well, did we win?

[DaTruth]

The invasion of Iraq was foolhardy, but some of you act as if Saddam wasn't already on thin ice with the international community. You remember things like the conditions to end the 1991 Gulf War, UNSCOM, and the no-fly zones, right?

[bigrun]

Originally Posted by DaTruth

The invasion of Iraq was foolhardy, but some of you act as if Saddam wasn't already on thin ice with the international community. You remember things like the conditions to end the 1991 Gulf War, UNSCOM, and the no-fly zones, right?

True, but how were they such a threat that required invasion and 8 year war?

[jms62]

Originally Posted by bigrun

True, but how were they such a threat that required invasion and 8 year war?

And over 1 Trillion dollars. Going forward unless we are attacked I say we institute a 10% war tax to pay for any of these wars. Congressional approval required. We will see how many of these useless wars we are invovled in.

[clyde]

The real danger here is the looming Russia/Turkey problem.




Should Russia make a move from the rear on Turkey...they would surely need Greece.

[bigrun]

Originally Posted by clyde

The real danger here is the looming Russia/Turkey problem.




Should Russia make a move from the rear on Turkey...they would surely need Greece.

stop it!

[bigrun]

Editor's Note: Andrew J. Bacevich is Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University. This post is one of four from the Council on Foreign Relations in response to the question, Was the Iraq War worth it?
By Andrew Bacevich
As framed, the question invites a sober comparison of benefits and costs - gain vs. pain. The principal benefit derived from the Iraq War is easily identified: as the war's defenders insist with monotonous regularity, the world is indeed a better place without Saddam Hussein. Point taken.
Yet few of those defenders have demonstrated the moral courage - or is it simple decency - to consider who paid and what was lost in securing Saddam's removal. That tally includes well over four thousand U.S. dead along with several tens of thousands wounded and otherwise bearing the scars of war; vastly larger numbers of Iraqi civilians killed, maimed, and displaced; and at least a trillion dollars expended - probably several times that by the time the last bill comes due decades from now. Recalling that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to al-Qaeda both turned out to be all but non-existent, a Churchillian verdict on the war might read thusly: Seldom in the course of human history have so many sacrificed so dearly to achieve so little.
Yet in inviting a narrow cost-benefit analysis, the question-as-posed serves to understate the scope of the debacle engineered by the war's architects. The disastrous legacy of the Iraq War extends beyond treasure squandered and lives lost or shattered. Central to that legacy has been Washington's decisive and seemingly irrevocable abandonment of any semblance of self-restraint regarding the use of violence as an instrument of statecraft. With all remaining prudential, normative, and constitutional barriers to the use of force having now been set aside, war has become a normal condition, something that the great majority of Americans accept without complaint. War is U.S.
Central to [the war's] legacy has been Washington's decisive and seemingly irrevocable abandonment of any semblance of self-restraint regarding the use of violence as an instrument of statecraft.
One senses that this was what the likes of [Vice President Dick] Cheney, [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld, and [Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul] Wolfowitz (urged on by militarists cheering from the sidelines and with George W. Bush serving as their enabler) intended all along. By leaving intact and even enlarging the policies that his predecessor had inaugurated, President Barack Obama has handed these militarists an unearned victory. As they drag themselves from one "overseas contingency operation" to the next, American soldiers must reckon with the consequences. So too will the somnolent American people be obliged to do, perhaps sooner than they think.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of Andrew Bacevich. For more, visit CFR.org.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by bigrun

Editor's Note: Andrew J. Bacevich is Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University. This post is one of four from the Council on Foreign Relations in response to the question, Was the Iraq War worth it?
By Andrew Bacevich
As framed, the question invites a sober comparison of benefits and costs - gain vs. pain. The principal benefit derived from the Iraq War is easily identified: as the war's defenders insist with monotonous regularity, the world is indeed a better place without Saddam Hussein. Point taken.
Yet few of those defenders have demonstrated the moral courage - or is it simple decency - to consider who paid and what was lost in securing Saddam's removal. That tally includes well over four thousand U.S. dead along with several tens of thousands wounded and otherwise bearing the scars of war; vastly larger numbers of Iraqi civilians killed, maimed, and displaced; and at least a trillion dollars expended - probably several times that by the time the last bill comes due decades from now. Recalling that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to al-Qaeda both turned out to be all but non-existent, a Churchillian verdict on the war might read thusly: Seldom in the course of human history have so many sacrificed so dearly to achieve so little.
Yet in inviting a narrow cost-benefit analysis, the question-as-posed serves to understate the scope of the debacle engineered by the war's architects. The disastrous legacy of the Iraq War extends beyond treasure squandered and lives lost or shattered. Central to that legacy has been Washington's decisive and seemingly irrevocable abandonment of any semblance of self-restraint regarding the use of violence as an instrument of statecraft. With all remaining prudential, normative, and constitutional barriers to the use of force having now been set aside, war has become a normal condition, something that the great majority of Americans accept without complaint. War is U.S.
Central to [the war's] legacy has been Washington's decisive and seemingly irrevocable abandonment of any semblance of self-restraint regarding the use of violence as an instrument of statecraft.
One senses that this was what the likes of [Vice President Dick] Cheney, [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld, and [Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul] Wolfowitz (urged on by militarists cheering from the sidelines and with George W. Bush serving as their enabler) intended all along. By leaving intact and even enlarging the policies that his predecessor had inaugurated, President Barack Obama has handed these militarists an unearned victory. As they drag themselves from one "overseas contingency operation" to the next, American soldiers must reckon with the consequences. So too will the somnolent American people be obliged to do, perhaps sooner than they think.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of Andrew Bacevich. For more, visit CFR.org.

