Does anyone care we won the war in IRAQ?

[Jarhead]

I don't consider it spam. Can you dispute anything I wrote? Do you know what a Pyrrhic victory is?

My 'spam' is a counterpoint to your absurd conclusion that something beneficial to our nation is the result of our armed forces attacking and occupying a sovereign nation, and action taken by choice not need.

You agree with the decision, apparently. Do you also agree we should invade and occupy North Korea? If not, why not?

I remember what happened to Pueblo and her crew. I was on active duty on a DD in the Pacific when that happened. That was provocation, that was an act of war and many of us thought at the time we should have declared war. Nothing Iraq did to us was as provocative, nothing Iraq did was an overt act of war.

4,500 dead. I can walk along to Vietnam Memorial in DC and read the names of those I went to school with & some I served with - one from my boot camp company. 4,500 maybe only a number to you, I see faces.

Is North Korea in breach of a treaty initiated by the US?

Nope. At least not to my knowledge. My point, which I believe is obvious, is that NK has WMD's, we only suspected Iraq had and was building WMD's. Breach of a treaty is not justification for war.

Well....lets complete that statement before we say it is not justification of a war.....

A country invades a sovereign nation, our ally, unprovoked and strictly for financial and territotrial gain.
The US, as a commitment to our allies, retaliates and in a matter of hours has the invading nation retreating and surrendering.
Faced with a decision to take control of the invading nation (as was our right following surrender) or give the nation back to its leader with provisions, the US chose the latter...with the provsiion being...and I paraphrase.....

'we will leave you with your leadership in tact but in return we want you to render access to UN inspectiuon teams to review all activities that may be deemed as preperatory to future aggresive actions againt our allies, your neighbors. We ask of this so we can be rest assured that you never invade another ally of the US unprovoked'

The breach of treaty was the sole reason for the treaty.

Why have a treaty iof there are no negative ramifications for beiung in breach of the treaty?

What kind of message would that send to others we have a trreaty with?

And bear in mind...it is not as if we did not warn them over and over again that we will use force if they do not comply with the treaty.

Heck....we gave them the day, time and location of our first military action....weeks in advance!

 

[Wry Catcher]

Is North Korea in breach of a treaty initiated by the US?

Nope. At least not to my knowledge. My point, which I believe is obvious, is that NK has WMD's, we only suspected Iraq had and was building WMD's. Breach of a treaty is not justification for war.

Well....lets complete that statement before we say it is not justification of a war.....

A country invades a sovereign nation, our ally, unprovoked and strictly for financial and territotrial gain.
The US, as a commitment to our allies, retaliates and in a matter of hours has the invading nation retreating and surrendering.
Faced with a decision to take control of the invading nation (as was our right following surrender) or give the nation back to its leader with provisions, the US chose the latter...with the provsiion being...and I paraphrase.....

'we will leave you with your leadership in tact but in return we want you to render access to UN inspectiuon teams to review all activities that may be deemed as preperatory to future aggresive actions againt our allies, your neighbors. We ask of this so we can be rest assured that you never invade another ally of the US unprovoked'

The breach of treaty was the sole reason for the treaty.

Why have a treaty iof there are no negative ramifications for beiung in breach of the treaty?

What kind of message would that send to others we have a trreaty with?

And bear in mind...it is not as if we did not warn them over and over again that we will use force if they do not comply with the treaty.

Heck....we gave them the day, time and location of our first military action....weeks in advance!

All factually true.

Leadership requires a vision and the ability to make hard choices based on a review of all available data and most critically, to evaluate possible outcomes: expected, hoped for and worse case. What we had under the Bush Administration was a failure of leadership, in my opinion.

4,500 dead, ten times that number wounded, and a trillion dollars and counting spent on a war of choice. Facts too, and why we need to very careful on who we chose to lead us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_War#Jus_ad_bellum

 

[Dr.Drock]

Kuwait was not our ally, a border issue between Iraq and Kuwait was not something we should've meddled in.

