Explain stuff to me (Iraq War)

So i've been boning up on Iraq War stuff for a class I'm attending in college. and I feel like since the iraq war, the popular public opinion has always been its a bad terrible waste of time and effort and everyone should just hold hands and "BOO AMERIKA!! BUSH IS THE WORST PERSON ALIVE!!" etc.

But looking at the war from beginning, I feel like...it was a success? I dont know, I'm undecided, but here are my points:

- A truly terrible dictator has been overthrown from rule of people he has dominated for decades and made to live miserable lives. He also killed closed to 1mil people throughout this time...not exactly someone worth keeping around I think.

- From stats I've been in recent years, Iraqis and Kurds have shown thanks to US and UK troops for the above. There are other stats which say differently, but I cant imagine people preferred things the other way.

- Since 09 (I think), Iraq holds auctions on their oil reserves for nations across the globe..of which the US has partaken in but not been totally successful compared to other countries involved (negating the 'war for oil' argument).

- Saddams regime did actually store and use nerve gas WMDs prior to the invasion, so poor US intelligence aside, there was precedence for that assumption.

Of course there are negatives to our participation. All of the civ deaths, drone strikes etc. and cost of the war itself on the West taxpayers. But am I so crazy in thinking that the war was beneficial in the end? People here tend to just look at what WE got from it all: i.e. thousands of dead US soldiers. But those people in the Middle East are now free from one of the most vicious dictatorships ever known...

thoughts?

Saddam Hussein being tried in Iraq for his crimes and dictatorship being replaced with democracy are very good things (despite what Michael Moore tries to tell you), but the whole operation was executed poorly.

@scalpel: So would you agree it was something of a sloppy success?

@booble said:

@scalpel: So would you agree it was something of a sloppy success?

more of Pyrrhic victory.

@Oldirtybearon: This is what I doubt. It's safe to bet that if Saddam was still in power throughout this time, he would ended up killing far more innocents than we did. That might sound like a poor excuse, but given the rate of his regime's killings throughout his power, it's plausible

Far too early to tell. Will Iraq's fledgling government stabilize and carry on, or will it give way to another military dictatorship of sorts?

@Turambar said:

Far too early to tell. Will Iraq's fledgling government stabilize and carry on, or will it give way to another military dictatorship of sorts?

Tis a good question, but I think they've got a better chance now than they've had for ages.

@Oldirtybearon: This is what I doubt. It's safe to bet that if Saddam was still in power throughout this time, he would ended up killing far more innocents than we did. That might sound like a poor excuse, but given the rate of his regime's killings throughout his power, it's plausible

This thread will go well.

@golguin said:

@booble

@Oldirtybearon: This is what I doubt. It's safe to bet that if Saddam was still in power throughout this time, he would ended up killing far more innocents than we did. That might sound like a poor excuse, but given the rate of his regime's killings throughout his power, it's plausible

Killing innocents has never been a reason the US has used to get involved militarily in a region despite what may have been reported in the media. If that was the case we would be involved in the business of countries not located in the middle east.

Oh yeah I'm not saying they did.

I know this isn't much different from the "BOO AMERIKKKA NO BLOOD FOR OIL" sentiments you've already heard, but I think The Book of Unwritten Tales presents a stance on the matter (metaphorically, at least) in a rather clever way. Whether it actually reflects the German developers' opinions of US politics is debatable, but I thought the scene was entertaining.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xsuznm_s7-p3-book-of-unwritten-tales_videogames?start=171#.UPCFLOT7K5U

Transcription for those who don't want to bother with the video-

(Captain Nate at the gates of an orc war camp)

Nate: Why are you guys always causing trouble? You kidnap harmless gnomes and then attack the free world for no reason at all!

Orc guard: That wasn't an attack! It was an anticipated defense of the homeland in enemy territory. And anyway, what else are we supposed to do? We have the biggest army in the world, no one invests as much gold in the military as we do. It would be madness to invest all that gold and then never wage war!

Nate: That's downright irresponsible!

Orc guard: We couldn't anticipate that the damned war would take forever.

Nate: And now you're stuck in it up to your ears, as is the Alliance.

