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Invasion of Iraq

Invasion of Iraq

  • Big mistake

    Votes: 17 100.0%

  • Still support W and his decision

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    17
freakazoid

freakazoid

Well-Known Member
Back in the day, when I was a lurker on this board(seems weird that I lurked here for so long, looking back) the invasion of Iraq, and the discussion here suckered me into joining. Without getting too much into the arguments made, I argued that we would either be stuck there for 50 years, or we would end up leaving the place worse off than we found it. This has nothing to do with foreign policy in general, as I support many of our military efforts, including Afghanistan.
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Not looking to rerun the debate here. I'm actually just interested in the opinions of those who have changed their minds. Just the same, I have no doubt that some people will cling to that sunken ship.
 
The board crash has been a double-edged sword for me. I really wish we had access to the posts made back then, but then again, I might not be here, considering I was banned prior to the crash, and unlike trout, I probably never would have made much effort to come back without amnesty.
 
I joined the U.S. Navy in June of 2000. I was a patriotic kid, played war with my friends, loved freedom, loved guns, loved red meat... all that. I was ready to die for 'murica, even though I joined when pretty much nothing was going on.

I was in division 356, and after boot camp I was roomed up with a guy from my "sister" (intentionally demeaning term) boot camp division, 357. We were on base walking to the NEX (Navy Exchange, basically a department store) and he confided in me that he felt that something was coming that was going to change the world and that he wanted to serve int he military when that happened. I admitted that I felt the same way, that things were about to change, and that I felt that if lives needed to be sacrificed in that effort I wanted to spare the life of others by giving my own...

LOL, silly ****, for sure.

Then the USS Cole was attacked in the port of Yemen. Haha, **** getting real.

I was in a program that had me in training for 2 years, so I was still in school on 11-9-01 (that's Sept. 11th for those not able to read military dates). Not assigned to a ship yet.

In my training program were two guys from Bahrain. They were in the class on 9-11. They were there when we had our post 9-11 pep talk. We watched a video of the outpouring of love from around the world. We watched Americans crying yet being strong and perserverent. We watched the towers collapse. One of my instructors had transferred to my training command from the USS Cole. He told us about his experience during the attack. He talked about his friends who died. An old timer (a pretty funny guy with a jacked up grill that we made fun of a lot, especially when he made provocative comments about his wife we joked that her nipples must look like ground beef) talked about holding a k-bar (crow-bar) in his teeth and climbing the side of an enemy vessel and killing as many people as he could before he died.

Oh, yeah, the two guys from Bahrain. Sammy and Fazzle. They were bros. Part of the team. Never for a second did we look at them sideways, even though we knew out in public Muslims were getting a bad rap. These were our boys. We knew them and we trusted them. They came to our graduation party, drank beer and ate pizza with ham on it. They were our boys.

I was ultimately stationed on the USS Nimitz (CVN 68). At that time not the oldest aircraft carrier, but damn close.

I left out a part. My son was conceived in Feb. 2001. Ahh, what peaceful world. Things were looking pretty chill. My son was born early October 2001. While I was in the hospital I watched bombs dropping in Afghanistan. The U.S. was at war.

It was 2002. Iraq was the target. Afghanistan was wrapped up. Old news. We were all ready to kick ***. In my new work shop on the Nimitz there was a heavy bag that had been drawn on with a black marker. It was a crude picture of Osama Bin Laden in a turban and above that was written "Osama Basher 2001." One of my workmates, FC3 Dillio, talked about the "red, white and blue *** hammer" that we were going to **** Husain with. I was down.

I was the father of a toddler.

We departed Hawaii, loaded our missile launchers and declared war against Iraq that evening. We were all pumped. How cool. Lets go **** Saddam in the ***!

I was all for it. I didn't like the popular justification for attacking Iraq so I invented my own (still think it's better than Bush's) but I was down. Let's do this!

