Whenever I read an article or hear a news story about soldiers in Iraq and something along the lines of “They’re protecting our freedoms” I admit it makes me wince a little. Are soldiers in Iraq really protecting any freedoms of Americans? Iraq didn’t seem to be of any great or imminent threat at the time time of invasion. Thoughts?
I have to go to work so I won’t be able to read this till much later. 
No they aren’t. It’s propaganda.
They’re protecting the freedom of American Halliburton contractors to do work rebuilding the country we blew up … does that count?
Not even a little teeny tiny itsy bitsy bit.
[tongue in cheek] If anything, they’re hurting our freedoms-- to be able to travel safely in the ME, that is. I hear the locals are a bit pissed at the US. [/tongue in cheek]
I don’t believe they’re protecting us from any imminent threats but they may be down the road. After all what’s the best cure? Prevention. If you invade countries and intimidate the crap out of them they won’t fuck with you. Or they might just do the opposite if they’re not pussies. Of course I totally agree there is an ulterior motive which is obviously for oil. But hey you can’t really complain if you use gas can you?
But of course that’s not the question. Yes. They are protecting nobody’s freedom.
No. Iraq has been a fustercluck from day one. Having our soldiers home and spending that 280 Billion dollars on adding more security, more preparedness for our hospitals and first responders, and improving our intelligence services would have been so much more helpful than invading a country and yelling ‘bring it on!’ to the terrorists. The claim that we are ‘fighting them over there so we won’t have to fight them over here’ is just pathetic, because we now have to fight the terrorists and the Iraqi people who just want us the hell out of their country, and that makes it twice as hard to catch the terrorists. So the terrorists get to score off us and enbolden others, and the Iraqis grow more and more angry and resentful that a: we can’t stop the violence and b: we try to stop the violence by arresting people they support.
I feel for our troops, because I know they want to be defending us, or bringing democracy to the Middle East. They want their sacrifices to be meaningful. I want that too, but I cannot believe it.
I don’t believe anybody believes that anymore. But… to whom does it matter? It’s too late now. All we can do is say: “I told you so.” But the words fall numb and pointless among the dead in Iraq.
The terrorists never threatened our “freedom” in the first place, only our safety, which is not the same thing (though they do go well together).
On the one hand, our troops are in fact “protecting” us just by making other countries afraid of us, by making clear America is still a genuine military power. OTOH, they are also inciting resentment against us, and the net effect for our safety is probably negative.
No, the soldiers in Iraq are not specifically protecting anybody’s freedom by virtue of their being in Iraq. Likewise, the soldiers at the gym are not at that time protecting anybody’s freedom while they work out.
Where the argument could be made re “protecting freedom” is that by volunteering to serve in the military they become part of the force that protects America’s borders and thus, protects our freedoms.
To put it another way, those soldiers are protecting freedoms by being in the Army, not by being in Iraq.
Freedom to live is one of our most cherished freedoms. As is freedom not to live in fear in fear of mass murder.
The main way one could argue that troops in Iraq are specifically protecting these freedoms is that the Iraq conflict is distracting some killers who would otherwise be focusing on murdering us. So to that limited extent - yes, the troops are “protecting our freedoms”.
In a larger sense we and the troops could have been better protected had this “war” never been started.
As long as you’re an American. We have no problem with mass murdering others.
Except that we are producing more enemies in the process, killing innocent people, alienating the world, and frankly appear to be trying to convince the world that the terrorists are right.
True.