Orc guard: Ha, that's all propaganda. There are thousands of war-hungry, well-equipped and motivated warriors here in the camp, waiting for deployment!

A bit ham-handed, sure, but it got a chuckle out of me.

Basically you're claiming victory on a basis other than that which you / we actually went to war for.

Is Iraq a better place to live now than under Saddam? I guess it depends whether you ask somebody who is still alive or ask somebody who was killed in the course of him being forcibly removed from power. They didn't choose that; America forced that choice on them using justification which turned out to be false.

Did things turn out better than they looked like they were going to at one point? Yes. That's probably the best thing we can say about it: it wasn't quite as fucking awful as it looked like it was going to be.

@BBAlpert said:

I know this isn't much different from the "BOO AMERIKKKA NO BLOOD FOR OIL" sentiments you've already heard, but I think The Book of Unwritten Tales presents a stance on the matter (metaphorically, at least) in a rather clever way. Whether it actually reflects the German developers' opinions of US politics is debatable, but I thought the scene was entertaining.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xsuznm_s7-p3-book-of-unwritten-tales_videogames?start=171#.UPCFLOT7K5U

Transcription for those who don't want to bother with the video-

(Captain Nate at the gates of an orc war camp)

Nate: Why are you guys always causing trouble? You kidnap harmless gnomes and then attack the free world for no reason at all!

Orc guard: That wasn't an attack! It was an anticipated defense of the homeland in enemy territory. And anyway, what else are we supposed to do? We have the biggest army in the world, no one invests as much gold in the military as we do. It would be madness to invest all that gold and then never wage war!

Nate: That's downright irresponsible!

Orc guard: We couldn't anticipate that the damned war would take forever.

Nate: And now you're stuck in it up to your ears, as is the Alliance.

Orc guard: Ha, that's all propaganda. There are thousands of war-hungry, well-equipped and motivated warriors here in the camp, waiting for deployment!

A bit ham-handed, sure, but it got a chuckle out of me.

Thanks, seems interesting. I'll check it out later.

One more point I forgot: some folk say we invade countries purely to make money from war economy with Iraq being a prime modern example, but that doesn't negate the changes made to Iraq as a society since our invasion. We may not like it, but a business needs to be profitable, and such a fact doesn't suggest it's a government's only reason in invading another nation. People act like we did, but for reaosns I've mentioned, I dont see that as being true..

@Jimbo (I can't make more than 5 posts per day atm apparently, so bare with me). Like I said in my OP, stats i've seen suggest strong approval regarding US intervention since Saddam was removed. Plus I'm not sure how they could ever voice an opinion either way given the nature of the regime

For me it's because it was waged based on a fallacy and took national attention away from the effort to find the guy who actually attacked us. Not to mentioned the fact that the wars helped ravage the world economy.

@booble said:

So i've been boning up on Iraq War stuff for a class I'm attending in college. and I feel like since the iraq war, the popular public opinion has always been its a bad terrible waste of time and effort and everyone should just hold hands and "BOO AMERIKA!! BUSH IS THE WORST PERSON ALIVE!!" etc.

But looking at the war from beginning, I feel like...it was a success? I dont know, I'm undecided, but here are my points:

- A truly terrible dictator has been overthrown from rule of people he has dominated for decades and made to live miserable lives. He also killed closed to 1mil people throughout this time...not exactly someone worth keeping around I think.

- From stats I've been in recent years, Iraqis and Kurds have shown thanks to US and UK troops for the above. There are other stats which say differently, but I cant imagine people preferred things the other way.

- Since 09 (I think), Iraq holds auctions on their oil reserves for nations across the globe..of which the US has partaken in but not been totally successful compared to other countries involved (negating the 'war for oil' argument).

- Saddams regime did actually store and use nerve gas WMDs prior to the invasion, so poor US intelligence aside, there was precedence for that assumption.

Of course there are negatives to our participation. All of the civ deaths, drone strikes etc. and cost of the war itself on the West taxpayers. But am I so crazy in thinking that the war was beneficial in the end? People here tend to just look at what WE got from it all: i.e. thousands of dead US soldiers. But those people in the Middle East are now free from one of the most vicious dictatorships ever known...

thoughts?

