Remind me: why did the U.S. government invade and destabilize Iraq?

November 17, 2003 1:00 PM

Remind me: why did the U.S. government invade and destabilize Iraq? It's one thing to read this stuff, it's a whole other thing to hear it from the horse's, err, I mean chimp's mouth.
posted by jackspace (41 comments total)

{sigh}
posted by Witty at 1:04 PM on November 17, 2003

Pretty impressive. Someone should enter something like that to Bush In 30 Seconds.
posted by VulcanMike at 1:07 PM on November 17, 2003

Slick bit o' counter-propaganda.
posted by holycola at 1:12 PM on November 17, 2003

I actually thought this was pretty well-done and effective, until they got to the final part with the bleeding flag, which seemed a bit overdone.... The point was made a lot more effectively with the simple audio tracks and faces. The thing with the flag detracts from the overall effect of the piece...
posted by crookdimwit at 1:16 PM on November 17, 2003

How's this?

"What if [Saddam] fails to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction? ... Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal."

- Bill Clinton, 1998
posted by Durwood at 1:17 PM on November 17, 2003

thanks for the link. might have been more appropriate thrown into one of the dozens of bush links though ...
posted by specialk420 at 1:17 PM on November 17, 2003

On the other hand...
posted by 111 at 1:20 PM on November 17, 2003

Or this?

If you allow someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, how many people is he going to kill with such weapons? He's already demonstrated a willingness to use these weapons. He poison-gassed his own people. He used poison gas and other weapons of mass destruction against his neighbors. This man has no compunction about killing lots and lots of people. So this is a way to save lives and to save the stability and peace of a region of the world that is important to the peace and security of the entire world."

- Al Gore, Dec. 16, 1998
posted by Durwood at 1:20 PM on November 17, 2003

strident but effective.

anyway, the real reason was not to disarm so much as behead iraq, which we've done, fortunately and unfortunately.
posted by donkeyschlong at 1:26 PM on November 17, 2003

I think I've been convinced... George Bush did send 150,000 men and women to Iraq to die. THAT BASTARD!
posted by Witty at 1:29 PM on November 17, 2003

The whole "bleeding flag" thing is cheesy and gives Bush's detractors a bad name, and splashing "registered republican" next to the pictures of dead soldiers drags this down into a murky bog of partisan rhetoric. I give it a D-plus.
posted by jpoulos at 1:31 PM on November 17, 2003

where's all the neocon kewl flash cartoons? you know, those hilarious kneeslappers depicting liberals um, not bombing shit and uh, working with our allies, uh, and um, not insulting the intelligence of world leaders and ah, not segregating conservatives into restricted zones and... uh, fuck it.
posted by quonsar at 1:33 PM on November 17, 2003

DURWOOD: The Clinton and Gore quotes are right on... and completely irrelevant to this thread.

Clinton and Gore weren't making arguments for sending hundreds of Americans to their deaths in an invasion of Iraq. They were justifying throwing a few bombs Saddam's way in order to maintain pressure on the country and to discourage the progress of a WMD program.

And isn't that the point here anyways? There were no WMDs. Saddam hadn't had a program for a long time. The pressure and sanctions apparently did work. Seems like something that a modern society like the United States would be able to learn without needing to invade a country.

Back in 1998, it was the Bush admin's friends in the Project For the New American Centry that were arguing the other way:
We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War..... The policy of “containment” of Saddam Hussein has been steadily eroding over the past several months. As recent events have demonstrated, we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections.
posted by VulcanMike at 1:35 PM on November 17, 2003

That flag part was over the top, and not in a good way. The only emotion it raised in me was a hatred for bad flash designers.
posted by mosch at 1:48 PM on November 17, 2003

Nicely done, but without taking a pro or anti view of the invasion of Iraq, to lable our attack as a destabilization is much the same as saying Hitler or Stalin had "stalbilized" their countries. There might be better ways to stabilize.
posted by Postroad at 1:57 PM on November 17, 2003

