So basically, I see us screwed with the war in Iraq, at this very moment.

Now, you may say "we got Saddam" or "We capture Al Queda people in Iraq" ect. Unfortunately, we were to fight people that support terrorism, or have terrorists there.

Not sure how many people have noticed this, but terrorists in the mid east tend to FOLLOW AROUND AMERICAN TROOPS. Meaning they go where we go, so they can kill us, or injure us somehow.

We origionally went there in search of WMDs. Right? We had multiple advisors say there aren't any, and they were fired.

Was Iraq a threat to us? Not really, considering we whiped out their military in the early 90s. We bombed Iraq quite a few times after it, but mainly because Saddam wanted to be a dick and not allow inspectors in.

So, we capture Saddam. Was he illusive in the past? No, we had him after the Gulf War, but we did not remove him for the fact that it was not the right time. This time, wasn't the right time either, in my belief.

Yes, Saddam is a horrible person, who slaughtered many people, allowed his sons to rape young girls, and many other things. Should we go around taking care of these evil dictators?

Thats for you all to decide. Just remember, these evil leaders happen to be everywhere. Libya, Yemen, China, Venezuela (i beleive its that one?) North Korea, IRAN, and thats just a few.

You can't force democracy to work people. Thats not how we did it over 200 years ago. We rose up, against a stronger country, one that controlled us, and we had an ally. Can we just walk into a country, say "you're out, this guy is in" sure. Is it going to actually work peacefully? God no.

Are we in Iraq for the right reason? Sure, to try to help these poor people out. We aren't there anymore for "WMDs" and we aren't exactly there for the terrorists, considering many happen to come over from other countries, such as Iran.

I personally beleive Bush wanted a reason to hit Iraq for his own reasons.

NOW lets look at something else.

We have thousands of troops scattered in Iraq. Iran, is next door. Who openly supports terrorism, and who we know, is toying around with nuclear technology.

Lets make this clear. Iran cannot hit US soil with a nuclear missle. Backpack bomb, sure.

The bigger threat: Their missles can hit Iraq with ease. Now tell me, what happens when the develop a nuclear weapon, and they point it at oh lets say..Bagdad, and basically tell us to get the hell out?

Are we going to change directions and head towards Iran with a nuclear missle aimed at us? Are we going to say "you shoot one we'll shoot one back"

Sounds pretty easy to say that. Unfortunately, they have allies, we shoot one, they shoot one, allies jump in, and we have a bigass world war. Oh, and not to mention, terrorists running around screaming Jihad still.

And not to mention, the master mind of 9/11 Osama Bin Hidin (yes hidin, not laden ..hes a coward and hides in caves.) is still out there, as far as we know. Now supposedly he might be hiding in a mountain range bordering afghanistan and...pakistan? I beleive.

Explain to me, why are there more troops in Iraq, then there are in Afghanistan searching for this guy. Saddam was NOT a bigger threat then Osama for the fact that Saddam never had the capabilities to hit US soil. Osama did. He used human bombs, basically. He twisted these peoples minds, into driving airplanes into buildings.

Should Saddam be dead? You bet. But then again, so should many other people. But now isn't the time.

I had family in Iraq. My cousin who is very close to me. He did two tours, was a LT in a sniper batallion. Both years, he was in Baghdad.

He came back and basically said this "there is nothing and no one worth saving in that country."

Please, call him wrong when you have seen and been through what he has been through.

He is now waiting to be deployed for a third time. But hes pushing to go to afghanistan.

I support the troops no matter what they do. They obey their orders. And yes, they do protect us, and they do a damn good job of it.

However, I do not support the war in Iraq. I would support a war in a country worth destroying, ex: Iran.

Yes, this is my opinion. I'm somewhat ignorant to politics, mainly because I'm 17, and it hasn't mattered that much to me until now.

But before you give me a "why are you talkin about this, you can't even vote yet" or something. Just remember its my generations war.

If you read all of this, youve got a better attention span then I do =x But thanks for reading. *waits for some bashing*

 

Good writeup...little heavy on the spacing...but I'll let it slide.

You do have a point...our troops should be focused on Afganistan (which is now falling apart) and not Iraq. There wasnt a link to Iraq and 9/11...so why we are in there is beyond me.

We also had the best chance to get Osama during the firefight in 2002 in Tora Bora. What did we do? We sent in the Afghani troops to clean up and get Osama. HELLO! Earth to the commanders!! You send in more troops to get Osama, you dont send in the 2nd string to get him. Its no wonder he escaped.

How do you not catch a 70 year old Arab on Dialysis? Seriously!

We did have the chance to get Saddam in the early nineties during Storm/Shield. At that time, Rummy AND Cheney saw no good way to enter Baghdad and to remove Saddam from power and have a good exit strategy. This was during the FIRST Bush administration. The situation never changed a decade later. 41 and his adminstration knew that if they took Saddam out there would be a huge civil war that would erupt putting US Troops lives at risk and in the crosshairs. 43 ignored this fact.

