The war on Islamic terror didn't start on 9/11 and wasn't about Osama Bin Laden, it was about the radical Islamic attitude that Western Modernization (and thus civilization) must be destroyed. It started decades before 9/11 with dozens of attacks on America (and Western world), it crossed borders, so Osama and 9/ 11 was only the latest symptom of the problem. We didn’t declare war on Al Queda or the Taliban, we declared war on terrorism and the nations that sponsored islamic hatred of the west (us especially); going after the most severe examples first. And there couldn't be peace, as long as Nation-States were harboring and fostering that terrorism, and Iraq made itself a great example to set (fix). You don't have to agree that justified war, but the rational can't deny the point or that Iraq did have something to do with middle eastern Islamic terrorism.
Iraq was the first preemptive war, other than the Revolutionary war, Civil War, Spanish-American, Mexican-American, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Bosnia, the first Gulf War and so on. Every war is preemptive by one side or the other, and there were almost always multiple opportunities for either side to deescalate that they chose to ignore. So "he started it", denies that you did too. The question of morality in a fight isn't who threw the first punch, but why it came to blows, and generally, one side is more justified than the other (no matter who threw the first punch).
No war is legal or illegal, there's only moral or immoral -- and all wars are immoral (some just more than others), the only real issue is whether the war is more immoral than doing nothing. Now as for justification, there was more legal justification for the Iraq War than most of the wars we got into. That still doesn't make it right, it just makes it slightly less wrong. But we had support from U.N. (1441), NATO, largest coalition ever, and a foreign country that had broken the terms of the cease fire. That's more than we had for any other war, included Korea (which was the previous war with the most faux-legality behind it).
Some say we should have waiting for France or the U.N. to come around, or that sanctions were working. We were reckless. We call these people misinformed. Sanctions have never worked at doing anything but hurting the innocent. And France and the U.N. were criminally making money off the oil-for-weapons scandal and had disincentives to ever help the Iraqi people. It was France's line that they would veto further efforts (and their efforts to remove sanctions) that made action necessary.
Some say war/violence is wrong or that it never solves anything. They don't seem to remember WWII, or the various mass murderers that violence ended. There's a saying that, "it is only when a mosquito lands on a man's testicles that he realizes there is always a way to solve problems without using violence". And it's true, too many resort to violence, too quickly. But the opposite extreme of trying to talk a serial sociopath out of rape or murder is a waste of time. While violence should be the last resort, sometimes it's better than the alternative. In Iraq you had a choice of tolerate a murdering despot, or end him.
One of the dumbest arguments about the Iraq War is "Bush lie, people died". When people use children's bumper sticker slogan in place of rational arguments, I tend to treat them accordingly. The medias and their meme is that Bush intentionally lied by listening to all the intelligence agencies in the world saying the same things: that Saddam had WMD's. And because one line in a 30 minute speech mentioned one of the many justifications for war as WMD's, that it invalidates everything else. But all that argument proves is that they're not yet ready to join the rational adult conversations on the topic.
Any media outlet that reports the fraud that "Plame was illegally and intentionally outted by the Bush administration as retaliation for Joe attacking them", is getting every fact over what happened wrong, long after they should know better. The Valerie Plame affair can be summed up: her husband (Joe Wilson) drew attention with some discredited articles, Novak found out about her in a book called "Who's Who in America", since she wasn't an active agent: no crime was committed, and why no one was prosecuted. Joe's claims showed that Saddam TRIED to secure yellowcake for his WMD program, which proved the opposite of what he thought. And Joe, Valerie and the media perpetuated the lie that they were somehow wronged, and the rubes buy in.
The Democrats were complete war Hawks before the Iraq War, trying to break their tainted image of anti-patriotic Vietnam war protestors. There are quotes from Bill Clinton, his cabinet, and most prominent Democrats from this time (Daschle, Kerry, Gore, Gephardt, Pelosi, Kennedy) all demanding immediate action on Saddam's abuses and WMD's. After the war, they changed their tune, and demanded that Bush lie, and ignore that their quotes were from 3 years before he was President.
"Muslims aren't capable of a successful democracy". People said the same thing about democracy in America or Europe before is succeeded there too.
I think the elections proved the myopia of those saying that you can't do Democracy in the Middle East. The truth is Turkey, many Asian muslim nations, and now Afghanistan and Iraq are now democracies, with some thanks belonging to the U.S. and our policies. People that said it would never succeed said the same things about Russians, Asians, Africans and others.
Some claim that we should pull out of Iraq, or we should set a date to do so. They think that President Bush should not intimidate Iran or Syria. They think the way to peace is through appeasement. This is terminal narcissism. What they fail to understand is that to sociopaths weakness is provocative: in their minds, they'd have to be foolish to NOT exploit every opportunity given. History shows that appeasement often emboldens the enemy, and often leads to more violence. They will only negotiate for peace when the alternative is worse; not before. Many people care about their self interests, not yours.
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During the mid 2000's it was popular among the dim of wit, and big of mouth, to claim that Saddam was created by America. That kind of rhetoric tends to come from the uninformed, the trolls, or both. Saddam was never "our boy" like some claim.
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First you need to understand the History of Israel and Palestine. Once you do that, you can loop back around and understand why Iraq had nothing to do with either. Yes, Arabs think it's a great injustice that they can't murder all the Jews and drive them into the sea. But they're a feudal tribalistic culture, so the problem isn't with Israel wanting to exist, it's with those that want to kill them and refuse to see anything they do as wrong.
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A common trope is that the Iraq war was about oil -- as if that's a dumb reason for a war. It isn't, because for now that fuels our civilization -- and a madman destabilizing a large percentage of the worlds supply isn't a good thing. But there's no evidence that was our intent, and after the war we proved anyone that says that as a liar or fool. We didn't take the oil, we didn't even take out our costs for freeing the Iraqi people (and we probably should have). So anyone that says it was about oil, is simplifying a complex issue down to a soundbite that just makes them look like a silly polemic.
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I’m flabbergasted that such stupidity is ever said, let alone how often I’ve heard it repeated. Even the ex-CNN director Eason Jordon made some moronic allegations that inferred as much.[1] Here’s the fact: no country in the history of the world (and wars) has ever spent as much effort, or as much money, to avoid collateral damage and harming innocents as the United States.
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