In hindsight, what should the U.S. have done? Every country with any intelligence thought Sadaam had WMDs. He had repeatedly broken UN resolutions and we risked being the country that cried wolf. Iraq is better without Sadaam. Do you think we should have left Sadaam alone, even after continually defying UN resolutions? This not a post to justify the war...just curious about people's opinions.
So Fla? Care to respond? I'm still waiting over there on pins and needles on the Al Qaeda thread. Or is your response still being nuanced?
We should have let the seach for WMD continue until completed. We should have continued to work w/ the UN to get a favorable vote for putting the screws to Saddam. We should have concentrated on nation-building in Afghanistan until the job was done right. (Everyone remembers that international consensus). We should have been "humble" in foriegn affairs. I can think of some things we should not have done: We should not have created a war hysteria.
You can't look at the war in Iraq as a single event as it is really a continuation of America's presence in the Middle East. The US has been a strong and vocal ally to Israel who has been in a constant state of war with at least one if it's Arab neighbours really since its inception. It is not a coincidence that the Israeli helicopters firing missiles in refugee camps in the Gaza Strip are Apaches. You can't fix a social problem with force and this is one of the key problems with the US approach to the Middle East. To save the US being stuck in continual warfare in the Middle East the US must fix the Israeli/Arab social issues as these are the cause of the military issues in the Middle East. Crowdie
I can't argue with any of this. I think we should have aggressively tried to destablize Saddam short of war. We should have been proceeding along the road of setting honest precedent for seeking freedom for all Middle Eastern peoples. We should have used Colin Powell as an ambassador of good will. Someone who was really out there trying to understand the problems of men and women in the middle east and trying to approach issues with an eye to how a peaceful world benefits the US. Somebody who could articulate our foreign policy better than Bush, who is more embarrasing every time he opens his mouth.
Amen to all of this. If we had done this we would still have Saddam contained, we would have saved 800 or so American lives, countless thousands of Iraqi lives and untold billions of dollars. And we'd still have the goodwill of much of the rest of the world that came our way on 9/11/01. Perhaps we could have even captured OBL and broken the back of AQ. Just a thought.
I guess Sofa has one of those watchacallems..... you know, one of those life things. It peskily gets in the way of his BigSoccer posting. Either that or he doesn't have a computer at home.
So what we should have asked the dictatorship's nicely to form a democracy? Somehow i doubt that would have worked. As to whether its our job to try to "enforce" democracy in the middle east, personally i think it would have been better if they got the innitiative themselves but again, i dont see that happening. Can you be more specific about the "aggressively tried to destablize Saddam short of war part" ?. Countless un resolutions, sanctions etc did nothing. Added to the fact of how corrupt the un oil for food program was i dont see what else we could have done peacebly that wasn't already being done. We could have continued with more pointless un resolutions, or acted on our own due to France, Germany, Russia veto'ing any resolution that called for decisive action like we did in reality. In my opinion we wont know for sure what was the right choice for some time.
Nice job answering that question. I am astounded by your eloquence and you have certainly convinced me....
[Note: Toaster answered my insult before I had a chance to edit it.] By the way, I thought your question posed to me was pretty silly. Don't expect eloquence when you ask a dumb question.
Ahh i see. I ask a question about how to do somthing that the UN has been trying to do for almost 15 years and failed miserably at and its a dumb question... Ok.
Here is your question again. Now read the first few posts. And then tell me again if you think this is an intelligent question.
But it IS a strange coincidence that the tanks are Israeli made Merkavas. Indeed, it was the root of the Iran-Iraq war which killed 1 million people (way more than all the Arab-Israeli wars, for those keeping score at home). There are some who claim the Arab-Israeli conflict is the root cause of global warming, but that's probably a stretch.
When Al Qaeda quotes destroying the American supported Israel as one of it's key objectives and the US is trying to destroy Al Qaeda you start to see a relationship here. Crowdie
Yes, one of Al Qaeda's several justfications for attacking the USA is our support for Israel. That is a FAR CRY from the Israel-Arab conflict being "the cause of the military issues in the Middle East"
So: 1) America supports Israel. 2) Israel is at war with her Arab neighbours. 3) Al Qaeda, a body made up of Arab people who state they want the US to stop supporting Israel, organise an attack of the city of New York. 4) The US uses this attack to justify attacking Iraq. You can't see the link between the Israel-Arab conflict and the US lead invasion of Iraq (the two biggest military issues in the Middle East)? Crowdie
Once again, there were several reasons why AQ attacked the USA. There are also numerous reasons for the various conflicts in the Middle East. Therefore, your argument that the Israel-Arab conflict is the cause of the military issues in the Middle East is incorrect. It is a cause, not "the cause." I'd also argue that Bin Laden has much greater concerns than the Israel-Arab conflict. Lastly, the bin Ladens of the world do everything they can to scuttle peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. A peace agreement (or the prospects of one) would provoke even more terror.
Wrong. The steps are, 1) America supports the al Saud dynasty 2) OBL is at war with the al Saud dynasty 3) AQ organizes an attack against NYC and DC 3) US justifies it's attack on Afghanistan and Iraq, who is forcing US troops to defend the al Saud family
assuming that "not elect george W bush president" is out of bounds here, i will cede my time to the honorable senator from bigsoccer
Why is it a dumb question? Because you can't come up with a suitable answer? Ive seen nothing in this thread that indicates a even remotely new idea that wasnt tried with Iraq before we went to war. Actually never mind, dont answer. I can tell you have nothing to add of substance anyway judging by your previous responses.