Cathy: Hapaboy was being SARCASTIC! BTW: Nice post Hapaboy. Of course you won't get a rational and reasonable dissenting opinion. Those who wail about the violent "injustice" of America's fight against terror have very little to say about the thousands of lives we are trying to save.
Oh....never mind.....I have seen so many looney opinions....I did now have my humor antenna up! Ooops....my bad...sorry.....
Bush publicly stated that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, and the CIA said there was no evidence linking him to it. What makes you think otherwise? The main arguments for invading Iraq were pre-emption of possible future terrorism, coupled with the fact that Saddam was a mass-murdering son of a bitch. I'm not sure the first one was valid, but the second was a good enough reason to take him out IMO.
You're not sure about Saddam's links to terrorism? The fact that there is new evidence that after he went into hiding he was running cells of terrorists against the US soldiers in Iraq seems to be prima facie evidence regarding his disposition towards terrorsim. Also, the fact that Saddam paid over 30 million to terrorists and the families of suicide bombers in Israel is more evidence of his disposition towards terrorism. Someone who organizes cells to commit terrorist acts is a terrorist. Someone who funds terrorists is a terrorist. The evidence seems clear to me.
N Korea and most of the Middle East have been thumbing their nose at the US for a lot longer than the last 10 years. Who do you think funds those terrorists who blow up Israeli civilians and American soldiers - the Pope? Was it Saddam who was threatening to bomb Seoul or invade Taiwan? If you think Iraq circa 2002 was the biggest threat to US interests then you have a rather rosy-eyed view of international relations.
In my opinion, no. However, when combined with the fact that millions of Iraqis were freed from tyranny, and tens of thousands spared certain deaths at the hand of Saddam's thugs, there was a definite moral case for toppling him. As it is, I don't think a government should use forcibly extracted taxpayers money to help foreigners in foreign countries, so I was against the war. But that doesn't mean it didn't improve the lives of lots of people living out there.
Uh-oh, get ready for a torrent of "well-if-we-can-free-Iraq-why-don't-we-free-every-other-nation-with-a-dictator?" posts.
With regards to the ones blowing up Israeli citizens, the money list is incompletely known but Saddam is known to have paid 30 million to terrorists and the families of suicide bombers. Cutting off that flow of money should help the situation in Israel, but Iraq was only one source. The other sources of funds are some in the ruling family in Saudi Arabia, and the European Union (about 150 million last year) by way of Arafat to the Palestinians. There are no doubt other nameless fundamentalists or sympathizers with money like Bin Laden who fund terrorists. All should be treated like terrorists. For some reason every administration for the last 20 years has tiptoed around Saudi Arabia, which is probably the biggest source of funds though I have no hard #s on that.
In case anyone forgot, the thrust of the overthrow of Saddam was about our national security in the beginning, not about the moral righteousness of removal of a bad dictator. The story was that we "had" to act immediately. When it was clear that we were not in the type of danger that was the call to immediate action to disarm Iraq, the emphasis morphed into some mission of mercy to liberate Iraq. Why the so called "conservatives" have no trouble spending umpteen billions on a "mission of mercy", when we have millions in this country who cannot afford health care, proper nutrition, lack of job growth, etc. is mysterious to me. We continue to have borders that are not secure, pollution increasing due to rollbacks in environmental legislation, continuing corruption on Wall Street, crumbling infrastructure, etc., but we "need" to liberate Iraq? This is not to say that Saddam's overthrow is a bad thing, but there are so many more important things to take care of here at home.
The same argument can be made for the umpteen "missions of mercy" this country has made over the past century. We didn't have to get involved in WWI, but we did. We didn't have to rebuild Europe and Japan after WWII, but we did. We didn't have to get involved when North Korea invaded the South but we did. We didn't have to start programs like the Peace Corps, A.I.D., etc. and become the major donor of the bloated UN behemoth, but we did. We didn't have to maintain the strongest military in the world after the Cold War ended, but we did, and thank goodness. Who else was going to stop Saddam when he marched into Kuwait? France? Germany? Such decisions cost hundreds of billions. Do you consider those actions irresponsible? Our international aid amount has surpassed Japan and we are again the biggest donor of foreign aid. Beyond what our government gives out, Americans privately donate 3 TIMES that amount for foreign aid every year . Shame on us for donating that money when he could have used it here in the good ole US of A for things like paying the eternally-on-welfare and more prisons to ensure our 2 million criminals are well fed and entertained. As for insecure borders, pollution, Wall Street scandals, health care, a bad educational system, etc., yeah, that's all Bush's fault. Of course. News flash: There will ALWAYS be "more important things to take care of here at home." Domestic problems will never go away. We could withdraw entirely from the international stage and we would still have these problems. Throwing money at a problem doesn't necessarily solve it. Apparently as you see it, the liberal message of helping your fellow man as much as possible is extented only to benefit the citizens of these United States.