Was the war worth the billions of dollars spent?
Was the war worth the 2000+ soldiers lives lost?
I say was because it was technically over mid 2003, and in those 2 years after the end we've lost 1400 of those 2000+ soldiers.
CBS did a recent poll and it came out roughly 35% yes 65% no
So I was just wondering what people here thought and see if it would turn out close...
So was the war in Iraq worth it?
YES 
1: we got back at the darn terrorists. 2:We tried to give them what we had, like freedom of speech and action. (God I love being patriotic 
)
1: we got back at the darn terrorists. 2:We tried to give them what we had, like freedom of speech and action. (God I love being patriotic )-
Oniss
- Warrant Officer II
Tough call.
The humanitarian in me (don't worry, he is quite small) says it IS worth it. I have to believe the people living there are better off than they were living under the old regime.
But the cynic in me (the bigger part) tells me that there is something wrong with going to war for the wrong reasons. Regardless of outcome, it's so machiavellian to say the ends justified our means. It sounds wrong to me.
But then there's the people...
Back and forth we go.
The humanitarian in me (don't worry, he is quite small) says it IS worth it. I have to believe the people living there are better off than they were living under the old regime.
But the cynic in me (the bigger part) tells me that there is something wrong with going to war for the wrong reasons. Regardless of outcome, it's so machiavellian to say the ends justified our means. It sounds wrong to me.
But then there's the people...
Back and forth we go.
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Krusshyk
- SWG Tales Founder
A bad cold can kill more in 2 years, yet people act like we were slaughtered or something.
Liberal media is a beautiful thing, anything to pusha story even exploiting brave soldiers and their families for a bit of ratings.
Saddam is a mass murderer, and was a hitler in his own right, but yeah..we weren't justified. compare those 1400~ over 2 years to the 50,000 kurds saddam has ethnically cleansed.
Liberal media is a beautiful thing, anything to pusha story even exploiting brave soldiers and their families for a bit of ratings.
Saddam is a mass murderer, and was a hitler in his own right, but yeah..we weren't justified. compare those 1400~ over 2 years to the 50,000 kurds saddam has ethnically cleansed.
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Viceroy Odantis
*Disclaimer*I'm sure many of you will disagree with me on the point I'm going to make. I won't argue my point in the thread..this is simply my opinon take it as you will.
It's not the United States job to "police the world". I agree that the people are probably better off than they were under Hussein. Absolutely. However, the "American" way of life is not everyone's way of life. It's the arrogance we have in this country that the American way is the "only" way. You can't change a part of the world that has deep rooted traditions going back several centuries by invading their country and shoving democracy down their throats. It shouldn't work that way(but it does).
The pretenses by which we went to war were false. As Americans, we were lied to, whether that be unintentionable or not. There were no weapons of mass destruction(clever forgeries) and there was no concrete evidence that Iraq was sheltering terrorists(one member went to Iraq for a hospital visit...unannounced). It was a blatant lie made to the American people. I don't remember hearing about the Iraqi people uprising and fighting for democracy. You've replaced one dictator for another invading power.
What about the billions and billions of dollars made by big business in Iraq? Our move in Iraq was not to secure the Iraqi people's freedom but to have a foothold in the Middle East to protect Israel. It doesn't hurt that this part of the world has vast natural resources to tap into. You can always judge a man by the company he keeps. If he keeps the company of the criminal, the unjust what does that say about him? Oh he was misled! Unlikely.
So we've got our men and women dying over there and what do we have in our country? We have an economic debt that's sky high, we have social programs that aren't working. We've done our bit for Iraq we deposed their dictator.
Send our boys home.
It's not the United States job to "police the world". I agree that the people are probably better off than they were under Hussein. Absolutely. However, the "American" way of life is not everyone's way of life. It's the arrogance we have in this country that the American way is the "only" way. You can't change a part of the world that has deep rooted traditions going back several centuries by invading their country and shoving democracy down their throats. It shouldn't work that way(but it does).
The pretenses by which we went to war were false. As Americans, we were lied to, whether that be unintentionable or not. There were no weapons of mass destruction(clever forgeries) and there was no concrete evidence that Iraq was sheltering terrorists(one member went to Iraq for a hospital visit...unannounced). It was a blatant lie made to the American people. I don't remember hearing about the Iraqi people uprising and fighting for democracy. You've replaced one dictator for another invading power.
