Zhukov said:
You're right, because the original plan was to completely destroy Iraq, seize the WMD, and then turn around and leave the country a smoking shattered ruin, right? That was the entire plan, right?
Please.
Uh, what? No, when we invaded to disarm Iraq we HAD to put into place a legitimate government; otherwise the sarcasm of your statement holds true. It isn't WHY we went to Iraq. We went to disarm, we stayed to rebuild, but we didn't go in the first place to grant freedom to Iraq.
Zhukov said:
Before the war everyone expected that we would rebuild the country and encourage representative government after we deposed Hussein and confiscated the WMD.
Of course, how could we be so heartless as to disarm the Iraqis and then just take off? We couldn't have, and thank God we didn't. As soon as we went in there, even opponents to the invasion had to be FOR our success in defeating the insurgency and establishing a new government.
Zhukov said:
Well we didn't find any WMD, but does that really make the final phase of the war, that would have happened regardless, a shifted justification or empty rhetoric? The change in talking points is merely a glorified way of saying, "well we didn't find WMD, which kind of surprised us, but look at all the good that came of our actions anyways."
Agreed. But the ENTIRE PROCESS is being labeled a HUGE SUCCESS, when the American government failed its people in determining our security dictated we HAD to go into Iraq; we spent 100s of billions of dollars (and counting!) and lost ~1,400 soldiers (so far) had 10s of thousands of casualties. If there weren't thought to be any WMDs, we wouldn't have gone in, and none of these lives or resources would have been lost; AND none of the liberals or conservatives who now extoll our efforts unequivocally would even be TALKING about how badly we need to liberate the poor Iraqis.
Don't get me wrong, their liberation is worth it in my opinion, but that's not what we were told. We were misled and misguided into spending billions and losing thousands of native sons and daughters.
Zhukov said:
We were right to go in, but went in for the wrong reasons? That doesn't make any sense. If we were right to go in, isn't that reason enough? Because it was right?
Coersion is coersion, even if the ends are "good". Being mislead and misguided by our government isn't justified by morally "good" BYPRODUCTS of those actions.
Zhukov said:
So the administration and the media stressed one aspect over all the others, does that make it any less right? No, it does not, as you yourself have said. So what is your problem?
If Iraq had been a free nation that had WMDs, terrorist ties, and was openly aggressive towards the U.S., would we not still have invaded? I think we would have.
If Iraq had been a repressed nation and we had 100% certainty they had no WMDs we would not have invaded.