If We Had Never Invaded Iraq...?
- Thread starter What Would Jesus Do?
- Start date
I thought this was going to be a poll for sure.
Hard to separate what might have happened from our response to 911 and then going into Iraq on the economy but without I don't see road for ISIS to be as successful as they have been.
Hard to separate what might have happened from our response to 911 and then going into Iraq on the economy but without I don't see road for ISIS to be as successful as they have been.
If I thought I knew enough of the likely answers on this I probably would have done a poll. But I'm confident my fellow-HROTters will come up with several things I wouldn't have thought of.
I'm figuring the war was costly. Having the economy slammed when the debt and deficit were already shooting up because of the war probably made things worse. Less fiscal flexibility to respond.
The war in Iraq was a definite mistake. It is one of the many reasons for our monstrous debt and, I would argue, our sluggish economy. And it baffles me that we have not learned a lesson about removing dictators in the Middle East. I may be in the minority, but I'm kind of glad Russia is trying to keep Assad in power.
If we had never invaded Iraq... Bush would have NEVER been reelected in 2004. Karl Rove, while being a disgusting individual, was a brilliant strategist. He was a masterful historian who knew, from history, that no sitting President has ever lost a reelection bid while a war was going on.
Along with Cheney and his financial interests, knowing how fruitful a war was for Halliburton, Rove /Cheney are the masterful puppeteers who manipulated Bush into that conflict.
Along with Cheney and his financial interests, knowing how fruitful a war was for Halliburton, Rove /Cheney are the masterful puppeteers who manipulated Bush into that conflict.
Boy are we in agreement on that. There is essentially no chance that the removed dictator will be replaced by someone better. Sometimes we manage to replace them with someone who is useful to us for awhile like Shah Pahlavi and Saddam Hussein but it always all goes to hell eventually. I guess all that oil forces us to keep trying. Absent the oil we could simply walk away and leave the to wander the desert.
I think as good a hypothical question is what would be the Mideast be like if BHO would have signed a SOFA agreement in Iraq and not made it possible for Libya being invaded and their leader over thrown. There have been enough mistakes by both Bush and BHO but you are unfortunately unable or unable to see that
Hogwash, it helped prop the economy. The mortgage crisis and the idiots who let it get to that point were the problem.
If only Iraq had agreed to a SOFA. Maybe the one who installed the government should have gotten that done. In the name of personal responsibility an all you know.
I thought you were smart or something. That's what you were saying the other night perched high above giving a so called history lesson. George W would have won re-election is 2004 had we not gone to war. The reason the election was close is because by Novbember of 2004 things were starting to go poorly in Iraq. He had near 90% approval rating for the way he handled 9/11 and up until that point the Afghanistan war had gone great. I think you are the one that needs a history lesson. Bush would have gotten 55-57% of the vote had it not been for the Iraq war and would have changed his legacy greatly.
I'm thinking it would be all butterflies and love in the Middle East. Clearly there wasn't a giant wave of cultural turmoil simmering below the surface until George W, er, I mean Dick Cheney enacted his dastardly plan. No doubt about it.
Oh man... where to start. Approval for the way he handled 9/11..Americans were hurting and any tough talk about getting justice played well to everyone. We had a united country. The Prez was simply the beneficiary of the situation. You remember that garbage "Mission Accomplished"? How'd that turn out? Next... where in the hell do you get that 55-57% crap. Sounds good, but based on what? Finally... the Bush legacy...the economy sealed his legacy.
Your argument has more holes than a chunk of swiss cheese.
Can you give examples of presidents who had their legacy sealed by a poor (or good) economy?
Just did, and it sealed the fate of the GOP and John McCain. McCain was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bush was the puppet of Rove and Cheney. Amazing how the last two Democrat Presidents followed two incompetent Republican Presidents who had the same last name. I guess if Jeb gets elected... we can be projecting which Democrat will have to fix his mess in either 2020 or 2024.
I think Bush would've been re elected in '04 due to having support on the way he handled 9/11. The housing bubble still would've burst, causing a major calamity with the economy. Also, the way he was perceived for Katrina hurt him as well.
No one here knows what would've happened had Gore or Kerry been elected. It's very possible we could've been hit again, or not.
No one here knows what would've happened had Gore or Kerry been elected. It's very possible we could've been hit again, or not.
If we had not invaded Iraq the war machine would have found another war and we would have still been in the same situation.
We could have pressured them into an agreement. Obama wanted completely out of there, and allowed Iraq to dictate the SOFA. Do you honestly think we couldn't have persuaded them to not hold our soldiers under their judicial system?
Please tell me you're not that naive. That, or you simply will not allow blame to be placed on Obama for anything.
