In what way is President Barack Obama’s approach and plan for action in Syria different from President George W. Bush’s approach and plan for action in Iraq, morally speaking? Or is there no difference?
In what way is President Barack Obama’s approach and plan for action in Syria different from President George W. Bush’s approach and plan for action in Iraq, morally speaking? Or is there no difference?
Sifting Reality 
I suppose if Reagan had not allowed American chemical weapons contractors to start selling to Hussein (1983), and not sent Rumsfeld to get in bed with him, and then not given Hussein CIA satellite intel about exact Iranian ground unit locations or done anything at all about using mustard gas against fleeing Kurd civilians……then I guess we could give Bush jr a pass on going to Iraq with flat out lies that were pushed as intel.
It’s beyond ironic to think that we sold Hussein chemical weapons, watched him use them, and then with zero evidence that Iraq was involved in 9/11, we not only invaded we occupied for more than a decade with zero positive outcomes, beyond removing a tyrannical psychopathic dictator from power.
Wouldn’t it have moral to not sell those weapons to Iraq, or to have intervened militarily when they were used? Or to not go to Iraq at all over 9/11? We should have gone to Saudi Arabia….
But we didnt go into iraq because of 9/11
Well John,
If we didn’t go into Iraq because of 9/11, why were Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice and Powell all selling us on Iraq’s involvement, daily for over 4 months?
They harbored terrorists
The Iraqi government was terroristic, so to say that they harbored terrorists would be an oxymoron. I am having a hard time thinking of a country that hasn’t or doesn’t harbor terrorists. If Al-Qaeda was the issue, they specifically were not in Iraq with any government sanction. Bin-Laden hated Hussein and publicly shamed him several times and was one of only 3 muslims he ever referred to as an infidel.
The United States has a long history of getting into bed with dictators and psychopaths. The Reagan administration was, sadly, no different.
But I wouldn’t squawk at the positive: a tyrannical, psychopathic dictator WAS removed from power.
With respect to Syria, Obama is waiting too long.
Right, being rid of Hussein in general is a good thing, I just would have enjoyed just 1 honest press conference while jamming it down the worlds throat. Instead of the grocery list of “bad intel”, or lies as we used to call them, that were used to justify the war.
I mean watching Cheney recant on that intel 5 years after the war started on a random Sunday morning talk show was surreal. Just sort of a “Oh by the way we knew there were no WMD’s and there happened to be zero cooperation between Hussein and Bin Laden because, come to find out, they hated each other.” Whoops………and to think there was only 7 more years to go, millions of deployments, thousands of military casualties and civilian casualties over 125k, with the past 6 months seeing an exponential increase in violence between the same old, tired tribes.
The morality of one endeavor over the other seems clear. One was built on lies and did nothing to help Iraq. Their electric grid is gone, there water treatment capacity was destroyed, 4 airports gone, all unnecessarily, but on purpose. Acting morally in Syria on intel intentionally gathered and reviewed by 4 other countries and the UN, seems so far to be a much more clear case for “moral” military action….if one believes in such a thing.
Since there seems to be evidence that the rebels used the gas, I would say it is wrong-headed to go to war against Assad. DUH! Let’s help the bad guys.
Look, I didn’t support the War in Iraq, at least not for the reasons given. At first, Saddam harbored terrorists. Okay, not exactly. Then Saddam had WMDs. Okay, maybe not. Then Iraq was an “axis of evil” nation. Okay, so why not invade North Korea and Iran as well? Why one but not the others? It was all a bunch of horseshit.
If you’re hellbent on war then start with a county that actually sponsors terrorism and represents an active threat to the stability of the Middle East: Iran.
I don’t support War in Iran either, but it makes more sense than Iraq.
He was harboring terrorists and they did have wmds. They found evidence of them and Saddams generals admitted they had them after he was executed.
Please specify a) what qualifies as a terrorist and b) which brand of terrorist he was harboring. I just re watched 2 news conferences from the 2 months before going to Iraq and both Rumsfeld and Rice had already changed their tunes to just WMD’s, no terrorists mentioned. And we know it was not al-qaeda. The Bathist Party was considered to be terrorists by the entire southern part of Sunni Iraq. All of Russia is considered to be terrorists when you ask anyone in Georgia. To the Tutsi’s the Hutu’s are terrorists.
As for WMD’s the only weapons Saddam had were the 155 mm mustard gas artillery shells that we sold him. But that is never mentioned by the Bush admin as a specific type of weapon we were after. It was sold to the American public as a nuke program and an advanced biological weapons program/stockpile…….neither of which was ever found. Even if they had been found it would have suggested that the no fly zone, full sanctions, 3 geo synchronous satellites above, 9 years of of unmatched reconnaissance and intel gathering, failed miserably.
No Terrorists:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/08/AR2006090800777.html
No WMD’s:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7634313/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/cias-final-report-no-wmd-found-iraq/#.UiszcmT8lvA
This Randall Hoven article provides info on why we involved ourselves in Iraq and by reviewing these easily researched points, one can see the differences that exist between that situation and the current one with Syria.