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[Gorjo MacGrymm]

Well, by rebuild, I mean to "restore the infrastructure of the country" and "elevate the standard of living of the citizens" to pre-invasion levels or better.  Thats really hard when radicals keep blowing it all up all over again.  And by radicals, I mean people who do NOT represent the vast majority of the citizenry.  And that is not meant to be a back door to racism or mob rules BTW.

[Neruz]

Realistically, if the Americans had kept their promises to the Shiites Iraq would probably be in pretty good condition now, Saudi Arabia would probably be a bit upset, and Iran would be pretty happy.

The main problem they ran into was trying to impose their own style of government in Iraq, instead of passing off the government to an organised group experienced in governing in the Middle East.

[Jude]

we went into Iraq having no idea what the difference was between a Sunni and a Shi'a Muslim or between an Arab and a Kurd. We went into Afghanistan with people probably not knowing that it wasn't an Arab country.

The average American citizen probably doesn't know the difference, but i assure you the people involved in planning the campaigns most certainly do.

Well, the campaign was conducted as if they didn't, which is what counted. None of them had any idea of what was going to happen. Nobody can predict the future, obviously, but if they had done their homework first they would have realized they were biting off way more than they could chew.

But hey, they were the leaders of America! Why let a little...complete ignorance of the situation get in the way?

I feel i should add that Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq have all foundered post-invasion due to outdated post-invasion doctrine. Alot of the American military doctrine on 'what to do when you've invaded someone' is left over from World War II and is, unsurprisingly, neither region nor date appropriate.

Well that begs the question of why the hell we're invading everybody and trying to set them straight. We failed in Vietnam and we're failing in Iraq and Afghanistan. The lesson is that we cannot force people to adopt our way of life because...other people are different from us.

You repeatedly call everyone in the US stupid, hope for its downfall and think everyone in places of authority are incompetent.

All of those things are completely justifiable. This is a country of people  that cheered on the invasion of Iraq and bought the absurd claims that we were doing it because of Hussein's (non-existent) links with al-Qaeda and didn't mind when the justification was changed to Hussein's (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction. This is a country that's been throwing its weight around, backing dictators, assassinating and overthrowing democratically elected leaders, allying itself with governments that abuse human rights all over the world, and trying to force countries to do things the American way, for the past half a century. And the people in charge of the country for the last 8 years decided to invade two countries they didn't understand to try and turn them into democracies overnight. Those are all facts. Draw what conclusions you want from them.

And if you're offended by me being pissed at my own country? Suck it up. it's me and most of the rest of the world, and for the reasons that I've been describing. See, as an American, I am partly responsible for everything my country does, because no government can rule without the cooperation of the ruled. So that means I'm partly responsible for us barging into Afghanistan and Iraq, blowing the countries to bits, leaving them in ruins and opening up cans of worms of power struggles and sectarian warfare that we have no idea how to handle, and all in all, killing millions, leaving millions in barely livable conditions, forcing people to leave their homes and end up as refugees, and, don't forget, giving groups like al-Qaeda all the justification they need to attack us again. So I'm pissed. And I'm pissed that there are still people who feel enough of a need to be loyal to America that they're willing to justify these things to themselves, and wave away hundreds of thousands, or probably millions, of deaths just so that they can feel good about being American.

So yeah, call me immature if you want. I'd rather be young and curious than old and too set in my ways to admit when my country does something evil.

And yeah, I can't wait until America's dominance of the world comes to an end. I hope it happens in my lifetime so that I can be part of a country that is respected instead of feared and hated and that doesn't go around starting wars to justify the bloodthirst of its population, and using its influence to push everybody else around, and takes part in global rule of law like everybody else civilized.

The main problem they ran into was trying to impose their own style of government in Iraq

Yup. That's that same unbelievable arrogance again, the idea that if we just cruise in and tell everybody to be a democracy, it'll happen by magic. With a complete ignorance of the fact that Iraq is not like America and Iraqis are different from Americans in a lot of important ways. Not to mention the fact that democracy has to come from a movement of its own people and not top-down from an occupier.

