Why did we invade Iraq in your own words

[Zebo]

Why? - Those missiles/tanks/security services, etc don't sell themselves ya' know

Still there? Bush's and Americans in general infection with cultural relativism, one in which he just can not believe Iraqis will not behave just like Ohians given half the chance and enough time and money. One who still doesn't and never will understand the tenets, attitudes, atmospherics of Islam which govern everything in the Middle East and is exactly contrary to liberty and democracy our founders embraced. - Discouraging free inquiry at every step - encouraging submission to the blind and irrational will of Allah - intolerance of others and an inability to compromise, but rather inculcates a zero-sum view of the world as divided between the victor and the vanquished as evidenced by the daily 200+ , seemingly irrational to those in power, slaughter.

 

[aidanjm]

you would have to ask Cheney and Rumsfeld, the people who decided the USA should invade. WMD and getting rid of Saddam were excuses. Who knows what the real reason was. I suppose it must boil down to oil. The only reason the USA is even interested in that part of the world is the oil that keeps America running and the wheels of industry turning. I suppose many people must also have become enormously wealthy selling Saddam Hussein weapons over the decades, and presumably more people have become wealthy as a result of the war (arms dealers, companies receiving lucrative "reconstruction" contracts, etc.)

 

[aidanjm]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
Because people with influence wanted to, and the people who didn't want to were afraid to speak their minds.

exactly. and what I find disgusting is that the mainstream media - and especially celebrity reporters/ interviewers like Tim Russert, Katie Couric, etc. - were so incredibly uncritical & unquestioning re: the bs peddled by Bush and cronies. the attitude of the television media was gung-ho towards the invasion. All those withered up retired generals they wheel out for television sound bites.

 

[j00fek]

i still dont know

 

[Lemon law]

In many ways 911 made President Bush-before that he was falling in popularity. Along came 911 and the nation had no choice but to rally around the President. And soon we were justifiably in Afhgistan and removing the Taliban from power.

Suddenly the distant goal of invading Iraq set forth in things like project for a new American Century became pollitically possible.---and this assertion is sourced because we have people within the GWB administration saying that it was always a GWB goal to invade Iraq---and numerous sources quoting Rummy as hot to invade Iraq just days after 911--and its also well sourced that Rummy was incredably frustrated that an Iraq link to 911 could not be clearly established.

But once you have a goal---the reasons justifying it can come later---and the GWB administration set forth an ad blitz to sell the Iraq war to the American public---and when they received no firm no from the UN---the invasion was on. And it first it all came up roses---GWB popularity was at 90%.--and stayed high for many months.---here we are now---the Iraq war is polling at 30% or less---and at minimum will be a black hole of USA lives and money.---and only now are we half way realizing that we were sold a bill of goods by a group of total cynical liars still in power.

So the fault is both with GWB&co. and with the American public---and if the public did not buy in--there would be no Iraq war--almost any idiot could see that the reasons for the war were phony at the time---I sure did--but I was a tiny minority.

Here we are almost four years later---and both the broad American public and GWB&co. are still gullable fools for not asking the right questions---and have collectively have learned zero in those four years.---and for that matter---we have forgotten what little we learned in Vietnam.

Greed, power, and stupidity are always accidents waiting to happen. Soon it will be time to pay out taxes---and pay and pay and pay for our stupidity and gullability. Hope our sales restance is a little higher when they try to sell us on invading Iran.

 

[dmcowen674]

We invaded Iraq because Jimmy Carter lost control of Saudi Oil.

Clinton then lost control of Iraq's Oil.

So there I said it, it's all the Democrats fault.

 

[Lemon law]

Lets put the question the other way---can any in sober judgement think of even one reason the USA had the RIGHT to invade Iraq?

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
With the large number of ant-war posters we have on here I would like to see their opinions on why we went to war in Iraq.

So I challenge everyone to post their own personal belief as to why the war in Iraq was started. Please do so in a short concise manor as opposed to long winded dissertations.

I would also like to see everyone?s opinion on why we are still in Iraq after 3 years.
Don?t comment on someone else beliefs until you have posted your own.

My view.
Why we invaded Iraq: We knew that Saddam had a history of using WMD and supporting terrorist. Therefore, in a post 9-11 world it was thought that there was too much danger of Saddam giving WMDs or WMD technology to terrorists who would then use it against us or our allies. Therefore, we invaded Iraq in order to prevent any future support by Saddam of terrorists via money, training or WMDs.]/q]
Using your logic,why stop in Iran, now we need to go into Iran, NK, and who knows where else?

Why we are still there: Although the threat of Saddam is gone, there is still the danger that the country could become a haven for terrorists. Furthermore, we need a strong Iraq to act as a counter balance to Iran and its ideas of spreading its radical Islamic regime.

