Reasons For Iraq

[dairygirl4u2c]

Focus more on the small amount of, weaker points for, evidence for WMD.
Point out that the only ties between iraq and al quada were a few incidents that happened in the mid 90s.
Err then not on the side of preemptive war, but on classic conservatism that minds its own business. So, no war.

[dairygirl4u2c]

My point is to show that many conservatives would probably have followed whatever it is the president said, instead of following their own reasoning.
Of course it's hard to demonstrate this, given that people don't always answer honestly, and the president obscured point number two about the connection between iraq and al quada. So it's hard to say what would have been.

[kujo]

At the outset of this "experiment" in Iraq, I was all about it-- I felt that it was our moral imperitive to spread democracy to the Middle East. Further, I felt that setting up an outpost and ally in the region would be advantageous for us diplomatically and militarily. I felt that Saddam Hussein was undoubtedly highly instrumental in the attacks on 9/11. And, finally, to be honest, I felt no moral qualms with taking control of the Iraqi oil fields away from a regime that was anti-America and anti-West and into the hands of the world community.

5 years later, my views have changed.

Simply put, what we've done in Iraq was a mistake. Despite our best intentions, the destabilization of the country has created chaos in the Middle East. We've created an environment where 2 sects of Islam are conducting a holy war against each other. I have long-felt that with each Iraqi that is killed by our troops, 2 terrorists are created. We are creating a breeding ground for the sort of hatred of America that directly-lead to the attacks on 9/11 and other attacks which have thankfully been averted (i.e.- the Fort Dix plot, the recent JFK plot, etc.). Meanwhile, while our attention (and troops) have been focused on Iraq, our successes in Afghanistan are in grave danger, as the Taliban is rising again to power in certain regions of the country. Worse still, we've become so bogged down by an unwinnable war, that we are unable to do REAL things to stop REAL threats and moral injustices-- Iran, North Korea, genocide Sudan, the lack of response to Hurricane Katrina, etc. And perhaps the worst by-product of Bush's war is the downfall of American moral integrity in the world. Look around: what do people think of our country? I know it's not of utmost importance to be "liked" by the world, but you would have to concede that the beauty of our country is that, historically, we've been held in high moral regard by the world community. Even when we've been wrong, other countries still [i]trusted the United States of America.[/i] Sadly, that is not the way we are viewed now. And, consequently, a whole generation of people is going to have to pass before that feeling will significantly-decrease in the public psyche.

Again, I still feel that we went into the WRONG place for the RIGHT reasons. And, looking forward, we need to decide what our country should be. The best thing that Reagan did is restore the dignity and pride in America. With all of this talk by the various Republican candidates of about being "the next Ronald Reagan," I think it we need to work diligently to win back the world, not from the Islamofascists, but from the grey-area where people KNOW that the "terrorists" are wrong, but are unsure of whether America is.

[goldenchild17]

When we attacked I fully supported it. I supported it for the first few years. After my conversion and a bit better understanding the concept of just war I have to say that I no longer feel any need to support it. I think it is a good thing to help helpless citizens from a dictator, but I'm not convinced that even if we did a relatively good job at that (which is debateable) that it would be a good war. So I can't really say that I support it any more. I support war for good reasons. I'm not convinced this war is justifiable though, at least not anymore.

Edited June 4, 2007 by goldenchild17

[N/A Gone]

Dairy,

what is your source of intel that makes you assume you know 40% of the story behind the situation in Iraq or the motivation for the war?

[Socrates]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1287947' date='Jun 4 2007, 10:25 AM']My point is to show that many conservatives would probably have followed whatever it is the president said, instead of following their own reasoning.
Of course it's hard to demonstrate this, given that people don't always answer honestly, and the president obscured point number two about the connection between iraq and al quada. So it's hard to say what would have been.[/quote]
I'm not totally sure the Iraq War was necessary in retrospect, but I strongly believe we have a duty now to bring it to a conclusion and stabilize the area, lest more trouble arise in the chaos. After the invasion, the U.S. should have been more firm and decisive in establishing control over the area.

