Ron Paul For President in 2008

[Final-Fan]

white devil said:

N-Syte said:
Reasonable people can debate the merits of whether Iraq was the appropriate front to launch a war on ideological extremists. Certainly history will decide whether the whole effort was foolhardy or not (while I trust your certainty that the whole thing is folly is sincere, I would like to wait a bit before making a final verdict). But I think saying that a real and grave threat does not exist is a bit naive. Having thousands of nukes pointed at the West was something to be feared (and don't they still have quite a few pointed this way), but since a "reasonable" people possessed those weapons, mutually assured destruction managed the situation as well as any alternative. Unfortunately, it does not work against a faceless enemy with a single bomb.

 Iraq wasn't a faceless enemy with a single bomb. It was a relatively rational tyrant who knew America would rape the shit out of him who had no bomb. I understand the idea of letting history judge, but I believe it's already spoken. What was our rationale for going there? WMD's. There were none. Then it became a connection with 9/11. There was none. And now it's al Queda, when it's actually mostly home grown groups that rose up AFTER we went there. History has spoken. Two of my best friends are in that shithole because of Bush's lies. Altogether theres something like 1 million people dead, many more displaced. I don't see how anyone can argue that history hasn't already judged this Iraq War as the biggest mistake America has made since Vietnam.

I agree completely ... but I also think that this is a bigger mistake than Vietnam (with less severe -- so far -- consequences). Vietnam we got into gradually, never realizing what a huge thing it would develop into. Iraq, on the other hand, was knowingly instigated on FALSE PREMISES (as whitedevil noted) with the instigators ignoring (except to fire) everyone who told them it was a bad idea and who told them it would fail in the exact way it has failed.