What is your view of the Iraq war? 2003 and 2006 (Keep it friendly)

[MODU]

Support/Support.  It should have been done back in 1993.  A lot of good is being done within the country which the news agencies fail to support, and if they did, I'm sure more people would change their tunes.

[MODU]

There was no adequate response for me. I am retired military (33 years total) so one must expect I am not against war if it is justified. I do not believe we should ever commit troops to overseas battle without a congressional declaration of war. I opposed the "war" in Iraq from the outset. I believe we should have declared war on the Taliban and taken care of business in Afganistan first. Iraq could have waited or potentially pulled a Libya and not have been done at all. I firmly believe that you never go to war unless you intend to win. When you commit the forces you tolerate no dissent at home; you censor the press (media); you accept nothing less than unconditional surrender from the enemy. Ugly? You bet! I just described World War II. The last war we actually won. Like I said, don't go to war unless you intend to win.

A good response.   

[MODU]

There was no adequate response for me. I am retired military (33 years total) so one must expect I am not against war if it is justified. I do not believe we should ever commit troops to overseas battle without a congressional declaration of war. I opposed the "war" in Iraq from the outset. I believe we should have declared war on the Taliban and taken care of business in Afganistan first. Iraq could have waited or potentially pulled a Libya and not have been done at all. I firmly believe that you never go to war unless you intend to win. When you commit the forces you tolerate no dissent at home; you censor the press (media); you accept nothing less than unconditional surrender from the enemy. Ugly? You bet! I just described World War II. The last war we actually won. Like I said, don't go to war unless you intend to win.

A good response.   

Thanks! I think we see things much the same. I suspect we are in the same business!

Yeah, for the most part. I still support/support it though.  The whole "declaration of war" is a bit hard to do with some of the modern "actions," but you're right, we should only commit if we think we can win . . . and we did.  I think the media has made this war much harder than it should have been, but at the end of the day, we'll have a "V" next to this war in our record book.

[MODU]

I'm not going to debate it here Nym (since the thread says "keep it friendly") but I disagree that there was "lying" in regards to the premise of the war.  So yes, it was worth it.

[MODU]

I'm not going to debate it here Nym (since the thread says "keep it friendly") but I disagree that there was "lying" in regards to the premise of the war.  So yes, it was worth it.

I never said there was, but you are essentially blaming the media for the current state of affairs. If the media portraying what is happening in Iraq is leading to American opinion turning against the war, that would imply that the only way we can win is by lying to the American people in terms of censoring what is actually going on. I don't believe it's morally right to hide the truth from people, and if a war cannot be won without lying about how well things are going, we should seriously reconsider whether or not we are on the right side to begin with. I trust the American people to make the decision about whether or not their tax dollars are being used wisely in Iraq.

Yes, it is not morally right to hide the truth from people, but that is what the media is doing.  It is only reporting and exploiting the negative news from Iraq to the point of absurdity.  There is a whole different side to the war which rarely gets mentioned by the media, and when it does, people claim that it is propaganda.  Well, I'm sorry to admit, but airing nothing but negative information on a situation is also propaganda under that definition then.  That's why I say that people's opinion on the war would be different if they actually knew the whole story of what is going on over there.