Iraq A Stain On The America Of Old

[The T]

People need to stop and think about the casualties involved. If you're one of those people who don't care about casualties of non-Americans, then think about the casualties of Americans.

Think about the thousands of people who died on 9/11. Then think about the thousands more who were sent to their demise.

Please waste your beautiful mind on something like that.

I think about it. I think about it a lot. I voted for the continuation of the war when I elected Bush for his second Term when I first became eligible to vote. I live with that decision.

My, how very dramatic.

Twit.

A California Girl calling me a twit. That is actually a VERY piercing insult all things considered.

And also... dramatic? Wow, you don't care about dead soldiers? They fulfilled their only use in life for you already I guess.

Never mind that they're human beings and Americans who have had families and lives and interests in life with dreams and goals that extended beyond their desire to protect America.

Yes, how 'dramatic' when you put it that way.

My, how very dramatic. Thank you Barbara Bush. "Why should we hear about body bags and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So why would I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? And watch him suffer?"



Twit.

Single-handedly mind you re-elected Bush...

Yes, because that's what I said(it's not, but it was the intent in my heart).

Then you need to state such thus we won't have the need for continuing discourse.

 

[Cowman]

My, how very dramatic.

Twit.

A California Girl calling me a twit. That is actually a VERY piercing insult all things considered.

And also... dramatic? Wow, you don't care about dead soldiers? They fulfilled their only use in life for you already I guess.

Never mind that they're human beings and Americans who have had families and lives and interests in life with dreams and goals that extended beyond their desire to protect America.

Yes, how 'dramatic' when you put it that way.

Single-handedly mind you re-elected Bush...

Yes, because that's what I said(it's not, but it was the intent in my heart).

Then you need to state such thus we won't have the need for continuing discourse.

 

[hortysir]

Saddam tortured and murdered MANY of his own people....have you always lived under a rock??? When our military went into Iraq they found terrorists training camps, which of course had been abandoned once we got there. They know Al Quada trained there, with Saddams blessings. Don't be stupid or do you just like to side with terrorists?

Are you smoking Mexican sinsemilla?
.

No...i'm really not having that much fun today...Lol!
My son has been deployed to Iraq 3 times...he knows what he saw.

My step-son was 3/4 Marines - part of the first push into Iraq.
The training camps were one of the very first things they came across. Abandoned of course.

 

[Navy1960]

"I'm often amazed when I see debates on this subject at the sheer number of people of what people believe when it comes to Iraq. Here's the point Iraq at the time when the War was started the nation was led to believe that there was a threat from this nation, in that they had and flaunted many UN sanctions in regards to WMD's. Which has since been found to be factually untrue."

Saddam himself was a terrorist who had ordered, financed, or otherwise facilitated innumerable terrorist attacks against the US and/or her citizens or allies. He had attempted to have a US president killed. He was obviously a threat with or without WMDs. He was certainally a valid target in any war on terror.
Saddam did in fact violate the terms of the Gulf War ceasefire routinely and-after almost 10yrs of "one more chances"- there was not the slightest reason to believe he ever would honor it. By treaty it was his responibiltty to get rid of his WMD and to allow inspectors to verify their removal. Never happened. Ceasefire violated.

"If this was a pressing issue then the US would have not only done something about it during the Reagan Administration they would have done something through all the presidents that followed."

You are forgetting that this was being handled by the UN; not the US.

The ONLY Americans that have had a stake in the Iraq war are the people that have had to make the sacrifice to fight it , their families, and those seeking to profit dfrom it, other than that the vast majority of Amiericans have had not stake in the Iraq War.

When the Country is at war ALL Americans have duties related to it even if only to not aid or comfort the enemy. And no lack of agreement that a war is necessary relieves you of your duties as citizen.

The Iraqi no-fly zones were a set of two separate no-fly zones (NFZs), and were proclaimed by the United States, United Kingdom and France after the Gulf War of 1991 to protect the Kurdish people in northern Iraq and Shiite Muslims in the south. Iraqi aircraft were forbidden from flying inside the zones. The policy was enforced by U.S., UK and French aircraft patrols until France withdrew in 1998. While the enforcing powers had cited United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 as authorizing the operations, the resolution contains no explicit authorization. The Secretary-General of the UN at the time the resolution was passed, Boutros Boutros-Ghali called the no-fly zones "illegal" in a later interview with John Pilger.
Iraqi no-fly zones - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The United States launched a second missile strike against Iraq's southern air defenses tonight, just hours after President Clinton vowed that he would make President Saddam Hussein ''pay a price'' for sending his troops into the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq.