I don't think it was that great of a success, but the future and hindsight will show us if it was indeed a great success or a terrible misstep.

Personally, the way I see it is the Iraq War put a huge strain on the US and its allies. Fighting two wars put us in the very delicate position we are today. Was it worth it? I don't think so. Every long-term problem deserves/needs a long-term solution. Hussein was a long-term problem and invading Iraq required a longtime occupation to observe and supports its stabilization and recovery. A prolonged war does not benefit any country though. In 1990-91 Gulf War, George H.W. Bush knew that if they were to invade Iraq, remove Hussein from power, they would have to oversee the recovery of Iraq. That is a huge drain of resources and would destroy the economic recovery that took place during the Reagan administration prior. Instead, they pushed the Iraqi forces out of Kuwait and stopped at the border. Now we look at what happened now, we invaded Iraq in 2003 and finally withdrew our forces in 2011. The US is in overwhelming debt having to pour so much money into fighting in Iraq and in Afghanistan. As much as we would like to say that we are the ones who removed Hussein from power, many other countries look at us and say look at what you did to us. Look at the hole you put us in.

Right, we're on a mission to remove every terrible dictator from power...oh wait

The Iraq War was about a Neocon mission to establish a base presence throughout the Middle East. Thankfully, Neocons are barely a thing anymore.

Also 100K Iraqi civilian deaths. Yeah, I bet they love us. Who wouldn't?

The reason we went to war was completely political. Meaning rich people wanted to get richer.

Preemptive war is WRONG. Thats called an unlawful invasion.

The people in power didnt give a shit about the Iraqi people or how bad of a guy Hussein was, if that were true then we would have taken action in North Korea, Syria, Rwanda, and many other places where people are suppressed. The Syrian people are still being slaughtered, we just stopped caring some months ago.

Remember, we supported Mubarak, the horrible Egyptian dictator until it became politically inconvenient a couple of years ago. Why, because he made Egypt more progressive and better for women and minorities. Why did we not support Hussein for the same reasons?

The war BANKRUPTED the country. We were in a budget surplus with a 5 trillion dollar debt. Now we are in a 1 trillion dollar deficit with a 12 trillion dollar debt. The war kicked it off.

The war was used as an excuse to torture people and take away our 4th amendment rights and our right to due process.

The war was sold to the American people under false pretenses.

Iraq was a LESS religiously fanatical place when Saddam Hussein was in power. Women have LESS rights than under Saddam.

The Shiites are currently leading Iraq on a one way street to a new civil war. They have taken the balanced Shiite / Sunni government, ejected all the Sunnis from power, jailed many of them and taken all the Sunnis out of the police force. The country is a ticking time bomb now.

The ramp up to the war bordered on Mccarthy class fingerpointing and paranoia. Do you not remember how everybody in the media and in general who opposed War was called UnAmerican?

The war DELAYED justice for 9/11 until last year. They used the most horrible American tragedy of our time as Political Capital to put American soldiers in jeopardy.

The war expanded power for the federal government to ridiculous levels.

Now we are LESS free.

Now we are LESS safe.

Now the "liberal" Obama government has expanded warantless wiretapping, indefinite detentions and have killed American citizens without trial. We, at will and without declaring war, routinely bomb sovereign nations; some of them our allies.

The US has used Iraq to war against Iran.

The United States installed Saddam Hussein.

We established Kuwait on a no-man's land bordering on Iraq that Hussein had also claimed. When he disputed our oil trade is when he transformed into our enemy.

Yes Saddam Hussein was a bad man, but there is no way he posed a threat to the United States.

People are now making the same arguments for a war in Iran. If we learn nothing from Iraq then a new War, where the American people can only lose, will be inevitable.

The economic shitstorm we are in now is thanks partly to that war.

By that logic, America needs to start wars in waaaay more countries, no matter what the cost.

c'mon son.

@booble: I would say it turned out being more good than bad, but then, war is never a particularly welcome thing. It's an awful necessity that sometimes arises. In this case, I don't think the US -needed- to go in, and that's probably the biggest criticism one could make. But, having gone in, it has turned out better than it could have. The Afghanistan War was much more reasonable, and in some ways, it has been handled better. The Iraq War is a situation where the US and Britain probably should have gotten a bit more international investment along the lines of Afghanistan's NATO effort, and any effort to stop Saddam would have benefited from more local support.

