For or Against Iraq War?
There were many reasons to be for a war in Iraq. But there were only a few reasons to oppose it:
1. You are against all war (that is not me).
2. You were against this war because Bush lied (again, not me, Bush had not been proven to lie that much in March 2003 and I was still on the 9/11 patriotic thing).
3. We could not win the way Rumsfeld proposed to fight it. With minimal troops, a small coalition, and no plan. This was me.
In March 2003, I thought going into Iraq was not a bad idea in theory. But, when adminisration officials said it would be a cakewalk, I cringed. I knew, just knew, that we wouold be in there a long time. Sure we would win the war, but there was no plan for an occupation.
Boy, was I right. The NYTimes today is an example. Strained Army Looks to the Guard for Relief.
There are more reasons for originally opposing this war.
1. Understanding that Iraq was a 'made up country' (by the Brits) and therefore, would fall apart, just as Yugoslavia had when Tito died.
2. Trusting the UN inspectors regarding WMDs over the Bush/Cheney chickenhawks.
3. Understanding that one of Bin Laden's orginal greivances against the US was having a 'footprint' in the Middle East already, and not wanting to add to the size of that footprint, only to piss off Bin Laden and his followers even more.
4. We weren't done in Afghanistan, or done finding Bin Laden, and I didn't believe it was wise to open a 'second front' in our war on the terrorists.
Essentially, there were many, many reasons why to disagree with this war. While some of them may have had to due with 'cowboy George' and his gang that couldn't shoot straight, but most of the reasons were about Iraq and the region we were about to expand our presence in, that led me to oppose the war.
Beware of the fanatics, they never see gray.
September 24, 2006 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
The fact that this was a "made-up" country was not a reason to oppose the war. We should have known this was going to happen and put 500,000 or so troops on the ground.
In March 2003, I was willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt. But, I did not guess that he would fudge the data to make it look like Iraq had WMD, when the intellegence said otherwise.
I understood number 3, but that was not all Bin Laden wanted. I think he wanted us in Iraq for two reasons. First, he wanted to distract us from the war on terrorism. Second, he wanted to have more reasons for recruits to sign up.
Number 4 was a good reason, but we did not know it at the time. 20/20 hindsight is good, but go back to March 2003. At that time, we trusted our president to do what was right. he said we were done in Afghanistan, and the country believed him.
September 24, 2006 11:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Beware of the fanatics, they never see gray.
September 25, 2006 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink