# Once Agains the Pessimists Are Wrong \[Iraq elections\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 27, 2010, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987 "2010-03-27T03:34:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/61 "2010-04-06T01:00:35Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Point the first: that cost is unknowable, and there for not meaningfully factorable. > > Point the second: that cost, whatever it would have been, would not have been the moral responsibility of the United States. I think inaction is as evil as bad action. FDR once said (regarding social welfare programs) to the effect of “Better a warm-hearted government make mistakes than a cold-hearted government do nothing.” That quote I think applies here. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/62 "2010-04-06T01:10:56Z")
When do we send the troops into Darfur? When do we send the troops into North Korea? When do we send the troops into China? Hell’s bells, let’s save on fuel expenses. There’s a massive drug war down Mexico way that the Mexican government can’t seem to win. When do we send the troops into Juarez? Betcha Gordon Brown is probably dong _something_ you disapprove of. When do we send the troops into London? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/63 "2010-04-06T01:12:50Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > I think inaction is as evil as bad action. FDR once said (regarding social welfare programs) to the effect of “Better a warm-hearted government make mistakes than a cold-hearted government do nothing.” That quote I think applies here. False dilemma. We were already NOT relegated to inaction. We were containing his army in the center of the country, allowing the Kurds in the North and a limited number of people in the South to live their lives without interference from his Guards or sons. We were keeping his military contained in a way that prevented him from engaging in another expedition into Iran or Kuwait. (By the same token, we were also keeping Iran from playing kingmaker in Iraq, preventing the Iranian theocracy from expanding their little power games, something we have now encouraged and enabled them to do.) Leaving Hussein in place also kept al Qaida out of that country, (because he really did not want any rivals to his power). All in all, a claim that “at least we were doing something” is false at pretty much every level. We botched it. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/64 "2010-04-06T01:13:56Z")
I don’t think maintaining long-term sanctions on a country and bombing it semi-regularly - to the point where its dictatorship has no control over the northern and southern regions of the country - can be interpreted as “inaction.” Of course **tomndebb** said the same with more thoroughness. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/65 "2010-04-06T01:30:06Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > I think inaction is as evil as bad action. FDR once said (regarding social welfare programs) to the effect of “Better a warm-hearted government make mistakes than a cold-hearted government do nothing.” That quote I think applies here. As pointed out, we weren’t “doing nothing”. Nor were our motives remotely “warm hearted”, or even cold hearted. “Nakedly evil” would be a better term. We were NOT well meaning, not for a moment. This was a war of conquest, motivated by greed and indiscriminate bloodlust. Not a humanitarian mission. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/66 "2010-04-06T02:17:22Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > When do we send the troops into Darfur? > > When do we send the troops into North Korea? > > When do we send the troops into China? > > Hell’s bells, let’s save on fuel expenses. There’s a massive drug war down Mexico way that the Mexican government can’t seem to win. When do we send the troops into Juarez? > > Betcha Gordon Brown is probably dong _something_ you disapprove of. When do we send the troops into London? I support intervention in Darfur and Mexico. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > As pointed out, we weren’t “doing nothing”. Nor were our motives remotely “warm hearted”, or even cold hearted. “Nakedly evil” would be a better term. We were NOT well meaning, not for a moment. This was a war of conquest, motivated by greed and indiscriminate bloodlust. Not a humanitarian mission. Than why haven’t we profited from the Iraq War? No cheaper oil prices, no nothing. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/67 "2010-04-06T02:19:45Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Than why haven’t we profited from the Iraq War? No cheaper oil prices, no nothing. :dubious: Because we did it so stupidly that we did not even achieve the myopic neocons’ most limited objectives. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/68 "2010-04-06T02:23:35Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > Even the most casual observer should acknowledge that things are turning out better than most predicted What predictions are you referring to? The ones that we’d be greeted as liberators, and that it would be a cakewalk? That somehow democracy would break out all over the Middle East? That the WMD’s would be found and the threat of a mushroom cloud ended? Even the one that the oil would pay for everything? That a need for multiple hundreds of thousands of troops was an absurd idea? Oh, right, “no one could have predicted” anything else. The war has turned out pretty much exactly the way the “lefties” you deride said it would. The “predictions” from the bellicose right have pretty much been proven to be the grotesque fantasies that we always said they were. So, again, who are you referring to? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/69 "2010-04-06T02:33:57Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Than why haven’t we profited from the Iraq War? Because the whole conquest was ill conceived and poorly carried out to boot. There’s no mystery there. The nation got screwed. However, your torture president got his second term out of the Iraq war, and the extreme right got John Roberts on the supreme court. That’s plenty of profit to justify murdering hundreds of thousands of foreigners for some folk. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/70 "2010-04-06T02:41:18Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > Because the whole conquest was ill conceived and poorly carried out to boot. There’s no mystery there. The nation got screwed. However, your torture president got his second term out of the Iraq war, and the extreme right got John Roberts on the supreme court. That’s plenty of profit to justify murdering hundreds of thousands of foreigners for some folk. Actually Bush became horrendously unpopular (long before the recession) because of the Iraq War. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/71 "2010-04-06T02:44:53Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Actually Bush became horrendously unpopular (long before the recession) because of the Iraq War. Yes, after the war had been going poorly for two or three years. Public opinion on the war was mixed at first, then most of the public rallied behind the cause (it was only Saddam anyway and it was going to be a short war, so who cares if it wasn’t really necessary, right?), and over time public support died off as the war dragged on and on and it became clear that the occupation was going poorly and the WMD thing hadn’t panned out. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/72 "2010-04-06T02:47:25Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Actually Bush became horrendously unpopular (long before the recession) because of the Iraq War. However, that mostly occurred after he was able to get reelected in 2008 as the war ground on with little progress and stories began to proliferate regarding the ways in which the National Guard (_citizen soldiers_) has been overstressed to handle the situation because the regular Army was unable to maintain a seven year (and counting) war, along with numerous stories regarding the way that the Army has failed to support those troops injured in combat, combined with the increasing information that Bush and his Office of Special Plans pretty much manufactured all the excuses used to get us into that mess. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/73 "2010-04-06T02:47:48Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Yes, after the war had been going poorly for two or three years. Public opinion on the war was mixed at first, then most of the public rallied behind the cause (it was only Saddam anyway and it was going to be a short war, so who cares if it wasn’t really necessary, right?), and over time public support died off as the war dragged on and on and it became clear that the occupation was going poorly and the WMD thing hadn’t panned out. Had there been no war in Iraq Bush would still have a very good chance of winning a second term-about the same as if there had been war. Indeed the Democrats may have decided to nominated Howard Dean in which case victory is assured for the GOP. And if the war was solely to increase popularity than why didn’t he end the war after public opinion turned against it? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/74 "2010-04-06T02:52:44Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Had there been no war in Iraq Bush would still have a very good chance of winning a second term-about the same as if there had been war. Support for the war did help him get re-elected, I think. The war started a year and a half earlier, and public opinion hadn’t fully turned on the war in November 2004. The war helped keep the terrorism issue in the forefront of people’s minds at a time when other indicators, like the economy and his approval rating, were mixed. > [@](#): > > And if the war was solely to increase popularity than why didn’t he end the war after public opinion turned against it? **Squink** said he got another term out of the war, not that it was done solely to increase his popularity. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/75 "2010-04-06T02:52:57Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Had there been no war in Iraq Bush would still have a very good chance of winning a second term-about the same as if there had been war. Indeed the Democrats may have decided to nominated Howard Dean in which case victory is assured for the GOP. And if the war was solely to increase popularity than why didn’t he end the war after public opinion turned against it? You are switching your argument, (already a tangent), in mid stream. That is not going to persuade anyone. When you asked why we had not profited from the war, it was pointed out that we executed it poorly. You then took a comment that Bush was able to get a second term out of it and twisted it by noting that Bush was unpopular because of the war. However, that drop in popularity occurred after the 2008 elections. Regardless of how you want to spin and twist this discussion, the war was poorly thought out, abysmally executed, and failed in its ostensible goals. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/76 "2010-04-06T02:57:09Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Had there been no war in Iraq Bush would still have a very good chance of winning a second term-about the same as if there had been war. Unlikely, they wouldn’t have had the “support the war President” card to play. > [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > And if the war was solely to increase popularity than why didn’t he end the war after public opinion turned against it? No one said it was only about his popularity. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/77 "2010-04-06T03:01:07Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Support for the war did help him get re-elected, I think. The war started a year and a half earlier, and public opinion hadn’t fully turned on the war in November 2004. The war helped keep the terrorism issue in the forefront of people’s minds at a time when other indicators, like the economy and his approval rating, were mixed. The economy was growing in 2004, after terrorism the main issue was homosexual marriage. **Squink** said he got another term out of the war, not that it was done solely to increase his popularity. [/QUOTE] > [@tomndebb](#): > > You are switching your argument, (already a tangent), in mid stream. That is not going to persuade anyone. > > When you asked why we had not profited from the war, it was pointed out that we executed it poorly. The fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime was executed well enough. And even a really bad insurgency wouldn’t stop us too much from grabbing all the oil. > [@](#): > > You then took a comment that Bush was able to get a second term out of it and twisted it by noting that Bush was unpopular because of the war. However, that drop in popularity occurred after the 2008 elections. Regardless of how you want to spin and twist this discussion, the war was poorly thought out, abysmally executed, and failed in its ostensible goals. I believe you mean 200 **4**. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/78 "2010-04-06T03:01:28Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Had there been no war in Iraq Bush would still have a very good chance of winning a second term-about the same as if there had been war. You delude yourself. Just look at the [bumps Bush’s popularity got out of incvading Iraq and Saddam’s capture.](http://www.hist.umn.edu/~ruggles/Approval.htm) Without Iraq, Bush would’ve had to deliver on bin Laden to have any hope of a second term. Where would you put the likelihood of that happening? No, Bush’s 2nd term and judge Robert’s seat were bought with the blood of Iraqi babies. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/79 "2010-04-06T03:02:14Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Unlikely, they wouldn’t have had the “support the war President” card to play. Uh…war in Afghanistan? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987/80 "2010-04-06T03:05:35Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Uh…war in Afghanistan? :dubious: Bush walked away from Afghanistan, and everyone knows that. He [let bin Laden escape at Torah Borah](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tora_Bora), and those of us who wanted to see the terrorist’s head on a platter were **not** pleased. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-agains-the-pessimists-are-wrong-iraq-elections/533987.md?page=5)