Iraq War Consequences (things that likely happened because of War).
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- 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).
