I do use the argument that money wasted or given to other foreign countries could be better spent here. I think that there are many things that need to be fixed inside our house before we go redecorating other's houses.
Yes, an Iraq that is stable and not run by extremists is in everyone's benefit.
But what about our children's averages on math scores? What about OUR economy, which doesn't seem to be doing so well, last I checked? What about our health care system, or our social secuirity system, or any one of a million different things?
You bring up some good points, but no one, and I mean NO ONE, predicted that the war in Iraq would be this costly or take this long. If we had known that in the first place, I imagine there would not have been enough support to even get it started.
I don't remember what the exact original timeline was, but I know they were just predicting a couple years of war to get Iraq set straight. Obviously, that didn't happen...
I completely agree about all the screwed up stuff here at home. I mostly blame it on the Dems though, though I'm sure there's liberal people in the Republican party I can blame it on as well.
- Public school is an abomination to education these days. Children hardly learn anything because of all the political correctness imposed by, you guessed it, liberals.
- The economy crashed because Bill Clinton and his administration forced Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac into taking subprime loans so that the poor (literally) people who couldn't afford houses could buy them.
- The health care system is so screwed up because it's so expensive to get medical work done... because of the threat of lawsuits. If doctors and hospitals didn't have to be afraid of multimillion dollar lawsuits coming their way every day, surgeries might actually be affordable to the average joe without health insurance. Again, political correctness is at fault here... you have lawsuits in the medical world equivalent to the lady who spills hot coffee on her lap and sues McDonalds for it.
- Social security was implemented by FDR (a democrat) and has been protected from being shut down by other democrats since then. It's a terrible, unsustainable system. Republicans have pushed for privatized retirement funds for a while now in place of SS, but it hasn't happened yet.
This is why I don't like liberals or democrats. They have all these ideas that sound great at the time, but when you look at them down the road, they're terrible. They play on emotions to make you think that the ideas will work. Kind of like Obama's spending. It's great for today, sure, but there's gonna be some hell to pay down the road.
Hello Sofia76,
Politicians count on that fact. We distract ourselves w/Left vs Right, Right vs Wrong et al while all the while the sold out mess (BOTH sides of the Aisle) that is our government continues to gain more & more power.
It will continue until WePeeps realize this fact and work together. Which I doubt will happen. Heck, Republicans couldn't even get it together to vote for the smartest man in the room (Ron Paul). The one candidate who would have tried to put the needs of WePeeps first, second & third above all other nations or multi-national corporations. Instead he was labled a kook & a coward by the GOP establishment. That should have been everyone's clue to vote for him. But no...... ssdd.....
:horse:horse:horse
MO
Part of the problem with getting Ron Paul into office is that he is fiscally conservative but morally liberal. Many Republicans do not want to vote for him or his party because of the liberal views on things like abortion, which happen to be very important to conservatives. But I completely agree, he would have been much better for our nation than this Obama fool.
There is a lot of good solid information out there showing that securing the oil in Iraq was our top priority. If we lost access to the oil in Iraq it would be disastrous. Like it or not we are the worlds oil hog and to remove any of our major supply lines it would cripple our economy.
If you want to see the proof for yourself, just Google China buying Iraq's oil. You will see that Saddam was making deals with the Chinese to sell them their oil and cut the US out. They were also making deals to change currency to the Euro instead of the dollar. Either one of these actions would have a devastating effect on our economy. We didn't go into Iraq to "get" their oil, we went in to make sure that we would still have access to the oil we were already getting... And we royally fucked China in the process.
Interesting, thanks for the clarification. I hadn't heard about that before.
To me, it seems there was never one single reason to start the war in Iraq, but it was a mix of several good reasons instead. Perhaps oil was part of it, but eliminating terrorist organizations and people who harbor them (Saddam Hussein for one) was a big goal as well. Also, there was intelligence that suggested WMDs there, which was another good reason. We know now that that was either bad intel, or the WMDs were moved out of the country, but at the time it was a viable reason.
I don't think I would have been for the Iraq war if I would have known that it would take this long and cost this much.
