Regarding “to control the oil fields,” see this thread.
I was opposed to the war before the invasion and after more than two years in Iraq I haven’t seen anything to change my mind. I did feel (and still do) that once begun the war should have been done right.
I don’t think 3,500 US casualties is a significant number compared to the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians.
I think the war is one of the most shameful and catastrophic chapters in American history. I believe we have sown the seeds of our own decline and that we will not recover. We have hastened the end of America’s global influence, undermined our own political system and set back the cause of democracy in the world by a generation.
We have also created a failed state and an ideal culture for the growth of terrorism were there was none before.
Also, while engaged in Iraq we have slowly but surely lost in Afghanistan as well. Any legitimacy we had in that war with the rest of the world is gone; we have not put the resources towards rebuilding the nation that we should; and now we have ensured that both Afghanistan and Iraq have become schools of terror.
The one good thing to come out of this is that the next 9/11 when people ask “why do they hate us?” we’ll have a pretty easy answer for them.
After an extensive search of the archives, I have come to the conclusion that I have been opposed for a very long time. I find that reassuring.
I’m sure I’ll get dumped on mercilessly for this, but I support it and have from the get-go. I see it as part of a bigger picture, and I’ve no doubt that more is going on behind the scenes than any of us know about. I also feel the al-Qaeda who are concentrating on Iraq might be concentarting elsewhere if we weren’t there.
MY personal beef with the war concerns how Bush screwed it up by trying to do it on the cheap. Not enough men, not enough materiel. A recipe for disaster.
I’m sure I’ll be told what a dolt I am by many here who “know better,” but that’s how I feel, so there you have it.
And I’m not even a Republican. I’ve voted Democrat all my life despite maintaining my Independent status and never joining any party.
I didn’t even believe there was going to be a war until way too late.
My friends were saying “Well, looks like Bush is going to invade Iraq.” Then I’d say “No he isn’t. Of course he isn’t. Why would he invade Iraq? What purpose would that serve?” I was saying this until late 2002. :smack:
When I realized we were going to invade Iraq I was against it, after I got over my gape-mouthed astonishment that we would neglect our struggle against Al-Qaeda to do something so stupid. But when we did invade Iraq, after it was a fait accompli, I spent a brief while hoping that it would turn out for the best. Saddam was an asshole, after all, and the Iraqis would be better off without him. But then the war revealed itself for the poorly handled fiasco it was, and I saw Bush and Co manage to do the impossible: Turn Iraq into a worse place than it was under Saddam’s rule.
This is an extraordinary argumentive device, whereby you support your argument with what you don’t know. Don’t see much of that, round these parts.
I understand. I liked Plato.
The only way to move away from the circle is to go astray. It defies human nature for leaders to say “alright, lets just wipe the slate clean and be more diplomatic about issues from now on.” I just don’t see that happening at this point which is why saying that the war on terror is going to keep us safe is complete B.S. We’ve been fighting a perpetual war since this country decided to be free, with occasional hiatuses.
Well war is only inevitable until we decide to go astray from the circle. Vengeance is a circular concept. However, I see a glimmer of hope these days as people are becoming more rational with their views. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
I understand. I liked Plato.
The only way to move away from the circle is to go astray. It defies human nature for leaders to say “alright, lets just wipe the slate clean and be more diplomatic about issues from now on.” I just don’t see that happening at this point which is why saying that the war on terror is going to keep us safe is complete B.S. We’ve been fighting a perpetual war since this country decided to be free, with occasional hiatuses.
Well war is only inevitable until we decide to go astray from the circle. Vengeance is a circular concept. However, I see a glimmer of hope these days as people are becoming more rational with their views. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
Oh, I freely admit I could be completely wrong. That’s the main difference between some others here and me.
dup.
But what could possibly be going on behind the scenes? The only thing I can think of that would make sense is some evil alien overlord saying to GW “You must make a disaster out of your Iraq campaign, or I shall destroy the earth!” What else–other than sheer ineptitude–could explain the disasterous mistakes we have seen so far.
Well, no one who actually follows the rules of this forum is going to call you a dolt, so there’s no need to be so defensive. And I don’t necessarily know anything better than you, but this being GD, one can certainly post an opinion in opposition if one wants to.
I opposed this adventure from the beginning, and xtisme or any other interested party is welcome to waste their time checking my posts in this forum back to 2003 if they think I’m merely “claiming” that. I didn’t believe the adminstration’s claims about Iraq at the time. I likewise don’t believe for one second that there are legitimate deeper motives for attacking Iraq that are so sensitive to our delicate ears that there is no way we can be allowed to hear them. To this day I frankly don’t know what strategic aim the administration thought it was going to gain by this illegitimate invasion, and I therefore can speculate no further than the administration’s own hopelessly garbled explanations. Apparently someone there seriously believed that they could, in fact, relatively quickly and easily establish a pro-US puppet government in Iraq and that the world would thank them for it, and, as a small bonus, let’s say, replace the ‘friendly’ source of hydrocarbons that the US lost when Iran broke with it back in the '70s.