Overall, it was an unfortunate conflict, but had it not happened, we may have seen Iraq as another Syria, if not worse. The struggle of an oppressed population against a military dictatorship. Saddam was awful, and the Middle East is probably better off without him. But the way the conflict and subsequent occupation were carried out deserves real criticism. And it will hopefully stand as a lesson in the future for countries to avoid preemptive war unless there is absolutely no other answer. As has been shown since then, there are other avenues for supporting local rebellion than invading with overwhelming military force on the ground.

I'm generally an interventionist. From that standpoint, the Iraq War was a questionable undertaking for the following reasons:

Saddam Hussein was unrelated to the crime for which he was being punished (9/11 or WMDs, or both) as such, the world was not made a safer place.

Saddam Hussein was keeping his head down for the most part, because he realized he was the poster-boy for bad guys in the world. As such, Iraqi lives were improved less than one might think (except for the Kurds, who are now rich thanks to us)

From a public relations standpoint, perceptions of the US as a humanitarian nation have not improved because after failing to intervene in numerous human rights disasters elsewhere (well, mostly Africa), Iraq was really not so terrible by comparison.

You can make the argument that the world is a quantitatively better place without Saddam Hussein and his descendants in power, but I'd say the degree of improvement as a proportion of the human and material cost of the war is far lower than we would have gotten from, say, knocking Kim Jong-Il out of business before North Korea got ICBMs, and in the process opening his country up to say... food. So you can claim, "Hey, the government spent $700 for this hammer, but at least the hammer works!" but that doesn't mean the purchase was a good idea. You know what I'm saying?

As a UK citizen, from my point of view, we basically pissed away good soldiers and money removing one dictator out of dozens. Sure Saddam was a dick, but so is Mugabe, Assad and numerous others.

@Oldirtybearon said:

@booble said:

@scalpel: So would you agree it was something of a sloppy success?

more of Pyrrhic victory.

^^^^ This we won but it didnt come as soon we expected and it was a bit messy.... I think people were expecting it to go somewhat how ww2 in terms of disarmement and occupation. where there werent thousands of insurgents trying to blow us up.

problem is most of the countries in the middle east shouldnt have the borders that they do because they incorporate groups that HATE each other to point of killing one another. it was the british and french who made borders after ww1 so that they could colonize the countries easier. its much easier to control a country if its divided against itself.

I only barely skimmed the first post of this thread and keep in mind that I barely know what I'm talking about but the main problem I have with this war was that it was illegal if you at all care about the constitution. Congress has no right to delegate their right to declare war to the President, which is what they did in this case.

Also, if one of our prime motives for invading was to rid Iraq of their regime and oust Saddam, where were we during the 80s when his atrocities were already well known? Why did we wait another 20 years to do it?

The problem with I have with intervention is that it has unintended consequences. Case in point the UN -spearheaded by the US - sanctioned the hell out of Iraq with trade embargoes and pretty much created the shittiest situation possible for Iraq, which resulted in the death of half a million Iraq children. That had at least as much to do with the crap that was going on in that whole region as any oppressive regime did.

And if we're going to say the invasion was right because we needed to stop oppression, then what about other types of oppression. What about political oppression in China? What about North Korea and hell Rwanda. Why do we get to pick and choose what kind of oppression we want to stop?

My biggest beef is, we installed this tyrant, then allied with the sauds, who are just as bad if not worse. IMO to really understand this war you have to look back during the Reagan years and how they handled the middle east, followed by H.Bush (who also started an Iraq war under false pretenses). The CIA did the same thing in Panama in the 80's with Noriega, under the pretense of war on drugs. America has an awesome history of backing the worst people in exchange for cash.

@TruthTellah said:

Overall, it was an unfortunate conflict, but had it not happened, we may have seen Iraq as another Syria, if not worse.

