Was the Iraq War worth it?
The Irish Eagle (whom I admit I mistook at first for one of the Axis of Anglo-American Wingnuts, and now apologetically blogroll) writes:
I can't say that I have any personal problem with the notion of removing a dictator from power - if (and that's a big 'if') the price of war is cheaper to his people than the price of doing nothing. But this war wasn't begun on the premise of human-rights but on the claimed evidence of Saddam having WMD. Evidence we now know was fabricated, likely by US wingnuts unknown.
I had at the time (and continue to be depressingly proved right) absolutely no faith whatsoever in the Bushies not screwing the Iraqi people, either through deliberate Machiavellianism or by sheer ineptitude while blinded by neocon ideology. The Bush Administration isn't from Planet Reality, folks (I mean, does it inspire confidence that El Presidente bestowed these three with medals?).
And the unfortunate inhabitants of Iraq (like the Vietnamese of decades ago) are going to continue to suffer for wrong-headed American ideology.
"In 2002/2003 I believed that if the US opted not to invade that (a) Saddam's regime would continue until his death, (b) that one of his maniacal sons would take over and (c) when the regime eventually fell it would be in a Yugoslavia type blood-bath. That rationale convinced me that from the perspective of the average Iraqi, the prospect of years more of Saddam followed by a civil war was less preferable than the US invasion and occupation.
So far, I think that still holds, but if the civil war comes anyway, then the upside of the US invasion is much reduced. Stabilizing Iraq must remain priority number 1. Leaving a stable, free and prospering Iraq will be the greatest achievement for the Iraqi people and for the War on Terror, but we are still a long, long way from that goal."
I can't say that I have any personal problem with the notion of removing a dictator from power - if (and that's a big 'if') the price of war is cheaper to his people than the price of doing nothing. But this war wasn't begun on the premise of human-rights but on the claimed evidence of Saddam having WMD. Evidence we now know was fabricated, likely by US wingnuts unknown.
I had at the time (and continue to be depressingly proved right) absolutely no faith whatsoever in the Bushies not screwing the Iraqi people, either through deliberate Machiavellianism or by sheer ineptitude while blinded by neocon ideology. The Bush Administration isn't from Planet Reality, folks (I mean, does it inspire confidence that El Presidente bestowed these three with medals?).
And the unfortunate inhabitants of Iraq (like the Vietnamese of decades ago) are going to continue to suffer for wrong-headed American ideology.
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