hitandrun wrote:I agree with your earlier post, Sadam should have been dealt with in the first Gulf war. I do not but this "war on terror" thing though, Sadam had nothing to do with 11/9. And let us not forget the US funding of the IRA.
I for one disagree with the US funding of the IRA, and just because we did does NOT obligate ME to believe that we shouldn't take out a dictator who is funding a terrorist organization. I honestly can't see your point there.
The fact is that Saddam WASN'T taken care of during the Gulf War. We have to deal with that. I am NOT in my argument linking 9/11 to the War in Iraq. Sure, that's when we actually invaded, because it's what gave the President enough political juice to do it, but the motives are not linked, despite what the president may say (at least not in my mind). My argument is as follows, and as such you don't need to adress anything else:
--> Saddam committed genocide. You can't debate the moral issue about that; all you can debate is whether or not it's our business whether or not thousands of people in Iraq are killed just because they are Kurdish.
--> Saddam was a threat to our country. I'm not going to go into the WMD debate, because it makes me want to tear my hair out and bash in my television screen so I never have to see the media again, so forget about that. Even without WMD, any dictator of a primarily Islamic country who harbors blatantly anti-American sentiments (and in this case has a history of open defiance toward the US, hence the Kuwait incident) is a threat to us because they can
a- provide terrorist organizations with arms, intel, funding, and many other things such organizations need, and
b- because he may just get powerful enough to BECOME an overt threat to us, through treaties, acquiring WMD, etc.
Those are the grounds on which I see it possible to justify the war.
Do I agree with the war? Well, I think Saddam needed to be taken out, and I think it should have been done a long time ago, but since it didn't I think now was as good a time as any. Sooner was clearly better than later simply because he didn't have time to become as strong and his genocidal tendencies were cut short.
Do I agree with the manner in which the war is being waged? In terms of ethics, I can't say. I take everything the media says with a pinch of salt, and since I'm not in Iraq, that means I don't have a damn clue what goes on over there. In terms of politics, I think this is becoming a drain on America, and the sooner we get out the better. What's more, I don't think the Iraqis themselves are taking enough initiative in getting their own nation running. I want our troops home- they did their job. But once again, I do believe the war was justified- just not necessarily for the reasons stated by the politicians.
