"Fox News" confirmed that officials are very interested in the labyrinth of labs and warehouses unearthed by U.S. forces.
Or FAUX NOISE...Enough said

I think that we are in Iraq for two reasons 1) cause baby bush wanted to clean up daddy bush's mess and 2) for oil..........now understand my son is a Sargeant in the Army and has served there and he believes that Iraq needed US Military to go in there...........this is the one thing that we disagree on because i dont believe that there is one person worth one of our American soldiers lives and that we should have went in and bombed it and made it a glow in the dark parking lot..............JMO

I have been to plenty of places in my time in the army. I went to the first gulf war and bosnia and mascedona. Did we make a mistake the first time yes we did we should have removed Saddam's ass then in 1990-1991. But our wonder congress/senate didn't want to. Like in Bosnia stopped a mad man from committing ethnic cleansing where this leader killed over 1 million people. Saddam did the same damn thing.

It is the right thing to do it's just plain and simple as a human being to stop someone from killing another just because of religion and the color of their skin. When I was there and saw the suffering of the people I really wanted to help and do whatever it took to make them safe. You felt so good inside and a lot of pride when you saw the smiles on their faces for helping them.

One of our soldiers is not worth one of theirs they are worth 10+ of theirs. People say the losses are so heavy but they are not in Vietnam, Korea and WWII we lost more soldiers in one battle than we have in this entire war on terror.

Is this for oil? Maybe a little but if it was all about oil we would be just taking Iraqi oil for payment and pumping the hell out of it and you would think our gasoline prices would lower a bit. We would be in a much bigger war if it was about oil. If we tried to take control of the iraqi oil fields we would have a war on our hands with communist countries.

I can talk on this a while.... some people need to just watch shindlers list or other history channels specials on ethnic cleansing you will see that regardless of the loss of US soldiers it is the right thing to do. This wouldn't even be an issue if we were the people that were being killed or oppressed

I of course support my buddies in the military 100% and served for 10 yrs. Yes we have US interests but we should always have human interests first.

That's just a few of my thoughts...


-D1-

Just a few thoughts on this topic with general disagreement with some issues raised here.

First, it is certainly incumbent on any human to help prevent the killing and genocide of another. I saw this in my service in Vietnam. Unfortunately, in Vietnam we were incompetent in our attitude toward the war and to be honest, by the time I arrived there in 1970 the basic credo was to keep your butt down and get home in one piece because our leadership was not trying to win the war. Iraq was and is a little different in that we had a dictator who was clearly operating genocide and mass murder, was creating instability in the region and was basically an insane person. With two insane sons to prove it is genetic. It was certainly a good thing to remove him from power and removed those who were a threat to stability which is about 50% of the population it appears, ( then who is guilty of genocide??) perhaps things would be better, perhaps not. To become embroiled in a civil war in that region is flawed and bad strategy in the war on terror.

I guess what I resent first of all is the Administration giving us a pile of hogwash as reasoning for getting into this war. It is now clear that from the President on down with dead eye Dick in the lead beating the drum, we were led into this war on false premises and much of what we feared has now been proven to not have been a threat at all. As the years have gone by and these facts become more apparent, we hear the message out of the Administration change to fit their purpose. When those of us opposed to the war in its present form speak out we are characterized by the opposition as somehow not being patriotic and we are therefore un-American.

If the President would have presented a plan to establish a democracy in the center of the Middle East at the beginning of this conflict, he would have met stiff opposition. He knew it and Cheney knew it. So getting Sadaam and finishing the job of the first Gulf War was good reasoning and had wide support. That should have been the end of it. The violence would have continued and we would have been dragged into it anyway I guess but it seems that we should have known a little about the culture as we planned for this war. There has been civil war between the Shiites and Sunnis for a thousand years if not longer. It is highly unlikely that our presence in the region would deal with the underlying cause of that cconflict or prevent it from escalating once the minority was removed from power. It should have been clear this was a major project of huge dimensions that was going to take many many years to stabilize. All this with a reduced military and no draft. So we are now bogged down in the desert without the strategical ability to carry out significant operations around the world without jeaprodizing the mission in Iraq for which so many ( and one is significant), have given their lives. It is unbelievable to me that are political and military leadership could be so incompetent.

I heard a group of Republican women at a forum on C-Span recently bemoaning the fact that those opposed to the war are ashamed of this country and what it stands for. it is a ridiculous and contemptable accusation. Many of us believe that it is good to help in situations but we need to be responsible and plan effectively before we risk American lives. We also need to understand that other people in other countries may not wish to mimic our form of government. That being said, we have encouraged the Iraqiis to form their own government under our watchful eye and it is not exactly a model after our own and for that we should give credit. But we will be embroiled in this part of the world for years to come no matter who is our next President. It is set in stone and in the desert sand now. No turning back. Meanwhile gasoline prices are going through the roof, ( another Bush/Cheney ploy that has turned out to be false), with no relief in sight.

