What does the anti-war community think now?

Post-9/11 Era Forum

Iraqis are celebrating wildly in the streets of Baghdad, kissing American marines and defacing images of Saddam. So what does the anti-war community think now that the Iraqis are thanking us?

Yes, there have been civillian casualties, but while they are inevitable with any war, they are very limited in this one. Our main objective of getting Saddam out of power is complete, and soon we will find the weapons of mass destruction Saddam has been "collecting".

So come on, you anti-war activists! Give it your best shot. Tell us why this war is "unjust" when it is succeeding with minimal casualties, and it is appreciated by those being liberated in Iraq.

Because violence perpetuates violence and if no one were there to balance it out violence would reign.

I think you will also find that many anti-war comments have related to the misleading justifications we have been given.

From a personal point of view, if the majority of Iraqis are happy that the US have occupied their country, then obviously that cant be so bad a thing, but i'm also sure that if the intentions of the US were to make the people of Iraq happy then they would have spent the last 12 years air dropping food and medical supplies to strengthen them and educational supplies to give them a chance to begin sort out their own culture. A culture wont NATURALLY change over night, and probebly not in a single generation. If you want to spend money liberating another culture then doing it through a long term education and assistance program is more likely to produce a more stable and autonomous culture. A culture that felt in touch with its roots and history is also more likey to be tolerent of others.

Wonky, how would this be done with Saddam still holding the reins? Couldn't have. He had to be eradicted and how else would this have been accomplished? You have nice thoughts but I just don't know how realistic they are.

I dont think it could be done in saddams life time, it may take a hundred years, who knows, its the willingness to try these things that are missing and we see cultures falling by the wayside cos big 'ol america has decided that now is the time to change a culture by force. I am not questioning the badness of saddam just these short term solutions.

The anti-war sighn-toteing, mommas boys and girls have now been slapped real hard and are still talking there sh.. but cant look the other way while the crowds and people of iraq are now enjoying. Thats the problim with sighn toters they enjoy freedom but thinks no one else deserves it and doesnt relize the cost of freedom.

I wasn't suggesting that the main purpose of this war is to liberate the Iraqis. The goal of this war is to eliminate the threat that Saddam poses to the rest of the world before the threat becomes too strong for the world to take on. However, the Liberation of the Iraqis is yet another reason why this war is being fought.

This main motives for this war are difficult for some people to understand because many of them don't know much about the relationship between Iraq and the U.N. over the past 12 years. I won't sit here and try to give a history lesson, but in general Saddam has been extremely uncooperative with the UN in its investigations of Iraq's weapons program. So even without any of the tangible evidence that we have, it can easily be concluded that he has illegal weapons simply because 1) he refuses to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors and 2) we have found all of his previous weapons reports to be false. (I'd also like to add that due to Saddam's repeated breaches of UN sanctions, this war is not really preemptive.)

Tell me this: If the leader of your country started collecting mustard gas and nerve agents, and then slaughtered your neighbors for speaking out against it...wouldn't you want another country to do something about it?

I'm not sure I would agree with that, I for one was all for assasination attempts on Saddam, and certainly alot of my posts were directed to supplying opposition groups with funds etc to create an internal revolution and overthrow Saddam, as many of my posts stated the best revolutions come from the people - American Idependence, French revolution (not saying that was great), russian revolution - ditto, English civil war - half ditto, half good, and most of the independence fights last century, and break away republics.

dr poke- ok, some, but not many, of the protesters were thinking it was about oil. but i'd have to say that the majority were the same faces we see at the monetary protests, the environmental protests, the labor protests, and the abortion protests. it's the same people! it's more political philosophy driven than event driven. and i agree with robert, i've never met anyone who protests doing the day to day dirty work to make this a better place to live.

I agree with wonky although I believe if left alone Iraq may well have overthrown Saddam while he was still in control.
What we are talking about is revolution and revolution thrives on educated people pooling their ideas for a common goal. It's this educated, middle class that could have had the resources to mobilise the people of Iraq to revolt. The problem was sanctions. In a country that has been deprived of education, of philosophy of history of the arts and even of the pen and paper to construct and disseminate their views, a people will be lost to poverty and intimidation will reign. If those sanctions had not been imposed, or if US and Britain had agreed with the rest of the UN to lift them when they could have then Iraq would have been a long way back to the prosperity it enjoyed before the first gulf war. Instead we actually mangaed to suppress revolution and mae ourselves enemies of the Iraqi people because it was us they were blaming for their poverty not Saddam. Saddam meanwhile was in control of a country that didn't hold him responsible for their misery.

oil had nothing to do with this war even though alot of people think so it was about murdering,tortueing and the beatings and other atrocities saddam has done both to his people and the people of the world. And the direction he was heading the usa and other countries were in line also for the same type of atrocities and also he trained terrorists, and threatened the world with chemicle/bio weapons and in time nuclear also if he wasnt stopped. You all may be blind but not that blind. Most people it is easyer to tote sighns and ignore the problim than do something about it. Well now the world knows who is gutless and who has balls now. us/uk and her allies are the ones who are on the side of right not wrong and turning there heads likes france,russia, china opps did i say that even though we are helping all of them. Just a simple thankyou to our soilders and our allies will do. GOD BLESS AMERICA AND HER ALLIES FOR FREEDOM AND PEACE FOR ALL IN THIS WORLD

Where will you put first McDonalds? Bagda or Basra?

