Wanting nukes and disliking us?  Are we the thought police now?  What about North Korea or Iran?  If you believe Iraq was a threat to the U.S., how was it a larger threat than those two?

I'm not saying we invaded just for oil, but if we're going to invade and occupy a country and install a puppet government that's an instant ally and will allow us to make a permanent military base there, we might as well put it in the most valuable landmass on the planet.  The oil is a very small fringe benefit, but Wolfowitz and co. proposed the Plan for a New American Century back in the 90's, arguing that Iraq was the best spot of land on earth because it could provide land trade routes between Europe, Asia, and Africa, and had oil to boot.  Yeah he's the nutjob who said the oil would fund the invasion as if we'd just snatch it all up immediately, but these are the nutjobs who fed the media frenzy to get this war started.

I don't think we attacked because they were brown, but I think it was easy for the media to trick the stupid public into confusing which brown people were the bad guys to get America all riled up for the invasion.  Getting the public to hate the enemy is an integral part of any war, on both sides.  For example, in August of 2003, 70% of Americans believed Iraq was involved in 9/11.  There was absolutely no evidence for this, and still isn't, but the media just went "Iraq Iraq Iraq, 9/11 9/11 9/11" all day until people just put the two together.  Fifteen of the attackers were from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt, and one from Lebanon.  It's a little different from our WW2 tactics of telling Americans that Nazis and Japs eat babies, but it's the same idea.

I can't think of a single good reason to have gone into Iraq, but now that we're there... why are we there?  If we're there simply to stop a civil war, there are other countries with worse civil wars and genocides going on.  The difference: those civil wars and genocides won't end with a permanent U.S. military base on the planet's most valuable landmas.

@Rath,

I really think you misunderstood what I've said from the beginning, your last reply brought up a lot of points I wasn't even debating, continued to state things that I've thoroughly rebutted without addressing the points I've made, and in the case of your assertion that you were correct that there wouldn't be any more attacks, you completely ignored the proof I've already linked to that you were wrong.

If you're done with the discussion then I won't carry it out with another long reply and just stop here.

@Kasz,

Do you really think a strategy from an RTS game is a valid comparison here? I mean an RTS game is a zero sum game where each player is started on equal footing with roughly equal technology, and equal resources. Sure if we were facing two other countries with our Military power and infrastructure it wouldn't be smart to stop them from counteracting each other but they aren't that powerful at all, not even close. The scenario is so fundamentally different than anything you will face in an RTS game to date that it honestly has no bearing on this discussion at all.

With that said I agree the best way to deal with it was dealing with both at once, but in reality we aren't playing a zero sum game and the phrase "dealing with" doesn't always mean military action. Iraq and Iran were at very different stages on the path of "due process" before a military move is justified.

And I won't insult your intelligence, as you did mine, for not seeing that.

On your points outside of strategy we really aren't in any major disagreement. Both you and Rath seem to miss the fact that I'm not saying we made the best decision possible by going into Iraq (far from it). My point is simply that we cannot change what has happened, and complaining about it does nothing to aid us, which is why I bolded those past tense words above for emphasis to this point.

Honestly its as sad as the 80 year old man who sits on the porch and laments about his senior year when he almost scored the winning touchdown and would have if only the coach had called his play. Half the country is caught in this mental self-pity trap and if you look through this thread you'll see what I mean, its almost like a drug. Any time the conversation of Iraq and what we're doing today comes up someone has to lament about why we went there to begin with and as the saying goes "misery loves company".

The bolded part deals with the reason why we went to Iraq and does a tremendous job of highlighting the point I made at the end of my last post.

@part before the bold,

I don't think we will see eye to eye on this at all so I will just say - Means & Motive, I'd rather not wait until after the crime when millions of lives are at stake.

@part after the bold,

The Iraqi civil war is over, and it has been for a while now. As for a military base, I have no problem with us having a military base in Iraq, we have them in tons of countries around the world, you seem to look at all the benefits of dealing with Iraq as negatives oddly enough. A military base is a completely legit result from liberating a country.

As for the most valuable landmass I again have to point out we get a tiny percentage of our oil from there and we pay "fair" price for it. So maybe I missed something but it seems like you really have no argument on the oil thing.

Hey you bolded my last little paragraph, which was about staying there, not going there.

Edit: hahaha, nice.

I hit submit early >_<

edit: I had actually made the correction before you mentioned it =P 

The PNAC plan that Wolfowitz and some others had established that America needed a military presence in Iraq as soon as possible, before 9/11 even happened or anybody cared about terrorism at all. The reason wasn't the oil, but the fact that it's the chunk of land that connects the entire eastern hemisphere, so it gives access to half the planet's trade routes.

I just looked it up and... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pnac

Oops, it was Project (not Plan) for a New American Century, and Rumfseld and Wolfowitz were both in it. They wrote a letter to Clinton urging him to get rid of Saddam in 1998. Then a couple years later Bush got in office and they got fancy new jobs and suddenly we decided to invade Iraq.

I'm not saying 9/11 was an inside job or even allowed to happen (outside of ignorance and poor planning and horrible intelligence), but I do think it allowed some newly hired wackjobs to get the rest of the administration on board with an Iraq war which they'd been trying to start for years.


And about staying there,

I'm fine with a military base here and there, but if this entire war was to justify a military base, I can't support either the war or the base. I'm not Machiavellian enough to support senseless killing just to give America a strategically placed base. And if the rumors are true and it costs the alleged zillions of dollars to build and defend it, it could double the cost of the occupation for the next couple years, which our economy can't really handle.

 I also fail to see a connection with the so called terrorist attacks on the WTC and the Iraq war.

.

So called? You aren't one of those 'the USA blew up the twin towers' people are you? Please please please say no.

Please please say yes! Let's get this thread cookin'!

i had thought they had all gotten over that nonsense