What about the billions and billions of dollars made by big business in Iraq? Our move in Iraq was not to secure the Iraqi people's freedom but to have a foothold in the Middle East to protect Israel. It doesn't hurt that this part of the world has vast natural resources to tap into. You can always judge a man by the company he keeps. If he keeps the company of the criminal, the unjust what does that say about him? Oh he was misled! Unlikely.
So we've got our men and women dying over there and what do we have in our country? We have an economic debt that's sky high, we have social programs that aren't working. We've done our bit for Iraq we deposed their dictator.
Send our boys home.
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Illbleed
- Major
- Character Names
Illbleed, Ti'Tiees
Despite pretenses about becoming world police and all that...the bottom line is that once the US moved from a passive role just taking attacks to an aggressive one there wasn't turning back. Like it or not, we are about the richest country on Earth. That means a certain amount of responsibility to give relief and help others. That also means we are a #1 target.
Iraq wasn't about popularity, and it might not have been about WMDs, but it was about ending a regime so clearly using the United Nations like a puppet, defying US mandates more and more by the day, and hurting it's own people. And while an investigator may not have found a document to show that the regime supported terrorists, we all know the idea of enemy of my enemy. I might feel differently in my heart if my husband was in the Army and deployed there, but my head says this is truth.
Iraq wasn't about popularity, and it might not have been about WMDs, but it was about ending a regime so clearly using the United Nations like a puppet, defying US mandates more and more by the day, and hurting it's own people. And while an investigator may not have found a document to show that the regime supported terrorists, we all know the idea of enemy of my enemy. I might feel differently in my heart if my husband was in the Army and deployed there, but my head says this is truth.
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Sepiv
- Lieutenant Colonel
Well, I'm a European so I'm not in any way eligible to say what should(n't) be done in case of US or where US citizens are involved, I can only share my view on the issue.
In realpolitics things are rarely done out of altruism or concern for someone else's society. So, no. I don't believe primary intention was to in any way help the Iraqis. I do believe US leadership in the light of those recent happening may have been self-deceived regarding WMD. Both of these were a good excuse to finish something that should have been done years ago. To crush the ill regime in Afghanistan was absolutely necessary since it was in fact harboring terrorists. To deal with Saddam was one of the priorities. As any superpower US is dependent on oil. US and European economies are also vastly dependent on oil price. With the advent of terrorism directed towards western societies after its end of being engaged into one of the marginal conflicts of Cold War, US had to think about how to solve this arising issue. Primary problem is Saudi Arabia, which cannot be dealt with effectively since it is an oil-supplier. To solve the Saudi problem US had to get a mid-term new partner in the region. There is not much choice. There are few small countries who already have a good life but are resented it by other Muslims. So there remains the option to 'convert' a broken country to your needs and set an example. Get a new ally and then deal with Saudis. Second, equally important cause is to keep China back. As far as I'm informed China is involved into oil drilling in Iran (or pursued to be). To keep a strategic advantage US needed to (1: ) try to take care of the problems in the region, part of which could be tilted towards supporting west during the Cold War, but is nowadays generally more tilted against the west. The obvious solution was to overthrow Saddam and rebuild Iraq by own standards. Many say it could be done in 1991. Yes, it could be attempted, but in 1991 during the Desert Storm Soviet Union was still a superpower in breakdown with a considerable stockpile of nuclear weapons and tweeky generals, so it is a question how such superpower (still feeling threatened from NATO) would look onto occupation of an oil rich country while their own existance was at stake from internal problem not to mention possible external exploit of the situation. Secondly, trashing Iraq's authoritative regime would lead to power-vacuum which (to prevent Iraq from breaking up into 3 regions and possibly sparking Kurdish breakoffs in Turkey, Syria and Iran - thus a regional conflict) would need to be filled either by longer US/UN occupation or an Iraqi exile government (which I think at that time did not have sufficient support).
Therefore I believe out of political and globally-strategic considerations US was not allowed to in any way deal with Iraq then, except liberate Kuwait (though it was militarily acheivable to solve the Saddam problem then). From what is going on today, I believe taking over Iraq then would lead to similar problems as there are in Iraq today (insurgents and suicide attacks), plus bin Laden was allready active in Saudi Arabia then (he was warning Saudis before Iraq occupied Kuwait it would happen, and he resented Saudis to let US troops on their holy soil instead of pulling an all-muslim force together to deal with Saddam on their own).