Yes it is wonderful to help others and see their smiling faces. It is also not so wonderful to see the looks on faces of my friends here as they bury their children. I emember it from Vietnam and now see us making the same mistake again. If we want to do something like this we need to at least go in and do the job right with the proper resources. We CLEARLY did not do this. Because of that inept cowboy mentality and one that says ALL should want our form of government and we must be the policeman of the world, we allow ourselves to be the cop in one section and ignore all the rest. Does not make sense to me.

I spoke with a friend the other day who lost his 19 year old son in Iraq last April. He said he did not understand those who oppose the war in its present state and still say they support the troops. I suppose that is understandable. It is also an insult to our intelligence...the loyal opposition. We support those who are working for us. We do not support the policy that sends our troops there. It is that simple. I will send them cards and I will work for proper equipment. I will not submit to this ideal that we should support the war because the government tells us too and if we don't it means we are unpatriotic. I submit we do not have unlimited amounts of money and we have many who suffer and die in this country. And I would further submit I am not living in 1930's Germany and resent a government who wants to stupidly take us back to that era of propaganda. Is that what we are fighting for??? It is a disgrace and I am sorry...w need to rethink what we are doing before we start trying to run around the world and telling others what to do. Just my opinion.

There is a 3 letter word why Bush put us in Iraq - "OIL"

In my humble opinion, had Saddam and his son's actions gone beyond Iraq into Iran or Saudi supported regions they would have been taken care of either by the Iranians (who we supported under the Shah and sent in ton's of arms and technology and the current administration got when they threw out the Shah) or the Saudis (who we support and have snet in tons of arms and technology).

But no, Bush had to go in and do his thing, without the support of the international community. So we are going it retty much alone while the world watches us spend our dollars on the war and look where it has gotten us financially and who will get cost paying off this horrible debt...us, our kids, and grandkids.

Yes I agree with that. I had another thought also, which is always dangerous but here goes..... We did not accumulate this kind of debt when the old Soviet Union fell. Now I agree with Dark One that we all have a responsibility to fight the kinds of tyranny we see around the world. But if you think about the Soviets , and it can be argued that there were few nations that exhibited the kind of disregard for freedom and the kinds of imprisonment and murder promoted by the Communist regimes, they were overthrown and replaced and have worked their own economic plan and are struggling along without our intervention. We never went into debt and we never lost a soldier over that. It was done by the citizens of Russia. This, the nation that we all feared as children and caused many a drill in our school days of hiding under our desk for the impending nuclear attack. All done without debt to our society. This a key component of the evil empire as coined by George Bush.

I guess some just don't like to learn from history.

Most excellent posts IAim2

Unfortunetly we are dealing with religion here... when USA and USSR were head to head all teh time it wasn't about religion. I personally think it is just dumb to fight over religion. More people have been killed because of their religion than in all the wars of the world.

Nuclear weapons were a deterent in the cold war. Are they now??? Not really some people are so possessed by their religion that they are blind to the consequences of their actions. People take things out of context and shape it into a rac, religious or rights war instead of common sense and doing what is right.

We will always be in Bosnia why? Because there is so much hate between the people/religions that they breed it into their children to hate. So it just keeps going.... Even thou my father was in Vietnam. He killed people and he was wounded. he didn't come home and teach me that they were bad people or Russians were bad people.

I don't preach being passive... I am all about protecting my family and country and will agree with pretty much anything to preserve that.

This isn't a war for oil... if it was we would have a lot more dead soldiers... because more nations would be involved trust me. China and Russia would not just let us take what we want.

DarkOne wrote:Unfortunetly we are dealing with religion here... when USA and USSR were head to head all teh time it wasn't about religion. I personally think it is just dumb to fight over religion. More people have been killed because of their religion than in all the wars of the world.

Nuclear weapons were a deterent in the cold war. Are they now??? Not really some people are so possessed by their religion that they are blind to the consequences of their actions. People take things out of context and shape it into a rac, religious or rights war instead of common sense and doing what is right.

We will always be in Bosnia why? Because there is so much hate between the people/religions that they breed it into their children to hate. So it just keeps going.... Even thou my father was in Vietnam. He killed people and he was wounded. he didn't come home and teach me that they were bad people or Russians were bad people.

I don't preach being passive... I am all about protecting my family and country and will agree with pretty much anything to preserve that.

This isn't a war for oil... if it was we would have a lot more dead soldiers... because more nations would be involved trust me. China and Russia would not just let us take what we want.

And for that reason we have to maitain our scientific and military superiority.