The Iraq War

[Throatpunch]

Did/would you support the Iraq war?
I personally would not have supported the Iraq war. In my opinion the USA (Dick Cheney in particular) cherry-picked intelligence about the WMD's (Weapons of Mass Destruction) that Saddam Hussein was trying to acquire/make, and in the end it cost $758.6 billion, and £4.5 billion, money that could have been spent in other places. It also resulted in over 4000 soldiers death's (thats KIA and non hostile).
They did a good job in the First Gulf War, but I thought the Iraq war was not well thought out and lacked suitable provocation.

In September 2002, Dick Cheney insisted there was "very clear evidence" Saddam was developing nuclear weapons: Iraq's acquisition of aluminum tubes that were to be used to enrich uranium for bombs. But Cheney and the Bush White House did not tell the public that there was a heated dispute within the intelligence community about this supposed evidence. The top scientific experts in the government had concluded these tubes were not suitable for a nuclear weapons program. But one CIA analyst—who was not a scientific expert—contended the tubes were smoking-gun proof that Saddam was working to produce nuclear weapons. The Bush-Cheney White House embraced this faulty piece of evidence and ignored the more-informed analysis. Bush and Cheney were cherry-picking—choosing bad intelligence over good. Cheney often cited discredited intelligence.

Please state your opinions, or even start a debate if you want to.
Don't go crazy or have a loud argument, and try not to derail the thread.

 

[Millim]

Against!
In most cases, War is not the answer.
It should be a last resort, or we just have needless violence and bloodshed everywhere.
But yeah, nah, there was no clear evidence that Suddam had weapons, even if he did, there should have been other ways to stop him from using them without fucking things up.

 

[Throatpunch]

Against!
In most cases, War is not the answer.

I am actually a pretty pro War person in a lot of scenarios, but only if it has suitable provocation, is value for money, and will benefit your countries interests and the regions. Iraq ticked non of those boxes.
The only thing I think was good about it was scaring the Russians. They used to show off about how good their cruise missiles were, how they could hit targets at 6 miles away, even though they really couldn't.
They got a nasty shock when it was revealed that the Americans had ones that could be fired about 600 miles way from the target, go through the window and land on the dinner table.
Of course I am sure they could have found a better way to show off their Tomahawk Cruise Missiles than invading Iraq.
I also thought the Shock and Awe bombardment was badass as fuck

 

[Millim]

I'm really against war, especially for profit.
I think if we're willing to kill someone for cash, we may as well just call it a day.

 

[Atomic Postman]

 

[MutantScalper]

They had their reasons for going into Iraq, WMD was one. There weren't any. The other reason was that Saddam might have links to Al Queda. He didn't have any. Once the Americans had gone into Iraq and dismantled the Iraqi military etc. the insurgent organisations started to pop up as if to say "What, you were looking for terrorist organisations, well here, we'll give you some." Bush said bring em on. One of them was The Al Queda of Iraq led by Zarqawi. We know this organisation as ISIS/Daesh today.

 

[Atomkilla]

Only a person who hasn't experienced war is "pro-war".


That being said, war is oftentimes a necessity. In this particular case, it wasn't. I was too young to actually "oppose" it back in the day, but I know my ground.

 

[Atomic Postman]

The idea of anyone who's not mental being pro-war is utterly beyond my comprehension. I was under the impression that the idea of war as a jolly bit of old fun where we roll out our toys and squash the baddies was an illusion utterly shattered by the First World War. I had no idea there were some still duped by it.

 

[zegh8578]

Even at the time, my impression was that (virtually) nobody really fell for the ruse. How some people still, to this day, support the Iraq invasion is beyond me - well, except for just blind loyalty and nothing but that.
The invasion of Iraq prompted _the_ largest anti-war demonstrations the world has ever seen, with millions protesting.
"No war for oil" was spraytagged on walls in Europe, in Iraq, everywhere, from the get-go.

I was a kid during the first Gulf war and Yugoslav war, and didn't pay much attention to these things, but with this invasion, I got my first taste of "Everybody knows - but it doesn't make a dent of a difference!"

 

[MutantScalper]

I think the Iraq war was pretty much decided by Dubya Bush personally. I mean there were others like Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, etc. who very much enabled it. He called himself the "decider". When asked later what was the deciding factor that made him start the war, Bush said that "god told him to start the war".

