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Originally Posted by willravel
If you slap a bear in the face, the bear has a choice: go back to sleep, or rip your arms off and eat your head.
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Good. a green light for analogies.
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The thing is, we have been bombing Iraqi civilians for a long time, and Clinton was absolutely wrong to do it, and Bush was absolutely wrong to do it. The embargos killed millions (?) of Iraqis that had nothing to do with Saddam's policies. As I've said time and again: Saddam was no threat to the US coming up to and as the US invaded in 2003. There was no real reason to invade them. It would have been much better to allow Iraq to have a civil war that removed Saddam from power, while carefully monitoring the situation (and providing the resistence secretly with intel on Saddam). We would have experienced 0 casualties, we could have concentrated our military and intelligence services on actually fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where I have no doubt we would have already found Osama and been able to put him on trial. Instead of a world that resents us for invading a country that was no threat to us, the world would cheer as a major battle against radical militants was won.
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If you are the leader of a pack and you let a member of your pack get away with defiant behavior (the way Sadaam was acting against UN resolution after UN resolution) the order of the pack will eventually be destroyed. We had an obligation to act against Sadaam, it is a responsibility the comes with being the lead nation in the world.
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Originally Posted by Moskie
I think that's unfair... "Choosing" between forming a peaceful government and rebellion isn't a simple choice, like picking what you're going to wear for the day. Obviously, tons a factors exist that affect the reaction of the Iraqi people, and the designers of this invasion seriously misjudged it. It's not like the decision was made on a whim, or by a flip of a coin.
Yes, I believe the people behind the insurgency are misguided (i'm don't want to call them all "bad"....). But our invasion paved the road for them. The US can't completely wash its hands of that fact, and place blame soley on the Iraqi people.
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You sound like the people on my local school board. People know right from wrong. They either choose to do what is right or they don't. Killing women, children, elderly, etc, etc is a strategic choice they made and is wrong. They target non-military personnel to break the will of the people.
And if you read what I wrote, I agree we need to clean the mess up. We need to send in more troops, and have a show of strength and power. We need to give the good people in Iraq an opportunity to succeed.