Iraq war 20 years

Discussion in 'Current Events' started by Endeavor, Mar 20, 2023.

  1. Endeavor

    Endeavor Well-Known Member

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    Twenty years ago Republican President took USA to war with Iraq with false pretext that Saddam Hussein had WMD, Hussein was behind 9/11.


    4,488: U.S. service personnel killed directly.

    32,223: Troops injured

    $1.7 trillion: Amount in war expenses spent by the U.S. Treasury Department as through Fiscal Year 2013.

    $7 trillion: Projected interest payments due by 2053 (because the war was paid for with borrowed money).

    134,000: Civilians killed directly.
     
  2. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    So, you point is shouldn't we or should we? Or what exactly is your point in this?
     
  3. Endeavor

    Endeavor Well-Known Member

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    I actually left it this way to share everyone thoughts.

    My personal thought is this. time and time we have seen how Americans react when they face an adversary. During the Iran hostage crisis President Carter did the right thing not going to war, but American people punished him for it. After 9/11 majority American supported going to war with Afghanistan. I was and still am supported of that war. But the war with Iraq was a ” war of choice” and majority Americans ( Democrat and Republican ) supported that war. Majority Americans didn’t think Saddam had any thing to do with 9/11 but believed Saddam had WMD. Even the people who were skeptic of Saddam and 9/11, their mentality was “ It is better to kill them then us”.

    There was no WMD, there was no link to 9/11 and we went to war absolutely for nothing. Republic attack MSM today for so many thing. But if I remember correctly MSM like CNN , ABC, NBC, CBS headline before the war was “ Road to Iraq”. The MSM would have one after another report about Saddam’s stock pile of WMD. Not a single MSM question Bush administration. MSM became anti-war after 2004 when it became very clear that Iraq didn’t have WMD.

    Today GWB popularity is 70%. This is the guy who lied to American people and the world and took us to war.
     
  4. Pro_Line_FL

    Pro_Line_FL Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Hard to believe its been 20 years already.

    His approval was 25% when he finally left the WH. If its 70% today , then maybe people appreciate him not interjecting himself in the spotlight too much. IMO that is the right thing to do as president.
     
  5. Endeavor

    Endeavor Well-Known Member

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    GWB approval is in 70% because Americans compare him with the most recent GOP president.
     
  6. JET3534

    JET3534 Well-Known Member

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    By definition a CURRENT EVENT is an event happening now. What is the point of this post and what is the current event?

    Bush was a terrible President. One of the worst of all time. His first cabinet meeting discussed having a war with Iraq as documented in Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's book. This was way before 9/11.
     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2023
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  7. Endeavor

    Endeavor Well-Known Member

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    Today is 20 years anniversary of Iraq war. that is current even.

    What is your thought about Iraq war?
     
  8. JET3534

    JET3534 Well-Known Member

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    IMHO A terrible waste of money and life. One of my sons was in the National Guard when the war kicked off and was going to College. He was activated and began an infantry deployment in Iraq and it really disturbed me at the time that we were sending soldiers off to war in unarmored Humvees because our defense budget went for the big ticket items. The bottom line to me is the war was engineered by a flawed doctrine developed by an academic who (no surprise) never served in the military. That would be Wolfowitz whose agenda I believe was to have the US take out a threat to Israel, i.e., Israel first and America second agenda. And he was assisted by a man (Scooter Libby) later convicted.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfowitz_Doctrine
     
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  9. Reasonablerob

    Reasonablerob Well-Known Member

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    Good, the right thing to do and there were WMDs, Iraq is batter off now than ever before. We should be proud and congratulate GW
     
  10. MelshieMaze

    MelshieMaze Well-Known Member

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    All I remember from way back when was one moment we were in Afghanistan looking for Osama, next moment we're in Iraq looking for WMDs that turn out to have never been there in the first place and then Iraq is left a complete mess all around. Not a fine moment in American history at all.
     
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  11. Endeavor

    Endeavor Well-Known Member

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    Iraq had WMD ? What happened to them?

    Iraq is better off or not is not the point. Point is we had no business going to war with Iraq.
     
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  12. Endeavor

    Endeavor Well-Known Member

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    For me it is a collective failure of America. Bush administration engineered reason to go to war, American people believed the lie. Media was cheering for the war and accepted everything came out of Administration. Media never done any investigation on their own. Politician on both sides supported the war overwhelming.

    But what is more shocking to me is that by 2004 election, Americans knew that there is no WMD, no link between 9/11 and Saddam, yet majority Americans voted for Bush.
     
  13. JET3534

    JET3534 Well-Known Member

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    There is really no telling what the low information types think about anything. And if they were not low information types, who would they have to vote for? Our elections are controlled and as Trump said rigged. Ergo, the outrage from the establishment when an outsider (Trump) actually got elected. The oligarchy that controls the country will never let that happen again. Got to give Trump a lot of credit for derailing both low energy Jeb and Mrs. Bill Clinton, a woman who thought she was destined to run the show.
     
  14. Chrizton

    Chrizton Well-Known Member

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    Hussein was a constant thorn in our side in the region. Even if the WMD thing was blown way out of proportion, toppling him wasn't that bad a choice. Where things went south was thinking we were going to build a pro-western government by winning the hearts and minds after that. We are never going to win hearts and minds in an Islamic country. They have a very patriarchal mindset in their culture and will always be inclined to some variation of top-down rule.
     
