Debate: Should be have gone to Iraq?

It wasn't just about the WMD's. Also, America only found mass weapon stashes. In terms of wether or not we should've gone, i say yes we should have. What he was doing to his country was interpreted as an act of war to the united states. So, they had reasons to go in. But with all the civilian deaths, i dont see what effect it had (other than getting rid of their former leader) and to some degree, calming down the tension.

Cheers, dafin0

It's somewhat of a tough question for me to answer and I couldn't pick one of the options. In short, I would probably say no, we shouldn't be there (present tense, now). People are who they are. You can't expect a country and its people to change their beliefs and traditions just like that. But, on the flip side, I believe it is perfectly fine to go into a country if it is threatening you or your allies. But, this too is a problem imo. Alliances are, when they come down to it, a pain in the neck more than anything. Alliances work best when they aren't needed. More like a preemptive measure. Alliances are good in that regard and for economic purposes, but when it comes to fighting and wars, alliances can be painful. Off that tangent, though...there are a couple other things to consider imo regarding this issue. 1) We had already invaded Afghanistan and had troops already stationed nearby, making it easy to get to Iraq and the decision to go there in the first place somewhat easy. 2) I will say that oil probably factored into the decision to go there and also provide a reason for us to stay as well. With that in mind, I think it was important at the time to go into Iraq initially. Even if there was bad intelligence and the threat was less minimal than we thought, it's better to be safe than sorry (not to mention we were able to get rid of a horrible dictator int he process). On the second point of whether or not we should be there now, I don't think we should. We set out to take care of Saddam and finished that job. Once we did that, our reason for being there had expired and we should have withdrawn from the area instead of prolonging the conflict. We met our goals...we shouldn't be setting new ones to change the country itself.

The prices are still sky high because America is a capitalist country and the idea of capitalism is getting as much bang for your buck as possible. So just because all these Oil Companies suddenly have rich new supply veins doesn't mean they're going to pass on any savings to the consumer

I'll share my thoughts from American perspective.

The original reason our wonderful president Bush decided to invade the country in the first place was due to having "weapons of mass destruction". Plain and simply there wasn't enough intel or evidence to go to the country to begin with, but America went there anyway. I understand that all people including our presidents make mistakes, but the fact that we didn't pull our troops out when they found out that Iraq possessed no thread to us what so ever so it begs me to question "What the hell are we still doing there?". You should never jump to conclusions.

Well, from what I have heard, it's not about the oil supply itself, but about the refining of oil that keeps prices high. Say you have 100 million barrels of oil in stock, but you have just one refinery that can only process 1 million barrels of oil a day. Even though you have the oil, you can use it until it is refined. Capitalism isn't at fault in this regard for "sky high" prices (I don't think $3 is sky high considering the fact that bottled water costs more than fuel). Our refining capacity is limited and as such, we may have the oil we need, but we don't have the capacity to turn it into fuel in mass amounts. This means the supply of fuel, not oil, is limited. If you have more refineries, you can churn out more fuel, but government regulations and environmental policies restrict refinery construction. Blame the government, not capitalism.

Your second sentence doesn't even make sense...at all. You really think there was stability with Saddam in power? No civilians were being killed? There was no underground insurgents or even backing of terrorist movements? How would you explain this? And those aren't the only things Saddam was accused of. I find it hard to believe that everything could be fine and dandy under a dictatorship that kept "order." I find it hard to believe that any dictatorship brings about "sound order" and that whatever "order" it is is better than no order at all.

Wouldn't it also seem pathetic to say that Junior had to finish Dad's work? If that truly was the reason for going to war, it was an awful one and I don't think there is hardly any credibility to it. And the fact of the matter about the intelligence we actually had is out of the question. You don't know and I don't know. You can't assume it was bad or not. Are you saying a country that pours over $550 billion into Defense/Military/Intelligence gathers bad intelligence? If so, what the heck are we doing with that money? You can't use intelligence as an argument as no one really knows what the intelligence looked like except the people who saw it.

Lastly, I go back to my point that we shouldn't be over there at all right now. If our job was to get Saddam, job's done. If our job was to find WMDs and we either found them or not while we were there, job's done. You don't continue to fight a war once your objectives are met. You can't expect also to force democracy down people's throats. The whole thing about democracy is that it has to come from the people, not from an outside force. If the people want democracy, let them decide. If they want it the way it has been, than let it be. But there should be no question that getting rid of Saddam was a step in the right direction. Nothing good comes of dictatorships.

With all the protection osama has, noone will be able to find him. It'll take another decade before we come close to finding him. Just let nature take it's course.

Cheers, dafin0