Willravel

I appreciate your time and efforts.

The total number of recruits has dropped off, and goals have been reduced to compensate. They have reached the reduced goals, so we're both right.
Our Constitution neither forbids or allows preemtive invasions of soverign countries, so then the law falls to our international treaties. No law I mentioned has superceeded the Constitution.
Neither Saddam nor any of his fellow Iraqis had any ability to decide the fate of US soldiers. It was first the office of the President, and then Congress who are ultimately responsible for the lives of our soldiers in time of war.
The idea is that it's the law, and the prescedent for the law is Nuremberg. I'm not suggesting that the US is comparable to Nazi Germany in my case. The Nazi war of aggression, WWII, made evident that laws about justifications for following orderes were necessary. It was deemed necessary by the court that a soldier was required to do more than follow and order, and was responsible for determining if the order given was lawful. If the order was found to be unlawful, the soldier was required to disobey the order.
I made my case. I'm not suggesting that Saddam was not guity of war crimes (he was, and was executed). I was simply stating that the act of invading a soverign country that was not an immediate threat to the US was an illegal action. Those who would be heald responsible if this ever reaches a high court would most likely be high ranking members of the administration, not the troops. The point is that it should be the responsibility of every free thinking individual to stop him or herself from breaking the law.
This thread is about the troops, not Saddam or the Iraqi government. In another thread, I'll be glad to agree that Saddam Hussain was a dispicable murderer and his government commited unspeakable acts of cruelty.

Let's say that your neighbor is abusive to his 4 year old son. One day you go over there and stab him. You are arrested. While your intent was noble, you have still broken the law. While I'm sure the intent of removing Saddam from power is noble, it is still against the law.
I agre that there is a marked difference between the two, but take a look at the aftermath. Compare the death toll of Iraqi citizens between 2003-2007 versus the death toll from 1998-2002.
That's not true. According to intel from a defector in 1995, most if not al of Saddam's chemical weapons were destroyed in the early 90s after Desert Storm. That information had been circulating for 8 years before Iraqi Freedom. Isn't it likely that the suits were there in case Iraq was attacked with chemical weapons? He knew we were going to invade.
It would be nice to learn from history. We obviously didn't learn from NK or Vietnam, as we're right back in the thick of it again.

How do you expect that we can rebuild Iraq during a civil war?
So Iraqi's were born hating us, for no rational reason? I'm very glad to hear you're learning Arabic. If you are deployed to Iraq, I invite you to speak with some of the civilians over there. Ask them where the animosoity comes for the west, and let them explain. Let them explain how many starved because of UN sanctions that the US supported (yes, Clinton was wrong). Ask them about the Iraq Iran war and what role the US played. Ask them about when the US supported the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi nuclear power plant in 1981. Ask them about Saddam meeting with former Ambasador April Glaspie, who said the US wouldn't interfere if he wanted to attack the Kurds for being suspected of cross drilling. Ask them how often they have lost power, water, food, medicine, family or friends in US bombings. Aks them how it was to endure a 120 degree summer without power because it's not a priority. Ask them about group punishments and airstrikes instead of trying to catch individual terrorists or insurgents.

Again, I'm not calling our troops bad or evil or anything of the sort. I'm not saying they are ever justified for firing on you or planting bombs or anything of the sort. I'm simply letting you know that from the perspective of these people you are not saints.
I'm not a military tactician. I do my best to try and think of a solution, but I am not a seasoned general. I'll bet you $5 that if I were to allow any one general or admiral control the policy on rebuilding Iraq, it'd stand an honest chance of being done. The problem is with the commander in cheif of the armed forces, who's military experience is draft dodging and pretending to fly a plane in Texas while his generation was forced to go to war.

In a perfect world, there would be an admiralty or staff of generals that worked in conjunction with an ethics comitee in order to wage and control war. We have to work with what we've got, and we've got laws. We can't just break the law when we feel like it.
Read what I wrote about the death toll.
20,000 troops won't even cover the number that's been injured or killed, right (wounded: 22,834 + killed: 2,089 = 24,923)? So we're back to square one. Also the general that was just replaced disagrees and thinks that 20,000 troops is a mistake.
Refer back to the story of the stabbed neighbor.
It's coherent. I look forward to your response.

Powerclown thinks that Iraq was somehow tied in with 9/11, and he's making me kinda worried. I can understand why he'd be confused when Bush said, "The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda: because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda," but times have changed and it was made clear when he said "...we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th...". We live in a confusing world.