Why do people think the war in Iraq is needless?

Question

Why don't people realize this:

The reason why Bush is keeping our soldiers in Iraq is to stop Al Qaeda from making Iraq into another safe haven for terrorists. He's said that that is the reason, many times. If we left Iraq tommorow without stopping the insurgency, the terrorists would use Iraq as a hideout to launch a second terrorist attack on America. They would crash a plane into a nuclear plant and kill 7'000'000 Americans, and the civil warfare would quickly kill all 6'000'000 residents of Baghdad.

Therefore, SUPPORT VICTORY IN IRAQ, NOT FAILURE.

Answer 1

Iraq wasn't a safe have before we got there. And our current occupation is certainly not stopping them from having bases or getting training.

A terrorist group can have training grounds anywhere the local govt doesn't assert total control. That includes the US, as well as any other "free" country. So, whether Iraq is in civil war, or a free democracy, there's nothing stopping terrorists from setting up camp in some remote province.

And nothing is special about Iraq. Al-Qaeda is Sunni. So, is Saudi Arabia. Which means, they can easily hide there.

Or they can hide in Europe, or Afghanistan, or Pakistan, or half of northern Africa. There is nothing special about Iraq that makes it any more appealing than anyplace else. And staying in Iraq does nothing to stop them forming bases elsewhere.

All the Iraq occupation is doing is prolonging the civil war there, and weaking American forces. It's certainly not having any significant impact on global terrorist activity.

Answer 2

Correction, Bush ORIGINALLY said some 4 years ago that we were going into Iraq because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, had missles capable of hitting the US, and represented and IMMEDIATE threat to the US.

All of which has been debunked and shown to be nothing but (at best) over-hyped ludicrous nonsense.

It was also a well known fact that Saddam opposed factions like Al-Quaeda since they represented a direct threat to his power (Saddam was not a religious fundamentalist).

Eliminating Saddam created a power vacuum, and eliminated the only thing in the country that was suppressing the kurds, sunnis, and shiites from killing each other.

The terrorists wouldn't be able to use Iraq as a hideout, as the warring factions would be just as likely to kill them as anyone else. The insurgency isn't an insurgency. It's one part civil war, one part "get the hell out of our country", one part "Iran wants dominance in the region", and various other parts mixed together. The situation is significantly more complicated than it has been protrayed, and anyone with an education about the region and the foriegn policy in the Middle East (not US policy) would have realized this.

It was, at best, a terrible mis-calculation that we could go in, take out Saddam, and then everything would be fine. 2000+ years of warring in the region should have taught anyone else better.

BTW, crashing a plane into a nuke plant wouldn't be very effective. The cement shells around the plants are incredibly sturdy (designed to withstand a melt-down. The backup systems are designed to open an all out underground flood in case of loss of containment. At best you'd get a little fallout, and nowhere near enough to kill 7 million people (unless it was in the middle of a city, which there aren't any). This is an example of the people in power use fear to get you to follow them.

The only way to fix the Iraq situation is to get the other ME countries involved in a peace keeping mission and get out of the way. Our presence does nothing besides act as a rallying firebrand.

Iraq is, and has always been, and incredibly ignorant and naive endeavor.

Afghanistan, sure. At least that was justified. But Iraq? That was never justified. There was no reason. Any reason given by Bush and Co. has been summarily thrown out.

~X~

Answer 3

Here's a thought: The problem in Iraq isn't Al Qaeda.

The Sunni minority ran Iraq for decades. Saddam was an evil bastard, but he was Sunni and didn't treat his own people that bad. Shiites and Kurds, he did treat like crap.
Here we come and tear down his statue, remember all those people cheering? Think any were Sunni?
We help the majority Shiites set up democratic elections, knowing full well the Sunnis who ran the country for decades, would retain almost no power. Sure enough, Shiites win in a landslide. Sunnis are thinking WTF?
What do we do? Label the Sunnis as insurgents and start shooting.
Think about where these people are coming from. The Sunnis ran the country for decades now they have almost no power at all. Also, they probably think that when their weapons run out, the Shiites will exterminate them. And you know what? They're probably right.
I don't have all the answers, but I know that our government and media is over simplifying the problem.

Answer 4

Funny of thq 180 odd countries where terrorists can grow, Iraq is chosen by America to prevent it from beocmng a safe haven from terrorists

Saddam, despit all his claimed barbarics, was well in control of the country and all factional extremeists were under control

US has brought in anarchy in Iraq and whenevr they decicde to leave, they will leave behind a facitronalized and broken nation without a single strong power and which will take its time to resolve its power equations a.k.a Afghanistan.

More so - Iraq will beocme a safe haven for terrorists - not only because factions will be more powerful in their areas - but because the detroyed economy and loss of identity of nation and self respect will force and encourage youth into terrorism.

Iraq can bounce back on its wide oil reources, but who controls them ?? The current US installed president is not powerful enough.

There has been no VICTORY in Iraq......maybe Saddam was executed ....but the poeple have lost ...... Iraq's major infrasturture has been reduced to rubbles and now the same american companies offer to build it agianst oil !

