[sa1177]

Originally Posted by maxiep

I'm not calling you out, so please don't take it that way, but do you really draw from this conflict that the two sides are morally equivalent?

Here is my view: The insurgents' strategy is to intentionally harm civilians and then attempt to hide among them. They pursue this strategy because they are having difficulty getting what they want via the ballot box. Our strategy is to spare as many civilian lives as we can, even though it may result in higher coalition casualites. We have not only lived with, but supported the results of Iraqi elections, even though those results have not turned out to be as supportive of our efforts as we would have hoped.

No you're certainly correct in stating that I do NOT consider them "morally equivalent"...however I am also not convinced that our strategy is to "spare as many civillian lives as possible." If this was the case I would think we would be much more focused on providing humanitarian aid to Iraqis. IMO that part of the operation in Iraq has been vitually ignored to date.

[el_Diablo]

Sweden had exactly as much to do with the awful events of that day is Iraq.

sweden always deserves a good bombing..

[Stepping Razor]

Originally Posted by David_Ortiz

I know it was Osama Bin Laden don't ****ing talk to me like an idiot. I meant, where's he from and what's his deal?

Sorry if I'm coming across as an *******. It's just that this particular argument -- they hit us on 9/11, so we should hit them in Iraq -- really aggravates me because, as a factual matter, the "they" that hit us on 9/11 is just a different "they" than we're attacking in Iraq.

To answer your question:

Osama Bin Laden is Saudi Arabian. He comes from one of the most wealthy and powerful families in Saudi Arabia, a family with many ties to the Saudi royal family. The Saudi royal family is also very very close to the Bush family, going back to the 1970s. Saudi Arabia is nominally an American ally, although Saudi Arabia is also a hotbed for anti-American terrorism, and it's not clear whether the country's leadership is working very hard to crack down terrorism. Besides Osama, something like I believe 16 of the 19 hijackers (I might be off by one or two there) on 9/11 were Saudi.

Before 9/11, Osama bin Laden and his followers in Al Qaeda were physically located in Afghanistan, where the Taliban government shared their fundamentalist Islamist attitudes and actively supported their terrorist plans.

So it seems to me that in seeking retribution for 9/11, legitimate targets would include:

1. Osama Bin Laden
2. Al Qaeda members, anywhere in the world
3. Afghanistan/The Taliban, which were harboring Osama
4. Maybe Saudi Arabia?

Note that Iraq is not on that list. That's because Iraq had literally nothing to do with 9/11, Osama, Al Qaeda, or anything related to it. In fact, Saddam and Osama hated each other. The reason is that Saddam's brand of evil (modern, fascist, secular) is inherently at odds with Osama's brand of evil (traditionalist, fundamentalist, Islamist). Osama and Saddam both hated us, but they also hated each other. Only one of them attacked us on 9/11. We shifted our focus to go after the other one. As Ed O. suggests in his post, there are other reasons why we might want to go into Iraq. 9/11 isn't one of them.

Stepping Razor

[Jacoby_Ellsbury]

Originally Posted by Stepping Razor

Sorry if I'm coming across as an *******. It's just that this particular argument -- they hit us on 9/11, so we should hit them in Iraq -- really aggravates me because, as a factual matter, the "they" that hit us on 9/11 is just a different "they" than we're attacking in Iraq.

ehh no problem

I'm 17 years old and was just 11 when this **** hit the fan.

Osama Bin Laden is Saudi Arabian. He comes from one of the most wealthy and powerful families in Saudi Arabia, a family with many ties to the Saudi royal family. The Saudi royal family is also very very close to the Bush family, going back to the 1970s. Saudi Arabia is nominally an American ally, although Saudi Arabia is also a hotbed for anti-American terrorism, and it's not clear whether the country's leadership is working very hard to crack down terrorism. Besides Osama, something like I believe 16 of the 19 hijackers (I might be off by one or two there) on 9/11 were Saudi.

So Bush doesn't want to go into Saudi Arabia because his dad and Saudi's king were chillmates?

Tough to bomb them if their considered an ally.... what I'd do (but Bush won't obviously) is tell the government in no uncertain terms to crack down on the anti-US stuff over there. And if they don't or just refuse, cancel allies and turn them into vapor.

Before 9/11, Osama bin Laden and his followers in Al Qaeda were physically located in Afghanistan, where the Taliban government shared their fundamentalist Islamist attitudes and actively supported their terrorist plans.