Still a danger???? With a civil war emminent, t's almost a sure bet the Iraq will become terrorist heaven after we leave. The real question is how much money and how many men are we willing to spend.

There you go: nice and simple to understand. How many of you other regular posters are willing to put your own ideas on this out there for everyone to see?
And how many of you will just criticize everyone else?s ideas without offer any of your own?

Simple is the key word in that statement.

In Afghanistan we had one clear reason to go in. Not so with Iraq, we NEVER had a clear goal or a well thought out plan ort even any good intelligence to work with. No WMD's, no plan to secure the country once Saddam was disposed of, all we hear is that Saddam was a "bad" man. Somehow that small detail didn't stop us from dealing with him when he was fighting Iran.

Of course the war did just happen to be a boon for defense contractors and oil men and it sure helped an idiot get reelected. Can you say "wag the dog".

 

[yllus]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Why we invaded Iraq: We knew that Saddam had a history of using WMD and supporting terrorists. Therefore, in a post 9-11 world it was thought that there was too much danger of Saddam giving WMDs or WMD technology to terrorists who would then use it against us or our allies. Therefore, we invaded Iraq in order to prevent any future support by Saddam of terrorists via money, training or WMDs.

I essentially agree with what you said. It was possible (in the sense that the political capital was there to spend) to take down Hussein's regime, so Bush waved around the evidence that helped his cause and buried that which didn't. Lousy of him from an honesty POV, but good of him from a pragmatic standpoint. Hussein was going to need to be dealt with sooner or later - better sooner while he's wasn't nuke-capable. Worse, nuke-capable and with a son of his in charge.

I still support the Iraq campaign because I'm rather certain that the civil war scenario today would happen no matter what. It sucks that it's American and Brit boys and girls catching the occasional bullet instead of the UN mission it should be, but it's not like if this happened in twenty years from now the Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq would actually have gotten along. Maybe twenty thousand years from now when we could use force-shields to keep them separated, but not in the foreseeable future. So though many, many things were bumbled by the current U.S. administration, I still give them a laurel for carrying this out.

 

[umbrella39]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

My view.
Why we invaded Iraq: We knew that Saddam had a history of using WMD and supporting terrorist. Therefore, in a post 9-11 world it was thought that there was too much danger of Saddam giving WMDs or WMD technology to terrorists who would then use it against us or our allies. Therefore, we invaded Iraq in order to prevent any future support by Saddam of terrorists via money, training or WMDs.

Not interested in playing your little game warfanboi/riprorin,.

If you believe the BS you typed then you ARE insane. Nice to know they have interent access at the sanitarium. :thumbsup: Please, just GTFA already, your keystrokes do not help your cause. Get out of the house and start preaching this BS, see how far you get.

:roll:

 

[zephyrprime]

My view.
Buch and the neocons had this naive idea that we could bring modernity to the middle east by bringing democracy to Iraq at gun point. Bush has said as much himself but in more flowery language. The idea was that once Iraq was democratized, it would become a successful and peaceful country. It would thus serve as a beacon of liberty in the Middle East and become a Middle Eastern "city on a hill". The neocons expected there to be a domino effect of liberty in the Middle East. The whole issue with WMDs was just a cover. Having lived through the runup to war, it is clear the the WMD based motivation to go to war was stumbled upon because the neocons found that it was the only argument that resonated with the US populace. So I really believe that Bush was attempting to carry a new version of "the White mans burden" by delivering freedom and modernity to the benighted people of the middle east.

But why did we want to bring democracy to the Middle east? Was it just out of the goodness of our own hearts? No, because if that were the case, we would have done so 100 years ago. The reason was to fight terrorists by making friendly countries in the Middle East. The invasion was also a chance to further the neocon imperialist dreams so it was a happy coincidence for them.

Why we are still there: If Iraq fails to become a successful country (it will fail, the cause is lost), the country will become a haven for terrorists. There may be a civil war as well. So what can we do? Continue fighting pointlessly!

 

[NeoV]

I think the more important question is this - why did the US SAY we invaded Iraq?

Rummy said that not only did they have WMD's, but that we knew where they were located

Cheney tried to tie Iraq to Al-Q, before and during this war

Bush/Powell, etc, all said it was about WMD's, and in a post 9-11 world, we couldn't afford to let a madman have these types of things.

Of course we know how all those reasons fell apart over the last 3 years.

Prof John, your reason as to why we invaded looks plausible now - but it is NOT why we said we were going in the first place - you can't go back, 3 years and 3000 dead American soldiers later, not to mention 15,000 wounded American soldiers - and try to dress it up.

We went in for the reasons we said we did - and of course the fact that a large amount of the world's oil is there was an unspoken reason.

 

[cumhail]

Because these guys, along with these guys, wanted to, believing it to be one of the steps needed to maintain the US' position, as they put it, "as the world's preeminent power." May God save us from the rest of their steps...

