the sad fact is that all the issues being discussed here is our OPINIONS of what has already taken place, what is still to take place and what would have taken place if some event in the past was different.

Saying our allies were trying to save us from making a big mistake implies they did not have their own agenda and we all do (face it)

Maybe if the US didn't invade then the world would all love us and we would have one hell of a parade ( :) ) .... or maybe NY or LA would have disappeared in a mushroom cloud. None of us can say.

you get to choose what you want to believe and if it happens to include rose colored glasses, that is your right! :browhappy

Wow, Saddam had NUCLEAR weapons along with the WMDs?

No, but Libya was well on the way.

Have we forgotten about North Korea again? By Bush's standards, they're the ones we should have invaded, on the premise of disarming the baddies and protecting its neighbors from WMDs. North Korea was (still is?) on the Axis of Evil list too. No one can prove Saddam had nukes because he didn't have nukes and wouldn't have had nukes for quite a while. Meanwhile, North Korea was over there waving its arms going "Hey look what I have! Pay attention to MEEEE!!" while pointing frantically at operational nuclear facilities and test missles that are already there, not merely in plans. And in the time most of America was looking at Iraq with blinders on, North Korea had its way and started up its nuke factory.

And then there's India. What about India? There's virtually no fundamental Christians in India and they have nukes. And they're right next door to all these Questionables, like Iran. Who's to say that...ohhh wait...many of our businesses are outsourcing jobs and moving whole divisions there, so we wouldn't want to go to war there. Yet. Okay. :smashfrea

My comment was merely to point out that NONE OF US KNOW. If you think you do, then you choose to believe a media source that said what you wanted to hear. Does the fact that no one has yet proved Saddam had WMD mean that he did not? Or that he would not have gone underground with either an attempt to make them or an attempt to buy they from N. Korea (will make the assumption that Iran would never give him one unless the fuse was lit :) ) You guess is as good as mine. I am just trying to not be cynical when I have to acknowledge the facts presented to me are from sources that have to be questioned every time.

Do you really think we invaded Iraq to save the Iraqi people. Considering how many brutal regimes we don't invade, not even counting our refusal to interfere in cases of outright genocide, I would argue the reason for the Iraqi invasion was political or strategic.

As a result of the invasion, we have 200 billion less to deal with our own issues, not to mention 1000+ soldiers lives lost and thousands more injured for life. How much would it have cost to keep the pressure on Iraq?

Let's see, did a massive invasion of their country and never found any WMDs, and the great President of these United States (i.e. the guy who started the war) ADMITTED that there are no WMDs. I think that's pretty good "proof."

never said we invaded Iraq for WMD...never said we did it to save the Iraqi people...so are you saying we SHOULD invade every country that has a brutal regime? As for the money, now you are putting a price on human life in Iraq (just making a point here).... now the US troops lost I agree is, in my mind, the mort horrific aspect of this whole thing. I think the war itself has been criminally mismanaged. I am not trying to defend Bush, just the US.

garnet, do you honestly think that you, or any of us, know what was found there and what was not? Be willing to bet we know 10% of the real details of what the hell is really going on. You want to think you know the truth when you have just read the same news stories that all of us have been fed, then that is your prerogative (and that is part of our freedom as well)

No but I would think the President of the US would know what's going on in Iraq. What would be the point of him admitting to the American people he was wrong about WMDs? Do you think he lied to us? Sorry, I don't get your point.

I'm walking right out of here.... :D

Are you saying that the adminstration found conclusive evidence, better than the aluminum tubes they trotted out, and deliberately suppressed that evidence, even when doing so cost them huge amounts of credibility and political capital?

If there was a shred of evidence supporting the invasion, this adminstration would be sending copies to every media outlet on the planet.

Well, it looks like the Luddites have discovered computers.

http://notsorryeverybody.com/

I agree...I am tired of arguing with everyone who apparently KNOWS EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERYTHING as my only point in this whole thread has been that we don't know all the facts and you get to draw your own BIASED conclusions..... too many people who didn't get their way and want to argue

I am outta here.....

When you don't know the facts, or are trying to prove a negative (logically impossible), don't you go on best known information? You know, years of weapons inspections finding nothing and effective (albeit choking) sanctions making sure nothing new comes in. Do you go on satellite readings that would have detected a handful of nuclear material showing up nothing? Do you go on the fact that there was obviously an agenda to invade the country and that the bushies were simply waiting for an opportunity to go in? Do you go on the fact that even the biggest proponents of the WMD idea have had to come back, wip the egg off of their faces and admit they were wrong? Or do you just bomb the fuck out of the entire planet because we don't know if any nation actually has WMD?

As far as defending the US, the best thing for America to do is to get its head out of its ass and admit the truth: We fucked up, we're sorry, and we need help. Because we did fuck up, we went to war on a false pretense. Whether we believed it to be true is notwithstanding. We are sorry, or at least we should be. We made a mess in Iraq and, while life is indeed better for the average citizen, it's also better for the average terrorist. And we do need help: the cost of this war in money and lives is higher than we ever predicted, and while it won't bankrupt the nation, it'd be a nice gesture to help put the stop-loss on our financial situation and for me not to have to go to my good friend from high-school's funeral in a couple of days. I wonder how many other graduating classes are going to have memorial pages in the program at their 5 year reunion...

I think the word you are looking for is "satirists."