 

[Jarhead]

Nope. At least not to my knowledge. My point, which I believe is obvious, is that NK has WMD's, we only suspected Iraq had and was building WMD's. Breach of a treaty is not justification for war.

Well....lets complete that statement before we say it is not justification of a war.....

A country invades a sovereign nation, our ally, unprovoked and strictly for financial and territotrial gain.
The US, as a commitment to our allies, retaliates and in a matter of hours has the invading nation retreating and surrendering.
Faced with a decision to take control of the invading nation (as was our right following surrender) or give the nation back to its leader with provisions, the US chose the latter...with the provsiion being...and I paraphrase.....

'we will leave you with your leadership in tact but in return we want you to render access to UN inspectiuon teams to review all activities that may be deemed as preperatory to future aggresive actions againt our allies, your neighbors. We ask of this so we can be rest assured that you never invade another ally of the US unprovoked'

The breach of treaty was the sole reason for the treaty.

Why have a treaty iof there are no negative ramifications for beiung in breach of the treaty?

What kind of message would that send to others we have a trreaty with?

And bear in mind...it is not as if we did not warn them over and over again that we will use force if they do not comply with the treaty.

Heck....we gave them the day, time and location of our first military action....weeks in advance!

All factually true.

Leadership requires a vision and the ability to make hard choices based on a review of all available data and most critically, to evaluate possible outcomes: expected, hoped for and worse case. What we had under the Bush Administration was a failure of leadership, in my opinion.

4,500 dead, ten times that number wounded, and a trillion dollars and counting spent on a war of choice. Facts too, and why we need to very careful on who we chose to lead us.

Just War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I dont disagree with you. One reason I was so surpirsed when people said that Obama's lack of leadership experience is a non entity. I said many timnes...even oin here...."didnt we learn our lesson with Bush".....you know, to blindly elect someone based on words and not based on experience......

However, whereas the buck stops with the President...and Bush certainly took the heat without any resistance at all (in ohter words, he did not pass the buck to his subordinates), the President...in all cases over the years but a few, is forced to count on his military leaders as it pertains to strategy, worst case scenarios and best case scenarios....as the president, with the exception of a few, usually lacks any type of true military leadership and strategy experience.

Now, that being said, the initial invasion....military aggression if I may, was apporved by Bush, but likely not designed by Bush....and it was approved based on the advice of his military leaders.

So whereas I understand why so many are agaiunst the military action itself...I get a bit unhinged when they refer to bush as a war criminal..and one who wanted to go to war...and one who tried to play army at the expense of 5000 men and women...and one who just wanted to be a war hero...and so on and so on.....

It is naive to make this just a "Bush" issue.

it was the serious breach of the treaty that prompted the war.......It was congress who approved the war..........we gave the opponent ample time to prepare for the war...or to live up to the terms of the treaty....it was the military leaders who bothced the war...and it was the Presdinet who rightfully took the heat.

And from what I see...it does not seem that our current CiC likes to take the heat on anything...a true siogn of a non-leader.....but I digress....

If one wants to debate the war, they need to take their party golasses off.

They seem to lose sight of the fact that their facts are only undeniable facts when they first apply an assumption...and it seems the assumption of choice was that Bush wanted a reason to go to war.....

And sure....with that assumption, all of the facts appear to be undeniable......

But that assumption is not necessarily the truth.

 

[Jarhead]

Kuwait was not our ally, a border issue between Iraq and Kuwait was not something we should've meddled in.

They may not have been an Ally by treaty, but they were a sovereign nation who was invaded. No, we are not the world police, but we are not barbarians either. We saw a nation hel bent on acuqiring territory at the expnse of innocent people....and we needed to put a stop to it.

SO I assume your beef is with the Gulf war?