 

[Bird222]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Lets put the question the other way---can any in sober judgement think of even one reason the USA had the RIGHT to invade Iraq?

I think not complying with the peace treaty could be one, but that's not why we said we were going to war.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

He who controls the spice, controls the universe! The spice must flow!

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Any answer that doesn't begin and end with PNAC is comically naive. We invaded Iraq because the whole PNAC think tank (including Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz, among others) thought it was a wise course of action, and 9/11 gave them the excuse they had been waiting for (notwithstanding the fact that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11).

As for why they thought that, it is essentially an effort to establish American/Israeli domination of the Middle East, and thus the world. It sounds like something Lex Luthor would have dreamt up, but hey, I didn't vote for these yo-yos.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: DonVito
Any answer that doesn't begin and end with PNAC is comically naive. We invaded Iraq because the whole PNAC think tank (including Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz, among others) thought it was a wise course of action. As for why they thought that, it is essentially an effort to establish American/Israeli domination of the Middle East, and thus the world. It sounds like something Lex Luthor would have dreamt up, but hey, I didn't vote for these yo-yos.

I think we already have that domination without Iraq. However I can see two sides of the coin on this situation. Setting up a democracy, knocking out Saddam, and verifying the WMD claims is killing 3 birds with a single stone. Unfortunately it appears our post war planning and expectations were foolhardy at best, at worst it appears we just setup a new regime that will be favorable with the true threat in the ME, Iran.

This is for all intents and purposes turning into the worst case I could have dreamed.
Unfortunatelt in 2002-03 I dont know if one can make the decisions we can today without a fricken time machine.

 

[Lemon law]

To Zephrprime---who concludes---Why we are still there: If Iraq fails to become a successful country (it will fail, the cause is lost), the country will become a haven for terrorists. There may be a civil war as well. So what can we do? Continue fighting pointlessly!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Me thinks you are at best half right, don't understand and underestimate the consequences, and totally miss the obvious lessons.

20 20 hindsight---we had a small group of cynical liars in the GWB administration that sold the Iraq war to a gutless congress and the American people. There may be some debate on if their motivations were at all highminded or based on just pure greed, but more sober thought has to somewhat table that and realise that their implementation was based on pure 100% fantasy--shining city on a hill , pie in the sky, or whatever---the only lesson to be learned is that they made a huge and treasonous error(s)--choosing criminal means to make the means justify the ends they failed to reach-----and that they not only are not pnly totally incapable of extracting us from the mess they made--we just don't get the idea that they must be removed from power forthwidth by impeachment and imprisonment for crimes against humanity even more monstrous than those commited by Saddam.

Were the only result of this failed Iraq war to become a terrorist nation, I would be in total favor of getting out now----but the risks are now far far higher--because an Iraqi civil war which is very likely to errupt while we debate options has a huge potential to spread far beyond Iraqi borders, disrupt the oil supply that makes the economies of this entire world keep going, and trigger widespread war fare
that will make ww1&ww2 look small by comparison.

Like it or not---we have to see it this Iraqi brainfart through---but required step one is getting rid of GWB&co.---and then we have to go hat in hand to the UN---say we were misled---and get an international coalition to come up with a political solution.---because if the mid-east goes---that will be an international disaster of major proportions making the grief we are now in look extremely small
in comparison.

And in the process lose this idea that we Americans are the chosen people with the God given right to decide the fate of other nations.---that arrogance in any nation always leads to war.

 

[Cerb]

Why we invaded: Saddam Hussein had been trying to get away from being our puppet for some time. I think our government really got him pissed with the Gulf War (IIRC, he asks us before going in to take it over in the first place). Just as we were about to elect Bush, he decided to switch to the Euro for his oil. We know that by 2001 that Bush wanted to go in--Saddam was no longer docile. Saddam Hussein also certainly knew much more than we will now ever find out about our nasty dealings in the Middle East, as he was party to quite a bit of it (Hell, our guys are the reason he was the ruler all these years!). PR-wise, he might have been very dangerous.

Why we are still there: Saddam had to be executed, and the i's, j's, and t's needed fixing up to do so. There was no real trial, he was convicted of of a bogus crime (despite pretty good findings that he did some really bad ones--though how well it stacked up to the deaths from the sanctions Iraq was under is somewhat of a controversy), all just to kill him. We're going to stay until what our government considers a US-friendly, controllable government is in place, or if we're lucky, the guy that gets there in '08 is smart. Either way, we'll be there in some capacity to try to reign in that oil. I mean, if we had to pay more for Vaseline, how would we get by? 😀

 

[lotus503]

I don't thing oil was as big of a motivation as some think.

Democracy and capitalism are very profitable.