[Neruz]

we went into Iraq having no idea what the difference was between a Sunni and a Shi'a Muslim or between an Arab and a Kurd. We went into Afghanistan with people probably not knowing that it wasn't an Arab country.

The average American citizen probably doesn't know the difference, but i assure you the people involved in planning the campaigns most certainly do.

Well, the campaign was conducted as if they didn't, which is what counted. None of them had any idea of what was going to happen. Nobody can predict the future, obviously, but if they had done their homework first they would have realized they were biting off way more than they could chew.

But hey, they were the leaders of America! Why let a little...complete ignorance of the situation get in the way?

Actually that was just a plain old garden variaty intelligence failure. Several intelligence failures actually, including more than a little duping by Iran.

Well that begs the question of why the hell we're invading everybody and trying to set them straight. We failed in Vietnam and we're failing in Iraq and Afghanistan. The lesson is that we cannot force people to adopt our way of life because...other people are different from us.

To be blunt; America is not invading people and trying to set them straight. The invasion of Iraq was nothing more than a tool by which the US intended to reshape and reorient Islamic countries in the middle-east. It all sort of fell apart though when it became apparant that America needed to make some sort of agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, but by doing so they would be betraying Iran to a degree, as they had already promisted the Shiites control of the region. Basically America accidentally ended up in a corner with no good way to turn.

Yup. That's that same unbelievable arrogance again, the idea that if we just cruise in and tell everybody to be a democracy, it'll happen by magic. With a complete ignorance of the fact that Iraq is not like America and Iraqis are different from Americans in a lot of important ways. Not to mention the fact that democracy has to come from a movement of its own people and not top-down from an occupier.

That idea didn't come about until much later; it certainly never figured in the initial invasion plans. I'm not actually sure where that one came from, but i will agree that it was a remarkably stupid idea.

[Luke_Prowler]

I never get into these types of arguments, as I can never take them serious and my knowledge is limited (and I already know that some of you are going to disregard everything I say over that, so pipe and just read). However I'll try to keep up, and keep the paragraphs short so it'd be easier for you guys to nitpick them apart.

First off, I'd just like to say to Jude: You are a freaking nutjob. I realize that everyone has their own opinion, but your hatred for the US are reaching cartoon villain levels. You make it seem like we're the Empire, purposely letting the Middle East turn into a wasteland, and then at the drop of a hat marching in, mowing down civilians by the truck loads, raping the women, throwing the babies into meat grinders, and kicking puppies. I'm not saying that the occupation of those countries was a good thing, but the things you say we're doing to them could not be any worse compared to what they were doing to each other (mass genocide and all that).

America, as a whole, did not really know what was going on at the time. Since all our information was coming from the government in one way or another, the only certainty we had was the bad guys where on the other side of the world, and that they did bad things. of course, the things with terrorist is that they're not tide down to one place, so what should have an isolated incident turned into the big mess we have now. mistake were made, stupid things were done, and a lot of people were hurt.

We have no real concrete reasons to stay, but we don't know what would happen if we pull out, and that's the main fear. Things could get better, or (more likely, all things considered) it'd all go back to the way it was, ruining all that work. And trust me, if we were to get hit a second time, there won't even be a middle east by week's end.

In conclusion, I don't know how this is going to end. I'd wish for the troops to come home, and we can rid this money pit we call a "war on terror", but considering the long bloody history of the middle east, I'd say there's probably never going to be peace, and the only way for there to every be peace there would involve several pounds of radioactive material.

I thank you for listening , and I apologize if I came off as insensitive or moronic. 

[Neruz]

America can't afford to pull out yet; the region is too unstable. Iraq served as a 'buffer zone' between Saudi Arabia and Iran, if America pull out those two will make landgrabs into the weakened Iraq and will almost certainly end up at war, which would be a bad thing.