Or it could have been another Arab Spring, and we could have been better off not intervening. We will never know.

this is going to sound terrible but im not sure how many of the so called civilians that died were civilians. theres no way to know if the person that died was a shit head terrorist or a happy good lookin nice dude. also from the people i know that went to iraq and have returned, the women and children there are treated really horribly. so... i dunno.... i think it was a mistake because our economy is fucked but a lot of people that deserved to die got killed at least.

i'm not so naive or extreme as to believe the US should adopt an isolationist-type foreign policy. however, with the current state of the economy, the financial cliff, and our general budgetary woes- i'm becoming far more critical of where the government spends our money. and i'm not anti-spending; to the contrary, i'm a full on socialist by american standards (scandinavian-style). we've thrown billions of dollars and countless lives at the war in iraq- and for what? are americans (or even the world at large) safer today? or have we simply continued the cycle of intervention and rebellion. don't get me wrong- i can recognize there are those who are better off for the war- i just don't know if it's worth it to the average american family.

i understand there are very good reasons as to why the single largest recipient of US dollars is Defense. but i also think it's time we had a conversation about that- i don't like the idea of it being perpetually so.

@mellotronrules said:

i'm not so naive or extreme as to believe the US should adopt an isolationist-type foreign policy. however, with the current state of the economy, the financial cliff, and our general budgetary woes- i'm becoming far more critical of where the government spends our money. and i'm not anti-spending; to the contrary, i'm a full on socialist by american standards (scandinavian-style). we've thrown billions of dollars and countless lives at the war in iraq- and for what? are americans (or even the world at large) safer today? or have we simply continued the cycle of intervention and rebellion. don't get me wrong- i can recognize there are those who are better off for the war- i just don't know if it's worth it to the average american family.

i understand there are very good reasons as to why the single largest recipient of US dollars is Defense. but i also think it's time we had a conversation about that- i don't like the idea of it being perpetually so.

That's fine as long as you get the distinction between an isolationist foreign policy and a non-interventionist one.

this is going to sound terrible but im not sure how many of the so called civilians that died were civilians. theres no way to know if the person that died was a shit head terrorist or a happy good lookin nice dude. also from the people i know that went to iraq and have returned, the women and children there are treated really horribly. so... i dunno.... i think it was a mistake because our economy is fucked but a lot of people that deserved to die got killed at least.

@tunaburn said:

this is going to sound terrible but im not sure how many of the so called civilians that died were civilians. theres no way to know if the person that died was a shit head terrorist or a happy good lookin nice dude. also from the people i know that went to iraq and have returned, the women and children there are treated really horribly. so... i dunno.... i think it was a mistake because our economy is fucked but a lot of people that deserved to die got killed at least.

There weren't terrorists in Iraq before the war. Who are you to say who "deserves to die"? People aren't evil and don't deserve to die just for being Arab. People are all the same all over, we like to pretend that the people we kill in war are different from us.

As an American of Arab descent I am constantly uneasy when the media, or just good American people, confuse plain old Arabs with evil terrorists.

Well.. I was all for it. Because he was a despot dictator who gassed people and invaded other countries. He was a threat to not just his own people but to others, and as a human being I wanted him gone for hurting other humans. Now, I'm not saying those who were against the war are pro-dictatorship, but... well ... they're pro Saddam Iraq, and that's something I wont put my name to.

Christopher Hitchens was quite knowledgeable on the subject. I urge you to look up some of the debates and essays written by him

@BrickRoad

Well.. I was all for it. Because he was a despot dictator who gassed people and invaded other countries. He was a threat to not just his own people but to others, and as a human being I wanted him gone for hurting other humans. Now, I'm not saying those who were against the war are pro-dictatorship, but... well ... they're pro Saddam Iraq, and that's something I wont put my name to.

Hey how'd Bush-era Fox News get in here? I thought we had measures in place to prevent this.

No it wasn't a success, unless 100,000's of deaths is successful, it was a war based on lies to the American Public like WMD's, Al Queda in bed with Saddam. The war was started because...

A) Saddam tried a failed assassination on George Bush Snr in the 90's and Dubya wanted revenge

B) The Military needed to spend more money on weapons on companies like Halliburton and GE which high republican players like Cheney were heavily invested in and the money they used for it was all borrowed money anyway, which added hugely to the debt

C) Oil reserves

It was an illegal invasion of a country America had no business going to war with, while they were already at war in Afghanistan.

