You failed to address the point that the Allies and America essentially created the monsters they had to fight in WW2, through a series of poor foreign policy decisions and imperialism. Would the Nazi's have come to power in Germany were it not for the reparations of WW1? How exactly did Japan transition from a feudal society to a modern military powerhouse with ambitions of regional conquest? Largely due to European and American intervention and foreign policy in the decades prior to WW2. Much like Saddam, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were largely monsters we had a hand in creating.
First to address your drawing of the line between Nazi Germany/Japan and Saddam. There's a huge difference. Germany and Japan were bent on (probable) world domination,
with the means to accomplish it. Saddam was a small dictator who was made into a bigger monster then he ever was. Saddam had no where near the capability that Germany/Japan did and I don't ever recall hearing his plans for world domination. To try and draw a like for like comparison between the two is reaching far.
No one can deny the rise of Nazi Germany due to reparations, but that simply setup an environment in which Hitler was able to thrive and playoff the beleaguered German people. No one put Hitler in power purposefully.
To say that we created a 'monster' in Japan simply because we opened their eyes to the world at large (Japan was EXTREMELY isolationist before we managed to open trade with them) I heartily disagree with. The US began trading with them in the late 19th century. They saw our technological superiority and realized they had to do some catching up. Their rapid industrialization brought to their attention that they didn't have the natural resources on their little island to support such an action. Thus, they looked outward and fell upon conquest of their hated 'enemy', the Chinese, who possessed the resources they needed. The US helped them train armies, but this was before conquest of China was devised. They bought our services and we gave them what they paid for. A perfectly normal, capitalistic transaction, no? What Japan chose to do after that was their own decision and not of our making or influence.
So, I "failed to address" the WWII creation scenario because it has no bearing on how Saddam came to power (the US put him there quite purposefully to do a specific job).
So ignorance of the masses and nationalistic fervour are justifications for going to war unnecessarily?
What war *is* necessary?
🙂 I'm not saying these things are justification (edit: justification by our standards and knowledge, is what I meant to say), but hindsight is 20/20. What we know and believe in now were not the ideals of past generations.
This has been my entire point...the entire Iraq war is the result of a President quite impetuously and irresponsibly seeking to appear decisive in the wake of a devastating attack on American soil...and he essentially picked and chose what intelligence could sell the war to the American people. Do I think there were justifications for eliminating Saddam? Absolutely. Was there a sense of urgency to eliminate Iraq based on the threat that the Bush Administration sold it as...absolutely not. Strategically and diplomatically, has the Bush Administration effectively managed the WOT...no.
That would be fine and all. But the major selling point of the Iraq invasion was that the Bush admin had intelligence that implicated Saddam had, or was creating, WMDs. There was no doubt. Yet the UN inspectors had said otherwise. Furthermore, no WMDs were ever found. So where the heck did that solid evidence go suggesting WMD? I say
solid evidence because the President and those in power should NOT be declaring war with anything less.
I agree with the rest of what you say. Of course there were justifications for the elimination of Saddam, but those same justifications can be applied to a number of other dictators around the world. At least we agree that the WOT has been mishandled.