Additionally; America had a pretty good idea what was going on all things considered; there were some rather impressive intelligence cock-ups, not the least of which being duped by the Iranians into thinking Iraq would be easier to invade than it actually was. The American people on the other hand, had no fucking clue, as the Government, for some strange and incomprehensible reason, decided to try and pretend that Iraq was an isolated case unrelated to Al Qaeda and made up reasons to invade, despite the fact they had perfectly good real reasons to invade; this was made worse when the made up reasons were revealed to be bullshit, and the response was to make up more reasons.

I do not pretend to understand that choice. You'd have to ask Bush.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

What.

It's all clear that Saddam Hussein is a filthy racist extreme secularist that hate Islam Al-Qaeda.


There are no #!@$ing link between Saddam and Usama, only enmities.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

I don't hate the US, and I'm from the UK. It's a nice place with lots of nice people, just like a lot of other places. It's often the government that gives a country a bad reputation, and face it, both our countries have had pretty questionable governments recently. I also think that there was a bit of truth in what Russia said a few years ago about Afghanistan being ungovernable. They tried and failed 30-odd years ago, and some time before that, I believe the British empire did roughly the same thing.

[Neruz]

What.

It's all clear that Saddam Hussein is a filthy racist extreme secularist that hate Islam Al-Qaeda.


There are no #!@$ing link between Saddam and Usama, only enmities.

Of course not. That was some of the bullshit the government made up to try and justify the war.

I don't hate the US, and I'm from the UK. It's a nice place with lots of nice people, just like a lot of other places. It's often the government that gives a country a bad reputation, and face it, both our countries have had pretty questionable governments recently. I also think that there was a bit of truth in what Russia said a few years ago about Afghanistan being ungovernable. They tried and failed 30-odd years ago, and some time before that, I believe the British empire did roughly the same thing.

To be fair; the Russian attempt wasn't helped by the Americans.

[Dvergar]

Not to mention the fact that democracy has to come from a movement of its own people and not top-down from an occupier.

Really?  Have you taken part in a revolution recently?  Plenty of democracies have been established from the top-down, including Iraq....  And more impressingly plenty of communistic economies were errected by the U.S.S.R.

[AtomicPaperclip]

It's all a monopoly game. Since we decided that imperialism was a bad thing became a democracy, we can't really just conquer countries anymore. So instead we do economic stings, and plant our little economic seeds into them.

I believe 9-11 is bullshit, there's no real reason for it and no real evidence of it. They don't even have pictures of a plane and the pentagon, which people still accept without question.

9-11 was just a new style of propaganda to avoid the problems we had with Vietnam.

If they're that worried about the oil, they should either just take it, or do what we do to everyone else; give them a bunch of money for a while and then threaten to take it away.

Obama promised to pull out of Iraq first thing, until he gets elected. Then he postpones it, and decides to leave more troops, and more troops. So then we just move to all the countries AROUND Iraq, so people think we're pulling out when we're still essentially occupying the country. People need to think with their head and not with the television.

If they just want Iraq to be a buffer zone, wait until one of the countries attacks them and use it as an excuse to destroy them too.

America is too chicken-shit to use its power, so we hide behind the bullshit. I hate politics.

[Neruz]

Hoo-ee, we got us a free range conspiracy theorist here boys.

[Emperor_Jonathan]

What's the difference between a free range and caged conspiracy theorist?

[Cthulhu]

Oh good Lord, here we go...

[Neruz]

What's the difference between a free range and caged conspiracy theorist?

Well your caged conspiracy theorists are much tamer in their beliefs, area 51, roswell, the old classics. Yer free range conspiracy theorists, they get more room to run around and excersize that brain, come up with the real crazies like "9/11 was planned by the government", "the pentagon wasn't really hit by a plane" and, my personal favorite, "We invaded Iraq because Saddam was a puppet of the Martian Overlords and were using it as a staging ground for their takeover of earth."

Ok, i made the last one up myself, but it fits right in there on the scale of crazy and plausibility.