• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Was the War in Iraq worth it?

Was the War in Iraq worth it?

  • Yes

    Votes: 21 19.6%
  • No

    Votes: 86 80.4%

  • Total voters
    107
Oh, Boo, you crack me up. You see, I have access to personal expirience with the subject matter and the same access to the stories and reports that you have. That makes my view wider than yours, not narrower. You keep citing "those that created it" when in reality, all you've read is the opinion of some agenda driven retired officers...and you can't see that. You don't know anything about SERE, the history of it, or have any idea who created it. It wasn't just a person, or even a handfull of people...and it has changed dramatically since it's inception. You really have no idea what you're talking about.

I have personal experience with a lot of things I'm not expert on. You ignore those who actually crearted and run the program. They not only have personal experience, but ubderstand the differences. You don't. So, as I look beyond just my experience, but toward a fuller understanding, I'm not as narrow as you. Can't you see the difference? You limit yourself to just your view, flawed as itmay be.

What fact? What actual fact have you given? I showed you the actual polling that shows world opinion of America improving...you've shown nothing to the opposite. Tell yourself whatever you must, but you're just buying the spin.

The UN charter is fact. We signed it is fact. It lists how signature nations can invade. Fact.
 
I have personal experience with a lot of things I'm not expert on. You ignore those who actually crearted and run the program. They not only have personal experience, but ubderstand the differences. You don't. So, as I look beyond just my experience, but toward a fuller understanding, I'm not as narrow as you. Can't you see the difference? You limit yourself to just your view, flawed as itmay be.



The UN charter is fact. We signed it is fact. It lists how signature nations can invade. Fact.
The fact that we signed a UN charter is a whole other can of beans that should be opened in its own thread. We need to look back at what the founders said about things such as that and correct ourselves.
 
The fact that we signed a UN charter is a whole other can of beans that should be opened in its own thread. We need to look back at what the founders said about things such as that and correct ourselves.

The founding fathers could not have foreseen evrything, but as I recall, they were not too in favor of imperialists acts overseas. Nor would I think they were in favor of us breaking agreements we sign. But if you have evidence to the contrary, I'd look at it.
 
The fact that we signed a UN charter is a whole other can of beans that should be opened in its own thread. We need to look back at what the founders said about things such as that and correct ourselves.
A common mistake...you are trying to use a manual written in 1750 dealing with wagon wheels, rather than one written in 2011 dealing with wheel angle sensors.
Strange how people do these things, yet, every day, they do...
 
Iraqi citizen: "When the Americans started this whole war issue, we started to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and we walked toward it. But when the war happened, that light was the American train coming the other way that ran us over." Heaven protect us from people with good intentions. The US meant well.

I once saw an old bum digging in a dumpster for food. I gave him a $5 bill, so he could eat and he went right next door to a liquor store. If I'd have went one step further and bought him a meal. I meant well but I acted before I thought.
 
Iraqi citizen: "When the Americans started this whole war issue, we started to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and we walked toward it. But when the war happened, that light was the American train coming the other way that ran us over." Heaven protect us from people with good intentions. The US meant well.

I once saw an old bum digging in a dumpster for food. I gave him a $5 bill, so he could eat and he went right next door to a liquor store. If I'd have went one step further and bought him a meal. I meant well but I acted before I thought.

First, where did that woman hear that Metallica song.
Second, I will call your emotional quote and raise you an emotional photo.

iraqvote.jpg


And a bonus pic

07-minister.jpg


Ok, what else ya got.
 
Operation Iraqi Freedom what a roaring success. Even Obama who once said the war was "dumb" says it's a success, so it must be so. You win, your argument was too intense.

Though that interpretation is strongly disputed by critics who say the conflict has destabilised the region, strengthened Iran and exposed US military shortcomings, which may encourage future conflict. It is also claimed by critics that the war has strengthened hostility to the US and fueled not deterred terrorism.

The overwhelming US public support for the invasion in 2003, in part driven by the Bush administration's misleading attempts to link Iraq to the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks as well as its flawed claims about weapons of mass destruction, faded as the costs in American lives and dollars rose.
 
Last edited:
A common mistake...you are trying to use a manual written in 1750 dealing with wagon wheels, rather than one written in 2011 dealing with wheel angle sensors.
Strange how people do these things, yet, every day, they do...
A common misconception, that the rules that governed our country then can still do it now. What does being involved in the UN do to benefit our country? Name something please.
 
