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Was the Iraq War "Worth it"

Was the Iraq War Worth it?

  • Yes

    Votes: 5 6.4%

  • No

    Votes: 65 83.3%

  • Other

    Votes: 8 10.3%
  • Total voters
    78
SocialDemocrat said:
I still disagree with the decision to invade Iraq. The primary reason "we" chose to invade Iraq was because the previous administration believed they were in possession of nuclear weapons. The facts show that they were not in possession of nuclear weapons, but even without hindsight on the issue, there was no proof of nuclear weapon possession, so we never should've invaded. Invading nations and allowing lives to be lost on little to no evidence, which was essentially all the Bush administration had, is never good policy.
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I don't believe that the Bushies really believed that Iraq had nukes. Read their statements about WMDs carefully and you can see the artfully crafted wording of their claims, just like the wording a skilled liar and/or lawyer would use.
 
Hard Truth said:
Hindsight should be used to avoid repeating past mistakes.

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Baghdad before the US invasion, looks pretty civilized to me.

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Baghdad after the US invasion

Whose the barbarian(s)?

"And once we'd ......gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place. What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or Ba'athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable? I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the President got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq."
Dick Cheney 1991
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If that isn't the same street then your point sin't really that strong.
 
Hard Truth said:
I don't believe that the Bushies really believed that Iraq had nukes. Read their statements about WMDs carefully and you can see the artfully crafted wording of their claims, just like the wording a skilled liar and/or lawyer would use.
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Well, it goes without saying that most of the time, they were lying through their teeth. Both were tools of the military industrial complex, so although WMD possession of the evidence presented for invasion, it carried little weight.
 
Amadeus said:
Perhaps you missed it, but my sources are Time, Huffington Post, and New York Times. The info comes from Iraqi Officials who confirmed the SOFA deal.



Also, Fareed was quote a high-ranking Iraqi politician.

What you have to decide, MMC, is where your loyalties lie. Is it to being anti-Obama, or being pro-Neocon? Because you're certainly not being pro-fact, or pro-military with your nonsense propaganda.
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I am glad you mentioned the NY times and that Small World they tend to bloviate around. Try again Amadeus. All I need be is Anti Terrorist. While you're looking to decide which side of the NEW Divide to land on. You do know who Peter Baker is for the NY Times.....Tell Fareed to take Notes!!!!!


Obama Finds He Can’t Put Iraq War Behind Him

The possible return to Iraq, even in limited form, underscores just how much that forlorn land has shaped Mr. Obama’s presidency. It defined his first campaign for the White House, when his opposition to the war powered his candidacy. It defined his foreign policy as he resolved to pull out of Iraq and keep out of places like Syria. And it defined the legacy he hoped to leave as he imagined history books remembering him for ending America’s overseas wars. Yet as much as he wanted Iraq in the rearview mirror, the swift march toward Baghdad by Islamist extremists calling themselves the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, has forced him to reconsider his approach. As much as he wanted to leave the fate of Iraq to the Iraqis themselves, he concluded that the United States still has a stake in avoiding the collapse of a state it occupied for more than eight years at the cost of nearly 4,500 American lives.

Yet as much as he wanted Iraq in the rearview mirror, the swift march toward Baghdad by Islamist extremists calling themselves the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, has forced him to reconsider his approach. As much as he wanted to leave the fate of Iraq to the Iraqis themselves, he concluded that the United States still has a stake in avoiding the collapse of a state it occupied for more than eight years at the cost of nearly 4,500 American lives.

Stepping back, he cited the United States’ own tortured history in Iraq and the desire not to let American efforts there go to waste. “We have enormous interests there,” he added, “and obviously our troops and the American people and the American taxpayers made huge investments and sacrifices in order to give the Iraqis the opportunity to chart a better course, a better destiny.”......snip~

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/14/world/middleeast/obama-finds-he-cant-put-iraq-behind-him.html?_r=0
 
Dezaad said:
He is not wrong about the underlying seeds of chaos. They were there, obviously, or we wouldn't have what we have today.
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:shrug: there is always a possibility for that - the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics has a political component. Saying that a nation has the possibility to descend into chaos is like saying it is made up of people.
 