this, along with lives and treasure squandered, is what bothers me most. we used to have a policy of peace thru strength. we used to refuse to resort to violence unless we were first attacked. it seems 9-11 has become carte blanche for our govt. to decide who to attack and how-but to not necessarily worry about why. our treatment of borders other than our own as only a line on a map is a symptom of this new behavior. our 'either with us or against us' mentality continues along with the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' line of thought.
our foreign policy has been a disgrace for years; it needs a new mindset. we must consider our best interest first, last and always. we used to stay out of foreign conflicts, we need to go back to that.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by jms62

And over 1 Trillion dollars. Going forward unless we are attacked I say we institute a 10% war tax to pay for any of these wars. Congressional approval required. We will see how many of these useless wars we are invovled in.

Bush's war was the first one the US didn't pay for when we invaded. What's a trillion on the taxpayers necks for decades, when you can give billions unaccounted for, to your contractor friends?

[jms62]

Originally Posted by Riot

Bush's war was the first one the US didn't pay for when we invaded. What's a trillion on the taxpayers necks for decades, when you can give billions unaccounted for, to your contractor friends?[/

And they will argue this point with you They will bitch about the deficit yet be for these unpaid wars. They will be against taxes yet be for unfunded wars..... .

[Riot]

This is a huge reason we went to war - it's very, very profitable for friends of Bush-Cheney. Oil and war. That's why aggressive neocon politicians are so popular and sell so quickly in Washington.

Watching Romney, Newt, Perry, Bachmann and Santorum trip over each other at the debate the other day, trying to say how quickly they will bomb Iran, is neocon wet dream. Watching Romney brag about how he'll double the size of the navy, and immediately increase the army by 100,000 troops, should really bring in the PAC dollars.

And the below is exactly why Occupy exists. The American people, almost half of whom now live near or in poverty, have had enough.

The below wasted billions - given to Cheney and Bush's friends at Halliburton - would buy alot of food and healthcare for American citizens. Bailed out every single underwater mortgage. Bought college educations for hundreds of thousands.

But no! The Republicans scream we can't spend taxpayer dollars on .... the citizens who give them!

The interim report from the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan points out that contractors in the war zones sometimes have exceeded the number of military personnel. Numbering 200,000, contractors now roughly match the military force.

"Misspent dollars run into the tens of billions," the report said. The 64-page report was released Thursday and will be followed up next week with a hearing on how to improve contractor accountability.

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-02-25/p..._s=PM:POLITICS

Lost & Unaccounted for in Iraq - $9 billion of US taxpayers' money and $549.7 milion in spare parts shipped in 2004 to US contractors. Also, per ABC News, 190,000 guns, including 110,000 AK-47 rifles.

Lost and Reported Stolen - $6.6 billion of U.S. taxpayers' money earmarked for Iraq reconstruction, reported on June 14, 2011 by Special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction Stuart Bowen who called it "the largest theft of funds in national history." (Source - CBS News) Last known holder of the $6.6 billion lost: the U.S. government.

Missing - $1 billion in tractor trailers, tank recovery vehicles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and other equipment and services provided to the Iraqi security forces. (Per CBS News on Dec 6, 2007.)

Mismanaged & Wasted in Iraq - $10 billion, per Feb 2007 Congressional hearings

Halliburton Overcharges Classified by the Pentagon as Unreasonable and Unsupported - $1.4 billion

Amount paid to KBR, a former Halliburton division, to supply U.S. military in Iraq with food, fuel, housing and other items - $20 billion

Portion of the $20 billion paid to KBR that Pentagon auditors deem "questionable or supportable" - $3.2 billion

http://usliberals.about.com/od/homel...raqNumbers.htm

[jms62]

Originally Posted by Riot

This is a huge reason we went to war - it's very, very profitable for friends of Bush-Cheney. Oil and war. That's why aggressive neocon politicians are so popular and sell so quickly in Washington.

Watching Romney, Newt, Perry, Bachmann and Santorum trip over each other at the debate the other day, trying to say how quickly they will bomb Iran, is neocon wet dream. Watching Romney brag about how he'll double the size of the navy, and immediately increase the army by 100,000 troops, should really bring in the PAC dollars.

No country has EVER won a war in Afghanistangoing back THOUSANDS OF YEARS. It broke the Soviet Union.. Why on earth would we buck those odds???? But I guess we will do the now thing and simply declare victory prior to departure... Trillions spent, countless lives lost... They still hate us and it will degrade into chaos once we leave but hell, we will declare victory. Republican, Democrat... They all suck. Elect Ron Paul and buy as much gold as you can afford once it is clear he is in.