The founding fathers could not have foreseen evrything, but as I recall, they were not too in favor of imperialists acts overseas. Nor would I think they were in favor of us breaking agreements we sign. But if you have evidence to the contrary, I'd look at it.
I agree with you that they wouldn't want us to break agreements. Thats the point, we shouldn't be in the agreement to begin with. I believe you and I have debated, at length, the reasons we went into Iraq and Afghanistan so I will save us the merry go round we got into last time.
 
I have personal experience with a lot of things I'm not expert on. You ignore those who actually crearted and run the program. They not only have personal experience, but ubderstand the differences. You don't. So, as I look beyond just my experience, but toward a fuller understanding, I'm not as narrow as you. Can't you see the difference? You limit yourself to just your view, flawed as itmay be.

Ok...who created, and run, "the program"? You're not as narrow as I am? You've bit off on what you wanted to hear and seem to be steadfastly sticking to it. By definition, Boo, that's narrow.

The UN charter is fact. We signed it is fact. It lists how signature nations can invade. Fact.

Then show how we broke that charter....by that I mean of course, show that the UN is claiming we broke that charter.
 
Last edited:
Was our war for independence "worth it"?

excellent question ... but only if you can identify what other nation fought for and won it for us
 
excellent question ... but only if you can identify what other nation fought for and won it for us

I assume you're talking about France, but may be talking about the Native American nations...I hope the latter, but I doubt it. Either way, your analysis is way off.
 
The fact that we signed a UN charter is a whole other can of beans that should be opened in its own thread. We need to look back at what the founders said about things such as that and correct ourselves.

They, in fact, said "Stay out of European politics."
 
I assume you're talking about France, but may be talking about the Native American nations...I hope the latter, but I doubt it. Either way, your analysis is way off.
I think your analysis is off. There wasn't already a war for independence in Iraq. We basically decided that Iraq needed liberation (despite the fact that we supported Saddam at the beginning.)

I voted no. It was longer than WWII and did nothing but hurt American interests. We can depose dictators without bombs. Saddam was a terrible person and needed to go, but we could have waited for a movement like what happened in Libya and funnel our support to rebels. Saddam's regime would have disappeared eventually.
 
Last edited:
Perhaps it would have been if we had done it right. We shall see how it all turns out, but right now I am guessing no. Had it been done right, the answer would be unequivically yes.
 
I think your analysis is off. There wasn't already a war for independence in Iraq. We basically decided that Iraq needed liberation (despite the fact that we supported Saddam at the beginning.)

I voted no. It was longer than WWII and did nothing but hurt American interests. We can depose dictators without bombs. Saddam was a terrible person and needed to go, but we could have waited for a movement like what happened in Libya and funnel our support to rebels. Saddam's regime would have disappeared eventually.

What analysis are you talking about? I didn't compare the two wars, I challenged Boo's "the end doesn't justify the means" bs comment.

However, we cannot depose dictators without bombs when they are kissing a veto wielding, UN members ass. That would be France, btw.

Further, it was not longer than WWII when you add the 60 plus years of "occupation" of Germany and Japan.
 
Last edited:
Got rid of Saddam. We don't have to worry about him invading his neighbors every few years.

If he started a war with Iran, it wouldn't have been our problem. If anything, it would have distracted Iran's nuclear ambitions. We ****ed ourselves and Iran is probably going to get a nuke in the end.
 
Right, that's why he massed Republican Gaurd units on the Kuwaiti border in 1994. Not to mention his persicussion of the Kerds and the Shia.

And if he did start genocide and mass murdering his own, we could have responded like Obama reacted to the situation in Libya. But we shouldn't start wars to prevent possible genocide in the future.

Don't forget invading Iraq was a preemptive strike. Iraq was simply argued to be a threat. Yeah, Iraq did some ****ed up things... nobody enjoyed hearing Bush screaming and stomping his feet that war must be declared because of a gruesome history of genocide and torture. Nobody was defending a right to commit genocide when we were opposing the invasion of Iraq. We just never thought the war made sense and the costs were too high. The only reason much of the public liked the idea of it, was because they public didn't like Saddam Hussein and because of our history. It was a war based on emotional propaganda. There were too few questions asked and too little thinking about the consequences.
 
78 people voted yes, it was worth it. I have been reading the thread and haven't seen a single argument presented as to how America is better off as a result of the war. Did I miss something here?
 
I'm all for Amurica kicking butt when we're attacked but Iraq? What an exercise in futility and flop sweat. Like Powell said "you break it, you bought it" and what a defective product. Second largest oil reserves in the world untapped because of wars. It could be over 200 billion barrels but they only have 2000 wells drilled compared to the 1 million in Texas alone. Bet that could drive down the price of crude for awhile.
 
