The Iraq War 10 years later.

[Shortline Bus]

Today March 19, 2003 is the 10th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq that led to the overthrow and death of long time strongman Saddam Hussein. At first, then President GW Bush and VP Dick Cheney claimed that Saddam had nuclear weapons and was a major sponsor of worldwide terrorism. However the weapons was never found, over 3,000 US Troops and hundred of thousands of Iraq citizens was killed. And it was proven the real factor for the controversial war was to gain access to oil. So without going to a heated debate did our nation make the correct choice in spending hundred of billions to invade Iraq instead of fully pursue Osama Bin Laden?

 

For those of you too young or don't remember here the info on other than Vietnam and the 1898 Spanish-American War, the most controversial and disputed war in US History.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War

[BrooklynIRT]

March 19, 2013 not 2003.

 

the US made the wrong choice, I think.

 

Bush was calling it Operation Iraqi Freedom (changed form Operation Iraqi Liberation since the abbreviation for the latter is OIL, which would have made it easier to criticize the war or something along those lines), so he was making it seem like it was being done for the good of the Iraqi people. well, he was making it seem like a lot of things other than an oil fight. naturally.

 

considering the budgetary issues we are having, it was a pretty big mistake to go to war. the other issue is that it is so damn hard to get out of Iraq due to the threat of a civil war b/w Sunni and Shiite Muslims there.

[Shortline Bus]

March 19, 2013 not 2003.

 

the US made the wrong choice, I think.

 

Bush was calling it Operation Iraqi Freedom (changed form Operation Iraqi Liberation since the abbreviation for the latter is OIL, which would have made it easier to criticize the war or something along those lines), so he was making it seem like it was being done for the good of the Iraqi people. well, he was making it seem like a lot of things other than an oil fight. naturally.

 

considering the budgetary issues we are having, it was a pretty big mistake to go to war. the other issue is that it is so damn hard to get out of Iraq due to the

threat of a civil war b/w Sunni and Shiite Muslims there.

 

Keep in Mind Cheney was basically a Co-President and might have power than any the 2nd in charge in US History. So he deserves some of the heat IMO as well. Even with that Saddam was maybe at the time arguably the worst most murderous world leader. Just remember a decade earlier to the 1991 Gulf War.

 

With the all screweups and wasted money and most important lives in a highly controversial war, I do think Saddam had some form of WMD's. However he IMO got rid of most of them in period right after 9/11 to March 2003 as he knew he was going to pay the price.  And thus he made the US seem like bullies even to a tryanant like Saddam.

[SoSpectacular]

I vividly remember the very day the invasion began. Dumbest move ever. 

[realizm]

March 19, 2013 not 2003.

 

the US made the wrong choice, I think.

 

Bush was calling it Operation Iraqi Freedom (changed form Operation Iraqi Liberation since the abbreviation for the latter is OIL, which would have made it easier to criticize the war or something along those lines), so he was making it seem like it was being done for the good of the Iraqi people. well, he was making it seem like a lot of things other than an oil fight. naturally.

 

considering the budgetary issues we are having, it was a pretty big mistake to go to war. the other issue is that it is so damn hard to get out of Iraq due to the threat of a civil war b/w Sunni and Shiite Muslims there.

 

To start my participation in this discussion I see it as a wrong choice because in addition to what you've mentioned from a strategic standpoint, technically, according to my understanding, it was an illegal war. This was because of a lack of any proof of an Iraqi attack on US soil justifying a fair and just declaration of war according to set UN mandates. The White House and the Pentagon did not take in counsel from the UN Charter to authorize the war and took international laws into their own hands collectively as a military force.  Also the intentions of the war has to be brought into consideration. 

[CenSin]

Same war, new technology, new place, new enemy… and a new excuse.

[Turbo19]

I personally feel that the U.S entered a unnecessary war which ended up leaving the nation of Iraq in shambles, moreso than when the U.S. first entered the war. It will take decades for everyone the U.S. included to fully recover.

 

And on a side note, I believe the war would have come to an end much sooner had Bush/Cheney lost the '04 election, but that is just my belief.

[Interested Rider]

What comes to mind is "He who forgets history is doomed to repeat it" (George Santayana) and if there was a war that  was totally unnecessary and extremely destructive to our great country, it was the  Iraq War. 

 

The reason for my statement is that George Bush Sr. knew far more history as compared with his son. When we had the war to liberate Kuwait, there was a reason that the United States did not go all the way to Bagdad to remove Saddam and after Kuwait was liberated, we left. The son (and Dick Cheney) obviously did not learn (or wanted to know) the history  of the Middle East after World War I or had brain lock about the history of the Iran - Iraq War during the 1980's. If they did they would have never been involved in Iraq, period.

 

If vast majority of us who did not have a degree from Yale (or any of the other so-called top schools) could see this as clear as a bell, then why did our elected leadership (or the vast majority of the print media) see it? We saw it and based on our understanding of history, we knew the outcome. It is too bad that we were the few and the ones who did not have the power to stop it as we see the results today.   

