5 More GI's killed today in Iraq. Is it worthwhile?

If the world is a safer place and the middle east comes around and no longer openly supports terrorism, than yes.

DD

 

Well we freed the men so they could enslave the women.


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...5jan25,1,5415685.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Fighting for Their Future
Iraqi women protest Islamic laws that they fear will make life worse than it was under Hussein.

By Alissa J. Rubin, Times Staff Writer


BAGHDAD — When U.S. troops entered Baghdad, members of the Iraqi Women's League, a pro-democracy group suppressed under Saddam Hussein, cheered.

But these days when members gather in their shabby office, the talk is of an unexpected consequence of the dictator's overthrow: a decision by the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council to replace the country's civic family laws with Islamic Sharia.

"We had a war with a tyrant regime, but now we have another kind of war," said Aida Ayeedi, a teacher at the College of Agriculture in Baghdad. "This war is with those religious men who think that women are just instruments to bear children and create the next generation."

Pushed through with little discussion, primarily by the Shiite Muslim members of the council, the measure would shift women's fates from the hands of judges to those of clerics, most likely chosen by their husbands, who may have little commitment to protecting their rights. For many women, that would roll back what they had under Hussein, who granted them a measure of personal if not political freedom — albeit one spiked by a constant fear for their families.

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Despite their worries, the women talked openly about their views and said for all their fears, their sense of freedom was greater now than under Hussein. They searched for a way to explain the combination of a sense of incipient threat but overall newfound freedom.

"Now I am afraid only for myself," Naji said, "but under Saddam I was afraid for my whole family."

Maha Sadban, a firm but soft-spoken pediatrician in the south-central Iraqi town of Diwaniyah, said she was unperturbed by successful efforts to keep her from winning a seat on the local council.

"Many ladies came to me and said they didn't know that ladies can be nominated for the council and they didn't know that any women could vote because there was no proper media coverage," she said. "It will change, but gradually."

 

We're not going to change 1,000 years of history by force. Your qualifiers are pipe dreams. It wasn't worth one American life.

Iraq is our largest self-inflicted wound outside of the Civil War and I daresay we'll be feeling the pain for just as long.

Afghanistan, Necessary. Iraq, Tragedy born of arrogance.

 

"It is worthwhile?"

Number of people liberated from brutal, murderous leadership: 12 million.

Why not ask them?

 

Iraq is worse than slavery and our wars against the Native Americans?

Yes it was worth it. Saddam is the bad guy. It is the job of the good guys to go after the bad guys. Any 6 year old could tell you that. Instead, politics usually stops us from doing that, but when it actually gets done, your damn right its worth it.

 

i'd rather ask the families & friends of those soldiers' who died.

 

was korea worth it?

 

Stupid Rhino:

You're why this **** still happens in America. You're why these assholes still get away with it. Congratulations. God bless America.

 

sometimes large sacrifices need to be made for the greater good.

and sometimes large sacrfices need to be made to eventually realize it was large mistake to begin with.

I hope this is the last time we have to sacrifice so much for an unjust war.

 

Interesting.

We went into this war because of WMD and alleged 9-11 link with Saddam.

But if you want to go the liberation route, i'd say why stop in Iraq? Once we get done in Iraq (hopefully soon), we should head to Africa where more over 100 millions Africans are currently equal or worse situations that the Iraqis from Sierra Leone, to Liberia, to Nigeria, to Rwanda etc. You want to liberate? Then leave no one behind - leave no stone unturned. Unless of course if the said Liberator is a liar - a hypocrite with ulterior motives.

I will just sit and watch how it will all unfold as the days role by.

 

Would that be the ones with guns shooting at our soldiers? Or the Shiites and Kurds who are now tired of US occupation? etc.

BTW why should we ask now whether liberation was worthwhile when we didn;t ask prior to invading?

BTW2 to focus on Iraq's "liberation" is admit that we need to distance ourselves from our original stated mission.

 

The Civil War as a reaction to, among other things, a differing constitutional view of property and rights. The Emancipation Proclamation came during the war and Reconstruction afterwards. The Jim Crow era was a reaction to that and the Civil Rights movement a reaction to Jim Crow. Perhaps I should have said race, but I suspect most folks knew I was not just refrencing 1861-1865.

The NA issue, sadly, does not affect most Americans. I suspect our actions after 9-11 do, and I think they will continue to affect us for a long time.