My ship was passing through the Strait of Hormuz as Saddam's statue was pulled down. Damn the bad luck. The war was over...haha

Anyway. Long story already pretty long. Saddam was a genocidal maniac that deserved to be toppled. As bad as things are, they weren't better under Saddam. That was a horror show. He pretended to have chemical weapons and we bought it. It was a believable story. He had them in the past, we had inspections to make sure he got rid of them and he impeded those inspections. We left (thanks Clinton). And we weren't sure what was up. Saddam routinely fired upon the aircraft we had patrolling the no fly zone. He offered no proof that he had gotten rid of his chemical weapon production capacity. We called his bluff and he lost.

It's a mess. It sucks. Probably going to be a while until it's better.

Meanwhile I'm watching HBO and eating hamburgers with my 13yo son. Life is good. America is grand. And anyone wants to **** with us will get a taste of the red, white and blue *** hammer.
 
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Gameface said:
As bad as things are, they weren't better under Saddam.
Click to expand...

Strongly disagree with this, but otherwise a fantastic post. Honestly, I believe Iraq is ****ed now. That area is so unstable, only ruthlessness can bring stability. So damn insane was a POS, but unfortunately, that's what it takes to rule in that region. If they ever become stable again, it will take a madman to scare everyone from rising against him. If we wanted to change that, it takes a lifelong commitment that we don't and shouldn't want.
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Forgetting about Iraq, is America better off? Our enemies have been strengthened in a big way. ISIS might not have WMDs(chemical weapons weren't the issue, NUKES were the issue, and they didn't exist), but they represent a MUCH larger population than our previous enemies. There is no doubt that our aggressions in Iraq have added to their recruiting ten-fold. Strike that, more like a hundred-fold and possibly a thousand-fold.
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P.S. Thank you for your service. You make America great, even when our leaders mislead.
 
Also, I just want to say that all of my claims here represent my opinions back when I joined the board, with one exception that I can think of. I didn't believe Saddam was stupid enough to let us catch him. I believed he had an exit strategy that would move him to another country. Obviously, I overestimated him, and I was wrong about that. For those who debated this back then, I will be more than happy to admit anything I was wrong about.
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Also, props to Obama for getting Bin Laden. Right now, it's really cool to trash the President, but he DOES deserve credit for this, especially considering the criticisms of him being weak on foreign policy.
 
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You were banned?

Whose idea was that?



(great post by the way, and great comments - I'll try to share a few more cogent thoughts in a bit)
 
moevillini said:
You were banned?

Whose idea was that?



(great post by the way, and great comments - I'll try to share a few more cogent thoughts in a bit)
Click to expand...

Hi moe, I value your input here, greatly. In the spirit of honesty, I was banned by my own fault. I'm a recovering alcoholic, and back in the day, I deserved a ban. I will never question this, and to be honest, I've relapsed a few times since then. Not cool. Not proud, but I've walked the line since then, and I'm lucky that I have not fallen. Still love Jason and Colten with all my heart. I'm lucky to be part of this community.

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God bless
 
freakazoid said:
Hi moe, I value your input here, greatly. In the spirit of honesty, I was banned by my own fault. I'm a recovering alcoholic, and back in the day, I deserved a ban. I will never question this, and to be honest, I've relapsed a few times since then. Not cool. Not proud, but I've walked the line since then, and I'm lucky that I have not fallen. Still love Jason and Colten with all my heart. I'm lucky to be part of this community.
Click to expand...

*Colton
 
Contemporary methods of warfare do not create a path toward stability. There are too many civilian casualties, and 99% of the murder is done via some machine and at a great distance from the body that dies. How can these conditions do anything except radicalize the friends and family members of the victims? Without hesitation, I can tell you that if my loved one (let's say we're Afghan civilians) died in a drone airstrike, then I'd be dedicated to some cause against the order-following cowards who don't even know the people or the land they battle against. I'd consider joining or starting organizations that practice peaceful protest -- but how many people have that perspective? How many organizations like that are there? How have US-led forces created an atmosphere where it is hard to organize at all, even peacefully?

There's also the fact that "stabilizing" a region is a euphemism for economic domination/regulation. Modern warfare is about control of finances. This can never be done quickly. Moreover, because of the way that marketplaces and money work, this means you are fighting a cultural war: messing with the flows of cash is messing with peoples' lives. In the end, more radicalizing.