Answer to the 1: it is questionable if US succeeded in solving regional problems. It will be revelaed on a longer term since now it seems like they created additional problem, but there was no way of knowing that would happen for sure before attempted.
Therefore I cannot judge if it was justified from humanitarian point of view, or from strategic point of view. I can only say to my knowledge it was necessary to try to do something with the region and not resort to any more supporting bad-guys in it in order to win the support contest. Also, having just two options: tolerate Saddam vs. overthrow Saddam (or tolerate Iran - deal with Iran, tolerate N.Korea - deal with N.Korea), this pretty much clears it for me. It is necessary to press on corrupt regimes, and not tolerate them. US was tolerating corrupt regimes in the past, Europe is somewhat passive towards them nowadays, and I don't like this. Since I am an individual and a civilian I cannot wish for more power for some country, but I can wish for more freedom for nother individual. A political entity can wish for the latter and not the former. If both wishes lead to the same action, then it is fine with me.
In realpolitics things are rarely done out of altruism or concern for someone else's society. So, no. I don't believe primary intention was to in any way help the Iraqis. I do believe US leadership in the light of those recent happening may have been self-deceived regarding WMD. Both of these were a good excuse to finish something that should have been done years ago. To crush the ill regime in Afghanistan was absolutely necessary since it was in fact harboring terrorists. To deal with Saddam was one of the priorities. As any superpower US is dependent on oil. US and European economies are also vastly dependent on oil price. With the advent of terrorism directed towards western societies after its end of being engaged into one of the marginal conflicts of Cold War, US had to think about how to solve this arising issue. Primary problem is Saudi Arabia, which cannot be dealt with effectively since it is an oil-supplier. To solve the Saudi problem US had to get a mid-term new partner in the region. There is not much choice. There are few small countries who already have a good life but are resented it by other Muslims. So there remains the option to 'convert' a broken country to your needs and set an example. Get a new ally and then deal with Saudis. Second, equally important cause is to keep China back. As far as I'm informed China is involved into oil drilling in Iran (or pursued to be). To keep a strategic advantage US needed to (1: ) try to take care of the problems in the region, part of which could be tilted towards supporting west during the Cold War, but is nowadays generally more tilted against the west. The obvious solution was to overthrow Saddam and rebuild Iraq by own standards. Many say it could be done in 1991. Yes, it could be attempted, but in 1991 during the Desert Storm Soviet Union was still a superpower in breakdown with a considerable stockpile of nuclear weapons and tweeky generals, so it is a question how such superpower (still feeling threatened from NATO) would look onto occupation of an oil rich country while their own existance was at stake from internal problem not to mention possible external exploit of the situation. Secondly, trashing Iraq's authoritative regime would lead to power-vacuum which (to prevent Iraq from breaking up into 3 regions and possibly sparking Kurdish breakoffs in Turkey, Syria and Iran - thus a regional conflict) would need to be filled either by longer US/UN occupation or an Iraqi exile government (which I think at that time did not have sufficient support).
Therefore I believe out of political and globally-strategic considerations US was not allowed to in any way deal with Iraq then, except liberate Kuwait (though it was militarily acheivable to solve the Saddam problem then). From what is going on today, I believe taking over Iraq then would lead to similar problems as there are in Iraq today (insurgents and suicide attacks), plus bin Laden was allready active in Saudi Arabia then (he was warning Saudis before Iraq occupied Kuwait it would happen, and he resented Saudis to let US troops on their holy soil instead of pulling an all-muslim force together to deal with Saddam on their own).
Answer to the 1: it is questionable if US succeeded in solving regional problems. It will be revelaed on a longer term since now it seems like they created additional problem, but there was no way of knowing that would happen for sure before attempted.
Therefore I cannot judge if it was justified from humanitarian point of view, or from strategic point of view. I can only say to my knowledge it was necessary to try to do something with the region and not resort to any more supporting bad-guys in it in order to win the support contest. Also, having just two options: tolerate Saddam vs. overthrow Saddam (or tolerate Iran - deal with Iran, tolerate N.Korea - deal with N.Korea), this pretty much clears it for me. It is necessary to press on corrupt regimes, and not tolerate them. US was tolerating corrupt regimes in the past, Europe is somewhat passive towards them nowadays, and I don't like this. Since I am an individual and a civilian I cannot wish for more power for some country, but I can wish for more freedom for nother individual. A political entity can wish for the latter and not the former. If both wishes lead to the same action, then it is fine with me.
