the more things change .. the more they stay the same ..

[frenchy]

this is from the early 80's but the idea is pretty much the same .. unrest in the middle east . so anybody think the war in iraq was a good idea ? anybody not see this civil war commin after we pulled our troops out ?? anybody think it was a good idea to remove sadamm hussein ?? or the war was a trillion dollars and more that was worth it ?? or that we're finally done with it all ??

  

[Karin M Fichtner]

I was very much against our war with Iraq. I saw no sense to it. And that was the war they were sending my first-born son into! He knew my position, but he was a Marine, and you go where you are sent. After he deployed, I still had his wife home for two more weeks before she deployed. She and I went to blows over the stupidity of going into Iraq. I told he if my government caused me to lose my precious boy in a war I didn't believe in, I might just plant myself in front of the White House with a sign and get myself arrested.....again and again. Some believe that war was over oil; I don't. I think the original plan was to establish a base of operations in one of the only non-landlocked Middle Eastern countries. Strategically, it would have been valuable if anything else (Iran.....Israel?) Had blown up over there. I may be wrong.....but from the "inside" information I was receiving.....it appeared that was the plan. I don't know if we will ever really know the true reasons. But I told my dil back then that this would happen.....and she didn't believe me. And I'm just a stupid truckstop waitress!! But I saw this coming. Why didn't they??

[Wayne Goodwin]

I myself feel all Wars since World War 2 were a waste of men for no reason at all . You can't win a War anymore . Fighting is different The enemy blend in to easily . Vietnam , our own people turned against our men and women coming home from an unwinnable war . If a war was going to happen in the end . The US should have went in the first time . Maybe less would have been killed . I feel the US won't give up for obtainable space for an air base over there . Even Afghanistan isn't winnable . Now if they Used Nukes it probably turned out different . 

I never figured out why we don't use mini Nukes . They had them in the movie Starship Troopers . It cut up them bugs ....

[Lifesighs]

It makes me sick when I think about all those young people who lost lives and the kids that lost parents. On a practical note instead we could have had health care for everyone and high speed trains. A waste of lives and money.

What we have over there now is a religious argument with different tribes, let them duke it out and let the billionaire sheiks pay for the process and destruction.

[Wayne Goodwin]

I vote best Answer....

[frenchy]

so far its pretty much unannamous ... i agree with all of you .. i fought with everybody i knew about iraq and the war ..but most people thought we had to do it .. 9/11  and all that .. we were fightin terrorism .. of course nobody wanted to listen when i said there were no iraqi's on them planes .. and that hans blix the u.n. weapons inspector pleaded with g.w. not to send the troops in .. just to tell him where the wmd's were and he would get them .. of course g.w. never told hans blix and we went in anyway .. joe wilson the iraq ambassador from the usa wrote an op ed in the times about his doubt of the wmd's and dick chenney outted his wife valerie plame who was a cia operative and they had to call her back for fear of her life .. g.w. said he would prosecute who was responsible for such a terrible act to the fullest extent of the law and chenney threw his chief of staff scooter libby under the bus for it and libby went to camp cupcake for 15 minutes .. and lo and behold after over 4,500 or so u.s. soldiers were killed , not to mention who knows how many iraqi's were killed ( estimates put it over 100 thousand ) but who can say for sure ?? could be double that many,still no wmd's .. whaddya know .. sadamm was actually the one who was tellin the truth .. pretty sad ain't it ?? and now we've spent over a trillion bucks and we said ok its your country we broke it .. you fix it .. and they're gonna do exactly what they been wantin to do all along .. the suni's and shiites wanna kill each other .. now thats the way to show allah how much you love him right ?? lets see how long it will take for the iranians who are shiites to come across the border and join their shiite brothers in the cause .. could come down to a regional war where they choose sides based on if they're suni or shiite .. so.. what side do we bomb if we're gonna give em air support ?? 

[P.A.]

The Iraq war was probably the stupidest thing our government has ever done. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and several others should be in prison.
Now they are blaming Obama for the mess over there. They have gaul but not much else.

[crestofwaves]

People who hate that Obama pulled troops out of Iraq want us to bomb away.  My question is "WHO????" are we going to bomb? The ISIS embeds themselves with natives. We'd be killing more Muslims and the more we kill, the more we are hated.

My man Biden said years ago we should help Iraq break into three religious areas: Kurds to the North, Sunnis to the South, and Shias in the middle.  I think he may have had a good idea because that seems to be what is happening now.

Not our business, not our problem.  These religious wars have been going on for millennia.  And if we drill here, we won't need oil from the Mideast.

[ProblemAgain]

Today in History

By The Associated Press 23 hours ago

Today is Monday, June 16, the 167th day of 2014. There are 198 days left in the year.

Ten years ago: Rebuffing Bush administration claims, the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks said no evidence existed that al-Qaida had strong ties to Saddam Hussein.

my opinion:

first of all, we can't prop up what is termed a failed nation. if the citizens of a country cannot defend themselves at all, then it is not a country. (and hint hint look back at the genesis of the countries in the middle east. they were created by allied victors and oil companies after ww1 by drawing lines on maps regardless of the demographics and ethnicities of the peoples of those regions. second: we are still maintaining troops in korea 62 years later at what monetary cost over those 62 years? and to safeguard a country that gave manufacturers cheap labor. how many countries do you think we should prop up?

we are paying for the incursions into iraq and afghanistan in all sorts of ways besides our troops and our tax dollars. every time you buy lumber, cement, steel or steel products and other goods, we pay a premium. because we destroyed buildings and infrastructure and then rebuilt it, we(the us) created shortages of materials for those of us in this country which drove the prices up, never to descend again.

and you would think that the general staff would have learned a lesson from viet nam. modern wars are virtually impossible to 'win'. diplomacy yields better results in the long run. and to be truthful, diplomacy backed up by a big stick works best.

[Wayne Goodwin]

I do agree with this   . My question is "Who has the Big Stick" ?

[frenchy]

that was the next point i was gonna make problem .. these icis fighters want to reunite iraq and syria and probably jordan too.. the brits were the one's who divied up all all the countries and then redrew all the lines to suit themselves without thinkin what the consequences would be .. a lot like the serbs and croats and bosnians in what was once yugoslavia and checklosovaki ... and we all know how that turned out don't we.. i think the usa is the only country in the world where we have all these ethnic differences and it sort of works a good part of the time.. ( we've had our moments too ) but the difference is we all wanted to be here and don't really wanna go back to where ever it was we came from .. them people are dug in and don't wanna go nowhere so they try some good old ethnic clensin .. and why is this such a surprise to the powers that be ?? if it never happened before i guess they could say gee we never saw that commin .. but it does .. and more often than not .. look at africa , the middle east , and the baltic states .. and right here in the usa we just about wiped out all the native american indians .. at least our indians have wised up and opened casino's on their reservations and some of em are gettin rich .. good for them .. but them muslums don't drink or gamble so wtf are they gonna do ?? might as well kill each other cause they're not the exact same variety of muslum as each other .. and of course we'll offer air support .. so do we kill the shiites or the suni's ?? at this point does anybody care which ?? 

[uno,dos,3]

We've got to be careful how many we kill or their won't be any virgins left for anyone else.

[uno,dos,3]

I mean 'there'.....here a virgin, there a virgin, everywhere a virgin.

Maybe we should carpet bomb the Middle East with dvd copies of 'Dust in the Wind'...Chief...take care of that would you?