 

Still get away with what? I'm middle of the road on this action. I would like to see us withdraw and leave power with their council. But I find it VERY far fetched to picture our military leaders sitting around a table just chomping at the bit to think of who to blow up next. This was not an evil intent.

Fact: We did liberate a people from a less than benevolent despot.

Now we have some who claim that this is not enough. I sure am glad this thought did not exist in the 1940s. We would have just dealt with Japan and never gone to Europe. People in the concentration camps be damned I guess.

 

This is not about WMD's. It's two very different ways of life at war with one another because of one side's intolerance of the other's chosen way of life. The choices are to sit back, accept terrorism as a problem that can't be dealt with, accept that our citizens will be killed/mamed by a terrorist attack on U.S. soil every few years while shattering our economy in the process or to attack the source that creates such terrorists. The source is the Muslim society which has for years permitted people with extremist views of the Muslim religion to operate inside terrorist organizations without adequately policing them. If you choose the ladder, you allow the world to keep an "illusion" of peace as you pretend that there are not foreign invaders that hate America and wish it harm. Your inaction also invites more terrorism since no response came from the earlier one. If you choose the second choice, the world gets pissed off because they fear a powerful America re-establishing their power for the world to see. You risk taking an all ready extremely delicate situation in the middle east and bringing it to a full boil.

America is in a catch-22 in this situation. Either of the above reactions to terrorism have pros with some potentially devastating cons. The way I look at it is the world does not like America anyways and really didn't long before the Bush administration came along contrary to what is being stated in the past year from critics of the war. If you don't take an active approach to terrorism, you confirm to the world that the once untouchable American power has grown weak and incapable of defensding herself. I think it is very important that this message never be sent under any circumstances. So I think you have to take your hits and address the problem with action not inaction. The question is whether or not going into Iraq is the correct first step. Well, that's a tough one. You're talking about using force to bring an entire society into the 21st century with the rest of the world. These societies have shown little to no signs of wanting to change on their own which is their sovreign right, but these countries also have failed (to even try in most cases) to suppress factions of their citizenry that wish to bring harm to America. Doesn't America have a right to defend itself against these people? I think America does, but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy? No. It's going to be hard and we are not going to be the Arab world's best friend by choosing to defend ourselves. But I still think the Arab world brought this on themselves by allowing their societies to be so intolerant of other religions and ways of life. If people in countries like Saudi Arabia are taught from the time they can walk that non-Muslims are hellbound infidels, how can a middle eastern country keep people from skewing this point of view to the point where they feel justified in killing the infidels? They can't. The societies must change if not by chocie then by force.

It really is an us or them situation in my opinion. It's obvious that both ways of life can not co-exist the way things are now. America can not accept a permanent recession just to appease the feelings of the rest of the world. We do not want to resort to genocide so we have to somehow force these societies to lose their intolerant teachings, to accept that different peoples of the world have different opposing views, and to understand that it is not their duties to rid the world of the infidels. This will take time and it will take action and in the end, both sides should benefit after much pain. Inaction achieves nothing.

 

Nice post, DR. In the end, we had a choice between an aggressive strategy to change the Middle East, or a return to the status quo and the failed containment of the 80's and 90's. I think we made the right choice, but only time will tell.

 

If Iraq had no WMD's, then containment, at least in that case, worked.

 

A-friggin-men. Funny how the armchair supporters of this "war" never take that into consideration -- well, perhaps they do but they don't give a crap anyway. Shameful.

 

For the 3, 412the time...WE DID NOT DECLARE WAR ON GERMANY BECAUSE OF THEIR TREATMENT OF JEWS...IN FACT, WE DID NOT DECLARE WAR OB GERMANY AT ALL...GERMANY DECLARED WAR ON US. WE AVOIDED ENTERING THE WAR UNTIL WE HAD NO CHOICE.


The very same mindset that, contrary to all fact, continues to portray the United States ( or any of the Allies, for that matter) as the benvolent opponent of fascism who sacrificed so they could stop Hitler's tyrannical reign are those who will tell themselves that we went to Iraq to do the same thing. Neither are accurate, both are dependant on a desire to bury your head in the sand and pretend that we are always right when it really matters.

 

I think most people who lost family members will rationalize it by saying the war was right. It takes the passage of a lot of time for most people to admit their relatives died for nothing except wagging the dog.