However, your words here show you know next to nothing about conservatives.
Some of the most vehement opponents of the war I have seen have been hardline "paleo-conservatives" such as Pat Buchanan, Joe Sobran, and others of similar ilk. They are also harsh critics of the Bush administration in general.

Your poll conveniently left out the option for "conservatives who never supported the war in the first place."

So claiming that conservatives almost by definition support whatever Pres. Bush does is a load of malarky. I know plenty of conservatives unhappy with Bush for various reasons.

While I can't claim to know all the details about what was known and not with "weapons of mass destruction," let's not forget that a number of liberal Dems, including Sens. Kerry and Clinton, initially agreed with Bush in going to war. (Most have turned peacenik out of political opportunism.)

I've seen conservatives take strong sides both for and against the war for various reasons - but if your point here is to "prove" how conservatives are all a bunch of mind-numbed sheep incapable of thinking for themselves (unlike those wonderful free-thinking liberal folk), as usual you are dead wrong.

[RezaMikhaeil]

For once, socrates and I agree... the poll was severely bias and misleading.

[Mercy me]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1287947' date='Jun 4 2007, 11:25 AM']My point is to show that many conservatives would probably have followed whatever it is the president said, instead of following their own reasoning.
Of course it's hard to demonstrate this, given that people don't always answer honestly, and the president obscured point number two about the connection between iraq and al quada. So it's hard to say what would have been.[/quote]

Oh yes conservatives just blindly follow. Not quite.

This was my reasonning for support of the war. The purpose of the federal government is to provide for the the common defense. Al Qaida had been at was with us for at least 15 years but no one here seemed to know it until 2001 because Americans are ignorant of world events. (I know that this is a sweeping generality but even the evening news broadcasts no longer report foreign news except where it directly impacts the US. It is not reported.)

Saddam Hussein had WMDs. He had proven that he had them by slaughtering the Kurds and the Iranians. He invaded a neighboring country. He tortured and or killed 100s of thousands of Iraqis.
He constantly harassed the UN inspectors who were were investigating the WMDs before he finally threw them out of the country. He was an enemy of the US who routinely open fire on the UN forces enforcing the cease fire from the Gulf War. Like Al Qaida he was Sunni. And we just could not risk Saddam's chemical weapons

[N/A Gone]

[quote name='Mercy me' post='1288501' date='Jun 5 2007, 12:27 AM']Oh yes conservatives just blindly follow. Not quite.[/quote]


Depends on what you define as conservative. I consider conservatives to think of the gov't as "guard our border, bring me my mail, and stay the deuce out of my life" thats how I like it...

[dairygirl4u2c]

i'm sure many who say they were not sheep really were, if the president focused more on what i said in the initial post.
notice i said many conservatives, not all. i'm only bashing the ones who are sheep in how they made their decision.
i could do the same thing for many liberals. perhaps if the war was coched in terms of civil rights violations to the iraqi people, they many would have followed blindly too.
i bash conservatives here bc this is a conservative board. perhaps there's not so many conservatives here on that point, so i should have bashed liberals. my bias is exposed...


***
what is your source of intel that makes you assume you know 40% of the story behind the situation in Iraq or the motivation for the war?

for the iraq connection, look at richard clark. this is the most important point bc it shows taking advantage of 911. perhaps wise politically in the end, but deceptive.
for the weopons of mass destruction, look at how GB said he'd get NATO to verify weopons before we attack to coax congress to authorize the war. and look at all the other nations who pose a threat to the US.
for freeing the iraqi people, look at all the other repressed people in the world.
i don't know the full motives, and i'm not the one who says oil though i don't rule it out as part of a picture, but the motives were definitely tainted.

