Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
Iraq didn't attack the trade towers or the pentagon. Yet we invaded anyway, on the flimsiest of manufactured pretenses. That was not containment; that was aggression, pure and simple. And when U.S. personnel couldn't find anything, once in Iraq, to justify our aggression, we re-worded our mission; GW Bush decided the Iraqi invasion was about "freedom". If so, why not invade Cuba as well, and North Korea also? Not enough oil, there?
Again, the well-served 'containment' idea of "Don't attack us because if you do we can and will make you pay" became "We're having a fit of hubris and paranoia and are going to attack someone".
And no, those comments were not related to the idea of "sloppy scholarship"; they were posted in affirmation of ZNP's point that after 9/11 our leaders didn't repent, but became even more hardened, intransigent, and bellicose.
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I do not agree with our going to war in Iraq and I agree with the idea that WMD and Human Rights were shabby explanations to hide the real reason.
That said, I think those that accuse the US of going to war over oil do not fairly represent the choice. Iraq has the largest natural reserves of oil second only to Saudi Arabia. Since Saudi Arabia has booby trapped their refineries with dirty bombs it would be crazy talk to invade that country. You might argue that lives should not be lost fighting over oil. A perfectly reasonable feeling. However, without sufficient oil the US economy would rapidly descend into anarchy. By rapidly it would only be a month or two. Just a slight crimp in the supply caused major upheavals in NYC after Sandy.
The entire city was shut down for a week because the Subway didn't run. Without the subway kids can't get to school, and when that domino falls so many other dominoes fall too. In my opinion a trillion dollars spent on wind energy would have helped this countries security much more than a trillion dollars spent in Iraq. That refers to both physical and economic security.
Wind energy creates manufacturing jobs and high tech jobs, it would have been a fantastic boost to our economy. But, hindsight is 20/20 and it would have been a very gutsy call and a very tough call to pull it off. The last time a president tried to take this course of action the oil companies manufactured a gas shortage and that president was out after 1 term. Also, wind would be replacing coal, not oil. So the investment would not impact an oil shortage until the country moves to hybrid/electric vehicles. It would have been a very gutsy move politically, economically and diplomatically. And, it would have required one extremely effective leader to successfully pull it off.
In the end this will be something the US as a nation will need to repent of. But leading a country in repentance requires real leadership.