There are a number of points here that need to be addressed:
1) We never "occupied" Vietnam - when we were in South Vietnam we were there supposedly defending it from attack within (Viet Cong) and invasion from the North (North Vietnam), there was a standing goverment in South Vietnam - which may have been corrupt and may have not been up to the task at hand - but they were still the recognized goverment of South Vietnam.
2) You guys all keep debating about whether or not the Iraqis are better off with is there or with Saddam in power - my attitude is: Who cares? Since when did the United States become the Police and Worldwide Enforcer of Good Welfare for all of the world's citizens? Does anybody here know the warnings our country's founders gave us? Something about "avoid foreign entanglements" and such?
I was never for the Iraq war - as soon as I started hearing the news stories about the Bush administration planning a possible invasion of Iraq I got a chill down my spine because I really did not think - and still do not think now - that this can ever turn out good for us in the end. The United States broke the advice of the founders of the country, went against international law, went against the common sense of many military people who thought this would be bad, and just plain made a bad strategic move when we invaded Iraq without provocation. If we are truly fighting a long term "war against terrorism" then there were then and still are now better alternatives than killing our soldiers and spending the riches of this country on warfare if we truly want to screw over our enemies.
Since I am sure I will get blowback on my "without provocation" comment I feel compelled to state that we were never attacked directly by Iraq. Saddam Hussein may be a douchebag but he is not stupid. He is a survivor above all else and I am sure that he knew that taking on the US would lead to his demise. He didn't invade Kuwait until he thought that we would not do anything about it remember? (look up ambassador April Glaspie).
There has been scant if any evidence of a Iraq - Al Quaeda link and to date we have not found any WMD's that I have heard of. So the war has morphed into one of "liberation" because we need some excuse to be there. So now we are in a "break it you bought it" situation because at least before when Saddam was in charge Iraq was not our responsibility. Now for decades afterwards whatever bad thing happens in Iraq will get blamed on the US because of our interference.
When you look at all of the motivations for taking out Saddam Hussein you have to ask yourself who were we really protecting - in other words are we protecting ourselves or protecting other countries? It is true that Saddam had missiles and had made an attempt at developing nuclear weapons. He was a long ways away however from ever having anything that could have threatened the United States directly. He was a much bigger threats to countries in his region and to Europe - remember that Iran now has missiles that are capable of reaching some parts of Europe - so Saddam could have gotten missiles like this also if the US had not interfered. So who else was threatened by Saddam? Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel are at the top of the list. Would anybody really care if Saddam was still in power and fighting the Iranians again? There is more than ample evidence that Saudi Arabia is not really our friend ( please recall where the Sept. 11 hijackers, Osama Bin Laden, Wahabbi Islam, and much of the financing for Hamas and other terrorist organizations comes from) - so in the end should we really care if the Saudi Arabia was getting hit by Saddam? Then there is Israel - Israel is ostensibly our allie but one that comes at a high price to us. And there is oil.
In my opinion in the end we are in Iraq because of oil and because of Israel because they are the only things left that make sense once you rule out everything else. Israel costs us many billions of dollars in US aid every year. I recently just read how the contract to install communications gear in the US capital was given to an Israeli company. Hello Bueller - does anybody remember the incident with the US Embassy in the Soviet Union back in the 80's? The whole building was found to be riddled with bugs and had to be torn down and started over. Does handing communications contracts over to foreign goverments no matter how allegedly friendly they are sound like a good idea? There are many things like this that are give me's to Israel that end up costing the US money and more. Why are we so entrenched with Israel? Because allegedly we need a friend in the area because of it's strategic importance - because of oil.
So in the end it boils down to oil. We know this is a problem - we know we are 'addicts' as George Bush himself put it. So why don't we do something about it? Why - because we spent all of the money on the Iraq war thats' why. Brazil and other countries (US is using it mainly in the Midwest) are already ramping up to us E85
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E85 - why doesnt the US come up with some sort of crash program - call it the Strategic Energy Defense Initiative or whatever you want - but make sure the energy supplies for the US do not depend on sources that are hostile to us. Take away their funding and nuclear weapon programs, funding for terrorists, funding for Islamic groups worldwide, etc. all dry up. The best way to screw over our enemies is to screw them over economically. Reagan drove the Soviet economny into the ground by forcing them to try and keep up with our military spending. We could be screwing over our enemies once again by not sending them our money for their oil.
There is a total lack of political leadership coming out of the Bush Administration - there always was or we would not have been in the Iraq war in the first place. War was the easiest route - the other ways require imagination which is something that seems to be totally lacking. Lets hope whomever we get as President the next time has his/her head on straight. I believe that it is going to take somebody with the caliber of a Lincoln or a Roosevelt to get us out of the mess we are sliding into.
Sorry Mith, I couldn't resist!
By the way, I think about you every time I see one of those Geico commercials with the talking lizard. If you don't know what I am talking about, I will post a link.
