Please note the forum in which this is posted before you respond. I welcome any opposing viewpoints, not so I can debate them, but so that I can understand better my own views and either abandon or clarify them.
When the US first invaded Iraq I read many views on exactly why we entered the war. Some felt it was for oil, others felt it was because Saddam is an evil man who needed to be stopped. Way too many felt it was because we needed to fight back against the terrorists based on 9/11 (sigh).
I was never in favor of this war from the beginning. I just never had any sense there was any real, articulable argument for the need to go to war RIGHT NOW (2003). I believe this war was started because our executive branch wanted what every first term administration wants: a second term. There is almost no better way to guarantee that than through a war. It seems they truly believed we would be welcomed as liberators and they could bask in the glow of an easy victory and ride the success to a second term and likely more control of congress. It could have been a huge win in almost every way for the Republicans. All they needed was to find what everyone thought would be found: evidence of weapons of mass destruction.
But the war didn’t go as planned (for what little planning there was). And now it is very likely the war will have the opposite effect. I’d find that humorous if it weren’t for the wretched feeling I have over the utter waste of this war. Billions of dollars spent for nothing. The country divided and, personally, trust in the leadership of this country shattered. And most of all, young men and women sent to die in a foreign land for something that appears to me to be ulterior motives and political gain.
There is no debate here. As I said, I welcome feedback on the notion that this was about politics and little else. Beyond that, I’m just venting.