This is preposterous

More neutral conutries need to step in with peace keeping force so that peace can be ensured for sufficient time to allow a govt. to gain control

US will always be considered an exploiter by IRAQis and rightly so

Its time UN took over with US as a supporting member rather than juat US and England folling around with all th eill will that they have generated.

Answer 5

There are so many things wrong with your statement, that I do not know which to address first. There was absolutely no reason to go into Iraq and kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. They did nothing to harm or threaten us as a nation. AlQaeda is funded by ISI, who gets their funds from the CIA. Yes, our CIA. Why are we still there? Do you not think that the people that do survive this mess will not hate us far more now than they ever did prior to our invasion and occupation of their homes? If they wanted to "crash a plane into a nuclear plant" why would us being in their county stop them? Your statement makes no sense at all. Stop buying into the fear tactics and propaganda. The only terrorism in Iraq now is the terrorism imposed upon the people of Iraq from outside forces. We need to get out, now.

Answer 6

No, the Iraqis would be able to deal with al-Qaeda quite easily. Al-Qaeda actually has a very small presence in Iraq compared to the Sunni and Shiite insurgents and militias.

Answer 7

Apparently, Iraq already is a safe haven for Al Qaeda.

Answer 8

The original justification for the war in Iraq was clearly and often stated "WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION". Iraq is a needless war because it distracted us from the true purpose of the US being in the Middle East....."The perpetrator of 9-11, Osama Bin Laden and Crew."

It is ironic to me that to mount an offense in Afghanistan, 30,000 troops were send....To mount an offense in Iraq, we sent in more than 100,000. Iraq was a personal vendetta that Bush wanted to pursue from the moment the Supreme Court told Florida to stop the recount and he knew for sure that he would be the next President. I say this because it has been documented in his "home state", that he was going to go after the man who tried to kill his daddy.

Answer 9

TRUE! Newsflash to all who were told by John Stewart that there were no terrorists in Iraq: There were! We just caught the terrorist who hijacked a cruise ship, shot a handicapped dude in a wheelchair, and forced the crew to throw the man overboard! Guess where we found him? Baghdad, Iraq's capital! I guess you're going to say Saddam couldn't catch this guy, despite his picture and that he was wanted and that he was nearly Saddam's neighbor in the most highly policed city in Iraq when Saddam was in power.

Answer 10

WAIT. STOP. You don't get to do this.

Political/ideological idolatry aside, there are facts about the war that one cannot, without departing from this plane of reality, ignore.

-Bush Jr. came into office and the top of his foreign enemies list was Iraq (no comment on how many Thanksgiving dinners with his father keyed him up for that)...there are many press conferences and public appearances where he was making noise about Saddam being public enemy #1

-After 9/11, there was an almost immediate connection made between al qaeda and iraq (god help us, we followed it like sheep, as did congress...shock will do that to you)

-Added to that connection, was the proof that WMDs were indeed in Iraq and were imminently going to be used to attack Americans

-Add to THAT the lack of backing that we received from the international community because of our eroding relationships with foreign powers, even our allies

-The war started off with deposing Saddam and ended up with what we have now: a quagmire of an occupation. And to quote (of all things) "War of the Worlds": "occupations never work...history has shown us that." BTW, never mind that--barbaric and sadistic as he was--Saddam was one of the few SECULAR leaders in Iraq: allying with a group that bases its entire leadership structure and mission on religious beliefs would be anathema to him as well as a threat...that's why he didn't get along with Iran: the hardliners are wild-eyed Koran-bastardizing nutjobs, and Saddam was more of a "Jack Welch" type of manager...with torture and blood (also like Jack Welch...but I kid).

Sooooo...after all of that, all of the missteps and errors, and bumbling and fumbling, and lies and misdirection, and outright ineptitude, after all that, the argument is just "we have to win the war, 'cause they MIGHT become a terrorist haven for al qaeda in the future."

Guess what, THAT is more likely to happen NOW than BEFORE the war. We've done the equivalent of knocking down a wasps nest, but instead of hauling ***, we're stomping on it hoping to kill them all. And we've pissed them off. There are 60k Iraqi civilians dead (vs. our 3k dead soldiers) because of the war. Assume each of those 60k had a family, and let's pretend it's four...that's a QUARTER MILLION PISSED OFF PEOPLE there now who hate America.

Ironically, I agree with you: we DO need to stay the course in Iraq, but only because we need to clean up our mistake not because of any delusion of "winning" over there. Eventually, we WILL go home, and Iran will enter the vaccuum we leave because they live on the same street and we live uptown. The best thing we can do there is secure pockets of safety (like Baghdad, like we're doing), train the crap out of Iraqi police, beg some other countries to give us a "solid" by helping us out (ugggh...f-ing SYRIA...talk about dealing with the devil), and try to leave the place in decent shape.

But this "5 second Tom" memory thing that people have about "staying the course" because "the terrorists will win if we don't" is BS...not one Iraqi was involved in the WTC attacks. The only terrorists that live there now are the ones we created and the ones that will move in after we finally take our foot off of the wasp's nest.

You don't get to change history to make a point. Just STOP.