 

[NYcarbineer]

We no longer have military bases in Saudi Arabia

It is un known how many bases we closed in Kuwait, you can Google it. I think there was maybe 20-30 we no longer fund/operate

Funding for the UN has went way down

Saddam and his intentions are no longer a concern. The weapons he had for the most part (according to UN and Iraq documents) have no been found. Saddam will never use them
many Al Qaeda soldiers are dead as well as some of there hi ranking leader ship (who do you think we were fighting after 5/2003, the Iraqis?)

Let me ask you something.

IF Saddam had WMD's, why did we never find the thousands of personnel that would have been required to develop, build, operate, and maintain multiple WMD programs?

The actual number of scientist that were involved in that program are un-known Saddam had ordered the killing of any that talked
You can goggle to get started Saddam given two weeks to name scientist
but you know that

A scientist does not constitute a working WMD program or a working WMD weapons system.

For the WMD's to have existed, you would have had to have had thousands of personnel involved.

Nobody ever found those people, therefore, no such programs/systems could have existed.

 

[JRK]

No one can do a better job of spinning these subjects into oblivion than these Libs have with these threads about Iraq

What does Korea have to do with Iraq?
We suspected nothing of Iraq
Iraq admitted they had these wepons, no-one else did

How do we get so far off he truth with this stuff?

Of the declaration of weapons made by Iraq under UN resolution 1441, he said: ... Mr Blix said the declaration had failed to account for 6500 chemical warfare ... for stocks of precursor chemicals used to make VX nerve gas. ...
Blix: weapons and anthrax still unaccounted for - Telegraph

 

[Dr.Drock]

Kuwait was not our ally, a border issue between Iraq and Kuwait was not something we should've meddled in.

They may not have been an Ally by treaty, but they were a sovereign nation who was invaded. No, we are not the world police, but we are not barbarians either. We saw a nation hel bent on acuqiring territory at the expnse of innocent people....and we needed to put a stop to it.

SO I assume your beef is with the Gulf war?

That stuff still goes on, our gov't takes Israel side in their border issue but we aren't invading Palestine.

Yes i didn't like the Gulf War, as well as the more recent War in Iraq.

With the type of leadership they elect in Iraq, like the current PM with hezbollah and Iranian gov't ties for example, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if our gov't feels we "have" to have ANOTHER war in Iraq in the next 2 decades.

 

[JRK]

Yea the leadership in Iraq has not killed 1 million iraqis yet
There just hexbollah terriable huh?
I mean no dis respect, but to define spin, there it is

Calling the man who replaces the man who murdered 1 million of his own people a potential problem

 

[Dr.Drock]

No one can do a better job of spinning these subjects into oblivion than these Libs have with these threads about Iraq

What does Korea have to do with Iraq?
We suspected nothing of Iraq
Iraq admitted they had these wepons, no-one else did

How do we get so far off he truth with this stuff?

Of the declaration of weapons made by Iraq under UN resolution 1441, he said: ... Mr Blix said the declaration had failed to account for 6500 chemical warfare ... for stocks of precursor chemicals used to make VX nerve gas. ...
Blix: weapons and anthrax still unaccounted for - Telegraph

Korea has to do with Iraq because it's the same situation but worse. They're an enemy, a stronger one, and they HAVE WMD's. So by using the same logic we should be invading North Korea and those who favored the War in Iraq should be calling for war with North Korea.

However we're close allies with China, so we'll never be at war with their close ally North Korea.

And in my opinion, weapons being unaccounted for isn't a good enough reason to invade and occupy. War has become FAR too casual a thing for this gov't.

 

[Dr.Drock]

Yea the leadership in Iraq has not killed 1 million iraqis yet
There just hexbollah terriable huh?
I mean no dis respect, but to define spin, there it is

Calling the man who replaces the man who murdered 1 million of his own people a potential problem

I didn't say he was just as bad, that's your own straw man argument.

He has hezbollah ties and ties to Iranian gov't, look it up yourself. That's where he ran when Saddam kicked him out, they were his safe house.

So you're spinning on a straw man argument, that's not my fault.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Well....lets complete that statement before we say it is not justification of a war.....