Cheney especially lied to and witheld information from Bush, therefore Bush shunned him during his second term as prez. Bit too late at that stage though.

 

[Makta]

Saddam was one of the pilars that held the extremists in place and by invading Iraq we know how ISIS and all the other fuck heads over there. There was no trace of the WMD's, the war costed the US and Iraq a lot of people/money and the the entire region suffered for many years to come and to this day still do.

So no i'm not pro this shit.

 

[SuAside]

Oppose. As much as I despised Saddam for his human rights abuses and sabre rattling, he kept the region stable. Same thing with Assad and Gadaffi.

Considering the US supplied Iraq with anthrax in the past, invading them due to "having/preparing WMDs" is somewhat retarded.

That said, I did support the First Gulf War, since Iraq was the aggressor and needed to be put in its place.

 

[Ragemage]

Personally I feel the war was terrible, but worth it, if only because it put an end to that miserable bastard Sadam Hussein. He kept the region stable, sure, but at the cost of thousands of lives. Not to mention the fact he tried to annex an entirely different country, Kuwait, and led the near genocide of an entire group of people, the Kurds: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/05/world/middleeast/05iraq.html?_r=0

Stable region or not, you don't just let someone like that live. I wish we'd do the same thing with Kim Jong Un.

 

[Throatpunch]

I wish we'd do the same thing with Kim Jong Un.

Are you aware that would be pretty much a declaration of proxy war/even war with the Chinese?

 

[zegh8578]

Are you aware that would be pretty much a declaration of proxy war/even war with the Chinese?

We all should read leaked cables more
There are "secret" statements from the Chinese that they would not really stand in the way of a unification of the Korean peninsula (specified as being southern-dominated).
Then, we don't know what will or won't happen in the future, maybe they would send in something "token", but I seriously doubt that todays China would sacrifice their relations with the world for that cooky little republic.

 

[Ragemage]

Are you aware that would be pretty much a declaration of proxy war/even war with the Chinese?

I'm well aware. I never said we SHOULD do it, I just said I personally wish it would happen. Thousands of Koreans die everyday because of that fat little monster.

 

[Makta]

Personally I feel the war was terrible, but worth it, if only because it put an end to that miserable bastard Sadam Hussein. He kept the region stable, sure, but at the cost of thousands of lives. Not to mention the fact he tried to annex an entirely different country, Kuwait, and led the near genocide of an entire group of people, the Kurds: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/05/world/middleeast/05iraq.html?_r=0

Stable region or not, you don't just let someone like that live. I wish we'd do the same thing with Kim Jong Un.

Yeah because ISIS and the on going war that has been killing way more people is bette... Right?

 

[Ragemage]

Yeah because ISIS and the on going war that has been killing way more people is bette... Right?

Considering the entire Kurd population as we know it would be completely exterminated today had we not stopped Hussein, I'd say yes, it is better. We stopped a genocide. It'd be like if the Allies didn't stop Hitler from genociding the Jews just because he was bringing stability to Germany at the time. If someone's committing genocide against a group of people, they need to be put down like the dog they are. End of discussion.

Call me stupid, a moron, whatever you'd like. I don't care. If someone's attempting genocide, they need to be stopped, bugger the consequences afterwards, so long as an entire group of people doesn't get erased.

 

[Illuminati Confirmed!]

Personally I feel the war was terrible, but worth it, if only because it put an end to that miserable bastard Sadam Hussein. He kept the region stable, sure, but at the cost of thousands of lives. Not to mention the fact he tried to annex an entirely different country, Kuwait, and led the near genocide of an entire group of people, the Kurds: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/05/world/middleeast/05iraq.html?_r=0

Stable region or not, you don't just let someone like that live. I wish we'd do the same thing with Kim Jong Un.

That's like the foreign policy equivalent of thinking with your dick.

 

[Throatpunch]

That's like the foreign policy equivalent of thinking with your dick.

Pretty much

@RagemageSpending billions on attacking a country will just cause more problems than it solves. You must be careful with the military, it's a lethal weapon, and it really is not wise to swing about a lethal weapon because of what you think is morally right/the good thing to do.