How do I know that 41's administration knew: THEY PUBLISHED A 900 PAGE DOCUMENT DETAILING WHY THEY DIDNT OVERTHROW SADDAM!

Simply put, Saddam was put there to be a buffer to Iran and the other nations. Iran and Iraq had never gotten along, and leaving Saddam in power meant that Iran had their focus elsewhere.

Truth be told, most Iranians dont hate the American people. Many of them are pro-West. They are just stuck in a country where the leadership is fanatical and rigged, and there is absolutely nothing they can do about it.

The possibility of Iran getting ahold of enriched uranium and creating a bomb is there, but they are a few years away from actually making a bomb. That said, we still could be in Iraq in a few years time. The only way to stop this is to have the US Govt support the Iranian people and erode the leadership of Iran from the inside out. You dont go straight to the fanatical leader with another fanatical leader, it just doesnt work.

Now there is a new report from the Army that was released today. Let me bring the headline forth for you:

Army: Troops to stay in Iraq until 2010
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061011/..._st_pe/us_iraq

Now, last I checked, weren't we assured that we would be greeted in the streets by the Iraqi's and that this operation would be an in and out operation? 2010 doesnt seem to be an in and out date to me.

A new report was released not too long ago saying we are creating more fanaticism than we are preventing in Iraq. Another report came out saying that more than, get ready for this, 2,660 Civilians were killed in Iraq in the MONTH of September. Overall throughout this conflict, more than 655,000 Civilians have been killed. This might seem like an insignificant number, but its quite a large number when put into the relationship of the population of Iraq and the percentage of Civilians killed.

Population of Iraq (according to the CIA): ~26,074,906
Number of Civilian Deaths: ~655,000
Percentage of the population killed in this occupation: ~2.5%

2.5% of the population. That's not a small, insignificant number at all. Lets also not mention the 30% unemployment rampant throughout the country.

Its a civil war in Iraq, and we are the cause of it.

The whole "stay the course" and "stand up, stand down" policy is a joke. There are 30,000 Iraqi police now Mr. President. I believe that it is time for the US Military to stand down.

Even the people of Iraq know they are in a civil war. It IS a civil war. There is no denying it. You cannot actually believe that its not, when 2 factions are going at each other, not caring about the lives of the citizens around them. Our troops are going on multiple tours of duty, not because they are being asked to, but because they have a band of brotherhood with their fellow soldiers. Their Company. Their Batallion. We are outstreched and overworked.

And now with a Nuclear North Korea on the map, its time to rethink our total strategy.

Bring our troops home. Get a timetable going, and bring them back.

 

Its not the fact that there are military bases there. Last time I checked there wasnt a civil war that exploded post "Mission Accomplished" in either of those countries. The reason why they were setup is also a different reason.

Korea was setup to be a deterrant to the North Koreans. Germany and Japan were setup to quell any rebellion post WWII.

How are you going to setup a foreign military base in the middle of a civil war?

Because that was one of the arguments pushed forward (Either you're with us or against us...Saddam supported Al Qaida w/ money and training grounds, etc...). This was after all part of the War on Terror and the Axis of Evil.

PART of the main reason is that Saddam wasnt cooperating. The other half was because of bad intelligence from Chalibi and other intelligence outlets (CIA, etc) saying that Saddam had WMD's ready to go. We know this is now false. The only WMD's that have been recovered were so degraded they could no be used in combat.

The focus has suddenly changed from WMD's to freeing the Iraqi people. I dont see too many Iraqi's being freed though.

We wouldnt go to North Korea for 2 reasons.

1) We are too outstreched.

2) China doesnt want the war with NK not because of the presence of US troops, but because China doesnt want the influx of refugees out of NK in their borders.

Besides, the US wouldnt even attack China. We're basically the main reason for their HUGE economic growth.

Pot, meet kettle.

In the drumming up this was supposed to be a quick process. Now its long and drawn out. You cant have it both ways here.

So this war is about Oil? Iraq has hurt OPEC more than it has helped it. Large pipeline disruptions doesnt help barrel production.

Not quite. We do have enough stores of oil to sustain ourselves for the next 10 years (Alaska and the Gulf Ridge). Lets also not mention the sudden rapid development of Solar electricty, wind energy, hydroelectric energy, etc. What you have outlined would be if there was a TOTAL cutoff of oil, with absolutely nothing able to replenish it.

Yes, because I like having my troops streched thin, resources drained, and my generals and military staff at odds with the commander in chief and Secretary of Defense.

Its not our place to be there.

 

911 was the governments fault

 

exactly

 

A lot of people think 9/11 was actually planned and carried out by our government....