A country invades a sovereign nation, our ally, unprovoked and strictly for financial and territotrial gain.
The US, as a commitment to our allies, retaliates and in a matter of hours has the invading nation retreating and surrendering.
Faced with a decision to take control of the invading nation (as was our right following surrender) or give the nation back to its leader with provisions, the US chose the latter...with the provsiion being...and I paraphrase.....

'we will leave you with your leadership in tact but in return we want you to render access to UN inspectiuon teams to review all activities that may be deemed as preperatory to future aggresive actions againt our allies, your neighbors. We ask of this so we can be rest assured that you never invade another ally of the US unprovoked'

The breach of treaty was the sole reason for the treaty.

Why have a treaty iof there are no negative ramifications for beiung in breach of the treaty?

What kind of message would that send to others we have a trreaty with?

And bear in mind...it is not as if we did not warn them over and over again that we will use force if they do not comply with the treaty.

Heck....we gave them the day, time and location of our first military action....weeks in advance!

All factually true.

Leadership requires a vision and the ability to make hard choices based on a review of all available data and most critically, to evaluate possible outcomes: expected, hoped for and worse case. What we had under the Bush Administration was a failure of leadership, in my opinion.

4,500 dead, ten times that number wounded, and a trillion dollars and counting spent on a war of choice. Facts too, and why we need to very careful on who we chose to lead us.

Just War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I dont disagree with you. One reason I was so surpirsed when people said that Obama's lack of leadership experience is a non entity. I said many timnes...even oin here...."didnt we learn our lesson with Bush".....you know, to blindly elect someone based on words and not based on experience......

However, whereas the buck stops with the President...and Bush certainly took the heat without any resistance at all (in ohter words, he did not pass the buck to his subordinates), the President...in all cases over the years but a few, is forced to count on his military leaders as it pertains to strategy, worst case scenarios and best case scenarios....as the president, with the exception of a few, usually lacks any type of true military leadership and strategy experience.

Now, that being said, the initial invasion....military aggression if I may, was apporved by Bush, but likely not designed by Bush....and it was approved based on the advice of his military leaders.

So whereas I understand why so many are agaiunst the military action itself...I get a bit unhinged when they refer to bush as a war criminal..and one who wanted to go to war...and one who tried to play army at the expense of 5000 men and women...and one who just wanted to be a war hero...and so on and so on.....

It is naive to make this just a "Bush" issue.

it was the serious breach of the treaty that prompted the war.......It was congress who approved the war..........we gave the opponent ample time to prepare for the war...or to live up to the terms of the treaty....it was the military leaders who bothced the war...and it was the Presdinet who rightfully took the heat.

And from what I see...it does not seem that our current CiC likes to take the heat on anything...a true siogn of a non-leader.....but I digress....

If one wants to debate the war, they need to take their party golasses off.

They seem to lose sight of the fact that their facts are only undeniable facts when they first apply an assumption...and it seems the assumption of choice was that Bush wanted a reason to go to war.....

And sure....with that assumption, all of the facts appear to be undeniable......

But that assumption is not necessarily the truth.

The buck does stop at the oval, that is not in dispute. The Congress acted in self-interest, that is rarely in dispute (the best way to determine a non leader is to watch the decision making process. The worst are those who silently ask this question first, "how will this effect me").

Reading the historical records of the Project for a New American Century leads me to believe the invasion of Iraa was a goal for the neoconservatives, many of whom were members of GWB's Administration and the treaty violation was an excuse not a reason to invade Iraq. See the links, below:

Statement of Principles

Letters/Statements

 

[JRK]

Ignoring the man who killed 1 million of his own people to attack the carachter of the man who was elected to replace him shows the level of spin the liberal will go to make everything that was the success of the Iraq war look bad
This I have realized is due to the panic that is the success
Reid saild it was lost, some said it was Quagmire, yet here we are

 

[Dr.Drock]

Ignoring the man who killed 1 million of his own people to attack the carachter of the man who was elected to replace him shows the level of spin the liberal will go to make everything that was the success of the Iraq war look bad
This I have realized is due to the panic that is the success
Reid saild it was lost, some said it was Quagmire, yet here we are

How many times do you want me to repeat that Saddam was murderous disgusting scum? How many times does it take for that to sink in to you?

