Originally posted by kendall
bwahahahaha!
its pathetic that even though a country that has been oppressed for almost 3 decades is on the brink of freedom, you still chant your BS angry anti war sentiments.
why can't you just be happy for these people? no longer will they have to live in fear of death squads nor live in sub-humane conditions.
pull your head out of your ass. where the hell are your priorities?
as for an "unprovoked attack", saddam has killed 100,000s of his own people! he released chemical weapons on 1000s of kurds! do you know what its like to be eaten alive by chemicals?! i dont and dont want to find out!
we should have smeared that son of a bitch all over the interior of a under ground bunker with a tomahawk missile 10 years ago and would have if it wasn't for the UN.
the iraqi people will be better off without the government that they had. i'm so glad that the iraqi people seem to be happy.
that being said, a little history is in order. saddam hussein rose to power through his ba'ath party which was a radical political organization in iraq in the 60's and 70's. the cia wanted a change in iraqi leadership at that time as well as now. the ba'ath party was their choice for funding and support. saddam hussein took power in a quasi-coup and eliminated many of his political enemies by execution. so at this point in the late 70's saddam was basically the dictator of iraq. during the 80's ronald reagan, in a throwback to containment, extended american support to iraq to try to build a relationship with them. the reagan administration wanted to sever ties between russia and iraq, and it also wanted iraq to be victorious over iran. the my enemy's enemy is my friend philosophy. in order to help iraq win that war, we gave them military aid and intelligience, specifically the helicopters that were used to gas the kurds in the north were american. the war came to a stailmate and ended, but support for the iraqi regime kept coming through reagan's vice turned president george bush sr. america along with other countries furiousely protested the chemical attacks against the kurds, but little action resulted. i forget who, but one of the cabinet members went to visit iraq and during late 1990 i think. there was a meeting with a top iraqi official, and iraq was expressing their desire to invade kuwait for various reasons. price of oil and territorial claims were some of them. the u.s. official had an apathetic response and basically told them to do it nicely or something. the whole world responded to the invasion. american people were overwhelmingly opposed to any military action. most people kept saying it would be another vietnam, and that scared a lot of people. colin powell was an advocate of no military action but prolonged sanctions. president bush wanted to get the job done quickly and wasn't prepared to wait 2 years or more. through the un they assembled a coalition, and most of the countries in the un supported the action. the forces quickly "liberated" kuwait and reinstated the non-democratic government that existed prior to iraqi invasion. there was an oppurtunity to pursue iraqi forces into iraq and destroy them, the coalition made some progress in iraq, perhaps a little too much progress. after it was clear that it was becoming a turkey shoot, specifically the highway of death incident, international and domestic opinion concluded that the mission was over because the objectives had been met. there un didn't prevent the removal of saddam, it was decision made by the leaders of the coalition. the post desert storm inspections were hindered by saddam's willingness to prevent access to random places. the inspectors worked however for several years untill iraq officially expelled them in 1998. during that seven years the inspectors made huge strides in dismantling iraqs wmd production capability. after the expulsion of inspectors, then during the clinton administration, there were randam clashes above the no fly zones in iraq, there were airstrikes ordered against targets in iraq. in 2001 bush jr. became president, in september of that year, the world trade center was destroyed by terrorists that hijacked airplanes and flew them into the buildings. this terrorist attack prompted a wordwide war on terror, and immediately brought military action to afghanistan where the alleged master mind osama bin laden was living. in january 2002, president bush delivered the state of the union adress that grouped iran, iraq, and north korea into "an axis of evil". during the second half of 2002 those words seemed to manifest themselves. north korea, in a series of off the wall foreign policy moves, further isolated itself from the rest of the world. iran is believed to have started building a nuclear reactor which the u.s. claims is for nuclear weapons production, and then iranians claim is benign. then the rhetoric about iraq began to heat up. the u.s. started making claims about iraq having weapons of mass destruction and how that was illegal under the u.n. resolutions following desert storm. the bigger claim was that iraq was a threat to national security and so that justified regime change in iraq. after much talk the u.s. decided to submit a resolution to the u.n. demanding that iraq disarm or "face the concequences" which meant the u.s. would invade. the inspections regime resumed in order to verify iraqi compliance with the u.n. resolution after iraq submitted a report declaring that they had no weapons of mass destruction. a six month political battle ensued over how to deal with iraq. the u.s. was consistantly pushing for war, arguing that iraq had not met the terms. other countries like france, germany, and russia, saw no evidence of wmd being reported by the weapons inspectors so saw no need for military action. the u.s. tried to argue the link between iraq and terrorism, and then tried to argue that a regime change was necessary because of humanitarian reasons. the countries opposed to war stood more or less steadfast in their oppinions. since france and russia are permanent veto wielding members, their support of u.n. action was fairly crucial. late in january the u.s. set itself on a course to go to war. continually proclaiming that it was up to saddam hussein to prove that iraq has disarmed, or the u.s. will invade. the final diplomatic thrust would have been a second resolution calling for invasion. the u.s. and britain failed however to convince any of the previousely opposed countries on the security council that it was necessary to go to war with iraq. those countries cited recent cooperation with inspectors as evidence that inspections were working. the u.s. was set to propse the resolution but failed to secure the nine votes it would need for passage. france and russia had threatened to veto the resolution had it been introduced, but many argue that the u.s. would have introduced it regardless if it knew it had the nine votes. the diplomatic failure led to action by the u.s. and britain invading iraq.
feel free to add or change any of these facts if i got them wrong.
hopefully people realize that governmental actions are very complex and are rooted in history. to slap a label on a war like "operation iraqi freedom" is to ignore the entire string of events that led up to the invasion. freedom of the iraqi people was never the reason we wanted a regime change untill the administration realized it was a good argument. imagine if from the get go bush had said, "look, saddam has got to go because he murders innocent people and has used chemical weapons on innocent people in the past." imagine if bush had said that, and then asked the u.n. to help remove a dictator that commits human rights violations, which countries would be arguing against that? no one, because it's a good argument.
i hope we don't always have to rely on military action. but if bush is going to be using the military anyway, i think he should go ahead and rid the world of any government where the people aren't free. i'm being completely serious by the way. i don't want my government to claim that we're invading iraq to free the iraqi's, but just ignore the fate of other countries with similar situations. why not have "operation free the planet."
Unlike other contributors to the discussion (and regrettably sometimes myself), you come with facts and reasons instead of insults and ignorance. 
