Iraq War

Disagree with American policy or bumbling implementations of that policy. Be anti-war. Just be honest and consistent Disagree with American policy or bumbling implementations of that policy. Be anti-war or not. The U.S. may be wrong, you may legitimately disagree with a policy, but you have to be able to accept the facts of what we did, why we did it, and realistically accept uncomfortable truths or complexities that you might not like. Don't tolerate disinformation or slogans. ℹ️ Info           ~ Aristotle Sabouni Created: 2005-08-04

As long as people are morally consistent, I'm not trying to change anyone’s conclusions about War, Iraq, or U.S. foreign policy. But I am offering sanity checks on some oft repeated myths, fallacies or mistruths. If you want to be taken seriously, then the foundation of an argument can't be based on a falsehood.

Falsehoods

• America made Saddam - During the mid 2000's it was popular among the dim of wit, and big of mouth, to claim that Saddam was created by America. That kind of rhetoric tends to come from the uninformed, the trolls, or both. Saddam was never "our boy" like some claim.
• Bush lied - Bush lied, people died ignores that the world's intelligence disagreed on individual reports, but unilaterally agreed that Saddam was trying to get WMD's, he had not properly disposed and reported on prior stockpiles, he was a state sponsor of terror, and that he violated the terms of the peace (cease fire) as well as multiple U.N. resolutions (like 1441).
• Give it more time... - Some say we should have waiting for France or the U.N. to come around, or that sanctions were working. We call these people misinformed. Sanctions have never worked at doing anything but hurting the innocent. France and the U.N. were criminally making money off the oil-for-weapons scandal so would have never put the Iraqi people over their own greed.
• Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 - The war on Islamic terror didn't start on 9/11 and wasn't about Osama Bin Laden, it was about the radical Islamic attitude that Western Modernization (and thus civilization) must be destroyed. It started decades before 9/11 with dozens of attacks on America (and Western world), it crossed borders, so Osama and 9/ 11 was only the latest symptom of the problem.
• Iraq is because of Israel-Palestine - Israel/Palestine is a convenient scapegoat for all problems in the middle east. But only rubes buy it as the root problem in the middle East. Yes, Arabs/Muslims think it's a great injustice that they can't murder all the Jews and drive them into the sea. But if Israel didn't exist, there would be plenty of other conflicts in the middle east.
• Iraq is because of oil - All the time I hear people say that the U.S. invaded Iraq because of oil, money, or some other dumber reason. Oil is not a dumb reason. But it's not why we invaded Iraq, even if it is one minor variable amongst many others.
• Iraq/Set a date for withdrawal - Some claimed we should set a hard date and pull out of Iraq. That's stupid. Never telegraph your moves to the opposition. Idiots think the way to peace is through appeasement. This is terminal narcissism. What they fail to understand is that to sociopaths weakness is provocative: they'd be foolish to NOT exploit every opportunity given.
• Legality of Iraq war - No war is legal or illegal, there's only moral or immoral -- and all wars are immoral (some just more than others), the only real issue is whether the war is more immoral than doing nothing. Now as for legal justification, there was more justification for the Iraq War than most of the wars we got into.
• Muslims can't do democracy - Muslims aren't capable of a successful democracy". People said the same thing about democracy in America or Europe before it succeeded there too. It's a truly patronizing view. (Separately, there's whether we will like their Democracy, but that's a separate issue).
• Preemptive War - Iraq was the first preemptive war except for all the others. All wars start with a series of escalations on both sides. All offer multiple opportunities to escalate or deescalate (back down). A fight doesn't happen because one guy throws the first punch, but because both sides chose to not walk away until eventually a fight is the only natural outcome.
• Quotes/Iraq War - Revisionist leftists want to pretend they had nothing to do with the Iraq War. History (and these quotes) begs to differ.
• The U.S. targeted innocents - I’m flabbergasted that such stupidity is ever said, no country in the history of the world (and wars) has ever spent as much time, effort, money, to avoid collateral damage and harming innocents as the United States. I think less of any troll that says it, because they're ignoring facts in front of their face.
• Valerie Plame - Plame's husband (Joe Wilson) wrote discredited articles about Saddam (Iraq) trying to secure yellowcake (WMD's) from Niger, and her name came up. Since she wasn't an active CIA agent, no crime was committed, and no one was prosecuted. Joe and Valerie lied that they were wronged.
• Violence never solved anything - Some say war/violence is wrong or that it never solves anything. They don't seem to remember WWII, or the various mass murderers that violence ended. So we many resort to violence too readily, but if the other side won't stop their violence, sometimes your violence is the better choice.

