See Lone you have it all wrong.
The soldiers are not there to do noble things.
Soldiers job is to provide very concentrated destruction, and mayhem. The rest is just because they care, and the american people (well some of them) care.
Soldiers arenot to be used as a public works, thier main job is to actually walk onto a piece of ground, take it, hold it, and deny the enemy the use of it.
That is best accomplished after the mayhem, by building schools, helping children, speaking with parents, buying foods, building water supplies, building power generation and distribution.
See the TV and News media have twisted something all around here.
The Iraq vs. US, UK, AUS war was over in a few short weeks. The Baath party was defeated, the soldiers surrendered, no planes took off, no tanks rolled into battle, no anti aircraft batteries fired, there was no longer any organised Baath party resistance. It was done.
IRAN, and SYRIA, and Al Qaeda have been fighting a proxy terrorist action with the US, UK, AUS in Iraq. We know they are state sponsors of terrorism. Here is the ticket.
IRAQIS that love Iraq and Iraqs people dont BLOW UP THIER OWN CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why are they fighting?
A DEMOCRACY that works in IRAQ will destroy thier hold on power. A free market, with a representational government always does better than a dictatorship. They can not allow it. Its too late though. Unless our new Congress, Senate and President do something extremely stupid (oh say like Kennedy at the Bay of Pigs) the dictatorships, and relegious oppression that are normal in the middle east are finished. It will take time, but once people taste freedom, its all over but the crying. Iraq will have huge problems. One will be immigration. The best and brightest from all over the world come to America, England, Austraila, Germany, and other countries.
I can go on and on, but I am going to shut up and I hope you look at things in different way, and think on what a soldier has to do vs. what a soldier can do when he is also a free man.
One last thing. They are blowing up the policemen, the teachers, and the students. That is not the actions of war. That is terrorism.
before i say anything i just want to be sure i understand you right (cuz too often these debates get sidetracked and we come to find out we are talking about different things)
1) the soldiers and the "war" did what they were supposed to: achieve very specific tactical goals in gaining control of the area
2) what has happened since then is not "the iraq war" but instead something larger than just iraq of which iraq is one piece of the puzzle.
what i am saying is that it would have been possible to achieve any and all worthwhile (from a US standpoint) objectives in many other ways....the least of which was invading iraq. and given that the invasion is long over now what i am saying is that the ongoing nonsense there is not helping anything and only serves to make it worse. it is the equivalent of dropping a jar of honey and having a big sticky mess.....then spending all day trying to clean it up with poisonous chemicals. sure in the short run of things you will see tangible benefits, but in the long run every last thing about "iraq" will have been for the worse.
what do i mean? since it is late here and im half asleep i will do this in point form so it makes a little more sense and is less jumbled up:
1) pre-war iraq is no danger to the US. i think we can all agree on this.
2) reason to go in, imo, was not self-defence or national security but more calculated goals ranging from creating friendly nation with oil reserves to placing the seed of an american "sphere of influence" for down the road in a historically anti-american region.
----point here is these are just reasons that countries do things....always have always will for similar selfish reasons, just dont lie about it *points at gov't*
3) post-war regarding iraq being a front on terrorism. it BECAME that. it never was that originally. if i walk into your house and start getting violent you will call your friends and family and the police and all of a sudden I find that your house is the "front on violence". people who would not have been involved have gotten involved due to my having instigated the entire sequence of events in the first place.
----point here is sometimes if you do things smarter you can avoid stirring up a hornet's nest. but because of the desire for a "sphere of influence" and friendly oil-nation....the hornet's nest was stirred up as a by-product of those desires. the US has a LONG history of going to great lengths to create spheres of influence. it has always worked to get its foot in the door with capitalism/freedom/democracy and then be influential in the region. that is just how it works. it is not a bad thing to be "free" I am not saying that the entire world as a democracy that WORKS would be a bad thing....but the fact remains that a western style democracy simply DOES NOT WORK in MANY places around the world. until you create social systems and structures and a society which will be able to function well in a democracy....there is no freedom. there is only the status quo under the guise of democracy.
------side note: did you know that while iran was ruled by the Shah before the ayatolla came into power the CIA was teaching iranian state police the torture methodology used by nazi's? iran was a police-state with secret police everywhere. people would be executed without trial for mere SUSPICION of speaking against the government. this is not "freedom".....but this is what is acceptable to US officials that want a base of influence in the middle east. to the little kid whose father was shot in the middle in the night by state police for talking against the Shah......dont cry....it is what needs to happen for there to be an "island of stability" in that otherwise "troubled" part of the world.....
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sux4XlNtSRw&feature=related"]YouTube - Carter toasting the shah of Iran[/ame]
oh wait did i say troubled? i meant simply not under the influence of the US. sorry little kid. my bad.
4) the US will eventually leave. public opinion at home will at some point become so sour due to the financial crisis and other things that the US will just completely wash its hands of the region as much as possible while trying to retain its influence as much as possible too. the outcome? freedom? nope. same old stuff that is day-to-day life down there. but they get coke and pepsi to drink while they watch their government run as it was always run.....not by the people OR for the people. even if it doesnt explode in a massive civil war and some stability remains due in large part to american efforts today....it is not the "freedom" and "democracy" americans and canadians and british citizens live with. it is the eastern way of government wearing a democratic mask.
India is considered the largest democracy in the world? is it? haha....nope!!! my family is from there and i can honestly tell you i know many people who have never gone to vote in their lives.....but every year their names appear on ballots for one of the big parties there. the governments are decided by mechanisms there that are not BY the people. the democratic process is simply a way to achieve
legitmacy where there wouldnt otherwise be any without use of force.
I may have rambled on a bit there but i hope i made my point more or less apparent.
in a nutshell i just believe that if the Us wants the sphere of influence and all that go for it. if you can lay the foundation for a better quality of living for people in the process that is a great thing to do. just dont beat around the bush (no pun intended). say what ur after and git'r'dun. it has nothing to do with saddam being a bad guy. NOTHING. there were MANY reports on his atrocities before Gulf War I. they were ignored until oil-rich kuwait was invaded and a ridiculous percentage of world-oil reserves was under the control of saddam.....someone who was not pro-US. then at THAT point you get bush sr. saying what a bad guy saddam is and THEN he starts citing the massive reports he had just ignored a few months previously.
also the fact that iraq is a hotbed of terrorism is america's own fault. and if it is your fault you can fix it. where america goes terrorism will follow. if they shift the focus elsewhere the main front on terrorism will shift there. why not invade turkmenistan? i hear their ox-steaks are just delicious!!
ill stop there so i dont keep rambling.