Likewise, there might be better ways to "destabilize."
posted by badstone at 2:15 PM on November 17, 2003

There might be. It's interesting seeing what those who find their way to internet cafes in Iraq are saying. Shall we listen, or ignore them?

http://healingiraq.blogspot.com

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/2003_11_01_iraqthemodel_archive.html

http://www.messopotamian.blogspot.com

http://iraqataglance.blogspot.com/

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

http://geeinbaghdad.blogspot.com/

http://hammorabi.blogspot.com/
posted by JB71 at 2:16 PM on November 17, 2003

where's all the neocon kewl flash cartoons? you know, those hilarious kneeslappers depicting liberals um, not bombing shit and uh, working with our allies, uh, and um, not insulting the intelligence of world leaders and ah, not segregating conservatives into restricted zones and... uh, fuck it.

Well, there's plenty of real footage of Saddam and his ilk killing and torturing Iraqis. It's not technically "hilarious" or "kneeslapping," but it certainly would have conveyed the effect of "not bombing shit," as you so eloquently put it.
posted by pardonyou? at 2:29 PM on November 17, 2003

I give it a D-plus.

Any page that makes mozilla tabs I haven't gotten to yet start talking to me deserves an F just for that. Ah haaaaated when it was midi files, and Ah haaaates it now.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:32 PM on November 17, 2003

Well, there's plenty of real footage of Saddam and his ilk killing and torturing Iraqis.

backed into a corner and slick with fear sweat, he trots out pictures of saddam's internal death machine. how is it our intelligence and press can lay its hands on that, but cannot verify the existence of WMD even months after invading and occupying the country? if you and the shrub have, all this time, been so friggin' concerned for dead and tortured iraqi's why didn't you just say so?

"well, i dunno. but i got kewl pix of dead and tortured iraqi's. wanna see?"
posted by quonsar at 2:43 PM on November 17, 2003

VulcanMike : Spot on, the Clinton/Gore quotes are irrelevant, as neither of them launched an invasion into iraq for WMD that cant be found. If they had done so then we would be parsing their quotes as the poor excuse not Bush's.

As an apologist said to me today after posting that link elsewhere "all of those quotes are taken out of context"

I really have no idea what context would help explain those quote and invading to find nothing. The war was pretext on the imminent use of WMD, none were used, and none have been found.
posted by MrLint at 2:44 PM on November 17, 2003

If the case for war is sewn up by the "Sadaam is bad" rhetoric, where did the WMD stuff come from and why was it pushed so hard? For the billionth time I think very few who are against the extra-legal invasion of Iraq are bitter about the way that it was sold and the method by which the decision to go to war was reached. Pro-war folks can say all they want about the good of removing Sadaam, and it doesn't change the facts that:
1. Bush & co. have trashed America's standing with much of the free world.
2. The Iraq invasion was done on the cheap and without postwar planning, and the cost is paid by enlisted men and women and Iraqi citizens while Cheney et al reap fortunes.
3. There is no credible evidence of a threatening WMD program and certainly no evidence of actual WMD's.

You saw the quotes, you know the outcome. If a reasonable person can't see this mess as a mess and hold those who made the call accountable, then I suppose the latest move to cut and run will just look like the flowering of democracy and Mission Accomplished. I envy those rose-coloured glasses.
posted by holycola at 3:10 PM on November 17, 2003

i love angelfire sites.
posted by Stynxno at 3:27 PM on November 17, 2003

Well, there's plenty of real footage of Sadaam and his ilk killing and torturing Iraqis.

There's a huge amount of documentation about horrific torture in Sudan. The widespread rapes committed by the militias in the Congo are also well documented. State torture is still the norm in Argentina. You probably know the story on North Korea, but what about the routine torture by the police and army that takes place in Bangladesh?

So, what is the difference between these countries and Sadaam-era Iraq? Why don't we just 'liberate' them all?