-------------

 

 

no ****?? ...

 

Which is such BS that I can't believe people actually think it's true.

 

Exactly!!

You can edit and paste enough thing's together to make anything seem real.

 

Err if I remember correctly in Bush's 9/11 speech, we were to "target the axis of evil" or something like that. Basically anyone who supported, or housed terrorists.

And if I also remember correctly, we uncovered some evidence that Osama attempted to get Saddam to help him out, and Saddam denied.

Our basis for these wars breaking out, we will call it one HUGE war called "Terrorism War" for now, is to basically whipe out all terrorists, and #1, was susposed to be Osama.

For some reason we went off track, and headed towards Iraq. Who in the 90s, fought as fair as a war could get. With troops, not women strapped with explosives walking into a resturaunt.

In Bush's speech, he did mention Iraq. And everyone applauded, while I sat there with my father and basically went "wtf?"

As for Saddam saying inspectors couldn't walk into his country..

It may have been arrogance, or pride, or he might've actually had somethin cooking up. What it was, we may never know.

I enjoy a political discussion, even though 99.5% of the time, you won't make anyone else see your side.

But it is nice to see what someone has to say.

 

whatever you are, an *** or an elephant, both have some (they maybe small) moral reasoning in their beliefs. as far as what that fat tard had to say some is true some is not. now nobody is perfect. one person cannot have all the perfect ideas. thats why we are a democratic nation. america was built by hard working people who wanted a change. it happened at the right time, a good leader and a assload of people that where tired of the bull ****. now by the time iraqis realize this some of us probibly wont be on the planet anymore. there is a time when you need to take things into your own hands. we gave them a jumpstart, its on them now. back to that fat tard you people say hes so one sided, you should reread what you wrote, im guessing its one sided as well. dont get me wrong i dont agree with alot of things he said. but i try to look at both sides of things. now iraq is at a civil war did we cause it? yes and no. they have been fighting for over 2000 years, then here we come and take what structure they did have away. now what do you think they are going to do? their are going to fight for what the think is best for their situation. we do the same thing just not so violent. its called politics in the U.S. im not here to change your opinion im here to tell you to look a both sides before you jump to a conclusion and be so adiment that your right. the reason why we went to iraq doesnt really mater now. were there. now somebody tell what the problem is now? is it that we have troops in iraq? well were not leaving for a while. dont complain about something unless you have a solution to the problem.

 

i think we should bomb everyone

 

We are in Iraq for one thing....Iran. If you don't think Iran is a problem, talk to Israel. Iran will become a huge issue in the years to come and there is certainly logic to having troops deployed in that part of the country. We don't live in a vacuum. Hitler kills 6,000,000 jews because we decided to ignore the problem.

As far as people thinking that the government created 911...hey the worlds full of idiots. Some people believe in the Easter Bunny and some people believe wearing a copper bracelet will cure their woes.....yes, there are truly dumb people on this planet and there always will be. But look how boring life would be w/o them.

0.08% of the soldiers who have been sent to Iraq have been sent home in body-bags. A great price to pay...no doubt. If I did the math right, 3,000,000 have served and about 2,500 have been killed over a period of what? 4 years? The loss of live's needs to be put into perspective. I wonder what the death rate would be for a city in the US of that size....or how about a city in Iraq before we invaded?

While you can argue if we should be in Iraq, make no misstake, our troops volunteer. Many of those serving joined after the war. They know the risk and they made the decision. Unfortunatley what we will never how is how many Amrican lives have been saved in the US because of their efforts. I would be willing to bet that it is ten times what we have lost in the desert.

 

Idk if you're calling me a fat lard...but you're an idiot and sadly mistaken if you are.

People have been fighting over what they think is best forever, and many times it has not been for the right thing. I never stated that taking out Saddam was wrong, I'm saying we did it at the wrong time. We left him there after the Gulf War for a reason, that reason was because it was relatively structured and his methods were indeed cruel, but it kept things somewhat under control.

There is no solution to the problem. The scenario is already being played out basically. The homos next door are building a nuke. We have our hands tied with the dumbshits over here. They are going at it with each other and we are again, trying to play hero, instead of doing whats best for our own agenda.

Basically Iran gets a nuke - points it at no, not US soil, but Iraq, tells us GTFO OR they just bomb us, taking out an assload of our troops.

We could pull a Vietnam scenario, where we win all the battles, but lose the war, and direct our attention to Iran, where more allies would back us.

As far as the ratio for deaths to how many people we have over there...I could honestly give two *****. Those 2500 lives are not worth one Iraqi. American lives matter alot more to me then one Iraqis.

Did we have another country jumpstart our revolution? Or did we decide to rise up on our own and cause some chaos, and then get backed?

