do it.

I'm bothered by the way we completely pissed away all post 9/11 goodwill.  Sometimes it's good to go against the tide of "world opinion", other times it isn't. 

That said, it's too late to get out easily.  We need to finish the job if for no other reason to show our strength.  I don't care if Iraq becomes a democracy, republic, or dictatorship (nor do I care about the fate of it's people) as long as the rest of the world gets the message to not mess with us.

Chris

[TarpleyG]

Heard a new one today from one of the regular guests on a radio show I listen to.  He said we're in Iraq because of George Bush's religious beliefs.  Jeezuz, where do these people get their news from?

Greg

[Twycross]

I'm tired of the clamoring as well. I don't have a black/white answer on whether or not the war is justified or not. There are good arguments on both sides. But the debate should have ended when we crossed the border. Like it or not, going back is not really an option, so the kicking and screaming about how we shouldn't have done it should have been at least dropped in favor of making the best of a bad situation.

[Guest]

...I don't know whether the Iraq war was a good idea.  ...

 For whom?

[Perd Hapley]

I'm bothered by the way we completely pissed away all post 9/11 goodwill.

mtnbkr, the above opinion is one of those that irks me terribly.  If the world wants to hate us for toppling a thug like Saddam, that is not our fault.  If the Iraq war was such a bad idea, the "world community" should be that much more committed to help us recover from this alleged blunder.  Instead, they'd rather scream about imperialism and war-crimes.  "Everyone knows" that Iraq is a quagmire, yet no one wants to help us out of it.  Help us?  Help themselves.  Who's going to save Europe from Islamist terrorism when we're "hopelessly bogged down in Iraq"?

In sum, it wasn't Bush that alienated the world, it was the world that alienated the US.   

[wingnutx]

I have lots of armchair strategist disagreements with how it was done, and I'm really not a fan of Bush, but I end up defending him against whackos on a regular basis.

If someone says "I disagree with this policy" then I don't care, but they usually go with "Bush is an evil dictator who is stealing oil while our troops are murdering brown people," so I argue.

I'm very much in favor of "draining the swamp". The "root causes of terrorism" are not poverty, they are the depotic governments that run themiddle east, and I do think that Iraq was a decent place to start in trying to transform the region.

Leaving them totally to their own devices would be fine with me, but that is never going to happen. The world is now too small to think that they'd stay on their own turf.

[Perd Hapley]

...I don't know whether the Iraq war was a good idea.  ...

 For whom?

You know what I mean.  If you want to talk about relativism, start a new thread. 

[wingnutx]

Throughout the 90s I had to hear how we were responsible for hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children dying from starvation, so the santions strategy didn't buy us any goodwill either.

We will be condemned no matter what we do. That happens when you are the big kid on the block.

Take Darfur. We could help by taking out the Sudanese airforce and arming the locals, but then we'd be evil agressors again. As it is we are evil and uncaring for NOT doing this.

I keep hearing "We'd invade them if they had oil," which is funny because they do have tons of oil.

[Tallpine]

Well, for my part I am sick and tired of the fact that anyone who dares disagree with the annointed Bush's foreign policy is immediately labeled a liberal, leftist, communist, America-hater, etc etc etc ...................

[Perd Hapley]

Tallpine, that would bug me, too.  But I blame the loonies in the cult of GWB Is Hitler No Blood For Oil.

[griz]

In sum, it wasn't Bush that alienated the world, it was the world that alienated the US. 

Wow.  If a korean said "it wasn't Kim Jong Ill that alienated the world, it was the world that alienated Korea", would that make sence to you?

[Perd Hapley]

No, but likening Bush to KJI doesn't make sense to me, either.  I tend to think more clearly than that.    

[mtnbkr]

I'm bothered by the way we completely pissed away all post 9/11 goodwill.

mtnbkr, the above opinion is one of those that irks me terribly.  If the world wants to hate us for toppling a thug like Saddam, that is not our fault. 

You took the statement out of context.  I'm not so bothered about alienating the rest of the world as much as I'm bothered that we did so over Iraq. 

Put another way, I would have gladly told Europe to piss off when we went into Afganistan.  We had a clear goal and sound reasoning.  The man who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks was there.  The govt that supported him was there.  That's all I needed.  Iraq is a bit murkier.  Therefore, I'm unhappy that we had to lose favor over THAT ONE. 

