Intrepid wrote:Foxfyre wrote:Intrepid wrote:What would constitute success in Iraq?
Success in Iraq would be a government committed to qualifying their country to join the free peoples of the world complete with human rights, free trade, and capitalism. It would be a country where terrorists would find neither tolerance nor friends and a country that, when left in peace, nobody would need to fear. It would be strong enough to enforce these conditions and be a beacon to other backward nations to follow suit. It would help stablize an unstable Middle East and make the world a little safer for everybody.
Turkey is a shining example of an Islamic country that has achieved these goals. There is no reason to think that Iraq could not also, but it will not happen if those trying to achieve it are constantly undermined and weakened by the negative nabobs and those who are willing to see failure in Iraq rather than give President George Bush any credit for its success.
And, exactly whose goals are these? Who has decided that Iraq should be a capitalistic country? If it is such a backward nation, why is the U.S. afraid of it? Why should George Bush get credit for an invasion...yes, an invasion, of a country that has never attacked the U.S.?
The goals are the Iraqis. They have decided they should be a free and democratic country. Their goals are their own and supported by our current administration. Saddam invaded a sovereign nation and would have invaded a second if we had not helped beat him back. In return for us stopping hostilities (which many still think was a mistake), he agreed to UN inspections to ensure that they had dismantled and discontinued their WMD programs.
For 12 years he had thwarted those inspectors, at times refusing them any access at all. He further was firing at UN aircraft in the no fly zones and was diverting UN funds intended to provide food and medicine for the Iraqi people hurt by UN sanctions. By conservative estimates some 50000 Iraqis, many of them children, had died as a result of those sanctions and Saddam withholding the UN supplied relief. Saddam and his cronies in Iraq and elsewhere profited enormously from those funds while tens of thousands of his people were dying. This, coupled with the Saddam regime tortures, rape rooms, and other oppression of the people made conditions intolerable for most in Iraq.
Virtually every head of state of free nations of the world and certain everybody in our previous administration, the current administration, Congress in both administrations, and the huge majority of experts in the field, and the UN inspectors, believed Saddam had and/or was developing WMD and would use them.
So then came 9/11 and the retalitory assault on the Taliban aka al-Qaida in Afghanistan. And while we were at it, the USA decided to put together a coalition to enforce that UN resolution in Iraq and deal with the nests/financing of terrorism there too. It was the llogical next step in the War on Terrorism.
We can argue til the cows come home whether that was a smart move, and I won't fault anybody who says we shouldn't have done it.
But we are there now, Saddam is in prison, and the only honorable and expedient thing to do is finish the job. Far more good has been accomplished and is being accomplished than bad. I believe no real American wants American to lose in that endeavor. Certainly there is nothing to commend people who hate George Bush more than they love their country. When you love your country, you get behind it to help it succeed, not throw up all manner of obstacles to weaken the leadership, hamstring the military, and ensure defeat.