Our economy has been in the toilet for some time now.
Dot Com collapse
Then 9/11
Speculators more than doubling houses prices.
Refi Cash outs, home ATM machines, fueling huge consumer spending delaying a very poor economic outlook.

My opinion is that corporate America in large part calls the shots via lobby. Iraq is profitable in so many ways, it opens up a gateway to enormous regional wealth where capitolism if allowed to flourish has huge payoffs.

When I think about it, I am actually impressed.

Go to war have the American taxpayer pay for it,

Get Oil
Get Contracts
Pick your own government
and hell if your lucky and pull it off, t a McDonalds and strip mall on every corner. The cherry is you get to choose who makes money in the new region of western consumption.

Now I had these opionions before seeing this


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0436971/

 

[slatr]

Didn't your mother tell you that might makes right.

How else do countries get what they want in a mega/quasi-tribal world?

Lets put the question the other way---can any in sober judgement think of even one reason the USA had the RIGHT to invade Iraq?

 

[lotus503]

Originally posted by: slatr
Didn't your mother tell you that might makes right.

How else do countries get what they want in a mega/quasi-tribal world?

Lets put the question the other way---can any in sober judgement think of even one reason the USA had the RIGHT to invade Iraq?

Here is the problem with that as I see it.

We are supposed to be a government of the people by the people.
How as a nation are we supposed to make sound choices on policy and leadership when not only are the facts hidden but we are flat out lied to as to what those facts are?

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
My view.
Why we invaded Iraq: We knew that Saddam had a history of using WMD and supporting terrorist. Therefore, in a post 9-11 world it was thought that there was too much danger of Saddam giving WMDs or WMD technology to terrorists who would then use it against us or our allies. Therefore, we invaded Iraq in order to prevent any future support by Saddam of terrorists via money, training or WMDs.

After all this time, you're still the same Bushwhacko sycophant, dispensing the same Bushwhacko Kool-Aid and swallowing all of it, and it's still the same rotten swill it was the day it was first served. :thumbsdown: :frown: :thumbsdown:

George W. Bush LIED to the American public about why he and his gang of criminals started this useless, elective war in Iraq. He did so while offering continuously shifting alleged reasons for his actions:

• There was no yellow cake uraniium in Niger.
  
• There were no aluminum tubes capable of being used in centrifuges process nuclear material.
  
• There were no facilities for making nerve gas or biological weapons.
  
• There were no long range rockets.
  
• There were no WMD's.

They ignored little things like:

• All warnings about the possiblity of an attack like 9/11, despite explicit warnings from people like Richard Clark, former terrorisim advisor to Presidents Reagan, Bush Sr. and Clinton. Richard Clarke also warned Bush that Saddam probably was not tied to 9/11.
  

  After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate. As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.
  
  "Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.
  
  "Initially, I thought when he said, 'There aren't enough targets in-- in Afghanistan,' I thought he was joking.
  
  "I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection."
  
  Clarke says he and CIA Director George Tenet told that to Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The Bush administration didn't want to hear that so they did what any good exec would do -- They fired him.

• They claimed their pre-war planning included plenty of troops to handle foreseeable problems in the aftermath of their invasion, despite warnings from Army Chief of Staff, Eric Shinseki that they would need several hundred thousand troops to do the job.

The Bush administration didn't want to hear that so they did what any good exec would do -- They fired him.[/list]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Why we are still there: Although the threat of Saddam is gone, there is still the danger that the country could become a haven for terrorists.

Too late. It has already become the "haven for terrorists" you fear. The fact seems to have eluded you that it wasn't before Bushwhackos' war seems to have eluded you. :roll:

Furthermore, we need a strong Iraq to act as a counter balance to Iran and its ideas of spreading its radical Islamic regime.

What counterbalance? Our own generals have told us that both our manpower and hardware resources are so over-extended that the Taliban, the enemy we SHOULD HAVE defeated in Afghanistan, is once again gaining strength. Our military is spread so thin that we don't have the manpower to engage anyone on a new front.

There you go: nice and simple to understand.

Yep! Simple to understand why everything you said is unmitigated BULLSH8! :thumbsdown: :frown: :thumbsdown:

As of January 1, 2007, over 3,000 American troops have died fighting in Iraq, tens of thousands more Americans are wounded and scarred for life, and possibly hundreds of thousands more other innocent people are dead or wounded, and this nation is faced with possibly trillions of dollars of debt that will remain a burden on our society for generations to come. 🙁

Are you happy, now? :roll:

ProfJohn -- There are only three possiblities:

1. You're an absolute idiot.

2. You're totally self-deluded.

3. You're an active part of the real "axis of evil," the administration of George W. Bush. :| :| :|

Which is it?

 

[tomywishbone]

The precious precious oil.

 

[techs]

When people can't even agree as why we invaded Iraq it shows why the war has lost almost all support.