So I assume they fled Afghanistan afterwards.... and as far as i know the Taliban's gone, so we can't kick the **** out of them.

So it seems to me that in seeking retribution for 9/11, legitimate targets would include:

1. Osama Bin Laden
2. Al Qaeda members, anywhere in the world
3. Afghanistan/The Taliban, which were harboring Osama
4. Maybe Saudi Arabia?

Note that Iraq is not on that list. That's because Iraq had literally nothing to do with 9/11, Osama, Al Qaeda, or anything related to it. In fact, Saddam and Osama hated each other. The reason is that Saddam's brand of evil (modern, fascist, secular) is inherently at odds with Osama's brand of evil (traditionalist, fundamentalist, Islamist). Osama and Saddam both hated us, but they also hated each other. Only one of them attacked us on 9/11. We shifted our focus to go after the other one. As Ed O. suggests in his post, there are other reasons why we might want to go into Iraq. 9/11 isn't one of them.

From what I've read we go after Saudi Arabia. I know we're looking for Osama but knowing our government they probably haven't touched SA.

[Stepping Razor]

Originally Posted by Ed O

So assuming they had nothing to do with 9/11, there was NO REASON to go into Iraq? That doesn't seem accurate.

Now these are more interesting questions. IMO they still do not/did not justify the invasion of Iraq, but they're a lot more compelling than a bogus 9/11 "eye for an eye" justification.

Still, IMO anyway, they have major flaws.

They were thought to possess WMDs. Not just by the U.S., not just by the British. By almost everyone.

This is clearly the most compelling argument, but also the most suspect. Before the 2003 inspections that were made possible by Bush's saber-rattling (and if he had stopped at saber-rattling, he would have been a genius!), most everyone did suspect Iraq had some kind of WMDs. But the inspections proved that there was no threat, and in the last weeks before the war began it became apparent that the Bush admin. was racing to start the war before the UN or US inspectors issued a definitive report proving that there was no longer a WMD threat. This hints strongly that WMD was more pretext than reason for the invasion. And another problem: while most of the world suspected Saddam of having a "WMD" program, that really meant chemical weapons. Which are nasty, but nothing like a nuclear weapon. No one but neocon ideologues thought that Iraq had a serious nuclear program, yet there was all kind of talk about "mushroom clouds" and whatnot.

They definitely had possessed and used WMDs in the past.

Yup. And, as the 2003 inspections showed, they didn't in the present. The sanctions/inspections regime after the First Gulf War worked.

They had invaded a neighboring country under the existing regime.

More than once, in fact. Although we did support him the first time (vs. Iran) and he thought he got our assent (Google "April Glaspie") the second time (vs. Kuwait). Was anyone seriously worried that he was going to invade someone again?

They have vast oil reserves.

Indeed. Although if you suggest this is why we went into Iraq, you will usually find yourself denounced as some kind of Chomksyite conspiracy theorist.

They are strategically located next to Iran.

True. Saddam was Iran's greatest enemy. The new Iraqi government, should it not collapse entirely, looks like it's going to end up being something close to an Iranian puppet state.
They had a regime in place that was entrenched and firmly anti-American. I don't see how the situation has improved.

Might these reasons not be good enough for some people? Absolutely. Some people didn't think the Americans should enter WW II, either.

I think that's pretty unfair, to be honest. As a point of historical fact, not just some but most Americans opposed entering WWII. That's why we didn't jump in until 2 years after it started. Then Japan attacked us. And Germany declared war on us. Then we struck back at them. At that point almost no Americans thought the US should not enter the war. It's a bad historical analogy.

To argue that there are NO reasons to exert military influence in the region and to bring down Saddam Hussein doesn't seem very accurate.

I agree entirely. I, personally, just don't find those reasons to be very compelling. In 2002/3 that made me part of a tiny minority of the American people; today it puts me with a large majority. Only time will tell whether the majority of 2002 or 2007 was correct.

Stepping Razor

[Stepping Razor]

Originally Posted by David_Ortiz

ehh no problem

I'm 17 years old and was just 11 when this **** hit the fan.

Now I feel even worse for being a punk about that. Sorry dude.

So Bush doesn't want to go into Saudi Arabia because his dad and Saudi's king were chillmates?