Three Navy ships and a submarine in the Persian Gulf launched 17 cruise missiles less than a day after the first American attack, in which 27 cruise missiles were fired against Iraqi military targets.
RAID ON IRAQ - THE OVERVIEW - U.S. Launches Further Strike Against Iraq After Clinton Vows He Will Extract 'Price' - NYTimes.com

In 2003, the governments of the US, Britain, and Spain proposed another resolution on Iraq, which they called the "eighteenth resolution" and others called the "second resolution." This proposed resolution was subsequently withdrawn when it became clear that several permanent members of the Council would cast no votes on any new resolution, thereby vetoing it. [1] Had that occurred, it would have become even more difficult for those wishing to invade Iraq to argue that the Council had authorized the subsequent invasion. Regardless of the threatened or likely vetoes, it seems that the coalition at no time was assured any more than four affirmative votes in the Council—the US, Britain, Spain, and Bulgaria—well short of the requirement for nine affirmative votes.[2]

On September 16, 2004 Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, speaking on the invasion, said, "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN Charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal."[


Resolution 687 was a UN Cease Fire as was the conditions contained within it. The United States did not have authorization under Resoultion 687 to invade Iraq. So that leaves the Iraq War Resolution, which authorized the use of Military force which cited among other things the Resolution 687 as well as the removal of Saddam Hussein and replacing him with a democratic regime ( i.e. regime change). Further it cited that members of Al Queda were in Iraq as well as Iraq being a state sponser of terrorism. Not to metion the following line;

Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, and programs to develop such weapons, posed a "threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region."

So to your claim that because Saddam was a terrorist who had financed, and proveded means for attacks on the U.S. Saddam had been held in check since the end of the Gulf War and and his Military was decimated in that war in which it never recovered. He had not the means, nor the ability to attack the U.S. other than to take pot shots at U.S. and other nations aircraft enforcing the no-fly zone. Further, as I have shown you we have spent years prior to 2003 in that region including the US Navy on a pretty regular basis enforcing the no fly zone as well as crusie missile attacks. If this were just handled by the U.N. then there are two issues here, one is we did not have authorization by the U.N. on our own to compel Iraq to come into compliance with Res. 687 which we clearly did, and two is we have had a long history in that region of taking action on our own with or without the U.N.

Perhaps you may want to read the Iraq Survey Groups Report on the matter, which was the team tasked with finding WMD's after the invasion.

On 30 September 2004, the ISG released the Duelfer Report, its final report on Iraq's purported WMD programs. Among its conclusions were:
Saddam Hussein controlled all of the regime’s strategic decision making.
Hussein's primary goal from 1991 to 2003 was to have UN sanctions lifted, while maintaining the security of the regime.
The introduction of the Oil-for-food program (OFF) in late 1996 was a key turning point for the regime.
By 2000-2001, Saddam had managed to mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine their international support.
Iran was Iraq's pre-eminent motivator.
The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) judged that events in the 1980s and early 1990s shaped Saddam’s belief in the value of WMD.
Saddam ended his nuclear program in 1991. ISG found no evidence of concerted efforts to restart the program, and Iraq’s ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively decayed after 1991.
Iraq destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile in 1991, and only a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions were discovered by the ISG.
Saddam's regime abandoned its biological weapons program and its ambition to obtain advanced biological weapons in 1995. While it could have re-established an elementary BW program within weeks, ISG discovered no indications it was pursuing such a course.
Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability, which was essentially destroyed in 1991, after sanctions were removed and Iraq’s economy stabilized. Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability—in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic risks—but he intended to focus on ballistic missile and tactical chemical warfare (CW) capabilities.

Given the findings of the ISG and many others, the reason(s) for invading Iraq were less than proper.

On the last point, traditionally our nation has required a sacrifice from it's citizens when it commits this nation to war. Among those would be, a draft of it's citizens, taxes to pay for the war, war bonds, rationing, etc. This war however saw many dedicated young people go an serve this nation with honor many of them never to return. The sacrifice they made their families made and continue to make is the ONLY sacrifice that Americans have had to bear for this war. Why?. it's pretty simple, during the Iraq War, we saw the advent of not higher taxes to pay for the war but tax cuts for all Americans not once but twice. We never saw the introduction of war bonds to pay for this war, or the introduction of a draft. Instead we have young men and women on deployment 4 and 5 times in combat which would have been unheard of except for WW2. You saif that ALL Americans have a duty in it, well I agree with you, however this war was not the war in which ALL Americans had such a duty, rather most of them had NOTHING to do with it other than to express an opinion. You mentioned aid and comfort to the enemy, I will go you one better than that. To fail to exercise your rights hard won under the constitution paid for by the blood of many that have come before you, gives your enemy the victory they seek. Further, to fail to support your nation in times of war and those who have to fight the wars for you and at the same time enjoy the benefits they die for gives aid and comfort to your enemies. Bottom line is this, if you or anyone else supports cutting taxes, or not supporting those who fight the wars for this nation, or making a sacrifice then stop advocating for sending others to fight your wars for you.