Amadeus said:
What does that article have to do with the price of tea in China? We're talking about SOFA, and whether or not it was in Obama's control to pull out of Iraq. Despite your assertions to the contrary, it wasn't.
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It talks about why BO's entire Policy was a problem......which includes the Sofa and also Showing you BO's Policy called for a Residual Force. As well as what else it exposed about BO and his SOFA for Afghanistan. You know ending the war there to......but locking us in for another decade. That which he criticized Bush for but has adopted the Same method and plan. Another not his own. ;)


Not only has the latest eruption in Iraq revived those criticisms, but it has also *exposed* the president’s plan for withdrawing from Afghanistan to further questions. Mr. Obama announced last month that he would end the combat mission there by the end of this year, leaving behind 9,800 troops, all of whom would leave by 2016.

Representative Howard (Buck) McKeon of California, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said the president needed a broader strategy for containing the threat in the region. “There are no quick-fix solutions to this crisis, and I will not support a one-shot strike that looks good for the cameras but has no enduring effect,” he said. He added that the president should consider firing his national security team.

Liberal activists were more vehement. “For the last 12 years, Iraq has been Bush and Cheney’s war,” said Becky Bond, the political director for an activist group called Credo. “But if the president decides to double down on George W. Bush’s disastrous decision to invade Iraq by launching a new round of bombing strikes, Iraq will become Barack Obama’s war.”.....snip~

Looks like the Tea you was using was Liptons.....came out of the Bag and didn't dissolve Right. :lol:
 
MMC said:
Obama.... concluded that the United States still has a stake in avoiding the collapse of a state it occupied for more than eight years at the cost of nearly 4,500 American lives.
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That was one of the reason used to justify dragging out the Viet Nam war-so that "all the lost US lives won't be wasted." That is a stupid reason, its like giving a con man more money so the money you gave him before won't be wasted. The lives are already wasted and nothing we do now will change that fact.
 
Got rid of a secular leader who was an enemy of your enemies and a potential ally in the region.
Good move, that.
 
Grand Mal said:
Got rid of a secular leader who was an enemy of your enemies and a potential ally in the region.
Good move, that.
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He was kind of a douche and his sons were worse. Gassing his own people, rape parties, you know... normal ME high class living.
 
Ockham said:
He was kind of a douche and his sons were worse. Gassing his own people, rape parties, you know... normal ME high class living.
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He was, and they were, but that kind of thing has never been relevant before.
 
Grand Mal said:
He was, and they were, but that kind of thing has never been relevant before.
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It was in Libya, it was in Syria with the red line even though thank god we didn't get involved in that **** hole. Perhaps not before 2000 though... you may have a point there.
 
Ockham said:
He was kind of a douche and his sons were worse. Gassing his own people, rape parties, you know... normal ME high class living.
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Saddam was an asshole ... but know this, like the Shah in Iran , he was our asshole.
The USA put them into power and much of the animosity those people have against us is the direct result of those actions.
 
Buck Ewer said:
Saddam was an asshole ... but know this, like the Shah in Iran , he was our asshole.
The USA put them into power and much of the animosity those people have against us is the direct result of those actions.
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If he was our asshole, he was ours to take out. I just wish we didn't stick around for the after party.
 
There are no winners in a war. So it's not worth it.
 
Buck Ewer said:
Saddam was an asshole ... but know this, like the Shah in Iran , he was our asshole.
The USA put them into power and much of the animosity those people have against us is the direct result of those actions.
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Classic victim blaming.
 
Hard Truth said:
That was one of the reason used to justify dragging out the Viet Nam war-so that "all the lost US lives won't be wasted." That is a stupid reason, its like giving a con man more money so the money you gave him before won't be wasted. The lives are already wasted and nothing we do now will change that fact.
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When he agreed to send more troops to Afghanistan, he insisted on a timetable for pulling them out. When he decided to intervene in Libya, he used only air power and made sure that NATO allies took the lead. When the Syrian civil war broke out, he resisted calls to step in even with air power or, for a long time, arms for the rebels. The longer he has been in office, the more skeptical he seems to have grown about the utility of force as a means of changing the world for the better.