@spartanlolz92 said:

@Oldirtybearon said:

@booble said:

@scalpel: So would you agree it was something of a sloppy success?

more of Pyrrhic victory.

^^^^ This we won but it didnt come as soon we expected and it was a bit messy.... I think people were expecting it to go somewhat how ww2 in terms of disarmement and occupation. where there werent thousands of insurgents trying to blow us up.

problem is most of the countries in the middle east shouldnt have the borders that they do because they incorporate groups that HATE each other to point of killing one another. it was the british and french who made borders after ww1 so that they could colonize the countries easier. its much easier to control a country if its divided against itself.

What exactly did America win? I love this term insurgents, back in the day that used to be called defending your country.

America removed any bit of credibility it gained while removing the Taliban from power in Afghanistan through invading Iraq.

Were these journalists and the van with the kid in the back that tried to help them insurgents as well?

I wish we hadn't done it, but despite the loss of life I think it worked out best for Iraq in the long run.

@Bourbon_Warrior said:

What exactly did America win?

@BrickRoad said:

Well.. I was all for it. Because he was a despot dictator who gassed people and invaded other countries. He was a threat to not just his own people but to others, and as a human being I wanted him gone for hurting other humans. Now, I'm not saying those who were against the war are pro-dictatorship, but... well ... they're pro Saddam Iraq, and that's something I wont put my name to.

That comment makes you sound exactly like Bush when he claimed "you're either with us or against us" you realize that right?

@bennyboy:

i'm well aware the distinction. isolationism is foolhardy and untenable. as are some forms of non-intervention. even a well-reasoned 'humanitarian interventionism' is a bit of a quamire.

ultimately i'm simply looking at the challenges the US faces, and wondering if our government expenditures are indeed in the best service of our citizens. we fancy ourselves 'world police' and 'the greatest nation on earth' (if one buys into the rhetoric), but there is a real, tangible cost to all that talk. and the question remains, is it worth it? granted, that's a much larger (and philosophically complex) issue.

@Sergio said:

@TruthTellah said:

Overall, it was an unfortunate conflict, but had it not happened, we may have seen Iraq as another Syria, if not worse.

Or it could have been another Arab Spring, and we could have been better off not intervening. We will never know.

Indeed. As I mentioned at the end of my comment, there could have been other ways to handle it which have been seen over the last few years. Though, due to the makeup of Iraq, it was much more likely to be like today's Syria uprising than one of the more peaceful Arab Spring rises. In Syria, it has become a full civil war with the government having already killed over 60,000 civilians. So, another conflict like that with an even more brutal regime like Saddam Hussein's(and an even bigger proxy war with forces and resources from Iran), it might have been much, much worse than Syria. Neither outcome was a particularly good one, but there are legitimate criticisms of how the war effort and subsequent occupation were handled.

Yeah it was pretty much about making sure that the Saddam wasn't allowed to maintain control of the most important resource on Earth. These days people will say it was about WMDs and preventing more genocide and tyranny blah blah blah but it was really that if they left Saddam in power they didn't see him playing ball, he was never a threat.

Oil prices have more than quadrupled since the Iraq war because of the disruption to the oil market. Seems all they did was spend money on expensive shovels to dig a nice big hole.

Without oil you simply have no power. It might not even be so much about profit as it is about simply having the access to oil reserves, because the beating heart of all modern militaries is oil. Without it your fighter jets and bombs and tanks and infrastructure simply ceases to function.

@spartanlolz92 said:

@Oldirtybearon said:

@booble said:

@scalpel: So would you agree it was something of a sloppy success?

more of Pyrrhic victory.

^^^^ This we won but it didnt come as soon we expected and it was a bit messy.... I think people were expecting it to go somewhat how ww2 in terms of disarmement and occupation. where there werent thousands of insurgents trying to blow us up.

problem is most of the countries in the middle east shouldnt have the borders that they do because they incorporate groups that HATE each other to point of killing one another. it was the british and french who made borders after ww1 so that they could colonize the countries easier. its much easier to control a country if its divided against itself.

