War in Iraq: is it worth all the money and death toll?
611896
My hope is that the future will show that, yes, it is worth it.  Not only to the Iraqis, but also for the entire region as well as to us.  If we can build allies in the region, it stands to reason that it will benefit us in the future.  Libya has been taken off of the list of terrorist nations.  Freedom and Democracy can be contatious.  Kuwait is a great example.
194479
NO. I have friends and family who are in Iraq in the military and my father in law just got back from Iraq as a civilian bomb dog handler. Each of them has told me how saddened and sickened they are by the media portrayal of only negative things from the war. Each of them has told me about how they can see positive changes in Iraq and how much better the living conditions are over there now and how they have started schools and brought order back in many places. I don't think that is a waste of time. It is hard for us who have people we love over there and I am sure we would like to see them all come home safely and not have to be at war -- but the efforts made my our troops in Iraq are not a waste of time.
1021873
I am, Go W.  \nThings that make you think a little:\n\n\n\nThere were 39 combat related killings in Iraq in January.\nIn the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the\nmonth of January. That's just one American city,\nabout as deadly as the entire war-torn country of Iraq.\n\n\n\nWhen some claim that President Bush shouldn't\nhave started this war, state the following:\n\n\n\na. FDR led us into World War II.\n\nb. Germany never attacked us; Japan did.\n>From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost ...\nan average of 112,500 per year.\n\n\n\nc. Truman finished that war and started one in Korea.\nNorth Korea never attacked us.\n>From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost ...\nan average of 18,334 per year.\n\nd John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962.\nVietnam never attacked us.\n\ne. Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire.\n>From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost ..\nan average of 5,800 per year.\n\nf. Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent.\nBosnia never attacked us.\nHe was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three\ntimes by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on\nmultiple occasions.\n\ng. In the years since terrorists attacked us , President Bush\nhas liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled\nal-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran, and, North\nKorea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who\nslaughtered 300,000 of his own people.\n\n\n\nThe Democrats are complaining\nabout how long the war is taking.\nBut\nIt took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno\nto take the Branch Davidian compound.\nThat was a 51-day operation..\n\n\n\nWe've been looking for evidence for chemical weapons\nin Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find\nthe Rose Law Firm billing records.\n\n\n\nIt took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the\nMarines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard\nthan it took Ted Kennedy to call the police after his\nOldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick.\n\n\n\nIt took less time to take Iraq than it took\nto count the votes in Florida!!!!\n\nOur Commander-In-Chief is doing a GREAT JOB!\nThe Military morale is high!\n\nThe biased media hopes we are too ignorant\nto realize the facts\n\n\n\nBut Wait .\n\nThere's more!\n\n\n\nJOHN GLENN (ON THE SENATE FLOOR)\nMon, 26 Jan 2004 11:13\n\n\n\nSome people still don't understand why military personnel\ndo what they do for a living. This exchange between\nSenators John Glenn and Senator Howard Metzenbaum\nis worth reading. Not only is it a pretty impressive\nimpromptu speech, but it's also a good example of one\nman's explanation of why men and women in the armed\nservices do what they do for a living.\n\n\n\nThis IS a typical, though sad, example of what\nsome who have never served think of the military.\n\n\n\nSenator Metzenbaum (speaking to Senator Glenn):\n"How can you run for Senate\nwhen you've never held a real job?"\n\n\n\nSenator Glenn (D-Ohio):\n"I served 23 years in the United States Marine Corps.\nI served through two wars. I flew 149 missions.\nMy plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire on 12 different\noccasions. I was in the space program. It wasn't my\ncheckbook, Howard; it was my life on the line. It was\nnot a nine-to-five job, where I took time off to take the\ndaily cash receipts to the bank."\n\n\n\n"I ask you to go with me ... as I went the other day...\nto a veteran's hospital and look those men ...\nwith their mangled bodies . in the eye, and tell THEM\nthey didn't hold a job!\n\n\n\nYou go with me to the Space Program at NASA\nand go, as I have gone, to the widows and Orphans\nof Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee...\nand you look those kids in the eye and tell them\nthat their DADS didn't hold a job.\n\n\n\nYou go with me on Memorial Day and you stand in\nArlington National Cemetery, where I have more friends\nburied than I'd like to remember, and you watch\nthose
712653
Ask the family's of the 2,000 plus killed in Iraq. Ask the business and commuter who paid the highest gas prices in history, Ask the Katrina suffers who still await help. Now ask the contractors who make weapons for the war. One out of four, is that bad?
85637
The impact of the Iraq war on the US economy
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.
675370
it was much better indeed in many ways.i dont deny the opression and tourtures that took place then,but who respected himself wasnt touched at all.there was at least security,ethics,a government anyone can complain with.now nothing,you may be picked from your home for nothing,tourtured in a savage way never practiced anywhere in the world,holes will be made in your body by electrical drills,then you are thrown in a sewage dump after you die.\ni wonder that most of those who give their openions are not iraqies,ask the iraqies what they are suffering from.those who say (i have been in iraq,i have seen,i talked to a fraind,etc),dont reflect the truth,cause  either they havent gone deep in to what is going on,or they some of those benefited from what is going on there.how can the iraqies be happier with only 4 houres of electricity a day,with ni petrol,with such an increasing poverity,with 100 people slaughtered in baghdad only,with 1090 women widowed ,500 children orphaned every day.be rational.where and when in the hell did occupation forces took care of a country and its people.do you think usa spent more than 400 billions and 2400 of its youth plus the thousands injured and crippled ,just to remove saddam and give the iraqies democracy.if you belive it,you are naive,i am sorry.mind you ,i hate saddam and his regime to the bone,but,now it is much worse.
