It's not BS, it is reality. You assume that our military effort
was a waste but it was not. Without it, Saddam would still be
in power torturing people and funding terrorism quite possibly
directed at the U.S. with his oil money.

I am grateful that we are leaving Iraq and that Saddam is gone.
The bill? It was high but not so high as it would have been when
Saddam had funded terrorism on our own soil. All wars have a
horrendous price but there is also a price for inaction.

The contractors? They do what they have done since the beginning
of time. They sell arms and expertise. What the heck got to make
a living somehow. The military is not our biggest budget problem
by a long shot.

Realy dude If saddam were still in power that would be a negative but what they have now is far far worse. The only thing that keeps you from agreeing is you would have to activly educate yourself as to how bad Iraq is under US occupation. The Media simply doesnt do documentaries about the lives of the average Iraqis after our invasion it would be to shamefull.

Oh c'mon!

1. We are out of Iraq now. It's over. No occupation. Never was one.
2. How is what they have now worse than Saddam?

What is it? The freedom of the Kurds? The new political power of
the Shite majority? The Sunnis having to share power?

Surely it is not the political turmoil or the internal fighting.
The blame for that goes to the Iraqis themselves and agitators
like the Baath party, religious extremists and Iran all of which
was there with Saddam also...

If it wasn't Bush
it had to be the Israelis.

On Monday, April 5, Wikileaks.org posted video footage from Iraq, taken from a US military Apache helicopter in July 2007 as soldiers aboard it killed 12 people and wounded two children. The dead included two employees of the Reuters news agency: photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and driver Saeed Chmagh.
The US military confirmed the authenticity of the video.
The footage clearly shows an unprovoked slaughter, and is shocking to watch whilst listening to the casual conversation of the soldiers in the background.
As disturbing as the video is, this type of behavior by US soldiers in Iraq is not uncommon.
Truthout has spoken with several soldiers who shared equally horrific stories of the slaughtering of innocent Iraqis by US occupation forces.
"I remember one woman walking by," said Jason Washburn, a corporal in the US Marines who served three tours in Iraq. He told the audience at the Winter Soldier hearings that took place March 13-16, 2008, in Silver Spring, Maryland, "She was carrying a huge bag, and she looked like she was heading toward us, so we lit her up with the Mark 19, which is an automatic grenade launcher, and when the dust settled, we realized that the bag was full of groceries. She had been trying to bring us food and we blew her to pieces."
http://www.truth-out.org/iraq-war-vet-we-were-told-just-shoot-people-and-officers-would-take-care-us58378

and your point is? have you even been in a war? if not, how can you blame others for something you know nothing about?

What's your point? This is no evidence that Iraqis are worse off now.

So it was an accident in an area where the US was experiencing
attacks from hostiles disguised as civilians. A tragedy of war,
very sad, but not intentional, not a slaughter, not an occupation.

And certainly not an indication in any way that the Iraqis are
somehow worse off now than under Saddam Hussein when torture of
political opponents and undesirable ethnicities were done on
purpose for no other reason than to instill fear in the general
population and discourage dissent. Saddam's actions were much
worse, deliberate and larger in scope. Not to be compared with
an accident.

I think you need to get your information from other sources than Fox news. I suppose one would have to ask the Iraqis themselves how they feel.

About 90 percent of Iraqis feel the situation in the country was better before the U.S.-led invasion than it is today, according to a new ICRSS poll.

The findings emerged after house-to-house interviews conducted by the ICRSS during the third week of November. About 2,000 people from Baghdad (82 percent), Anbar and Najaf (9 percent each) were randomly asked to express their opinion. Twenty-four percent of the respondents were women.

Only five percent of those questioned said Iraq is better today than in 2003. While 89 percent of the people said the political situation had deteriorated, 79 percent saw a decline in the economic situation; 12 percent felt things had improved and 9 percent said there was no change. Predictably, 95 percent felt the security situation was worse than before.



Continue reading at NowPublic.com: 90% of Iraqis say they were better off under Saddam Hussein | NowPublic News Coverage http://www.nowpublic.com/90_of_iraqis_say_they_were_better_off_under_saddam_hussein#ixzz19TTrBG1n

seriously do you live in an information vacume?

Okay guys....I've been out of the loop for a bit. I have a lot going on lately...

I just have to ask you one question:

Have you ever sat down and talked to a foreign emissary? I did....from the Middle East....at the time of the Iran-Iraq War. Plus, my cousin was a ranking member in the US State Dept. when this was all happening.

Point is, stop relying on web reports. Back when I got my information about what was going on, the web was just a pipe dream. I received my info from people directly involved in what was happening in the Middle East....in Libya, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon.

