was the war in Irak a good idea?
409472
War is never a good idea. Peace is what I call a good idea.
141801
Yes.\nIt cost thousands of lives,hundreds of billions of dollars,\nand lowered the standing of the U.S. in the international\ncommunity. Even when the war ends there will be a cost-the\npeace of mind of many who served,suffering from post-traumatic stress.\n All of this to confiscate Weapons of Mass Destruction that\nnever existed.\n Invading Iraq was a colossal mistake.
1036909
Yes.  \n\nThe debate over the reasons for being there and was it right or wrong really mean nothing now - it is done.\n\nNow the focus should be on providing the time and opportunity for the Iraqis to form and protect some form of stable government that is satisfactory to all the factions in the country.\n\nCan this happen?   Probably not.  I personally see little hope for a country where the religious leaders control the minds of the people as they do, have their own militias, and can murder the leader of a rival sect and get away with it.
823863
I truly do not know how to answer this question in full. I, personally, am not particularly fond of war, and yet it is a fact that it happens. So, then, what to think and do about it?\n\nJust for example, it would appear that Allied retaliation to the Axis during World War II was justified war. Germany was attempting to take over Europe and parts of Eurasia and spread its hate-centered, anti-Jewish zeitgeist all over the place. It would seem to me that the desire to exterminate an entire people based upon their bloodline--i.e., the Jews in this case--is evil and should be stopped. While there were many other motives involved in that war--Germany's wish for power and resources--it was the anti-Semitism that was most abhorrent, and thereby justified cause for war.\n\nFast-forward to the modern-day war waged between the U.S. and Iraq. The declaration insists that this is about terrorism and tyranny.  But we all know that Hussein was not directly allied with Al-Qaeda, even if he had certain affections for them. That is, Iraq was not the cause for the attacks on the U.S. on 9/11/01...and yet many Americans were led to believe that it was. So the reasoning for the war got changed from anti-terrorism to pro-democracy...which is, in this one case, insufficient cause to go to war. Iraqis--many, at least--did not ask the U.S. for help in liberating itself, and so the U.S. is attempting to force its system of government onto a foreign land when many in that land are opposed to it. So the question of evil is confused here. If many Iraqis had been pleading for the U.S. to help them, that would be another story. If the U.S. just sees that others are oppressed, or whatever, and rides in on the white horses in an attempt to bring liberation, this seems unjustifiable.\n\nGood and evil are not in the eye of the beholder, I don't think. But I do think that "good" and "evil" are ill-defined for political purposes a lot of the time, and that many are led to believe certain others are evil so as a state-sponsored war can be waged...when the true motives for that war are undisclosed to the very people supporting it.\n\nBut to give a clear and simple answer to your bigger question, "What's to say what's good and what's evil?"...God is to say what is good and what is evil. It is just a question of whether the people waging and fighting war have sought God's will and guidance before engaging their military machines. And we all know that more naive minds can be manipulated into believing that a war is God's will when really it is the mere will of people who are seeking access to natural resources, strongholds in unstable regions, land, power, and glory.
83488
Will the war ever be justified to someone like you? As can be seen from your question, no.  You have already made up your mind.  \n\nSaddam Hussein was a ruthless dictator who killed millions, used WMDs, and numerous intelligence sources stated that he was ready to use them again.\nMillions of Iraqis who are free to now vote for their own futures believe the war was justified.  Millions of children who can go to school and learn, allowing Iraq to move into the 21st century will make the war worth it.\n\nNaysayers like you would have stopped after Gettysburg, saying the loss of life isn't worth it.  You would have pulled troops out in the middle of Normandy, since Germany never attacked us, Japan did.\n\nEach day Iraqi that wakes up with his and her God-given freedom to do as s/he wishes and live a good life is justification.
928147
No.  The entire process was doomed from the beginning.  Besides the fact that the operation was poorly planned and executed, the people of Iraq have too many long standing ethnic/religious differences.  Just like eastern Europe under the Communist regimes, these differences were quelled by the strong-armed rule of Sadaam.  We are dreaming if we think that we will force middle eastern people to become like us.  They will not accept our religion or our western values.   They will have to work it out themselves with our support, not our intervention.
420595
LOL, AWESOME!  I think that it would be good for more people to join the military...especially the ones who have never been in Iraq (and never will be) yet still think they know what's going on over there!  Too bad we'll have to wait until 2024...the war will be over by then!
353493
Sounds like a good idea in theory, but here is the problem, there are so many wars in Africa, more than I can count. If you could get every war lord, every dictator, every ruler in Africa to stop fighting, than something like that could be done. But until then good luck.  The only thing you can do is local help in areas of Africa were there is no fighting or little fighting. However these are the places in Africa there are realatively well off.  The fact is WAR CAUSES POVERTY, therefore the more war there is the more poverty there is.
