unosdostres14 said:
VERY LONG POST BUT I THINK IT'S PRETTY LOGICALLY SOLID
Do you even remember why we went to war in Iraq. It wasn't because of torturing athletes. It wasn't because of raping women. It wasn't because of the Kurds. It was Saddam Hussein "sought significant quantities of Uranium from Africa" (by the way, that sentence was the reason we went to war and Bush was supposed to take it out of his speech because there wasn't enough intelligence to back it up). Then after, no weapons of mass destruction were found. After hundreds of Americans died and thousands of Iraqis died, Bush shifted the reason for going to war from WMDs to saying that Saddam was a terrible ruler, etc. It's true Saddam WAS a terrible leader, but America had no reason to go and occupy the country. You realize how dumb it is to think that Saddam was a terrible leader, who posed no threat to the US, so now the US must go and destroy the country and kill thousands of people in the process. Bush41 didn't go into Baghdad and remove Saddam from power because he knew it would turn into a QUAGMIRE. Bush41 had a good reason to go to Iraq. Dubya didn't.
I highly doubt that this is the ONLY reason, although this is a valid point if it's true. But after the war ended, the US gave no-bid contracts to its own companies.
and oh yeah........AMERICANS ARE DYING WITHOUT ENOUGH SUPPORT FROM OTHERS COUNTRY! (maybe it's because those other countries realized that Iraq posed no threat to them so it's not smart to send soldiers there to die)
I think this is a large misconception about terrorists. Bush always says on TV that the terrorists HATE our liberty and they HATE our freedom. This is complete rubbish. These people aren't retarted. They don't hate our very existence. Our support of Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a stimulus for them hating us. They hate that we often times don't support Islamic countries in many situations. They hate us because in general they are an oppressed people. Especially in Europe, there are A LOT of poor Muslim communities. They feel that it is the mainstream government that is the cause of their problems. Their own oppression is a stimulus for them hating us. They don't hate our liberty. That's such a dumb thought.
Are you saying that we shouldn't care about terrorist threats?
You can't win the war on terror (or the struggle against extremism as we're supposed to call it now 
. That's like saying we are going to win the war on hate. Or saying we will prevail in the war against anger. As long as Muslims are oppressed, or they have any of these stimuli, the extremists ones will hate us a lot.
Soldiers believe in what they are doing because they do what they are ordered to do. It's part of the code that they live by. The President of the United States is their commander, they strongly believe that he will make the right decisions before sending them into battle.
This doesn't mean the President can send soldiers into battle without having a reason. There was not enough intelligence to prove that Saddam had nuclear (nucular) weapons. He didn't have the right reasons to go to war but he did anyways and the soldiers are trained to follow those orders.
First of all, the first sentence you wrote is very odd. "If it wasn't for the terrorists, it would be peaceful"?? Secondly, there is also a heavy Iraqi resistance. Yes, there are terrorists coming from other countries but that doesn't form 100% of the resistance. My friend just got back from Iraq and you still can't walk down any street in Baghdad safely. Are you saying that these are ALL foreign people who are shooting at people in Baghdad.
You asked Snowlock if he new why we went to war in Iraq and offered your own answer that it was because Saddam "sought significant quantities of Uranium from Africa".
It is true that Saddam had sought and obtained Uranium from Africa many years ago, whether he had currently just prior to the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom is open to debate. Regardless, the reason the United States and other member states of the UN launched operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 had little to do with Saddam's dealings in Africa.
Saddam had invaded Kuwait in August of 1990 setting off a terrible crises that threatened the planets energy supply. A Coalition was formed and multiple resolutions were passed, approving the invasion to remove Saddam's military from Kuwait. Once this was accomplished in early 1991, Saddam signed a ceacefire agreement under which he agreed to verifiably disarm of all WMD. Based on UN resolutions 678 and 687, Saddam was required to verifiably disarm of all WMD or face renewed military action to accomplish the requirement.
From 1991 to 1998, United Nations inspectors worked hard to insure that Saddam was fully disarming and meeting the obligations laid down in the ceacefire agreement and resolutions. Unfortunately, Saddam would often play games with the UN inspection teams and would often hold up inspections of key buildings, while large numbers of Iraqi troops removed the contents of the buildings into trucks from the back. While Saddam early on had worked with UN inspectors, starting in the mid-1990s, cooperaration became almost impossible and the classic scene of UN inspectors being blocked by the Iraqi military while their troops removed unknown materials from the building became the norm. By 1998, inspectors were unable to do anything and had to be withdrawn. The United States and coalition forces launched massive airstrikes but Saddam would not back down. He also would not let the UN inspectors back in.
Now out of Iraq in November 1998, the UN inspectors reported to the United Nations that Saddam had failed to verifiably disarm of over 1,000 Liters of Anthrax, 500 pounds of Mustard Gas, 500 pounds of Sarin Gas, and over 20,000 Bio Chem Capable artillery shells. From the start of 1999 to the Summer of 2002, little was done about this. The Clinton administration passed the difficult situation onto the Bush administration.
From 1998 to 2002, United Nations Sanctions and the weapons embargo against Saddam began to seriously erode. By 2002, Saddam was able to smuggle 4 Billion dollars worth of unknown good across his border. In the Summer of 2002, the world faced a dictator that was no longer held in box by tight sanctions and a weapons embargo, and had failed to disarm of thousands of stocks of WMD. Faced with a continued and potentially growing WMD threat, a 400,000 man military, and the potential for further harm to a majority of the planets energy supply located just across the border in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the United States and the rest of the world had let the situation with Saddam deteriorate far to much. Action had to be taken given the circumstances.
Bush went to the UN and although the United States and coalition members already had legal grounds to invade Iraq based on two previous United Nations resolutions, Bush decided to go to the UN for one more resolution to essentially give Saddam a chance to do something he had failed to do for nearly 12 years, comply with all 17 UN resolutions passed against him under Chapter VII rules of the United Nations as well as meeting the obligations of the UN ceacefire agreement.
The new resolution, 1441, was passed with a 15-0 vote and authorized military action if Saddam failed his one last chance. Saddam had the perfect opportunity to come clean to the United Nations Weapon's inspectors. The WMD, whether it was intact or dismantled could have been rolled out in front of the inspectors by Saddam, but he did not do this. Instead, the claim was that the WMD in question had been destroyed and the evidence of the destruction or dismantlement had been destroyed as well. Essentially, typical mid 1990s Saddam rubbish in regards to disarmament. That was it, given the deteriorating situation and Saddam's unwillings to cooperate, the UN coalition had no choice but to use military action to enforce the multiple UN resolutions that Saddam had failed to comply with. It was an absolute necessity that Saddam be disarmed.
Saddam had invaded and attacked four different countries, threatened the planets energy supply with siezure and sabotage, used WMD more times than any leader in history, murdered 1.7 million people, was in violation of 17 UN resolutions passed under Chapter VII rules of the UN and in violation of the 1991 UN Ceacefire agreement in regards to his unprovoked invasion and occupaton of Kuwait and was now violating the UN sanctions and weapons embargo to the tune of 4 Billion dollars a year in smuggled goods. To allow a leader with this past behavior and current and renewed capability to continue going on the current path, not disarmed and in violation of multiple UN resolutions, would put the region and planet in an unacceptable situation of risk and danger.
This is why the United States and Coalition forces acted when they did. The Central case for war against Iraq was laid down in resolution 1441. Mobile Trucks, Uranium from Africa, or conversations recorded among Iraqi troops, were NEVER the central case for war, they were supporting cases for military action.
The fact that WMD has not been found in Iraq is not relevant to the case for military action. It does not change the fact reported by UN weapons inspectors that Saddam has yet to account for 1,000 Liters of Anthrax, 500 pounds of mustard gas, 500 pounds of sarin gas, and over 20,000 Bio Chem capable shells. It does not change the fact that Saddam did not comply with any of the 17 UN resolutions passed against him or comply with the obligations of the 1991 UN ceacefire agreement. It does not show that the unaccounted for WMD was left intact or dismantled. Theories are numerous as to where the WMD is and whether its intact or dismantled. But they are theories, not facts. The only facts that are known is that Saddam still has failed to verifiably disarm of thousands of stocks of WMD, which was the central case for military action in the first place. But now that Saddam and his regime have been removed from power, the world community can insure that the regime leaders are no longer in possession of such materials and their capabilities. The planets energy supply is safer and more secure than it has been at any time over the past 3 decades.
As for the terrorist, they hate more than just are freedoms, they hate the western way of life and western culture. Just look at what the Taliban and Al Quada did to Afghanistan from the mid 1990s up to 2001. The terrorist want to spread their idealogy and their perverted version of Islam around the world. Accept their idea's and way of life, or die. We see these idea's put into action in Israel, where Palestinian men and women, barely out of their childhood are strapped with bombs and are sent to the supermarket or the cafe to murder as many innocent civilians as possible. They also bomb Israely disco's filled with teens listening to Eminem and U2. There is simply no justification for such acts. If one is angry about a particular occupation, you don't go to an unoccupied territory to blow up innocent childern that are not at all involved in what you allege to be a crime.
More proof that the terrorist are motivated by simple hatred is the fact that they ignore what the United States did for millions of muslims in the mid-1990s in Bosnia and Kosovo. It was the United States, NOT the Arab world or any other Islamic country or group that saved the Muslim populations of Bosnia and Kosovo from slaughter by the Serbs. Less than 5 years after the United States stopped the slaughter of Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, men claiming to follow the Muslim religion crashed planes into the World Trade Center building and Pentagon killing 3,000 innocent civilians! Was this their way of saying thank you?
As far as United States troops are concerned, it is true that they must follow the orders of the President, but they do not have to vote for that particular president in a presidential election. The ARMY TIMES did a survey of thousands of US military personal and found that over 80% of them were voting for George W Bush in the November 2004 election.
Most of the resistence in Iraq comes from what remains of Saddam's regime and military along with the Sunni population. The vast majority of the people in the Country do not support the insurgency at all. Case in point the election in which 8 million people showed up to VOTE! The Sunni population as a whole accounts for less than 20% of Iraq's population. There are 18 provinces in Iraq, but only 4 of them have any sort of serious fighting.
