Comments | pmb: Why are we in Iraq?

pmb

Why are we in Iraq?

Feb 27, 2006 15:43

I was reading an argument and somebody suggested that if we disagreed with the Iraq war that we contact our legislators and tell them that we disagreed with the policy behind it. The policy was named in this post "strategic preemption". But that's not right ( Read more... )

Comments 21

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mycrust February 28 2006, 06:35:12 UTC

I'm pretty sure you're on the mark about this.

cosyne February 28 2006, 00:13:05 UTC

domestic fearmongering? it's so much easier to keep tabs on your citizenry if you have a war going on. And don't forget war spending. We could probably do a lot better if we invested a few hundred bil in the USA, but that apparently won't fly among the majority of voters, whereas exploding other countries will.

amoken February 28 2006, 00:24:21 UTC

I don't think I ever had it to lose.

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pmb February 28 2006, 01:07:33 UTC

But will having a foreign occupying military in place encourage or discourage acts of terrorism based on hypernationalism? Is Iraq even a country, or is it really Kurdistan, Fallujahville and Baghdadland and the 3 want nothing to do with each other? Is occupying and policing an entire country while rebuilding their national infrastructure and fanning the flames of nascent democracy and ensuring that only non-psycho leaders are elected really a doable job?

And why are we there in the first place? WMDs were the excuse, but what was the reason? That's the real question I want answered. Were the architects of the war evil or stupid? And what were their evil/stupid reasons?

Stupid *and* evil. flamingweasel February 28 2006, 04:23:30 UTC

By annihilating the socialist government in Iraq, they could test two hypotheses. First, they could see if starting a democracy would cause a domino effect* among the countries in the region. Secondly, they could turn Iraq into a model neocon nation. Within a few months of taking over the provisional government (that is, Bremer) had destroyed the state-run infrastructure and was attempting to entirely rewrite the laws to turn Iraq into a model for conservative ideals (no taxes, no state services, no rules for businesses ( ... )

rifhutch February 28 2006, 01:14:32 UTC

If you're looking for a more concrete notion of "neo-conservatism", here's one relatively smart guy's take on the subject.

pmb February 28 2006, 01:34:52 UTC

Thanks! I've always kind of wondered exactly how the fiscal-, social-, and neo- conservatives thought they had anythign in common.