[Phantom909]

What comes to mind is "He who forgets history is doomed to repeat it" (George Santayana) and if there was a war that  was totally unnecessary and extremely destructive to our great country, it was the  Iraq War. 

 

The reason for my statement is that George Bush Sr. knew far more history as compared with his son. When we had the war to liberate Kuwait, there was a reason that the United States did not go all the way to Bagdad to remove Saddam and after Kuwait was liberated, we left. The son (and Dick Cheney) obviously did not learn (or wanted to know) the history  of the Middle East after World War I or had brain lock about the history of the Iran - Iraq War during the 1980's. If they did they would have never been involved in Iraq, period.

 

If vast majority of us who did not have a degree from Yale (or any of the other so-called top schools) could see this as clear as a bell, then why did our elected leadership (or the vast majority of the print media) see it? We saw it and based on our understanding of history, we knew the outcome. It is too bad that we were the few and the ones who did not have the power to stop it as we see the results today.   

 

actually the real reason we did not go into iraq in 91 after we liberated kuwait was that we led a coalition of 30 nations, including some arab states, who`s mission was to drive iraq out of kuwait. the other members of the coalition would not support a push into iraq, its as simple as that

 

joe

[realizm]

What comes to mind is "He who forgets history is doomed to repeat it" (George Santayana) and if there was a war that  was totally unnecessary and extremely destructive to our great country, it was the  Iraq War. 

 

The reason for my statement is that George Bush Sr. knew far more history as compared with his son. When we had the war to liberate Kuwait, there was a reason that the United States did not go all the way to Bagdad to remove Saddam and after Kuwait was liberated, we left. The son (and Dick Cheney) obviously did not learn (or wanted to know) the history  of the Middle East after World War I or had brain lock about the history of the Iran - Iraq War during the 1980's. If they did they would have never been involved in Iraq, period.

 

If vast majority of us who did not have a degree from Yale (or any of the other so-called top schools) could see this as clear as a bell, then why did our elected leadership (or the vast majority of the print media) see it? We saw it and based on our understanding of history, we knew the outcome. It is too bad that we were the few and the ones who did not have the power to stop it as we see the results today.   

 

Agreed. Good way of looking at it.

 

Former President George W Bush apparently did not learn from history where it came to the Afghan war either apparently. Many ancient empires could not capture and occupy Afghanistan.

 

Neither could the Soviets during their war in Afghanistan. Approximately 26,000 Soviet soldiers and a million Afghans lost their lives during that war from 1979 to 1989. Moscow and the Kremlin did not anticipate that they would be locked into a war that would last a decade. Neither did the White House and the Pentagon. In either case both parties had to pull out of the dangerous region with it's unforgiving terrain, making it very difficult for military forces to carry out their tactics against the Afghan militias skilled in guerrilla warfare tactics from experience. How ironic.

 

 

 

actually the real reason we did not go into iraq in 91 after we liberated kuwait was that we led a coalition of 30 nations, including some arab states, who`s mission was to drive iraq out of kuwait. the other members of the coalition would not support a push into iraq, its as simple as that

 

joe

 

I agree with this, this is my understanding as well. However the UN Security Council did pass resolution 660, which entails the mandatory Iraqi withdraw all forces deployed in Kuwait. After a series of failed negotiations between major world powers and Iraq, coalition forces led by the US launched a massive military campaign against Iraqi forces stationed in Kuwait. 

 

I believe off the top of my head one of the countries not in support of that invasion was Yemen.

[BrooklynIRT]

What comes to mind is "He who forgets history is doomed to repeat it" (George Santayana) and if there was a war that  was totally unnecessary and extremely destructive to our great country, it was the  Iraq War. 

 

The reason for my statement is that George Bush Sr. knew far more history as compared with his son. When we had the war to liberate Kuwait, there was a reason that the United States did not go all the way to Bagdad to remove Saddam and after Kuwait was liberated, we left. The son (and Dick Cheney) obviously did not learn (or wanted to know) the history  of the Middle East after World War I or had brain lock about the history of the Iran - Iraq War during the 1980's. If they did they would have never been involved in Iraq, period.

 

If vast majority of us who did not have a degree from Yale (or any of the other so-called top schools) could see this as clear as a bell, then why did our elected leadership (or the vast majority of the print media) see it? We saw it and based on our understanding of history, we knew the outcome. It is too bad that we were the few and the ones who did not have the power to stop it as we see the results today.   

this is the reality of the secular world. the lyrics to the following song are so incisive:

 

There is no political solution

To our troubled evolution

Have no faith in constitution

There is no bloody revolution

 

We are spirits in the material world

(Are spirits in the material world

Are spirits in the material world

Are spirits in the material world)

 

Our socalled leaders speak

With words they try to jail you

The subjugate the meek

But it's the rhetoric of failure

 

We are spirits in the material world

(Are spirits in the material world

Are spirits in the material world

Are spirits in the material world)

 

Where does the answer lie?

Living from day to day

If it's something we can't buy

There must be another way

 

We are spirits in the material world

(Are spirits in the material world)

 

(Are spirits in the material world...)

[repeat/fade]