Saddam was given aid to counteract the overthrow of the Shah in Iran. The US funded Iraq in an attempt to oust the Iranian Fundamentalist regime. Saddam proved unreliable and unstable. In fact, many Arab countries were becoming increasingly worried by Iraq and Saddam Hussein. The UN applied pressure to end the Iran-Iraq War. (Yes, the UN actually was effective at one point.) When Saddam gassed the Kurds, the UN pressed for increased sanctions against Iraq. The US cutoff aid to Iraq. By the time of the Gulf War, events had been 6 years in the making. The US, Europe, and many Arab countries were actually waiting for Saddam to give them a reason to stomp him back into place. Hell, I had an ambassador (whose navy fleet consisted of 40 mercantile vessels) tell me that he was defenseless against Iraq if Saddam decided to move into Kuwait. That was in 1987. Arab countries were actually afraid of Saddam Hussein regardless of what B.S. you want to listen to.

Did we create Saddam? Yes. We did it because of the Iranian Hostage Crisis.
Did we misjudge him? Of course.
Did other countries look to us to rectify the situation? Of course.
Did we did do it when we should have? No. We let fear control us.
Did Arab countries have a backlash? To an extent. Many smaller Arab countries withdrew from US confidence.
Why? Because they have Oil. They wanted to create enough pain for Americans to feel it in the wallet.
Did it come to fruition? No, because Iraq invaded Kuwait.

In other words, Saddam felt confident that the US would not oppose him. At the same time, he wanted to blackmail the US by gaining the oil reserves of smaller Arab countries. He would have tried to take as many small Gulf countries as he could. All just to boost revenue

The U.S., which followed developments in the Iran-Iraq war with extraordinary intensity, had intelligence confirming Iran's accusations, and describing Iraq's "almost daily" use of chemical weapons, concurrent with its policy review and decision to support Iraq in the war [Document 24]. The intelligence indicated that Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces, and, according to a November 1983 memo, against "Kurdish insurgents" as well [Document 25].

What was the Reagan administration's response? A State Department account indicates that the administration had decided to limit its "efforts against the Iraqi CW program to close monitoring because of our strict neutrality in the Gulf war, the sensitivity of sources, and the low probability of achieving desired results." But the department noted in late November 1983 that "with the essential assistance of foreign firms, Iraq ha[d] become able to deploy and use CW and probably has built up large reserves of CW for further use. Given its desperation to end the war, Iraq may again use lethal or incapacitating CW, particularly if Iran threatens to break through Iraqi lines in a large-scale attack" [Document 25]. The State Department argued that the U.S. needed to respond in some way to maintain the credibility of its official opposition to chemical warfare, and recommended that the National Security Council discuss the issue.

Following further high-level policy review, Ronald Reagan issued National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 114, dated November 26, 1983, concerned specifically with U.S. policy toward the Iran-Iraq war. The directive reflects the administration's priorities: it calls for heightened regional military cooperation to defend oil facilities, and measures to improve U.S. military capabilities in the Persian Gulf, and directs the secretaries of state and defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to take appropriate measures to respond to tensions in the area. It states, "Because of the real and psychological impact of a curtailment in the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf on the international economic system, we must assure our readiness to deal promptly with actions aimed at disrupting that traffic." It does not mention chemical weapons [Document 26].

Soon thereafter, Donald Rumsfeld (who had served in various positions in the Nixon and Ford administrations, including as President Ford's defense secretary, and at this time headed the multinational pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle & Co.) was dispatched to the Middle East as a presidential envoy. His December 1983 tour of regional capitals included Baghdad, where he was to establish "direct contact between an envoy of President Reagan and President Saddam Hussein," while emphasizing "his close relationship" with the president [Document 28]. Rumsfeld met with Saddam, and the two discussed regional issues of mutual interest, shared enmity toward Iran and Syria, and the U.S.'s efforts to find alternative routes to transport Iraq's oil; its facilities in the Persian Gulf had been shut down by Iran, and Iran's ally, Syria, had cut off a pipeline that transported Iraqi oil through its territory. Rumsfeld made no reference to chemical weapons, according to detailed notes on the meeting [Document 31].

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

Ah,
to be young and naive again.
No Thanks.


The US supplied both sides during the Iraq/Iran war.

You have this innocent naive way of looking and believing in the US's Good Samaritan image.
And you do so, despite a Veteran telling you different.

Do you really think that we are so good?
Do you really believe we would not Nuke, gas, or spread biological agents?

We are the only country in history to use Nuclear weapons on another, and we did it twice, with the intent to drop 5 more if they didn't surrender.
You do acknowledge that reality. Right?
You also acknowledge the fact that we did this to civilian populations and not a military complex. Right?

Do you believe that we fire-bombed civilian population centers?

Do you believe we stockpile more biological and chemical weapons than any other nation on earth?

Do you believe we manufacture and stockpile these weapons just for show or to use?


I'm telling you, we have them and we have a military that would gladly use them if told to.
After all, it is their duty to do as told and not to question why.
(Not a cliché.)

any proof? or is this just your opinion? and if your in the military, and your boss tells you to press a button, you better press the button or court martial time...it's congress and the president that authorizes any strike, not the military.

It is just his opinion.

No Gentlemen of peace.

It is first hand knowledge of the reality your gov wont tell you publicly.

Facts boys
Cold hard facts.