Lie after Lie (Mother Jones - The Bush War Timeline)

When the US, Britain the Aussies and others went into Iraq I genuinely believed that it was the right thing to do. Hussein had already used chemical weapons which are classified, as I understand it, as WMD’s. He had terrorized the Iraqi people for years and his sons, who would likely take over in the event of his death, were if anything worse. I was convinced that people’s freedom is worth fighting for, and I believed and still do, that the freedom of Iraq today is worth just as much as the freedom of France, Holland etc was 65 years ago.The situation in the Middle East was as always volatile. If a functioning democracy could actually be established in Iraq then I reasoned that it would help stabilize the whole area. I had no faith in the UN and this was born out by the fact that UN member nations were making huge sums of money from the UN “Food for Oil Program”, and the money was being funneled to Hussein.What I didn’t realize, and the Bush/Blair administrations should have, was the visceral hatred that existed between the different branches of Islam within Iraq. The goals were laudable but in hindsight not achievable. I like many others naively believed that once Hussein was removed that the Iraqis for the most part would rejoice and get on with running their country.Probably the average Iraqi is marginally better off now than he was under Hussein but I don’t believe that the cost has been worth it. The ME is just as volatile as ever and maybe more so.I have no idea how to get out of this quagmire. If the western forces pull out of Iraq now there will be a civil war, but I don’t see that the situation will be much different 10 or 20 years from now. I sure hope that assessment is wrong. There are no easy answers.

There were also thousands of people dying under Hussein. Being ruled by a cruel despot like Hussein with no hope of anything changing in your lifetime is no way to live. Which is the lesser of the two evils? I agree it is a very debatable point. It seems to me that at least now there is hope for a better future that didn't exist before.Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

Who knows. There is no doubt that a lot of my thoughts on this are based on nothing more than hope as I am aware that things are pretty bleak.One thing to be considered is that at some point Hussein and his sons were going to be gone one way or another. (Probably assainated) At that point there would be total anarchy without any stabilizing foreign influence. At least now there is someone there bringing a certain amount of order to things.

On that there is no doubt in my mind. Assuming there were still alive it probably would have been one or both of Hussein's sons that would have taken over. They were worse than the old man.All that held things together there was fear of Hussein. With him and his sons gone there would have been nothing to keep the groups apart. As I mentioned earlier it would probably end at some time with an assassination and civil war would ensue.The biggest mistake was made when Iraq was established the way it was in the first place, but there is no going back on that either. Edited by GDR, : typo

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.