405988
Unfortunately, yes.\n\nIt wasn't worth it before the war... now, there's no choice.\n\nIraq was a tyranny, true, but it wasn't a threat for the rest of the world. The invasion destroyed the power structure of the country without stablishing a new one. If the US troops left the country, a true rogue state would appear. As our parents always say, if you break something you've either to fix it or to pay for it (maybe both).\n\nWhen the soviet troops left Afganisthan, they left behind a friendly government with a well-equipped army to fight against the rebels. We all know how it ended, and nobody wants Iraq to end like that.
1112740
I don't think the war should have happened to begin with. Yeah getting Saddam was a plus but so far it's been the only positive of going there. Now here we are a couple years later and we're still fighting. Saddam was a bad guy I'm not going to deny that but we didn't go over there to remove him from power. We were supposed to find WMD's and regardless of what you hear, no WMD's were found. Yes there was some mustard gas found but it was over 15 years old and it wouldn't have done anything. Now we're stuck in a terrible situation. We totally destroyed a country and now we're going to be there for a long time trying to rebuild what we tore down. We need to get out of there.
1127212
No, not at all. \n\nAs early as summer of 2000, I was taking bets on when --- not if, when --- GWB would get us involved in a mid-east war (provided he secured the presidency, of course). Giving the military to George W Bush was like giving a hammer to a three year old. Suddenly everything looks like a nail.\n\nThere were so many other options available this evil man chose to ignore those other options in his rush to war. He has deliberately and dishonorably sacrificed the lives of our sons and daughters to his pride and ambition.
631784
Back in the seventeen hundreds we were being bled dry by England. Was war a bad idea ?\n  In the eighteen hundreds half of our country wanted to break away and form a country of their own .Was war a bad idea to keep the country together ?\n  Wars aren't fought just people enjoy killing each other.
804393
Not necessarily the ill advised invasion, but the handling of the whole damn thing is the reason for the civil war in Iraq. We should have never gone there in the first place as the invasion was based on a lie. However if we had made better decisions after we got there maybe we could have thwarted the civil war. The Generals have said since the beginning that we should have had more people and we should have disarmed everyone and secured the borders from outside influences, hind sight is better then foresight, but I think Rumsfeld was told there was a problem from the beginning.
1017539
No war is not a good thing, and anyone who thinks so should enlist instead of watching for updates on 'their side' on CNN.\n\nThere is never a good enough reason to kill innocents and you can't avoid killing innocent people in a war, no matter how hard you try.\n\nI truly hope, and my hope may be foolish that we'll one day see a time without war, without the world having to come to an end.
355975
No, It wasn't Clinton's idea.\n\nThe first war with Iraq was @ 1990-1991 - BEFORE Clinton. Thanks, Daddy Bush.\n\nClinton tried to kill Bin-Laden with a Cruise Missile Strike During the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Many people (including myself) thought it was a cheap tactic to get the attention off of the president. Perhaps if a third cruise missile was launched, 9/11 might not have happened...\n\nBush CONVINCED us that Iraq had WMD and ties to Al Queda within it's borders, and used our patriotism to get congress to sign off on a war with Iraq.
134835
No. A colonial war over access to Middle Eastern Oil is not worth killing thousands of Americans over - or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis ( mostly civilians ) over. \nDon't ask the Neo Cons... they would have supported Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939.  We can not win and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Nothing.  Now if we had invaded Saudi Arabia and gone after the Wahabbis...it still would have been wrong, but I would have understood it.\n\nNo its is NOT worth fighting.  Its worse than when we betrayed our selves in Vietnam.,
1001061
Yes because until we do we will be trying to win this war by force and we should have learned by now that WE ARE NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO DO SO. No one has beaten the arabs and yrs they are VERY VERY strong and VERY well organised.\nIt's our own arrogance that will keep us fighting and dying. For what????????????An Ideal that can never be reality given that countrys political background\n We always think our way is best.\n\nThe idea that by negotiating with them we are helping them or harming ourselves is utter nonsense and and irrational.\nIts in our INTERESTS to negotiate with them Sum ppl just can't see that. What do they think will happen if we do?? More bombings?? NO!!! It will create LESS danger for us and more calm in Iraq  if we give to them LESS reason to fight.\nAnyone who says we should'nt negotiate can't have thought past the whole knee jerk reaction from this. We arent harming ourselves by negotiating. We aren't and I challenge anyone to try and prove how if they think we are.\nDid pride ever get results and end wars? No pride carries them on and yes one might say without pride we would never win anything BUT  our pride is rooted in crushing them and destroying them which, as I have already pointed out, is not the only way of getting what we want out of this. \nWhat do we want? Most ppl don't know and I suspect that is why they can't see that non-negotiation is the equivalent of refusing to be resonable and puts the US and Iraq in more danger.\nTerrorists dont want bad things, they just go about in mercenary ways to get them and they will continue to do so, are we so unbelievably arrogant and self decieved to think we can beat them in their own territory? If it was on US soil maybe we could but not over there. We have an oppoutunity to improve the situation but we seem to want it ALL your own way so carry on trying to crush them. Well as I have said before the US army and terrorists in Iraq are probably two equal forces and so will be fighting for YEARS unless we face up to the reality of the situation.