Flip-Flop :: Debate the other side :: Iraq

But at the same time I don't think they are nations in a situation in which we can generate enough political capital to invade.

Other nations might need it as badly but I fear my compatriots wouldn't care enough and I think Iraq is the only one that we could really sell to our public.

Whew. That was harder than I thought it would be.

What is "proper" use of the UN?

What is the basis for the value judgement of "unnnecessary"?

Great idea, Craven!

Sudan has been in a civil war for a number of years. MILLIONS have died as a result and genocide is a very real possibility. This doesn't offer enough incentive or clout for an invasion?! Israel and Palestine have been trading murders for decades. Untold numbers of casualties have occured and this doesn't generate enough political capital to motivate the american people?! But, Saddam MIGHT (with no history of doing so) support al Qaeda so we invade Iraq?!

Which compatriots? England? they already had their chance in the Middle East. The rest of the coalition are there as mere decorations. It's like "Look! We have support!" but it is merely a token gesture for the most part.

If we want the UN to be able to handle these situations in the future, we must stop undercutting them. We can't act unilaterally and later claim to be the victim when the UN fails to support us.

I, personally, do not mind if our leaders have to lie, or break international treaties, or throw away the concept of universal human rights, as long as the purpose that they set out to accomplish is accomplished, and it makes me and my family feel safer.

All those who oppose the Iraq war seem to think things would be better if Saddam was still in power. They wouldn't.

While I respect the UN as an organization I believe that they are too slow to react to breaking events. Iraq posed an immediate threat to the rest of the world, Saddam was a butcher, and we went in and cleaned house. Easy as pie.

Nowdays you hear nothing but complain, complain, complain from those who oppose the war. I just want to hear something positive out of the liberals for once. A recognition of the sacrifices made by brave Americans in the name of freedom, after all, THEY didn't decide to start this war and to denigrate them would be terrible. Are there some civilian casualties? Well, of course, do you believe that war goes on in a vacuum? You have to break some eggs to make an omlette, as bad as that sounds.

We can no longer sit back and be the America of old. We have power; we've let the rest of the world do and say as they please for a long time, and that wasn't a bad thing when they weren't blowing up our buildings. Now that they have started, the easiest solution to getting rid of terrorism is to round up all the terrorists, and kill those who we can't capture alive. Governments that support these terrorist organizations (such as Iraql, which we have mounds of evidence for) are out too, and they'd better realize that quick.

Time will tell whether or not our actions were justified. It is better to support the nation now, and our president, even though I do not neccessarily agree with all of his opinions, than it is to criticize constantly and whine about how bad things are.

In closing, God Bless America and G.W.!

Cycloptichorn

In my opinion we are part of the UN and should rely on the ruling of that august body for policy decisions that affect the whole.

If every nation that gets pissed at somebody else goes off willy nilly to initiate hostilities, what use is there for a UN anyway?

Our actions toward Iraq were therefore illegal, and it has earned us contempt of the world.

As a result of what we did in Iraq, our president is the most despised and reviled leader in the history of the USA, or I sure can't think of another held in higher contempt.

There was no reason to invade Iraq.

The basis of the invasion was a lie. There were no WMD.

Saddam wasn't a threat to anybody. He had been defanged and he was fully contained. That made it unnecessary.

I think Saddam was an easy sell but it's harder to sell them on places and people they do not even know the names of.

Every American could picture Saddam and knew of Iraq, few can name North Korea's leader and even fewer can picture his face.

So I think Iraq posed a unique situation in that the infamy of Saddam made it an easy sell domestically and made it easier to generate political capital for.

Quote:

If we want the UN to be able to handle these situations in the future, we must stop undercutting them. We can't act unilaterally and later claim to be the victim when the UN fails to support us.

While I agree, I am not sure it is an either or. I do think we need to continue to help the UN evolve to the point where it can serve as a mechanism to handle this kind of thing but perhaps Iraq presented a unique opportunity that needed to be seized and would not cause enough damage to the UN that we couldn't try to patch things up afterwards.

So, the reason we invaded Iraq is because Americans don't like Saddam?!

This is basically a panglossian argument. In the best of all possible worlds that might work, but al Qaeda represents a rejection of modernism. It feeds off the social discontent fostered in part by despotic regimes such as Hussain's which it claims modernism creates. Removal of this regime and it replacement by a free and democratic Iraq challenges the basic argument of groups like al Qaeda; that reform is possible only by rejecting modernism and returning to a fundamentalist Islamic society. Regimes such as Saddams are as much the cause of al Qaeda as is the presence of western forces in the middle east. We are unlikely to roundup al Qaeda anytime soon. But the removal of those elements that create al Qaeda will leave it withering on the vine.

I think that the cause was just for humanitarian reasons and Saddam's standing in America coupled with the 9/11 window gave us a unique opportunity to actually do something about it.

On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Americans have known wars -- but for the past 136 years, they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941. Americans have known the casualties of war -- but not at the center of a great city on a peaceful morning. Americans have known surprise attacks -- but never before on thousands of civilians. All of this was brought upon us in a single day -- and night fell on a different world, a world where freedom itself is under attack.

Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking: Who attacked our country? The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda. They are the same murderers indicted for bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and responsible for bombing the USS Cole.

Al Qaeda is to terror what the mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money; its goal is remaking the world -- and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.

The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics -- a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam. The terrorists' directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans, and make no distinction among military and civilians, including women and children.

This group and its leader -- a person named Osama bin Laden -- are linked to many other organizations in different countries, including the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. There are thousands of these terrorists in more than 60 countries. They are recruited from their own nations and neighborhoods and brought to camps in places like Afghanistan, where they are trained in the tactics of terror. They are sent back to their homes or sent to hide in countries around the world to plot evil and destruction.

Craven de Kere wrote:

I think that the cause was just for humanitarian reasons and Saddam's standing in America coupled with the 9/11 window gave us a unique opportunity to actually do something about it.

I do not believe that these are good enough reasons to invade a sovereign nation. Especially with the events happening around the world that require American military intervention.

We should be seeking terrorist hideouts, breaking up terror cells around the world, and keeping the world safe from international terrorism. I see the issue of another terro strike as being FAR MORE important than finally relieving Saddam of his duties as brutal dictator.

The Iraq war has done nothing to further the war on terror.

Our best policy now is to extricate ourselves from the mess this administration has made, begin to rebuild the bridges we have burned. Lets make ourselves much less of a target.

Well, me 'n you seem to have boiled down to an impasse, we have no disagreements on any of the objective issues and disagree on a more nebulous accessment of worth.

At this point I think it's best to recognize a subjective difference of opinion because otherwise we'll just do reruns.