Saddam was a product of war-caused instability in the region. I can't jive with the argument that waging more war in an area destabilized by previous wars will somehow square the circle and create a stable place. But liberal society is a sucker for such arguments: this time capitalism will work better; this time rights will be extended to all people equally, and thus courts will dole out justice more justly; this time war will be surgical, and the Body Politic will be healed from its cancer. Don't forget that this region has been in constant war since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The Brits carved up the region into principalities with no regard to tribal/ethnic boundaries -- and, by extension, with no regard to the way power and influence flowed through the region. Rising through the ashes of the Ottoman Empire were military states propped up my soaring oil prices (take a look at what modern oil economies do to the rest of the local economy, and how they corrupt politics). It's hard to feel hopeful about these conditions.

Sure, the region is ****ed, but the actions of American soldiers aren't helping Middle Eastern people determine their own futures. W's decision to go to war with Iraq was a miserable one. My friends and I saw it coming months before it happened... if you were looking for signs, they were everywhere... and things have turned out worse than any of us guessed.
 
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freakazoid said:
Would you believe I did that on purpose?
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Me neither.
Click to expand...

Btw, that was my subtle way of showing I read every word of your posts.

Also, I thought it was a huge mistake and still do. Problem is I am not a dyed in the wool republican and have very much my own thoughts as to how we should do things. It's a perplexing situation to know you have two options (seemingly);

1) Invade the country putting our own armed forces in harm's way, while spending billions of our dollars in the process.
2) Sit on our hands while a tyrannical leader continues to kill innocent people and we know we can stop it.

I'm the wrong person to ask, though.. because I would likely just employ special ops with a penchant for assassinations. Then probably play science experiment and rig elections with 'my' guy/puppet and feed him power until the region can see how a well run government (like ours, haha) can be better than what they have now. Assassination. Manipulation. Success.

See? I told you I was the wrong one to ask.
 
Gameface said:
I joined the U.S. Navy in June of 2000. I was a patriotic kid, played war with my friends, loved freedom, loved guns, loved red meat... all that. I was ready to die for 'murica, even though I joined when pretty much nothing was going on.

I was in division 356, and after boot camp I was roomed up with a guy from my "sister" (intentionally demeaning term) boot camp division, 357. We were on base walking to the NEX (Navy Exchange, basically a department store) and he confided in me that he felt that something was coming that was going to change the world and that he wanted to serve int he military when that happened. I admitted that I felt the same way, that things were about to change, and that I felt that if lives needed to be sacrificed in that effort I wanted to spare the life of others by giving my own...

LOL, silly ****, for sure.

Then the USS Cole was attacked in the port of Yemen. Haha, **** getting real.

I was in a program that had me in training for 2 years, so I was still in school on 11-9-01 (that's Sept. 11th for those not able to read military dates). Not assigned to a ship yet.

In my training program were two guys from Bahrain. They were in the class on 9-11. They were there when we had our post 9-11 pep talk. We watched a video of the outpouring of love from around the world. We watched Americans crying yet being strong and perserverent. We watched the towers collapse. One of my instructors had transferred to my training command from the USS Cole. He told us about his experience during the attack. He talked about his friends who died. An old timer (a pretty funny guy with a jacked up grill that we made fun of a lot, especially when he made provocative comments about his wife we joked that her nipples must look like ground beef) talked about holding a k-bar (crow-bar) in his teeth and climbing the side of an enemy vessel and killing as many people as he could before he died.

Oh, yeah, the two guys from Bahrain. Sammy and Fazzle. They were bros. Part of the team. Never for a second did we look at them sideways, even though we knew out in public Muslims were getting a bad rap. These were our boys. We knew them and we trusted them. They came to our graduation party, drank beer and ate pizza with ham on it. They were our boys.

I was ultimately stationed on the USS Nimitz (CVN 68). At that time not the oldest aircraft carrier, but damn close.

I left out a part. My son was conceived in Feb. 2001. Ahh, what peaceful world. Things were looking pretty chill. My son was born early October 2001. While I was in the hospital I watched bombs dropping in Afghanistan. The U.S. was at war.

