Do u think the war on Iraq was a good idea or a bad idea?
365170
A very bad idea as follows:\n\n1) No connection of Iraq to Al Quaeda and no wmd's therefore Iraq was not a national threat.\n\n2) Bush did not have UN inspectors finish the job and did not follow the resolution agreement.\n\n3) First U.S. war that we attacked a country before being attacked. Lost a lot of our credibility with our allies.\n\n4) Financially crippling to the United States. Tried to do war on the cheap, under manned and under equipped with no exit strategy. Continue with tax cuts and no draft even though the war is costing billions of dollars. This is the second war the U.S. has not raised taxes, the first was Vietnam (at least that had a draft).\n\n5) Outsourced to "Private Companies" support logistics, security and intelligence gathering which resulted in no bid contracts and the torture scandals. \n\nHaving said all of this, the only good this war can bring is the ousting of a dictator and a theocracy (democracy in this region of the world would imply woman were equal and religion stayed out of politics).
591571
your thinking of Council for Foreign Relations, these 'think tanks' tend to suggest 'society should be going this way' then funnily enough, there's a policy shift towards the suggestion. it doesn't happen all the time. post 2003, Zbigniew Brzezinski suggested the best thing to do after the mess-up in Iraq was to deal with Iran through diplomacy, even though some of his compadres were advocating war.
37156
The war was supposed to cost 10 billion dollars and will end up costing between 1 and 2 trillion so I would say that unless Iraq ends up looking like the emerald city of OZ and the terrorists all apologize on national TV every superbowl sunday, that it was not worth it.\n\nOh yeah, and lots of people died for no reason.
689443
Yes.\nI lost many friends...and almost myself...over the president's greed for OIL.\n\nOperation Liberate Iraq..... my @ss!!!!
425044
No.  All Bush had to do was read one of his fathers essays to know why it was a bad idea.  Even Cheney was against invading Iraq before he was for it.  The war has created more terrorists and terrorism while not dealing with any of the sources of terrorism.\n\n"I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we'd have had to hunt him down. And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place. What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or Ba'athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable? I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the President got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq."\n\n    * At the Washington Institute's Soref Symposium, April 29, 1991
85928
I think it's a bad bad idea. for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and though man likes to think he can control the action and predict the reaction, i shudder to think what nature could react with if the action is bad enough... That is one can of worms that would be better left alone....
359245
no, it was not a bad idea.  There are other reasons by US students are last.\n\nNot sure how much effect it has on our contry.  The US is still by far the strongest economy in the world, and a large part of that is because of its highly skilled workforce.
1166865
Are you asking if the war in Iraq was meant fight\nterrorism or create it?\n\nThe war in Iraq has only made terrorism worse.\nHow could it also NOT be about oil.\n\nLook at the people who run this country!\nhttp://amconmag.com/2004_06_07/review.html\n\nIs Tweety on something. HEY TWEETY!! WE DID IT! WE STOLE THERE OIL!
557849
there has to be war sometime. but i do not like it at all. i think that we can settle things with communication and agreement. i think that the war in iraq is because the president is not thinking about how to solve it without war. he says he is a christian but we do not believe in violence. \n                          -peace child
267161
Some of us Americans morn the Iraqi deaths as well as the American. War is bad for living things, we should have never been there in the first place. Our invasion was completely wrong and should have never happened, our leadership made a bad decision and continues to make bad decisions and there is little we can do until the next election.
761623
Thats not a bad idea, the problem is, in many red states, 49% of the people disagree with the war. Plus, the bulk of the citizen soldiers come from familys that opposed the war, so again, it would be the democrates paying for the republicans mistakes.\n\nMy suggestion would be that anyone who votes republican should have to serve in the military, or there children should serve in there place. Starting with the Bush twins....
757967
Huge mistake is correct.  What could possibly be wise about the whole exercise?  Wise to put the shiites in power thus strengthening Iran?  Wise to kill 150,000 Iraqis?  Wise to put our soldiers in the middle of a civil war?  Is it wise to execute Saddam thus heightening the sectarian violence?  Nothing about it is wise.
561467
No kidding.  War, like all violence, is bad.  Have you ever noticed how it's frequently the soldiers who understand this best?  Yet for interesting reflection, check out just war theory.
1025560
I think there are good points and bad ones. First it was Not a lie that got us into Iraq. It was however misinformation. WM-D's have been found in Iraq. In ammunition shells. The media has gotten allot of misinformation out there. I have talked to several soldiers that have been to Iraq and they all say the same thing.\n1. The people are friendly.\n2. They are scared of the terrorists not the troops.\n3. There are allot more freedoms there now and the people know it.\n4. The violence that is always talked about is rare as a whole considering the size of country and number of people.\n5. There is so much progress with schools and shops opening now than during Saddam.\n\nI say we stay for now. If we leave it would give Iran an excuse to try to finish Iraq like it tried during the Iran Iraq war. Which would be a catastrophe. The Iraqi people should be trained and able to take over the security of their people. Then we should start pulling troops out a little at a time to ensure the stability of the country.\n\nAs for North Korea. The missile situation is just another example of a puny little man trying to wave a big stick. The international community (esp. china, japan, south Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, etc.) will not allow the north Korean government to harm another nation. If it does rattle its saber it would see an undeniable massive response from the world.\n\nAlso for your information. Although we have lost over 2500 people during the war in Iraq. It is still under the death rate in the U.S. In 1996 the death rate was 872.5 deaths per 100,000 people. Since we have been in iraq for over 4 years the death toll would equate to 3,490. Per the source below.
1025953
The problem with your suggestion is that democrats can't win elections with it; and they are solely focused on the negative simply to win their November elections.  Positive thinking would only hurt their cause and morale of Iraqis and even our troops is not of their interest - winning is....pretty sad isn't it.
354119
I think that it is a well thought out plan for anti-terroisum because the extremest that want to hurt the us go to iraq and attack well trained soilders rather than u.s. civillins. soilders fight back civlians cry and would then complain about how the president and the government is not protecting them when in fact thats what the soilders in iraq are doing right now! Bush is a great president and if you dont like this country leave its as simple as that. as for the soilders we are proud of what we do and i say we because i am one and i feel like one year is nothing if you look at other wars that we have fought one year is nothing in ww2 soilders were gone for 3 or 4 years. we do whats right and all we ask for is respect. think about this if bush had done nothing about the sept 11 attacks how many other civilians would have died though other terroist attacks i would love to shake the presidents hand
757206
It's one option being looked at. My own view is that the war was a mistake in the first place, but having invaded, we now have a moral responsibility to the people of Iraq to leave them a stable government with a chance at lasting peace. I hate that people are dying there, and wish it could all stop today, but it won't, no matter what we do. And if sending more troops now will give Iraq a better chance of having long term peace, I think we should do it. I don't know what the best answer is, but hopefully if we put the decision making process in the hands of people who are open to ideas rather than political hacks (a la Rumsfeld) we can come up with something.