Edited June 5, 2007 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

read the section called 911 commission and read the sources that the wiki article gets its material from.
[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Clarke"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Clarke[/url]

irregardless of clark, also look at GB state of the unioin addresses and other speeches and you'll see him twisting the connection between iraq and al quada. then when the actual evidence is looked at, it's lacking anything substantial since the mid 90s.

Edited June 5, 2007 by dairygirl4u2c

[Akalyte]

Answer. It was either a war in Iraq or on our own soil. Which would you prefer more?

[Budge]

Google Plan for an American Century...

and read the paper Rebuilding America's Defenses.

The Iraq war was planned way before 9-11.

[N/A Gone]

[quote]“We face real threats in the world. Don’t give me this ‘blood for oil’ thing. If I was trading blood for oil I would’ve already seized Iraq’s oil fields and let the rest of the country go to hell. And don’t give me this ‘Bush Lied People Died’ carp either. If I was the liar you morons take me for, I could’ve easily had chemical weapons planted in Iraq so they could be ‘discovered.’

“Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty. Let me remind you that the rest of the world thought Saddam had the goods, same as me. Let me also remind you that regime change in Iraq was official US policy before I came into office. Some guy named ‘Clinton’ established that policy. Bet you didn’t know that, did you?

“You idiots need to understand that we face a unique enemy. Back during the cold war, there were two major competing political and economic models squaring off. We won that war, but we did so because fundamentally, the Communists wanted to survive, just as we do. We were simply able to outspend and out-tech them.

“That’s not the case this time. The soldiers of our new enemy don’t care if they survive. In fact, they w ant to die. That’d be fine, as long as they weren’t also committed to taking as many of you with them as they can. But they are. They want to kill you. And the b*stards are all over the globe.

“You should be grateful that they haven’t gotten any more of us here in the United States since September 11. But you’re not. That’s because you’ve got no idea how hard a small number of intelligence, military, law enforcement and homeland security people have worked to make sure of that.

“When this whole mess started, I warned you that this would be a long and difficult fight. I’m disappointed how many of you people think a long and difficult fight amounts to a single season of ‘Survivor’. Instead, you’ve grown impatient. You’re incapable of seeing things through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do. You think that wars should last a few months, a few years, tops. Making matters worse, you actively support those who help the enemy.[/quote]

[dairygirl4u2c]

i'm not opposed to us fighting iraq given its weopons and violations. i am only opposed to it under false pretenses. ie, the richard clark stuff and connection between iraq and al queada.

what's interesting is that i've never seen anyone who tries to defend the invasion admit, that given the evidence, it does look like he scewed the iraq and al quida connection. i don't see how you could dispute that. and i've never seen anyone reasonably do it either. the only thing i've seen is people say they didn't think there was a connection and not a protrayal of one either.
it's okay to cast doubt on richard clark, and say we might be taking what was said at the state of the union etc too far, but admit what it appears to be.

[dairygirl4u2c]

i decided to get some stuff i posted here in the past, just to leave less doubt. just in case any conservatives are willing to admit what appears to have happened...

[quote]LIE #4: "[The CIA possesses]solid reporting of senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade." -- CIA Director George Tenet in a written statement released Oct. 7, 2002 and echoed in that evening's speech by President Bush.

FACT: Intelligence agencies knew of tentative contacts between Saddam and al-Qaeda in the early '90s, but found no proof of a continuing relationship. In other words, by tweaking language, Tenet and Bush spun the intelligence180 degrees to say exactly the opposite of what it suggested.

[url="http://www.alternet.org/story/16274/"]http://www.alternet.org/story/16274/[/url][/quote]

state of union 2002. though i'm sure there are more speeches.
[quote]And that is the source of our urgent concern about Saddam Hussein's links to international terrorist groups. Over the years, Iraq has provided safe haven to terrorists such as Abu Nidal, whose terror organization carried out more than ninety terrorist attacks in twenty countries that killed or injured nearly 900 people, including 12 Americans. Iraq has also provided safe haven to Abu Abbas, who was responsible for seizing the Achille Lauro and killing an American passenger. And we know that Iraq is continuing to finance terror, and gives assistance to groups that use terrorism to undermine Middle East peace.