This war, however, has cost unfathomable amounts of life, money and future goodwill to our nation, has likely made us more, not less, vulnerable to acts of Islamist terrorism, has bought about a shameful and immoral attempt by our government to establish torture and perpetual confinement without trial as legitimate exercises of State power, and has apparently by many measures actually made the lives of average Iraqis more miserable than when they were simultaneously living under one of the world’s worst dictators and crushing economic sanctions. Even if we ignore the clear moral and logical failures that have brought us to this frankly disgusting state of affairs, we haven’t even achieved the grubby little economic gain that clearly was at least part of the administration’s objective in prosecuting this mess.
So I guess you’re not gonna get a shout-out in favor of it from me.
The link in my sig pretty much says it all, particular the Iraqi Crybaby Theatre strip towards the bottom of this link:
That doesn’t really get you out of your fallacy. Not only that but there is no conceivable hidden bit of information which could theoretically justify the war. It is impossible for anyone who opposes the war to be wrong. The facts, as we know them, do not justify the war. Even if there is some kind of unknown, paradigm changing, science fiction scenario going on behind the scenes. It still would not justify supporting the war. Plus, we can play that game too. Whatever double secret, other dimensional plot twist you imagine lurks just off-screen, we can imagine a double reverse – that there’s some OTHER bombshell that even the Chimp doesn’t know about which sets everything right back on our side. Arguments from groundless hypotheticals can always be met with groundless counter-hypotheticals and we have an infinite regress. If we can’t restrict ourselves to known facts during a debate, then we aren’t debating at all, we’re just pitching movie ideas.
To the OP, I opposed invading Iraq from the start, still do, always knew it would be a disaster, am not happy to have been proven right, cannot believe anyone who says they still support the war actually means it. I’m convinced they’re just trying to wind people up.
Just going by some of the posts in here and previous personal experience in the so-called “Debates” forum.
Does your previous experience include being called a “dolt” in this forum or are you just upset that your posts have been challenged?
Y’know, Dio and Siam Sam, if you both want to let the whole “you’re-gonna-flame-me”/“Ha-ha-fooled-you-no-we-didn’t” thing drop, I don’t think anybody would object…
That said, I’ve been against the nastiness in Iraq since well before the term “shock and awe” was coined; I won’t accept that it was legitimate to go in, and I don’t believe that life can possibly hope to achieve anything close to what I’d call “normal” until the U.S. military presence has ended.
I do believe that GWShrub and all of his accomplices and puppet masters deserve to stand in the dock at the Hague, and were the question ever to seriously come up I would support turning them over.
I have to respond to this. It is not as if there are a finite number of terrorist and we will be done when we kill the last one. The majority of the fighters in Iraq are Iraqis. Foreign fighters only account for less than 10% of all fighters. Terrorism is better understood as a social movement, rather than as an army with a set troop strength.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0923/dailyUpdate.html
The article is from 2005, but I think are still relevant because from the beginning, it has been shown that the majority of the fighters are homegrown.
In short, we are creating more terrorists than we are killing. Don’t take my word for it. How about the United States Government’s?
A National Intelligence Estimate prepared for the president by the intelligence community concludes:
“The war in Iraq has become a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.”
Well I have a confession. I bought into the 45 minute claims when they first came out - didn’t even conceive that Blair would be lying to the nation - not on any grounds of honour, but that it would surely be political suicide. That said, I didn’t support the war per se, just accepted foolishly that there was intelligence that wasn’t public knowledge that would justify it - and that Parliament would have access to.
Just before we actually went in I realised just how wrong that was - Parliament had effectively no say at all in the decision and it was clear we were being led by Bush: a scary thought! As time’s gone on and more detail has come out (the Hutton whitewash being a final straw) it became apparent to me that Blair and his cronies have committed some of the worst atrocities in recent British history - worse than Thatcher to the extent that she crippled our country and we have travelled across the world to cripple another.
As far as the whole ‘support our troops’ meme goes - I can’t subscribe to that. I think it’s incredibly sad when anyone is killed in a pointless war: indeed, when anyone is killed unjustly. That goes for every Iraqi, Brit, US soldier or civilian - including, I’m afraid, Saddam himself after the biggest sham trial I’ve ever seen.
Bush sickens me with his contempt for human life - Blair pretty much too as it’s clear he also doesn’t care a jot about life when compared to the desperate need to remain in power.
A cite for sore eyes, that.