And Levis will increase its exports a lot, won't they?

I don't think that muslims eat meat.. I could be wrong.. If so, McDonalds wouldn't do very well.

Interesting article on what the arab world thought about the events today.
"We discovered that all what the (Iraqi) information minister was saying was all lies," said Ali Hassan, a government employee in Cairo, Egypt. "Now no one believes Al-Jazeera anymore."

full article here

I'm going back through a lot of posts to you Doug, but I wanted to pick you up on America's massive funding to the Shia revolt after the first gulf war. I'm not aware of any funding (I'm not saying you're wrong but some details would be useful) what I do know though is that Bush Snr had second thoughts about the Shias rising up and actually helped to thwart their efforts. The problem was Shias were Islamic fundamentalists like most people in Iran. A successful uprising would forge an allegiance with Iran and a power base for Islamic Fundamentalism. This allegiance would sit on 50% of the world's oil and be a strong base for Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. The more the American government thought about it the more they realised that Saddam wsa better than Shias cos at least he hated Islamic Fundamentalists and Iran. US and Britain and France also turned their backs on the Kurds who also staged an uprising post gulf war I in the north. This was after pressure from Turkey who didn't want a successful kurdish uprising leading to a Kurdish own state.

Gotta come back to you again Doug. The reason there has been no revolution in the last twelve years is BECAUSE of the sanctions which is why they had to be lifted. Give the Iraqis their books and their paper. Allow education to flow and watch an intelligent middle class produce the internal revolution it needed. Education is the bane of any tyrant. If he has an intelligent population he's got trouble and that's why our sanctions helped keep Saddam on top. And the sanctions hit ordinary Iraqis not Saddam. He was still doing deals and trading and that's why the sanctions failed to serve the purpose they were meant to

The war is STILL STUPID! Now the worst part begins! US paying out the nose to run a messed up Iraq for years, occupying it, rebuilding all the crap we blew up, dealing with continued terror, was it worth it? Hell no! We could have rammed a Palestinian state down Israel's throat and cut deals with Saddam for cheap oil instead and saved trillions of dollar$ on our budget deficit instead.

PS...Soon Saddam and Osama will be working as gardeners in the DC area though.

Well, DougP...

By now you should know that media working under the coalition shows only pictures wich are convenient for the coalition. Probably somewhere else the marines have had spit in their faces by iraqi civilians.

There is no doubt that some iraqis, for example those helping the Abrams to bulldoze husseins statue, are happy as the coalition arrived. I don´t suspect that was an act, but i´m sure in near future we will see more iraqi shows of support to coalition by director G. Bush

we are not after the oil or isareal its the liberation of the iraqis, and to get rid of a cruel, murderous man who was not only a threat to his country but to the world, who is in it for oil ask russia and france and than point the finger in the right direction, france and russia opps did i say that, they are the real oil mongles not the usa open eyes please

I will definitley have to agree with you on that, liberating the Iraqs from saddam was the easy part, you know and i know that america and it's allies are going to be there to "police" the region.

This is where I become stumped if The U.S. is merely going to put in a "puppet" regime or an authentic democratic society that is truly ran by Iraqi people without Americas stronghold. I know that America will have a very strong influence in who and what runs the government for several years, until it can be rest assured that the government can be ran on it's own without being a danger again to the world--no one want's to do this war again--

Belive me this is alot better than having the French,Germans or others that were opposed to the war with having any if at all in the say of who becomes "in charge.".

they have shown they cannot be trusted by the way they want to "jump on the band wagon of reconstruction" after america has spilled it's blood and basicly takes all blame if things go wrong in the reconstuction. These countries want to reap the benefits of reconstruction but will take no responsibility if the whole thing goes to Sh*t.

But I still mantain that after all the smoke has cleared and the iraqi people have the looting , anarchy and the extreme freedom that they have all of a sudden been granted with will play itself out. But this will and cannot happen overnight, it is going to be a long drawn out process that no one has ever thought of. But the truth to the matter is after this main ground war fades and the politics begin it will become a blip on the local news , you know we will all just carry on and hope "things go well and hope it never happens to us or our children."

how did i suffer ill tell you i have two sons over there right now both on front lines, thats how i suffered, and as far as seeing the distruction on both sides im a vietnam vet so theres your answer
and i agree with you on the goverment part, usa should have nothing to do with there goverment otr its structure the iraqiis should have total control of that its there country not ours, do the job than leave