[August]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

Did Bush ask for the money before starting the war? If he did then it's really not his fault alone.

Congress not only appropriated the money for Iraq beforehand but voted overwhelmingly for the war. Remember, we had been keeping Saddam contained for over a decade while he repeatedly broke the ceasefire agreement that ended the first gulf war. That alone justified removing his regime from power but he also did everything he could to make himself look as dangerous as possible. Congress made it's decision not on some new song and dance by the Bush administration but rather because it was the same things they had been hearing about Saddams capabilities for over a decade.

"Motive, means and opportunity" The 3 classic aspects of a crime No one doubted the Saddam had the first, Saddam himself was claiming he had the means and we darn sure weren't gonna wait until opportunity presented itself to him.

Agreed, but the costs (no, not the money, I mean the loss of lives) were/are too high (in my opinion).

No life lost is something to cheer about, but to put it in perspective we lost more troops just wresting Anzio from you Germans than we have lost in the entire Iraq war. Most of our dead come from our efforts to rebuild the country afterwards. Not many countries through history have even made that effort.

If your president had not used lies to gain allies but had clearly said what he was after, and had not pissed those who refused to follow him, maybe he had found more nations in the coalition of the willing/less leaving it after the war (I don't think Germany would have been among them, but anyway). Or at least he might have gotten more foreign support to rebuild the country after the war.

So in other words Europe is making the Iraqis suffer because of it's displeasure with George Bush? Who exactly are these "unwilling" nations trying to hurt here?

We once had a guy here too who was (more or less) chosen by the people. And then he started WWII. So I think loyalty is nothing that is deserved with a certain position one achieves. Otherwise you would make yourself prone for the same mistake that we once made. Blind loyalty is never a good thing.

Lest certain forum members accuse me of argument "reducto ad nazium" i will refrain from examining that comparison in detail. Suffice to say I have never seen or heard of a US president that commanded the degree of loyalty that you are implying.

Have any other terrorists tried it? (I actually don't know...)
Were it his plans that stopped them?

There have been a number of plots foiled at various levels of preparedness but think about it for a second. For all the trouble we have given the terrorists in the past 7 years, destoying their bases, driving them into hiding, killing or capturing thousands of their operatives, I can't imagine that they wouldn't have hit us again by now if they had been able to, do you?

How many people were killed on 9/11? I think something around 3000 or so.
How many people have been killed in the name of fighting terror? Not to mention all those civilians that were killed in Iraq. Not only those that were "collateral damage" but also those who fell prey to the terror you want to fight. I think it's several 10,000s by now.:hmm:
I don't call this a successful strategy. Maybe you stopped terror in your own country, but you brought a lot of death and destruction to other people.

The argument might be made there wouldn't have been nearly as much death and destruction in Iraq had our continental allies actually tried to help instead of criticize and hinder the effort, but whatever, they certainly weren't doing it for those reasons.

In hindsight, was it worth it? I think so and you don't obviously, but ask yourself without using the advantage of hindsight, what could (not would) have been the result if Saddam had been left in power? Do you think he wouldn't have struck back against the west the moment he had the chance? Was Germany or France willing or able to take over the responsibility for guarding him while we went after terrorists in Afghanistan? Could we trust Europe to do a better job of it than say the UN does presently in South Lebanon? Would Kahdaffi have been motivated to give up his chemical weapons stocks if we hadn't invaded Iraq, thinking that he might be next on the hit list if he didn't? Do you think that "we didn't want to take the chance of hurting anyone" would EVER be an acceptable excuse for allowing a second 9-11 to occur?

Saddam needed to go. I'll agree that, in hindsight, we could have done a better job than we did in removing him or fixing the damage caused by the effort, but that doesn't change the fact it needed to be done. Far worse than a bad job would have been the lack of effort we'd have gotten from a Jimmy Carter type of President.