Here's how I feel:
* We don't have a good record with foreign policy. We've had some success, but it generally comes after the military straightens out the situation. We're better at war and business than we are at diplomacy. I don't mean that as an insult. If you want me to clarify, just ask.
* At the outset of the war, I still retained an isolationist policy. In a nutshell: The federal government should be protecting and preserving the union. Foreign countries are for trade, not for global games of chess.
* My position changed over the past several years when I realized that we probably aren't going to be able to trade with Islamic and leftist dictatorships. We should support (truly) liberal political movements that want personal and economic freedom. I'm not sure I want to live in a world where are borders are surrounded by fascist nations that either behead, starve or imprison their inhabitants.
* I still wonder why we brought in our own companies to do most of the rebuilding in Iraq when we could have trained and paid the locals. Maybe that is different now, I don't know.
* I did NOT think the invasion of Iraq was a wise choice, but we are there.
* The right time to invade Iraq and clean out WMDs would have been in 1991.
* The propaganda war is now raging at the same level as it was during the Vietnam era. As in the past, the enemy is winning this war with a lot of help from the inside.
* I am becoming increasingly impatient with the loss of life, but I have to admit that the flexibility and survival rate of our military is amazing.
* The cost of the war and rebuilding effort concerns me, especially when I hear about civil projects that are done, and re-done, and re-done again because they keep getting sabotaged.
* I wonder if anyone has considered the consequences of a sudden withdrawal followed by a complete collapse of government in Iraq. We would be flooded with refugees. We will be good world citizens and let them in. There will be no way to tell a refugee from a terrorist.
Various other opinions addressed in point-counterpoint format:
P: We don't have enough troops over there.
C: Larger operations means our soldiers are easier targets.
P: Our intelligence shortcomings stem from depending on technology more than human intelligence.
C: Neither is a magic bullet. The enemy is making decisions and communicating instantaneously with wireless phones and through the Internet. Technology needs to be a larger part of the equation.
P: We're creating terrorists / Bush is creating terrorists.
C: No, the "Wahabi" movement started in (what is now) Saudi Arabia in the 18th Century. This is the reverse reformation, i.e. the radicalization that is responsible for producing charming personalities such as Usama bin Laden. The militant take-over began in the mid-1920s. Since then, we've seen lots of me-too groups sprout up.
P: Let's bomb / nuke them.
C: Personally, I don't want nukes going off anywhere near our troops, plus I think nukes are a waste of money. Bombs have their place, but first there needs to be someone to bomb. I know some folks advocate flattening various Iraqi cities, but if those cities aren't chock full of terrorists, then not only are we wasting ordnance, we're also not killing the enemy.
P: We supplied Iraq with WMDs / We propped up Saddam Hussein's regime
C: That makes it sound like a foreign policy decision. It was more like US companies sold technology to just about any country that waved around a stack of cash. Yes, we war profiteer, along with many other countries. In fact, US companies are probably selling all kinds of export grade technology to unsavory characters all over the world as I type this. For what it's worth, here's an incomplete list of who sold what:
http://www.thememoryhole.org/corp/iraq-suppliers.htm . Some countries, like the Soviet Union and China, sold to both sides of the war. As far as supporting this regime or that, it's common knowledge that our intelligence agencies play both sides of the court, just like everyone else.
EDIT:
On the contrary, WMD's were the reason we WENT to Iraq. Then we found out they didn't have any. Oops. Far from being used by the "cut and run" crowd, the excuse of WMD's was used by the neoconservatives that got us into this war. It is hilarious to now see people actually try to rewrite history by claiming that the focus on WMD's are the fault of those that didn't want to go to war.
Actually, the reasons Bush cited were Saddam Hussein's defiance of the UN resolutions pertaining to his weapons. If you will recall, Hussein agreed to certain concessions with regard to his arsenal after his 1991 Gulf War defeat. He complied up until the late 90s, then decided to kick out the UN inspectors. This is difficult for "our side" to argue, because whenever we attempt to corner "you guys" on this issue, the UN resolutions are conveniently forgotten, and a straw man put in place. Usually it's the chemical weapons (a lot which
were destroyed), or his attempt to restart a nuclear program.
Truth is that there was biological weapons research going on, and that the WMD classification covers other things, such as long range artillery shells and modified Scud-C platforms, both of which were disallowed from being able to carry non-conventional payloads, and the latter being "illegally" modified to increase its range. The idea being that Hussein could defend his country, but not drop non-conventional payloads into places like Saudi Arabia and Israel, like he did previously. As for the remainder of the arsenal, a lot of them are certainly turning up as IEDs around the country.
Since then, we have also learned that Hussein was scamming the oil-for-food program, putting the whole UN connection in a bad light, using his dirty money to fund terrorist activity covertly.
We are in a war against terrorists but Iraq didn't attack us on 9/11 so that dog won't hunt.
Oh come now, that's disingenuous. No country attacked us on 9/11. A terrorist cell attacked us. They represent no nation in particular, but instead an idealogical movement. Even if they had the official support of certain nations, those nations would never admit it, because the name of the game shockingly sudden and surprising destruction.