But saying we invaded and occupied Iraq because they had a meanyhead dictator is silly, look how many dictators and gov'ts we've ignored over the years despite them killing far more of their own ppl than Saddam did. We even pal around with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who executes and tortures his own people all the time just for being drunk or changing religion. Our gov't loves him, your republican heros do, so do democrats.

Human rights in Saudi Arabia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I don't give a damn what Reid or any democrat said, you're still stuck on making this a partisan issue, it isn't.

 

[Dr.Drock]

And remember JRK, the worst thing that could've happened to christians in Iraq was removing Saddam and putting in a gov't based on Islam.

Apartheid regimes have always been devastating to minority religions in gov'ts that don't protect them.

 

[JRK]

again your defending a man who killed around 1 million of his ow people against a man that based on your claims is killin christians
whose side are you own?

were not met, "the lions of monotheism [al Qaeda's fighters], who wore their explosive belts, will not hesitate to kill the militant Iraqi Christian captives." Al Qaeda in Iraq also
Al Qaeda in Iraq claims massacre at Christian church in Baghdad - The Long War Journal

Iraq al-Qaeda kill 46 Christians 1/11/2010 Grieving Catholics in Baghdad marked All Saints Day Monday in mourning for 46 Christians killed during a hostage drama with Al-Qaeda
Iraq : al-Qaeda kill 46 Christians - TeakDoor.com - The Thailand Forum

Baghdad, 7 April (AKI) The Mujahadeen Council, a leading insurgency group linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq, has announced the killing of a Christian in Mosul "for offending the prophet ...
Iraq: Al-Zarqawi groups boasts about killing Christian who "offended Muhammad" - Jihad Watch

Al Qaeda Group Promises Attacks On Iraqi Christians - World - CBN News - Christian News 24-7 - CBN.com

Radical Muslims with ties to al Qaeda say Christians in Iraq ... attacked a church in Baghdad killing 58 ... We will remain steadfast," one Christian in the country said. The al Qaeda ...
Al Qaeda Group Promises Attacks On Iraqi Christians - World - CBN News - Christian News 24-7 - CBN.com

The terrorists want to kill us because we are Christian. If we don’t defend ourselves ... switched sides and are now paid by US forces to battle Al-Qaeda. But Iraq’s Christian ...
Iraq’s first Christian militia takes stand against Qaeda

now you have made claims these people fled Iraq because of there new leader and ignored all of this information
WHY

 

[Dr.Drock]

again your defending a man who killed around 1 million of his ow people against a man that based on your claims is killin christians
whose side are you own?

were not met, "the lions of monotheism [al Qaeda's fighters], who wore their explosive belts, will not hesitate to kill the militant Iraqi Christian captives." Al Qaeda in Iraq also
Al Qaeda in Iraq claims massacre at Christian church in Baghdad - The Long War Journal

Iraq al-Qaeda kill 46 Christians 1/11/2010 Grieving Catholics in Baghdad marked All Saints Day Monday in mourning for 46 Christians killed during a hostage drama with Al-Qaeda
Iraq : al-Qaeda kill 46 Christians - TeakDoor.com - The Thailand Forum

Baghdad, 7 April (AKI) The Mujahadeen Council, a leading insurgency group linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq, has announced the killing of a Christian in Mosul "for offending the prophet ...
Iraq: Al-Zarqawi groups boasts about killing Christian who "offended Muhammad" - Jihad Watch

Al Qaeda Group Promises Attacks On Iraqi Christians - World - CBN News - Christian News 24-7 - CBN.com

