- The same leftist pieces of garbage in the world that has a love affair for pointing out America's Cold War sins with dictators immediately jumped to criticize America for refusing to continue a Cold War mission in regards to Saddam Hussein.
Please explain. Who is complaining about a refusal to continue a Cold War mission? Can you give some examples because I'm not following your argument.
Why do you vilify those who seek to critically examine Americas foreign policy mistakes? Do you not think we have made some serious blunders in that arena? Because many, many historians have documented a laundry list of things this nation did in it's own political and economic interests that have had long lasting ramifications at the expense of the indigenous people of the countries we decided to exert our influence in.
- The same pieces of garbage in America who seek to drag America through the mud over Hussein absolutely deny that for twelve years we placed troops in and out of Iraq to deal with humanitarian issues, denied him his right to fly his own military jets over his own soil, denied him trade, and looked away as long as his UN starvation tactics didn't interfere with oil flow. "Soveriegnty" mattered only in 2003.
So it was the leftists who did this? Really? It was the leftists? I for one felt the sanctions were a horrible idea because all they did was starve the people of Iraq. The Army did just fine, what was left of it. The idea that trade sanctions and "oil for food" were effective in their mission is perplexing to me. Since his Army was shattered during Desert Storm to the point of simply being able to police the country. I had no problem with the no-fly zone. I had a problem with the trade sanctions and their impact upon the populace.
- The same war protestors who painted their little signs and looked for dates at college universities boasted their heartfelt feelings of "No-War-For-Oil." But somehow containing (and maintaining his family inheriting regime) the dictator, that we should have killed long ago, as he starved out his people and toyed with the U.S. military while making the UN look like the fool it is...for oil....was something to pretend wasn't happening. After all, why go to war for oil when we can simply pretend that we aren't dragging our values through the mud for it?
Who exactly pretended it wasn't happening? Regardless, none of what you posted was reason enough to go to war. Iraq was not a regional threat of any consequence (they lacked the ability to actually project any meaningful military force) and certainly no threat to the U.S. This is "military capacity 101" stuff Gunny. There are plenty of dictators starving their people out all over the place.
- The same fools who read Osama Bin Laden's letter to the American people and found understanding or disgust glossed completely over the part where he used the "starving children of Iraq" and the "escallation of troops in holy lands" as a justification. These same people denied the fact that this escallation occurred because of Hussein's continual games with our military. That Iraqi children were starving under UN mandates and scandels with American muscle enforcing it. They instead preached about how our historical sins with the Middle East has created our enemies (Osama said so) with a disregard for what had happened since 1991. I guess the mission was to go on forever until he died of natural causes...or his son died...or his other son died....or his entire regime of nasties died of SARS. In the mean time, the UN mission, which was abandoned by just about all of the other nations who rogered up to the burden in 1991, could go ahead and serve as justifications for any other terrorist lunatic that wanted to punish America for the way the wind blows.
Lol...what games Gunny? Regardless of the "games" he played, can you please explain to us what actual threat Iraq was? Their air force was grounded, their ability to conduct campaigns outside the borders almost completely non-existent. Poor, poor starving Iraqi children. I know, I've heard this over and over again. This is a problem all over the world but not anything to go to war over apparently as nobody else, including the U.S., fetl compelled to do so.
Our response to 9/11 exactly what OBL had been seeking for years. A heavy handed, ill conceived war of aggression that was so misguided that it set the world back on it's heels. All it did was make this nation look like international storm troopers. 9/11 was an excuse to invade Iraq. We rode that propaganda for all it was worth because nobody, and I mean NOBODY else felt that deposing Saddam was actually warranted for this list of reasons GWB put forward under the U.N. resolution regarding Iraqi violations.
No matter where American troops go, there will always be a support given to what we are fighting. Or is the Black Hawk Down incident of Somalia supposed to take humanitarian missions off the table too? You want to fix this problem and set America up with a long view of security? It starts with the region, not an idiot in a cave who is merely a symptom of the cancerous Middle East. But I don't know. Maybe we can put this in terms of law enforcement. If the police go into a neighborhood to address gang land thugs (Afghanistan) or another neighborhood where drug dealers aren't really hurting anybody (Iraq), perhaps they should first consider pretending that all is well just in case they create more criminals by disrupting the careful balance people have become accustomed to. And the neighborhood itself? Surely correcting it will make it better for the citizens and thusly less likely to breed further criminals in mass, but maybe we should just accept the breeding and keep hitting symptoms instead for the illusion of progress.
This is all great from a 1 million foot view, the problem is that this nation and it's leadership rushed to war in two countries without the slightest indication they had a clue about the geopolitical dynamics there. We completely disregarded almost every piece of predetermined military strategy regarding our use of military force in order to hurriedly prosecute these campaigns. We've solved nothing in Iraq and Afghanistan other than ousting Saddam Hussein and bringing that country to near ruination in the process. We are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars overseas each year to try and stick fingers in dikes that we broke when decided to invade and occupy two nations at once.
Let me ask you this Gunny...how is that we are to follow our own strategies for foreign internal defense and counter insurgency when our first act as occupiers is to dismantle the very governmental structure we are supposed to support?
This ridiculous idea that America creates enemies by crossing the ocean to adress people that hate us already is pointless. These ****ers are already our enemies. They merely lack the very small instigation to start killing. They already slaughter each other and look away as long as the tribe dying is the other one. Why would thery hesitate to kill a few Americans who represent that European "western" imperialism that is blamed for everything? At no time in our history has our enemies, once the war was taken to their territory, mounted counterattacks upon our soil. Since we are dealing with terrorists, we have to accept that even if America rejects 99 attempts, there will be the one that sneaks in. This is the price of not taking this crap anymore. Or was the American military, who was taking this crap since Beirut, supposed to go ahead and embrace our enemy as something untouchable until enough American civilians were killed? Maybe something like 9/11 will wake the morons up. Or maybe not.
I've never seen you or anyone else on this forum articulate an actual necessity for the invasion of Iraq. Nor in all this text or any amount you've posted in the past have you articulated a reasonable explanation for why we are justified in injecting our own political and social ideals into foreign nations that pose no real threat to our nation.
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. You cannot honestly and intelligently dismiss our foreign policy failures as having nothing to do with Islamic terrorism or general resentment towards the west that emanates from the Middle East. Yes, radical Islamic militants are our enemies and we should fight them. But to say that the entire Middle East is "cancerous" is indicative of the problem...not some enlightened grasp of reality.
We went beyond the abandonment of critical examination (which was desperately what we needed) of our foreign policy. We upped the anti and reinforced the exaggerated stereotypes that people like OBL were proliferating about us by invading a country that had not one thing to do with 9/11. This is prime example of why the bull**** argument that our foreign policy isn't at least partly responsible for our situation with the Middle East is just that...complete bull****.
Thank you for your service and your opinion.