Why do you think we want to war w/ Iraq?

Question

1. Revenge on Saddam
2. Oil
3. Different religious beliefs we want to fix
4. Different govn't sytles we want to fix
5.all of these above

Answer 1

5.
Saddam threatened to kill Bush Sr., and Jr. didn't like it too much
Bush Sr. and Jr. are oil men
We are a country based in protestant and christian beliefs and as such can't help but try to convert those that are not.
Iraq was the least of our problems and looked easy
And Saudi Arabia didn't like Saddam!!!!!

Answer 2

Several so far are hot on its trail...

there's also #7) the fact that Saddamn was taking Euros instead of dollars for his oil, which could spell disaster for the US economy, since OPEC has used the US $ exclusively since 1973. As it stands, ALL countries must maintain huge stocks of dollars if they want access to petroleum. That essentially means that we can print money, and get stuff from other nations, simply because they require our currency to have energy. If they could pay with Euros, or Yuan, or Rubles, all those dollars would come home at a fraction of their value, and we would be fukt.

We can also consider #8) that we had to beat the crap out of SOMEBODY after 9/11, or run the risk of being perceived as formerly badass.

We made our military moves based on worst-case scenarios (which proved to be inaccurate), and planned the occupation based on best-case scenarios (which also proved to be inaccurate). Those who have mentioned the PNAC in this context have done so correctly. Seldom mentioned are the names of John Bolton, John Negroponte, and Zalmay Khalilzad, who also signed the various position papers,

And don't forget oil....

Answer 3

6. None of the Above.

I think the American people are taught that we are a good and righteous nation, even if we aren't most of the time these days, and we get caught up in these thoughts; we helped win WWII, helped out Kuwait in the first gulf war etc. We also have very large egos and have a hard time admitting we are sometimes wrong. These attitudes are not surprising when you factor in this myth: that we were all told that we live in the best nation on earth since they day we were born.

Answer 4

1. Revenge on Saddam

Early in the campaign for war Bush mentioned the assassination plot against his dad. He was quoted once as far as I know, and then his handlers must have told him to drop that line because it never came out again. So I think that was a factor, but the White House propagandists knew that playing up a family feud would backfire.

2. Oil

Indirect factor. I despise Cheney/Bush but I don't think their motivation was as crude as just stealing oil. It's just that any nation that affects our petroleum addiction automatically gets added strategic importance.

3. Different religious beliefs we want to fix

Not at all. Even though Bush thinks God picked him to be president, he's not so messianic he thinks he could force conversions, or that an invading army would encourage conversions.

4. Different govn't sytles we want to fix

That's just propaganda cover. Bush, like most presidents, is fine with brutal dictatorships and genocide if they don't interfere with US interests. He's been dragging his feet on Darfur for years. Before 9/11 you'd be hard-pressed to find a Republican that gave a d-mn about women oppressed by the Taliban--that was a minor feminist issue. After 9/11 the hypocrites suddenly became the champions of women oppressed by the Taliban because it was good PR. Presenting the US as liberators of Iraq was justification for doing what they wanted to do, not a primary motivator.

5.all of these above

No, just one of the above.

6. The Republican foreign policy elite (like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz) had been plotting for years to take down Saddam and install a friendly government in Iraq. Partly it was to settle unfinished business, partly it was fear of WMD, but mostly it was a geopolitical strategy. 9/11 and Saddam's threats and defiance gave them the cover to implement their plan aggressively, and they seized the moment to do what they had wanted to do all along. That was the primary impetus; the other reasons given were either side benefits or propaganda points.

funinthesunn1 wants to exonerate Bush for trying to keep the price of oil down, and claims it's not his fault we're addicted to oil. It's true that the US economy was addicted to oil long before Bush came on the scene, but Bush has shown little leadership on the issue. They like giving huge subsidies to agribusiness for ethanol and drilling in wilderness, but conservation is basically a dirty word for them. Alternative energy is mostly a source of photo ops and sweet talk for Bush. When Cheney went off in secret to get the energy industry to write his energy policy, he made it pretty clear what the real priorities of this administration are: furthering corporate interests and ridiculing anyone who would let envrionmental concerns get in the way of corporate profits.

Answer 5

ALL OF THE ABOVE AND THE NEED TO ESTABLISH A BASE TO OPERATE FROM IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

But first and foremost, greed. Oil, munitions sales, munitions purchases, more oil, Saddam?

Well Saddam was starting to get uppity regarding oil so it was time to dump him... that is when suddenly they began to draw attention to his atrocities!...