The fact remains that Bush & Co sold the US and the world on this invasion on a bogus premise - the premise that deposing Sadaam Hussein would somehow give the US and the World a higher level of safely and security, because the Iraqi government held so-called "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and was poised to use them at any moment. The 'liberation' of the Iraqi people was, at best, only a tangential part of the sales pitch, and that pitch has since turned out to be so much snake oil, as Americans are not, by any means, safer now than we were prior to the invasion and no large-scale weapons program of any kind has been found.

Perhaps the Iraqi people are now better off, perhaps not. Only time will tell. It is completely possible that this new nation - destabilized with no concrete plan for re-stabilization by the invading army - will end up in a worse situation three or five years from now than they were in before we showed up - one where they live in constant fear as freedom fighters fight a hide-and-seek war against an American army of occupation, or one where rival warlords battle against one another for power and resources long after the American 'liberators' have left the scene.

Was Sadaam a bad guy? Yes. Did Iraq have the worst, most cruel and horrific government on the planet? Not by a long shot. The US has held hands with some fairly despotic governments in the past, and will continue to do so in the future. The revisionist idea that we did all this out of some altruistic desire to make the lives of the Iraqi people better is, to be very frank, bunk. Its the worst kind of retroactive reasoning, designed to hide the lie the invasion actually rests upon.
posted by anastasiav at 3:31 PM on November 17, 2003

quonsar: backed into a corner and slick with fear sweat, he trots out pictures of saddam's internal death machine ... if you and the shrub have, all this time, been so friggin' concerned for dead and tortured iraqi's why didn't you just say so?

*sigh* Here we go again.

Well, I can't speak for "the shrub," but I can certainly speak for myself and cite to the positions I have taken consistently since before the war started to the present. On March 18, 2003, two days before the start of the war, I said this:

I know for many of you it's simply easier to categorize everyone who supports military action as bloodthirsty hawks and warmongers. But for me and many others, nothing could be further from the truth. I abhor war in all of its forms. But I consider myself a moral person, and for me in all cases the moral choice that must be made is the one that in the long run minimizes human suffering to the greatest possible extent -- not only for the west, but for Iraq itself. While nobody has a crystal ball, reasonable people can conclude that allowing Saddam Hussein to remain in power will lead to far more death, suffering, and destruction than the coming action to remove him. To me, that's the very definition of moral. To me, that's the very definition of "peace."

So please try to bear that in mind before labelling yourselves the sole proponents of "peace."
posted by pardonyou? at 1:41 PM PST on March 18

Then I said:

[This was a quote from an earlier post] But human rights is actually just the last thing Bush had left to cross off his laundry list of justifications for this war.

I guess I would ask you why your own opinion pivots on Bush's justification, if the net effect will be the same? I am not a Bush supporter, and I think he and his ham-handed administration bungled any opportunity to obtain broad worldwide support. But even that wouldn't have changed the outcome -- it would have been the same war, with the same result, only with some more soldiers from different countries.

My moral judgment doesn't depend on the stated reasons for ridding the world of Saddam Hussein. The fact that he will be deposed is enough for me.

And on June 6, I reiterated my position:

[again, a quote from earlier in the thread]Ah yes; the end, of course, being justified by the means.

In this case, absolutely. Take a look at this:

[a blockquote from an outside source] Third, suppose President Bush in fact had no reputable motive in going to war. Suppose he had only disreputable motives, such as defending his daddy's honor. Does this show that the war is unjustified, morally speaking? Again, the answer is no. Justification is objective; motivation is subjective. The war can be justified as an act of self-defense or liberation of a people (to name just two of many justifications) even if the person waging the war doesn't understand it in those terms - even if he or she doesn't view those as justifications. For consider: Either there is a justification for the war (objectively speaking) or there is not. If there is, then it doesn't matter what motivated President Bush. If there isn't, then it doesn't matter what motivated President Bush. Either way, it doesn't matter what motivated President Bush.

This perfectly encapsulates my thinking on the issue. Yours may differ (and probably does). But I have absolutely no problem saying that the war was justified simply on the basis that thousands of Iraqi lives were saved.
posted by pardonyou? at 12:39 PM PST on June 6

I then said:

To recap: I supported the war for different reasons than WMD. So I have no problem pointing to mass grave stories and saying: "This is why I supported this war." My question for you: Why haven't the stories of Hussein's atrocities convinced you that the war was justified?
posted by pardonyou? at 12:51 PM PST on June 6

The next day, I wrote:

And your arguments are misdirected: I took issue with crumple_and_holepunch's* screed, which was specifically directed at my prior posts. That is what I was responding to. Hell, I personally don't care about Bush and his rationale. I never supported the war for his reasons. (And I don't even support him -- didn't vote for him in 2000 and have no plans to do so in 2004). In fact, if he deliberately lied to the American public to garner support for the war, that can and should be dealt with independently (perhaps up to impeachment). But none of that makes one whit of difference for me in terms of deciding whether the war was justified. See, I'm capable of separating the two. Imagine that!

Now that I've gone through that exercise, it should also be pointed out that you moved the ball. I was responding to your self-congratulatory reference to liberals not having to face "kewl" flash sites because they didn't "bomb shit." As if "not bombing shit" is the litmus test for doing the right thing. Maybe that is your worldview, quonsar. If it is, I'd submit your far less in touch with the realities of the world then you'd like everyone to believe.

I'd put the same argument to you, anastasiav: What's so retroactive about it? Why does the morality of the war turn solely on what George Bush "sold"? Isn't it possible for the war to be a moral thing despite the lack of WMD? Isn't it possible for there to be multiple reasons why one might fight a war? Isn't it possible for reasonable, moral people to have supported this endeavor since before it started based on the fact that it was certain to liberate Iraqis from their despot? Or is it too hard to reconcile that with a knee-jerk reaction to see all people in favor of the war as lying, bloodthirsty hypocrites?

And anastasiav, to your argument of how a person could consistently support the Iraq war but not be itching to invade, say, Sudan or North Korea, I once addressed it this way:

First, I think it's important to fairly characterize my position: After giving the issue serious thought over many months, I concluded that the action of invading Iraq was morally justified on the grounds that it would save lives in the long run. So if your question is whether I might also conclude that deposing the regime in Zimbabwe, Liberia, or China, is a morally justifiable action, the answer is yes, I might, depending on whether it appeared that the action could save lives (note that on this test, I don't believe I would find an invasion of North Korea morally justifiable because of the risk that Seoul would be nuked, killing millions of people. The same probably goes for China. I honestly don't know enough about Liberia, Zimbabwe, etc., but if the U.S. government proposed to take military action against those countries, I would certainly gather the facts the best I could to hopefully make an educated determination about whether I thought the invasion could be justified on any grounds, including humanitarian).

Note what this does not mean: It does not mean that I think military action is the only justifiable action. Just as I have never argued that other options with Iraq might not have been morally justifiable. I wouldn't have argued, for instance, that pursuing diplomacy for a longer period of time would have been "immoral." I just don't think it's that binary -- I don't see why any person should conclude there's one and only one justifiable approach to any situation. The war was going to happen whether I liked it or not -- my question for myself was whether I could find a moral basis for finding that action justified. Likewise, if the administration had decided it was not necessary to invade Iraq, I would have had the same internal conversation, and would have concluded that that, too, was a morally justifiable position. That doesn't mean both would always be the case -- I'm against war on principle, and I believe that there are probably very, very few situations in which military conflict can be justified. But this happened to be one of them, in my humble opinion.