While I don't really care what Europeans think about us, having them in your backpocket can be useful (heck, having any nation in your backpocket is useful).  Even if they hate us silently, having them support us vocally is a valuable PR tool.

And don't lecture me on toppling thugs.  If we're going to get into that business, there's a laundry list of thugs that needed toppling more than Saddam.  Like I said earlier, I could care less about the plight of Iraqis, North Koreans, Iranians, Venezualans, Canadians, etc.  The only reason we should be there is to protect the US.  I'm not entirely convinced we're there for that.  I will admit that being there is likely keeping the dirtbags occupied over there rather than allowing them to come here, but I don't recall that being one of the stated objectives. 

Chris

[wingnutx]

There are thugs worse than Saddam, but most of them would be far more difficult (or impossible) to remove. Iraq was the low-hanging fruit.

KJI would ideally be the first to go, but invading NK is basically impossible.

[mtnbkr]

Iraq was the low-hanging fruit.

And that's what bothers me about the idea that we did it because "he was a bad man".  He wasn't the most deserving, he was merely the easiest.  Maybe it shows a lack of fortitude. 

I try to console myself with the thought that the powers that be have some hardcore, secret intel that show we HAD to get involved over there for reasons that haven't been shared.  Otherwise, it looks like a waste of resources to me.

Doesn't matter now though.  We're there and we need to finish the job properly.  If nothing else, so the rest of the world gets an object lesson.  Future "adventures" should be more decisive and of shorter duration.  Just my opinion.

Chris

[wingnutx]

He wasn't the most deserving,

But he was deserving.

If there is a rapist on the loose, but I see a burglary in progress, I arrest the burglar. I don't ignore him because he is not as deserving as someone I haven't caught yet.

You do what you can, when you can.

It's triage.

[Perd Hapley]

mtnbkr,

The context matters not.  It's who's driving the verbs.  You, and everybody else, accuse the administration of alienating Europe, without considering it may have been Europe that alienated us.  Over what?  They can disagree all they want with the strategic direction the Iraq war took us in, and they might be right for all I know, but that's not what most of the anti-war crowd is doing.  They are accusing us of an unjust war, an illegal war, of "re-opening Abu Graib under new management" with all that implies, and all manner of outrageous and obvious falsehoods. 

If we went after the wrong dictator or the wrong country, it was a strategic and not a moral or legal mistake.  The options for Europe and other anti-war types are obvious.  Either pitch in and help us clean up Iraq, so we can move to the next task; or go take out the bad guys where their superior wisdom dictates.  But for heaven's sake, don't demean our war as some kind of imperialism or some oil conspiracy.  And what if we DO want Iraq's oil?  Is toppling Saddam such a bad way to get it?  And aren't these the same people who claim we should have invaded Saudi Arabia instead?  We know they don't have any oil.   

 

Future "adventures" should be more decisive and of shorter duration.  Just my opinion.

Keep wishing.  Iraq is as decisive and short as we'll get, so long as the world pitches a fit every time we make a move to defend ourselves. 

[HankB]

I think the main reason we're hearing a media mantra of "Iraq - Iraq - Iraq" is because so many in the media absolutely hate Bush so viscerally that it's pathological. (I believe it was Michelle Malkin that termed it Bush Derangement Syndrome.)

Here's an example - in the local rag, the Austin American-Statesman, film critic Jeff McCrary reviewed the movie We Are Marshall, based on the plane crash that killed 75 members of the Marshall football team in 1971.

The guy didn't like the movie, but here's an excerpt of his critique:

And then there's Matthew McConaughey. After the town decides to continue the football program at Marshall University, a new coach is hired. And he's a grinning, bumbling idiot. He talks out the side of his mouth, fidgets and tells metaphorical stories about feces. Or at least that's how McConaughey plays him  like a bad impersonation of our current president.

Notice the little dig at Bush . . . worked into the review of a movie that has nothing whatever to do with him. Zero. Zilch. Nada. But the hatred for Bush is SO deep, that he couldn't resist insulting him even in a movie review about events that took place over 30 years ago.

You can't work in digs at Bush into every story . . . but Iraq is there every day.

