Iraq war worth the cost?

a_unique_person said:
So the point you made was off the mark, and you are going to make another one now.
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You asked what Iraq had to do with the War on Terror. I explained how liberating Iraq fit into the wider strategy of that war.
 
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Virus said:
You asked what Iraq had to do with the War on Terror. I explained how liberating Iraq fit into the wider strategy of that war.
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The invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with Afghanistan.

The thread is "Iraq war worth the cost?".

Cain said "Can anyone think of a better way to spend trillions of dollars than killing tens of thousands of people (if not hundreds of thousands)? "

You said

"Terrorist's fault. "

I pointed out Bin Laden and al Qaeda had nothing to do with Iraq. You have not actually linked Iraq to Afghanistan. After 9/11, and the revelation that Afghanistan under the Taliban was refusing to give up Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, I don't think many people were surprised that the US invaded Afghanistan.

What surprised a lot of people was the invasion of Iraq, and the clear revelation that Afghanistan, Al Qaeda and Bin Laden were just a minor consideration to the US under Bush and PNAC. The major weight of force (and cost, if we refer back to the topic), was to be spent on Iraq. The war in Afghanistan is still under resourced, in it's current form it cannot be won, it was up to Obama to finally run down Bin Laden, the US has been hobbled by the war in Iraq, it simply cannot afford to allocate the resources to Afghanistan to force a win.
 
Virus said:
You asked what Iraq had to do with the War on Terror. I explained how liberating Iraq fit into the wider strategy of that war.
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No.

It was an attempt to establish anopther beach head for Friedmanite social engineering. The merry morons just used the War on Terror as an excuse.

Militarily, it proved that Rjummy and Nosferatu and the dancing monkey in the Oval Office were pretty much useless to a country at war. They showed all the strategic accumen that Hitler showed when he decided to engage Russia without first securing that little bitty logistics center on that island north of France.
 
a_unique_person said:
The invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with Afghanistan.

The thread is "Iraq war worth the cost?".

Cain said "Can anyone think of a better way to spend trillions of dollars than killing tens of thousands of people (if not hundreds of thousands)? "

You said

"Terrorist's fault. "

I pointed out Bin Laden and al Qaeda had nothing to do with Iraq. You have not actually linked Iraq to Afghanistan. After 9/11, and the revelation that Afghanistan under the Taliban was refusing to give up Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, I don't think many people were surprised that the US invaded Afghanistan.

What surprised a lot of people was the invasion of Iraq, and the clear revelation that Afghanistan, Al Qaeda and Bin Laden were just a minor consideration to the US under Bush and PNAC. The major weight of force (and cost, if we refer back to the topic), was to be spent on Iraq. The war in Afghanistan is still under resourced, in it's current form it cannot be won, it was up to Obama to finally run down Bin Laden, the US has been hobbled by the war in Iraq, it simply cannot afford to allocate the resources to Afghanistan to force a win.
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I don't have time for this guff. If you ask a question, you get the answer.
 
Not worth it, IMHO.

Still, one does not know the "alternative histories" that might have played out had we not behaved as we did.

Taleb discusses these alternative histories in "Fooled By Randomness", which I'm reading now, PLUS Karen and I are working our way through the second season of "Fringe", so maybe I just have this stuff on my mind.

Anytime someone says, "It couldn't possibly be any worse", I feel they really haven't considered ALL the possible alternative histories.
 
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leftysergeant said:
Well, there is thing called "reality" which can be deduced by "reason."
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Which is off point that some people feel the need to interject the "Bush bad", "corporations greedy", "living wage good" comments into nearly every post, regardless of the topic. That and refer to others as "drongos".
 
Virus said:
I don't have time for this guff. If you ask a question, you get the answer.
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I think I made my point quite clear. What we are discussing is not what you are responding to. Is the cost of Iraq worth it. Why does Afghanistan have something to do with Iraq, other than 'all arabs act the same to me'. Although Afghanis aren't Arabs.
 
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Neally said:
Which is off point that some people feel the need to interject the "Bush bad", "corporations greedy", "living wage good" comments into nearly every post, regardless of the topic. That and refer to others as "drongos".
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Actually, those points are all appropo to this discussion.