I don't know why the anti-war crowd (or most of the pro-war crowd, for that matter) insists on demonizing the other side, rather than acknowledging that there are valid arguments, and that it's largely a matter of personal belief and conscience. Believe me, I understand your point of view, and I once shared it. But the more I learned about the atrocities committed by the Husseins, and the more I read and heard from exiled Iraqis, the more convinced I became that military action could be justified. And I still think it was justified on that basis -- I still personally believe that over the course of history, this will have saved a substantial number of Iraqi lives. That doesn't mean the administration should be immune from criticism for its judgment or its claims -- I've argued all along, for example, that if the administration actually lied about WMD, there should be very serious repercussions. But why should that impact whether I believe the war was morally justifiable? Why can't intellectual people treat those issues separately?

/treatise

Disclaimer, as always because people try to argue that I'm trying to defend Bush. I'm doing nothing of the sort -- only stating my beliefs, based on my record.
posted by pardonyou? at 6:10 PM on November 17, 2003

pardonyou?

What events during the occupation might change your opinion of the morality of the war?
posted by Ptrin at 6:26 PM on November 17, 2003

Shall we listen, or ignore them?
Sure, listen. But a few opinions does not a conclusive fact make.
posted by HTuttle at 7:07 PM on November 17, 2003

Metafilter: crashing sites since 1999. (At least as of 11:00 p.m. EST)
posted by palancik at 7:56 PM on November 17, 2003

And we've exceeded bandwidth!
posted by elwoodwiles at 8:01 PM on November 17, 2003

Pardonyou? -- thank you for the well reasoned, well-expressed opposing viewpoint. I'm going to respond, but its going to take me a bit. However, I wanted you to know that this is the kind of discourse that I look to MeFi for, and I appreciate your taking the time to craft together your post.
posted by anastasiav at 8:18 PM on November 17, 2003

your [sic] far less in touch with the realities of the world then you'd like everyone to believe.

everyone who believes i am to any degree "in touch with the realities of the world", raise your hand. see?

you moved the ball.

i am quonsar.
posted by quonsar at 9:14 PM on November 17, 2003

mirror
posted by quonsar at 9:44 PM on November 17, 2003

I'm responding to your points out of order, sorry:

I don't know why the anti-war crowd (or most of the pro-war crowd, for that matter) insists on demonizing the other side, rather than acknowledging that there are valid arguments, and that it's largely a matter of personal belief and conscience.

For me, personally, its because I've spent so much time being demonized. As someone who has stood outside, protesting the war, exercising my rights to freedom of speech and free assembly, I've been spit upon, called vile names, been accused of being unAmerican, unPatriotic, been told to "get out and stay out", been threatened with serious bodily harm, and have had people threaten to destroy my home, my car, and my livelihood. I have come to the reluctant conclusion that the vast majority of the American public is willfully ignorant ("lacking knowledge or comprehension of the thing specified") of the issues involved (on both sides), and this entire experience has made me ashamed of my country and my countrymen.

Why does the morality of the war turn solely on what George Bush "sold"?

The President and his administration have, first and foremost, the duty to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States". They worked hard to make the American people believe that the prosecution of this war did, in fact, serve that sworn duty, when in fact it did nothing of the sort. In their strong advocation of a violent overthrow of another government, they set aside their responsibilities to the people and the Constitution in order to further goals and ideals that were not necessarily in the best interests of the US -- which they were warned, in fact, might actually be at odds with the preservation and protection of America and its citizens.

The morality of intent counts, as does the ultimate balance of the scales which weigh America's loss over Iraq's gains. America's losses so far have been human lives, grotesque economic losses leading to a loss of services and security for our own people, loss of allies, loss of our reputation as a nation which valued fair-play above all, and, perhaps most importantly, the loss of those most basic personal rights and freedoms on which this country was founded. It is also possible that we have killed more Iraqi citizens in the past year than Sadaam would have in the next two ("we had to destroy the village to save it"). I cannot morally balance those losses against the possibility that the people of Iraq might, in the years to come, be better off than they were under their former dictator -- an outcome which is, despite your confident assertions, still far from certain, especially as we continue to lose the support of the international community, whose financial and practical support will be crucial to Iraq in the years ahead. The history of Iraq is a cycle of colonial colonization followed by tribal warfare, and it would be a surprise if this pattern did not, at least on some level, continue into the future. I am not at all confident that the Iraqi people will be self-determining five years from now. The history of other countries moving from dictatorship to self-determination shows that it is equally likely that their state will fall into strife and chaos as it is that they will prosper and succeed.