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Oporim
- Mandalorian Mercenary
Personally? I don't give a damn about other nations or what they think of the US. We have spent far too much money helping others that treat us like shit on a daily basis in the UN. So world opinion is overly fickle. We need oil. We need it for our country to run. If we have to bust up a few pissant dictators here and there to make it happen, so be it. The American people were bitching more a month ago about gas prices than they were about dead soldiers in Iraq. So what effects our economy more negatively? War or gas prices? Guess we will go to war. Do I blame the current administration? No. It was going to happen eventually. I don't care what anyone thinks. Somewhere down the road there was going to be a war in the middle east. I am glad we did it now rather than wait for them to build up.
Furthermore, it is a great launching point for cleansing the rest of the lands over there from terrrorism. You want to know who most of the terrorists are? Saudis, Syrians, and Egyptians. There is an issue of creating stability in that region. We had a chance to make an example of someone and we did it. The Syrians and the Saudis may posture big in front of their people but they know what will happen if they fuck with us. And there is no escaping it now.
Furthermore, it is a great launching point for cleansing the rest of the lands over there from terrrorism. You want to know who most of the terrorists are? Saudis, Syrians, and Egyptians. There is an issue of creating stability in that region. We had a chance to make an example of someone and we did it. The Syrians and the Saudis may posture big in front of their people but they know what will happen if they fuck with us. And there is no escaping it now.
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E-bo Obi
- Grand Moff
- Server
Legends
Well, everyone else is doing it...why not.
I've had a great range of feelings on the war. I can't give a solid yes or no towards it. My general feeling towards war is that you shouldn't make it--there should always be opportunities to avoid it. If you try hard enough, there should always be peaceful or at least low-impact solutions.
As much as I've doubted the reasonings for our presence in Iraq in the past, there is always worth in helping others. Whether or not we find gain in it as a country I can't truly say (it's a bit over my head and probably over most citizens'), but now that we're there I'd rather we not leave and forget the Iraqi (or Afghani) people until they can stand on their own solidly.
From what watered down news reports tell me, the people at least are ready and willing to learn and work just as hard, harder than we are for their country. It is their country, and their livelihood, after all.
There is no easy answer and no definitive feeling in my heart. I simply feel we should do what we can as a nation to follow through, and as individual citizens we should do what we can to remember that there are no easy answers in war or in peace.
I've had a great range of feelings on the war. I can't give a solid yes or no towards it. My general feeling towards war is that you shouldn't make it--there should always be opportunities to avoid it. If you try hard enough, there should always be peaceful or at least low-impact solutions.
As much as I've doubted the reasonings for our presence in Iraq in the past, there is always worth in helping others. Whether or not we find gain in it as a country I can't truly say (it's a bit over my head and probably over most citizens'), but now that we're there I'd rather we not leave and forget the Iraqi (or Afghani) people until they can stand on their own solidly.
From what watered down news reports tell me, the people at least are ready and willing to learn and work just as hard, harder than we are for their country. It is their country, and their livelihood, after all.
There is no easy answer and no definitive feeling in my heart. I simply feel we should do what we can as a nation to follow through, and as individual citizens we should do what we can to remember that there are no easy answers in war or in peace.
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Dwilah
- SWG Tales Founder
- Contact
X'an Shin wrote:Why hasn't this been locked and moved yet?
Why, indeed?....A question that will soon be hanging on the lips of the world, Mr. Shin.
It exists because I have permitted it to exist! Yes...yes, you see I have scored yet another coup, a singular crime of exquisite finesse...I, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, have:
CORNERED THE WORLD'S Lock Market !!!
At this very moment, Lock Markets all over the globe have been bent to my will. London, Hong Kong, even the New York Lock Exchange is under my command!
Soon...very soon... NO ONE will be able to Lock a thread without my permission. There will be endless rampant discourse, forum flaming, "Yo' Mama" jokes, religion & politics beyond sanity!!! All under my command!
Unless...I am wired the amount of 200 billion pounds sterling...via PayPal...to my EBay account THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER LOCKED THREAD AGAIN!
I mean what I say, Mister Shin. And I'll do what I claim. You have until 5:00 PM Greenwich Mean Time to respond.
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Keer
- Moff
- Server
Restoration 3 - Character Names
Keer Tregga
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