But ohhh all that sweet crude, better quality than the Saudis and just as much ... waiting... BLACK GOLD

Oh man we could be closer to Iran and Pakistan and Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, in the middle of where the power of OIL lies. So, we take over Iraq and make it our headquarters! Dang, they all be in nukin distance. WHooopee!

Oh,, OIL!

Ah and genocide. Get rid of a lot of those pesky Iraqis and lower the American population by removing all those virile young men!

Oh, yes and OIL.

Regarding religion. Not really. Religion serves only as an excuse to kill. It is an ancient excuse that is as ridiculous but effective then as it is today. People never seem to learn from experience and they still do these ridiculous horrid things for ... er... worship and love? Naw, don't buy religion. It is no more than another way to incite hatred.. on both sides.

And the only fixing done to government styles is to take them over and remake them in the image YOU want, not the people you are conquering ... er.. sorry.. . liberating.

Oh, and did I mention oil?

Answer 6

the war on Iraq was planned by PNAC long before the 9/11 attacks. the stated goal is to gain control of the energy resources in the middle east. PNAC membership includes, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz as well as other neoCON governmental luminaries..

it doesn't hurt those with nice fat stock portfolios in Military Industrial Complex either. Boeing, Carlyle Group, Halliburton, Kellogg, Brown and Root etc.

Answer 7

Too late. We're after Iran now. Things have really changed. We used to use Iraq to use military funding with US satellite intelligentsia's on Iran at the time that Saddam use chemically warfare 49 times on the Kurds in the north and with the Americans getting information in the south from their satellites above. I believe that the world knew about the western world knew about the use of chemicals but was too afraid to say otherwise.

Answer 8

Have you ever heard of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687?
The resolution that authorized action against Saddams regime for his use and storage and manufacture of WMD's...The same WMD's that were found in Iraq by US Forces in early 2004, but that nobody can seem to remember happening because there was very little media coverage of it.
What about Genocide.......Do you even know what a Kurd is?
Do you have any IDEA on what is happening over here?
Did you know that the Iraqi people elected there own body of government and their own form of government?
Did you know that They are still muslims?
Did you know that neither we or they are moving ANY oil out of Iraq?
From the framing of your question, I assume you already have your mind made up on why you THINK we are here, But you obviously don't have a clue.....I would suppose you have been watching too much Jon Stewart or CNN

Answer 9

We went to war in Iraq for 2 primary reasons. The first, and most important, was to secure a stable friendly ally in a region of the world that our biggest threats are coming from. The second was to secure our oil interests in that region, which like it or not, we need to have secured and it is NOT Bush's fault we are dependant on foreign oil.

We needed more influence and more intelligence and more support in the middle east when it came to dealing with terrorists. 911 was not the first terrorist attack on the US. There had been several attacks against the US and her allies for years by terrorists. We live in a global economy now. Large nations like China and Russia are part of that economy. They wouldnt attack the US because it would only hurt their own economies. They arent our threat. The biggest threats are rogue detached nations, like Iraq and Iran and N Korea, that do not lose by destabilizing the US economy and have a great deal to gain by making the US the great scapegoat for all their problems. Nations like these are perfect havens for creating terrorists and most of them are in the middle east. Hussein gave us the perfect opportunity to create a stable free nation that would give us an inside edge to that region to help us fight terrorists over there. Hussein didnt have to give us justification to go to war, but he did and we took advantage of the situation to secure our nations interests and future, which is what every country does on this planet. If it succeeds it will give the Iraqi people a free democratic nation and it will give us a great ally and inside into the area that threatens us the most.

Bush also has to deal with the fact that we need oil. France and Russia were doing great making illegal secret deals with Hussein but they were also undercutting our oil interests in the region. Dont blame President Bush for having to make sure our oil interests are secure becasue if he didnt everyone that accuses him of going to war for oil would be accusing him when oil prices hit 6 dollars a gallon.

Answer 10

it's revenge for sure. not necessarily of Saddam, more of our president's daddy was dissed by saddam a few years back. it's like the Hatfield's and the McCoy's all over again and we...the American people pay. So I vote #1.

Answer 11

oil, oil, oil, oil,oil,oil!

Help those oppressed people? You mean the Iraqi's we are now killing, the ones we already killed, or the ones we are about to kill? None are named Saddam Hussein. He is dead! They want their country back, and it is pretty clear they don't want America to keep pulling oil out of Iraq like we are currently doing!

If some country attacked the US and wanted to kill our people and take out resources, I would be making IED's for as long as I was alive!

But NoSlot, all the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia!