Someone Remind Me Again Why We Are In Iraq

Quote from nutmeg:

"Here's why we went: Because we have a dumbass for a president."

I've always been curious about that statement. When the towers fell, what was your plan of action? If all our troops are safely home in the U.S. and the terror alert was raised, I suppose we should just hunker down and stay indoors? Should we just hang out in Afganistan?
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Nope. Instead of invading a random country and claiming that the reason was WMD, he could have started a systematic search and destroy mission involving every terrorist training camp in every god-forsaken desert on the planet, and an assassination campaign designed to take out the top xxx Muslim fanatics who have sworn death to the West. Then Spend $20 billion investigating and vetting every Muslim immigrant in the US. After that, make sure that every new immigrant is properly vetted before entry. Then spread another $40 billion around the planet paying people for information, which would have resulted in the capture and neutralization of tons of other terrorists, just like happened with Al-Zarqawi.

The current administration threw rules of engagement and civil liberties in the toilet. At least they could have got the most possible mileage out of it.

Re: Afghanistan... as I have said here many times, it beggars belief that anyone in this administration believed that they could bomb a cultural truism out of existence. The Taliban are resurgent, richer than ever through record opium sales, and Afghanistan is no better than it was pre-invasion. Our Canadian soliders are now over there fulfilling their UN obligations and getting killed.

Isolate and control. That is the only answer. The fact that the Taliban is responsible for the abrogation of the rights of their women is disgusting, but our #1 concern should be the Taliban's capacity to support and nurture terrorists.

Saddam was only ever interested in himself. They picked the wrong country, at the very least. Why didn't they pick Iran? Ah... now that is the question, isn't it?
 
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

You are just dead wrong. I was skeptical of the war from the outset, and I voiced that skepticism repeatedly. To me, it was not a clear cut decision, and I would still take that position. Were we supposed to wait until Saddam had nukes to do something?
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evidently you didn't do that search :p well I don't have the motivation to go through all the posts, so I'll drop it for the sake of convenience

as to your question - and if the US had waited? so what? even assuming under a wild fantasy that "he" could "get" nukes, what then? why would that scenario be any different than other muslim boogiemen that have nukes, say the pakistanis? or other peoples you've scorned, like the French, chinese? why is that any different?

what basis -- not neocon unsubstantiated talk-show BS, but rational and factual basis -- would that provide for doing what the US did?
 
"I see the imminent death of 20,000 men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds ...
O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth."
Hamlet, Act IV; according to White House spin part of reading-adverse President George W Bush's book list during the summer of 2006.

Surging toward the holy oil grail

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IA12Ak05.html

US eyes still on the Iraqi prize

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IE09Ak01.html

Selling Iraq by the barrel

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IC02Ak04.html

"By 2010 we will need [a further] 50 million barrels a day. The Middle East, with two-thirds of the oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize lies." - US Vice President Dick Cheney, then Halliburton chief executive officer, London, autumn 1999

US's Iraq oil grab is a done deal

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IB28Ak01.html
 
Let's see, did the impact of the war raise the price of oil?

Hmmm, who makes money on higher oil prices?

Oh yeah, the middle eastern countries (as well as all the other oil producing countries).

Quote from jerry11901:

Bankers and some other people made fortunes ,thanks to this war...
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There has to be a real reason why we are still there.,....saying that the president is dumb is just not the right answer...and it has to boil down to money..it always does and always will...and while triple A was 100% behind the iraq war..he himself is starting to realise we have been bamboozled..hell even tony blair is figuring it out..
 
No, Bush really is that dumb...and stubborn, and of course God told him to go to war with Iraq, you know, when he was talking to that burning "Bush" down in Crawford...

Quote from ElCubano:

There has to be a real reason why we are still there.,....saying that the president is dumb is just not the right answer...and it has to boil down to money..it always does and always will...
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Oil. Plain and simple. Bush will not withdrawl until he achieves his objective of obtaining the oil. Hopefully our next president is from the midwest and supports ethanol.
 
Madison and Doc,

I don't need to go through archives to know what I posted. A fair summary would be that I thought the case for invading Iraq was something reasonable people could differ over, ie not a clear-cut decision either way. I had a lot of back and forth here with a neo con, I believe his handle was KymerFye or somethng like that. Let's not forget, Colin Powell, George Tennant and most of the Democrat leadership in the Senate went on the record supporting the need for the invasion. At that point even questioning the wisdom of it was a distinctly minority position. Pat Buchanan, for one, took that stance. Virginia Sen. James Webb was another.

As for those who think we invaded Iraq "for the oil," I don't really understand your reasoning. Have we done anything to try to take control of the Iraqi oil? In fact, that would have been the first thing a reasonably competent occupation would have done, but we left it in the control of the notoriously corrupt Iraqi Oil Ministry.

Basically, I see three major mistakes we made in the occupation. One was disbanding the Iraqi Army. Two was not securing and taking control of the oil fields. Three was not securing the Iranian and Syrian borders. Our problems stem from these mistakes.

If we had a functioning Iraqi Army from the start, we could have used them to control unrest and nip the insurgency in the bud. One hting they were good at was suppressing dissent. If we had control of the oil revenues, we could (a) pay for the reconstruction with htem and (b) use them to dictate to the Iraqi "leaders." If we had clamped down on the borders immediately, we could have stopped the flow of munitions and foreign terrorists. Seems pretty obvious to me, but our genius military and State Department leaders had other priorities.
 
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