Fun facts: Germany was originally the partner of Britain in the eventual Sykes-Picot treaty instead of the French. Unfortunately, WWI started mere days before their agreement was finalized, and we did not see a German controlled Lebanon. Also, Royal Dutch Shell's (I think it was Royal Dutch) first oil excavation in the Middle East did not hit oil until the same date they received orders from HQ to give up and leave. That would have set back oil drilling there by decades most likely.

IMO, it was all bullshit! Watching Powell pitching the thing at the UN back then seemed like a bad idea from the start.

@FunkasaurasRex said:

@BrickRoad

Well.. I was all for it. Because he was a despot dictator who gassed people and invaded other countries. He was a threat to not just his own people but to others, and as a human being I wanted him gone for hurting other humans. Now, I'm not saying those who were against the war are pro-dictatorship, but... well ... they're pro Saddam Iraq, and that's something I wont put my name to.

Hey how'd Bush-era Fox News get in here? I thought we had measures in place to prevent this.

@Vinny_Says said:

@BrickRoad said:

Well.. I was all for it. Because he was a despot dictator who gassed people and invaded other countries. He was a threat to not just his own people but to others, and as a human being I wanted him gone for hurting other humans. Now, I'm not saying those who were against the war are pro-dictatorship, but... well ... they're pro Saddam Iraq, and that's something I wont put my name to.

That comment makes you sound exactly like Bush when he claimed "you're either with us or against us" you realize that right?

Zing! You totally got me guys! Oh wow, imagine how stupid I must feel, an Englishman like myself, socialist to the bone, who would rather see a free Iraq than an Iraq under the control of a madman. Ho ho, is my face red! You're totally right, those Iraqi's were better off living in fear of their leader anyway, plus, and whisper it, they were totally far away from us! Man, I'm an idiot.

@BrickRoad said:

@FunkasaurasRex said:

@BrickRoad

Well.. I was all for it. Because he was a despot dictator who gassed people and invaded other countries. He was a threat to not just his own people but to others, and as a human being I wanted him gone for hurting other humans. Now, I'm not saying those who were against the war are pro-dictatorship, but... well ... they're pro Saddam Iraq, and that's something I wont put my name to.

Hey how'd Bush-era Fox News get in here? I thought we had measures in place to prevent this.

@Vinny_Says said:

@BrickRoad said:

Well.. I was all for it. Because he was a despot dictator who gassed people and invaded other countries. He was a threat to not just his own people but to others, and as a human being I wanted him gone for hurting other humans. Now, I'm not saying those who were against the war are pro-dictatorship, but... well ... they're pro Saddam Iraq, and that's something I wont put my name to.

That comment makes you sound exactly like Bush when he claimed "you're either with us or against us" you realize that right?

Zing! You totally got me guys! Oh wow, imagine how stupid I must feel, an Englishman like myself, socialist to the bone, who would rather see a free Iraq than an Iraq under the control of a madman. Ho ho, is my face red! You're totally right, those Iraqi's were better off living in fear of their leader anyway, plus, and whisper it, they were totally far away from us! Man, I'm an idiot.

1. This isn't about "getting you". It's about your comment.
2. Your comment makes the situation seem completely black and white, just like FOX news and George Bush did.
3. Being English doesn't mean anything, nor does it have anything to do with your intelligence level
4. Neither does being a socialist
5. You have spent....hmmm let me guess....zero seconds in either a saddam controlled iraq or a post-saddam iraq. You know jack shit about how life actually was/is there.
6. There are better ways to articulate your original comment

@Vinny_Says:

It's just my opinion, sir. Please don't use my nationality to suggest I was trying to make you feel inferior - I said I'm English so you know my information on the war, Bush, etc came from a different ideological background. My socialism was said so you know I was not pro-Bush. I have my right to my opinion, don't try and put me down by suggesting I sound exactly like George Bush when I express my view. I really do not understand why you got so aggressive. The fact remains, I was for the war in Iraq, because to me, a free Iraq is better than a Iraq that is controlled by a dictator. Nothing is black or white, and that's true, but you're doing me a disservice and making yourself look rash when you claim that just because I haven't lived somewhere means I know 'jack shit' about that place, or that I should have no opinion. In fact, you have no idea how much I know about anything.

Cheap jokes about 9/11 aside, I think this is pretty funny in retrospect of how we handled things.