Indeed. I find it sad that a former member of the U.S. armed forces focused so entirely on the bad side of the war. Saddam Hussein was a force for evil, and the world is better off without him in power.
That said, the instigation of the war was, at the very least, a slap in the face to international relations, and the way the war has been conducted is shameful.
Again, my best wishes to you all. May God grant America the insight to turn things around politically, so that I'm not afraid to watch major league hockey anymore.
"Saddam Hussein was a force for evil, and the world is better off without him in power."
I can't at all disagree that he was evil. He was an awful man and it was awful that we supported him when we did. Just like all the other dictator's USA has supported in the name of Democracy (ironically crushing democratically elected governments in doing so... funny eh?)
However, I absolutely disagree that anyone is better off without him in power at this time. Iraq is now the massive breeding ground for terrorism that Bush briefly claimed it was in one of his many lies used to go in to Iraq to depose Saddam. No one in Iraq is better off, in fact many of them have much more to fear than at any time when Saddam was in power. Our war there has killed more people than Saddam ever did. How is that better? There will be more terror attacks against the US, Israel, Palestinians, etc... basically EVERYONE, because of this. The world is markedly less safe in light of what our country has done there.
I agree, Saddam needed to go at some point. This was absolutely the worst way ever possible to do it. There were a lot of better ways available to us at the time, though splitting ourselves between our at least somewhat legitimate action in Afghanistan and the (known) quagmire of Iraq was just raw stupidity. I love how Bush doesn't even care if we catch Osama. What a joke.
I never meant to imply that the situation in Iraq is anything but a cluster-fuck. For me, though, that has a lot more to do with bad strategic choices and the unilateral cowboy approach than Hussein's government having been toppled. That's all I was trying to express.
Right. I think we should have waited until the deal in Afgahnistan was more stable and some sort of long term solution was in place, then via a UN coalition that may or may not have been US Led a *massive* force should have gone in and ousted Saddam. OR asked for him to step down and allow UN peace keepers in to maintain order. Not this hunt and destroy everything that looks unfriendly but might just be simply picking it's nose.
But then we set a precedent for going in and taking out people we don't like who aren't directly threatening us in any meaningful way. There are a lot of those folks. Do we want to police the world? Iraq has oil, but other places don't. I don't think we'd do the same for places that have no strategic benefit to us. And that would be grossly hypocritical. Then again, that kind of definse US foreign policy for the last few decades >_
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-10-21 11:28 pm (UTC)That said, the instigation of the war was, at the very least, a slap in the face to international relations, and the way the war has been conducted is shameful.
Again, my best wishes to you all. May God grant America the insight to turn things around politically, so that I'm not afraid to watch major league hockey anymore.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-22 02:35 am (UTC)I can't at all disagree that he was evil. He was an awful man and it was awful that we supported him when we did. Just like all the other dictator's USA has supported in the name of Democracy (ironically crushing democratically elected governments in doing so... funny eh?)
However, I absolutely disagree that anyone is better off without him in power at this time. Iraq is now the massive breeding ground for terrorism that Bush briefly claimed it was in one of his many lies used to go in to Iraq to depose Saddam. No one in Iraq is better off, in fact many of them have much more to fear than at any time when Saddam was in power. Our war there has killed more people than Saddam ever did. How is that better? There will be more terror attacks against the US, Israel, Palestinians, etc... basically EVERYONE, because of this. The world is markedly less safe in light of what our country has done there.
I agree, Saddam needed to go at some point. This was absolutely the worst way ever possible to do it. There were a lot of better ways available to us at the time, though splitting ourselves between our at least somewhat legitimate action in Afghanistan and the (known) quagmire of Iraq was just raw stupidity. I love how Bush doesn't even care if we catch Osama. What a joke.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-22 01:24 pm (UTC)I never meant to imply that the situation in Iraq is anything but a cluster-fuck. For me, though, that has a lot more to do with bad strategic choices and the unilateral cowboy approach than Hussein's government having been toppled. That's all I was trying to express.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-22 05:00 pm (UTC)But then we set a precedent for going in and taking out people we don't like who aren't directly threatening us in any meaningful way. There are a lot of those folks. Do we want to police the world? Iraq has oil, but other places don't. I don't think we'd do the same for places that have no strategic benefit to us. And that would be grossly hypocritical. Then again, that kind of definse US foreign policy for the last few decades >_