(December 2, 2018 at 10:48 am)Cherub786 Wrote:(December 2, 2018 at 10:29 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: The simple problem with blaming Bush, Sr. with not taking out Iraq is that doing so would not have been a just war and would have compromised our aims in the region and elsewhere by setting a precedent that the U.S. was willing to shamelessly engage in conquest and imperialism for unjustifiable reasons. A precedent that would have had far reaching and damaging consequences. Bush, Jr. realized this. That's why he manufactured the charge of harboring WMDs in violation of UN agreements and violating the no-fly zone. Bush, Jr. attempted to give a war on Iraq the legitimacy that it would have lacked under Bush, Sr. To say that Bush, Sr. was a failure for not engaging in an unjust war is simply short sighted thinking, concentrating only on the immediate goal of regime change in Iraq, and ignoring the consequences of engaging in such without adequate moral justification. It is not only immoral, it is bad policy.
Why did the US, under Bush Sr., encourage an internal revolt in Iraq with the aim of overthrowing Saddam?
It has nothing to do with imperialism or conquest. Once free, Iraq auctioned and contracted its oil to the Chinese.
WMDs and oil were just a pretext. The real reason was to get rid of a dictator like Saddam. As far as I'm concerned, that's all that matters and that's all the justification needed.
When troops were already on the ground in Kuwait, it was just a matter of crossing the border and heading north a few miles to Baghdad. Bush Senior made a blunder just admit it.
Instead, we allowed Iraq a full decade to regroup and try to recover. That partly explains why the insurgency during the Second Gulf War was so intense. The Baathists were preparing for it and had increasingly militarized the Sunni triangle. They knew they could never defend against the Americans in a conventional war, which is why they didn't even try in 2003.
Bush Sr took a calculated risk in letting Iraqi citizens finish the job, that was a blunder, yes. But that did not justify what his son did 12 years later basing the second on a lie. I might have supported it if he had left out the WMD bullshit, and simply pointed out the atrocities between. Throwing in that lie made America lose credibility on the global stage.
I have been on line since 01 and have had conversations with citizens of both Iran and Iraq and Israelis too. It is possible to value an individual without liking everything a government one might live under does.
In the end all 7 billion of us are the same species. And again, it may sound easy to play the what ifs and we should or could, but those small fries have bigger friends who can do damage with nukes if pushed too far. Nobody wins in a global nuclear war. If that were to happen, you wont' have to worry about nation vs nation, at that point, in that aftermath if anyone is left over, you will be killing your literal neighbor for food, and still dealing with the radiation poisoning even with food and water supplies.
So going in, or staying out of something, still has to be based on the risk of mutual destruction.