Consequences

• Abu Ghraib - Abu Ghraib was one small group of U.S. Soldiers who got out of hand and did something bad things (without authorization) and were caught and punished quickly. There was also a group of marines that did less, and the Brits that did about the same. Bad stuff. All caught and dealt with.
• Americans are imperialists - People that say Americans are imperialists don’t understand America (or what imperialism means). We want to leave the world a better place, and not just take profits exploiting the suffering of others; like the Europeans. Which is why Americans have always gotten out of conflicts as quick as possible. And our failures, are usually in leaving too soon, rather than not at all.
• Guantanamo - The left makes a big deal about Guantanamo, and what the Americans are doing with “unofficial” prisoners of war, in the war on terror. But looking at what we’re doing in the context of the times requires objective adults that the left is ready for now, and might never be. Soldiers get treated as Soldiers and are covered by convention. Terrorists aren't.
• Halliburton - The NYT invented this idea that Halliburton is an “evil conspiracy” that George W and Dick Cheney conspired to pay off a company for cheating us, while ignoring the corruption of their favorite Presidents; FDR, Bill Clinton, Johnson, JFK, Nixon and so on. This lead to investigation, exoneration, and yet the myth persists in the minds of their rubes (readers).
• Iraq War Costs - Everything comes with costs, action or inaction. The price of war, the price of peace. I have no problems with people that look at all the cost benefits, and weight them differently than I do. I do have a problem with people that try to distort those costs and gains, to lie to others for political gain, or to sell an ideology.
• Iraq's impact on Terrorism - Poverty doesn't cause terrorism; totalitarianism and a lack of control does. If you want to stop terrorism (or weaken it), you have to give people hope, and give them a say in their government; freedom. Iraq drew all those with terrorist tendencies out in the open; exposing the problem, not creating it. Once that passed, they have a shot at a better life.
• Patriot Act - The 2002 version doens't bug me, what it might devolve into does. (Is it a slippery slope). What the Patriot Act says is that the same intrusions we allowed for the “drug war” should be allowed for “the war on terror”. This isn't horrible, if there's good checks and balances. The problem is without them, it can go bad.
• Security in Iraq - As far as many are concerned Iraq was a debacle. Militarily this was one of the greatest victories in the history of mankind. We took over an entire nation in a couple of weeks, with the least loss of life and collateral damage ever in this kind of campaign. Despite also having French/EU/Turkish allies, and distractions in Afghanistan.
• We should have done nothing - Of course we can’t know if doing nothing is ever the better choice or not. But we can look at some facts.

The first is about the ethics/morality. Life is about choices and direction; do you want to move towards a better world, or allow/support evil in the name of impotence or tolerance? Americans choose the former, Europeans have a tendency to choose the latter. So they look at everything we’ve touched as tainted, and look for everything wrong to place blame on us. We compare what was to what is (or the intelligent half of our population does).

Conclusion

America started with much less than Europe. We had to carve a home out of a wil- derness; we could not afford inefficiency. That is why we are impatient with pomp, rituals and processes that make us less productive. Our independence is in our blood to refuse to accept form over substance, or blindly pay homage to titles, rank or authority. We believe "problems are meant to be fixed", not tolerated, ignored or worshipped. This frustrates cultures like the French, Europeans, Arabs or Asians, who often revel in these things. But that’s their cultural myopia and bigotry's; they have exactly as much responsibility to understand us as we have of them. We are not the fat and lazy cowards they think we are; well except for the fat part.

America is a nation of immigrants; built from restless and ambitious people, those unsatisfied with their station in life. For 200 years we've collected people who wouldn't put up with the bullshit in other countries. People who would risk every- thing to find where security and happiness can be built, if one just works hard. Being the land of opportunity radically affects our culture. Americans have a "can do" spirit, because all our lives, we've done what others said couldn't be done. Tell us that we can't do something and we'll probably do it just to prove to ourselves that we can. Which often infuriates others.

There is no contradiction or hypocrisy between being the warrior nation and also believing in live and let live. Some nihilists don't understand that, or don't like that. Fine, that's their problem. If you leave both us and our interests alone, then we won't bother you. If you won't leave us alone, and declare war on our ideals, then you may pay the consequences. It takes a lot to get our ire up, but so far everyone that has done so, has regretted it.

This whole war, and all the wars we’ve been involved with are about our view of the world. Live and let live. But if something is seriously wrong, we have an obligation to try to fix it. And the world has a lot more to thank us for than curse at us about; though we seldom get the former. When we see a tyrant raping a country, and threatening a region, or a problem like islamic terrorist and rogue nations sponsor- ing it, we’ll work with the world to fix it. But after 10 or 25 years of trying, we may try to fix the problem ourselves. We know we can’t fix everything, we certainly don’t do everything right, and don’t want to be the world’s police force. But every now and then, if something is really wrong with the world, we’ll try to set it right, even if a few European countries resent it because they were making money off of the suffering.

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Iraq Republic of Iraq, in Western Asia, borders Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and Syria.

History Tales on the parts of history that have been ignored, suppressed, or lied about.

United States of America Articles about the USA, a country with a rich history that many people know far less about than they think they do.

TBD List all the articles that have work to be done on them.

American History A summary of American History (and alt-History)

War War, what is it good for? Democrats seem to like is as a tool for dividing us. (Imagined Imperialism).

Tags: Iraq  History  USA  TBD  American History  Incivility  War