Even as he acknowledged on Friday the possibility of using force again in Iraq, he put the onus on Mr. Maliki and other Iraqi leaders to set aside sectarian differences and stabilize their country. “The United States will do our part,” he said, “but understand that ultimately it’s up to the Iraqis, as a sovereign nation, to solve their problems.”

Still, those who have spent time around Mr. Obama heard deep frustration in his voice as he spoke about the prospect of re-engaging in Iraq. “I can only imagine what’s going through the president’s head,” said Julianne Smith, a former national security aide to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

“He was just getting to the point where he felt he could free himself from this agenda and not define his foreign policy solely on the last guy’s,” she said. “He’s been keen not to use Bush as a reference point and get away from that and be more forward-looking and have a strategy. And he was just turning a corner when this hit.”.....snip~


Now his mistake in Syria is doing what? What did it allow ISIS to do? Why did he walk away from diplomacy with Maliki, again? Now he figured it all out. After the fact and while he was setting a SOFA for Afghanistan. All at the same time.

Oh and with Libya.....who took the lead? Who was the Last Western Outpost in the Wild Wild West?
 
MaggieD said:
I agree with Beaudreaux. I know what you mean, but I think there's a different way to say it. Better might be, "Do you think our strategy in Iraq ended in a cluster****?" Yeah, I like that.
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The whole strategy going into Iraq was messed up. That is precisely why Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney said we shouldn't for the reasons that happened. If Vice President Cheney and Bush had listened to Secretary of Defense Cheney, Iraq wouldn't be the mess it is now.

In Obama's hurry to close it down, he left this country in a mess. We have troops stationed all over the damned world on a permanent basis. Why not here? This country's stability is most certainly of great importance to the United States.

Obama was dead wrong.
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Oh yes, let's just stay in Iraq (when they don't want us there) for 100 years like McCain said. Yeah, that's the ticket. :roll:

A **** sandwich is still a **** sandwich no matter when you finish it.
 
Ockham said:
It was in Libya, it was in Syria with the red line even though thank god we didn't get involved in that **** hole. Perhaps not before 2000 though... you may have a point there.
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I forget, what was the beef with Ghaddafi again?
Pick your dictator if you want an ally in the region. Drop any ideas of promoting democracy- there'll be exactly one election and you'll have either another strongman dictator or an Islamist state..
 
cpwill said:
:shrug: there is always a possibility for that - the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics has a political component. Saying that a nation has the possibility to descend into chaos is like saying it is made up of people.
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Except that you know perfectly well that I mean the seeds were very fresh and the ground very fertile and well watered in the case of Iraq.
 
ocean515 said:
I believe hindsight serves little purpose, hence the "20/20" that goes along with it.

If one is to fantasize, it was foolish to think these people from the dark ages would want to be part of any form of civilized modern society in the first place.
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Hindsight is amazing. If you take your mistakes as educational movements you may be less apt to make the same errors.
 
TheNextEra said:
NO, another example of why the U.S. shouldn't be in the business of nation building.
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It wasnt worth it before this new invasion.

Thousands of lives lost and destroyed. Trillions of $$ wasted...for nothing.

If anyone can tell me what we 'won' or achieved in Iraq, please let me know.
 
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I have Marine friends & friends I grew up with that went over there and died, came home mangled or came home a completely different person mentally. And the people I know & love who got ****ed up is miniscule compared to the overall total of 4,400+ killed & 30,000+ wounded. The monetary cost is astronomical at $1,000,000,000,000+.

There is no argument that can justify the U.S.'s involvement in Iraq given the sacrifices Americans made, military or not. It is ****ing outrageous to even try to pretend that there were valid reasons for our involvement.
 
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