78 people voted yes, it was worth it. I have been reading the thread and haven't seen a single argument presented as to how America is better off as a result of the war. Did I miss something here?
I can answer that.
A) I saw earlier that if we would have waited on Iran and Iraq to fight, we wouldn't have had to do it and it would have kept Iran from getting a nuke. That sounds good in theory (no sarcasm, it really does), however, a war between Iraq and Iran had already been fought to a stand-still and Iran was still trying to get a nuke. That is why that theory was probably shot down in our gov't. I believe one of the reasons we attacked Iraq is that it could be a staging area to attack Iran later, if need be. Iraq has said they wouldn't let us use their country but I promise you if we threaten to cut off the funding we give them if they don't, we'll be staging in Diyala Province in no time. This is not unprecedented. We did the same in Germany and Japan after we beat them to stave off Stalin. You have to hold the ground you fight for.
B) I really believe we had what was thought to be good intel about WMD's in Iraq. Now, we all know that was false, but I think our gov't had intel they thought was credible then. You have to remember, we didn't have the massive intelligence capability then that we do now. It wasn't as easy to see what they had. The UN couldn't even see what they had on inspections.
C) I believe Saddam wanted everyone to think he had a nuke or something similar so he could maintain power in the region. If Saddam came out and admitted he didn't have anything, we would have left him alone, but Iran and other countries may have come after him for the way he had acted all the years before. He played a game of chicken with Bush because he thought he would blink like Clinton did. He thought wrong. I was a part of the '03 invasion and while his military could probably stir up trouble with other military's in the region, they had nothing for us. They were at least 15 years (being generous) behind in military tech.
D) Oil may have had a big thing to do with it. I have never seen proof of this, but it is a valid theory. Fighting for resources is a very touchy subject and one that I would hesistate to say is a valid reason for going to war. Now, if it was seen as a secondary benefit to one of the purposes above, I see nothing wrong with that.

I don't believe, like a lot of other people on here, that Iraq was some big conspiracy. I think it was a huge swing and miss as far as the WMD's go, but, I do think we went to war with honest intentions. There have been many instances in history where a country entered war or battle with mistaken intelligence. This will probably be one of the biggest ones for the history books. I would say this though. I believe the risk was worth it. You have to agree that everyone in the world thought the guy had WMD's because of how secretive he was about it. Who in their right mind would play chicken with the largest and most capable military in the world just to fool people? A mad man, that's who.
 
Was our war for independence "worth it"?

Of course it was. It was also our war. If the Iraqi people wanted their independence it was up to them to first start the fight.
 
Whether or not you agree with the effort to keep Iraq from collapsing right back into another despotic regime or not, you can't compare it with establishing a colony by force. :shrug:

We went in there, we took out their government, we oversaw the development of their new government and made sure it would be "ok". Yes, we made some pretense that we'd leave and that Iraq would be run by Iraqi's; but there are certainly similarities.

BTW, what do you do if the Iraqi's wanted to have another "despotic" regime?
 
The UN charter is fact. We signed it is fact. It lists how signature nations can invade. Fact.

1. UN Charter < US Constitution in terms of legitimizing United States political acts.
2. Saddam Hussein was in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 660, UN Security Council Resolution 661, UN Security Council Resolution 678, UN Security Council Resolution 686, UN Security Council Resolution 687, UN Security Council Resolution 688, UN Security Council Resolution 707, UN Security Council Resolution 715, UN Security Council Resolution 986, and UN Security Council Resolution 1284.
3. Ergo, UN Security Council 1441 gave Saddam Hussein "a final opportunity" to comply. He refused, we enforced the "serious consequences" it promised him for that refusal.

If the US needed it (which it didn't), we did indeed have the added justification of enforcing the UN Security Resolutions.

The founding fathers could not have foreseen evrything, but as I recall, they were not too in favor of imperialists acts overseas.

then either your recollection is poor, or you attended the public education system, and your education was poor. The Founding Fathers spoke openly and proudly of a future American Empire, which they envisioned as naturally taking over Canada and moving southward through Cuba, westward to the coast, and onward. Hamilton in particular thought that one day the United States would rule over both the North and South American continents. The Founding Fathers dispatched the Navy and United States Marine Corps to overthrow foreign nations for acts of international lawlessness (gosh, that sounds familiar), and certainly didn't seem to be particularly above the notion that the system of government they were setting up would refrain from conquering people for the purpose of spreading our territory, our control, and our ideals (feel free to check with the Native American tribes on this). Monroe has a Doctrine named after him for a reason.
 
Back
Top Bottom