25 US troops killed today...

[LakeAriel]

The first question is the one that's a real moral issue. What criteria do we use to determine who is worth saving? I thought we should have been in Rwanda during the Clinton Administration and I think we should be in Darfur now because there is genocide going on there. I thought Saddam should have been removed during the first Gulf War because of the way he and his regime were killing and "disappearing" innocent people. I agreed with our involvement in Bosnia because of the ethnic cleansing going on there at the time.

As for 2 and 3, those are questions upon which reasonable people will disagree. It's hard to predict the future. There's an expert on every side of every issue, so it's almost impossible to know with certainty that any decision is the absolute best.

There has to be a balance between shooting first and asking questions later, and asking so many questions that no decision ever gets made. I'm looking for the candidate that can be decisive after serious reflection on the many sides of an issue. I haven't had one in the last two elections, maybe I'll get lucky in 2008.

I think you are really a nice person and admirable in your concern about all the people involved in this conflict, American and iraqi. The idea that we went to Iraq to liberate the unfortunate victims of Hussein is just not true.
We called it shock and awe in 2003, not liberation. Does this look like liberation? This is the capitol of Iraq during our shock and awe.

 

[Fitswimmer]

I think you are really a nice person and admirable in your concern about all the people involved in this conflict, American and iraqi. The idea that we went to Iraq to liberate the unfortunate victims of Hussein is just not true.
We called it shock and awe in 2003, not liberation. Does this look like liberation? This is the capitol of Iraq during our shock and awe.

I think we should have finished the job in the 90's, then 2003 would have been unnecessary. We had more support then from the rest of the world and we might have been able to avoid this mess. The UN already had enough evidence of what he was doing to the population, as did Amnesty International and other international human rights organizations. His sons would ride down the streets of Baghdad, find a woman they thought was pretty, kidnap and rape her, then cut her tongue out so she couldn't tell anyone what they did to her. If you disagreed with him, not only did he shoot you, he imprisoned and tortured everyone in your family. People just disappeared in the night and were never heard from again. When we first took Baghdad, our soldiers found the mass graves that had been there at least since the 90's along with newer ones. Abu Gharib was a torture chamber long before the US got there. Without minimizing what was done there by our own soldiers, it was nothing compared to the systematic torture that went on there under Saddam. People had limbs removed, eyes gouged out and other unmentionable physical torture. I read an interview with an Iraqi citizen after the US torture story broke that said there was evil in the prison itself and it should have been blown up after Saddam was overthrown. This was a person that needed to be an ex-leader WAY before 2003.

 

[salmoneous]

Saddam was horrible, but war was not the tool to end the atrocities. His removal has lead to a hundreds of others committing atrocities every day.

 

[LakeAriel]

I think we should have finished the job in the 90's, then 2003 would have been unnecessary. We had more support then from the rest of the world and we might have been able to avoid this mess. The UN already had enough evidence of what he was doing to the population, as did Amnesty International and other international human rights organizations. His sons would ride down the streets of Baghdad, find a woman they thought was pretty, kidnap and rape her, then cut her tongue out so she couldn't tell anyone what they did to her. If you disagreed with him, not only did he shoot you, he imprisoned and tortured everyone in your family. People just disappeared in the night and were never heard from again. When we first took Baghdad, our soldiers found the mass graves that had been there at least since the 90's along with newer ones. Abu Gharib was a torture chamber long before the US got there. Without minimizing what was done there by our own soldiers, it was nothing compared to the systematic torture that went on there under Saddam. People had limbs removed, eyes gouged out and other unmentionable physical torture. I read an interview with an Iraqi citizen after the US torture story broke that said there was evil in the prison itself and it should have been blown up after Saddam was overthrown. This was a person that needed to be an ex-leader WAY before 2003.

My point is limbs were blown off by our bombs too. Many of them were the limbs of little children. Do you answer a tyrant by dropping bombs on his victims?
We were allied with him while he was doing these dastardly things, how come?

 

[Fitswimmer]

Saddam was horrible, but war was not the tool to end the atrocities. His removal has lead to a hundreds of others committing atrocities every day.

How then should he have been removed? He certainly wasn't just going to walk out of there because the UN said so or the world community said so.

 

[MassJester]

I think we should have finished the job in the 90's, then 2003 would have been unnecessary. We had more support then from the rest of the world and we might have been able to avoid this mess. The UN already had enough evidence of what he was doing to the population, as did Amnesty International and other international human rights organizations.

I agree with you that SH was a bad guy back when we were there under Bush I--a President with whom I disagreed sharply, but for whom I have enormous respect.

President Bush I did not remove SH at the time becuase he lacked legal authority. The UN manadate was to liberate Kuwait, and no more. He liberated Kuwait, and no more. To have gone further would have been a violation of international law, might well have created a huge mess, and would have likely left an open field for Iran.

Too bad Junior was such a bad student.

 

[Fitswimmer]

I agree with you that SH was a bad guy back when we were there under Bush I--a President with whom I disagreed sharply, but for whom I have enormous respect.

President Bush I did not remove SH at the time becuase he lacked legal authority. The UN manadate was to liberate Kuwait, and no more. He liberated Kuwait, and no more. To have gone further would have been a violation of international law, might well have created a huge mess, and would have likely left an open field for Iran.

Too bad Junior was such a bad student.

That's true, but once we had liberated Kuwait, I think Former President Bush had enough credibility and there was enough independant evidence for him to have gone back to the UN and propose finishing the job. I was working at a military base at the time and nobody there could figure out why there was no effort made to move on.
Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but I think Former President Bush would have done a much better job had he had the chance than his son has done. He had more international experience and stronger diplomatic ability.

 

[LakeAriel]

That's true, but once we had liberated Kuwait, I think Former President Bush had enough credibility and there was enough independant evidence for him to have gone back to the UN and propose finishing the job. I was working at a military base at the time and nobody there could figure out why there was no effort made to move on.
Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but I think Former President Bush would have done a much better job had he had the chance than his son has done. He had more international experience and stronger diplomatic ability.

Bush senior didn't have the stomach for the bloodletting required for a march into Baghdad. There were many thousands of Iraqi's killed in that incursion also.