ican711nm wrote:I am unable to understand why anyone who now thinks our invasion of Afghanistan was a good thing can now think our invasion of Iraq was a bad thing.
I doubt that you ever will, since it has been explained enumerable times, but FWIW here is my reasoning.
We were attacked by Osama Bin Laden who had declared a holy war against the United States. Here is part of that declaration which provides some of the motivation (humiliation of Arabs and foreign forces in muslim holy lands) behind the declaration.
Osama bin Laden's Fatwah
Quote:First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.
If some people have formerly debated the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it.
The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, still they are helpless. Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, in excess of 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.
So now they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.
Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there.
The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.
All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries. This was revealed by Imam Bin-Qadamah in "Al- Mughni," Imam al-Kisa'i in "Al- Bada'i," al-Qurtubi in his interpretation, and the shaykh of al-Islam in his books, where he said "As for the militant struggle, it is aimed at defending sanctity and religion, and it is a duty as agreed. Nothing is more sacred than belief except repulsing an enemy who is attacking religion and life."
The Afghanistan government was an oppressive
Islamic Fundamentalist theocracy that was openly providing sanctuary to the bin Laden network that moved freely throughout the country.
I had reservations about our chances of success in Afghanistan due the Soviet experience, but our strategy seemed sound, using minimal US ground forces while aiding the Northern Alliance with air support and military supplies.
The Afghan operation had broad support, both at home and abroad.
Then, before the situation in Afghanistan was even close to being resolved, GW began beating the war drums for Iraq. I remember those days very clearly as my 401K investments took a dump every time he opened his mouth.
The Iraq government as oppressive as it was, was a
secular government that opposed Islamic fundamentalism. The dangers of invading Iraq were well known.
George H. W. Bush wrote:In his memoir, "A World Transformed," written five years ago, George Bush Sr. wrote the following to explain why he didn't go after Saddam Hussein at the end of the Gulf War.
"Trying to eliminate Saddam...would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible.... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq.... There was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."
GW said that he did not appeal to his father for advice on Iraq because "there's a higher father that I appeal to."
I am not impressed with his communication channels to the "higher father". The feedback so far has been abominable.
The invasion of Iraq, not only is diverting resources from the real terrorist threat, it is providing more motivation for bin Ladens followers.
not qualified 