412719
The War was not "Legal", if any war could be justified in Law. Saddam was an Evil Dictator, but there are plenty of those in the World, some of the Allied to the USA (Hello Saudi Arabia!) There were no WMD's, but Loads of Oil, and no one seemed to have a clue what to do After we got rid of old Saddam. I think the Western powers did all they could to keep civilian casualties to a minimum, but I also believe that the USA and Britain went to war to secure a strategic resource, and for no other reason. 9/1 had nothing to do with Iraq, and that is a given. I think depending on the outcome History will judge the war as a naked show of aggression against a foreign power, with good or bad results. We will see.
1058813
What you can "know" about the war in Iraq is very varied, depending on what you want to know and who you ask.  The political sides taken in debate banter back and forth with as little intelligence as humanly possible, and they've gotten their nonsense from the liberal media, which is as senseless as anything possible on this planet, so what you perceive to be "knowledge" vs. "opinion" will go far in deciding how learned you feel after you do your research.  In my university graduate research classes, we were stressed to value broad but focused questioning.  Too many open-ended questions left too many dead-end answers, no matter their length.  We also learned about statistical reliability and validity and the allowable statistical variances, but that's getting into questionnaires, etc., and that takes FOREVER to develop, administer, score and analyze.  And even then, interpretation was allowed quite a "margin for error" even though it cautioned the reader as to it's statistical acceptance.  If you really want to know about the war in Iraq, I doubt seriously that this is the place to do any serious research.  From my experience here, there's a lot of uninformed opinion and much less intellect in the majority of answers  you'll get.  Blog's on the internet, etc., aren't much better since no one is held "accountable" for their responses.  They can just  rattle on, which some may say I'm doing now.  Talk to someone(s) away from the internet, face to face if possible, and someone who's main source of "knowledge" isn't the network "news" in order to get a more intelligent and statistically acceptable answer.  Even people you respect for their intelligence are suspect, since they have their opinions which find their way into the dialogue, as did my now deceased father who fought the Japanese at Okinawa in WWII and my son who is in Iraq on his second tour of duty as we speak.  They are both as opinionated as I am, and I guess that genetics since we're father, son, and grandson. Ultimately you have to come to your own conclusions, right or wrong, and be open to new possible understandings as your life goes on.   Debates still rage over the Civil War, and I doubt anyone alive has enough knowlege to fill a thimble, much less a blog or debate despite the goings-on and the "resources" they claim to have.  We still debate the Bay of Pigs incident in Cuba in the 1960's under JFK and the Vietnam war under JFK, LBJ, and RMN.  So ultimately, it's YOUR opinion that counts.  Make it a learned on.  It's so much more pleasant to hear an opinion that someone has given some thought to than one that sounds like they got it off the bathroom wall and are going to copy it on the next stall they're in.  God Bless you.
1066850
Exactly...this is another Vietnam...it might not be the same scale casualty wise (at least American casulaties. Iraqi deaths are right up there). It's ridiculous. We never should have been there. I don't think it's the military's fault that there isn't progress...I'm sure they're doing what they can but there is only so much you can do before you realize that things aren't going to get any better. Insurgents are nasty and they'll stop at nothing to kill someone. This war is going to be going on for a long time unless something changes and unfortunately we have to wait a couple more years before those changes can begin. We destroyed a country now we're going to have to pay for it ....probably for the rest of our lives. It's a sad situation with no real end. You still have people out there saying that it was good that we went in...we got Saddam...we didn't go in to get Saddam. We went in to get weapons and the only ones we've found are the ones we sold them years ago to fight Iran. Interesting how that works out isn't it?
124128
No. But my best friend is a Kurdish Iraqi, and she spent 4 months there last year. She had her ups and downs. But what speaks volumes is that she saw her family's oil being taken by US officials with her own two eyes. (she comes from a wealthy family and they have lots of that). She was also staying in a mansion made of marble but there wasn't even any water to flush the toilets with. Pretty depressing.
551605
I heard the total number of Iraqi's who have died since the American occupation is around 100,000. How many have died since the war officially ended I couldn't say.\n\nIt is very naive by the way to believe insurgents are responsible for the majority of these deaths.
999819
2500+....3000+ killed on 9/11.....58,000 killed in Vietnam.....200,000 killed in WWII....400,000 killed in the US Civil War......40,000 killed on US Highways every year.\n\nIn perspective, it's well worth it, IMO.
1066138
if you make a good offer, why not , iraq is as dangerous as any place in the planet,it is a matter of faith yuo never die before your time and ,ofcourse not after!
634881
War costs money!\n\nOne complete sentence.
265548
The war in Iraq is going better than most people realize. We do not get the stories of the good things that are happening - just never ending liberal hype on the casualties and bombings. It just came out that Saddam said he got rid of the WMD's but kept it so secret even his own generals thought they still had them, so how the hell was President Bush and the rest of the world supposed to know otherwise? Did you hear about it in the media like when any liberal like Kerry, Clinton, Kennedy, or Dean opened their mouths to proclaim the President a liar? Of course not! It does not fit their agenda! The bottom line is this when it comes to my opinion on the war - we cannot allow these people in the press and capitol hill turn this into another Vietnam, which is exactly what they are trying to do (how many liberals have you heard say "quagmire"?). The saddest thing is that there are too many people that are buying into their anti-America, anti-troop propaganda (it's also my opinion that you cannot support the troops without supporting the war - it's the mission they are fighting for and it sends a bad and demoralizing message when people say we support you but what you're doing is illegal and sucks, right?).
1048900
The website is in execl and reads better than what I copied.\n\n\nCasualties in Iraq\nThe Human Cost of Occupation\nEdited by Michael Ewens :: Contact American Military Casualties in Iraq \n \nDate Total In Combat \n \nAmerican Deaths    \nSince war began (3/19/03): 2526