Tough to bomb them if their considered an ally.... what I'd do (but Bush won't obviously) is tell the government in no uncertain terms to crack down on the anti-US stuff over there. And if they don't or just refuse, cancel allies and turn them into vapor.

I don't know what the answer is with regard to Saudi Arabia. It's a mess.

So I assume they fled Afghanistan afterwards.... and as far as i know the Taliban's gone, so we can't kick the **** out of them.

Yeah, the first response to 9/11 -- going after Afghanistan -- was the right move. But we didn't finish the job. The Taliban is actually coming back, and Osama and Co. are still hiding out up in the mountains along the border with Pakistan (which is another country that's a major problem). IMO if we moved all the resources we've invested in Iraq back to Afghanistan, that would be a good start to solving many of the problems facing us. We could probably even catch Osama.

Stepping Razor

[moldorf]

Originally Posted by Stepping Razor

This is clearly the most compelling argument, but also the most suspect. Before the 2003 inspections that were made possible by Bush's saber-rattling (and if he had stopped at saber-rattling, he would have been a genius!), most everyone did suspect Iraq had some kind of WMDs. But the inspections proved that there was no threat, and in the last weeks before the war began it became apparent that the Bush admin. was racing to start the war before the UN or US inspectors issued a definitive report proving that there was no longer a WMD threat. This hints strongly that WMD was more pretext than reason for the invasion. And another problem: while most of the world suspected Saddam of having a "WMD" program, that really meant chemical weapons. Which are nasty, but nothing like a nuclear weapon. No one but neocon ideologues thought that Iraq had a serious nuclear program, yet there was all kind of talk about "mushroom clouds" and whatnot.

Yup. And, as the 2003 inspections showed, they didn't in the present. The sanctions/inspections regime after the First Gulf War worked.


Stepping Razor

it's also not accurate to say that Iraq was suspected to have WMD's by "almost everyone". That is a falsehood perpetuated by the constant parroting of war supporters and apologists.

Substantial components of British Intelligence didn't believe Iraq had WMDs. The same is true of French and Italian Intelligence. And the fact that a vast majority of europeans weren't buying the arguments or supporting the war can't be discounted. After all, they are much closer to Iraq geographically, their media wan't blinded by groupthink, and it is a fact they were right.

Furthermore, the UN inspectors didn't believe it and were almost unanimous in their postiton. A notable exception was David Kay, and isn't it funny that he was just about the only inspector that was ever on american television in the lead-up to the war (an later had nothing but contempt for the lies and incompetence of the Bush administration). Scott Ritter was marginalized by a PR campaign but what he said over and over...on the rare instances when he made it into the media....turned out to be exactly correct.

The WMD argument, we now know, was part of one of the most elaborate con-jobs ever perpetrated by a government. That, added to massive incompetence and idealogical blindness have created this mess.

[mqtcelticsfan]

Originally Posted by David_Ortiz

ehh no problem

I'm 17 years old and was just 11 when this **** hit the fan.

I'm sorry, but I am 17 as well, and if you don't know that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and Osama, the public school system has failed you.



As you can see, there is this giant mass of land named Iran in between where we believe Osama is and Iraq. What a lot of people fail to realize is that the entire region is not named "Al-Qaeda" and we do not have free reign in the Middle East because of 9/11.

[Jacoby_Ellsbury]

Originally Posted by mqtcelticsfan

I'm sorry, but I am 17 as well, and if you don't know that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and Osama, the public school system has failed you.

well, yeah it's New Hampshire! Tell me something I don't know! :P

everything's a failure up here. can't wait to leave.

[Jacoby_Ellsbury]

For the next part of your post, I'm going to assume that Iran won't just let us stroll right through to Afghanistan, right? In any case, go through anyway, and meet any resistance with a big can of whoopass. Then just mosey on in to Afghanistan, search the caves, and find that *****.

Something tells me there's an issue with that strategy though.

[mqtcelticsfan]

Originally Posted by David_Ortiz

For the next part of your post, I'm going to assume that Iran won't just let us stroll right through to Afghanistan, right? In any case, go through anyway, and meet any resistance with a big can of whoopass. Then just mosey on in to Afghanistan, search the caves, and find that *****.

Something tells me there's an issue with that strategy though.

Dude, we've been in Afghanistan for 6 years now.

[Jacoby_Ellsbury]

now why didn't anybody tell me that before?