War for Oil or WMDs?

We all know there were none and even if there were the Americans would just respond to a nuclear attack easily and wipe their enemy out.

True, but since the majority of the rest of the world's opinion on USA is negative, some countries may use that response as an excuse to start a nuclear war nonetheless.

You seriously think it's that easy to respond to a nuclear attack? Once it's launched it's launched... The fact that millions of people's lives are at stake when we're playing with nukes and you can't handle the matter lightly. This doesn't even have to apply to the matter in the middle-east, it's a general fact that you don't mess around when a nation who has WMD and aren't afraid to use it.

And yet they went to war with someone who "potentially" had one and could use it on them.

WMD's are a broad category including nuclear, biologic, radiological and chemical. They believed he had biological weapons, not nukes. While it was rumored that he had them it was unknown if he had the means to launch them half way around the world. Still, the U.K. and various other countries believed that Saddam had WMD's, mostly the weapons he used on the ethnic cleansing of the Kurds in Northern Iraq.

Don't forget the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441. Sure Saddam gave up his hunt for other WMD's in the late 80's/ early 90's but, when you knew a country with questionable morals was hunting for something before. When they start to say the opposite its hard to believe.

"Only the fool believes the snake. (before it strikes)"

Lets not forget that Georges Sada admits that the WMD's were moved to Syria 6 weeks before the war.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39182

Whatever, people will believe whatever they want. Never mind that Saddam had used chemical weapons like mustard gas and the nerve agent GB, or Sarin to kill 50,000 to 100,000 non-combatant civilians including women and children while boasting he had no problem using them on not only the kurds but, anyone else. Lets forget about Halabja poison gas attack during the Iran-Iraq conflict. Never mind those "minor details"...We only wanted his oil...obviously :roll:

Despite being a liberal and avid Obama supporter, I agree with Fiery in many respects.

To say that we went to war in Iraq simply to take their oil is an opinion that is generally uninformed and has little evidence to back it up.

Question 1: Did Sadam have WMDs?

Well, we know he did at one point, because he used them on the Kurds. We still don't know exactly what happened to them. Furthermore, in the time leading up the the Iraq war, Sadam certainly behaved like he had WMDs. Certainly, it seemed like he wanted the U.S. to think that he had WMDs.

Certainly, there was conflicting intelligence, but I really have a hard time blaming the Bush administration for have founded suspicions that Sadam did in fact have WMDs.

However, we knew for a fact that Sadam had WMDs in the past and we didn't invade Iraq, so the question remains: what changed?

Question 2: Did Sadam have connections with Al-Qaeda?

On this count, the evidence seems to point to no, or be very tenuous at best. From the outset, and especially when it became clear that no WMDs would be found, this became the justification for Iraq.

It's still not entirely clear what the administration's motive for the War in Iraq was, and we may not know for many years. The anti-terrorism claims seem incorrect due to the evidence, which the intel agencies would have presumably been aware of, and the idea of toppling Sadam because he was a brutal dictator has not been consistent with Bush's other action. I suppose it has been consistent with his rhetoric, so perhaps he merely feels that the U.S. has no power left to enforce a doctrine of military intervention in general cases of totalitarianism.

I also don't buy that Bush had a personal vendetta against Sadam, as some people claim. To me, the most logical motivation for Iraq would be to try and set up a durable U.S. friendly democratic regime in the strategic region of the middle east.

While I don't think the war was simply for oil, there are plenty of reasons to be upset about it.

-The Bush administration continued to perpetrate untrue justifications for the war instead of admitting intelligence errors, even long after it was obvious that errors had been made.

-The war was horribly mismanaged for a number of years, costing thousands upon thousands of lives, both U.S. and Iraqi. You simply shouldn't be fighting a well run military operation 4 years after "victory" has been declared.

-Entering a two front war is generally unwise military strategy, and barring decisive evidence of an immediate and dire threat from Iraq, it would have been wiser to concentrate on the Afghanistan operation until the job was done there and then think about the next military action. Even now, we see Afghanistan deteriorating. With the full attention of the U.S. focused there could this situation have been averted?

-The Bush administration and its political operatives repeatedly showed little respect for the American people and the rule of law, violating the constitution and the high courts by depriving people of essential rights, as well as repeatedly lying about such violations and using the idea of patriotism as a cudgel against the administration's ideological opponents.

Wouldnt sending a spy help clear those ?

As long as there are Humans on this planet there will be war that is our nature why we fight is completely irrelevant.

@Whitelion: Awesome. I can "reach across the aisle". John McCain ain't got shit on me!

(sorry, couldn't help myself)

Damn Straight!

I worked on the Obama campaign over the summer, and being with a lot of really devoted liberals who were frustrated with Bush, I ran into a lot of this: people need to examine their anger and frustration towards the administration and direct it towards valid criticisms backed up by explicit reasoning and work from that starting point to change things. Too often people are angry at Bush and instead of intelligent debate, they demonize him by attributing insidious motives, hyperbolic accusations, or monstrous personality traits to him and his administrations.

I think the "War for Oil" rallying cry often falls into this category, as well as "Bush is a war criminal" and its variants and "A war conspiracy for Bush's personal gain" and its variants.

never liked the idea of nuclear war. we have the capacity to decimate the earth if we feel about it. and that's exactly the point behind nuclear arms, to make everyone too afraid to attack us.

Its a problem affecting both parties. They are too busy shouting over one another that they drown out the voices of the people. Between the agendas, spin and slants the real truth gets contaminated and its spread across the country like the water on a lawn. Its literally a plague of misinformation and that is how the politicians want it. Instead of serving the people the politicians have swore loyalty to their party before the people.

When it comes to the people; there is just too much hate. Hate solves nothing, no matter who it comes from.

So once again, the plan to denounce America has been foiled. Good job Penguin and Whitelion a rep a piece from me when it recharges. :)

I really hate it when people don't look at the facts and think America sucks...

This wasn't to denounce America, it' was about the whole Coalition.

I don't know something about this statement that sounded like you had a personal problem with America...

And judging from your past response to "What do you think about Americans" I can't help but take this thread as a thread that denounces America.

No it also denounces my government as they joined you in that war. I don't have a problem with America, just the government, Bush was a retard and Blair was his bitch.

The reason I thought you were talking only about America:

But as Penguin said, the only one at fault is Saddam...

I thought your government and not your people, controlled your military.

Yes, but most of the American people supported the war at the beginning meaning the start of the war was with the support of the people and if your saying the government made a stupid choice, your also saying the people who supported the idea are also stupid which made up the majority of the American people.

The vast majority of Americans supported the war in its initial stages. Afghanistan had a support of at least 70-80% of the people. Iraq..wasn't so much. Though the number was roughly the same amount since usually approval drops because some people think a war takes about as long as a M.M.A. fight. The major drag on approval ratings has been the slow progress in both fronts. Iraq is getting to the point it can stand on its own since coalition forces are handing over Providences left and right to the iraqi security forces. Once Iraq is stable and won't likely topple over. I'm sure that half of the forces in Iraq will return home while the other half move back into Afghanistan to finish up there.

Assuming we don't get into a third conflict with Russia or Iran.



Do you know why the world doesn't want anyone to have WMD's? You throw a nuke, bio, or chemical weapon at me. I throw two back at you. You throw three at me. I throw four at you. Your allies throw a few at me. My allies throw a few at them. Continue the circle jerk for a while and we are all dead. Nukes serve little to no purpose beyond "look how big my dick is".