It was 2002. Iraq was the target. Afghanistan was wrapped up. Old news. We were all ready to kick ***. In my new work shop on the Nimitz there was a heavy bag that had been drawn on with a black marker. It was a crude picture of Osama Bin Laden in a turban and above that was written "Osama Basher 2001." One of my workmates, FC3 Dillio, talked about the "red, white and blue *** hammer" that we were going to **** Husain with. I was down.

I was the father of a toddler.

We departed Hawaii, loaded our missile launchers and declared war against Iraq that evening. We were all pumped. How cool. Lets go **** Saddam in the ***!

I was all for it. I didn't like the popular justification for attacking Iraq so I invented my own (still think it's better than Bush's) but I was down. Let's do this!

My ship was passing through the Strait of Hormuz as Saddam's statue was pulled down. Damn the bad luck. The war was over...haha

Anyway. Long story already pretty long. Saddam was a genocidal maniac that deserved to be toppled. As bad as things are, they weren't better under Saddam. That was a horror show. He pretended to have chemical weapons and we bought it. It was a believable story. He had them in the past, we had inspections to make sure he got rid of them and he impeded those inspections. We left (thanks Clinton). And we weren't sure what was up. Saddam routinely fired upon the aircraft we had patrolling the no fly zone. He offered no proof that he had gotten rid of his chemical weapon production capacity. We called his bluff and he lost.

It's a mess. It sucks. Probably going to be a while until it's better.

Meanwhile I'm watching HBO and eating hamburgers with my 13yo son. Life is good. America is grand. And anyone wants to **** with us will get a taste of the red, white and blue *** hammer.
Click to expand...


Alright, I'm pretty sure the entire world's generations -or at least most of it- wants to live the good looking life you are living -if they are aware of its existence.

As for your colorful hammer that likes inner sides of intestines, I would like to say that that hammer always needs to be held by real people that bleed when you cut and there is nothing more important than human life in the world regardless of the nation or race and everything loses meaning and joy when your most beloved get hurt or you lose'em. War is nothing to be proud of. Saddam's image as you have told is pretty similar, hell maybe worse in Turkey. But the chemical weapons story that you army boys used to be told by superiors is child's play in here-abouts since the day US army hit the lands.
Lastly, my service term no. was 357. And I like beer too. So peace.
peace-sign-tattoos-8.gif
 
Always felt it was a mistake, and misguided because of my feeling that the Bush II invasion of Iraq in 2003 was primarily motivated by events of the Gulf War in 1991 when Bush Sr. ostensibly "won" the war and liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupation after five days of airstrikes, and minimal ground combat, leaving Saddam Hussein and his Republican Guard in control. The massive slaughter of the Kurds was a disaster in both humanitarian and PR terms. It was, and still is, a messy situation and unfortunately, my belief is that the citizens of the region have to evolve their way out of it. You don't get peace by supporting the lesser tyrant - he's still a tyrant.
 
Gameface said:
As bad as things are, they weren't better under Saddam. That was a horror show. He pretended to have chemical weapons and we bought it. It was a believable story. He had them in the past, we had inspections to make sure he got rid of them and he impeded those inspections. We left (thanks Clinton). And we weren't sure what was up. Saddam routinely fired upon the aircraft we had patrolling the no fly zone. He offered no proof that he had gotten rid of his chemical weapon production capacity. We called his bluff and he lost.

It's a mess. It sucks. Probably going to be a while until it's better.

Meanwhile I'm watching HBO and eating hamburgers with my 13yo son. Life is good. America is grand. And anyone wants to **** with us will get a taste of the red, white and blue *** hammer.
Click to expand...


This just goes to show the crude understanding we have of Iraq still. Even from assfaces who have "served" there. Ask a Sunni if it was better under Saddam? Ask a shia? Ask a Kurd? Ask Turks? Ask Syrians? Ask iran. Ask Kuwait.

I think it's very clear that Iraq was better off under saddam. The region was stable, the government ran, the country was in order, and iraq wasn't a threat to go off the deep end into radical Islam territory.

Oh, and he pretended to have WMDs to keep out radical Islam, maintain order, and to hold Iran at bay. I'd much rather have that than the mess we've seen since saddam was toppled.