We know that Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network share a common enemy -- the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al-Qaida have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al-Qaida leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq.
.........
Some have argued that confronting the threat from Iraq could detract from the war against terror. To the contrary, confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror. When I spoke to the Congress more than a year ago, I said that those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves. Saddam Hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror, the instruments of mass death and destruction. And he cannot be trusted. The risk is simply too great that he will use them, or provide them to a terror network.


[url="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/07/...ain524627.shtml"]http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/07/...ain524627.shtml[/url][/quote]


here's another clark fellow ironically. better reputation, a general.
[quote]CLARK: "There was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001, starting immediately after 9/11, to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein."

RUSSERT: "By who? Who did that?"

CLARK: "Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.' I said, 'But--I'm willing to say it, but what's your evidence?' And I never got any evidence."
[url="http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1842"]http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1842[/url]

CBS Evening News story that aired on September 4, 2002. As correspondent David Martin reported: "Barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, the secretary of defense was telling his aides to start thinking about striking Iraq, even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks." According to CBS, a Pentagon aide's notes from that day quote Rumsfeld asking for the "best info fast" to "judge whether good enough to hit SH at the same time, not only UBL." (The initials SH and UBL stand for Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.) The notes then quote Rumsfeld as demanding, ominously, that the administration's response "go massive...sweep it all up, things related and not."[/quote]

Edited June 5, 2007 by dairygirl4u2c

[Mercy me]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1288888' date='Jun 5 2007, 06:57 PM']i'm not opposed to us fighting iraq given its weopons and violations. i am only opposed to it under false pretenses. ie, the richard clark stuff and connection between iraq and al queada.

what's interesting is that i've never seen anyone who tries to defend the invasion admit, that given the evidence, it does look like he scewed the iraq and al quida connection. i don't see how you could dispute that. and i've never seen anyone reasonably do it either. the only thing i've seen is people say they didn't think there was a connection and not a protrayal of one either.
it's okay to cast doubt on richard clark, and say we might be taking what was said at the state of the union etc too far, but admit what it appears to be.[/quote]

I do not recall the President ever saying that Iraq was behind the attack on the World Trade Center. I could be wrong but it is irrelevent to my input because I never thought that Saddam had anything to do with the events of that day.

The facts to me are as follow:

Saddam had chemical weapons.
Saddam proved that he had chemical weapons.
Saddam invaded a peaceful neighbor without provokation.
Saddam refused to comply with the mandates of the cease fire following the Gulf War.
Saddam repeatedly fired on patrols enforcing the cease fire.
Saddam threw the UN inspectors charged with certifying that he had no chemical and biological weapons out of the country.
Saddam was an enemy of this country.

The bottom line is this: [b]There is no proof that Saddam Hussein did not have WMDs[/b] Particularly since some have been found in Iraq.

Do I believe that he would have provided chemical weapons to an organization such as Al Qaida? Yes, I do.

[RezaMikhaeil]

[quote name='Akalyte' post='1288854' date='Jun 5 2007, 03:58 PM']Answer. It was either a war in Iraq or on our own soil. Which would you prefer more?[/quote]

This is a humorous response, because accordingly if that's your philosophy, we should pre-emptively invade every nation that poses the same or greater threat to our nation, except that we don't have the resources for that, do we? Iraq is one issue, if we invaded Iran, it would be worse, and even more worse with North Korea, etc.

Invading Iraq, absorbed resources that should have been used conservatively on suppressing nations that actually pose a threat, like North Korea.

Reza

[Proud2BCatholic139]

Plain and simple, as Blessed Mother revealed to Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta that World War II and Communisim in Russia would have been avoided if the world pray the Rosary everyday.

I see the same scenerio here.

[Proud2BCatholic139]

May I add, that if Blessed Mother's needs and requests are not met, (Fatima Message) There will be even greater wars then of the past.