  15. Quantum Nerd

    Quantum Nerd Well-Known Member

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    A tragedy. I was still in Germany at the time of the invasion, we moved to the US a couple of months later. Outside of the US, it was clear to everyone that Iraq had no WMDs, was no threat, and wasn't involved in 9/11. The Colin Powell spiel at the UN was pathetic and forever tainted his reputation. He should have said no to being the frontman for peddling GWB warhawk propaganda.

    Of course, at the time, America was hurt. It didn't matter whether the war was based on a lie or not, somebody had to pay for 9/11. Unfortunately, it was 100,000s Iraqi people who had nothing to do with it.

    I blame the media. EVERY media outlet peddled the GWB war propaganda. Fox, CNN,..... The stupid lies about the mushroom cloud. None of the "respected" journalists did the homework and questioned the official narrative. Why? Because they thought the war drums was what the people wanted to hear.
     
  16. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    To be quite honest, it was more than GWB. It was Rumsfeld, Cheney, pretty much the entire GOP caucus in both houses, and a whole bunch of conservative commentators in the media as well, namely Fox. That being said, the Iraq invasion was something that was 11 years in the making, from the end in 1992 to that day. We tried the UN way and it worked, for a while. Then around 1996 or 97, it stopped being the world vs Iraq to Iraq and its allies, namely Russia, France, and Germany vs the US and our allies, namely the UK, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. Hence why there were only two possibilities in 2003. First, acquiesce to Iraq and not inspect anymore. We got 95% of all WMDs including the research that was supposed to be surrendered or invaded. 95% is something called "close enough for government work" type of thing but it would have been far more detrimental if another nation wanted to do what Iraq did. So, we went to war. But my argument is we rushed into it, pretty much had no exit strategy once we completed the military objectives, and no contingency plan if some of the people rose up. We underestimated the Iraqi people, namely the former Ba'ath party members and Sunni Muslims, and we opened a whole can of worms that had laid dormant since the end of WW1 when that part of the region was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. We quite literally saw a type of war that Major Frank Burns on MASH dreamt of that day and it was on 24/7 on CNN.

    We made mistakes before, during, and after the invasion and never had a true analysis of the situation within the government's upper levels and so forth.
     
  17. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    Except Germany and France had supplied Iraq with Chemical and biological weapons, were in cahoots with Saddam Hussein, and were pushing for the ending of IAEA inspections even though they were not finished. This was not just something the US is guilty of, it was France, Russia, Germany, and a whole bunch of others. Everyone wanted their hands into Iraq in one way or the other, with or without Saddam Hussein.
     
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  18. jcarlilesiu

    jcarlilesiu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That wasn't the reason the US went to war for the second time with Iraq.
     
  19. AARguy

    AARguy Well-Known Member

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    Only about 14,000 of that 134,000 civilian dead were due to US military action, and most of those were terrorists. "Colateral damage" was kept to a minimum by a new generation of precision weapons. Most of those casualties were due to Shia-Sunni violence. Sadaam kept the two groups under contrl with his terror. Once he was gone, the wholesale slaughter of Shia by Sunni, and Sunni by Shia started all over again.

    Sadaam sure did have WMD's He used LIQUEFIED SOMAN, a Russian manufactured persistent nerve agent on the Kurds.
     
  20. jcarlilesiu

    jcarlilesiu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Of course that's the point. And an inconvenient truth.

    Should Saddam still he in power, we would still be dealing with him and his games.
     
  21. Quantum Nerd

    Quantum Nerd Well-Known Member

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    "Only about 14,000..." Let's think about that for a moment. If a foreign nation would invade the US and made the excuse of "Sorry, we were trying to be careful, so we ONLY killed 14,000 US citizens". What do you think the American reaction would be? Would it be forgiving, or would we fight the invaders tooth and nail?

    The ONLY reason the US population tolerates collateral damage because we are NEVER on the receiving end. It's easy to say that collateral damage is a price that has to be paid when someone else's lives are on the line.
     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2023
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  22. AARguy

    AARguy Well-Known Member

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    Those killed were mainly of Sadaam's army or terrorists. We did everything we could to avoid civilian casualties.
    All warring people's have suffered "collateral damage"... and worse. Ever heard of Malmedy? Corregidor? The Seige of Vicksburg? The Bataan Death March? The occupation of Nanking by Japan? Heck... Babi Yar?
    Collateral damage is part of war and it sucks. That' why we have spent so much time and effort building precision weapons... to make things like "carpet bombing" a thing of the past.
     
  23. JET3534

    JET3534 Well-Known Member

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    Saddam was certainly not a humanitarian or likeable type person. But he did engage in a war with Iran and was supported in this war by the US with Billions of dollars of assistance and so called dual use technology. His invasion of Kuwait was possibly given a green light by Bush although accounts differ.

    https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-11-22-vw-1944-story.html
     
  24. JET3534

    JET3534 Well-Known Member

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    CPA orders 1 and 2 issued by Bush's man Paul Bremer did a fair amount of collateral damage, i.e., leaving 50,000 civil service and 250,000 military without a job. Destroying a country with a stated intention not to do nation building is collateral damage.

    Let's suppose that someone invaded the US and took away your O6 retirement. What would your reaction be?
     
  25. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    He had hidden away from inspectors WMD which had degraded because they could not be properly stored. But those were not the issue. He had also hidden away the precursor chemicals needed to quickly restock his arsenal once his bribes at the UN had gotten the sanctions lifted and inspections ended. He had done the same with the reference strains of biological weapons.

    That was never a claim by the Bush administration.

    And what price would have been paid with a Saddam free to restock his WMD and continue attacking his neighbors and sponsoring and aiding terrorist groups?
     
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