Was the war justifiable?

[Godz46]

Now I was always sceptical about our intent in Iraq. While I did support the trrops over there and had no sympathy for Saddam Hussein. So far we have found no weapons of mass destruction, and lateley we have yet to find any. Powell's presentation in the UN sounded very serious, yet lateley it appears many of the threats he was saying was rather exagerated, probably because he was placing too much emphasis on defectors.

Defectos are known to exagerate their stories to the extreme in order to have asylum.

Now I'm no leftist, but if indeed their is no weapons found, I'll be very pissed, maybee the Iraqi people are better off, but frankly I don't think the freedom of 1 million Iraqis is worth 1 dead american soldier. Attacks on our troops have increased, so you can see why I'm getting worried.

What does evreyone else think?

[ChaiOgawa]

I really do think that it had to be done eventually. Because he could have gotten rid of the Weapons of Mass Destruction after he realized that they are obviously going to lose this war. If he did have them there, he would have used them eventually, and he would have used them on the U.S which wouldnt have been good. I like that they got rid of saddam hussein sooner than later even if we never find what our main intent was its good to get rid of dictator.

[Juanfran]

That's right. Right now, I'm not particularly bothered about not finding WMD, because as far as I can see, Saddam himself was the WMD, what with all those torture palaces, mass graves and so on. If they hadn't said they had to go in to get rid of the weapons, no one would have backed the war, because in all honesty, most people don't give a shit about the Iraqi people, they just care about themselves not getting done in by reprisals. But, even if was done under false pretences, the aim of getting rid of Saddam was enough justification for a war.

[Zhao]

thats the most over-used term in the history of the world.

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!!!

DUH DUH DUH DUHHHHHHHHH!!!!

[Gustav]

The war will never be justified until the US get rid of their wapons of mass destruktion.

[Godz46]

Hold on...so far we are loosing guys by the day of there.

Now if Saddam hasn't used the Wmd's during the invasion, when would he have used them?

I think the administration has really overexagerated the threat. And now instead of "Liberation" we have the fundamentalists taking over. Saddam was the kind of guy who was more worried about his power than creating trouble overseas. And it gives me no comfort to say this since I am a registered Republican.

[Juanfran]

Well, thinking about it, I'd have to say the entire WMD thing was a fucking huge smokescreen...

Considering that the US still bears scars from Pearl Harbor and Vietnam, when the casualties were only military, how much more personally would they take 9/11, when casualties were far greater and civilian, for the most part? The difference here is that 9/11 was really a freak attack by a group of fanatics who succeeded in setting off a catastrophic sequence of events that resulted in a huge number of casualties. It wasn't a concerted military attack by a foreign power, like Pearl Harbor. The idea wasn't conquest--it was terrorism--desperate people resorting to desperate (suicidal) tactics in order to wreak havoc and cause damage. From what I can make out, the US administration has been misinterpreting this attack to have derived from some form of international organization or conspiracy of nations intent on destroying the American way of life--the so-called "Axis of Evil". While I don't deny that there are anti-American sentiments out there and anti-American nations, I do not believe that such a conspiracy or organization of nations really exists. I believe that the "Axis of Evil" is a fiction--a creation of the Bush administration which concocts, in people's minds, the idea of an international conspiratorial organization of anti-American nations intent on the destruction of America. This only feeds paranoia in America and serves to justify an ongoing campaign of military aggression against the so-called enemies of America. I have grave doubts about the validity of this course of action. I think it's safe to say that 9/11 has put America on the defensive. My point is that the American response to 9/11 is unpredictable and one really doesn't know what direction it will take. At any rate, the administration is trying to confirm, and perhaps even fabricate links between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein...

Bush's invasion of Iraq has already demonstrated what he is capable of and what he can get away with in the aftermath of 9/11:
a) He can bypass the authority of the UN Security Council.
b) He can invade a sovereign nation based on trumped-up charges and allegations which have no basis in reality.
c) He can win popular support as well as the support of both the congress and the senate, including the grudging support of Democrats too scared of being accused of lack of patriotism to protest.
d) He can, essentially, level his enemies to the ground thanks to American military might and the fact that his enemies happen to be Third World nations lacking the resources to adequately defend themselves against a nuclear superpower like the US.
e) After the smoke has died down and the fallacy of his premise for invasion has been revealed, he can still get away with it by claiming that the evil dictator that he deposed deserved it anyway, regardless of whether there was any truth in the allegations made against him.
f) He can make a tidy profit from the whole deal for himself and his defense contractor colleagues, while introducing tax-relief legislature that neatly foists the cost of war on the middle-income tax bracket.

I only hope that, ultimately, reason prevails and that people can sort out their differences without resorting to further hostilities and aggression. As far as retribution goes, I think more than enough blood has been shed on both sides.

[silent killer]

What I want to know is why are we still in Iraq in such large quantities. Iraqis are starting to hate us. I remember something about getting rid of some government that people didn't want, so why are we trying to force the people of Iraq to have a "democratic" government like ours if they don't want one?

[Juanfran]

Exactly - The UN exists to deal with situations like this. Bosnia and South Africa are examples of situations that were effectively dealt with by the UN. Why didn't Bush allow the UN to deal with Iraq as well rather than bypassing their decrees after giving them a little lip-service?

[TEEPO™]

Did you know if you say ''Saddam'' backwards, you get Maddas.
Anyway, I think the war is justifiable. Saddam had to be go sooner or later.

[Juanfran]

I don't deny that the world is better off with the removal of Saddam. I just question the course of events that led to his removal. In my book, the ends do not justify the means, because they might set some pretty unpleasant precedents for future policy.