I think we will look back at Iraq much like we do with vietnam today. The trillions flushed down the toilet and the thousands dead, died in a worthless war. One that could have and should have been easily avoided. I find great irony from the right that claims that our government can't do anything right domestically then starts illegal wars to spread our government abroad. Interesting.

But it sure has made some contractors rich! All well, the fascism that current controls the GOP was never meant to make sense anyway.
 
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The Thriller said:
This just goes to show the crude understanding we have of Iraq still. Even from assfaces who have "served" there. Ask a Sunni if it was better under Saddam? Ask a shia? Ask a Kurd? Ask Turks? Ask Syrians? Ask iran. Ask Kuwait.

I think it's very clear that Iraq was better off under saddam. The region was stable, the government ran, the country was in order, and iraq wasn't a threat to go off the deep end into radical Islam territory.
Click to expand...

Pretty damn sure all these groups would answer "Nope, we're better off without Saddam!" without hesitation.

For Turks and Syrians it probably depends on which ones you ask.

The average Iraqi Sunni for sure would rather Saddam was still in power.
 
I think the big mistakes were

#1-Reagan/Rumsfeld selling arms including chemical and biological weapons to Saddam.(This isn't so much of a mistake as it is criminal. Rumsfeld should be tried as a war criminal)

#2-Paul Brennan announces that all Baathist will be removed from their government positions. I think this is the fuse that lit the instability we see today. They should have gone after the worst of the worst. They should have made room for Shiite and Kurds, but they should have left a "redeemable" Sunni Baathists "power block" in place.

#3- The new government should have been less centralized from the beginning. They should have opted for more local control.

I don't think removing Saddam was a mistake. The world and Iraq are better off without him.
 
Gameface said:
I joined the U.S. Navy in June of 2000. I was a patriotic kid, played war with my friends, loved freedom, loved guns, loved red meat... all that. I was ready to die for 'murica, even though I joined when pretty much nothing was going on.

I was in division 356, and after boot camp I was roomed up with a guy from my "sister" (intentionally demeaning term) boot camp division, 357. We were on base walking to the NEX (Navy Exchange, basically a department store) and he confided in me that he felt that something was coming that was going to change the world and that he wanted to serve int he military when that happened. I admitted that I felt the same way, that things were about to change, and that I felt that if lives needed to be sacrificed in that effort I wanted to spare the life of others by giving my own...

LOL, silly ****, for sure.

Then the USS Cole was attacked in the port of Yemen. Haha, **** getting real.

I was in a program that had me in training for 2 years, so I was still in school on 11-9-01 (that's Sept. 11th for those not able to read military dates). Not assigned to a ship yet.

In my training program were two guys from Bahrain. They were in the class on 9-11. They were there when we had our post 9-11 pep talk. We watched a video of the outpouring of love from around the world. We watched Americans crying yet being strong and perserverent. We watched the towers collapse. One of my instructors had transferred to my training command from the USS Cole. He told us about his experience during the attack. He talked about his friends who died. An old timer (a pretty funny guy with a jacked up grill that we made fun of a lot, especially when he made provocative comments about his wife we joked that her nipples must look like ground beef) talked about holding a k-bar (crow-bar) in his teeth and climbing the side of an enemy vessel and killing as many people as he could before he died.

Oh, yeah, the two guys from Bahrain. Sammy and Fazzle. They were bros. Part of the team. Never for a second did we look at them sideways, even though we knew out in public Muslims were getting a bad rap. These were our boys. We knew them and we trusted them. They came to our graduation party, drank beer and ate pizza with ham on it. They were our boys.

I was ultimately stationed on the USS Nimitz (CVN 68). At that time not the oldest aircraft carrier, but damn close.

I left out a part. My son was conceived in Feb. 2001. Ahh, what peaceful world. Things were looking pretty chill. My son was born early October 2001. While I was in the hospital I watched bombs dropping in Afghanistan. The U.S. was at war.

It was 2002. Iraq was the target. Afghanistan was wrapped up. Old news. We were all ready to kick ***. In my new work shop on the Nimitz there was a heavy bag that had been drawn on with a black marker. It was a crude picture of Osama Bin Laden in a turban and above that was written "Osama Basher 2001." One of my workmates, FC3 Dillio, talked about the "red, white and blue *** hammer" that we were going to **** Husain with. I was down.