So I don't think the media really hates Iraq - they were pretty silent about Vietnam and Korea when U.S.  casualties were at the same level as Iraq is now - but then, the presidents were Democrats, not Bush.

I think it's not so much that the media hates the Iraq war, I think it's more that they're using it as a convenient vehicle to attack Bush.

[Guest]

No, but likening Bush to KJI doesn't make sense to me, either. 

 Then you are still half asleep. One is merely a little further along in consolidating domestic power. Both use secret prisons, secret trials, secret police, surveillance, domestic spying, phoney enemies/threats, propaganda, militarized police, etc.

[mtnbkr]

They can disagree all they want with the strategic direction the Iraq war took us in, and they might be right for all I know, but that's not what most of the anti-war crowd is doing.  They are accusing us of an unjust war, an illegal war, of "re-opening Abu Graib under new management" with all that implies, and all manner of outrageous and obvious falsehoods. 

I don't care what the anti-war crowd's motivation is.  My motivation is that Iraq wasn't nearly the threat that NK or even Saudi Arabia is (the latter is steeped in Wahhabism, the root of the Islamic fundamentalist movement).  Of course, at the time, we were being told that Iraq had or was actively seeking WMD and would be giving them to any terrorist group that wanted them (paraphrasing here), so the invasion seemed logical at the time.  That's why you'll never hear me say "let's cut and run", but rather, "let's clean up our mess, help create a stable govt, and get out of there, however long it takes".

We went from:
Iraq has WMD and plans to use them

to

Iraq is conspiring with terrorists

to

Saddam is a bad man and must be removed.

I'm ok with the first two statements as motivation.  I'm not ok with the latter because, in the grand scheme of things, he wasn't as bad as the likes of Kim Jong Il, Ahmadinejad, etc.

But for heaven's sake, don't demean our war as some kind of imperialism or some oil conspiracy.  And what if we DO want Iraq's oil?  Is toppling Saddam such a bad way to get it?

Yes.  Toppling any nation in order to take it's resources is evil.  Saddam tried that with Kuwait, remember?

And aren't these the same people who claim we should have invaded Saudi Arabia instead?  We know they don't have any oil.

We should have invaded SA first because it's the home of Wahhabism.  No, it's not an easy task and one certain to cause a lot of trouble in the world, but it would at least be targeting the sect that targets us.

Keep wishing.  Iraq is as decisive and short as we'll get, so long as the world pitches a fit every time we make a move to defend ourselves. 

The problem with that statement is that I'm not 100% convinced it was a defensive move. 

Chris

[Sindawe]

Well, Saddam was OUR creature.  He was our best buddy when the Soviets were still around.  One of my Uncles was a military advisor for Iraq when Saddam was just VP of the country, and the Western world was just fine with his activities when he was fighting with the Iranians.  We did have some measure of responsibility for bringing him to heel sometime.  Of course, so did most of Western Europe.

What I take issue with the most is the lies, deceit and end run around the Constitution that took place to invade and conquer Iraq.  And the fact that the war against Iraq took attention and resources away from an unfinished job in Afghanistan.

[Perd Hapley]

Well, Saddam was OUR creature. 

  You overstate your case.  He "created" himself, by eliminating those ahead of him in the chain of command.  We may have assisted Iraq against other nations, but we didn't exactly create Saddam's Iraq from the ground up. 

What I take issue with the most is the lies, deceit and end run around the Constitution that took place to invade and conquer Iraq.  And the fact that the war against Iraq took attention and resources away from an unfinished job in Afghanistan.

But the lies are all on the anti-war side.  Out of all those things, maybe two of them occurred.  I don't know what "end run" you're talking about, but I suspect it's nothing we haven't been doing as a matter of course.  As far as "attention," blame those who turned Iraq into a controversy, rather than another step in our terror war. 

[The Rabbi]

No, but likening Bush to KJI doesn't make sense to me, either.

 Then you are still half asleep. One is merely a little further along in consolidating domestic power. Both use secret prisons, secret trials, secret police, surveillance, domestic spying, phoney enemies/threats, propaganda, militarized police, etc.

They both eat and drink and breath air too. And I don't think I've ever seen a picture of the two of them together. 
Sheesh, anyone who seriously believes this has no credibility.