You cannot kill off violent religious beliefs like what is going on ...everywhere. It doesn't happen.

I've said it alot..but I had a cousin who was over there and is home now, he went the first tour willingly, the second he went because he had to. Hes been a military man for 12 years now. He will say there is nothing and no one over there worth fighting for.

And before a republican bash comes at him from xl or something..let me remind you..if you are U.S. military...you call him Sir.

 

Like I said, we will never know how many lives were saved here in the US.

Let me paint a picture....let's preten it is August 2001. Everyone is fat, dumb and happy. No 911 yet.

The US government announces that we are going to invade Afganastan because we find out that they are planning to attack and destroy the WTC. We send thousands of troops there and bomb the crack out of the place. The attack on the US never happens.

I don't care which President we would have, but he would have been booed off the stage for taking such action. Because the world would never know or believe what events had been stopped.

I firmly believe that our actions in the desert have indeed stopped other attacks in the US. So, because they never happened, now our actions to invade are wrong?

It is really a tough spot to be in.

What if we never attacked Iraq and then three months later they took down the Sears Tower and destroyed Candle Stick Park? Then would it be ok to invade? See, you can't have it both ways.

Do you know how many Allied Soldiers died during the invasion of Normandy? About 10,000. After we took back France from the ****'s, 45,000 French citizens died from civil unrest....4 times the numbers that died on the beaches. Hitler kept the people in check....but after the invastion, it was utter chaos for a long time. Yet, you never hear anything about that.

Peace has it's price and it will take time for things to settle in Iraq.

 

no i was refering to mike moore (farenhight 911) now if saddams methods where cruel then arent we in the wrong for not stoping it when we had the chance? you must have been sleeping in history class because the french did help us when we separated from england. now for you cousin im shure you hold him in high reguards. he must be atleast lt. col or even a full bird col. but how can you base your opinion on what just one person has to say. i dont know what he has done, been or seen. im not saying hes wrong or hes right. thats his educated opinion. but didnt the jews call hitler sir. NO im not comparing them to each other at all. im saying his rank doesent nessisarily make him right. im bashing anyone or anything. this was a rant, i was just putting my two cents in. im not saying this to offend you or your cousin. its just my opinion.

 

oh by the way im n ot republican or democrat, im really not a political person

 

Water: you have to look at the fact that back in WW2, we had higher numbers of troops.

And no xlr: you missed my point, he was cruel ect, but it wasn't our place to jump in. He brought some sort of stability.

Now, in the Revolution, like I said...we started ourselves, and then we were backed by the French, with a question mark at the end, meaning I was unsure if they helped when we were doing our Tea Party, or after England sent over their troops.

His missions for the most part, are somewhat classified, still. He's an Army Ranger, he'll say he was with a 16 man sniper batallion, all consisting of Navy Seals, Rangers, and Beraes, and they did quite a few door to door raids.

Before his entire batallion was killed, I met 4 of the guys, and they all said the same.

WaterDR: I personally don't beleive the war in Iraq has stopped much at all. Seeing as Saddam denied Osama some sanctuary, and seing as how Saddam didn't have jack ****. (We looked, we looked alot.) We also raped his military in the 90s.

Now, Afghanistan, I am all for. Thats where our main target was. Unfortunately, we directed more troops to Iraq, then we did Afghanistan. We are now split up in two different battles. I beleive that even if Iraq was right, it would've been better to completely clear out Afghanistan, and then direct all of our troops to another country.

Now yes, we find Al Queda in Iraq now, but its a prime spot for them at this moment. Terrorists are coming over from Iran, ect. So its more or less a recruiting ground for them at this moment.

We were susposed to be aiming for countries that "sponsor and harbor terrorists" ...Iraq from what we had knew, did neither. He fought a face-to-face war with us in the 90s. Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, all these countires sponsor and harbor..we had much better targets, yet we took the worst shot second.

And Xlr, for the most part, I stand as a Democrat, i have mixed feeling on abortion, however. And I hate gun control with a passion...but on other things, I agree with the democrats, for the most part. As far as my opinion on Iraq goes, i base it on what I know for myself first, and then what others who have been over there say. Now unfortunately, the government does not look highly on troops over there speaking against the war, and many times, it comes down on their commander, which comes down on them, so they don't speak too badly about it, too often.

 

Our troops don't speak badly on the war because they generally are for it. We have a voluntary military. We don't conscript people. Do our troops bitch? Absolutely. A happy soldier is a bitching soldier.

I served over there during Desert Storm and Desert Stay. Had the liberal Democrats allowed us to complete our job, we would not be in this current fickle we are in.

Not taking action have never accomplished anything.

As far as you not being "political" and aligning yourself as a democrat or a rebublican, i think that is being very honest. It is my experience that most people don't understand the values of the parties that they think they follow anyway.

 

Clinton's,not Bush.