The Bush administration was warned repeatedly of the possibility of these outcomes, and were advised of ways to diminish or mitigate them, but they chose to push forward with this conflict arrogantly, with absolutely no clear plan as to how to administer the peace, leaving the fate of those people of Iraq as uncertain as it was under their former administration. You write that I concluded that the action of invading Iraq was morally justified on the grounds that it would save lives in the long run. - but if every Iraqi life saved is paid for by one American life lost or damaged, then do the scales balance? Is it moral and just to save their citizens by sacrificing our own? Especially if, as many suspect, the resources (human, natural, capital) that we "saved" will ultimately be used only to line the pockets of a select few associates and cronies of the current US administration?

Isn't it possible for the war to be a moral thing despite the lack of WMD?

That sounds quite dangerously close to "the ends justify the means". :-)

Of course it is possible for there to be multiple reasons why a country might choose to fight a war, and it is also possible for reasonable, moral people to support that war for different reasons. However, in my opinion, the great lesson of the 20th century is that violence is only justified when defending against imminent danger, and when all other means of defense have been exhausted. Interestingly, The United Nations agrees with me ("To ensure ... that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest"). The Bush administration made up lies in order to convince the American people, and the world community, that a violent overthrow of the Iraqi government was the only solution, when it was not. The Bush administration fabricated evidence that the Iraqi government was breaking UN resolutions and treaties, when it was not. The Bush administration, in short, tried to make the world believe that only violence was in the common interest, when it was not - when, in fact, an invasion of a sovereign country would lead to more unrest, less security, and more suffering and destruction than a diplomatic solution would have.

I am not advocating an isolationist stance here - far from it. Instead, I say, that in order for the US to continue to hold the moral high ground, we must first and foremost honor and support International law. Our current administration has failed to do this, in fairly spectacular fashion. Vigilante justice is never morally just, no matter what the cause. More is always lost on that path than is gained.

In the end, of course, neither you nor I can know if this is a morally just war or not. Only history can judge that.
posted by anastasiav at 10:38 PM on November 17, 2003

wesley clark has some thoughts on the subject for FOX news.
posted by specialk420 at 10:43 PM on November 17, 2003

pardonyou?, I'm sure we all appreciate yet another impeccable presentation of how you have stood by your convictions on justification for this war. However, as holycola pointed out, yet again this is about Bush's complete failure to do so, not yours, which makes your desire to flood the thread with your own quotes about how you've always stood by your convictions the exact opposite of what this is about.

What quonsar may have been noting is highlighted by your own comment: "Why does the morality of the war turn solely on what George Bush "sold"? Isn't it possible for the war to be a moral thing despite the lack of WMD? Isn't it possible for there to be multiple reasons why one might fight a war?"

You have again failed to tie this, which is clearly your self-defensive opinion, to anything Bush has ever said. The point that holycola noted is that Bush didn't simply give "multiple reasons" for invasion: he threw multiple reasons at a wall and now "stands bravely" by the ones that stuck. So to answer the first part of your question: YES! The entire (im)morality of this war is in the fact that Bush didn't give a good god damn what was accurate or not, as long as he got to go to war. He knowingly lied. THAT WAS BAD. ANYTHING that occurs after this fact- be it capturing bin Laden, killing Saddam, or uncovering al-Qaeda weather machines does not, can not, and WILL NOT change this.

