I'm probably one of the most cynical people you will ever meet. If course I can't be the most cynical because it's impossible to be the "most" anything due to the infiniteness of space and time except within a defined domain. Anyways I don't feel like pushing anyone to contemplate suicide right now so I'll just say that from what I've seen the first term of any presidency consists of guaranteeing one's election for a second term while also paying back some debts from the election campaign and attempting to hide both these motives from public view. The second term is for trying to do something people remember you for while again paying back debts from two election campaigns and trying to secure as much stuff as possible for yourself and friends.
The official war is over, but the conflict will drag on for years to come. Just because we no longer have boots on the ground doesn't mean we're not still there... Welcome to the industrial war complex, a billion dollar industry. The troops are gone but taxpayers dollars are still funneling into the war to pay for contractors of every variety.
Yes, but we'll still have hundreds of military advisers in the region for years to come. Iraq borders Syria and Iran - there's no possible way the U.S. will resign from the opportunity 'it' created, and the relentless and apathetic suffering everyone else had to endure. It's pathetic really - once the U.S. troops hit Baghdad, Saddam's regime fell in a matter of days; yet, our troops specifically did not intervene after destroying their political infrastructure - the U.S. allowed it to fall, and thus more ordinary citizens turned to religious extremist gangs for protection. As their power, and their negligence grew - the United State's was soon fighting an insurgency they created. Yet, despite these atrocities - many more I didn't include in this post - no general, or public official was charged with any crime, let alone 'war' crimes. I cannot seriously believe this is the justification of war - and what's even more idiotic is half the United States believed the war was waged to preserve their country's freedom. Bleh I wonder what will be the next excuse to have our troops used as blood lubricant - and our civilians as tools in order to go to wage an unnecessary war next time? I'm thinking Iran.
Your position is contemptible. If you think that the US did not inherit responsibility to remove Saddam Hussein after it gave land and air control back to him in 1991, and stood and watched as he gassed 300,000 Kurds, or that agreements can be brokered with maniacal despots that deal around with nuclear material, create dummy weapon sites, hide fissile materials in peoples gardens, then you have proved that you weren't aware of this situation in the 90's, when this problem should have been solved, but was promised and avoided by 2 presidents, a vice president, sec of state, and congress. Iraq had been in the stone age for 30 years, just like Afghanistan. They are remnants of US cold war policies to revolutionise these agrarian provinces against the Reds. Your country build these despots and tyrants up, and left them with stingers and CIA bank accounts when the Berlin wall fell.
This. Officially. But anytime we roll troops into a country, and McDonalds pop up, you know we're going to be there for a really long time.
**** man, McDonalds are popping up on bases before the troops even begin to get decent living quarters...
Well ****in-A, I just finished typing my response and I accidentally deleted it all - I will post in the vent thread later. The Kurds were not the reason why the United States invaded Iraq, but let's not forget who supplied this psychopath with a plethora weapons, armor, and taxpayer dollars that allowed this to happen. The U.S. invaded Iraq through the fallacious means of "defending itself" - the intention never was to 'liberate' the Iraqi people. And the genocide of the Kurds shouldn't totally have been seen as 'unexpected', Saddam has always been a war-criminal that achieved power through corruption. The situation in the 90's weren't defused properly. Did you forget about the contrivance of the Kuwait war? The U.S. tried to induce Saddam to be along the lines of a U.S. subsidy [like how dictators in Northern Africa were installed and funded by the U.S. if they acted in accordance to their whims]. However, Saddam realized he could manipulate the diplomacy the U.S. was trying to impose - and so Saddam made the U.S. feel as if they had to compete with other nations, thus encouraging the U.S. to give more incentive to Saddam in hopes that oil exports would primarily go to the United States. The U.S. faced competition to win a coherence suitable to it's nation from Saddam from nations such as the Soviet Union, and perhaps China. Now, here is where Kuwait is relevant. Since the ME was "liberated" [which was bullshit] after 1945, Iraq claimed Kuwait to be an allotment to it's country - much like with China and Tibet. But Kuwait was also a very large oil competitor, and also invaded to absorb this rich industry as Saddam's. Given that the United State's diplomatic relationship has always been ambiguous with Saddam, and that he would monopolize the oil industry - the U.S. became immediately and vigorously opposed to Saddam's move. Here is the usual cost of our apathy: In case the link is broken: http://www.google.com/imgres?num=10...w=207&start=0&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:73 It's called the "Highway of Death" - most were civilians...which was something the U.S. was aware of. Yet, because there was speculation that some high ranking, Iraqi military officers were using civilian transports as a veil of escape from the United States - the entire highway was obliterated. Woman, children, men. Everything still remains there today. So no, we did not handle it correctly.