If that world view held water, Bush should have gotten the job done. You can't both think they would easily bend to our will and admit they were not doing so. Take responsibility for your mess, learn from it, ask for forgiveness for screwing up the world and kick the neocons out of your party. Until then you need to have your nose rubbed in this mistake. Nearly your entire Presidential slate would have done and will make the same mistake in Iran. It doesn't look like your team has learned your lesson yet.
He was the sitting POTUS when the economy tanked, and therefore, will go down as getting the blame. The buck stops at the top. However, Mr. History lesson, the pieces were in place to tank our economy long before Bush ever took office. I'm not going to list them all because they've been talked about so many times, it's starting to get old. Hell, even WWJD knows and agrees that several pieces were in place under the Clinton Administration. A republican Authored legislation to seal the economy's fate, but the Democrats lined right up along with him. And the lack of regulation of Derivatives was on Larry Summers and his running buddies, who was appointed by Clinton.
So, there is plenty of blame to go around on both sides for the tanking of the economy. If you disagree, then you need to stop with the history lessons, because you either have no idea what happened, or refuse to acknowledge it happened.
I am truly fascinated by people that KNOW what would've happened had we not invaded. To say the war caused or lead to the current problems in that region is riddiculous. When was the last time the Middle East was stable anyways???
I think the war was a mistake, but i admit it may have done some good
I think the war was a mistake, but i admit it may have done some good
Congrats! Currently, the most ridiculous comment on HROT.
No, not a stretch at all. You are absolutely blind to the carnage in its wake. Nothing good comes from all the death of innocents. I stand by my post.
Would you like to translate your oh-so-trenchant sarcasm into an actual response?
What do you think things would be like? Would ISIS have blown up? Would the economy have crashed? Would everything be just as it is? If not, what would be different?
Would we have the instability in Syria if we had not invaded Iraq? Add to that removing several dictators. Without the vacuum created, I very much doubt 4 million refugees would be listening.
You are definitely in the minority, but you aren't alone. I agree.
Assad was someone we could and did work with.
It's hard to look at the devastation and chaos in the Middle East that's grown out of our efforts to "help" without wondering if our actual objective wasn't to create exactly that devastation and chaos.
You know the old saw about the definition of "crazy" being that you do the same thing again and again expecting different results? We'll, unless you think all the folks running our foreign policy are nuts, if we keep destabilizing regimes and plunging nations into civil wars, maybe - just maybe - that's exactly what we intended.
So maybe the question we ought to be asking ourselves is why is this chaos a good idea for America? Or, to be more specific, what is it about chaos and civil war in those regions of the world that is better for the US than what would be there if we didn't destabilize those places?
Maybe it isn't so much a question of how we can exploit the chaos as that the chaos puts other world actors at a greater disadvantage. Who would be doing well if the Middle East were calm?
Cynical balance of power politics.
Just a thought. And, btw, you can ask that same question about Ukraine.
Not sure what point you are making. US policies over there, starting with the invasion of Iraq, have directly or indirectly led to well over over 10 million displaced people in multiple failed or failing nations.
Usually when I don't understand a geopolitical situation, I simply ask "who benefits from this, either monetarily or by power?" I doubt it would be our government per se, but more likely the people running the military machine pulling the strings. Hard to believe the administration is not figuring this out.
If I were to play the same cause and effect game - the war removed a murderous dictator that wished death upon our country. If he hadn't been removed from power they would've delivered chemical weapons in an American City. See how that works?
That was intentionally idiotic. All I said was there MAY have been some good.
So it was more of a "Hitler wasn't all bad because he liked dogs" kind of comment?
I suspect it's both worse and more sensible (in a realpolitik sense) than that.
We are facing what could be catastrophic changes in our world. And this seems to be the reaction that our concentrations of power have chosen. Which is to say that the administration has figured it out. And this is how they've decided to handle it.
Here are the factors. We have an absurd concentration of wealth (and the power that wealth brings). We face a rapid "democratization" of technology (and the risks it spreads so widely from network hacking and piracy to "asymmetrical" weaponry). And we have accelerating climate change and all it's attendant consequences (from inundated cities to water wars to spreading pestilence and disease).
If the decision of those with the wealth and power is that these disasters cannot be averted or tamed, then the obvious answer is to assure the safety of the better sorts of people. Identify trouble spots and wreak what amounts to scorched earth policies against them. Accelerate the concentration of wealth and power. And eventually, hunker down within strongholds - whether nations or walled communities - to weather (perhaps literally) the coming disasters.
A less alarmist view would be that the PTB recognize that we are well into the decline of the American Empire and, like most empires in decline, we are clawing to hold on to what we can for as long as we can and God save any who get in our way.
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