I was the father of a toddler.

We departed Hawaii, loaded our missile launchers and declared war against Iraq that evening. We were all pumped. How cool. Lets go **** Saddam in the ***!

I was all for it. I didn't like the popular justification for attacking Iraq so I invented my own (still think it's better than Bush's) but I was down. Let's do this!

My ship was passing through the Strait of Hormuz as Saddam's statue was pulled down. Damn the bad luck. The war was over...haha

Anyway. Long story already pretty long. Saddam was a genocidal maniac that deserved to be toppled. As bad as things are, they weren't better under Saddam. That was a horror show. He pretended to have chemical weapons and we bought it. It was a believable story. He had them in the past, we had inspections to make sure he got rid of them and he impeded those inspections. We left (thanks Clinton). And we weren't sure what was up. Saddam routinely fired upon the aircraft we had patrolling the no fly zone. He offered no proof that he had gotten rid of his chemical weapon production capacity. We called his bluff and he lost.

It's a mess. It sucks. Probably going to be a while until it's better.

Meanwhile I'm watching HBO and eating hamburgers with my 13yo son. Life is good. America is grand. And anyone wants to **** with us will get a taste of the red, white and blue *** hammer.
Click to expand...

So first I want to make one thing clear. I did not serve in Iraq. Not at all. I've never claimed that I did. I floated around on an aircraft carrier in the general geographical area of Iraq after Saddam's regime fell. Much of my time was spent playing Rainbow Six Rogue Spear, organizing poker games and occasionally getting drunk in Bahrain and Dubai. I would never attempt to compare what I did during that time to what other service members did. My experience may have been different than someone who just watched a lot of CNN, but not all that different.

What I tried to convey was my personal experience during that time. I was pretty honest about what I remember in snippets leading up to my deployment in 2003 in support of OIF and the GWT.

My reference to the RW&B *** hammer is meant to be somewhat comical. The person who said that to me meant it at the time. A short time latter his political views shifted, and just like most people in this thread he was opposed to the war in Iraq and knew it was a bad idea going in.

I'll just say, I vividly remember the mood leading up to our invasion of Iraq. And without pointing fingers, 9/10 people who say they knew it was a mistake going in have reconfigured their memory of that time. Knowing it was a mistake in 2004 is not the same thing as opposing it in April of 2003. There was VERY LITTLE opposition to our invasion. If you really were one of the extreme minority opponents of our invasion make sure to ask for a gold star next time you see me, you're special.

Like I said in my previous post. I did not agree with Bush's justification for invasion. I have my own justification. I've explained it before and would be happy to outline it again. But, my reason was not America's reason. My justification was not the reason we invaded. My objectives were not our nation's objectives. So, while I did not oppose the invasion at the time, I've never supported the reasons why we did it.

My final comment about the RW&B *** hammer is about the fact that right now there is a dumb kid starting his military journey who's down for whatever mission his country gives him. That dumb kid will execute that mission and will do so enthusiastically and with tremendous skill and bravery. Our war machine is better than your war machine. Our dumb kids are better equipped than your dumb kids. You want to throw your dumb kids into the grinder we'll grind them up finer than you'll grind up our dumb kids.

Was Iraq a mistake? Yes, it was. Was it our business to get rid of Saddam? No, it wasn't.

Have we learned our lesson? No, and I'm not sure we ever will.
 
heyhey said:
Pretty damn sure all these groups would answer "Nope, we're better off without Saddam!" without hesitation.

For Turks and Syrians it probably depends on which ones you ask.

The average Iraqi Sunni for sure would rather Saddam was still in power.
Click to expand...

I don't think so.

I don't think even Kuwait would prefer radical Islam to Saddam. Iraq is now a nest of anarchists, terrorists, and radicals. We opened a can of worms when we invaded. A can whose top was sealed as long as Hussein and his Baath party remained in power. Some countries should never have democracy. Iraq, with all of its different factions, should have remained what it was. Now, all hell is loose.
 
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