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Iraq is not our country. While countries may have helped us during our revolution, they did not come and free us from England. We made the choice to break free. Iraq did not pose any significant threat to us. Not to our security. Nor were we under any obligation to free them, or mold them, or bring more injury to them.
As for Iran, they were doing that before Iraq, and moving rather quickly to a more friendly government. Iran's less desirable elements need a reason to push the hardliners forward. That's just one of the reasons they helped us going in. We enabled the less dersireable elements an opening, not to mention making Iraq more friendly for them.
Iraq was always a bad idea. A reckless one. No rewriting of history or new rationale will change that. In fact, no outcome there will change that.
Stubborn to the end. There's no rewriting of history here. Just your quest to only heed the sophmoric interpretation of it. I made the argument and you simply shut down because you need your protest. You've placed too much emotional investment behind it to simply think it through now. Like it or not, Iraq was always about more than just Iraq. I keep stating this, but you keep pretending the argument is solely about Iraq as if it is an island without a region. Were it just about Iraq, then **** em. But the fact that we made them our problem for a decade under UN starvation embargo makes them our obligation. Instead of finishing our mission in 1991, we chose the destiny of these people and the region. The ironic thing is athtprotestors used "soveriegnty" as the excuse to turn our backs as if we hadn't already been executing missions in the north since '95, bombed them four seperate times, and dictating the national condition since '91. You are in denial and you have yet to make an argumnent about how Iraq wasn't apart of this 9/11 mission. Try as you may, even Mr. Bin Laden stated it was (protestors, leftists, and pundits tend to ignore this part of the letter while embracing with affection the rest).
But this is the new America. Americans want us to turn our backs on allies now. They want us to deny our obligations and turn backthe clock to isolationalism. They want us to some how pretend that someone else will stepin top protect sea lanes, trade routes, and keep regional stability. That some how we can preach about democracy and still maintain Cold War prescription and celebrate dictator thrones (secretly of course because no Internet exists). I just don't get it.
And by the way, our enemies in the region since the end of the Cold War has been Sunni Arabs.....not Shia Iranians. Bringing up Iran's path prior to 2003 does nothing to explain away the very wider region of religious zealousy and terrorist organizations that are bent on destroying their local governments and disrupting American mission abroad. However, even before 2003, the Iranian government was actively persuing nuclear ambitions. Thisprogram goes back to the Shah, then Khomeini, and so on. They merley placed a nationalistic mouth piece behind the microphone to protect their religious powers from the people. And I get all of this from book reading...not headline reading. Vali Nasr writes a great book on the Shia culture within the region (focused on Iran). People, removed from the study, will always assume that the simplest answer will suffice them to perfect wisdom. The invasion into Iraq is their simple Ahmedenijed answer.
And no, the cost of the mission was always going to be high. Bush the sr was correct when he said going in was easy, leaving would be hard.
Yes..it was going to be high. I stated nothing contrary. I did state, however, that it did not have to be so costly. Tapping into Bush Sr. tells me that you do indeed lean on TV and politicians for your wisdom into these matters. General Zinni writes a very good book about the lead up to Iraq and he expressly writes that the Rumsfeld coven called the living CENTCOM plan "old and stale." The truth was that it called for far more troops and money than the Rumsfeld coven felt would pass Senate approval. Therefore, they chose the "No Plan" and pretended that social order and democracy would magically erupt from the ground once Baghdad fell. Of course, stupid civilians in Washington fell for it and our military was forced to execute a plan we knew was garbage and the whole tally cost even more blood and money as the result. You witnessed the results on TV and I witnessed the results in Baghdad. I witnessed it again the next year during Fallujah I and II. Had the CENTCOM Plan been approved, the military would have executed properly and not been forced to ignore every rule of Occupation 101. Therefore, it would have been less costly in blood and treasure. This is what I was getting at. Stop seeking the quick "nu-uh." I'm trying to discuss this with you without getting frustrated. Nothing is more irritating than an untrained civilian that knows exactly what the military should do. You may as well be a Secretary of Defense for President Bush.....or a President Bush for that matter.
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