Radical Muslims with ties to al Qaeda say Christians in Iraq ... attacked a church in Baghdad killing 58 ... We will remain steadfast," one Christian in the country said. The al Qaeda ...
Al Qaeda Group Promises Attacks On Iraqi Christians - World - CBN News - Christian News 24-7 - CBN.com

The terrorists want to kill us because we are Christian. If we don’t defend ourselves ... switched sides and are now paid by US forces to battle Al-Qaeda. But Iraq’s Christian ...
Iraq’s first Christian militia takes stand against Qaeda

now you have made claims these people fled Iraq because of there new leader and ignored all of this information
WHY

Thank you for providing proof that Iraq is unstable and that christians aren't safe in the country, those are 2 of my big messages.

I'm not defending Saddam. I'm saying we shouldn't have invaded Iraq, that's not defending Saddam.

Are you defending King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia? I don't see you calling for war with them.

Are you defending Kim Jung Il? I don't see you calling for war with North Korea.

Are you defending Hu Jintao? I don't see you calling for war with China.

 

[NYcarbineer]

We no longer have military bases in Saudi Arabia

It is un known how many bases we closed in Kuwait, you can Google it. I think there was maybe 20-30 we no longer fund/operate

Funding for the UN has went way down

Saddam and his intentions are no longer a concern. The weapons he had for the most part (according to UN and Iraq documents) have no been found. Saddam will never use them
many Al Qaeda soldiers are dead as well as some of there hi ranking leader ship (who do you think we were fighting after 5/2003, the Iraqis?)

Let me ask you something.

IF Saddam had WMD's, why did we never find the thousands of personnel that would have been required to develop, build, operate, and maintain multiple WMD programs?

you know...you are right.

I cant imagine why those people would not come out in the open and admit that they were responsible for the deaths of thousands of their own country men and women once their protection was eliminnated.

It just doesnt make sense.

So Saddam had enough up and running WMD weapons systems to be able to represent an imminent threat to the US, or Europe,

but no one in Iraq worked on any of them?

They wouldn't all be part of any deaths of their own countrymen, btw.

 

[NYcarbineer]

The actual number of scientist that were involved in that program are un-known Saddam had ordered the killing of any that talked
You can goggle to get started Saddam given two weeks to name scientist
but you know that

He's been dead for a while, out of power for even longer. Yet these folks still fear his retaliation? Load of crap. Cant produce these support personnel because there was nothing to support.
But deep down, you know that.

Why have you on the left gone from the res?
Everyone knew Saddam had them and in 2003 he said he would kill anyone who discussed the issue
By the way
there has been people come forward and stated they were moved, they were ignored and ridiculed
Proof of WMD in Iraq – Iraqi Documents Translated « Liberty Rocks
Document: Iraqi Dissident Talks About WMD Moved to Syria (Translation)
Iraq's WMD Secreted in Syria, Sada Says - January 26, 2006 - The New York Sun

with people like you screaming there liars all day every day while those brave kids were winning the war
what do you expect dude?
now go ahead and launch another personal attack

All of that nonsense has been debunked repeatedly.

 

[BlindBoo]

Kuwait was not our ally, a border issue between Iraq and Kuwait was not something we should've meddled in.

They may not have been an Ally by treaty, but they were a sovereign nation who was invaded. No, we are not the world police, but we are not barbarians either. We saw a nation hel bent on acuqiring territory at the expnse of innocent people....and we needed to put a stop to it.

SO I assume your beef is with the Gulf war?

The Bush Administration knew of the crisis that was building between the two nations and advised Saddam, who was still an active trading partner of the USA, through our embassador to Kuwait that the US had no opinion on Arab/Arab conflicts. Since Saddam use of Chemicals on both Iran and the Kurds was sanctioned with awink and a nod I'm sure Saddam thought that his trading partner would also look the other way. He got snookered. President Bush could have easily stopped the invasion and occupation of Kuwait if he had instructed our embassador to inform Saddam that we would protect Kuwait as if it were our 51st if you try to annex it!