The merry morons were a disaster in their roles as war-time leaders. Did they learn nothing from the catastrophe that Hitler brought on himself? Has America become more free or less free since that clown crew started instituting wider surveilance of citizens in the name of "security?" Is our ecconomyh better or worse off for the brain-dead tax cut that the doofus insisted the rich needed? Was the government more or less able to deliver services after the drink-damaged frat boy started appointing people to whom he owed favors to government agencies? Did all their tortured and dehumanization of prisoners help them find and kill one rich, 7-ft tall Arab?

("Heck-of-a-Job Brownie," John "Can't Beat a Dead Man" Ashcroft. Rummy. Gonzo.)

None of the clowns had half the brains they think they had, nor did they give a rat's that the working people were suffering.

Not all corporations are evil. All are amoral, and the merry morons directed staggering amounts of money into the hands of the most evil of them, like Black Water. (I think it is a shame that the people of Falujah were punished for lynching the Black Water scum they got their hands on. Too bad they didn't get the CEO.) BP is evil. The Koch roaches are evil. I don't care whether you agree or not, there is some connection between my position and reality.

Another thing that pisses me off about the merry morons is that they were quite comfortable with the idea that corporations were not always paying a living wage. (It makes America more "competitive in the global market.")

We can live without cheap imports. What good are they without money to buy them?

The war in Iraq diverted treasure we could not afford to waste straight down a rat hole because some dry drunk was out to get the guy who tried to whack his daddy.

Anyone who ever again trusts the republicons with command of an Army needs to take some remedial history courses.
 
leftysergeant said:
Actually, those points are all appropo to this discussion.

I don't care whether you agree or not, there is some connection between my position and reality.
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Everyone that goes off of topic on a rant always thinks there is a connection in their mind. That doesn't make it so. It's just another ironic, hypocritical example of,

"It is wearisome that some people insist on giving the same stock answer to all questions, even if it be nihil appropos."
 
leftysergeant reminds me of Sean Hannity.

When everything is painted so cartoonishly good vs. evil and right vs. wrong, it becomes sheer propaganda and loses any informational content it might have had.

And I think that condoning the lynching of fellow Americans crosses a line.

Anyway, Happy Holidays!
 
My personal determination is that leftysergeant is the absolute worst kind of ideologue.

Whether left wing or right wing, minds that closed and smug and insulting really have nothing to offer.

I like lively debate, and to hear all sides of an issue.

But for me, lefty personifies why the "ignore" button was created.

But That's Just Me!
 
If the Iraq war had been cost-free, or even turned a profit from the oil, it still wouldn't have been worth the cost. It energized our enemies and alienated our friends. It turned a country, which might have been anti-US, but at least very western, into another Islamic theocracy, controlled more than ever by Iran, our very worst enemy in the Mideast. It was perhaps the stupidest foreign policy move in US history.
 
Tricky said:
If the Iraq war had been cost-free, or even turned a profit from the oil, it still wouldn't have been worth the cost. It energized our enemies and alienated our friends. It turned a country, which might have been anti-US, but at least very western, into another Islamic theocracy, controlled more than ever by Iran, our very worst enemy in the Mideast. It was perhaps the stupidest foreign policy move in US history.
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It didn't energize the enemies, they're died in droves in Iraq. It's also not a theocracy.
 
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Virus said:
It didn't energize the enemies, they're died in droves in Iraq.
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Why do you think there were so many droves there to die? Do you think we got them all? Do you think that the families and children of all the ones we killed are saying, "Eh, so what?"

The US made no friends with this war, but made a lot of enemies.

Virus said:
It's also not a theocracy.
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Nominally, no, but Iran holds a heck of a lot of influence over Iraq now. They control things much more than they did when Saddam was in power. So which side of this double-edged sword do you prefer? The westernized dictator who hated America, or the theocracy in the country next door which, to a great extent, controls Iraq now, and also hates America? We attacked Iraq because of the rumors of Weapons of Mass Destruction. It is now apparent to everyone that Iran is much more dangerous in that respect than Iraq ever was. Plus they don't have to worry about Saddam attacking them again. Win-win for Tehran.
 
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