How the hell can you constantly spout (and by your own archiving you've proven you've been constantly spouting it) this garbage about "moral justification" for the war when the very concept of morality of war is defeated by the "justification" changing every 30 days? How can you sit there and essentially say "who cares if he lied or not, what mattered was invading" and then ask how that's not immoral? He's a goddamned liar, pardonyou?!!!! Do you need a fucking DIAGRAM? Okay! Here, here you go: Knowingly lying = NOT MORAL. Christ, that was hard!

Okay, message recieved: you always cared about the liberation of the Iraqi people. Or, at least you always cared since March 2003. Or, whatever. I don't agree that invading was the best way to bring this, as you apparently endorse, but once again: this isn't about you, this is about Bush, and Bush is a liar. You can take personal comfort in your groundwork for not finding any wrong in the rationale for war as much as you want, pardonyou?, but you're never going to convince me, as well as a significant portion of this country, that George W. Bush's rhetorical making of the ends to justify the means is anything more than a distraction from the false intentions that pave his personal road to Hell.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 11:10 PM on November 17, 2003

I agree with XQUZYPHYR.
posted by iamck at 1:51 AM on November 18, 2003

Pardonyou,

I believe your own sincerity regarding the Iraqi people. The subject at hand, however, is NOT about you and your sincere beliefs, it's about the politicians and their schemes.

Is that understood or are your trolling simply to defend the neocons?

Could you also expound for us upon the liberation of all other peoples around the world who suffer under brutal dictators please?
Should we invade them all?
Why or why not?
Are there more brutal regimes that should be addressed in a particular manner or order?
Is it a correct use of US military power to expend resources "liberating" other countries and their peoples?
How shall we determine which countries to invade or not invade?
Would the PNAC "roadmap" suffice?
Whom shall we invade next?
Should we unilaterally perform all invasions?

Thank you in advance for your responses.

Slippery slope is what I say.
posted by nofundy at 5:15 AM on November 18, 2003

However, as holycola pointed out, yet again this is about Bush's complete failure to do so, not yours, which makes your desire to flood the thread with your own quotes about how you've always stood by your convictions the exact opposite of what this is about.

Goddammit. I know this thread isn't about my beliefs. That's why every time I bring this up, I specifically point out that I'm not doing so because I'm defending Bush (see my disclaimer). And I would not have brought it up this time except for the following comment:

quonsar: backed into a corner and slick with fear sweat, he trots out pictures of saddam's internal death machine ... if you and the shrub have, all this time, been so friggin' concerned for dead and tortured iraqi's why didn't you just say so?

The "he" and "you" in the quote meant me. I don't give a shit what the "post was about" -- quonsar leveled an accusation about me that was untrue. I'm sorry, but if someone implies something about my beliefs that's factually inaccurate, I'm going to respond. You or anyone else would do the same. So get off my back. I know the main issue isn't my beliefs -- it's what Bush sold to the American people. And, like I've said about 1,000 times, he can and should be held accountable for any misstatements.

nofundy, I won't respond to each individual question. But see my last few paragraphs in my admittedly long post where I address anastasiav's questions along those lines. and anastasiav, as much as I might want to respond in detail, I think I've outstayed my welcome in this thread. finally, ptrin, that's an excellent question, and one that I struggle with. obviously, if we continue to see high casualties for an extended period of time (really, years) my defense may be proved misguided. but it's still early days.
posted by pardonyou? at 6:12 AM on November 18, 2003

pardonyou? I'm sorry that you no longer feel welcome in this conversation. I was looking forward to your response "in detail". I knew you were responding to quonsar, if that counts for anything.
posted by anastasiav at 8:04 AM on November 18, 2003

XQUZYPHYR gets my Jimmy Stewart Award™ for eternal truths well spoken.

But, as far as the original question goes - " Remind me: why did the U.S. government invade and destabilize Iraq? " ........well, because it could.
posted by troutfishing at 8:08 PM on November 18, 2003

and quonsar is guilty of broad brush ranting. "you and bush" actually referred to "y'all war apologists" rather than you specifically, but god, i gotta admire your passion.
posted by quonsar at 8:58 PM on November 18, 2003